By the Way: Travel Letters Written During Several Journeys Abroad

by Agness Greene Foster

A caique is a long narrow skiff with cushions in the bottom upon which one must sit quietly else the boat will tip. My caiquejee and his assistant seemed very mild sort of Turks, for they would nod and smile when I waved my hand at something odd or interesting.

I was not versed then in the etiquette of the caiquejee, nor yet in the mysteries of their thousand and one superstitions, but I found, to my sorrow, that to touch even the hem of another caiquejee's oar was the signal for ordering guns or any other explosive at hand, including vocal fireworks.

It was bright and sunny when I left the hotel, but a storm cloud soon appeared and it grew darker and darker. In their haste to reach the other shore, my caiquejee happened to run into another caique, which in any other place on earth would have been overlooked with a bow of excuse.

Not so on the Bosporus! My mild-mannered Turks and the three in the other caique were at battle in a second. Had I been able to speak their language, and offer them money, they could not have heard me, so horrible were their cries. There was nothing to do but to sit still and pray and try to balance the shell-like caique.

Suddenly my caiquejee raised his heavy oar to fling it at the other, lost his balance, and we were all dashed into the cold water of the Bosporus.

Instantly the clatter ceased. Some one held me up in the water, and guided the upturned boat toward my hands. After the longest moments of my life, the other heavier caique was caught and balanced while I was dragged into it. It was then I noticed there were but four of us where there had been six.

I did not cry then, but tried to know I was being cared for. I afterwards learned that it was my silence that saved me. Had I cried or screamed they would have thrown me overboard again and gone away without me, for there is a superstition about tears in a storm, and where a woman is concerned all signs are of an adverse nature.

Suddenly one of the Turks gave a blood-curdling yell to attract the attention of the pilot on the little steamer that plies between Skutari and the Galata Bridge.

I was helped on board and cared for. No woman could have been more kind, more respectful, or more solicitous for my comfort than were these young Turks. They formed a ring around me sheltering me from the gaze of the rougher, older ones. They put their capes about me while they dried my coat, hat and shoes, and shielded my face as I stood by the engine door to dry my skirt.

The young Turk who had held me up in the water could speak a little French, and made me understand that I was perfectly safe and that he would see me to my carriage. He told me that he was a passenger in the caique which collided with the one I was in, and that a caiquejee from each boat went down in the battle.