It is just as well that she does, if one may judge from the samples. She is not interesting, I think. She may be, but my opinion is the other way. She dresses in a sort of domino, usually of dingy goods, her feet and ankles showing disreputable stockings and shoes. Even the richest silk garments, when worn by women—those one sees on the street—have a way of revealing disgusting foot-gear and hosiery. No, the Mohammedan woman is not interesting and she has no soul. I believe the Prophet decided that, and I agree with him. If she had one—a real feminine soul—she would be more particular about these details.
The Turk is a dingy person altogether, and his city is unholy in its squalor. Yet the religion of these people commands cleanliness. Only the command was not clear enough as to terms. The Prophet bade his followers to be as cleanly as possible. There was latitude in an order like that, and they have been widening it ever since. I don't believe they are as "clean as possible." They pray five times a day, and they wash before prayer, but they wash too little and pray too much for the best results. I mean so far as outward appearance is concerned. Very likely their souls are perfect.
At all events they are sober. The Prophet commanded abstinence, and I saw no drunkenness. There are no saloons in Constantinople. One may buy "brandy-sticks"—canes with long glass phials concealed in them and a tiny glass for tippling—though I suspect these are sold mostly to visitors.
You are in the business part of Constantinople as soon as you leave the bridge—in the markets and shops, and presently in the bazaars. The streets are only a few feet wide, and are swarming with men and beasts of burden, yet carriages dash through, and the population falls out of the way, cursing the "Christian dogs," no doubt, in the case of tourists. Yet let a carriage but stop and there is eager attention on every hand—a lavish willingness to serve, to dance attendance, to grovel, to do anything that will bring return.
The excursionist, in fact, presently gets an idea that these people are conducting a sort of continuous entertainment for his benefit—a permanent World's Fair Midway Plaisance, as it were, where curious wares and sights are arranged for his special diversion. He is hardly to be blamed for this notion. He sees every native ready to jump to serve him—to leave everything else for his pleasure. The shopkeeper will let a native customer wait and fume till doomsday as long as the tourist is even a prospect. The native piastre is nothing to him when American gold is in sight. That is what he lives for by day and dreams of by night. He will sweat for it, lie for it, steal for it, die for it. It is his life, his hope, his salvation. He will give everything but his immortal soul for the gold of the West, and he would give that too, if it would bring anything.
Most places along the Mediterranean deal in mixed moneys, but compared with Constantinople the financial problem elsewhere is simple. Here the traveller's pocket is a medley of francs, lire, crowns, piastres, drachmas, marks, and American coins of various denominations. He tries feebly to keep track of table values, but it is no use. The crafty shopkeepers, who have all the world's monetary lore at their fingertips, rob him every time they make change, and the more he tries to figure the more muddled he gets, until he actually can't calculate the coin of his own realm.
As for Turkish money, in my opinion it is worth nothing whatever. It is mostly a lot of tinware and plated stuff, and the plating is worn off, and the hieroglyphics, and it was never anything more than a lot of silly medals in the beginning. Whenever I get any of it I work it off on beggars as quickly as possible for baksheesh, and I always feel guilty, and look the other way and sing a little to forget.
Nobody really knows what any of those Turkish metallic coins are supposed to be worth. One of them will pay for a shine, but then the shine isn't worth anything, either, so that is no basis of value. There is actually no legal tender in Turkey. How could there be, with a make-believe money like that?
Speaking of bootblacks, they all sit in a row at the other end of the Galata bridge, and they go to sleep over your shoes and pretend to work on them and take off the polish you gave them yourself in the morning. They have curious-looking boxes, and their work is as nearly useless as any effort, if it is that, I have ever known.
I have been trying for a page or two to say something more about the streets of Constantinople, and now I've forgotten what it was I wanted to say. Most of them are not streets at all, in fact, but alleys, wretched alleys—some of them roofed over—and as you drive through them your face gets all out of shape trying to fit itself to the sights and smells. I remember now; I wanted to mention the donkeys—the poor, patient little beasts of burden that plod through those thoroughfares, weighed down with great loads of brick and dirt and wood and every sort of heavy thing, enough to make a camel sway-backed, I should think. They are the gentlest creatures alive, and the most imposed upon. If Mohammed provided a heaven for the donkeys, I hope it isn't the one the Turks go to.