We made inland over the rising uplands till we could look down upon the Lake of Buyük Chekmedje, from the extreme left of the Turkish defence—the lines of Chatalja. A road leads over the several outflows of the lake by a bridge of many arches. Here the Bulgarians had attempted an assault some days before, and had been baffled by those that held the trenches searing the hill-side to the eastward, and by the guns of a Turkish warship lying off the coast. At our feet lay the lake, beyond it ridges of rising ground, melting away into a broken line to northward. It was a most peaceful scene, for the warship was hidden by a shoulder of land, and there were no Turkish troops in sight, nor any of their enemies. We had met only a few people on our way; a Turkish patrol, who seemed mildly concerned about us, and some shepherds with their flocks, all equally indifferent to the great doings that are filling the world’s daily papers with exciting copy, a credit to the inventive genius of the modern journalist. The shepherds stood out like statues on the skyline, and of rather quaint shape, which I discovered to be due to the strange fashion of their cloaks, the sleeves of which stick out in an acute angle, and are not used for their original purpose at all. We wandered still further inland, not in a compact body, for the Turkish gunner-man was a very deliberate walker and, like most of his race, not prone to undue haste. Nevertheless, we arrived in time at a Turkish camp of some fifteen hundred men, a camp which could be traced by scent as well as view. It stood below the skyline on some rising ground, which sloped steeply towards the enemy’s position, and gave evidence of a complete absence of any kind of sanitation. The Caimakam (Lieutenant-Colonel) commanding welcomed us politely, and after having ascertained that nothing whatever had happened that day, and that no one expected anything to happen, because rumours of a truce were afloat, we thought of making our way home. This meant walking back to Küjük Chekmedje, where we hoped to find some boat to take us out to our launch. The walking party tailed off on the way, the British element forging ahead, the Turkish lagging behind, to allow the former to cool down in the north wind while waiting for the rear-guard, until at last we found a boat and were rowed out to the launch. I heard a shot or two from the land, coming in our direction perhaps; possibly the Turkish patrols, finding no Bulgars to shoot at, thought fit to practise on us; however, like so much of the shooting done in modern warfare, even the best-conducted, it was perfectly harmless.
So again I returned to Constantinople, and passed through Sunday crowds quite indifferent to the events in progress some fifty miles away, at those lines of Chatalja, planned by Valentine Baker Pasha, and since his time neglected till they became the only barrier between the Sublime Porte and ruin. It is strange, though enlightening, to reflect that while the Turkish Army was being driven back from the frontiers, while ill-equipped bodies of Turkish troops, leaderless, were being driven before a highly trained enemy, the lines of Chatalja, the last defence of Constantinople, were left unarmed, unguarded, but for a couple of elderly men whose duty it was to see that doors, shutters, and other bits of woodwork were not removed by the genial neighbours for firewood.
But this is Turkey, an Empire that has traded on its position as apple of discord for centuries, and has never been able to take thought for the morrow—nomads, here to-day and gone to-morrow.
CHAPTER IX
Turkish literature—Turkish proverbs—The literature of other Tartars—Legend of Turkish descent—The origin of the Turks—The Turks and Giougen—The Turks with the Eastern Empire—Arab subjection of the Turks—The Turks and Western civilization—The Turkish Navy—The Sultan’s Army—The lines of Chatalja—The refugees—View from the Mosque of Mihrama—The Mosque of Mohammed the Conqueror—The care of the sick and wounded.
THE history of the Turks has formed the subject of much scientific research, hampered considerably by a want of material, by a lack of information on the subject, handed down from earlier days. The Turks themselves have no liking for literature, have no bent in that direction, and all they have ever produced in that line are a series of stories relating the doings and sayings of Nasreddin Hodja, whose rôle is much like that of Till Eulenspiegel in Germany. These stories of Nasreddin Effendi are humorous in their way, but are to a great extent too indecent for the fastidious Western mind. The humour, too, is of the obvious order, from which the West is gradually, painfully emerging. I will give only one sample of Nasreddin’s wit. This worthy was awakened one night by a noise in his garden. He went to the open window, looked out, and saw something large and white moving about below. Nasreddin took down his bow, his quiver full of arrows, and sent one in the direction of the white object, then returned to bed and to sleep. The next morning he went out into his garden to ascertain the cause of the nocturnal disturbance, and discovered his shirt, hung out to dry, transfixed by the arrow. “How fortunate it is that I was not inside that shirt last night,” quoth Nasreddin.
Proverbs give some idea of the working of a people’s soul, but in this respect too the Turk is not very prolific, certainly not original. Herewith a few samples:
Ei abdal! Ei dervish! Aktché ilé biter beriche.
Freely translated: Oh, monk! Oh, dervish! money will take you anywhere!
The sentiment has nothing to recommend it, and is certainly better expressed by La Fontaine:
Quelles affaires ne fait point
Ce malheureux métal, l’argent maître du monde.