As no one dares to look them in the face, from a sense of respect, it has been customary for them slightly to encourage their timid admirers by a few furtive glances, if not positive attacks; so that, on all public occasions, an attentive observer may detect them in some of the wiles of coquetry, or unmeaning flirtation.
Ladies of distinction are attended by black eunuchs, who protect them from the too familiar approach of any witless knight, who may ignorantly trespass the limits of Oriental decorum.
These ebony gentry, from the nature of their position, had become insolent and overbearing, under the plea of protecting the ladies, and a native always avoided a collision with them, since they were sustained by public opinion. But their own extravagant conduct has put an end to their pretensions and power.
Kizlar Aghassy, or the head black eunuch of the palace, was formerly so influential a personage as to rank among the ministers of state; but at the present time, the eunuchs have lost all their pristine greatness, and are mere domestics of the household.
The carriage generally used by the ladies is called an araba, which is often very richly ornamented and gilded, and well cushioned in the inside. The top is covered with a crimson or green ehram or shaggy cloth, manufactured in Albania, and fringed with gold. This spacious conveyance, capable of accommodating six or eight persons, has no springs, and is drawn by a couple of oxen, whose heads are gaily tricked out, and furnished with a charm against the Evil-Eye. The ends of the tails are tied to a cluster of red tassels, which are fastened to a hoop set in the yoke, and gracefully arched over their backs. This arrangement is to prevent the animals from spattering the mud with their tails.
The araba is entered by means of a small temporary ladder at the back. There is a conductor, or arabagee, who leads the oxen by a chain attached to their heads, and a yanashma, or boy, who walks by the side, and goads them on.
But many of the families are now to be seen in public, in European carriages, and they delight in excursions on the water in their beautiful cayiks.
Nature has been so lavish in her gifts to the land of the Osmanlis, that they have every temptation to linger for hours in some one of the many lovely spots which are to be found all along the Bosphorus.
Boghas-itchy or the Bosphorus, is the most magnificent stream in the world. Its winding way, its shores besprinkled with palaces, mosques and minaré’s, in the peculiar picturesque style of the East; the gradually sloping hills, here and there studded with airy and pretty dwellings, and decked out in green array—all combine to enchant the eye and delight the mind.
There is nothing so exquisite as the cayiks of the Bosphorus. Their forms are as slender as the canoe’s, and certainly more graceful than the gondola’s, defying any other aquatic conveyance rowed by men. They are always propelled by long sculls of one, two, or three pair, fastened on the gunnels at about midships, to pins, by leather bands.