A police officer happening to be at no great distance, the sailor, on looking back, understood quite naturally my friend’s movement as a signal for him to make his escape, and accordingly took to his heels with the greatest rapidity, leaving my companion in utter amazement. I endeavored to explain to him the reason of the sailor’s conduct, by showing him the genuine European style of beckoning, by reversing the hand and moving the up-turned forefinger back and forth. This astonished him the more, since that motion is equivalent, in Turkey, to that comical American gesture of placing the thumb on the tip end of the nose, and extending the fingers.
Thus things which are in themselves trifles, may lead or mislead to mighty results, and can only be appreciated when circumstances call them into action. Therefore nothing but actual nativity and education among the people, with the enlarged views which are acquired by a residence in European countries, can enable an individual to judge and appreciate the peculiar institutions of Turkey.
The author presents himself to the American public a native of Constantinople, and of Armenian parentage, with the hope that he may be able to unfold some new phases of Turkey and Orientalism, which may tend to remove any unfounded prejudices, and enlighten their minds with regard to the real and existing state of his country.
In order to attain a just and correct idea of the present state of Turkey and its probable future, it is most essential to take a cursory glance at the origin of the nation, its religion, government, civil laws, social condition, and domestic relations, which are the elements of nationality. In so doing, the writer has carefully avoided all partiality, and endeavored to display the truth, simply, and nothing but the truth, invested with the garb of a peculiar nationality, and only adorned with the poetry of Oriental tastes and habits as they actually exist.
CHAPTER II.
ORIGIN AND HISTORY.
Turkish and Eastern proverbs have often a deep and significative meaning under a simple simile. They say, “a neighbor’s chicken has always so unreal a magnitude in covetous eyes, that it swells in its proportions even to the size of a goose!”
Human nature has in reality undergone but few changes since it descended upon this planet. The simplest shepherds and the richest sovereigns have been alike swayed by the demon of envy. The earth no sooner became the inheritance of man, than its treasures excited the desire of appropriation in his breast. Mine and thine were the earliest appellatives between man and his brother.
All-bountiful Nature provided a perpetual feast to their physical wants, in her luxuriant offerings, ready for use, without toil or labor. The flocks of the early pastoral days wandered from field to field, along with their shepherd kings. Ample was the territory as they forsook the soil when winter chilled, and roamed to summer climes exempt from care. Simple in their tastes, they grew and multiplied until they became mighty nations. But the monarchs of the animal world, the kings of the forests, could not brook any inroads upon their dominions, and self-defence awoke man’s ingenuity, and armed him with the war-club, the unerring stone and sling, the quivering arrow, and pointed javelin. The practised hand, thus trained in vanquishing the roaring lion, easily turned against his neighbor man, and the stronger prevailed in the usurpation of coveted territories.