Like most children I used to feel an intense pleasure in getting away from the town at the beginning of the summer season, but this was not so much on account of my dislike of the town life as of my joy in getting rid of the horrors of pens and paper, and of the worrying schoolmaster. In addition to all the usual country pastimes, such as riding, swimming in the river, shooting, and fishing (which consists principally with us of what is known in England as 'tickling' fish, by putting the hands into the holes under willows which serve as lairs for fish, and grasping and throwing the prey on to the bank), I had a reprehensible way of amusing myself which is also not unknown to English boys. This was boldly trespassing into our neighbours' gardens to get fruit, an amusement which shocked my poor mother's feelings fearfully. I used to plunder more for the sake of the adventure than of eating the plundered fruit, as our own garden was the best, and our fruit was the envy of the neighbourhood.
During that summer I spent months on our country estate immune from the punishment I deserved, but at last I committed a crime which could not be overlooked by my people. I helped a lovesick swain, who had been refused, to carry off his lady-love vi et armis. Before I begin to relate the incident I should like to remark that the habit of marriage by abduction was not originally Turkish. It was introduced into Asia Minor by the Caucasian emigrants, and used to be occasionally practised by people of Circassian origin. Almost all Circassian marriages take place through kidnapping. It is the custom for a Circassian to carry off his bride, whether the families of both parties find the match suitable or not. It is expected that he shall prove his bravery by taking this step, and if he is considered by the girl's people to be a fitting suitor, things may afterwards be arranged in a friendly manner; if not, it becomes a question of honour, which ends in feud, and often in bloodshed. With our people this practice is viewed almost with horror, and my complicity in the affair I have referred to was considered by everyone a very grave misdemeanour.
In the kidnapping expedition in which I was implicated the members of the girl's family could not venture to fight to regain her, as the lover's family was stronger in male relations and friends, while on the other hand, to appeal to the law would cause them endless worries and expense. The abducted bride's people were by no means socially superior to those of the bridegroom, but they had refused the regular demand for marriage. The girl was born of a Circassian mother, and I believe she must have inherited the instinct of her race. She wished to marry her lover, so she managed to send word to him that she would appear in the garden adjacent to her house at an hour previously fixed. The expedition was composed of three men—myself, the lover, and a powerfully built man of Circassian descent, who had the best horse under him and who had to carry the girl. We started from our neighbourhood at dark, and after an hour and a half's ride on the main road we took a side-way on approaching the country residence of the girl's people. We tied up our horses to trees, and while creeping through the thickly planted fruit-gardens as quietly as possible, we saw someone moving, wrapped in a long white cloak. It was the girl, and she was shivering, even on that warm summer evening, when we approached her, and our big companion took her on his shoulders. The lover looked, it seemed to me, at this moment hopelessly stupid, possibly by reason of his mingled feelings of joy and anxiety. We went back to the place where our horses were. The captured bride was mounted on the big Circassian's horse, holding tightly to the man's shoulders. We started, and on regaining the main road we had to ride with moderate speed, as the girl could not stand the strain of violent galloping. The bridegroom and I were constantly looking behind, anticipating pursuit and a possible attempt at recapture. I was armed with a flint pistol and a club, formidably decorated with a cluster of nails at the thick end. We took the girl to the bridegroom's residence, where his people gave her the kindest possible reception, and where she was duly married to him next day.
On hearing of my share in this adventure my mother was overwhelmed with grief and indignation. However, I considered that I acted quite rightly in the matter, and that in helping on the marriage of a suffering fellow-man, which subsequently turned out admirably, I did a piece of good work.
The end of the autumn of this year was approaching, and we prepared to transfer our residence from the country to our town-house. My uncle, who represented our town in the short-lived Ottoman Parliament in Constantinople, had returned from that city just at the same time, the said Parliament having been prorogued indefinitely by the present Sultan, and he had decided to reside in Angora for some time. Hearing all about my conduct, he asked my mother to send my luggage to his house, so that I might live among his own children, and pursue my studies under his personal supervision. My mother, whose gentle soul had been much disturbed by my countless misdeeds, instead of being glad to see me go away, when she might find a little peace, sobbed on seeing my luggage removed from her house. My uncle, as I inferred before, was the first man in our family to enter the service of the Government After acting as Judge in the quasi-religious Mohammedan Courts of Aleppo, Damascus, Cairo, Medina and Mecca, and other centres of the Ottoman empire, for nearly forty years, he retired temporarily from the Government service. Although thoroughly honest, sober, and pious in the extreme, he had fallen into some of the old failings and habits of Constantinople officialdom, such as polygamy. When I went to his house he had three wives, all living together with their numerous children and many female attendants, in his harem—that is to say, in the ladies' section of his house. His wives were all Circassians. He bought, emancipated, and married them at different times, and, unlike some other polygamists, he kept them in one house. It was as wonderful as uncommon to see how they all obeyed him implicitly; and though a man of the sternest disposition, he treated them all kindly and with perfect fairness. They may have hated one another at heart, but etiquette and a strict ceremony of precedence were always observed by them. The children of the different wives were more markedly jealous of each other than were their mothers. Before marrying these three Circassian wives my uncle had been married to a lady in whose lifetime he could not take advantage of the existence of the system of polygamy, because she was the daughter of a family of social distinction.
I lived in my polygamist uncle's harem nearly two years. There was a marked contrast between our own home life and that of my uncle's tumultuous abode. The children of his wives quarrelled with one another, his servants quarrelled with each other. Each wife looked after the comfort of her apartments and her own children. I was not attached to the department of any one of them, and felt very unhappy. In every boyish dispute the sons united and turned against me, and I was quite naturally envious of the affection lavished on them by their respective mothers. My uncle, though he treated me on a perfect equality with his own sons, was very strict He gave us no rest. I lost all my former amusements. We had to occupy ourselves continually either with lessons or with the prayers which he conducted five times a day in a large hall. The morning prayers, which have to be made about an hour before sunrise, annoyed me more than the others, as every day my uncle used to get up and go round knocking at the door of every bedroom, both in the harem and in the men's quarter, compelling everyone to get up for the early prayer. To have to get up and perform my prayer ablution on cold winter mornings often made me complain in terms that were hardly pious. Anyone among the numerous boys, girls, and servants who failed in getting ready for the prayer without being able to plead serious illness was sure to receive the bastinado or whip from my stem uncle. On several occasions, like his own sons, I also received punishment Feeling depressed in his house, I secretly started smoking, which is strictly prohibited for boys in my country. One of the sons, who disliked me much, one day spied on me, and informed his father that I was enjoying cigarettes in the stable in company with the groom, who bought and kept them for me, and shared them with me. My uncle sent two stalwart servants to catch me. They brought me before him, and he ordered them to take off my shoes and socks and hold my legs up. He gave me twenty strokes on my bare feet, and they hurt me so much that I howled for a long time afterwards. However, the punishment had its effect, for till within the last two years I have never been able to enjoy smoking.
One of my uncle's strictest orders was that his sons and I should remain on the men's side of the house every evening to read and write our lessons, and not retire to our rooms in the harem to bed until after the evening prayer, which takes place about ten o'clock. After I had been living in his harem some months, one night, at the moment when we were all preparing to go to bed, my uncle asked me to stop, and informed me, in his own grave manner, that as I was entering upon the stage of manhood, it was time that I should respect the rule of seclusion. According to this rule, a man can no longer live among the ladies of the harem, between whom and himself marriage would be legal. So the sons of my uncle retired to the harem, leaving me behind in the men's quarter of the house. I went to the room assigned to me, and found all my belongings had been brought out there. I have a vivid recollection of the depression and sadness I felt that night. I was not quite fifteen then. I wished to run away to our own house and throw myself into the arms of my mother, but I knew it was quite hopeless, as I had been legally placed under the guardianship of my uncle alone. Moreover, he was too powerful a man to be resisted, and his voice was supreme in all matters connected with our family circle. Seeing the hopelessness of my case, I wept long that solitary night The reason which necessitated my dismissal from my uncle's harem was that he had two daughters of about my own age. Some people, including my own mother, used to design one of them for my future wife, though I did not then appreciate the blessing of matrimony, nor had the girl the least liking for me. It is a curious fact that when there is such a scheme to marry two young people in the future, and even when they are actually engaged, their separation, instead of being relaxed, is more rigidly enforced.
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While on the subject of my uncle's harem, it will not perhaps be amiss if I say something about the practice of polygamy in general. Much has been written in English about the Islamic polygamy, but little that is correct and authoritative, for those who are not Mohammedans are unreasonably prejudiced against it. Having more than one wife is not a Turkish, but a Moslem custom. Among the races of the Islamic faith the Turks indulge in polygamy least Scratch those unprincipled officials in Constantinople who may be polygamists, and you will find in them more foreign than Osmanli blood. There are many reasons for the justification of the plurality of wives in the Islamic books. I will give one of these reasons, which is historical. Before the time of Mohammed some Arab tribes, in order to check the increase of the female sex, used to bury alive some of their, so to say, 'surplus girls.' The appearance of Islam stamped out this most savage custom. After the foundation of Mohammedanism many sanguinary religious wars took place between Islamites and non-Islamites of Arabia, and a great number of men died in the battles. Therefore many women were left without husbands or unmarried. In those days this caused the increase of prostitution to an alarming degree, and this is a great 'crime' according to the Mohammedan law. Every fair-minded and impartial Christian will admit that Mohammed established many humane and just principles for his followers, and it might be expected that such a wise man would not have sanctioned the practice of polygamy. But what could have been done with those 'surplus women' in an age when women's services were not of any public good to the community? How could he check the "crime" of immorality? He had to permit the exercise of polygamy, which was the usual practice among other Semitic peoples; and he sanctioned a man's marrying two, three, or even four wives, according to his capability in health, wealth, and just treatment of them. "With the change of times laws must be altered," says a general rule of Islamic law. But polygamic law did not change. Some wealthy and influential rulers and persons have always favoured it. What surprises me most in this respect is the injudicious criticism of polygamy by some Europeans. Are there not many men in Europe who, besides their lawful wife at home, have paramours elsewhere? This is worse than the polygamy of the Moslem Orient, as in the one case the plurality of female companions of life has a legal aspect, and the issue of the union is considered legitimate, while, on the other hand, the unfortunate offspring of the union libre of Europe are disinherited outcasts, and their mothers can at any moment be thrown into prostitution.