Within the city, to the unaccustomed eye, the horrible sights eclipse all others. The place is foul, and suffering, hungry creatures, human and animal, are pitiable to behold. The streets, except in front of the palaces and embassies, are seldom cleaned, and if one ventures out of doors on wet days he must wade through sloughs of filth.
Beggars, purposely maimed, and with ‘incurable diseases, including laziness,’ beset one on every side; mangy, starving dogs, lying on the pavements, are so numerous that pedestrians must take the roadway; and pitiable beasts of burden labour painfully along under fearful burdens.
A Turk, in his way, is most humane towards animals, and it is the Jews and the Christians who treat them badly. According to Western ideas, it would be a kindness to put the unhappy dogs of the imperial city out of existence; but the Turk reasons differently—what Allah has given life should live at Allah’s will.
DOGS OCCUPY THE PAVEMENT; PEOPLE WALK IN THE STREETS.
THE TURKISH BARBERSHOP.
In a street in Constantinople one day, I saw a miserable puppy rolled over by a carriage. Its hips were crushed, and it seemed to suffer agony. I went to a drug store near by and fetched some chloroform, but on attempting to administer it, a powerful hoja, who evidently knew what it was, put his hands on my shoulders and gently thrust me back. He informed some of the bystanders of my intention, and they lifted their hands and pointed towards heaven. They recognised me as a foreigner. Had I been a native non-Moslem they would not have been so gentle. If a native Christian kills a dog he is sent to prison—unless he subscribes a sufficient bribe to the court’s revenue.
Very often the Mohamedan’s charity takes the form of a distribution of food to the dogs, and the narrow streets are sometimes blocked by an enormous pack catching bits of bread from the hand of some penance-maker. But the garbage from the houses is the only certain source of subsistence that the dogs have. They know to a minute the time of day each family throws out its refuse, and if you pass along the streets in the early morning you can mark the houses which have not yet rendered up their daily quota by the canine crew waiting before the door.
The dogs of Turkey are more like wolves in appearance than domestic animals, but they are perfectly harmless. They rarely find sufficient food, and seldom taste meat, which may account for their gentleness—but their want of proper nourishment has no effect upon their lungs. Between them and the firemen night is made hideous in Constantinople. As certain as the setting of the sun one’s slumbers will be disturbed before the dawn by a most unearthly screeching—even worse than that of the London firemen—accompanied by the high-pitched yelps of countless dogs.