Constantinople old and new

by H. G. Dwight

Scutari Cemetery

Having relieved my mind on this subject, in my quality of a native of Scutari, I am able to continue in my other quality of peripatetic impressionist. And incidentally I may record my observation that tourists have, after all, rather a knack for choosing sights that are interesting to see. I am a great admirer of the oblong wooden hall of the Roufaï, coloured a dull green, with its weapons and inscriptions and brass candlesticks at the end of the mihrab, and its recess of tombs, and its latticed gallery. The floor under the gallery is railed off and set apart for the spectators, who also overflow into the central quadrangle in case of need—if they be of the faith. The ceremony itself has been described so often that there is no need for me to describe it again, though I would like to do so with a little more tolerance for unfamiliar religious observances than some books show. I have never read, however, of such a ritual as I once happened to see on the Mohammedan Ascension Day. Part of the service was a sermon from the black-bearded sheï’h upon the miraculous event of the day. At the end of the usual rite all the dervishes and many of the spectators formed a great ring in the centre of the hall, holding hands, and circled in a time of eight beats, calling “Allah! Allah! Al-lah!” The rhythm grew faster and faster, and the calling louder and hoarser, until two or three visiting dervishes of another familiar sect slipped into the middle of the ring and began to whirl in their own silent way, while an old man with a rose tucked under his black turban sang with a wildness of yearning that only Oriental music can convey. Then the ring broke and they all marched in a long line into the recess of the tombs, where each man prostrated himself before the first of the turbaned catafalques.

Whether that was the end I have no means of knowing, for I was asked to leave. That is always the case, I notice, when I want to stay after the rest of the sightseers have got tired and gone away. It rather annoys me that I should be classed with unbelievers, and made to sit with them on a bench behind the railing instead of squatting on a sheepskin mat like the other people of Scutari. Yet if it were not so it would never have befallen me to come into contact with so eminent a personality of my day as Mme. Bernhardt—or at least with her parasol. The actress has often been to Constantinople, and she must have seen the howling dervishes many times. Who knows what so great an expert in expression may have caught from the ritual frenzy of the Roufaï? It so happened that one of those times was also the occasion of my first visit. I went early, in order to secure a good place. Mme. Bernhardt did not. She has no doubt learned by long and flattering experience that however late she arrives she is sure of a good place. Nor can I suppose she always manages it in the way she did then. She arrived late, I say, and by the time she arrived there was no room left in the front row of benches. I regret to confess that I did not at once hop out of my seat and put her into it. The performance had already begun, tourists were all the time coming in, and while I caught some buzz about the Divine Sarah, I was just then paying more attention to the men of God in front of me. Presently, however, I felt a fearful poke in my back. I knew that poke. It was the eternal feminine. It was beauty. It was genius. It was the Divine Sarah, desiring impressions and not to be debarred from them by a small tourist quelconque—and divinely unconscious that she might be imparting them, yet not unaware that many a man would jump into the Seine or the Bosphorus at a poke from her. What would you? I was young, the parasol was hard, and the Divine Sarah was the Divine Sarah. I accordingly slipped out of my place, I hope not without a gracious smile. And what I saw of the dervishes that day was through the foliage of a very complicated hat. I must say that I resented it a little. But I consoled myself by murmuring behind Sarah’s back—and the poet’s—

“To poke is human, to forgive divine.”

VII
THE GARDENS OF THE BOSPHORUS

Giardini chiusi, appena intraveduti,

o contemplati a lungo pe’ cancelli

che mai nessuna mano al viandante

smarrito aprì come in un sogno! Muti