Tennis is played to some extent, and bicycling is fairly popular, but principally because it allows the rider to show off.
There are some keen sportsmen among the Turks; and hunting the wild boar offers lively sport coupled with a zest of danger, as these savage animals, if not killed outright, often turn and rip their assailants with their powerful tusks.
The "gentle art" of fishing is largely indulged in as a recreation, and the Bosphorus yields excellent sport. The favourite fishing there is that of the lufer, which weighs from 1 to 3 pounds, and is caught by night, with bright lamps throwing down a beam of light from the boat into the water. A peculiar hook, soldered to a sinker, which is brightened with mercury, is used. Gourmet fishers often take a brazier, with live coals, in the boat, and grill and eat the fish as soon as it is secured.
A HOWLING DERVISH.
Chess—that most antiquated of games—is known under the name of satrach, and differs somewhat from our own, but is as highly scientific. However sceptical we may be about the story in the "Arabian Nights" of the monkey which played chess with a Grand Vizier, I can vouch for the accuracy of one regarding an Armenian banker who played it with Sultan Aziz. The stakes were properties belonging to the Crown, and so successful was the banker that, finally, his landed possessions extended from the Bosphorus to the Black Sea.
Backgammon is a favourite game; draughts differs slightly from our own, and there is a peculiar form of it played with pebbles, on a checkered board traced on a stone.