Soon after we were settled, I was solicited by the Governor of the city to visit his son, an infant, who was dangerously ill. I had him under my care for some time, and my constant attendance at the palace led to an acquaintance between the Governor’s wife and Lady Hester. Mademoiselle Arles would, on these occasions, perform the office of interpreter. In the course of a few days, Lady Hester had received and accepted invitations from some of the persons of distinction of whom Brusa is so full; it being the city to which the Sultan is accustomed to send vizirs and pashas, who suffer under his displeasure. At first, Mademoiselle Arles said, doubts had been raised whether Lady Hester was really a woman: for, as she rode about in an English riding-habit, a dress (if the skirts were shorter) not altogether unlike that of the pages of the Seraglio, it was whispered about that she was a boy; more especially as she rode on a side-saddle, somewhat in the manner in which the dromedaries are ridden, instead of astride, like the women in the East. Besides, she went with her face uncovered. And so serious were these doubts, that, when she went to the public baths frequented by the women of the place, they all hid and covered themselves in a great bustle, and were not convinced of their error for some time.
The female dress at Brusa pleased me exceedingly: but my fair countrywomen will not admire my taste, when I tell them that here, and elsewhere throughout Turkey, women wear no stays. The sex seemed to have but few amusements. They were allowed to gad about the streets as much as they pleased, and go to the baths when they liked; and, although their faces and bodies on such occasions were so completely covered that their very husbands could not know them, yet the customs of the country, that do not admit of a woman’s walking out alone, are a barrier to intrigue. At home, even a married woman must not see any persons of the other sex but her husband and her nearest relations; while the unmarried are seen by no one out of the family. Mademoiselle Arles told us, likewise, that husbands here were very tyrannical, and that corporeal chastisement was by no means uncommon. The wife, who is on the very best terms with her husband, can be said, after all, to be but his slave. When he enters the harým, or women’s apartment, he claps his hands at the outer door as a signal, and the wife must immediately hasten to receive him. As he walks, with an air of grandeur, into the inner room, she humbly follows. He seats himself on the sofa, but does not permit her to sit down until she has served him with a pipe and a cup of coffee: then, with a sign of submissive reverence to her lord and master, she takes her place at a distance; and, when he has smoked his pipe, he perhaps relaxes his heavy visage into a smile, and permits her to caress him. This is the way among the better sort of persons. Among the lower orders the husbands are said to be quite brutal: and the poor wife’s only protection is the occasional threat that she will have a separation; for divorce, by the Mahometan law, is an affair easily effected, and often practised.
As the time for occupying the house at Therapia had expired during our stay at Brusa, we had no longer any residence at Constantinople; Lady Hester, therefore, wished me to return thither for the purpose of hiring one. Accordingly, on the 1st of June, I set off; and, on my arrival, I hastened to the house of Mr. Alexander, her ladyship’s banker. I was shocked to learn that the worthy man had died of fright a few days before. It appeared that, in the street in which Lady Hester had lodged on her first arrival at Constantinople, a fire had broken out, which had raged so fiercely as to have consumed fifty houses, among which were those of the Russian and Austrian ambassadors. The conflagration would have extended farther, had not a copious fall of rain soaked the wooden houses, and put a stop to it. But this of itself became a calamity: for, one of the street sewers having been stopped up, the street overflowed, and much damage was done by the water.
The frequency of these accidents is assigned as a reason why the inhabitants of Constantinople sleep in their clothes, that they may be ready to make their escape. When the fire broke out, Mr. Alexander had been suddenly awakened with the cry in the streets; and, hastily rising, had rushed to the street, where he fell dead in an apoplectic fit. He was a man who spoke fluently six languages. I visited the spot where the fire had raged; but, as the buildings in this city are almost always of wood and very slight, not a wall remained standing.
Having heard that the Austrian Internuncio, Baron Sturmer, had a roomy house in a village near Constantinople, where no Europeans lived (which I knew to be a particular recommendation to Lady Hester,) I went to him, procured the key, and looked it over: after which I hired it furnished for a thousand piasters, for six months.
It is said that there was a time when the ministers of two hostile courts residing at Constantinople would remain in friendly intercourse with each other: but an opposite principle had been adopted since the reign of the First Consul and Emperor of the French, who, both in regard to his own minister and to those ministers over whom he had influence, interdicted all communication with the English. An interview therefore with the Austrian Internuncio was not a light matter; and, for the better prevention of any ill construction being put upon it, I received intimation that the place of meeting must be in his garden.
I remained to dine on the fourth of June at the English palace, in celebration of his Britannic Majesty’s birthday, and then returned to Brusa. Among the guests at the palace were the Hon. Frederick North (late Earl of Guilford,) and Mr. Frederick Douglas, his nephew, both of whom very shortly afterwards came to Brusa on a visit to Lady Hester.
On the 1st of July, 1811, we quitted Brusa, after passing two most agreeable months there. The same evening we embarked at Mudania, and on the close of the second day reached Bebec.
Bebec is a village on the Bosphorus, chiefly inhabited by Turks and Armenians: it is three or four miles from Constantinople. On the edge of the canal there was a very elegant kiosk, or summer residence of the Grand Signor, but which was not often visited by him. The house I had taken had once belonged to a Turk, from whom it passed into the hands of the Austrian Internuncio in lieu of a debt. It was built of weather-boarding, and painted of a tarry red, like some barracks built in England during the late war. This red is the privileged colour of Mahometans: for a Greek or an Armenian dares not paint his house with it, and can use only a lead colour.
The interior of all Turkish houses is divided into two parts; the largest and best furnished of them is occupied by the women, and is called the harým; the other part, named the selamlik, consists seldom of more than two or three rooms, where the master of the house receives male visitors, and transacts business. Into the harým female visitors enter, but no other man than the husband, his and his wives’ nearest relations, and now and then her physician. All the windows are barred and latticed, so that it is not only not possible to look in, but hardly possible for those inside to look out.