Attached to the harým of the house at Bebec there were a superb marble bath, a garden, and other comforts for the amusement of the imprisoned inmates. Provisions are taken in by means of a turn-about, such as is used in convents. All these contrivances are, in some measure, securities for the chastity of the women; but the greatest of all is included in the feeling, impressed upon them from their infancy, of the positive criminality of showing their faces to strangers.
Another fire broke out during this month in the south-east part of Constantinople, called the Fanál, the quarter where the Greeks reside, and consumed (as it was said) a thousand houses. Fires will be ever frequent in a metropolis where so much anarchy prevails, where the plunderers are more numerous than the sufferers, the gainers than the losers. It was rumoured that the janissaries were the wilful incendiaries in this case. That corps still continued very disaffected, and always suspicious lest the Turkish government should effect their abolition. As a body they were too powerful to be punished openly; yet every day some of those known to be the most dangerous were secretly conveyed away, and were heard of no more.
Northerly winds were so prevalent at this time, that, for six weeks, they blew invariably from that quarter. Although the season was thus far advanced, the Turkish fleet had not yet begun its annual summer cruise. It is not difficult for two hostile fleets to find each other, if so disposed; but the Black Sea was roomy enough for the Russians and Turks to cruise without meeting.
The heat of the climate is by no means oppressive, tempered as it is by breezes from the two seas. The thermometer generally during this month stood at 80° Fahrenheit, at noon. Grapes were now at a penny per pound, melons three pence a piece, fresh figs almost for nothing; so that a handsome and plentiful dessert cost but a trifle. But the supply for the table was in many respects deficient; and it was seldom that a good dinner, according to the English fashion, could be served up. The mutton was not good, and beef and veal were rarely to be found in the market, although there are numerous droves of horned cattle to be seen on the mountains. The butter had a disagreeable taste. Potatoes and cabbages were scarcely to be met with; turnips not at all. Few of the kinds of fish which were caught were well tasted: the best to my palate was the sword-fish, which is in season in August, and in appearance and taste, when served up, might be mistaken for delicate veal.
My long residence in Constantinople had given me time to form an extensive acquaintance, and, from some successful cures, I was much solicited to settle there. It would indeed have been a desirable situation as far as money was concerned; but I was under engagements with Lady Hester which precluded such a thought. The Turks, and also the Armenians, were exceedingly liberal in their fees; the Greeks were not so.
Lady Hester spent a few days, about this time, at Belgrade, a village rendered celebrated by the praises bestowed upon it by Lady M. W. Montague. With the exception of this one village, all the inhabitants of Constantinople who have villas prefer living in the villages on the banks of the Bosphorus. The wherries, with two or three pair of oars, transport them from door to door. Soft mattresses are spread, with cushions to recline on, there being no seats as in our wherries, and they indulge in an agreeable indolence, fanned by the zephyrs, and rocked by the scarcely undulating waves. It must not be imagined, however superior we may generally be to the Turks, that we are their inferiors in nothing; and I have been often vexed to hear persons, little acquainted with that people, pronounce their entire inferiority with as little ceremony as if they had passed years in investigating the subject. Few of the travellers who visit Constantinople take the pains of learning the language, and most of the residents are equally negligent. There was one lady, an Englishwoman, who had lived three years at Pera, and yet had never had the curiosity to cross the harbour.
During the summer I learned to throw the girýd, or blunt javelin; and, as I conceive it to be thrown by the Turks in the same manner as practised by the ancients during the time of the Trojan war, I shall endeavour to make the reader understand it. When a javelin is put into the hand of a person unused to handle such a weapon, and he is desired to throw it, he invariably elevates his hand and arm; and, holding the javelin on a level with his head, or still higher, throws it overhanded. But this I conceive is not the mode employed by the ancients; nor is the same degree of power acquired as in the underhanded manner, which is as follows. The javelin, being from three and a half to five feet long, and of equal weight at both ends, is taken in the palm of the hand, resting in a position out of the horizontal one by a trifling elevation of the point, and is pressed almost entirely by the finger and thumb alone. The arm is straightened, the bend of the arm faces outwards, and the elbow is turned inwards, so that it points to the hipbone. Then a position is assumed, exactly such as a man would take who should fence left-handed, and, in this way, the javelin is discharged as if slung from the whole arm, without any effort at the wrist, and little at the elbow. On horseback, the impulse is greater, because the horse is brought to a sudden halt and a wheel about to the left, just at the moment of throwing the javelin. Girýd is an Arabic word, meaning a branch of the palm-tree; such a branch being generally used for a sham javelin, as being firm, heavy, and elastic, and having a slight tapering from one extremity to the other.
About the 20th of April, the Captain Pasha was sent with troops and gun-boats to reduce a place called Heracli, on the Asiatic coast of the Black Sea, the governor of which was in rebellion. Up to the time of our departure it was not known what success had attended this expedition; but a Greek one day answered to my inquiries how the pasha got on—“Oh! we shall shortly have some information: for, according to his success or failure, there will be an exhibition at the Seraglio-gate, of the head of the rebel governor or of his own.”
The Ramadán, or fast of the Mahometans, began this year on the 27th of September. It is known to the reader that this fast continues for a whole moon, during which time no person, whatever his rank may be, takes nourishment of any sort from sunrise to sunset. When it falls, as it did this year, during the hot weather, so long an abstinence is intolerable; and the boatman, who is rowing almost continually for twelve or fourteen hours, or the bathman, who remains for a whole day in an atmosphere fifteen degrees hotter than the hottest day in England, each without daring to cool his thirst with one drop of water, may be considered as enduring a species of penance, which shows the devoutest submission to the laws of his Prophet.
Lady Hester’s application to the French court was unsuccessful. It had given rise to a characteristic letter, which is inserted.