All the three hundred thousand persons said to have been collected in Constantinople on the occasion of the Imperial marriage, must have been beside our path that morning! I never before beheld such a gathering of human beings. There had been divided interests during the previous days of festival: different points of attraction, which had wrenched asunder the mighty mass of mortality, and fashioned it into divers portions; but on the present occasion, men’s minds were all bent upon one object; and this community of purpose had collected them together in one vast multitude.
The road was guarded by armed sentinels; and about an arrow’s flight from the Military College, on the line from Dolma Batchè to the Palace of the Princess, a handsome tent had been pitched for the Ambassadors, which was already thronged. Every rising ground was occupied as far as the eye could reach; and the outline of the road along which the procession was to pass, was marked by clusters of females, seated so closely together that from a short distance they appeared to form one compact body. Behind these were ranged lines of arabas, filled with Turkish, Greek, and Armenian ladies; while on the open space beyond, horsemen galloped to and fro; pedestrians, who had been too tardy to secure advantageous places, straggled from spot to spot, in the hope of establishing themselves among some knot of friends; and water-venders, with their long-necked earthen jars and crystal goblets, passed from one party to another, disposing, at an usurious interest, of their tempting merchandize.
As there was no sign of the procession when we reached the Ambassadorial tent, we resolved to canter on to Arnautkeui, and amuse ourselves by a survey of the wayside groups; and a most interesting ride it was. As the Turkish women generally, on any occasion which takes them from their homes at an early hour, profit by the circumstance to remain in the open air all day, none of our party were surprised at the well-organized arrangements that were making on all sides. The whole line of road from Dolma Batchè to the kiosk above the Palace of Arnautkeui was edged with spectators; and wherever a tree afforded the means of doing so, shawls and rugs had been stretched against the sun, producing a very cheerful and pretty effect. The number of Turkish females collected together on this occasion may be imagined when I state that a friend of mine, on whose veracity I have the most perfect reliance, assured me that he knew it to be a fact, that several of these sight-loving ladies had actually sold the tiles off the roofs of their houses, in order to raise money enough to enable them to hire an araba for the last two days of the Festival!
Nor was this all; for a still more startling fact came to my knowledge from so authentic a source that I state it without hesitation. A Turkish female in a respectable station of society, having in vain importuned her husband for the means of witnessing the festivities in a manner suited to her rank, and receiving for an answer the assurance that he was unable to comply with her request; finding that she had no hope of success save through her own ingenuity, set herself to work to devise some expedient by which she might raise the necessary sum; and having taken into her confidence a favourite slave who was to accompany her in the event of any fortunate discovery, it was at length decided between them that she should sell her son, a fine little boy of about five years of age. No sooner said than done; she adjusted her yashmac and feridjhe, took her child by the hand, and, followed by her attendant, proceeded to the house of a slave merchant, where the bargain was soon made, and the sum of three thousand piastres given in exchange for the little Musselmaun!
The astonishment of the husband may be conceived, when on the morrow he saw his wife seated in an araba in the midst of a bevy of her fair friends, without being able to discover how she had contrived to secure a carriage at so expensive a period. He demanded an explanation in vain; and it was not until he inquired for his child, and detected a mysterious confusion in the manner of his wife, that a suspicion of the fact flashed upon him. He insisted on hearing the truth; and when he at length learnt it, he hurried like a madman to the slave-merchant, and demanded back his boy; but the dealer in human beings had no expensive sympathies; and he only answered the agonized intreaties of the father, by asserting his willingness to deliver up the child when the money which he had given for him was repaid. The wretched parent had it not to give; and finding that his misery produced no effect upon the slave-merchant, he hurried in his anguish to the Seraskier, who, having heard the tale, summoned to his presence the mother, the child, and the merchant; and after having ascertained that the fact was precisely as it had been stated to him, he expressed to the former his horror of the unnatural deed of which she had been guilty, and received for answer that she had acted under the firm conviction that her husband had merely refused to supply her with money from an impulse of avarice; and that, being devoted to his child, he would immediately purchase him back. The apology, poor as it was, was admitted; and the Seraskier, finding that the father really did not possess the means of recovering his boy, generously paid the price of his liberty, and restored him to his parents; only cautioning the mother not to attempt a second sale of the same description, as, in the event of such an occurrence, she should herself be her child’s ransom.
Hear this, ye Englishwomen, who have been accustomed to believe that the Turkish females are always under lock and key—Hear this: and then imagine to what a pitch they carry their love of dissipation and expense.
Not the least amusing part of the ride was the multitude of recognitions and salutations consequent upon our progress through the crowd. Here a veiled lady greeted us from her gilded araba; and there a laughing Greek saluted us from beneath his wayside tent. On one side, we were joined by a rival party of mounted Franks; and on the other we were beckoned aside by some pretty friend, who was seated under the shade of a cluster of overhanging branches.
Had there been nothing further to anticipate, the mere sight of the great congregation of human beings collected together that morning, would of itself have been a highly interesting spectacle.
Probably in no other country upon earth can you encounter such groups as you do in Turkey; they always appear as though they had been arranged by an artist; and I find myself on every occasion just about to describe them, when I remember that I have already done so more than once; and am compelled, however reluctantly, to forego the inclination.
Having reached the crest of the hill above Arnautkeui, we turned our horses’ heads once more towards Dolma Batchè; and had almost reached the Palace when the sound of a military band came cheerfully on the wind, and we were obliged to gallop off, in order to secure an elevated station whence we could conveniently witness the passage of the procession.