LONDON:
P. SHOBERL, JUN., LEICESTER STREET, LEICESTER SQUARE.
TO HER
TO WHOM PROFESSION AND PANEGYRIC
WERE ALIKE SUPERFLUOUS;
AND FROM WHOM,
DURING MY SOJOURN IN THE EAST,
I WAS FOR THE FIRST TIME SEPARATED—
TO MY LOVED AND LOVING MOTHER,
I DEDICATE THIS WORK.
PREFACE.
In publishing the present work I feel that I should be deficient in self-justice, did I not state a few facts relatively to the numerous difficulties with which I have had to contend during its compilation.
The language of Turkey, in itself a serious impediment from its total dissimilarity to every European tongue, naturally raises a barrier between the native and the stranger, which is to the last only partially removed by the intervention of a third person; who, acting as an Interpreter, too frequently fritters away the soul of the conversation, even where he does not wilfully pervert its sense. But this drawback to a full and free intercourse with the natives, irritating and annoying as it is, sinks into insignificance, when compared with the myriad snares laid for the stranger, (and, above all, for the literary stranger) by party-spirit and political prejudice. The liberal-minded and high-hearted politician of Europe, even while he is straining every nerve, and exerting every energy, to support and strengthen the interests of his country, disdains to carry with him into private life the hatreds, the jealousies, and the suspicions, which, like rust on metal, mar the brightness of the spirit that harbours them. He does not reject a friend because his political tenets may be at variance with his own; nor overlook the amiable traits of his character, to dwell only upon his opposing prejudices and interests.
The height to which party-spirit is carried in Constantinople; or I should rather say, in the Frank quarter of Constantinople, would be laughable were it not mischievous. Even females are not free from the malaria which hovers like an atmosphere about the streets and “palaces” of Pera; and a traveller has not been domesticated a week among its inhabitants, ere he almost begins to believe that the destinies of the whole Eastern Empire hang upon the breath of a dozen individuals. With one party, Russia is the common sewer into which are poured all the reproach and the vituperation of indignant patriotism—with the other, England is the landmark towards which is pointed the finger of suspicion and defiance. All this may be very necessary, and very praiseworthy, as a matter of diplomacy; I suppose that it is both the one and the other. I have no opinion to offer on the subject. I merely venture to question the propriety of suffering such anti-social feelings to intrude into the bosom of private life; and to question the soundness of the judgment which would universally create a bad man out of a rival politician; and make the opening of one door the signal for the closing of another. It is said that the three plagues of Constantinople are Fire, Pestilence, and Dragomen; judging from what I saw and heard while there, I should be inclined to add a fourth, and to designate it, Politics. Certain it is that the faubourg of Pera always reminded me of an ant-hill; with its jostling, bustling, and racing for straws and trifles; and its ceaseless, restless struggling and striving to secure most inconsequent results.
That the great question of Eastern policy is a weighty and an important one, every thinking person must concede at once; but whether its final settlement will be advantageously accelerated by individual jealousies and individual hatreds is assuredly more problematical. “He who is not for me is against me,” is the motto of every European resident in Turkey; for each, however incompetent he may be to judge of so intricate and comprehensive a subject, is nevertheless a loud and uncompromising politician. And, if the temporary sojourner in the East be resolved to belong to no clique, to pledge himself to no party, and to pursue a straight and independent path, as he would do in Europe, without lending himself to the views of either, he is certain to be suspected by both.