When he is troubled with unpleasant dreams, haunted by melancholy fancies, or suffering from bodily disease, he tears away a fragment of his dress, and fastens the rag to the iron-work of a window belonging to the tomb of a saint, in order to deposit the evil along with it. When he is sick, he procures from the Priest an earthen bowl, inscribed throughout its interior with passages from the Koran; and, filling it with water, sets it aside until the whole of the writing becomes effaced, when he swallows the liquid, and thus administers to himself a dose of Holy Writ! The Court Astrologer publishes every year a species of supernatural almanack, in which he specifies the lucky and unlucky days of the different moons; foretells wars, deaths, and marriages; and imparts a vast quantity of multifarious information, which must be both valuable and curious, if it is to be estimated by the price paid for it, as the salary of the Seer is a most liberal one.
Another singular superstition common throughout Turkey is the belief that should a dog chance to pass between two persons who are conversing, one or the other will fall sick unless the animal be propitiated with food; and the first care of a Musselmaun to whom this ill-luck has occurred, is to look about him for the means of averting its effect.
But the predominant weakness of the East is the dread of the Evil Eye. Should you praise the beauty of a Turkish child to its mother, without prefacing your admiration with “Mashallah!” or, In the name of God—which is considered sufficient to counteract the power of all malignant spirits; and, should the child become ill or meet with an accident, it is at once decided that you have smitten it with the Evil Eye. The Greeks, when by accident they allude to their own good health or good fortune, immediately spit upon their breasts to avert the malign influence; and to such a pitch do they carry their faith in the efficacy of this inelegant exorcism, that on a recent occasion, when an acquaintance of my own was introduced to a beautiful Greek girl, and betrayed into an eulogium on her loveliness, he was earnestly entreated by her mother to perform the same ceremony in the very face which he had just been eulogizing, in order to annul the evil effects of his admiration; and so pressing were her instances that he was compelled to affect obedience to her wishes, ere she could be re-assured of the safety of her daughter!
The Turk decorates the roof of his house, the prow of his caïque, the cap of his child, the neck of his horse, and the cage of his bird, with charms against the Evil Eye; one of the most powerful of these antidotes being garlic: and it must be conceded that, here at least, the workers of woe have shown their taste. Every hovel has its head of garlic suspended by a string; and bouquets of flowers formed of spices, amid which this noxious root is nestled, are sent as presents to the mother of a new-born infant, as a safeguard both to herself and her little one.
A blue eye is super-eminently suspicious, for they have an idea that such is the legitimate colour of the evil orb; and you seldom see a horse, or a draught ox, or even a donkey, which has not about its neck a string of blue beads, to preserve it from the dark deeds of witchcraft. I was considerably amused on one occasion, when, being about to meet the carriage of a friend, the horse that drew it, either from idleness or caprice, suddenly stood still, and the arabajhe exclaimed with vehemence to his mistress, “You see, madam, you see that the horse is struck—the new Hanoum has blue eyes!” turning his own on me as he spoke, with a most unloving expression. I am perfectly convinced that, had the animal met with any misfortune, or been guilty of any misdemeanour during the remainder of the day, the whole blame would have inevitably been visited on my unlucky eyes, which had counteracted the effect of a row of glass beads, and a crescent of bone!
To protect the reigning Sultan from the power of the Evil Eye during his state progresses through the streets of the capital, a peculiar head-dress was invented for the Imperial body-pages, whose ornamented plumes were of such large dimensions as, collectively, to form a screen about his sacred person. Even Sultan Mahmoud, who is superior to many of the popular prejudices, has just caused a Firman to be published, prohibiting the women from looking earnestly at him as he passes them, on pain of—what think you, reader?—of subjecting their husbands or brothers to the bastinado! The Turkish laws are too gallant to condemn females to suffer this punishment in their own persons, and Mahmoud is consequently to be protected from the possibly fatal effects of the ladies’ eyes by their fears for their male relations.
Another singular custom is that of pouring water where any one has fallen, to prevent a recurrence of the accident on the same spot, which is religiously observed by the lower orders; as well as flinging stones at the body of a decapitated criminal, in order to secure the dreams of the spectator from an intrusion of the ghastly object.
No Turk of the lower ranks of society ever passes a shred of paper which may chance to lie upon his path; he always gathers it up with the greatest care; as the popular belief leads him to place implicit faith in an ancient superstition that all paper thus obtained will be collected after death, and scattered over the burning soil through which he is to pass to paradise; and that consequently the more he is enabled to secure, the less suffering he will have to endure hereafter.
A most extraordinary fact came to my knowledge a short time before I left the East, relatively to the female Arabs of the harem. They have a species of society, or institution—I scarcely know how to term it—in which they are initiated from their girlhood, that they call “Babaluk,” whose principle of mystery is kept as secret as that of freemasonry; while the occasional display of its influence is wild and startling enough to remind the spectator of the Priestesses of Delphi.
Far from affecting any concealment of their participation in the pretended powers of the society, you cannot, when a guest in the harem, please an initiated Arab more surely than by inquiring if she be a Babaluk; and the Turkish ladies frequently amuse themselves and their visitors by exhibiting their black slaves while under the influence of their self-excited phrenzy. When a sable Pythoness is informed of the wish of her mistress, she collects such of her companions as are Babaluks, for there are sometimes several in the same harem, and a brazier of burning charcoal is placed in the centre of the saloon in which the ceremony is to take place. Round this brazier the Arabs squat down, and commence a low, wild chant, which they take up at intervals from the lips of each other; and then break into a chorus, that ultimately dies away in a wail, succeeded by a long silence, during whose continuance they rock their bodies backwards and forwards, and never raise their eyes from the earth. From the moment in which the chant commences, an attendant is constantly employed in feeding the fire with aloes, incense, musk, and every species of intoxicating perfume.