On one side, a slender train of priests were committing a body to the earth, and mingling their lugubrious chant with the shrill instruments of a party of dancers; on the other, a patrol of dismounted lancers were threading among the many-coloured tents, in order to maintain an order which the heavy-witted Armenians lacked all inclination to break.
I never saw a set of people who bore so decidedly the stamp of having been born to slavery as the Armenians: they seem even to love the rattle of their chains; they have no high feeling, no emulation, no enthusiasm, no longing for “a place among the nations;” no aspirations after the bright and the beautiful; no ideas, in short, beyond a pitiful imitation of their Moslem masters, whom they consider as the ne plus ultra of all perfection.
The appearance of the upper class of Armenians I have already described. Give them a more becoming head-dress, and their costume is surpassingly graceful; but their advantages are all external; their dreams are all of piastres; they have no soul. If you talk to them of their subjection to the Osmanli, what do they reply? “All that you say may be very true, but it does not concern me—my affairs are in a most prosperous condition.”
It is impossible to make them sensible of their own social position; they listen, twirl their mustachioes, flourish their white handkerchiefs, replenish their chibouks, utter from time to time “pekké,” (very well), with an inane smile, and ultimately walk away, as well satisfied with themselves and with their tyrants as though the subject were one of the most irrelevant nature.
From this sweeping accusation of apathy and self-depreciation, even after many months passed in the East, I can except only one individual; but that one is indeed a rare and a bright example to the rest of his countrymen. To those travellers who have visited Constantinople, and who have had the pleasure and advantage of his acquaintance, I need scarcely say that I allude to M. Nubar, the eminent merchant of Galata, whose extensive information, sound judgment, and habitual courtesy, render his friendship extremely valuable to those who are fortunate enough to secure it.
To return, however, to the festival of the Champ des Morts, from which I have digressed. Every hundred yards that we advanced, the scene became more striking. One long line of diminutive tents formed a temporary street of eating-houses; there were kibaubs, pillauf, fritters, pickled vegetables, soups, rolls stuffed with fine herbs, sausages, fried fish, bread of every quality, and cakes of all dimensions. Escaping from this too savoury locality, we found ourselves among the sherbet venders, whose marquees, lined with blue or crimson, were pitched with more precision and regard to comfort and convenience than those of the restaurateurs. Mirrors, bouquets, and a display of goblets of all shapes and sizes, were skilfully set forth in many of them; some even indulged in the luxury of pictures, which were universally-glaring and highly-coloured French prints of female heads, of the most common description; and in these tents chairs and cushions were alike provided for the guests; while in one corner stood the mangal, ready to supply the necessary fragment of live coal for igniting the chibouk.
Scattered among these more assuming establishments were the stands of the itinerant merchants, whose little cupolaed fountains threw up a slender thread of water to the accompaniment of a tinkling sound, produced by the contact of half a dozen thin plates of metal; while a circle of sherbet glasses, filled with liquids of different colours, and interspersed with green boughs, and suspended lemons, looked so cool and refreshing that they were more tempting by far than the aristocratic establishments of the marquee owners. Here and there a flat tomb, fancifully covered with gold-embroidered handkerchiefs, was overspread with sweetmeats and preserved fruits; while, in the midst of these rival establishments, groups of men were seated in a circle, wherever a little shade could be obtained, smoking their long pipes in silence, with their diminutive coffee-cups resting on the ground beside them. The wooden kiosk overhanging the Bosphorus was crowded; and many a party was snugly niched among the acacias, with their backs resting against the tombs, and the sunshine flickering at their feet.
But the leading feature of the festival was the Armenian dance, that was going forward in every direction, and which was so perfectly characteristic of the people that it merits particular mention. A large circle was formed, frequently consisting of between forty and fifty individuals, (chance comers falling in as they pleased without question or hindrance) holding each other by the hand, or round the neck, and wedged closely together so as to form a compact body; the leader of the dance being the only one who detached himself from the rest, and held the person next to him at arm’s length. In the centre of the ring stood, and sometimes danced, the musician, whose instrument was either a species of small, cracked guitar, with wire strings, which he struck with very slender regard to either time or tune; or a bagpipe precisely similar to that of Scotland, but not played in the same spirit-stirring style, the Armenian performer making no attempt at any thing beyond noise, and never by any accident forming three consecutive notes which harmonized; but his hearers were not fastidious, and the music was, at least, in good keeping with the dance. Beside the minstrel, such as I have described him, moved the buffoon of the company, who also, by some extraordinary and perfectly Armenian concatenation of ideas, acted as Master of the Ceremonies.
The leader flourished a painted muslin handkerchief, while he lifted up first one foot and then the other, as fowls do sometimes in a farmyard; poising the body on one leg for an instant, and then changing the position. This movement was followed by the whole of the party with more or less awkwardness; and thus hopping, balancing, and shifting their feet, they slowly worked round and round the circle, without changing either the time or the movement for several consecutive hours; the different individuals falling in and out of the ring as their inclination prompted, without disturbing in the slightest degree the economy of the dance. There was nothing exclusive in these Terpsichorean circles, where the smart serving-man’s neck was clasped by the sinewy hand of the street-porter, and where the embroidered Albanian legging and European shoe were placed in juxtaposition with the bare limb and heelless slipper. There must have been at least a dozen of these dances going forward in the fair, (for such I may truly call it), with a perseverance and solemnity perfectly astonishing, when it is remembered that many of the individuals thus engaged had walked five and six leagues to share in the festival, and would have no resting-place but the earth whereon to sleep away their fatigue.
Great was the commerce of the water-venders, who traversed the crowd in every direction, with their classically formed earthen jars upon their shoulders, and their crystal goblets in their hands, who, for a couple of paras, poured forth a draught of sparkling water, which almost made one thirsty to look at it; and were as particular and punctilious in cleansing the glass after every customer, as though they were under the surveillance of his successor.