CHAPTER VI.
The Armenian Quarter of Broussa—Catholics and Schismatics—Armenian Church—Ugly Saints—Burial Place of the Bishops—Cloisters—Public School—Mode of Rearing the Silk Worms—Difference between the European and the Asiatic Systems—Colour and Quantity of the Produce—Appearance of the Mulberry Woods.
It is a singular fact, that although the Armenian quarter of Broussa contains upwards of a thousand houses which are all inhabited, the number of Catholic families does not amount to fifty; their place of worship is consequently small, and unworthy of description, being merely the chapel attached to a private house, while the Schismatic Church is proportionably handsome. The difference of faith between the two sects hangs upon a single point—the Schismatics deny the double nature of Christ, and are accordingly denounced as heretics by their more orthodox brethren; although they worship the same profusion of Saints—weep over the wounds of the same blessed martyrs—and build altars to the same Virgin under all her multitudinous designations.
The Armenian Church of Broussa is very elegant. The altar, which extends along its whole width, is of white marble, highly polished, and divided into three compartments, merely separated from the aisles by a simple railing, and is arranged with considerable taste; the sacerdotal plate being interspersed with vases of white lilies. The roof is supported by ten fine columns, and the floor covered, like that of a mosque, with rich carpets.
The Saints, whose portraits adorn the walls, (which are covered with Dutch tiles to the height of the latticed gallery,) have been most cruelly treated. I never beheld “the human face divine” so caricatured! A tale is somewhere told of a susceptible young Italian, who became enamoured of the Madonna that adorned his oratory; he might kneel before the whole saintly community of the Armenian Church of Broussa, without a quickening pulse—they would haunt the dreams of an artist like the nightmare! At the base of the pictures, crosses of white marble are incrusted in the masonry, curiously inlaid with coloured stones; and a portable altar, whose plate was enriched with fine turquoises, stood in the centre of the aisle, surmounted by a hideous St. Joseph, glaring out in his ugliness from beneath a drapery of silver muslin.
The church is surrounded on three sides by a noble covered cloister, lined with marble, partially carpeted, and furnished with an altar at each extremity. That on the right hand is the burial place of the Bishops, who lie beneath slabs of marble, elaborately carved; the left hand cloister, into which flows a noble fountain, serves as a sacristy; and the third, situated at the extreme end of the church, is decorated with a dingy Virgin, and a congregation of Saints in very tattered condition, to whom their votaries offer the tribute of lighted tapers, whose numerous remains were scattered about in their immediate vicinity. The women’s gallery is handsome and spacious, and is partially overlooked by the windows of the Bishop’s Palace; a fine building erected a year ago at an immense expence.
From the church we passed into the public school, where three hundred boys were conning their tasks under the superintendence of a single master. Though we were perfectly unexpected, we did not hear a whisper; every boy was in his place; and the venerable Dominie, with a beard as white as snow, and a head which would have been a study for a painter, rose as we entered, and courteously invited us to take our seats upon the comfortable sofa that occupied the upper end of the hall. The most beautiful cleanliness pervaded the whole establishment; and the boarded floor was rubbed as bright by the constant friction of six hundred little naked feet, as though it had been waxed.
The number of Turkish children now receiving their education in Broussa we could not ascertain, as they are divided among the different mosques; but the Greek Rector, who, in the absence of the Archbishop, interested himself in our comfort and amusement, told me that they had but fifty in their school, although the Greek population of Broussa is tolerably numerous. There is, however, a second description of free-school or college, attached to the Greek and Armenian Churches, wherein the pupils advance a step in their studies, and prepare themselves for the Priesthood, and for commercial pursuits.
Our next object of inquiry was the mode of feeding the silk-worms, which produce in the neighbourhood of Broussa an extraordinary quantity of silk. We accordingly visited the establishment of a Frenchman, who exports the raw material to Europe. I was struck by the colour of the silk, which was of a dingy white; and learnt that, despite all the efforts of the feeders, they seldom succeeded in producing any other tint, although the worms are themselves of different qualities and colours, varying from a dead white to a dark brown, and are fed with the leaves of both the red and the white mulberry indiscriminately. The most experienced feeders, however, give a decided preference to the wild white mulberry, of which most of the plantations about Broussa are formed. The silk, when first spun, is of a clear, silvery, brilliant tint; but submersion in the highly mineralized water of the neighbourhood robs it of its gleam, and reduces it to the dead, dingy colour I have mentioned; and I was assured that in some hundreds of pounds weight of silk, not more than two or three could be met with of yellow.
The Asiatic method of rearing the worm is totally different from that of Europe, and, according to the account given to me, much more profitable in its results, as well as simple in its process. The insect has a natural dislike to being handled, which is inevitable where it is fed day by day, and the withered leaves of the previous morning cleared away; the discomfort produced by the touch rendering the worm lethargic, and retarding its growth. The Asiatics never approach it with the hand: when it is hatched, the floor of the apartment is covered with layers of mulberry branches to about three or four inches in depth; and upon these the insects are laid, and suffered to feed undisturbed until their first sleep, when they are covered by a fresh supply of boughs similar to the first, through which they eat their way, and upon which they subsist until their next change. This operation is repeated four times, always at the period when the worm casts its skin; and on the first appearance of an inclination to spin, boughs of oak, of about four feet in length, stripped of their lower leaves, and planted, if I may so express it, in close ranks in the bed of mulberry branches, form a pigmy forest in which the insects establish themselves, and wherein they produce their silk. Every crevice of the apartment is carefully stopped to prevent the admission of air, and a fire of charcoal ashes is kept up constantly throughout the day and night.