There can be no doubt that at the present time,[9] the pestilence has spread farther and faster than it might otherwise have done from the extreme scarcity, indeed, I may almost say, want of water in the Capital. The poorer classes, whose means render them unable to purchase this necessary of life at an exorbitant price from the individuals who established an extemporaneous trade, by freighting their caïques with water at the European villages on the Channel, and vending it in the city, being necessitated to make use of foul and stagnant pools for the purpose of preparing their food; and to dispense almost entirely with a beverage generally taken to excess by both sexes.
As the wells and tanks of the nearest hamlets failed, the water-sellers extended their voyages even to Therapia; and their demands became comparatively extravagant. Men watched the clouds in vain—the sun set in a blaze of gold and purple; and morning broke in blushes from behind the Asian mountains—the noon-day sky was blue and bright—not a vapour passed across its beauty—and no rain fell. Women crowded about the fountains in the vain hope that each moment the exhausted spring might well out afresh—Children wept, and asked vainly for their accustomed draught; the marble basins of the city remained empty, and the bright sunbeams played upon the smooth surface of the glittering stone.
On the Asian shore, the waters had not yet failed; and the famous fountain of Scutari, fed by a mighty volume descending from the dusky mountain of Bulgurlhu, still poured forth its flashing stream; but, from some superstition, whose nature I was unable to ascertain, the authorities did not permit the transfer of water from the Asiatic to the European shore; and this noble fountain, which would have supplied all the wants of the city, was suffered to flow on, and waste its stream in the channel.
I shall not easily forget the constant succession of busy human beings, who, from day-dawn to dusk, thronged the mouth of a well not a hundred paces from our residence at Yenikeuÿ. Every cistern in the lower quarter of the village had become exhausted; but this solitary well, fed from a mountain source, still held out; and it was only by the necessity of lengthening the ropes to which the buckets were affixed, and the consequent increase of labour required to raise them, that any diminution of the water could be perceived.
Children of ten or twelve years of age could no longer, as heretofore, accomplish this portion of the household toil: nor would they, even had their strength sufficed to the effort, have been able to make it: for as the demand for water increased on all sides, the battle was truly to the strong at the village well. Men who met as friends, and greeted each other kindly as they approached it, strove and struggled for precedence, until they at length parted in wrath, and frequently with blows; while the owners of the neighbouring cottages, to whose exclusive use this spring had hitherto been considered sacred, murmured in vain at the intrusion on their privileges, and were fain to strive and struggle like the strangers.
The reason adduced by the Greeks for the abundance of water in this well, was the sanctity conferred on it by the priesthood at the close of the previous vintage; when they had made a solemn procession to its mouth, and flung in a handful of small silver coins, contributed for the purpose by the poorer inhabitants of the village, a small vase of holy water, and a pinch of consecrated salt!
While the drought was at its height, a community of Turning Dervishes made a pilgrimage to the Sweet Waters; where the Barbyses, always a very inconsiderable stream, had shrunk to half its accustomed volume; and there, having previously prostrated themselves in prayer, they performed their evolutions round the principal cistern of the valley; and at a certain point of the ceremony flung into the air small vessels of red clay, fresh from the potter’s hands, while, as they fell back, they besought that every empty tank might overflow, and every goblet be filled.
The spectacle was a very striking one; and it was followed by the observance of another yet more touching. At dusk the village children, walking two and two, and each carrying a bunch of wild flowers, drew near the cistern in their turn; and sang, to one of the thrilling melodies of the country, a hymn of supplication; while at the conclusion of each stanza, they scattered a portion of the blossoms over the shattered fragments of the vases flung into the basin by the Dervishes.
Nothing could be more affecting! Man, shrinking under a consciousness of his unworthiness, put his prayer into the mouth of innocent infancy; as though he trusted to the supplication uttered by pure lips and guileless hearts, when he dared not hope for mercy through his own agency. Every evening during the drought, that “linked chain” of childhood repaired to the same spot, and raised the same song of entreaty to an all-powerful Creator; and the echoes of the Valley flung back the infant voices of the choir as they swelled upon the wind of evening with a pathos which affected me to tears. It was only on the day preceding that of our departure from Constantinople that the prayer was answered; and, as the light vapoury rain fell upon the parched and yawning earth, my thought instantly reverted to the infant choristers of the Sweet Waters; whose artless hymn may be freely translated as follows:—
HYMN OF THE TURKISH CHILDREN.