The Rulers of the Mediterranean

by Richard Harding Davis

STREET DOGS OF CONSTANTINOPLE

But pashas and beys and other high dignitaries are arriving every moment in full regalia, for this is like a drawing-room at Buckingham Palace, or a levee at St. James's, and every one must leave all other matters to attend it. Twenty men with twenty carts rush out suddenly from the curtain of Zouaves and sailors, and scatter soft gravel on the fifty yards of roadway over which the Sultan intends to drive. They remind you of the men in the circus who spread sawdust over the ring after the horses' hoofs have torn it. And then, high above the heads of the nine thousand soldiers and the few thousand more dignitaries, diplomats, and spectators, a priest in a green turban calls aloud from the top of the minaret. It is a very beautiful cry or call, in a strong, sweet tenor voice, inexpressibly weird and sad and impressive. It is answered by a bugle call given slowly and clearly like a man speaking, and at a certain note the entire nine thousand soldiers salute. It is done with a precision and shock so admirable that you would think, except for the volume of the noise, that but one man had moved his piece. The voice of the priest rises again, and is answered by triumphant strains of brass, and the gates of the palace open, and a glittering procession of officers and princes and pashas moves down the broad street, encircling a carriage drawn by two horses and driven by servants in gold. At the sight of this the soldiers cry "Long live the Sultan" three times. It is like the roar of a salute of cannon, and has all the feeling of a cheer. The Sultan sits in the back of the open carriage, a slight, tired-looking man, with a pale face and black beard. He is dressed in a fur overcoat and fez. As he passes, the men of his army—and they are men—salute him, and the veiled women stand on tiptoe behind them and stretch out their petitions, and the pashas and chamberlains and cabinet officers bend their bodies and touch the hand to the heart, lip, and forehead, and drop it again to the knee. The pilgrims to Mecca fall prostrate on their faces, and the Sultan bows his head and touches his hand to his fez. Opposite him sits Osman Pasha, the hero of the last war, and one of the greatest generals of the world, his shoulders squared, his heart covered with stars, and his keen, observant eyes wandering from the pale face of his sovereign to the browned, hardy-looking countenances of his men.

The Sultan remains a half-hour in the mosque, and on his return drives himself back to the palace in an open landau. This was the first time I had seen the Turkish soldier in bulk, and he impressed me more than did any other soldier I had seen along the shores of the Mediterranean. I had seen the British troops repulse an imaginary attack upon the rock of Gibraltar, and half of the Army of Occupation in Egypt dislodge an imaginary enemy from the sand hills around Cairo, and I had seen French and Italian and Greek soldiers in lesser proportion and in lesser activity. But to me none of these had the build or the bearing or the ready if rough look of these Turks. The French Zouaves of Algiers came next to them to my mind, and it may be that the similarity of the uniform would explain that; but as I heard the Sultan's troops that morning marching up the hills to their outlandish music, and looked into eyes that had never been shaded from the sun, and at the spring and swing of legs that had never worn civilized trousers, I recalled several notable battles of past history, and the more recent lines of Mr. Rudyard Kipling where he pays his compliments to the Russian on the frontier:

"I'm sorry for Mr. Bluebeard, I'd be sorry to cause him pain; But a hell of a spree There is sure to be When he comes back again."

GUARD OF CAVALRY PRECEDING THE SULTAN TO THE MOSQUE

The Oriental is one of those people who do things by halves. He has a fine army, but the bulk of his navy has not left the Golden Horn for many years, and it is doubtful if it could leave it; his palace walls are of mosaic and wonderfully painted tiles, and the roofs of rusty tin; his sons are given the questionable but expensive education of Paris, and his daughters are not allowed to walk abroad unless guarded by servants, and with the knowledge that every policeman spies upon them, knowing that, could he detect them in an indiscretion, he would be rewarded and gain promotion. Consequently it does not surprise you when you find the Sultan's treasures heaped together under dirty glass cases, and treated with the indifference a child pays to its last year's toys.

The crown-jewels and regalia kept at the Tower, itself under iron bars and guarded by Beefeaters, are not half as impressive as are the jewels of the Sultan, which lie covered with dust under a glass show-case, and guarded by a few gloomy-looking effendis in frock-coats. All the presents from other monarchs and all the gifts of lesser notables who have sought some Sultan's favor, all the arms and trophies of generations of wars, are piled together in this treasury with less care than one would give to a rack of pipes. It is a very remarkable exhibition, and it is magnificent in its Oriental disregard for wealth through long association with it. Bronze busts of emperors, jewelled swords, imperial orders, music-boxes, gun-cases, weapons of gold instead of steel, precious stones, and silver dressing-cases are all heaped together on dusty shelves, without order and classification and without care. You can see here handfuls of uncut precious stones on china plates, or dozens of gold and silver pistols thrown in a corner like kindling-wood. And the most remarkable exhibition of all is the magnificent robes of those Sultans who are dead, with the jewels and jewelled swords and belts and insignia worn by them, placed on dummies in a glass case, as though they were a row of stuffed birds or specimens of rock. In the turbans of one of these figures there are pearls as large as a woman's thumb, and emeralds and rubies as large as eggs, and ropes of diamonds. This sounds like a story from the Arabian Nights; but then these are the heroes of the Arabian Nights—the Sultans who owned the whole northern coast of Africa and Asia, and who spent on display and ornament what we put into education and railroads.