The conditions of life under an autocracy naturally tend towards a sense of loyalty degenerating into adulation and servility on the part of public servants, as well as towards greed and corruption on the part of those whose high position places endless opportunities for dishonesty within their reach.
To estimate the character of the Turk, therefore, by the corruption at the Palace would not be fair to him. As well might we ourselves be judged by the wiles of the company promoter or the outside broker in the City of London. For despotism, however well intentioned, offers a similar field of operations for the dishonest; only the thousands who are annually robbed and ruined in the City of London, and the doings of the vultures who rob them, are not nearly so much in the public eye as the rogueries of the influential parasites in Turkey.
Strange it is that side by side with despotic authority and its narrowing effect on the development of character there should still exist an extraordinary appreciation of personal worth, intellectual and moral. You will never hear a Turk refer to a man as being rich, or as being “worth so much.” All the time I spent among them I never once knew a Turk single out such qualifications as worthy of remark. A man’s value lies in his character. Thus he is “instruit, fidèle, un homme qui a rendu de grands services et en rendra encore.” Neghib Bey, a dark-eyed Syrian, exclaims: “Speak not to me of politicians, nor of men of wealth. I am ready to make use of them, but they do not otherwise attract me. Rather let me meet those of high thought, of talent, of genius, men with ideals. To obtain such as friends and to resemble them would be my ambition.”
The greatest stress is laid upon the fidelity of those who have shown themselves to be true. When a deserving person received a reward a common remark would be: “Yes, he has received a favour of His Majesty, but he well deserves it.” Instead of being envious when he sees a friend distinguished above him, the Turk rejoices in the exaltation of that friend. It has come under my notice more than once that when somebody received a distinction from the Sultan his friends were pleased, and said even exultingly to him: “You will obtain yet higher recognition, because you deserve it (parce que vous l’avez mérité).” It is ever a recurring reference to what you have done and for which you should be richly rewarded.
Great is the gratitude of the Turk for sympathy shown to him. Partisanship he does not look for. The most that he hopes for is freedom from prejudice and fairness towards his race and his religion. Should the stranger go so far as to betray a partiality for his country, a liking free from the suspicion of its being quickened by an expectation of baksheesh, his satisfaction is as genuine as it is spontaneous. A Frenchman is astonished if the stranger does not admire everything French; the Englishman is apt to be disdainful if the foreigner does not immediately admit the superiority of everything English. The Turk is more modest and self-restrained, and he is thankful if his feelings are not hurt by the “Frank.”
His appreciation is apt to show itself in the smallest matters. One day, as I was about to go to the bazaar to buy a present, Ahmed Midhat offered to let one of his uniformed officials accompany me. This, said he, would ensure my being treated fairly by the Mohammedan traders. On going round that part of the bazaar known as “Bezestan,” mostly tenanted by Mohammedans, I stopped before a stall belonging to a magnificent type of Turk. He might have been an Assyrian king as far as appearance and dignity of manner went. He sat, with legs crossed, perched up on high, immediately behind his show-case of curios—old watches and silver and gold bric-à-brac of all sorts. I pointed to a riding whip made of rhinoceros horn, mounted in gold, and asked the price. The answer my companion got was, “Tell your friend that it is the work of the Frank” (European workmanship), implying thereby inferiority in quality. He had been informed by the official accompanying me that, as I was a friend of the Osmanli, he was to treat me as one of themselves. Thus he did not want me to purchase an inferior article, even though he would have made a profit by selling it to me.
The Turk holds in grateful memory the names of those foreigners who have rendered Turkey unselfish service, even though it be generations ago. Of Englishmen, Hobart Pasha is still remembered; of Germans, Moltke. More remarkable still, a Vienna doctor, Professor Riedler, who organized the School of Medicine at Constantinople as far back as the reign of Sultan Mahmoud, more than eighty years ago, is to this day held in honour by the Turks, and this in an age of kaleidoscopic changes and short memories!
The genuine spirit of hospitality of the Turks, the noble traditions of which have come down to us through the Arabs, together with their chivalry, has long been recognized, in spite of the fanaticism of Christian detractors. The lavish hospitality to be found in Spain is perhaps traceable to a common Arabian origin; for it is significantly absent as a distinctive trait among all the other branches of the so-called Latin races. Its most remarkable feature is the custom, when a visitor expresses admiration for an object belonging to his host, of immediately offering it to him. This still obtains in Spain, and is to be met with, as I have myself experienced, in distant Kurdistan.
But it is not among those who have gold and silver to dispose of that Turkish hospitality or other Turkish qualities can be tested. What really constitutes the most interesting feature of Turkish character is that these virtues are to be seen practised among the humblest classes. Thus, whereas Emerson’s renowned treatise on “English Traits” deals almost exclusively with types of character observed among the well-born, no study of Turkish character could be complete, or, in fact, of any value, which did not deal with the characteristics which are to be found throughout the broad strata of the Mussulman population. Writers of Emerson’s spirit deal with the apex of a pyramid; he who deals with the Turks must treat of its broad base—the great mass of the Turkish population, which alone adequately reflects the many excellent qualities of the Mohammedan world.
There is ample evidence that the Turks in their prime, notably when they became the conquerors of Constantinople and overthrew the corrupt Byzantine Empire, felt contempt for the Christians they came across. Thus, when the arrival of the Ambassador of the Holy Roman Empire was signalled at the Sublime Porte, the answer came, “Let the giaour be admitted”; and when, after his audience, the illustrious person was dismissed by the Grand Vizier, it might even happen that he would be pelted with eggs by the crowd. But there was more of good-natured contempt than of animosity in this treatment. Of intolerance to the Christian faith there was none at this period. Not only the Christian but the Jewish population lived free and unmolested in Constantinople.