The Greeks, who are next in numbers, are also business men and now have the largest share of the mercantile trade in their own quarter of the city. Although Turkey was recently at war with Greece and the rivalry between the two countries is bitter, there is no hatred or prejudice against them. The same is true of the Jews. Both races live at peace with their Turkish neighbors, and are allowed to worship God in their own way without interference, and are never compelled to endure such persecutions as have been suffered by the Armenians for centuries. The explanation of this is that Greeks and Jews never meddle in politics, while the Armenians are continually doing so. Furthermore, the province of Armenia has been in a state of discontent for many years, and its inhabitants are constantly exciting revolutions against their oppressors—usually with very bad judgment and no possible prospect of success. Palestine is just as much a Turkish province as Armenia, but its inhabitants submit to the despotism under which they are born, while the Armenians will not.
Half the Greeks and Armenians in Turkey have lost their own languages because they have been forbidden to speak them. Without practice they have forgotten their native tongues. The Jews have been more kindly treated. The Armenians are compelled to worship in secret. Greek churches can be found in every part of the Ottoman Empire as public as the Mohammedan mosques, and no Jewish synagogue is ever interfered with by Moslem mobs. It is the Armenians that they attack exclusively.
The ferry-boats which run to all parts of the Bosphorus are very much like those on the Thames in London and on the Seine in Paris. They have time-tables, which are posted in convenient places and published in the newspapers, but are seldom observed; no one knows why, except that it is the nature of the Turk. A boat which is advertised to start at nine o’clock may go ten minutes before or twenty minutes after. The guidebooks warn people not to rely upon the published announcements. The boats to Brussa, a neighboring town much frequented by tourists, the guidebook says, leave daily, “some time between 7 a.m. and 8:30 p.m., according to circumstances.” In other words, their movements depend upon the cargo, the number of passengers and the whim of the captain.
The railway management is very much the same. While I was in Constantinople, in the spring of 1902, a small section of the track between that city and Budapest was washed away. The trains going west returned to Constantinople, but the trains coming east from Budapest and Vienna were not notified of the obstruction and were allowed to start as usual and accumulated at the washout, where there were no accommodations for the passengers, no place for them to eat or sleep. When the cars were finally sent back to Adrianople, the nearest town, the passengers were compelled to pay full fare to that point. The mails for several days were allowed to accumulate at the washout and were held there for nearly three weeks, when they might have been taken back a few miles to Adrianople and sent around by another route, via Bucharest, but no one seemed to have thought of it, although such accidents and interruptions of traffic occur every year. Passengers by the Orient express, which is the most expensive train in the world, were allowed to leave Constantinople and were carried to the washout. Tickets were sold to London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna and other distant points and full sleeping-car fare was collected and all tickets are limited to one day—the date stamped upon them. The railway company would not extend them or refund the money or give rebates, and even compelled the passengers who were carried to the blockade to pay, not only the regular fare, but what is termed a “speed supplement” charged upon express trains, and also the full sleeping-car rates. Those who attempted to secure a rebate or the return of their money were calmly informed that it was not the practice of the railway company to redeem its tickets, and persons who started for London and other places by the first train after the break was repaired were compelled to buy new tickets and pay again the regular sleeping-car charge and the “speed supplement.”
A gentleman who purchased a ticket from Vienna to Constantinople was compelled to turn back at Sofia, about half way on his journey, and asked the railway officials to redeem the unused portion. They refused to do so on the ground that he had given no reason why it should be done. He replied at once that he had been met by a telegram stating illness in his family which required him to postpone his journey and return to Vienna, and asked that the money he had paid for the ticket be refunded or the time limit be extended, so that he could use it at some future date. The railway officials calmly replied that they did not consider the reason given sufficient.
VI
SCENES IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Experienced travelers have often asserted that the representatives of a larger number of races and more picturesque costumes can be seen upon the bridges of Constantinople than anywhere else in the world, and those who have watched the throngs that are continually passing to and fro on foot, on horseback, on donkeys, in carriages and in sedan chairs are inclined to believe the assertion. There are two bridges across the Golden Horn, about one mile apart. Both are pontoons, strips of planks laid upon iron floats or caissons, and were intended to be temporary. The erection of a permanent bridge across the Golden Horn between Stamboul, the principal and most populous Mohammedan quarter, and Galata, where the foreigners live, has been frequently proposed and plans have been repeatedly submitted, but no engineer or bridge company will undertake the job without a large payment in advance, and there is never any money in the Sultan’s treasury. Several companies have been organized to construct bridges, but have never been able to obtain permission, and a multitude of promoters have sought concessions for that purpose from time to time, but there is no sign of a permanent bridge. The old floats still remain and answer every purpose, not only being a means of communication for a million people, but landing places for ferry boats, pleasure steamers, private yachts and other small craft upon the Bosphorus. The caissons are immense rectangular casks of iron sixty by thirty by twenty feet in size. They are chained together, with passages between so as to give free flow to the water. About the middle of the channel there is an arrangement by which two of the floats can be detached and brought around out of the way so as to allow the passage of vessels, but this always was a very slow process and interrupted traffic for half an hour or more. Hence a regular time is appointed for the passage of vessels, and from four to six o’clock every morning the gateway is opened, and those who do not avail themselves of that opportunity have to wait twenty-four hours. Upon the caissons a frame of timbers sixty feet wide has been laid and planked over. Sidewalks for foot passengers are reserved, but pedestrians take the roadway quite as often, and from six o’clock in the morning until nearly midnight the bridge is thronged by two endless streams of humanity passing both ways. At either entrance are groups of toll collectors wearing long white tunics to distinguish them from the rest of the public, and they hold out their hands to receive the coppers from people who walk and people who ride. Everybody has to pay except the high officials of the government—usually great, fat pashas, who are identified by the livery of their coachmen. The toll is about one cent for foot passengers, two cents for mounted persons and ten cents for carriages.
It would take many pages to describe the different classes of people that may be seen upon this wonderful bridge, and the catalogue would contain representatives of every race and religion under the sun. Their costumes afford a very interesting study. Those who are familiar with the oriental races can identify them readily and tell you where every man comes from. Many of the women are veiled, with long mantles and black shawls over their heads. Some of them wear a sort of mackintosh belted in, altogether unlovely and ungraceful, which is the intention. The idea of wearing a veil is to make a woman as hideous as possible, and the Turk succeeds in that purpose, if in no other. The ladies who are not veiled are either Greeks, Armenians, Jewesses or other foreigners. All the women of Constantinople, except Turkish women, wear European garments and ordinary hats. Turkish women of position always ride attended by a eunuch or a mounted escort, because it is not proper for them to appear alone in a public place, even if they are veiled, and the etiquette of the country forbids men to accost veiled women. If such a thing should be noticed there would be a mob in an instant, for every Moslem in sight would consider it an insult to his mother, his wife and his sister—in fact to all their sex. Few men dare assist a veiled woman even if she should stumble, or even pick up a package if she should drop one, for fear his courtesy should be misconstrued. The first caution offered to strangers in Constantinople concerns this matter of national etiquette, and it is often wisely bestowed. To take no notice whatever of veiled women is the safest thing a stranger in Constantinople can do. Women who do not wear veils are not included in the category, for they are not Mohammedans and may be treated with ordinary courtesy. Some of the Armenian women are beautiful and are richly dressed. The Greek women have dark eyes, thin lips, and dress with Parisian taste. In certain parts of Constantinople very few veiled women are to be seen. On the Grand Rue de Pera, the principal shopping-place of the European quarter, where most of the tradesmen are French and German, they seldom appear.
Each side of the bridge is lined with peddlers, selling all sorts of things and crying their wares in stentorian tones, and beggars who crouch under the railing, holding out their hands in a piteous manner and appealing for baksheesh. The priests of the Mohammedan Church wear white wrappings around their fezzes as a badge of their profession. Persians wear black fezzes, often made of lamb’s wool or astrakhan, while the other races have different head-dresses. The Greeks wear stiffly starched white petticoats of cotton about the length of the skirts of a ballet-dancer, with white leggings, embroidered vests and jackets with long, flowing sleeves. The dervishes wear long black caftans or cloaks, which reach to their heels like the frock of a Catholic priest. You see all sorts of priests. They seem to number next to the soldiers, who constitute almost one-half of the passengers to be seen upon the bridge.
Many of the carriages and the horses are fine, although not equal to those to be seen in St. Petersburg. The mounted officers dash through the crowd in the most reckless manner, without regard to the lame or the lazy, and the donkey drivers do not seem to care whether they run over people or not, although they are extremely careful not to injure the mangy mongrels that lie around on the bridge, as they do everywhere else. Upon the bridge can be bought from peddlers almost anything a human being can want, because they are constantly passing back and forth, offering their wares. The number of peddlers in Constantinople is estimated at 75,000.