The Turk and his lost provinces

by William Eleroy Curtis

The water-front of Constantinople, instead of being devoted to docks, warehouses and other facilities for shipping and commerce, is occupied by the palaces of the Sultan and the pashas. There is one short quay reserved for the landing and embarkation of goods, not larger than a single pier in New York harbor, or the space between two of the bridges over the Chicago River, and every article of merchandise that is brought into Constantinople or is shipped out of the city, including the luggage of passengers, must be handled in that narrow space. A little narrow-gauge manpower railway track runs along the edge of the water and terminates at the custom-house, through which all goods must pass. There are no bonded warehouses, and imported merchandise must be taken out at once upon arrival and the duty paid.

Upon the graves of the dead in the Turkish cemeteries little vessels of water are placed for the benefit of the birds, and some of the marble tombs have basins chiseled out for the same purpose, the superstition being that birds carry messages about the living to the dead, and, like everybody else in Turkey, are suspected of being spiteful unless something is done to win their favor.

Upon entering a Mohammedan mosque the hat is kept on, but the shoes must be taken off, for “the spot on which thou standest is holy ground.” Hence the Turks have their boots made with double bottoms. A sort of slip like the new-fashioned rubber sandals fits over the toe as far as the instep and the sole of the shoe and is held on by a band passing around the heel. A little brass point projects at the heel, which is convenient in kicking them off.

The Turks use beads for conversational purposes as well as to count their prayers. The ordinary ritual of the Mohammedan faith requires thirty-six prayers and sixteen quotations from the Koran, and the full ritual embraces ninety-nine prayers. If a mistake is made it is necessary for the worshiper to begin at the beginning and go over the whole list again. Hence he is very careful to check off each prayer that he utters and each quotation that he repeats. Most of the prayers are very short, however, and consist of the same meaning expressed in different phrases: “Allah is great. I testify that there is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.”

At several points in Constantinople saddle-horses as well as carriages are kept for hire, and they are much more convenient for certain parts of the city, where the streets are narrow and the grades are steep. The owner or the man in charge sends a boy along to bring the horse back.

The number of people who speak English is quite remarkable, but all orientals are great linguists. They seem to have a faculty for picking up languages that is not enjoyed by Anglo-Saxons.

Turkish rugs are sold by the bale as they enter the custom-house, and the purchaser has no opportunity to examine them. He must take them as they come—good, bad and indifferent, old and new, coarse and fine, perfect and ragged. The week’s arrivals are usually put up at auction on Monday morning. The greatest number of rugs comes from the interior of Asia and is brought down to the ports of the Mediterranean and Black Sea by caravans of camels and shipped to Smyrna and Constantinople, which are the great markets. They are packed so many to the bale by sizes, and if the purchaser knows the name of the seller and the place from which they have been shipped, it gives him a slight basis upon which he can estimate their value; but it is always more or less of a lottery and hence the rugs bring much less than their actual worth. The sellers might make a great deal more money if they were not bound by this ancient custom.

The dogs and the firemen of Constantinople are famous, and always excite a great deal of interest among tourists. There are two popular errors regarding the dogs—that they are ferocious and dangerous, and that they are the city scavengers and have a contract for cleaning the streets, which last is equally false. The dogs are wretched, harmless, cowardly curs, which never bite unless abused or driven into a corner, and then only in self-defense. They bark continually, however, particularly in the night, and newcomers will be disturbed in their rest for two or three nights until they become accustomed to them. In this respect, as in several others, they are great nuisances.

So far as street cleaning is concerned they undoubtedly contribute more filth and unhealthiness because their work as scavengers is limited to rooting and scratching around for morsels of food in the offal and other débris, and thus they keep it stirred up when it would be less offensive if it were let alone. In that offal the dogs find their subsistence, and they number tens of thousands. Thus their existence is precarious. Each street has its own band, which is very jealous of intruders, and when you hear a tumultuous barking you may be sure that some stranger has strayed into a section where he does not belong and is being evicted. The dogs are ownerless. There may be a few high-bred animals kept in the houses by private owners, but the great mass of them have no home but the street and no owners but the public. They are allowed to live for superstitious reasons. The Moslem inhabitants look upon them as a religious institution, as the protégés of the prophet, and while they do not give them any care they would not injure them under any circumstances for fear of bringing misfortune upon themselves. A Mohammedan hackman or cartman would sooner drive around the block than run over a dog. He will get down from his box and wake up a cur that lies sleeping in the middle of the street rather than drive over it, but usually flicks his whip gently to remind it that it is in the way. The animal, being awakened, yawns and stretches itself in an indifferent manner and then slowly moves towards the sidewalk. The children are taught to be merciful to them and to believe that they are under the special protection of the prophet.

The butchers throw their scraps into the street every morning at a certain hour, and the dogs that belong in that locality are always on hand to snatch their share of the morsels. Bakers cut up stale loaves and toss them out in a similar way. Hotel and boarding-house keepers are equally thoughtful in putting out their garbage cans, but nobody ever offers the dogs shelter or attempts to cure them of the mange, with which the majority are afflicted. Many of them are repulsive sights. They live entirely upon the streets, each dog having some shelter of its own during the storms of winter, where it leaves its litters of puppies until they are old enough to look out for themselves. When they die their bodies are left lying in the road or are kicked out of the way by pedestrians. They are mostly yellow, coarse-haired, wolfish-looking beasts, with long tails and pointed ears. The guides say that the number is diminishing because the waste places in which they formerly basked and bred are being rapidly built over; but other authorities claim that this is a mistake and that the number is increasing. A stranger would assume that the latter is the case, because they seem so numerous and occupy so large a part of the narrow sidewalks and streets. It is not safe to kick them out of the way because you would be sure to disturb a colony of fleas which might take refuge upon your own person, even if the cur did not turn and snap at you. Old residents will tell you that it is not good policy to kick a dog, because some Moslem might see the act and resent it. The natives are so accustomed to their presence in the streets and to their nocturnal barking and howling that they take them as a matter of course, like the other nuisances of the city.