ALBANIANS, POMAKS, TARTARS, AND BULGARIANS
Having briefly narrated the history of the rise and decline of the
Ottoman Empire, it may be interesting to have a peep at the various
races and nationalities which at present constitute it.
Beginning with Turkey in Europe, we have the Albanians, who occupy the
mountainous country north of Greece, and also Albania and Epirus on the
eastern shore of the Adriatic. They are a brave, haughty,
liberty-loving, but turbulent people, whom some maintain to be the
descendants of the ancient Pelasgi, who originally occupied Greece. They
boast of having given Alexander the Great to the world. The Albanians
were never properly conquered by the Turks, and, excepting those
inhabiting the lowlands, they do very much what they please, and even at
this moment they are defying the Turkish troops sent to disarm them, and
bring them under subjection. Some are Mahomedans, others are Roman
Catholics, and others belong to the Greek Church. They have a language
of their own, but until quite recently they had no alphabet for it, and
it was only within the last forty years that a Scotsman, the agent of
the British and Foreign Bible Society, endowed them with one, and
printed the Scriptures in their tongue. It is this alphabet that the
Turks are now trying to suppress by substituting the Arabic, and the
Albanians are fighting to maintain. The national dress of the Albanians
is a white kilted petticoat coming down to their knees, with a scarlet
or purple embroidered vest, and a corresponding sleeveless jacket worn
over a white shirt with wide sleeves. The waist is girded with a broad
silken band folded many times round the body. Embroidered leggings,
corresponding in colour with the jacket, protect the legs, and a red
cap, called a _fez_, with a silken blue tassel, covers the head.
So attached are they to their national costume that an attempt made by
Sultan Mahmoud to forbid it led to an insurrection in the same way that
the edict in 1747 to do away with the kilts and tartans in the Scottish
Highlands created the troubles which followed the rebellion. Naturally,
the peasants cannot afford costly material, and their dress consists of
a closely-woven, home-spun tweed called _shayiak_, which is very warm
and enduring. They wear a skull-cap of the same material, _shayiak_
knickers and leggings, and sandals instead of shoes. Over this girdle
they wear a broad cartridge-belt, which bristles with old-fashioned
pistols and formidable daggers.
The Albanians are a nation of clans, implacable in their hatred and
constant in their friendships. Their covenant of friendship is cemented
by tasting a drop of each other's blood, and from that moment they
consider themselves blood kinsmen, and sworn to befriend, defend, or
avenge each other.
Like the Israelites of old, the blood avenger pursues the murderer of
his friend or clansman until he finds him, and if he should fail to do
so during his lifetime, his children are bound to act on his behalf. You
can thus understand that in accordance with this law of "vendetta," as
they call it, whole families become sometimes exterminated.
Another peculiar method of establishing friendships is by securing the
assent of an influential person to stand as godfather to children at
baptism. It involves no spiritual obligations, as may be seen from the
fact that these godfathers are frequently Mussulmans, but is recognized
as a social rite whereby the two families become relations. Albania
being a poor country, a large number of its Moslem population join the
Turkish army as soldiers or officers, this vocation being congenial with
their tastes. Others go to Constantinople or other large towns, and
engage in an occupation very different from that of warriors--namely,
that of manufacturing and selling cakes, called _simits_, and an
Albanian speciality of confection called _halva_. It resembles nougat,
and is prepared with walnuts or sesame seeds. These commodities are
temptingly arranged on large circular trays, which they poise very
adroitly on their heads by means of a small cushion resembling a quoit.
You will see, under the heading of "Simitji," a picture of this kind of
tray, and the tripod upon which it is rested. The seller in the picture
is not, however, an Albanian, but a Turk from Anatolia.
These _halvagis_, as they are called, are great favourites of boys and
girls, and of grown-up persons too, and are to be met with at every
gathering of people. Albanians also go out as vegetable-gardeners and
fruit-sellers, and deal in the remarkably beautiful apple which grows so
splendidly in their native country.
The Turks call the Albanians _Arnaouts_, and many a village occupied by
them has in consequence been named Arnaoutkioy, the village of the
Albanian.
Another occupation in which they engage is that of shepherds, and among
some of this craft I may mention those of the Sultan's flock of sheep on
Mount Olympus, to which I have already alluded. They keep huge fierce
dogs, which are a terror not only to wolves and bears, but also to human
beings whom they may encounter. So daring and powerful are shepherd-dogs
of this description that they have been known to tear riders down from
the saddle. The writer might once have undergone this fate were it not
for the powerful dog-whip which he carried on the occasion of an attack,
and to the fact that his horse finally bolted with him until he was some
miles from the field of danger.
To shoot one of these dogs is at the peril of your life, for the
Albanian law of vendetta seems to extend to avenging their dogs. There
is a strong suspicion that an Englishman, who made the ascent of Olympus
some twenty years ago, was murdered by these shepherds for shooting one
of these creatures in self-defence. On another occasion the captain of
one of our ironclads, while shooting in that neighbourhood, had occasion
to kill a dog which attacked him, whereupon he was himself felled to the
ground by the axe of the shepherd.
Turkish shepherd-dogs, though savage and powerful, have none of the
finer instincts of our collies; they will not bring round the sheep in
accordance with the shepherd's directions; they are only fighters, and
often turn and rend their masters.
It is interesting to watch, as I have done, the yearly migrations of the
Albanian shepherds to and from Olympus. My home lay at the foot of the
mountain, and one summer's night, when the moon was full, I was waked by
the sound of sonorous voices, and the barking of dogs, and bleating of
rams. Gradually the sounds became louder, and I could hear the tinkling
of bells and finally the tramp of thousands of little feet pattering
past my door. To the bleating of the rams was added the shriller cry of
the ewes and the feebler notes of the lambs, and, rushing to the window,
I could see the whole procession--sheep and shepherd--winding its way
upwards. It was a weird sight, those shepherds in their heavy capotes of
sheepskin, and their shadows reflected on the mountain, and gave one the
impression of so many spectres gliding in the moonlight. The procession
passed along, the bleating, the tinkling, the barking, the shouting
became fainter, and finally the mountain returned to its silence
primeval, and when I awoke in the morning I could not help wondering if
it had not all been a dream.
[Illustration: A SIMITDJI.]
Bordering on Albania and Epirus, and east of them, you will find a
district marked on the map as Macedonia. It is inhabited principally by
Tartars, Bulgarians, and Greeks, with a large sprinkling of Jews in its
seaport towns, specially in Salonica, the Thessalonica of Scripture. The
Bulgarians belong to the Slav family, and are mostly Christians. Some,
however, have turned Moslems, and are generally known under the name of
Pomaks. The Pomaks have intermarried and fused with Tartars, who
migrated to Macedonia, as well as to other parts of Turkey, in large
numbers when their native lands--the Crimea, Bessarabia, Roumania, and
Bulgaria--passed under the sovereignty of Christian rulers. They have
high cheekbones, broad flat faces, globular noses, and sunken eyes. They
are fanatical, ignorant, and naturally embittered against Christians,
and many, as the authors of the so-called Bulgarian atrocities, have
fled to escape the punishment they deserved.
During the time of the Russo-Turkish War in 1879, I remember witnessing
the wholesale flight of thousands of them to Constantinople. Many
arrived in ox-drawn waggons laden with their families, their goods and
chattels, and driving before them their cattle, which they disposed of
for a mere song in the market. Others were conveyed in railway-trucks,
packed close like sheep in a pen, and seemed as bewildered. A peculiar
sight was a truck-load of children packed among sacks and bedding, from
which they emerged on the arrival of the train, like ants issuing from
an ant-hill. The city swarmed with these immigrants, the courts of the
mosques were converted into refuge houses, and the utmost misery
prevailed until Government had quartered them in different villages in
Asiatic Turkey. There they still may be found, and their location
recognized by their wretched wooden shanties and their squalor. But in
many cases change of environment has not occasioned change of
disposition, and I am assured that during the time of the Armenian
massacres (1896) Pomaks quartered in Brusa sharpened their knives and
armed themselves to a man to kill and plunder the Christians, and they
were only prevented from carrying out this nefarious deed by the armed
interposition of the humane Turkish Governor.
In dress Pomaks differ but little from the ordinary Turk; in habits they
are perhaps more industrious, and it may be put down to their credit
that they introduced into Constantinople and elsewhere a new and light
form of carriage which is now extensively used for picnics and
excursions into the country.
In addition to the half-caste Tartars of Macedonia there are the pure
Tartars who for several centuries past have inhabited the highlands of
Asia Minor, and who are credited with great trustworthiness. This
quality, in addition to their capacity for long and rapid riding, has
obtained for them the practical monopoly of the postal service in the
interior of Turkey, and the word _tartar_ has come to be synonymous with
postillion, or mounted postman. There are relays of horses at stated
intervals, but the same rider travels over the whole distance. His
saddle is capacious, with broad stirrups in the form of an open shoe.
The saddle has, moreover, a hump on which the rider can support his
arms, and an arrangement for fixing a short rod, with a crescent-shaped
top or cushion, on which the rider rests his chin and sleeps during
night travelling. Letters and parcels are placed in saddle-bags, which
are thrown astride the saddle in the same way as paniers are with us.
They are made of leather, of carpet, or camel's-hair, and the opening is
closed through a series of loops running into each other. There is
usually great excitement at the arrival of the Tartar, and the letters,
where no post office exists, are strewn on the floor of a room of the
_conak_, or Governor's house, and applicants asked to pick out any
addressed to them.
Money is also conveyed from province to province by these Tartars, when,
if the amount is large, several horses are strung together, and are
escorted by mounted police. The currency in the interior being silver
coins of the size of our five-shilling pieces, the jolting and friction
occasioned by the drive are likely to tear ordinary bags, so the latter
are enclosed in a special rope-bag, which is neatly and compactly
knitted over them. Gold coin is put up in leather, which is puckered up
to form a bag, and tied and sealed on the top.
The Christian Bulgarians of Macedonia, having been brought up more or
less under servitude, are of a much meeker character than the Pomaks,
but, judging from the strides which have been made by the other
Bulgarian races in Turkey since their independence from Turkish rule, we
may infer that their Macedonian brethren are also capable of great
development. On the whole they are poor, and live in thatched hovels,
plastered both within and without with a mixture of clay, cow-dung, and
straw. The interior is divided into three rooms--a public room, a family
bedroom, and one for keeping provisions. The floor is of clay, beaten
hard, and is covered with coarse rugs and cushions large enough to serve
as beds. A small oil-lamp burns in a corner under the _icon_, or
picture, of some grim patron saint. Outside the house is an oven,
resembling an ant-hill, and accommodation for hens, pigs, and cattle,
and the whole is enclosed with a wall and guarded by dogs.
The Bulgarians are frugal in their habits, and live principally on beans
seasoned with vinegar and red pepper, and they have a great partiality
for garlic. Their principal occupation is agriculture and sheep-farming.
The men's dress somewhat resembles the Albanian, but their vests and
jackets are generally made from sheepskins, with the wool turned
inwards, and they wear on their heads the _calpak_, or low cap, made
from black lamb-skins, with the wool turned outwards. This _calpak_ is
as much the national characteristic of the Bulgarian as the fez is of
the Turk. The women's dress is pleasing--green and red being very
conspicuous--and when in gala dress their persons are weighted down with
ponderous silver ornaments worn on the head, round the neck, waist, and
wrists.
Their national music is the bagpipe, but the music is very primitive,
and does not soar to the heights of the pibrochs of Scotland, and their
dance is heavy and uncouth, and apparently modelled from the bear.
Indeed, in one of these dances the principal dancer puts on a real
bearskin, and, led about by a young girl, performs all sorts of antics,
much to the enjoyment of the spectators, who at the close of the
performance all join in hooting and pursuing the dancer.
Formerly large bands of Bulgarian dancers used to come to Constantinople
during the Easter festivities, and march through the streets with
inflated bagpipes, or resort to the field of sports. Their bear-dance
ended, they would fling their caps heavily to the ground, then pick them
up, and walk round with them to the crowd for the collection of coppers.
But the Bulgar is no longer popular, either with the Turk or the Greek,
and they now seldom grace the festivals in the capital with their
presence and their antics.
The Greek population of Macedonia is not large, but is inimical to the
Bulgarian, both from feeling of racial antipathy and from religious
discord. Both, it is true, belong to what is called the Greek or
Orthodox Church, but a few years ago a dispute arose regarding the
language in which services should be conducted in Bulgarian churches.
The Patriarch and heads of the Greek Church insisted that it should be
Greek, whereas the Bulgarians, who do not understand Greek, claimed that
it should be Bulgarian, the language of the people. The dispute led to a
disruption, and now the Bulgarian Church is governed by a Bulgarian
Exarch, and the priests and language are Bulgarian, but the Greek Church
considers them schismatics, and will have no ecclesiastical dealings
with them.
Further reference to Greeks will be made in Chapter V.