meetings. He carries about upon his head a large wooden tray, and under
his arm a stand with three legs. When required, he sets his stand,
and lays his tray upon it covered with good things. The first is a
composition of ground rice boiled to the consistence of a jelly, light
and transparent, called _mahalabie_; from this lie cuts off a slice
with a brass shovel, lays it on a plate, of which he has a pile on
his tray, and, dividing it into square morsels, he drops on it attar
of roses, or some other perfume, from a perforated silver vessel, and
it forms a very cooling and delightful food. The next is halva, a
composition of flour and honey, which separates into flakes; a third
is a long roll like a black-pudding, formed of walnuts, enclosed in a
tenacious glue, made of the inspissated juice of various fruits; the
fourth is a gelatinous substance, formed into large square dies; it
is made with honey and the expressed juice of fresh ripe grapes. It
melts in the mouth with a very delicious flavour, and at once softens
and mitigates any inflammation there. It is the most highly-prized
confection of the Turks, who call it by a very appropriate name, rahat
locoom, or “comfort to the throat,” which it well merits. These are the
principal confections peculiar to the country; they are all excellent
in their kind, and consumed in great quantities by the natives at those
parties.
But of all the refreshments sought for, simple water is perhaps the
most in request. It is inconceivable to a person born in a cold, humid,
western climate, how necessary, not only to enjoyment but to existence,
is this simple element, in the torrid regions of the East. The high
estimation in which it is held, and the eagerness with which it is
sought, are recorded by all writers, ancient and modern, sacred and
profane. It is a pure beverage, particularly adapted to the taste of
a Turk. He never rides to any distance without a leathern bottle of
it attached to his saddle: he never receives a visit, that it is not
handed to his guest; and in all convivial pic-nics on the grass, the
sougee, or “water-vender,” is in the greatest request. He is everywhere
seen moving about, with his clear glass cup in one hand, and his jar
with a long spout in the other, and the cry constantly heard is, _sou_,
_soook-sou_, “water, cold water.” When called, he attaches a mass of
snow to the spout, and the water comes limpid and refrigerated through
the pores of it. In the illustration is seen one of those magnificent
fountains, by which the Turks express their respect for the precious
fluid. The front is the reservoir into which the water pours. This
is generally surrounded with gilded cups or basins, and a dervish,
or other person, stands beside them to dispense the water.−-Among
the fruit sold is the grape. The Turks cultivate a peculiar kind,
called chaoush; it is large, white, and sweet, and consumed in vast
quantities. Though producing indifferent wine, it is perhaps the finest
table-grape that is cultivated. Among the sellers of refreshments, is
the oozoomgee, who weighs out his fine fruit at five paras, or less
than one halfpenny, per pound.
[Illustration: T. Allom. M. J. Starling.
THE BATH.]
It has been truly said of the Turks, that “they hold impurity of
the body in greater detestation than impurity of the mind.” This
feeling the precepts of the Koran have caused or increased. They
make frequent ablution so essential, that “without it prayer will be
of no value in the eyes of God.” There is no point, therefore, of
religious discipline, for which the directions are so minute, or so
often repeated. Two modes are prescribed. The goul, which requires the
ablution of the whole body, and the hodû, which confines it to the
head and arms as high as the elbow; and where water cannot be procured
in the desert, the ceremony must be performed by sand or dust, as
its symbol. These ablutions are enjoined to all at stated times, but
besides there are occasional circumstances which render them essential.
The law enumerates eleven occurrences after which the person must wash,
some of which are exceedingly curious, but not fit for the public eye.
So important is this practice deemed, that it forms an item in every
marriage-contract. The husband engages to allow his wife bath-money, as
we do pin-money; and if it be withheld, she has only to go before the
cadi, and turn her slipper upside down. If the complaint be not then
redressed, it is a ground of divorce.
The first objects which strike a stranger on entering a Turkish city
are the mosques, and the next certain edifices, roofed like them with
domes, contiguous to each other. These domes are perforated by a number
of apertures, which are closed by hemispheres of glass, resembling the
globes by which our streets were lighted, inverted on the roof. These
edifices are the public _hummums_,[8] or baths, and the globes the
means by which the light is admitted. There is no town in the Turkish
empire so obscure, or so destitute of other comforts, that is not
provided with a public bath, which is open from four o’clock in the
morning until eight in the evening. The bather enters a saloon, in the
midst of which is a fountain, where the linen of the establishment is
usually washed; round this is a divan, covered with mats or cushions,
on which he sits smoking till the _hummumgee_, or master of the bath,
directs him to undress. His clothes are carefully deposited in a shawl
tied up in the corners, and remain on his seat till his return. The
_tellah_, or bathing attendant, now approaches, with two aprons and a
napkin: the first he ties round his waist, and the latter round his
head. He is then led into another saloon, more heated than the first;
but the heat is so regulated that he feels no difference, though
divested of his clothes; and when the body is thus prepared by this
gradual increase of temperature, he is led into a third, when the
business of the bath commences. This, in some baths, is very fine,
supported on columns, and lined with marble.
The marble flooring is so hot, that he is now obliged to mount on
wooden pattens, as his bare feet could not endure to come in contact
with it. A dense vapour sometimes so fills this saloon, that he sees
nothing distinctly, but figures flit before him, like visions in a
mist. At the sides are ornamented fountains, whence issue pipes of hot
and cold water, which he mixes to his fancy, and bedews his person with
it from a large copper or iron spoon provided for the purpose. Having
walked or sat in this heated mist till a profuse perspiration bursts
out, the _tellah_ again approaches, and commences his operations. He
lays the bather on his back or face, and pins him to the ground by
kneeling heavily on him; and having thus secured him, he handles him
in the rudest and most painful manner: he twists and turns the limbs,
so as to seem to dislocate every joint. The sufferer feels as if the
very spine was separated, and the vertebræ of the back torn asunder.
It is in vain he complains of this treatment, screams out in anguish
and apprehension, and struggles to extricate himself. The incubus sits
grinning upon him, and torturing him till he becomes passive from very
exhaustion. When this horrid operation is over, the tormentor offers
to shave him; and if he make no resistance, he leaves but one small
lock of hair on the crown, by which the angel of death is to draw
him from his winding-sheet. It is remarkable, that while the bather
is burning with heat, the flesh of this fiend, though exposed to the
same temperature, is as cold and chilling as monumental marble. A
second tellah now attends, and uses him more gently than the first:
he envelopes his hands in gloves, or little bags of camlet, and, by a
gentle and dexterous pressure of the surface, he expresses, as it were,
all the deposit of insensible perspiration: it is surprising what a
quantity he peels from the surface of the skin, of this inspissated
fluid, resembling in colour and consistence rolls or flakes of dough.
When this substance ceases to exude, the operator rubs him with scented
soap, and drenches him almost to suffocation with deluges of hot
water. After this thorough ablution, he wipes him perfectly dry with
soft, warm, perfumed towels, and leads him to a divan, on which he
reposes some time,--still in a state of nudity, with the exception of a
shawl thrown over him. Here refreshments are brought, and partaken of
with an extraordinary increase of appetite; after which he rises and
dresses, perfectly refreshed. Before he goes forth, a looking-glass
set in mother-of-pearl is brought, to adjust his cravat, on the glass
of which he deposits the price of his bath. It was originally settled
at four aspers, which according to the present currency would be about
one-third of a farthing, and it still continues nearly the same in the
small towns and villages. In the capital, however, it is increased, in
the more sumptuous baths, to fifty paras, or four pence.
Where warm-springs are found, they are immediately diverted into
reservoirs, and edifices erected over them. Those of Kaplizza, near
Brusa, already mentioned, are perhaps the finest in the world. In the
centre saloon, under a noble dome, supported by marble pillars, is a
basin of fifteen yards in circumference, also of polished marble, and
five feet deep, filled with hot and limpid water. At its source, whence
it first issues into day, it is at a boiling heat, and blisters the
finger that incautiously feels it. In the baths, however, the heat is
reduced to a tolerable temperature−-in summer to 102°, and in winter to
90°. The process of bathing, substituting water for steam, is the same
as that described. The salutary effects of it are highly extolled, and
perhaps with reason−-opening the pores, and emulging, as the hakims
say, the perspiratory glands; but strangers who first submit to the
rude and suffocating process, complain that it is as debilitating
as it is painful, under the coarse and awkward manipulation of such
an operator; and to natives who constantly use it, it is one of the
enervating causes which is justly supposed to exhaust the strength and
prostrate the energies of a modern Turk.
The mysteries of a female bath, it is not permitted to see, no more
than those of Eleusis: all that could be known, Lady Mary Wortley
Montague has told a century ago. Their bath is the great coffee-house,
where they assemble, and enjoy a freedom they can nowhere else indulge.
If a stranger enter this sacred place by mistake, even his mistake
is punished with death. Not long since a Frank stumbled into one,
supposing it to be for his own sex; he was instantly seized, and
dragged before the cadi. On his way, some friendly passenger suggested
to him to feign madness, as his only chance of escape: he took the
hint, and did so with such success, that the cadi, instead of ordering
him to execution, dismissed him with that tenderness and respect the
Turks show to the foolish or insane, whom they fancy to be chosen
vessels inspired by Allah with a better gift than reason. Another
Frank, presuming on the impunity thus acquired, entered a female bath
by design. He was seized; but not counterfeiting insanity with such
success, he was suspected−-and disappearing soon after, was supposed to
have been strangled.
[Illustration: T. Allom. P. Lightfoot.
THE AURUT BAZAAR, OR SLAVE MARKET.]
The Aurut Bazaar, or Female Slave Market, stands in the quarter of the
city near the burnt column. It consists of a quadrangular edifice,
including a square area of about two hundred feet, surrounded with
apartments. In the front are platforms raised four or five feet from
the ground, and ascended by steps, forming a kind of colonnade, and
in the rear are latticed windows. In the one, blacks and slaves of
an inferior kind are kept and disposed of; in the other, those of a
choicer quality, who are guarded with a more jealous vigilance, and
secluded from the public eye.
All parts of the old world furnish materials for this market, but
principally the shores of the Mediterranean and the eastern end of the
Euxine sea. The human face is here seen in every diversity of colour,
from the ebony of Nubia and Abyssinia, to the snowy whiteness of the
mountains of Georgia and Mingrelia, Formerly, Franks were freely
admitted into this bazaar, but they were excluded by a firman, because
it was supposed they purchased slaves only for the purpose of giving
them freedom; and the Turks allow no manumission unless the captives
embrace Islamism, and then they become free as of right, and can be no
more sold. The strictness of this exclusion, however, is now relaxed,
and Franks are admitted to see, but not to purchase.
The first impression made upon a stranger is the cheerfulness and
hilarity of the inmates of this prison. He enters with his mind
full of the horrors of slavery: he expects to see tender females
dragged from their families, the ties of nature torn asunder, and the
helpless victims overwhelmed with grief−-sad, and weeping, and sunk in
despondency. He sees no such thing: they are singularly cheerful and
gay, use every means to attract his attention, and, in their various
dialects, invite him to purchase them.[9] The circumstances of their
early life, and the state into which they are about to enter, account
for this. The condition of slavery in Turkey is generally to them
an amelioriation. A regular traffic is carried on, and parents in
Circassia and Georgia educate their most comely daughters, not less
that they should profit by the sale, than that the children should
profit by being sold. They impress upon their minds the splendid
fortune that awaits them at Stambool; and when the annual traders
arrive at Anaka, or other ports of the Euxine, for white slaves, the
girl leaves without regret the home where she is taught to feel no
ties of family affection, and embarks with a light heart and joyous
anticipations of the happy prospect before her. Nor are her bright
hopes disappointed: the state of slavery in which she is found, and
the traffic by which she is bought, do not degrade her in the eye of
the Turk who purchases her; she is transferred to the harem of some
vizir or pasha, where she may become its mistress, invested with all
the consequence and dignity of his favourite wife; the splendid destiny
of those that are periodically purchased for the imperial seraglio is
quite dazzling−-any one of them may become the arbitress of empires,
and the mother of sultans. Yet this bright prospect is clouded by
dismal forebodings. When the reigning monarch dies, his whole female
establishment purchased here, is removed to the eski seraï, or old
palace, where five hundred of the most youthful and lovely females
in the universe are condemned to a state of perpetual celibacy and
seclusion. A still more terrible fate sometimes attends them. On
vain pretexts they are sacrificed to the caprice or suspicion of the
successor to the throne; and hundreds at once, in the prime of life and
splendour of beauty, are consigned to a watery grave.
The merchants who purchase slaves are usually Jews. When a female of
great beauty is not accomplished in the arts of pleasing, the Jew
undertakes her instruction. She is taught, by competent masters, music,
dancing, and other personal attractions−-the cultivation of the mind is
never thought of. When her value is thus enhanced by her acquirements,
the most extravagant price is exacted and given. The usual purchase
of a young white slave is 6000 piastres, or about £100: for a black,
merely intended for the domestic drudgery which a Turkish woman will
not submit to, 1200 piastres, or £16.
The illustration represents the act of sale. On one side are females
purchasing black servants. A slight examination as to health and
strength is all that is used. The girl starts up, draws her scanty
coarse garments about her, and, with a merry laugh and cheerful
countenance, trips away after her mistress. The severe decorum of a
Turk at once changes her half-nakedness for a more suitable dress: her
head and feet are no longer bare−-her dark visage is dignified with a
snow-white veil−--and she feels pride and gratification in her new and
altered state. On the other side are white slaves, who are examined
not by females, but by a master, of whose happiness they are hereafter
to constitute a part. He is attended by his black eunuch, and the
slave-merchant is pointing out all the personal charms of his purchase,
and eulogising those which escape his observation. In the gallery
above, are slave-merchants settling their various accounts, with the
aid of coffee and tobacco.
[Illustration: T. Allom. J. Sands.
THE MOSQUE OF YENI JAMI.]
This is called _Yeni_, or “new,” to distinguish it from those of more
ancient structure. It is justly remarked by writers, that no people
have selected such excellent sites for their religious houses as the
Turks: they are generally seen crowning the summits of hills, and
having every advantage of display for their architectural ornaments.
This, however, is an exception. It stands near the centre of the
Golden Horn, in a low part of the city, but is very conspicuous from
its situation. It swells, as it were, from the water’s edge, forming
a mountain of edifices. The only place where Turkish beggars are seen
is the area or vicinity of a mosque, and even here very few obtrude
themselves; forming a strong contrast to the multitudes that beset
houses of Christian worship. Those who with us are disabled by age or
sickness, are in Turkey supported by their masters, either because
they are slaves, or because the charity of the Osmanli will not suffer
his brother to want. The few who ask alms are idiots, a respected and
privileged class; or Arabs, who bear about standards, which they affirm
were the same as those under which their ancestors propagated the faith
of the Prophet. In the evening, you are met by a man who proffers
you a candle, an orange, or a melon, and you purchase it for double
its value: so, a Turkish beggar sells, but receives no alms. In the
populous region about this mosque, such persons are more usually met
than elsewhere. Immediately below is a great scala, or landing-place,
which is constantly crowded with caïques of all shapes and sizes, and
forms an animated scene of bustle and activity. Leading to it is one
of the aqueducts which convey water for the necessary ablutions of the
faithful, when they attend the call of the muezzin to assemble at the
hour of prayer.
[Illustration: T. Allom. F. J. Havell.
BALUK HANA AND METHOD OF FISHING FOR THE RED MULLET.
AT THIS SPOT, STATE CRIMINALS ARE THROWN INTO THE BOSPHORUS FROM THE
SERAGLIO.]
This literally means the house or edifice of fish. It is one of the
numerous stages erected on many parts of the Bosphorus, from the Euxine
to the Propontis, to arrest the numerous shoals of fish that are
migrating from sea to sea through this channel. It is formed in this
manner:--posts are driven into the water at a short distance from the
shore, with which they sometimes communicate by a platform; these are
strengthened by cross-posts, forming a ladder by which the platform
is ascended. On the summit is raised a shed, ten or twelve feet above
the surface, over which is drawn a rude covering of mats. Below, is an
enclosed area, marked by piles, into which the passing fish enter, and
cannot again make their way out. A man continually on the watch in the
shed gives notice of this to the fishermen on the shore, when the nets
are drawn, and the whole shoal generally captured.
The progress of these shoals is frequently marked by flights of gulls
and other aquatic birds, which, when the net is drawn, rush down among
the fishermen, and fearlessly and clamorously demand their share, which
is never withheld from them. These wild fowl are so tame by use and
impunity, that they are sometimes seen disputing with a Turk for a
particular fish; and the man almost always yields to the bird.
The fish usually taken in these nets are of various sizes, and many
peculiar to this region. The largest is the _xiphias_, or sword-fish,
sometimes attaining the length of six or eight feet in the body,
and a circumference of three or four. From its snout is projected a
flat horn, a yard or more in length, exactly resembling a Highland
broad-sword, from whence the fish derives its name. Its flesh is red,
and when exposed for sale in the market, a junk of it might be mistaken
for a round of beef. The next in size is the _thunny_; the various
kinds of scomber, down to the size of small mackerel fry; the _lufer_
and the _kephālos_, called so by the Greeks, from the size of its
head. Among the flatfish is a species of turbot, of excellent quality,
covered with hard cartilaginous knobby scales like a bossy shield, and
thence called by the Turks, _kalchan_, or the buckler-fish. These,
and an infinite variety of others, crowd the waters in incredible
quantities, for nine months in the year; and the boats engaged in
taking them are so numerous, as to stretch from side to side of the
strait in such a way as to bridge the current; and the eagerness to
take them is so great, that all ranks indulge in it, from the sultan to
the hummal. Mustapha, the brother of Mahmoud, was engaged in it when he
heard of the insurrection in favour of Selim−-and he left his fishing,
to strangle his cousin. The present sultan is so fond of it, that one
of his apartments at Beshiktash has a trap-door over the water, from
whence he often angles. Nor is this amusement confined to the day: by
night the waters are covered with many lights, which float in various
mazes, and form picturesque objects round the islands of the Propontis.
A brazier is projected from the prow, in which a glowing fire is kept
up continually, and the fish, attracted by the flame, hover about like
moths round a taper, and are harpooned as they approach the boat; when
the water is disturbed or muddy, a small quantity of oil is cast upon
the surface, which renders it transparent and every object distinct.[10]
The Baluk Hané, represented in the illustration, is distinguished by
another circumstance. It is situated on the sea of Marmora, below
the walls of the seraglio, and above it are seen, towering, the dome
and minarets of the mosque of Achmet. The torch in the caïque is not
for the purpose of fishing, but for a very different and dismal one.
When sentence of death is passed on an inmate of the seraglio, he is
brought to the _Capi Arasi_, a space so called between the second and
third gates, and there arrested “within the doors,” as it is ordered.
Here the executioners reside who despatch him; and the strangled or
headless man is brought down to a kiosk on the sea-wall, from whence a
window opens on the water. From hence, in the dead of night, the body
is consigned to a caïque in waiting, which rows to a little distance,
and consigns it to its watery grave. The sullen plash is sometimes
accompanied by a discharge of a gun on a wharf not far distant, and
the silence of the night is broken by a solemn sound which comes
booming over the water as the knell of the departed. So frequent have
these executions been, that a passing boat to ships in the harbour,
at this place, might always expect to see at midnight the gleam of a
torch attendant on this watery funeral. There is something insuperably
revolting in the proximity of the places. The fish are said to be
attracted by such bait, and are thus fed and fattened on human flesh in
this aquatic charnel-house.
[Illustration: T. Allom. J. W. Lowry.
THE GREAT BAZAAR, CONSTANTINOPLE.]
Markets at Constantinople, where various commodities are vended, are
properly distinguished by three names−-_Bezesteen_ contained shops
where cloth was sold; _Bazaar_ was an open market where eatables were
exposed for sale; thus _Et-Bazaar_, and _Baluk-Bazaar_, are the flesh
and fish markets; and _Charschey_ was a covered street, with stalls or
shops on each side, where all kinds of manufactured wares were to be
met with. These original designations, however, have merged into one,
and bazaar is a general name by which every market is denominated.