With regard to the Hebrews I am prepared to assert, having been to
Morocco myself, that those of Constantinople have nothing in common
with their fellows of the northern coast of Africa, where observing
experts say they have discovered in all its primitive purity the
original Oriental type of Hebrew beauty. In the hope of finding some
traces of this same beauty, I summoned up all my courage and thoroughly
explored the vast Ghetto of Balata, which winds like an unclean reptile
along the banks of the Golden Horn. I penetrated into the most wretched
purlieus, among hovels “encrusted with mould” like the shores of the
Dantesque pool; through passageways which nothing would induce me to
enter again except on stilts, and, holding my nose; I peered through
windows hung with filthy rags into dark, malodorous rooms; paused
before damp courtyards exhaling a smell of mould and decay strong
enough to take one’s breath away; pushed my way through groups of
scrofulous children; brushed up against horrible old men who looked as
though they had died of the plague and come to life again; avoiding
now a dog covered with sores, now a pool of black mud, dodging under
rows of loathsome rags hung from greasy cords, or stumbling over heaps
of decaying stuff whose smell was enough to make one faint outright.
And, after all, my heroism met with no reward. Among all the many women
whom I encountered wearing the national kalpak--an article resembling
a sort of elongated turban, covering the hair and ears--I saw, it is
true, some faces in which could be discovered that delicate regularity
of feature and the expression of gentle resignation which are supposed
to characterize the Constantinopolitan Jewess; some vague profiles of a
Rebecca or a Rachel, with almond-shaped eyes full of a soft sweetness;
an occasional graceful, erect figure standing in Raphaelesque attitude
in an open doorway, with one delicate hand resting lightly on the curly
head of a child; but for the most part my investigations revealed
nothing but discouraging evidences of the degradation of the race. What
a contrast between those pinched faces and the piercing eyes, brilliant
coloring, and well-rounded forms which aroused my admiration a year
later in the _Mellà_ of Tangiers and Fez!
And the men--thin, yellow, stunted, all their vitality seems centred
in their bright cunning eyes, never still for a moment, but which
roll restlessly about as though constantly attracted by the sound of
chinking money.
At this point I am quite prepared to hear my kind critics among the
Israelites--who have already rapped me over the knuckles in regard
to their co-religionists of Morocco--take up the burden of their
song, laying all the blame of the degeneration and degradation of the
Hebrews of Constantinople at the door of the Turkish oppressor. But
it should be remembered that the other non-Mussulman subjects of the
Porte are all on a precisely similar footing, both political and civil,
with themselves; and, even were it otherwise, they would find some
difficulty in proving that the filthy habits, early marriages, and
complete abandonment of every sort of hard work, considered as primal
causes of that degeneration, are the logical results of the loss of
liberty and independence. And should they assert that it is not so
much Turkish oppression as the universal scorn and petty persecutions
which they have had to endure on all hands that have brought about such
complete loss of self-respect, let them pause and first ask themselves
if the exact opposite may not be nearer the truth, and the general
obloquy in which they are held be not so much the cause as the result
of their manner of life; and then, instead of trying to cover up the
sore, themselves be the ones to apply the knife.