In his volume of travels in Turkey, Captain Burnaby has given such a
large variety of amusing particulars, that it is eminently worthy of
perusal. The following are a few rough notes:
Radford, the captain’s English servant, was one of the veritable
descendants of Uncle Toby’s Corporal Trim; men—for there are a large
family of them—to whom the word duty means obeying the word of command,
no matter what form it may happen to take, be it to cook a dinner or
storm a trench. At Constantinople another servant was required and
engaged—one Osman, a Mohammedan, a very smart fellow, in every sense of
the word. Picturesque in dress, tall and fine-looking into the bargain,
and fully alive to the worth of the Effendi’s gold, to which he helped
himself unsparingly, without hurt to his conscience or hinderance to
his prayers. The devotions of this worthy proving a fruitful source
of misery to the captain, he came to the conclusion that religious
servants are a mistake, especially in the East.
At Constantinople there was some little delay occasioned by having
horses to buy and friends to see, and then there were the cafés, which
are always amusing more or less; for the proprietors find that good
voices and pretty girls are sure attractions, whether for Giaour or
Turk. But the poor girls have a hard time of it. By birth they are
chiefly Hungarian and Italian. They act as waitresses mostly, and are
compelled by the Turks who frequent the cafés to sweeten, by tasting,
all that they order. The violence thus done to their digestive organs
may be imagined. One Italian girl bemoaned her lot, saying: ‘It is
such a mixture. I have a pain sometimes (pointing to the bodice of her
dress). I wish to cry; but I have to run about and smile, wait upon
visitors and drink with them. It is a dreadful life! Oh, if I could
only return to Florence!’
Captain Burnaby found the Turkish women’s faces ‘sadly wanting in
expression;’ at least those he had an opportunity of seeing, for
the women all go veiled. Still their veils are of very thin muslin,
and man’s curiosity is penetrating. But this noticeable lack of
expression is not to be wondered at, when we hear that they are wholly
uncultivated in mind—only one in a thousand among them can read or
write. They amuse themselves in gossip and eating.
The Ride was not at all times agreeable. It was not pleasant, for
instance, having to cross wooden bridges without parapets, and to see
the river below through holes in the wooden planks beneath the horse’s
feet; or to wade up to the horse’s girths through lanes of water. But
such is the fortune of travelling in the unknown.
At the village of Nahilan the caimacan or governor was hospitable, and
soon the whole population was in attendance to see and talk with the
traveller. He was given the seat of honour on a rug near the fire. The
caimacan in a fur-lined dressing-gown came next, the rest of the party
in order not according to rank, but according to their possessions—the
man who owned one hundred cows being seated next the governor.
Conversation at first did not get on any better there than at home.
But some one made a plunge, and the state of the roads was discussed.
This opened the way to politics and the prospect of English help, about
which the Turks were eager and anxious to learn. The war was the one
topic of interest among them, as well it might be. The scenery in the
neighbourhood was lovely, and Captain Burnaby wished that he had been
born a painter, to have caught the impression of the beauty around
him, and have fixed it for ever on canvas. He has painted at least one
little sketch successfully in words: ‘A succession of hills, each one
loftier than its fellow, broke upon us as we climbed the steep (leading
towards Angora). They were of all forms, shades, and colours, ash gray,
blue, vermilion, robed in imperial purple, and dotted with patches of
vegetation. Our road wound amidst these chameleon-like heights, whose
silvery rivulets streamed down the sides of the many-coloured hills.’
But we must leave this pretty scene to describe the night’s lodging
at the next halt, which gives us an insight into Turkish beds and
bedrooms. No bedsteads are used. ‘One or two mattresses are laid on the
floor; the _yorgan_, a silk quilt lined with linen and stuffed with
feathers, taking the place of sheets and blankets. These yorgans are
heirlooms in a Turkish family, and are handed down from father to son.
It is a mark of high respect when a host gives you his wedding yorgan
to sleep under. Captain Burnaby found the honour a trying one, as many
generations of fleas shared it with him. Osman grew eloquent on the
subject of yorgans. He had one so beautiful that neither his wife nor
himself liked to use it.
Hearing that he was married, Captain Burnaby questioned him about his
wife. Did he love her? Was she pretty? To which Osman replied: ‘She is
a good cook. She makes soup. Effendi, I could not afford to marry a
good-looking girl. There was one in our village—such a pretty one, with
eyes like a hare and plump as a turkey—but she could not cook, and her
father wanted too much for her. For my present wife I gave only ten
liras (or Turkish pounds); but she did not weigh more than one hundred
pounds. She was very cheap. Her eyes are not quite straight, but she
can cook. Looks don’t last; but cooking is an art that the Prophet
himself did not despise.’
At every place a cordial reception awaited the traveller. The Turks
are not ungrateful; and English help during the Crimean War is still
remembered. At Angora, a town of importance, there was an English
vice-consul, a married man, living in a house furnished with every
English comfort. He is the only Englishman, or rather Scotchman,
in the place. A Turkish gentleman gave a dinner-party in honour of
the traveller. These Turkish dinner-parties are compared to Turkish
music, and declared to consist of a series of surprises. ‘In music the
leader of an orchestra goes from andante to a racing pace without any
crescendo whatever. The cook in the same manner gives first a dish as
sweet as honey, and then astonishes our stomach with a sauce as acid as
vinegar. Now we are eating fish, another instant blanc-mange. And so on
throughout the feast were the startling contrasts continued. Servants
were abundant and pressing. Each guest ate with his fingers, helping
himself according to his rank or social status.’ When dinner was over
the host rose, not forgetting to say his grace: ‘Praise be to God.’
A servant then poured water over the hands of each, according to his
rank, for precedence is duly observed in the veriest trifle; and then
they all adjourned to another room to smoke and drink coffee.
Nothing can exceed the hospitality and generosity of the Turk. Admire
what belongs to him, and he begs you to accept it, be it a book, a
horse, or a servant. Talking of servants, it was amusing to hear Osman
railing at the man in charge of the pack-horse for allowing the horse
that carried the valuables, in the form of groceries and cartridges,
to lie down in a river, thus injuring the contents of his pack. The
Eastern method of abuse is to attack a man’s female relatives—a point
on which all Easterns are most sensitive—in language the reverse of
choice.
In Anatolia and in most parts of Asia Minor, every man is his own
architect and builder, on the following simple principles. When old
enough to marry, a man chooses a bit of oblong ground, on the side of
a hill if he can, and digs out the earth to the depth of several feet.
‘Hewing down some trees, he cuts six posts, each about ten feet high,
and drives them three feet into the ground, three posts being on one
side of the oblong, three on the other. Cross-beams are fastened to
the top of these uprights, and branches of trees, plastered with clay,
cover all.’ The doorway is of rude construction. In the interior, a
wooden railing divides the room into two, one-half of which is occupied
by the animals, the other by the family. A hole in the ceiling is the
only mode of ventilation, and in cold weather this is stopped up. The
‘family’ often consists of twelve in number, and at night they lie
huddled on the floor, which in poorer houses is covered with coarse
rugs of camels’ hair, and Persian rugs among the wealthier. The close
proximity to livestock invites a third and irrepressible population
of fleas in most of these houses. The misery of a night spent with
legions of these insects must be felt to be thoroughly understood
and appreciated. They formed the chief discomfort of the travellers,
whose English skins were not case-hardened to the assaults of the
lively banqueteers. When sickness overtook them (as it did when they
had advanced far on their journey) and sleep became imperative, the
misery of our travellers grew serious. To be ravaged by fever as well
as by fleas would at once try the strongest. At last in one village a
hint was given that if the Effendi’s skin were attacked, no bucksheesh
would follow. Instantly the host had a remedy at hand. He had a cart
in his yard; and the Effendi at last had the comfort of a few hours of
undisturbed slumber.
At various places the Armenian churches were visited. It is the custom
among the Armenians, as among the Jews, to separate the women from the
men during divine service. The Armenians take the further precaution
of hiding the women behind a screened lattice-work. Great pity was
expressed for our English clergymen when it was found they used no such
precaution in their churches, and it was remarked: ‘They must find it
difficult to keep the attention of their flock, if the ladies are as
pretty as they are said to be.’ In the Armenian churches, however,
the precaution is used to keep the women devotional; but such is the
power of attraction, that in many places Captain Burnaby noticed that
the lattice had been broken away! The interior of an Armenian church
resembles a mosque, and is carpeted with thick Persian rugs. As the
Armenian Christians worship pictures, the walls are hung with several
in gaudy frames. The service is ritualistic in the extreme, and politic
to temporal no less than spiritual rulers; for on the occasion of
Captain Burnaby’s attendance, the service opened with two songs sung by
the choir—one in honour of the Queen of England, out of compliment to
the visitor present; the other for the Sultan. Some of their traditions
are curious. One is, that a prince of theirs, a leper, living at the
same time as Christ, heard of his miracles, and wrote a letter to the
Saviour, inviting him to come and take up his abode in Armenia and cure
him of his disease. The Lord is supposed to have replied: ‘After I have
gone, I will send one of my disciples to cure thy malady and give life
to thee and thine.’ With the letter, Christ is supposed to have sent at
the same time a handkerchief which had received the image of his face
by being pressed to it; and it is this tradition which they adduce to
justify their adoration of pictures.
The Turk’s religion is a compound of faith and fatalism, sprinkled
occasionally with due precaution. Here is an instance of their
fatalism. When Captain Burnaby was at Kars, the streets were in such a
filthy condition, owing to the sewage of the town being thrown in front
of the buildings, that the hospitals were full of typhoid, and cholera
was anticipated; and yet neither soldiers nor inhabitants would stir a
finger to remove the source of their miseries out of the streets; the
soldiers declaring that they were not scavengers, and the inhabitants
making some other excuse. When warned of the consequences, each took
refuge in kismet or fate. Allah was great and able to perform miracles.
If Allah saw fit, there would be no cholera—although their streets were
reeking with the seeds of disease.
In most of the towns, excitement prevailed in organising battalions for
the seat of war. The Turks are essentially a warlike nation, and fight
for their country without a murmur, in the face of such disadvantages
as bad food and long arrears of pay.
We have not before spoken of a new travelling companion who took
Osman’s place—one Mohammed by name, who was as faithful as the Prophet
himself. Osman turned out a very bad bargain. His fidelity to the
Effendi’s purse became at last greater even than his love of prayer;
and his keen eye after an exorbitant percentage was worthy of a London
usurer. Remonstrance was in vain. At last he was dismissed, having been
caught thieving, and Mohammed reigned in his stead, to the comfort of
all parties. He was a soldier and a mountaineer, brave and hardy on
land, but a coward at sea. He loved his lord the Effendi, and dearly
loved his ‘brother’ Radford’s cooking. His ‘brother’s’ opinion of
him at parting was characteristic: ‘That Mohammed was not such a bad
chap after all, sir. Them Turks have stomachs, and like filling them
they do; but they have something in their hearts as well.’ And so
Mohammed shewed—for in illness he was a kind nurse, and faithful to his
‘lord’s’ interests throughout. On one occasion, Mohammed complained
of rheumatism, and Radford applied a mustard paper. What a sensation
it created among the Kurd villagers—some of whom were spectators
of course—when they heard that the wet paper had produced the fire
under which Mohammed lay writhing and groaning. It was a miracle; and
forthwith the Effendi was hailed everywhere as a _hakim_ or doctor, and
his fame spread from place to place on the road. A Persian asked, and
even admitted him into his harem, to prescribe for his pretty wife, to
whom he gave small doses of quinine. Another time a Kurd asked him to
cure his toothache; but mustard papers were powerless here; so Radford
was called in consultation, and said it ought to come out. But there
were no instruments at hand, and the operation had to be declined.
‘Give me something for my stomach then,’ asked the Kurd. Three pills
were then handed to him, which he chewed deliberately, declaring, when
he had finished them, his tooth was better!
At one place, after passing over a narrow wooden bridge that spanned
the Euphrates—only forty yards wide at this point—the travellers
crossed the Hasta Dagh (mountain); presently they came to a glacier,
the frozen surface of which extended a hundred yards, the decline
being steeper than the roof of an average English house. ‘Should it be
taken?’ was the question asked with much consternation, and decided
in the affirmative. The guide rode his horse to the glacier. The
poor animal trembled when it reached the brink; but a reminder from
Mohammed’s whip hastened the poor brute’s decision, and he stretched
his forelegs over the declivity, almost touching the slippery surface
with his girth. Another crack from Mohammed, and horse and guide were
whirling down the glacier, and only pulled up at last by finding
themselves buried in a snowdrift six feet deep. When his turn came,
Captain Burnaby describes the sensation as if he were ‘waltzing madly
down the slippery surface.’ To witness the descent of the others was
something fearful; though not so dangerous as it appeared. When Radford
emerged from his snowy burial, he exclaimed: ‘I never thought as how
a horse could skate before. It was more than sliding, that it was; a
cutting a figure of eight all down the roof of a house.’
Our travellers at last reached Batoum, where they parted from Mohammed,
and where we must part from them, not without sincere regret. After
this, they took ship across the Black Sea to Constantinople, and all
adventures were over. We shall not quickly forget the two thousand
miles of ground so graphically described, and over a portion of which
we have travelled with them in the saddle. Nor will the reader of
Captain Burnaby’s volume of travels throughout the land of the Osmanli,
easily forget the scenes and incidents and people so graphically
depicted. We omit with regret many good stories we should like to have
told; but space is inexorable. To those who are inclined to echo this
regret, we can only say: ‘Do as we have done, and take the ride with
Burnaby for yourselves.’