time by a Turkish clock, but there was some comfort in watching it.
Presently an informing person at my side explained that Turkish
chronology is run on an altogether different basis from ours. There are
only three hundred and fifty-four days in a Turkish year, he said, which
makes the seasons run out a good deal faster, so that it is usually
about year after next in Turkey; but as it is only about day before
yesterday by the clock, the balance is kept fairly even.
He was a very entertaining person. Referring to the music, he said that
once the sultan's special brass band had played before him so pleasingly
that he ordered all their instruments filled with gold, which was well
enough, except for the piccolo-player, who said: "Sire, I am left out of
this reward." "Never mind," said the sultan, "your turn will come." And
it did, next day, for the band played so badly that the sultan roared
out: "Ram all their instruments down their throats," which was
impossible, of course, except in the case of the piccolo-player.
My entertainer said that formerly cameras were allowed at the Selamlik,
but that an incident occurred which resulted in prohibiting cameras and
all suspicious articles. He said that a gentleman engaged a carriage
for the Selamlik, and explained to the driver that he had invented a
wonderful new camera--one that would take pictures in all the
colors--and instructed him just how to work the machine.
The gentleman had to make a train, he said, and couldn't wait for the
sultan to arrive, but if the driver would press the button when the
sultan reached a certain place the picture would take, after which the
driver could bring the camera to the Pera Palace Hotel on a certain day
and get a hundred piastres, a sum larger than the driver had ever owned
at one time. Then the gentleman left in a good deal of a hurry, and the
driver told all the other drivers about his good-fortune while they
waited; and by and by, when the sultan came, and got just to the place
where the gentleman had said, the driver pressed the button, and blew a
hole seventy-five feet wide and thirty feet deep right on that spot, and
it rained drivers and horses and fezzes and things for seven minutes. It
didn't damage the sultan any, but it gave him a permanent distaste for
cameras and other suspicious objects.
Laura, age fourteen, who had been listening to the story, said:
"Did they do anything to the driver who did it?"
"Yes; they gathered him up in a cigar box and gave him a funeral. No,
the man didn't call for the camera."
I am sorry I have kept the reader waiting for the Selamlik, but the
sultan is to blame. One may not hurry a sultan, and one must fill in the
time, somehow.
Some carriages go by at last, and enter the mosque enclosure, but they
do not contain the sultan, only some of his favorite wives, with those
long black eunuchs running behind. Then there is a carriage with a
little boy in it--the sultan's favorite son, it is said--the most
beautiful child I ever saw.
A blare of trumpets--all the bayonets straight up--a gleaming forest of
them. Oh, what a bad time to fall out of a balloon!
A shout from the troops--a huzzah, timed and perfunctory, but general.
Then men in uniform, walking ahead; a carriage with a splendid driver; a
pale, bearded, hook-nosed old man with a tired, rather vacant face. Here
and there he touches his forehead and his lips with his fingers, waving
the imperial salute. For a moment every eye of that vast concourse is
upon him--he is the one important bauble of that splendid setting. Then
he has passed between the gates and is gone.
Thus it was that Sultan Abdul Hamid attended mosque. It seemed a good
deal of fuss to make over an old man going to prayer.
* * * * *
We drove from the Selamlik to the Dancing Dervishes. I have always heard
of them and now I have seen them. I am not sorry to have it over.
Their headquarters are in a weather-beaten-frame-barn of a place, and we
stood outside for a long time before the doors were open. Inside it was
hot and close and crowded, and everybody twisted this way and that and
stood up on things to get a look. I held two women together on one
chair--they were standing up--and I expected to give out any minute and
turn loose a disaster that would break up the show. There wasn't
anything to see, either; not a thing, for hours.
We were in a sort of circular gallery and the dancing-floor was below.
We could see squatted there a ring of men--a dozen or so bowed, solemn,
abstracted high priests in gowns of different colors and tall fezzes.
These were the dervishes, no doubt, but they didn't do anything--not a
thing--and we didn't care to stare at them and at the dancing-floor and
the rest of the suffering audience forever.
Then we noticed in our gallery a little reserved section with some more
abstracted men in gowns and fezzes, and after a long time--as much as a
thousand years, I should think--there was an almost imperceptible
movement in this reserved compartment, and one of the elect produced
some kind of reed and began to blow a strain that must have been born
when the woods were temples and the winds were priests--it was so
weirdly, mournfully enthralling. I could have listened to that music and
forgotten all the world if I hadn't been busy holding those two women on
that chair.
The perspiration ran down and my joints petrified while that music
droned on and on. Then there was another diversion: a man got up and
began to sing. I don't know why they picked that particular
man--certainly not for his voice. It was Oriental singing--a sort of
chanting monotone in a nasal pitch. Yet there was something wild and
seductive about it--something mystical--and I liked it well enough.
Only I didn't want it to go on forever, situated as I was. I wanted the
dancing to begin, and pretty soon, too. It didn't, however. Nothing
begins soon in the Orient.
But by-and-by, when that songster had wailed for as much as a week,
those high priests on the dancing-floor began to show signs of life.
They moved a little; they got up; they went through some slow
evolutions--to limber themselves, perhaps--then they began to whirl.
The dance is a religious rite, and it is supposed to represent the
planets revolving about the sun. The dancers serve an apprenticeship of
one thousand and one days, and they can whirl and keep on whirling
forever without getting dizzy. The central figure, who represents the
sun, has had the most practice, no doubt, for he revolves just twice as
fast as the planets, who are ranged in two circles around him. His
performance is really wonderful. I did not think so much of the others,
except as to their ability to stand upright. I thought I could revolve
as fast as they did, myself, and I would have given four dollars for a
little freedom just then to try it.
Would that constellation never run down? The satellites whirled on and
on, and the high priest in the middle either got faster or I imagined
it. Then at last they stopped--just stopped--that was all; only I let go
of those two women then and clawed my way to fresh air.
We went to the bazaars after that. There is where the _Kurfuerster_ finds
real bliss. He may talk learnedly of historic sites and rave over superb
ruins and mosques and such things, when you drag him in carriages to
see them. But only say the word bazaar to him and he will walk three
miles to find it. To price the curious things of the East; to barter and
beat down; to walk away and come back a dozen times; to buy at last at a
third of the asking price--such is the passion that presently gets hold
of the irresponsible tourist who lives on one ship and has a permanent
state-room for his things.
You should see some of those state-rooms! Jars, costumes, baskets, rugs,
draperies, statuary--piled everywhere, hung everywhere, stowed
everywhere--why, we could combine the stuff on this ship and open a
floating bazaar that would be the wonder of the world.
The bazaars of Constantinople are crowded together and roofed over, and
there are narrow streets and labyrinthine lanes. One can buy anything
there--anything Eastern: ornaments, inlaid work, silks, curious weapons,
picture postals (what _did_ those _Quaker City_ pilgrims do without
them?), all the wares of the Orient--he can get a good deal for a little
if he is patient and unyielding--and he will be cheated every time he
makes change. Never mind; one's experience is always worth something,
and this particular tariff is not likely to be high.
We bought several things in Constantinople, but we did not buy any
confections. The atmosphere did not seem suited to bonbons, and the
places where such things were sold did not look inviting. Laura
inspected the assortment and decided that the best Turkish Delight is
made in America, and that Broadway is plenty far enough east for
nougat. In one bazaar they had a marvellous collection of royal jewels:
swords with incrusted handles; caskets "worth a king's ransom"--simply a
mass of rubies, emeralds, and diamonds--half a barrel of such things, at
least, but we didn't buy any of those goods, either. We would have done
so, of course, only they were not for sale.
We called at the bazaar of Far-away Moses, but he wasn't there. He died
only a little while ago, and has gone to that grand bazaar of delight
which the Mohammedans have selected as their heaven.
As usual, Laura and I were the last to leave. We were still pulling over
some things when our driver, whom we call Suleiman because he has such a
holy, villanous look, came suddenly to the entrance, waving frantically.
We started then and piled into our carriage. The rest of our party were
already off, and we set out helter-skelter after them, Suleiman probably
believing that the ship had its anchors up ready to sail.
We were doing very well when right in front of a great arch one of our
horses fell down. We had a crowd in a minute, and as it was getting dusk
I can't say that I liked the situation. But Suleiman got the horse on
his feet somehow, and we pushed along and once more entered that
diabolical Street of Smells. It had been bad day by day, but nothing to
what it was now. There were no lights, except an oil-lamp here and
there; the place was swarming with humanity and dogs, general vileness
permeating everything. The woman who thought she had died and gone to
hell could be certain of it here.
It seemed that we would never get out of that street. We had to go
slower, and the horrible gully was eternal in its length. How far ahead
our party was we did not know. We were entirely alone in that unholy
neighborhood with our faithful Suleiman, who looked like a cutthroat,
anyhow. I wished he didn't look like that, and Laura said quietly that
she never expected to see the light of another dawn.
Bumpety-bump--bark, howl, clatter, darkness, stench--rolling and
pitching through that mess, and then, heavenly sight--a vision of
lights, water, the end of the Galata bridge!
We made our way through the evening jam and the wild bedlam at the other
end, crossing a crimson tide of fezzes, to reach the one clean place we
have seen in Constantinople--that is, the ship. The ship is clean--too
clean, we think, when we hear them scrubbing and mopping and thumping
the decks at four o'clock in the morning, just about dog-howling time.
Which brings me to a specimen of our ship German--American
German--produced by a gentle soul named Fosdick, of Ohio. He used it on
the steward after being kept awake by the ship-cleaning. This is what he
said:
"Vas in damnation is das noise? How can I schlaff mit das hellgefired
donner-wetter going on oben mine head?"
That is the sort of thing we can do when we get really stirred up. It is
effective, too. There was no unseemly noise this morning.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Note--a year later.--The Selamlik here described was among the last
of such occasions. A few weeks later, in April, 1909, Abdul Hamid
regained a brief ascendancy, ordered the terrible massacres of Adana,
and on April 27th was permanently dethroned. He was succeeded by his
brother, Mehmed V., who attends mosque with little or no ceremony. Abdul
meantime has retired to Salonica, where he is living quietly--as quietly
as one may with seventeen favorite wives and the imminent prospect of
assassination.
XXI
LOOKING DOWN ON YILDIZ
Heretofore, during our stay here, whenever any one happened to mention
the less attractive aspects of Constantinople, I have said:
"Yes, the city is pretty bad, but I'll wager the country is a dream.
Remember Algiers and her suburban villas? It will be the same here."
I do not say that any more, now that we have been to the country. We
went over to Skutari (Asiatic Constantinople) this morning, and took
carriages to Bulgurlu Mountain, which overlooks all the city and a vast
stretch of country. It is a good view, but it should be, considering
what it costs to get there--in wear and tear, I mean.
Of all villanous roads, those outside Skutari are the most depraved.
They are not roads at all, but just washes and wallows and ditches and
stone gullies. I have seen bad roads in Virginia--roads surveyed by
George Washington, and never touched since--but they were a dream of
luxury as compared with these of Turkey. Our carriages billowed and
bobbed and pitched and humped themselves until I got out and walked to
keep from being lamed for life.
And then the houses--the villas I had expected to see; dear me, how can
I picture those cheap, ugly, unpainted, overdecorated architectural
crimes? They are wooden and belong to the jig-saw period gone mad. They
suggest an owner who has been too busy saving money for a home to
acquire any taste; who has spent his savings for lumber and trimmings
and has nothing left for paint. Still, he managed to reserve enough to
put iron bars on his windows--that is, on part of the house--the
harem--every man becoming his own jailer, as it were. I remarked:
"I suppose that is to keep the neighbors from stealing their wives."
But the Horse-Doctor--wiser and more observant--said:
"No, it is to keep a neighbor from breaking in and leaving another."
Standing on the top of Bulgurlu--looking down on the Bosporus and the
royal palaces--the wife of a foreign minister told us something of the
history that has been written there:
When Abdul Aziz, in 1876, became Abdul "as was"[4] (his veins were
opened with a penknife, I believe), one Murad, his nephew, an educated
and travelled prince, came into power. But Murad was for
progress--bridges and railroads--so Murad retired to Cheragan Palace,
where for thirty-two years he sat at a window and looked out on a world
in which he had no part, while Abdul Hamid II. reigned in his stead.
Murad was wise and gentle, and did not reproach Abdul, who came to him
now and again for advice concerning matters of state.
But Murad was fond of watching the people from his window--excursion
parties such as ours, and the like--and these in turn used to look up
at Murad's window; which things in time came to Abdul Hamid's ears. Then
Abdul decided that this indulgence was not good for Murad--nor for the
people. Thirty-two years was already too long for that sort of thing. So
Murad's face disappeared from the window, and it was given out that he
had died--the bulletin did not say what of, but merely mentioned that it
had been a "general death"--that is to say, a natural death, under the
circumstances--the kind of death a retired Sultan is likely to die. And
Abdul mourned for Murad many days, and gave him a costly funeral.
That was Abdul's way. He was always a good brother--always a generous
soul--according to a guide-book published in Constantinople during the
time when there were twenty thousand secret agents inspecting such
things. The author of that book wanted those twenty thousand secret
agents to tell Abdul how good and gentle the book said he was;
otherwise, the modest and humble Abdul might not remember. Besides, that
author did not wish to disappear from among his friends and be sewed up
in a sack and dropped into the Bosporus some quiet evening. But I
wander-- I always wander.
Abdul Hamid is said to be affectionate with his family--all his
family--and quick--very quick--that is to say, impulsive. He is a crack
shot, too, and keeps pistols on his dressing-table. One day he saw one
of his little sons--or it may have been one of his little daughters (it
isn't always easy to tell them apart, when they are so plentiful and
dress a good deal alike), but anyway this was a favorite of Abdul's--he
saw this child handling one of his pistols, perhaps playfully pointing
it in his direction.
Hamid didn't tell the child to put the weapon down, and then lecture
him. No, he couldn't scold the child, he was too impulsive for that--and
quick, as I have mentioned. He drew a revolver of his own and shot the
child dead. There were rumors of plots floating around the palace just
then, and Hamid wasn't taking any chances. It must have made his heart
bleed to have to punish the child in that sudden way.
But by-and-by the times were out of joint for sultans. A spirit of
discontent was spreading--there was a cry for freer government. Enver
Bey and Niazi Bey, those two young officers whose names are being
perpetuated by male babies in every Turkish household, disguised
themselves as newsboys or bootblacks, and going among the people of the
streets whispered the gospel of freedom. Then one day came the upheaval
of which all the world has read. Abdul Hamid one morning, looking out of
his window in Yildiz Palace, saw, lying in the Bosporus just below, the
men-of-war which all the years of his reign had been turning to rust and
wormwood in the Golden Horn.
Abdul did not believe it at first. He thought he was just having one of
those bad dreams that had pestered him now and then since spies and
massacres had become unpopular. He pinched himself and rubbed his eyes,
but the ships stayed there. Then he sent for the Grand Vizier. (At
least, I suppose it was the Grand Vizier--that is what a sultan
generally sends for in a case like that.) When he arrived the Sultan
was fingering his artillery and looking dangerous.
"What in h---- that is, Allah be praised, but why, sirrah, are those
ships lying down there?" he roared.
The G. V. was not full of vain knowledge.
"I--I really don't know, Your Majesty," he said, soothingly. "I will go
and see."
He was standing near the door and dodged as he went out. He did not come
back. When he had inquired about the ships he decided not to seek Abdul
himself, but to send a man--a cheap man--to tell him about it. This was
just a dull fellow with not much politeness and no imagination.
"The ships are there by the order of the Minister of Marine, Your
Majesty," he said.
Abdul was so astonished that he forgot to slay the fellow.
"Bring the Minister of Marine!" he gasped, when at last he could catch
his breath.
The Minister of Marine came--a new minister--one of the Young Turk
Party. He was polite, but not upset by the Sultan's emotion. When Abdul
demanded the reason why the old ships had been furbished up and brought
down into the Bosporus, he replied that they were there by his orders,
and added:
"We think they look better there, Your Majesty, as in the old days."
"But, by the beard of the Prophet, I will not have them there! Take them
away!"
"Your Majesty, it grieves me to seem discourteous, not to say rude, but
those ships are to remain at their present anchorage. It grieves me
still further to appear to be firm, not to say harsh, but if there is
any show of resistance in this neighborhood they have orders to open
fire on Your Majesty's palace."
Abdul took a chair and sat down. His jaw dropped, and he looked at the
Minister of Marine a good while without seeming to see him. Then he got
up and tottered over to the window and gazed out on those ships lying
just below, on the Bosporus. By-and-by, he went to a little ornamental
table and took a pen and some paper and wrote an order in this wise:
Owing to my declining years and my great burdens of
responsibility, it is my wish that in future all matters
pertaining to the army and navy be under the supervision of
the Secretary of War and the Minister of Marine.
ABDUL HAMID, KAHN II.
Son of the Prophet--Shadow of God, etc., etc.
At all events, that was the purport of it. In reality, it was a
succession of wriggly marks which only a Moslem could read. Never mind,
it was a graceful surrender.
* * * * *
There is a wonderful old Moslem cemetery near Bulgurlu--one of the
largest in the world and the most thickly planted. It is favored by
Moslems because it is on the side of the city nearest Mecca, and they
are lying there three deep and have overflowed into the roads and
byways. Their curiously shaped and elaborately carved headstones stand
as thick as grain--some of them crowned with fezzes--some with suns--all
of them covered with emblems and poetry and passages from the Koran.
They are tumbled this way and that; they are lying everywhere along the
road; they have been built into the wayside walls.
[Illustration: I WANTED TO CARRY AWAY ONE OF THOSE TOMBSTONES]
I wanted to carry away one of those tombstones--one of the old ones--and
I would have done it if I had known enough Moslem to corrupt the driver.
A thing like that would be worth it--adding to one's collection, I mean.
The palace was full of great cypresses, too--tall, funereal
trees--wonderfully impressive and beautiful.
We drove back to Skutari and there saw our driver Suleiman for the last
time. I had already tipped him at the end of each day, but I suppose he
expected something rather unusual as a farewell token. Unfortunately, I
was low in fractional currency. I scraped together all I had left--a few
piastres--and handed them to him and turned quickly away. There came a
sudden explosion as of a bomb. I did not look to see what it was--I
knew. It was the bursting of Suleiman's heart.
Up the Golden Horn in the afternoon, as far as the Sweet Waters of
Europe. It is a beautiful sail, and there is a mosque where the ceremony
of conferring the sword on a new Sultan is performed; also, a fine view
across the Sweet Waters, with Jewish graveyards whitening the distant
hills. But there was nothing of special remark--we being a little tired
of the place by this time--except the homecoming.
There were _caiques_ lying about the little steamer-landing when we were
ready to return, and Laura and I decided to take one of these down the
Horn to the ship. The _caique_ is a curiously shaped canoe-sort of a
craft, and you have to get in carefully and sit still. But once in and
seated, it moves as silently and smoothly as a gliding star.
It was sunset, and the Golden Horn was true to its name. Ships at
anchor, barges drifting up and down, were aglow with the sheen of
evening--the water a tawny, molten flood, the still atmosphere like an
impalpable dust of gold. _Caiques_ carrying merchants to their homes
somewhere along the upper shores were burnished with the aureate hue.
Domes and minarets caught and reflected the wonder of it--the Galata
bridge ahead of us had become such a span as might link the shores of
the River of Peace.
Once more Constantinople was a dream of Paradise--a vision of
enchantment--a city of illusion.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Ship-joke.
XXII
EPHESUS: THE CITY THAT WAS
Like Oriental harbors generally, Smyrna from the sea has a magic charm.
When we slowly sailed down a long reach of water between quiet hills and
saw the ancient city rising from the morning mist, we had somehow a
feeling that we had reached a hitherto undiscovered port--a mirage,
perhaps, of some necromancer's spell.
We landed, found our train, and went joggling away through the spring
landscape, following the old highway that from time immemorial has led
from Ephesus to Smyrna--the highway which long ago St. Paul travelled,
and St. John, too, no doubt, and the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalen. For
all these journeyed between Ephesus and Smyrna in their time, and the
ancient road would be crowded with countless camel trains and laden
donkeys then; also with the wheeled vehicles of that period--cars and
chariots and cages of wild animals for the games--and there would be
elephants, too, gaudily caparisoned, carrying some rich potentate of the
East and his retinue--a governor, perhaps, or a king. It was a mighty
thoroughfare in those older days and may be still, though it is no
longer crowded, and we did not notice any kings.