Yenekeui—The Festival of Fire—Commemorative
Observance—Fondness of the Orientals for
Illumination—Frequency of Fires in Constantinople—Dangerous
Customs—Fire Guard—The Seraskier’s Tower—Disagreeable
Alarum—Namik Pasha—The Festival
Localized—Veronica—Bonfires—Therapia and Buyukdèrè—Singular
Effect of Light—The Armenian Heroine—A Wild Dream.
Shortly after our return from Broussa, we took possession of a house
which we had rented for the summer at Yenekeui, and we had only been
established there a few days when we had an opportunity of witnessing
one of the most ancient of the Greek commemorative usages,—the
“Festival of Fire”—instituted in memory of the second capture of
Constantinople by the Cæsars.
Some years ago the Greek quarter of the city was illuminated on this
anniversary, as well as the villages occupied principally by their
nation: but the Turks no longer permit this demonstration of rejoicing,
as well from jealousy of its subject, as from the danger attendant on
all such manifestations in a city where fires are so frequent, and the
nature of the buildings so unfortunately calculated to encourage the
evil.
For my own part, after having passed a few nights in Constantinople,
both in Turkish and Greek houses, I was only surprised that the
frightful conflagrations which so frequently occur do not take place
every week instead of ten or twelve times a-year. Like the husbandman
who plants his vines, and sows his grain at the base of a volcano,
apparently unconscious or careless that the next eruption may lay waste
his lands, and negative his labour, the inhabitants of Stamboul appear
never to reflect that fire is one of their deadliest enemies, but wander
over their wooden dwellings with their lighted chibouks, or their
unsnuffed candles; as heedlessly as though both were innoxious: while
their attendants traverse carpeted and curtained apartments, carrying
fragments of live coal between their iron pincers to supply the pipes.
Nor is this all. The Tandour is a fire-conductor of the first class: the
wooden frame that covers the charcoal ashes is frequently very slight,
and the silken draperies which veil it are generally lined with cotton,
and not infrequently wadded with the same inflammable material. The
effect of the Tandour is highly soporific; and it consequently occurs
that persons who fall asleep under its influence, by some sudden
movement overturn the frame-work, when their own clothes as well as the
coverings of the Tandour come in contact with the hidden fire: the
chintz-covered sofas are ready to feed the flame, and the natural
consequence ensues.
Still more dangerous is the system of drying linen during the winter,
which is universal throughout the city. A frame, formed of wooden laths,
about three feet high, and shaped like a beehive, is placed above a
small brazier, filled with heated charcoal; and the linen is flung over
this frame, one garment above another, where it gradually dries. But
should the laundress omit to remove the lower portions of it directly
that they are free from damp, they ignite, and the whole becomes one
burning mass.
That in a country where fires are so frequent, such reckless usages
should be persisted in by individuals, or permitted by the authorities,
appears incredible; while they account if not satisfactorily, at least
fully, for the constant recurrence of the evil. Nor can you, even should
you desire to do so, remain in ignorance of the calamity whenever it
occurs; for you are constantly awakened in the night by the heavy
strokes of an iron-pointed pike upon the rough pavement of the streets,
and you hear the deep voice of the fire-guard announce the quarter
where the flames have broken out.
As there is a regular sentinel, relieved every second hour, on the
look-out for fires in the upper gallery of the Seraskier’s Tower, which
is like a glass lantern, having windows on all sides; every
conflagration, however unimportant, is instantly announced by the
patroles appointed to the different quarters of the city; and thus a
week rarely passes in which you are not startled by the boding cry of
the guard—“Fire at Scutari—a—” “Fire at Galata—a”—Up go all the
windows of the neighbourhood; and, when the locality of the accident is
ascertained, those who have property or connexions in the quarter hasten
to the scene of action: while those who have no individual interest in
the misfortune, close their casements, and creep back to bed, rejoicing
that they have escaped for the present the dreaded catastrophe.
All the Pashas resident in the Capital or its immediate neighbourhood
are obliged to attend every fire that occurs, and to assist in its
extinction; so that they frequently have a very busy time of it; and
Namik Pasha—the fêted and favoured Namik Pasha—probably from personal
experience of the dangers attendant on the employment, has, since his
return to Turkey, cited, as his two most admirable memories of England,
her Pantomimes and her Fire-men!
The Greek “Festival of Fire” has now, in consequence of the prohibition
to which I have alluded, become local in its celebration: and the
villages of Buyukdèrè, Therapia, and Yenekeui, have the exclusive honour
of commemorating the conquest of the Cæsars.
We embarked on board our caïque at dusk, and having with some difficulty
made our way through the floating crowd that thronged the stream, we
landed, and proceeded to the house of Veronica, the heroine of Mac
Farlane’s Novel of the “Armenians.” From the windows, which commanded
the little bay where the rejoicings were to take place, we had a full
view of the whole ceremony, and a most extraordinary exhibition it was.
Two artificial islands had been formed in the bay, and heaped with dried
wood, and other inflammable materials, and on that which was furthest
from the shore, the pile was surmounted by a caïque: another line of
fires was prepared for a considerable distance along the coast; and in
every direction men were flitting about with paper lanterns, conducting
the different parties of visiters from their boats to the residences of
their friends. Therapia was concealed behind a point of land; but
Buyukdèrè was visible in the distance, like a line of fire hemming in
the glittering waters which reflected afar off the unusual brilliancy.
The flames, as they rose and fell, flashed and faded upon the casements
of the houses that skirted the shore, with an effect quite magical:
while the sombre coast of Asia, without one glimmering light to relieve
its stately outline, cut in dusky magnificence along the cloudless sky.
At a sudden signal the fires were ignited: and the condemned caïque was
soon one graceful mass of flame. But the most extraordinary portion of
the spectacle was the crowd of men, dressed only in wide cotton drawers,
their partially shaven heads bare, and their arms tossed high in the
air, who were wading up to their necks in the sea, and feeding the fires
with shrieks and yells worthy of a chorus of demons. At intervals, they
all rushed out of the water, and sprang across the flames of the huge
fires which were burning along the coast, looking like infernal spirits
celebrating their unholy orgies; and then, plunging once more into the
stream, they danced round the lesser island in a circle, to the wild
chanting of the spectators on the shore.
The effect of the whole scene was thrilling. The bright-barrelled
firelock of the Turkish sentinel, who was posted at the battery above
the village, flashed as he trod his beat, in the fierce light which fell
upon it. The line of heights behind the houses was covered with
spectators: the women seated on mats and cushions, and the men standing
in groups among them, all as distinctly visible as beneath a noon-day
sun; while, in the opposite direction, the ripple of the Bosphorus ran
shimmering along like liquid gold, and the caïques, wedged together as
closely as though they had been one compact body, gleamed out gaily with
their crimson rugs and gilded ornaments.
The same wild sports continued for two hours, gradually decreasing in
violence, as the fatigue of the fierce and unremitted exertions of the
actors made itself felt; when the Wallachian band, and an immense fire
kindled beneath the windows of the house in which we were passing the
evening, and which was formed of wicker baskets wedged one within the
other, with a tall tree planted in the midst, that produced a very
singular effect, gradually withdrew the crowd from the expiring glories
of the coast; and as the last note of the Sultan’s March died away, the
throng dispersed, and we were left to the undisturbed society of our
friends.
Veronica could never have been handsome; the expression of her
countenance is sweet and agreeable, but her features are neither regular
nor fine; nor does she possess the low soft voice which is so great a
charm in the Turkish women, and to which the coarse language of the
Armenian nation does not lend itself. She is rather under the middle
size, calm in her manner, and graceful in her carriage; and her sable
dress and melancholy history invest her with an interest that mere
beauty would fail to excite. As I conversed with the widowed wife, and
saw her shrink beneath the night air like a withered flower, and fold
her furred pelisse closer about her with her thin wasted hand, I could
have wept over her faded youth and blighted feelings. It is painfully
evident that the memory of her error and of her wrongs sits heavily upon
her, and that it is a poisoned chain whose fetters can be flung off only
in the grave. Even Time, the great physician of all moral ills, has no
power over a grief like her’s.
Before we returned home, we rowed slowly towards Therapia; which, etched
in fire, and loud with music, threw its bright shadow far along the
waves. Caïques glided past us every instant with lights at their stern,
whence the sounds of laughter or of song swept cheerily over the ripple;
and more than once we narrowly escaped collision with a mirth-laden
bark, whose conductors were pressing forward in all the heedless
eagerness of hilarity.
It was near midnight ere we withdrew from the busy scene: and when I
fell asleep, I dreamt that Veronica was the wife of one of the Cæsars;
and that a young and dark-eyed Greek prince was leaping over the burning
city of Constantinople, while a portly Armenian, who had been of the
evening party, was filling his unwieldy calpac with water, as he stood
breast-high in the Bosphorus, and handing it to a set of wild Indians
who were howling and dancing amid the flames.
Truly my sleeping visions produced a second “Festival of Fire.”