Turkish Madhouses—Surveillance of Sultan Mahmoud—Self-Elected
Saints—Lunatic Establishment of Solimaniè—The Mad Father—The
Apostate—The Sultan’s Juggler—The Slave Market—Charshee.
No traveller who can string his nerves to the trial; or rather who will
not suffer himself to be scared by the idea of a Turkish madhouse,
should fail while at Constantinople, to visit the Timerhazè, or Lunatic
Establishment, dependent on the mosque of Solimaniè. He will encounter
nothing to disgust, and comparatively little to distress him; for all is
cleanly, quiet, and almost cheerful. For myself, morbidly sensitive on
such occasions, I shrank from the task which I was nevertheless resolved
to achieve, until the eleventh hour; and my only feeling when I looked
around me
“Where laughter is not mirth, nor thought the mind,
Nor words a language, nor even men mankind,”
in the Madhouse of Solimaniè, was one of intense relief, on finding that
my own diseased fancy had so far outrun the reality.
It is, however, to the universal surveillance of Sultan Mahmoud that the
unfortunates who tenant the building are indebted for the only comforts
which they are still capable of enjoying; for but a few years ago they
were unapproachable to the stranger, from the filthy and neglected state
of both their cells and their persons. By an Imperial order, cleanliness
and care have been secured to them; and the calm, and in many instances,
affectionate manner, in which they conversed with their keepers, was a
convincing proof that they were kindly treated. The Turks have,
moreover, a superstitious reverence for the insane. They believe that
the spirit has been recalled by its GOD, and the hallucinated being is
regarded as almost saintly; a beatification, however, of which filth
appears to be almost a concomitant part in the East; for whenever you
encounter in the streets a wild-looking wretch, half Dervish, and half
mendicant; so wretchedly filthy, that you dare not suffer him to come in
contact with you as you pass him—with a beard matted with dirt, and
elf-locks hanging about his shoulders, of which the colour is
undistinguishable; ragged, swarming with vermin, and apparently half
stupified with opium; should you, amid your disgust, make any inquiry as
to his identity, you are told that he is a saint!
This extraordinary race of men (for there are numbers of them about the
streets of Constantinople) are self-elected in their holiness; and take
up the trade as less ambitious individuals establish themselves in
commerce. They affect absence of thought, concentration of mind, and
having progressed gradually to a certain point, they finish with partial
aberration of intellect; and this last may, in truth, be often real, for
the years of unwashed and uncombed misery to which they condemn
themselves are enough to produce madness. Ragged and wretched as I have
described them, these miserable men are, nevertheless, objects of great
veneration to the mass of the people; and the poorest _calmac_, or
porter, will seldom refuse his _para_ to one of these saintly
mendicants.
The Lunatic Establishment of Solimaniè occupies an inner court of the
mosque, whose centre is overshadowed by several magnificent plane trees,
planted round a spacious fountain. Three sides of the court are
furnished with arches, through which the apartments of the lunatics are
entered, while each is ventilated by a couple or more of large grated
windows; the number of patients in each cell never exceeding that of the
windows. The most painful object connected with the scene, was the heavy
chain and collar of iron worn by each of the lunatics, which kept up a
perpetual clanking as the unfortunate moved in his restlessness from
place to place within his narrow limits. The bedding was cleanly,
comfortable, and profuse; and many of the tenants of the cells were
eating melons, or smoking their chibouks, as tranquilly and as
methodically as though they had been under a very different roof.
Among the whole number there was not one furiously mad, as is so
frequently the case in Europe; and I was assured that such patients were
extremely rare. Melancholy appeared to be the prevailing symptom of the
disease among these hallucinated Osmanlis; a deep, but by no means
sullen, melancholy; for very few of them refused to reply to an
expression of interest or commiseration; and the feeling of social
courtesy, so strong among the Turks, had in no one instance been
destroyed, even by the total aberration of intellect which had
prostrated every other bond of union between them and their fellow-men.
I have mentioned elsewhere the surpassing love of the Turks for their
children; and I never saw a more beautiful illustration of parental
affection than was exhibited by the first unfortunate before whose cell
we paused. Several Greek ladies accompanied us; and the madman, whose
head was pillowed upon his knees as we approached him, turned his dim,
stony eyes upon each with a cold unconsciousness that was thrilling,
until he met the soft, tearful gaze of a pale, delicate girl who was
leaning upon my arm. When he caught sight of her he started from his
recumbent posture, and almost shrieked out his gladness as he
exclaimed—“My child! my child! they told me that you had abandoned me,
but I let them say on without a murmur, for I knew that you only
tarried; and you are come at last—Why do you weep? I see you, and I am
happy. I have not been alone—look here—” and he thrust his hand into
his breast, and drew forth a dove which was nestling there; “I have held
this upon my heart, and, as I slept, I dreamt that it was you.”
After a moment’s silence he resumed: “I would give you this trembling
bird, for you are my child, and I love you; but it will not abandon me.
It is my friend, my playfellow, my child when you are away. It will not
leave me, though I am mad—And yet, why do they tell you that I am mad?
It is not so—Do I not know you? Am I not your father? Is it because I
am sorrowful that they have told you this?” And again the pale face was
bowed down; and one heavy sob which seemed to rise from the very depths
of a crushed spirit terminated the sentence. We hurried on—it was
profanation to make a spectacle of such an agony—mindless though it
was.
Nor was the next individual with whom we came in contact less painfully
interesting. Strikingly handsome, and not above five-and-thirty, he had
already passed four miserable years in the Madhouse of Solimaniè. An
Armenian by birth, and a Catholic by faith, he had been induced to
embrace Mahomeddanism, but he had paid with his reason the price of his
apostacy; and this one memory haunted him in his wretched lunacy. As we
paused before the grating of his cell, he bowed his head upon his
breast, and murmured out; “_In Nomine Patri, et Filius, et Spiritus
Sanctus, Amen._”
His look was fastened upon my father, and some faint and long-effaced
image seemed to rise before him, for he smiled sadly, and extended
towards him his white and wasted hand; nor could any other of the party
succeed in diverting his attention. Twice, thrice, the same words were
uttered, and always in an accent of the most thrilling anguish. Surely
his sin will be expiated on earth, and forgiven at the last day!
Some were merry, and exhausted themselves in song and jest; and some,
with a latent leaven of worldliness, asked alms, and laughed out their
soulless joy as the coins which we flung to them rang on the stone-work
of the window. The Juggler of Sultan Selim—He who had taught the great
ones of the land to believe him gifted with a power more than human—He
who had raised the laughter of amusement, and the exclamation of
wonder—whose very presence had awakened mirth and merriment—He, too,
was here—caged, and chained—the mad prisoner of three-and-thirty
weary years!—the palest, the saddest, and the most silent of the whole
miserable company. His beard fell to his girdle—his matted locks half
concealed his haggard countenance—his hands were clasped upon his
breast—and he did not turn his head as we approached him.
From the madhouse we proceeded to the slave-market; a square court,
three of whose sides are built round with low stone rooms, or cells,
beyond which projects a wooden peristyle. There is always a painful
association connected with the idea of slavery, and an insurmountable
disgust excited by the spectacle of money given in exchange for human
beings; but, beyond this, (and assuredly this is enough!) there is
nothing either to distress or to disgust in the slave-market of
Constantinople. No wanton cruelty, no idle insult is permitted: the
slaves, in many instances, select their own purchaser from among the
bidders; and they know that when once received into a Turkish family
they become members of it in every sense of the word, and are almost
universally sure to rise in the world if they conduct themselves
worthily. The Negroes only remain in the open court, where they are
squatted in groups, until summoned to shew themselves to a purchaser;
while the Circassians and Georgians, generally brought there by their
parents at their own request, occupy the closed apartments, in order
that they may not be exposed to the gaze of the idlers who throng the
court. The utmost order, decency, and quiet prevail; and a military
guard is stationed at the entrance to enforce them, should the necessity
for interference occur, which is, however, very rarely the case.
I expected to have had much to write on the subject of the slave-market,
but I left it only with an increased conviction of the great moral
beauty of the Turkish character. I am aware that this declaration will
startle many of my readers; but I make it from a principle of justice. I
knew that the establishment existed—I never thought of it without a
shudder, nor shall I ever remember it without a pang; but I am,
nevertheless, compelled to declare that I did not witness there any of
the horrors for which I had prepared myself. The Turks never make either
a sport or a jest of human suffering, or human degradation. Not a word,
not a glance escaped them, calculated to wound the wretched beings who
were crouching on the ground under the hot sunshine—They made their
odious bargain seriously and quietly; and left the market, followed by
the slaves whom they had purchased, without one act of wanton cruelty,
or unnecessary interference.
I felt glad when, escaping from this painful scene, bitter and
revolting even under the most favourable aspect, we found ourselves in
the Charshee, surrounded by all the glittering temptations of the East,
and deep in the mysteries of tissues and trinkets. The morning had been
a trying one, and I rejoiced to be enabled to divert my thoughts from
the scenes through which we had passed. A thousand brilliant baubles
were spread out before us—a thousand harangues replete with hyperbole
were exhausted on us—all was bustle and excitement; and I forgot for a
while the weeping father and the spirit-stricken apostate of Solimaniè.