The Fèz Manufactory—Singular Scene—A Turk at Prayers—Pretty
Girls—Progress of Turkish Industry—Mustapha Effendi—Process
of Manufactures—Omer Effendi and the Arabs—Avanis Aga, the
Armenian—The Fraud Discovered—The Imperial
Apartments—Departure for the Seraï-Bournou—The Outer
Court—The Orta Kapoussi—The Pestle and Mortar of the
Ulémas—The Garden of Delight—The Column of
Theodosius—Arrival of the Sultan—Ancient Greek
Inscriptions—Confused Inscription—The Diamond—Memories of
Sultan Selim.
No traveller should leave Constantinople without paying a visit to the
Fèz Manufactory of Eyoub, where all the caps for the Sultan’s armies are
now made. The building, which is entirely modern, and admirably adapted
to its purpose, stands in the port, near the palace of Azmè Sultane, on
the site of an ancient Imperial residence. It is under the control of
Omer Lufti Effendi, late Governor of Smyrna, a man of known probity and
talent:[10] and its immediate superintendence has been intrusted to
Mustapha Effendi; whose ready courtesy to strangers enables European
travellers to form an accurate idea of the state and progress of the
establishment.
After a delightful row from Galata, we landed at the celebrated pier of
Eyoub; and, accompanied by a personal friend of Mustapha Effendi,
proceeded to the manufactory, which we entered by the women’s door. As
we passed the threshold a most curious scene presented itself. About
five hundred females were collected together in a vast hall, awaiting
the delivery of the wool which they were to knit; and a more
extraordinary group could not perhaps be found in the world.
There was the Turkess with her yashmac folded closely over her face, and
her dark feridjhe falling to the pavement: the Greek woman, with her
large turban, and braided hair, covered loosely with a scarf of white
muslin, her gay-coloured dress, and large shawl: the Armenian, with her
dark bright eyes flashing from under the jealous screen of her
carefully-arranged veil, and her red slipper peeping out under the long
wrapping cloak: the Jewess, muffled in a coarse linen cloth, and
standing a little apart, as though she feared to offend by more
immediate contact; and among the crowd some of the loveliest girls
imaginable.
At the moment of our arrival, Mustapha Effendi was at prayers; and we
accordingly seated ourselves to await him in an inner apartment,
well-carpeted, and occupied by half a dozen clerks, who were busily
employed in recording the quantity of wool delivered to each applicant:
their seats were divided from the women’s hall by a partition about
breast-high; and I remarked that the prettiest girls were always those
whose accounts were the most tedious.
On the other side of this spacious office was a wool-store, where a
score of individuals were busily employed in weighing and delivering out
the wool; and all were so active, and so earnest in their occupation,
that the most sceptical European would have been compelled to admit,
when looking on them, that the Turk is no longer the supine and
spiritless individual which he has been so long considered.
Immediately that his prayer was completed, Mustapha Effendi invited us
to pass into his private room; a pleasant apartment opening to the
water, and most luxuriously cushioned. Here coffee and chibouks were
served; after which a couple of the knitters were introduced, in order
that we might see the different qualities of wool, necessary to the
manufacture of the various kinds of fèz.
During their performance, Mustapha Effendi asked many questions
relatively to Europe; and particularly how the English government were
now disposed towards the Turks; and expressed his curiosity to learn the
impression which the present state of the people had made upon
ourselves. He appeared to have been piqued by some American travellers
who had visited the establishment; for at the close of the conversation
he said earnestly; “Europe begins to know us better; and the Franks to
judge us more honestly—_Inshallàh_—I trust in God, that the day will
yet come when we shall be able to convince even the Americans, that we
are not wild beasts anxious to devour them.”
When we had passed an hour with the Superintendent, we proceeded to
inspect the establishment, which is on a very extensive scale, three
thousand workmen being constantly employed. The workshops are spacious,
airy, and well-conducted; the wool, having been spread over a
stone-paved room on the ground-floor, where it undergoes saturation with
oil, is weighed out to the carders, and thence passes into the hands of
the spinners, where it is worked into threads of greater or less size,
according to the quality of fèz for which it is to be made available.
The women then receive it in balls, each containing the quantity
necessary for a cap; and these they take home by half a dozen or a dozen
at a time, to their own houses, and on restoring them receive a shilling
for each of the coarse; and seventeen pence for each of the fine ones.
The next process is the most inconvenient, although perhaps the most
simple of the whole. As soon as spun, the caps are washed with cold
water and soap; but, there being no rush of water sufficiently strong in
the immediate vicinity of the capital, they are obliged to be sent to
Smit, distant about ten leagues, where they are scoured and dried, and
ultimately returned to Eyoub, in order to be completed. Each fèz then
undergoes three different operations of clipping and pressing; and at
the termination of the third has no longer the slightest appearance of
knitted wool, but all the effect of a fine close cloth. The next process
is that of dyeing the cap a rich deep crimson; and herein existed a
difficulty which has been but lately overcome, and of which I shall give
an account when I have sketched the whole routine of the manufacture.
Having been immersed during several hours in large coppers constantly
stirred, and kept upon the boil, the caps are flung into a marble trough
filled with running water, where they are trodden by a couple of men;
and afterwards given to the blockers, who stretch them over earthen
moulds to enable them to take a good shape. They are subsequently
removed to the drying-room, where they are kept in a perpetual current
of air until all the damp is removed; and thence delivered up to the
head workmen, who raise the nap of the wool with the head of the
bullrush, and then clip it away with huge shears; precisely as cloth is
dressed in England. Pressing follows, and the fèz is ultimately carried
to the marker, who works into the crown the private cypher of the
manufacture, and affixes the short cord of crimson which is to secure
the _flock_ or tassel of purple silk, with its whimsical appendage of
cut paper. The last operation is that of sewing on the tassels: and
packing the caps into parcels containing half a dozen each, stamped with
the Imperial seal.
The whole process is admirably conducted. The several branches of the
establishment are perfectly distinct; and the greatest industry appears
to prevail in every department. The manufactory was suggested and
founded by Omer Lufti Effendi, in consequence of the extremely high
price paid by the Sultan to the Tunisians, with whom this fabric
originated, for the head-dress of his troops. Having induced a party of
Arabian workmen from Tunis to accompany him to Constantinople, he
established them in the old palace, which has since been replaced by the
present noble building; and under their direction the knitting and
shaping of the caps acquired some degree of perfection.
But the dye was a secret beyond their art; and the Turkish government,
anxious to second the views of the energetic Omer Effendi, made a second
importation of Tunisians with no better success, although they were
chosen from among the most efficient workmen of their country. The
caps, while they were equal both in form and texture to those of Tunis,
were dingy and ill-coloured; and the Arabs declared that the failure of
the dye was owing to the water in and about Constantinople, which was
unfavourable to the drugs employed.
As a last hope, a trial was made at Smit, but with the same result; and
the attempt to localise the manufacture was about to be abandoned, when
Omer Effendi, suspecting the good faith of the Arabian workmen,
disguised a clever Angorian Armenian, named Avanis Aga, as a Turk, whom
he placed as a labourer in the dye-room. Being a good chemist and a
shrewd observer, Avanis Aga, affecting a stupidity that removed all
suspicion, soon made himself master of the secret which it so much
imported his anxious patron to learn; and, abandoning the ignoble besom
that he had wielded as the attendant of the Tunisian dyers, immediately
that he discovered the fraud which, either in obedience to the secret
orders of their Regent, or from an excess of patriotism, they had been
practising ever since their arrival; he set himself to work in secret;
and, with the water of Smit, dyed two caps, which, having dried, he
presented to Omer Effendi, who was unable to distinguish them from those
of Tunis.
Delighted at the successful issue of his experiment, Omer Effendi
summoned the Arabs to his presence, and shewed them the fèz; when,
instantly suspecting the masquerade that had betrayed them, they
simultaneously turned towards the Armenian, and, throwing their turbans
on the ground, and tearing their hair, they cried out: “Yaccoup!
Yaccoup!” (Jacob! Jacob!)
The Superintendent having dismissed them, after causing them to be
liberally remunerated for the time which they had spent at
Constantinople, sent them back to Tunis; while Avanis Aga, elected Head
Dyer of the Imperial Manufactory of Eyoub, now enjoys the high honour of
deciding on the exact tint to be worn by Mahmoud the Powerful, the
“Light of the Sun,” and “Shadow of the Universe.”
Fifteen thousand caps a month are produced at the fabric of Eyoub; and
they are said to equal those of Tunis. The finest Russian and Spanish
wools are employed, and no expense is spared in order to render them
worthy of the distinguished patronage with which the Sultan has honoured
them. The Imperial apartments at the manufactory are elegantly fitted
up, and sufficiently spacious to accommodate a numerous suite; and, as
the building faces the Arsenal, His Highness is a frequent visitor to
the establishment of Omer Effendi, where he sometimes passes several
consecutive hours.
When we had made the tour of the manufactory, we returned to the
apartment of Mustapha Effendi, where we partook of coffee and sherbet;
and after expressing the sincere gratification we had experienced in our
survey, we took our leave; and once more nestling ourselves into the
bottom of our caïque, we darted off to the Seraï Bournou, where an
officer of the Sultan’s household was waiting to admit us, _en
cachette_; the prevalence of plague having added to the jealousy with
which His Highness ever forbids the ingress of strangers within its
walls.
The first court of this celebrated seraglio does not convey any idea of
regality to the visitor. It is rather an excrescence than an appendage
to the Palace: containing on the right hand the infirmaries, the
bakehouses, and the wood-stores; and on the left, the Greek church of
St. Irene, now converted into an arsenal. On a line with this desecrated
temple is the Mint, in which are lodged the _Taraf-hanè_, or Inspector,
and the _Chehir Encine_, or Superintendent, of the Public Buildings.
Passing along beside a high wall, we arrived at the _Orta Kapoussi_, or
Middle Gate, which is flanked by two towers forming a _saillie_; and
close beside it the _Dgillat Odossi_, or Executioner’s Room, was pointed
out to us, where the Viziers who are condemned to death or exile are
generally arrested: hence the expression, “arrested between the two
doors.”
Above the gateway is a line of spikes, on which the forfeited heads were
exposed, to blacken in the sunshine. And here used formerly to be
exhibited the pestle and mortar with which the Muftis and Ulemas were
destroyed. Having themselves framed the laws by which the country was to
be governed, and fearing to suffer sooner or later by their own agency,
these “second Daniels” decided that their own body could not legally
suffer death either by the bowstring, the sword, the bullet, water, or
famine: thus destroying, as they believed, all power over their lives.
But there were other spirits awake as wily as their own; and the pestle
and mortar of the _Orta Kapoussi_ were adopted, in which the unhappy
wretches, taken in their own toils, were literally pounded to death!
Whether these extraordinary and revolting instruments of torture are
still in existence, I know not; but it is certain that they are no
longer exhibited as objects of curiosity.
Within the middle gate commences the splendour of the Seraï. Elaborate
gilding and curious arabesques are profusely lavished on its inner side;
whence an avenue of beeches leads to the third door, opening into the
kiosk-crowded “Garden of Delight,” wherein former Sultans were wont to
receive the European Ambassadors.
Beyond the vast and golden-latticed building formerly appropriated to
this purpose, the eye is bewildered by the confusion of many shaped and
glittering pavilions scattered about on all sides; and I, unfortunately,
had not time to examine them at my leisure; as I was requested
previously to my survey to visit one of the officers of the household,
who possessed the power of introducing me into the harem. Thither we
accordingly went; and found the courteous Effendi smoking his chibouk in
a sort of garden parlour, overlooking the enclosure in which stands the
Column of Theodosius.
[Illustration: COLUMN OF THEODOSIUS.]
As soon as we were seated, I requested permission to sketch this
interesting monument, which he at first refused from a dread of being
compromised by my entrance into the Seraï, but after a little reluctance
he complied, and I hastily availed myself of his politeness. Well was it
for me that I did so, for I had scarcely replaced my pencils, when an
attendant, breathless with haste, entered the room, exclaiming, “Hide
the lady! Hide the Franks!—The Sultan has just arrived in the second
court!”
All was instantly confusion. We made a hasty retreat by another gate;
and, passing along to the water’s edge, traced upon the mouldering walls
several inscriptions in ancient Greek. One ran thus: “Theodosius, King
by the grace of Christ;” another; “The Illustrious Theodosius, the great
King by the Grace of Christ;” while numberless crosses and
half-obliterated sentences still remain, which are beyond solution.
Altogether I brought away from the Seraï Bournou, a mere confused
impression of gilding and splendour; of domes, and kiosks, and gardens;
of lofty walls and gleaming lattices. On passing under what is called
the Gate of Constantine, the spot was pointed out to me on which a boy,
being a few months ago engaged in play with a party of children of his
own age, had dug up a brilliant, weighing between twenty eight and
thirty carats; since which period that narrow passage has also been
closed against the public. As our caïque darted past the golden gate of
the Imperial harem, I lost myself in reveries of all the guilt, and
suffering, and despair, which had made the celebrated Palace of the
Point the theme of story, and an object of undying interest to the
curious. I seemed to see the quivering body of the unfortunate
Selim—the Sardanapalus of the East—flung from the walls in mockery;
and to hear the taunt of his murderers as they cast him forth—“Traitors
and Rebels! there is your Sultan—Do with him as you will!”
This was the most recent tragedy of the Seraï Bournou, and perhaps one
of the saddest; and, as I glanced around me, and remembered how many of
his works had outlived him, I forgot my own disappointment in
commiserating the fate of a Sovereign, who, sensual and supine though he
was, yet possessed qualities both of the heart and the head, which
should have arrested the weapons of his assassins, and secured to him
the affections of his adherents.