The Clock of Erzeroom.--A Pasha's Notions of Horology.--Pathology
of Clocks.--The Tower and Dungeon.--Ingenious Mode of Torture.--The
modern Prison.
In the citadel--a place which might, with great ease, be rendered very
strong, but which now is deserted and disused, having, I believe,
been knocked to pieces in the Russian war--there are still two
or three curious ancient tombs and some other incomprehensible
old buildings. The building containing the prison, which was in
constant use in the good old times, and the tower, from whence the
flag of Turkey is displayed, possessed an old clock, which had been
out of order for many years before the Russians carried it away,
but which was the wonder and admiration of all Koords, Armenians,
and strangers from the mountains, to whom time was "no object," and
who considered this old clock, with its dial and hands, as some sort
of talisman beyond the comprehension of ordinary folks. Erzeroom was
indeed lifted up in the estimation of those unsophisticated herdsmen
and robbers, as the only place they ever heard of where any thing in
the nature of a clock was to be seen. It might happen that some few of
those who not only were possessed of such an outlandish article as a
watch, but who were in some measure initiated into the uses of that
strange production, would expatiate learnedly in the coffee-houses
on the wondrous properties of the great talisman in the tower of the
citadel, which, in all probability, from its great size and exalted
position, was considered as the father of all the little watches of
the sheikhs and chiefs among the tribes. As for the clock not going,
that signified but little. Talleyrand said that speech was accorded to
man for the purpose of enabling him to conceal his sentiments. The big
clock had doubtless his reasons for holding his tongue, and telling
no lies; I believe his reputation was increased by his silence, as is
the case among many other distinguished characters besides the clock
of Erzeroom. Now it came to pass, once upon a time, that the great
Pasha or viceroy of the wide realms of this great pashalik chanced to
be a philosopher; he knew that clocks, though they might have been
made to sell, besides this very primary quality, also ought to go,
but no artificer in the land of Armenia was competent to accomplish
this desirable end. Whenever a Frank traveler--not that there ever
were any travelers by profession in those days--but whenever a Frank
doctor or hakim made his appearance in those regions, he was always
received with distinguished civility by the Pasha, who, after the
preliminaries of coffee, Kef enis ayi--"may your powers of enjoyment
be in good order!"--always ended with an expression of his desire
that the Frank would immediately set about the repairs of the clock.
"Sir, your excellency," said the poor man, "I am a doctor; I am not a
watchmaker or a mechanic. I don't understand clocks; it is not in my
power to set the clock right; it is not in my line of business. I am
very sorry, but, O Effendim, I fear I am unable to meet your wishes
in this point."
"Dog of a Frank," quoth the Pasha, "great-grandfather's uncle to
all dogs, more particularly those of Frangistaun, is it not thy base
profession to meddle with the bowels of mankind? canst thou not expel
ginns, and evil spirits, and other things, which have taken up their
abode in the innermost recesses of the bodies of true believers, which
thine eye can not penetrate, while, nevertheless, thou turnest their
livers upside down, and their souls inside out; and all this by the
accursed aid of thy wretched Frankish incantations; shooting thine
arrows at them, or rather sending down their throats certain wicked
and diabolical contrivances, which are known by the barbarians of thy
benighted country by the name of pills? Dost thou pretend to see all
that is going on in the stomach of a follower of the Prophet, and wilt
thou tell me with the same breath that thou canst not administer to
the disorganized constitution of a clock? Hath not a clock a pulse,
when he is alive and in good health? Go thou, feel his pulse, and see
whether it is fast or slow; whatever thou mayest want, thou shalt have;
my hakim bashi shall assist you, only cure the clock. All Franks make
clocks: I have it from authority: do not pretend that thou canst not
set the clock going again, for surely thou canst restore it to life,
and make it strike, and do all that it ought to do. Behold, thou
art a Frank! Guards! take the Frank up into the tower, and make him
mend the clock; and if the unbelieving dog will not mend the clock,
then put him into the dungeon down below till he confesses that he
is ready to do as he is commanded by the Pasha of the true believers."
In this way every audience concluded. The unlucky Frank, having been
exalted to the top of the tower, and exhorted to repair the rickety old
clock, which had lost half its works, was debased into the dungeon,
there to remain till further notice. Having often heard this story
of the good old times, I one day proceeded to the citadel to see
the tower where the clock had been, and to examine the dungeon,
where I should have been sent if I had arrived at Erzeroom fifty
or sixty years ago. This dungeon really was a dungeon: any thing so
terrible as an abode for a human being I never saw before. The pozzi
at Venice were rather pleasant and agreeable places of retirement,
compared with the abode of many a poor Frank, in whose education the
art and craft of clockology had been unfortunately omitted.
At the foot of that which had been the clock-tower was a range of
small low rooms, of which two were particularly belonging to the
prison: the outer room of the two was larger than the other; this
was appropriated to the guards, who kept watch and ward, and who
fed, or did not feed, the wretched prisoners under their care. The
inner room was small and low, and had one window, through which the
light and air had to struggle with the opposition of heavy crossed
and re-crossed iron bars. The window looked into the castle yard,
but the room was so dark that I could hardly see my way.
"A horrible place for the poor prisoners," said I to my guides;
"little chance of their escape from these thick walls, and heavy bars,
and low, strong roof; they must have been safe enough here."
"Oh Effendim," said the kawasses, "this is not the prison. Here is
the prison at your feet, down below."
"Where?" said I.
"Look down," they replied, "on the middle of the floor; there is the
entrance; you can not see the dungeon itself, for it is, perhaps,
a little dark."
In the centre of the floor of this dismal cell was a heavy wrought-iron
grating, square, made of great bars, about six inches apart, seemingly
of enormous weight, lying on the ground, and fastened down with two or
three huge rusty padlocks on one side, and some lumbering old hinges
on the other. This iron grate was opened and raised up for my especial
edification, and there appeared under it the mouth of a narrow well cut
in the rock, perhaps two feet and a half in diameter, which sank down
into the darkness far below. "Now," said my informants, "if you stand
on this side, and look steadily till your eye is accustomed to the
gloom, you will be able to distinguish something white a good way down;
that is a square stone, like a table, in the middle of the vault, upon
which the jailers let down the provisions for the prisoners, as they
can see on that stone when the things arrive at the bottom." This was
the old dungeon, the common prison not many years ago; but, I believe,
since the reign of Hadji Kiamili Pasha, few or none had been consigned
to this horrible abode. The shape of it below, I understood, was that
of the inside of a bottle; it was between twenty and thirty feet deep;
vermin, dirt and filth, and foul air, formed its only furniture; and
into this awful hole many and many an innocent man had been let down:
some to be brought up again to pay a ransom of all that they possessed,
some to linger there for years, and some to die and rot unnoticed
if no food was provided for them by government, when their bones,
if not their flesh, gave token to the next inhabitants of what they
were to expect, unless their interest or their wealth was greater
than that of the poor wretch whose remains lay there before them.
An ingenious and horrible species of torture was sometimes added to
the discomforts of this dread abode: a large piece of raw flesh was
thrown down into the dungeon; the vermin, and the effluvia which it
produced, added to other miseries, made the existence of the wretched
prisoner almost intolerable.
The modern prison is bad enough: it consists of a number of cells
opening on a small paved court-yard. The prisoners, being just shoved
through the door, have to shift for themselves inside, where a kind of
Pandemonium exists; the stronger Koords bullying and tyrannizing over
the weaker felons, who have neither fire nor candle during the intense
cold of a great part of the year: so I was told; but I was not there
in the winter, and hope these unhappy wretches may be allowed a little
tezek occasionally to keep their dirty bodies and souls together.