AT SCHOOL AND IN THE HAREM.
My hatred of lessons--Compulsory attendance at
school--The bastinado in schools--My own experience of
it--How schoolgirls are punished--The old-fashioned
implement for beating--"The rod is a gift from
Heaven"--I help to kidnap a bride--My mother's grief
at my behaviour--I am handed over to a stem uncle in
consequence--My uncle's wives--Etiquette in the harem--A
first cigarette--Bastinado again--I am shut out of
the harem--The practice of polygamy--Its popularity
estimated--The European system.
"PARADISE is beneath the ground over which mothers walk," said Prophet
Mohammed. This saying is to be thus construed: "If any man desires to
gain paradise, let him obey and respect his mother." This precept I
was taught to follow from my earliest childhood. But I fear I must be
destined for some place other than paradise, for when I was a boy I
frequently gave my mother much trouble and caused her great and many
anxieties, for I found my conduct free from masculine control after
my father's death, and made good, or bad, use of my opportunities. I
was a child of unthinking and reckless nature. I had an intense horror
of going to any school. At our summer residence I owned a flock of
geese, and I loved to spend my time looking after them. I was therefore
given the nickname of 'goose-herd,' which is tantamount in Turkish to
'idiot'. In our town-house I trained and reared pigeons, and I must say
I had some excuse for this, as I have never seen such beautiful birds
elsewhere. They were very small, and of a pure white hue. They would
fly to an extraordinary altitude, and would remain out of sight for
several hours. At other times they would suddenly let themselves fall,
swooping and wheeling in mid-air, and then shoot upwards once more.
Birds of this most intelligent and trainable breed have been frequently
taken to Constantinople, but they cannot live in the climate of that
town.
While I was wasting my time with dumb companions, my eldest brother and
cousins were quite able to read and write, things which to my mind
were absolutely past comprehension and belief. Unable to compel me to
attend any school, my mother at last applied to an old negro servant of
my grandfather's, who was then living close to us with his white wife
and tawny children. When a boy he had been bought by my grandfather
from the slave-dealers, and as the emancipation of slaves is considered
the most pious act a Mohammedan can perform, my grandfather freed him
soon after buying him, gave him some property, and arranged a marriage
for him. This old man did not approve of my undutiful conduct towards
my mother. In accordance with a promise which he willingly made to
her, one morning he came to our house and gravely asked me to go with
him to school. I excused myself on the plea that the books and papers
previously procured for me had been eaten by rats. He said he would
buy new ones for me in the school, and I told him it was no use buying
them, because I did not understand them. Then the big black man,
showing his white teeth angrily, moved towards me, and caught me by the
ear with his rough, hard hand, and practically dragged me as far as
the school, amidst the malicious chuckling of my brother and cousins.
During lesson-times my thoughts flew after my geese and pigeons. Many
a time was I led to school most unwillingly in the same fashion, and
it took several months for the master to persuade me, by much corporal
chastisement, to take the slightest interest in my lessons.
After a year or so I had to go to a higher school, where there were
hundreds of boys, several teachers, and a headmaster of ruthless
disposition. In those days flogging was the principal punishment for
all offences of schoolboys. I have never seen or heard of any master
who carried out his duty of not sparing the rod more conscientiously,
more unbendingly, and with more self-satisfaction than that headmaster.
Personally, however, I came off more easily than most, as during the
two years of my attendance in the school I was only beaten three
times. The beating took the usual form of bastinado, and in my three
experiences I received fifty strokes on the soles of my feet, twenty
of them for my ill-behaviour, fifteen for my stupidity, and fifteen
for my incapacity to learn arithmetic. I had on several occasions
played mischievous schoolboy tricks, which would have brought upon me
many a flogging had I not been careful enough to hoodwink the watchful
eyes of the headmaster and his attendants. But on the occasion when I
received my twenty strokes, I was detected while rather irreverently
playing pranks during prayer-time. It was the custom for the headmaster
to take all the boys every afternoon to a special hall for prayer,
and to conduct the service personally. In our places of worship
people prostrate themselves by laying their foreheads on the floor,
while they repeat again and again the name of Allah; everyone should
then disengage his thoughts from all earthly things and fix them "on
heaven." The whole service does not last more than fifteen minutes,
and one prostration only lasts about a minute. One day, when the
whole congregation were prostrate, I quickly got up and collected the
fezzes of the boys who were near me, piled them in a heap, and at once
re-prostrated myself. When the service was over, it was observed that
several boys were bareheaded. The master was informed of the crime
that had been committed, for a Mussulman always prays with covered
head, and a searching inquiry began. One of the boys, who was a friend
of mine, while going before the master to be interrogated, could not
refrain from laughing at the remembrance of the fun. The master at
once ordered his attendants to pull the boy down to be beaten. Seeing
that my friend was crying, I went to the master and swore that the
boy was innocent "How do you know?" he asked me. "Because he was next
to me during the service; I should have observed him," said I. Then
several boys got up and told the master that the boy was not at my side
during the service, thus contradicting me unanimously. Whereupon two
attendants were ordered to pull me down and hold my legs tightly. The
master then gave me twenty fierce blows on my feet, which made me lame
for several days. This was the last flogging I had in the school.
It may perhaps be of interest if I give some description of our methods
of corporal punishment in schools, which are still, even the primitive
ones, employed by some masters in the provinces. In our old schools
there were two kinds of flogging--one for the girls and the other
for the boys. Girls used to be beaten on the palms of their hands.
There used to be an instrument in each school which was called the
_flaka_. This was a long thick stick, to which was fastened a loop.
The girl's wrists were fastened to the stick by means of twisting the
loop round it, and the stick was held up by a person at either end.
Then the master (there were no schoolmistresses), standing in front,
used to inflict the punishment with a thin hard rod. The number of the
strokes usually varied between five and ten. Laziness, much talking,
and mischievous behaviour were the principal offences which brought
about this punishment As I remarked before, boys used to be beaten on
their feet--sometimes on the soles of their boots, in graver cases
without them, and even sometimes without their socks. The boys had to
be pulled down, and two persons held up their feet, and the master used
to strike the feet with a thick rod. The number of blows only exceeded
twenty in the case of a very bad offence, and flogging on the bare feet
was generally the result of the master finding something inside the
culprit's boots or socks to mitigate the force of the blows. It often
happened that the boys, foreseeing their fate, used to place between
their feet and socks such things as cotton handkerchiefs, and pieces
of sheepskin. I remember I did not cry when I was beaten for the first
time, as I thought it was very cowardly to cry in the presence of so
many boys. But a boy who was sitting next to me said, "You silly! why
did you not cry?" He then told me that each time he knew he was likely
to be punished he placed some soft stuff inside his socks at once, and
while he was being beaten cried out for mercy as loudly as possible. He
said he made the master reduce the number of strokes by this plan.
In the old preparatory mixed schools there used to be another method
of keeping children in order, which, I must admit, was decidedly
barbarous. Those elementary schools for children consisted only of a
large hall with two galleries in it. The smaller gallery was occupied
by the master, and there he summoned the children in groups of two or
three at a time to come and say their lessons. There was no division
into classes. The larger gallery was used for the girls, the boys
occupying the middle of the hall. Although the little scholars used to
have low benches before them, they had to sit on the floor, each boy
or girl having his or her own mattress or sheepskin, which the parents
had to provide, to sit upon. Now the master used to have hanging on the
wall by his side a long stick whose length was always in proportion
to the size of the hall-that is to say, it reached from one end of
the room to the other. Whenever the master observed any of his pupils
not behaving well and not doing their work, he often did not take the
trouble to call the delinquent up before him, but simply took down
the long heavy rod, held it up by its thick end, and, with the thin
end, struck at any part of his victim he could reach--head, shoulders,
or back. Sometimes, if this did not do, he would poke them in the
ribs instead. This punishment was very common in all the elementary
schools in my time, and was not peculiar to our province, but practised
throughout the country. I cannot remember whether I suffered under the
long pole in my childhood, but I imagine I did not, as the masters of
these schools used to spare the children of well-to-do people for fear
of annoying their parents, and thus forfeiting the chance of getting a
better fee.
The bastinado is regarded in England as a practice of peculiar
barbarity, but in Turkey the belief in its good effects still largely
prevails. "The rod is a gift from heaven" is a common saying in our
language. This means that flogging inspires a desire in refractory
people to do right I do not propose to enter into any argument on
the merits or demerits of this subject. I consider personally that a
beating which is well-deserved and reasonably inflicted often effects
a marvellous improvement in a lawless character, awakes the sluggish
conscience of ruffians, and tames unmanageable boys. It is doubtful,
however, if it is very effective in inducing children at school to
learn their lessons.
* * * * *
About the beginning of a summer season it was considered that I had
been at the school in my native town long enough. I was then fourteen
years old. My mother was looking forward to the arrival of the time
when she could send me to Constantinople to complete my term of
study. I left the school when summer had begun, and we went to our
country-house to spend the summer.
Angora, our native place, has a well-deserved reputation throughout
Asia Minor for its varied and extensive fruit-gardens. Almost all the
families residing there have their own gardens a few miles outside the
town, and most of them have their summer residence in the midst of
their gardens. Three streams, flowing from different directions, join
just below the town, and the valleys of these streams are covered with
either fruit-trees or vineyards. Towards the beginning of May people
begin to transport their provisions, furniture, and other household
necessities in ox-waggons from the town-houses to the garden-cottages.
They reside in the country five or six months, according to when the
final harvesting of the autumn fruits takes place. The women and
children stay in the country, and most of the men go to the town for
their business every day before the heat of the sun becomes too great,
and come back in the cool of the evening about sunset. In the middle
of the day no one but hardy villagers can travel, for the heat of our
climate is as excessive in summer as the cold is severe in winter. The
journeys are made on horses, mules, and donkeys.
Like most children I used to feel an intense pleasure in getting away
from the town at the beginning of the summer season, but this was
not so much on account of my dislike of the town life as of my joy
in getting rid of the horrors of pens and paper, and of the worrying
schoolmaster. In addition to all the usual country pastimes, such as
riding, swimming in the river, shooting, and fishing (which consists
principally with us of what is known in England as 'tickling' fish, by
putting the hands into the holes under willows which serve as lairs
for fish, and grasping and throwing the prey on to the bank), I had
a reprehensible way of amusing myself which is also not unknown to
English boys. This was boldly trespassing into our neighbours' gardens
to get fruit, an amusement which shocked my poor mother's feelings
fearfully. I used to plunder more for the sake of the adventure than
of eating the plundered fruit, as our own garden was the best, and our
fruit was the envy of the neighbourhood.
During that summer I spent months on our country estate immune from the
punishment I deserved, but at last I committed a crime which could not
be overlooked by my people. I helped a lovesick swain, who had been
refused, to carry off his lady-love _vi et armis_. Before I begin to
relate the incident I should like to remark that the habit of marriage
by abduction was not originally Turkish. It was introduced into Asia
Minor by the Caucasian emigrants, and used to be occasionally practised
by people of Circassian origin. Almost all Circassian marriages take
place through kidnapping. It is the custom for a Circassian to carry
off his bride, whether the families of both parties find the match
suitable or not. It is expected that he shall prove his bravery by
taking this step, and if he is considered by the girl's people to be
a fitting suitor, things may afterwards be arranged in a friendly
manner; if not, it becomes a question of honour, which ends in feud,
and often in bloodshed. With our people this practice is viewed almost
with horror, and my complicity in the affair I have referred to was
considered by everyone a very grave misdemeanour.
In the kidnapping expedition in which I was implicated the members of
the girl's family could not venture to fight to regain her, as the
lover's family was stronger in male relations and friends, while on
the other hand, to appeal to the law would cause them endless worries
and expense. The abducted bride's people were by no means socially
superior to those of the bridegroom, but they had refused the regular
demand for marriage. The girl was born of a Circassian mother, and I
believe she must have inherited the instinct of her race. She wished
to marry her lover, so she managed to send word to him that she would
appear in the garden adjacent to her house at an hour previously
fixed. The expedition was composed of three men--myself, the lover,
and a powerfully built man of Circassian descent, who had the best
horse under him and who had to carry the girl. We started from our
neighbourhood at dark, and after an hour and a half's ride on the
main road we took a side-way on approaching the country residence of
the girl's people. We tied up our horses to trees, and while creeping
through the thickly planted fruit-gardens as quietly as possible, we
saw someone moving, wrapped in a long white cloak. It was the girl, and
she was shivering, even on that warm summer evening, when we approached
her, and our big companion took her on his shoulders. The lover
looked, it seemed to me, at this moment hopelessly stupid, possibly
by reason of his mingled feelings of joy and anxiety. We went back to
the place where our horses were. The captured bride was mounted on the
big Circassian's horse, holding tightly to the man's shoulders. We
started, and on regaining the main road we had to ride with moderate
speed, as the girl could not stand the strain of violent galloping. The
bridegroom and I were constantly looking behind, anticipating pursuit
and a possible attempt at recapture. I was armed with a flint pistol
and a club, formidably decorated with a cluster of nails at the thick
end. We took the girl to the bridegroom's residence, where his people
gave her the kindest possible reception, and where she was duly married
to him next day.
On hearing of my share in this adventure my mother was overwhelmed with
grief and indignation. However, I considered that I acted quite rightly
in the matter, and that in helping on the marriage of a suffering
fellow-man, which subsequently turned out admirably, I did a piece of
good work.
The end of the autumn of this year was approaching, and we prepared
to transfer our residence from the country to our town-house. My
uncle, who represented our town in the short-lived Ottoman Parliament
in Constantinople, had returned from that city just at the same time,
the said Parliament having been prorogued indefinitely by the present
Sultan, and he had decided to reside in Angora for some time. Hearing
all about my conduct, he asked my mother to send my luggage to his
house, so that I might live among his own children, and pursue my
studies under his personal supervision. My mother, whose gentle soul
had been much disturbed by my countless misdeeds, instead of being
glad to see me go away, when she might find a little peace, sobbed
on seeing my luggage removed from her house. My uncle, as I inferred
before, was the first man in our family to enter the service of the
Government After acting as Judge in the quasi-religious Mohammedan
Courts of Aleppo, Damascus, Cairo, Medina and Mecca, and other centres
of the Ottoman empire, for nearly forty years, he retired temporarily
from the Government service. Although thoroughly honest, sober, and
pious in the extreme, he had fallen into some of the old failings and
habits of Constantinople officialdom, such as polygamy. When I went to
his house he had three wives, all living together with their numerous
children and many female attendants, in his harem--that is to say, in
the ladies' section of his house. His wives were all Circassians. He
bought, emancipated, and married them at different times, and, unlike
some other polygamists, he kept them in one house. It was as wonderful
as uncommon to see how they all obeyed him implicitly; and though
a man of the sternest disposition, he treated them all kindly and
with perfect fairness. They may have hated one another at heart, but
etiquette and a strict ceremony of precedence were always observed by
them. The children of the different wives were more markedly jealous
of each other than were their mothers. Before marrying these three
Circassian wives my uncle had been married to a lady in whose lifetime
he could not take advantage of the existence of the system of polygamy,
because she was the daughter of a family of social distinction.
I lived in my polygamist uncle's harem nearly two years. There was
a marked contrast between our own home life and that of my uncle's
tumultuous abode. The children of his wives quarrelled with one
another, his servants quarrelled with each other. Each wife looked
after the comfort of her apartments and her own children. I was not
attached to the department of any one of them, and felt very unhappy.
In every boyish dispute the sons united and turned against me, and
I was quite naturally envious of the affection lavished on them by
their respective mothers. My uncle, though he treated me on a perfect
equality with his own sons, was very strict He gave us no rest. I lost
all my former amusements. We had to occupy ourselves continually either
with lessons or with the prayers which he conducted five times a day in
a large hall. The morning prayers, which have to be made about an hour
before sunrise, annoyed me more than the others, as every day my uncle
used to get up and go round knocking at the door of every bedroom,
both in the harem and in the men's quarter, compelling everyone to
get up for the early prayer. To have to get up and perform my prayer
ablution on cold winter mornings often made me complain in terms that
were hardly pious. Anyone among the numerous boys, girls, and servants
who failed in getting ready for the prayer without being able to plead
serious illness was sure to receive the bastinado or whip from my
stem uncle. On several occasions, like his own sons, I also received
punishment Feeling depressed in his house, I secretly started smoking,
which is strictly prohibited for boys in my country. One of the sons,
who disliked me much, one day spied on me, and informed his father that
I was enjoying cigarettes in the stable in company with the groom, who
bought and kept them for me, and shared them with me. My uncle sent
two stalwart servants to catch me. They brought me before him, and he
ordered them to take off my shoes and socks and hold my legs up. He
gave me twenty strokes on my bare feet, and they hurt me so much that
I howled for a long time afterwards. However, the punishment had its
effect, for till within the last two years I have never been able to
enjoy smoking.
One of my uncle's strictest orders was that his sons and I should
remain on the men's side of the house every evening to read and write
our lessons, and not retire to our rooms in the harem to bed until
after the evening prayer, which takes place about ten o'clock. After
I had been living in his harem some months, one night, at the moment
when we were all preparing to go to bed, my uncle asked me to stop,
and informed me, in his own grave manner, that as I was entering upon
the stage of manhood, it was time that I should respect the rule of
seclusion. According to this rule, a man can no longer live among the
ladies of the harem, between whom and himself marriage would be legal.
So the sons of my uncle retired to the harem, leaving me behind in the
men's quarter of the house. I went to the room assigned to me, and
found all my belongings had been brought out there. I have a vivid
recollection of the depression and sadness I felt that night. I was not
quite fifteen then. I wished to run away to our own house and throw
myself into the arms of my mother, but I knew it was quite hopeless,
as I had been legally placed under the guardianship of my uncle alone.
Moreover, he was too powerful a man to be resisted, and his voice was
supreme in all matters connected with our family circle. Seeing the
hopelessness of my case, I wept long that solitary night The reason
which necessitated my dismissal from my uncle's harem was that he
had two daughters of about my own age. Some people, including my own
mother, used to design one of them for my future wife, though I did not
then appreciate the blessing of matrimony, nor had the girl the least
liking for me. It is a curious fact that when there is such a scheme to
marry two young people in the future, and even when they are actually
engaged, their separation, instead of being relaxed, is more rigidly
enforced.
* * * * *
While on the subject of my uncle's harem, it will not perhaps be amiss
if I say something about the practice of polygamy in general. Much
has been written in English about the Islamic polygamy, but little
that is correct and authoritative, for those who are not Mohammedans
are unreasonably prejudiced against it. Having more than one wife is
not a Turkish, but a Moslem custom. Among the races of the Islamic
faith the Turks indulge in polygamy least Scratch those unprincipled
officials in Constantinople who may be polygamists, and you will find
in them more foreign than Osmanli blood. There are many reasons for
the justification of the plurality of wives in the Islamic books. I
will give one of these reasons, which is historical. Before the time
of Mohammed some Arab tribes, in order to check the increase of the
female sex, used to bury alive some of their, so to say, 'surplus
girls.' The appearance of Islam stamped out this most savage custom.
After the foundation of Mohammedanism many sanguinary religious wars
took place between Islamites and non-Islamites of Arabia, and a great
number of men died in the battles. Therefore many women were left
without husbands or unmarried. In those days this caused the increase
of prostitution to an alarming degree, and this is a great 'crime'
according to the Mohammedan law. Every fair-minded and impartial
Christian will admit that Mohammed established many humane and just
principles for his followers, and it might be expected that such a
wise man would not have sanctioned the practice of polygamy. But what
could have been done with those 'surplus women' in an age when women's
services were not of any public good to the community? How could he
check the "crime" of immorality? He had to permit the exercise of
polygamy, which was the usual practice among other Semitic peoples;
and he sanctioned a man's marrying two, three, or even four wives,
according to his capability in health, wealth, and just treatment
of them. "With the change of times laws must be altered," says a
general rule of Islamic law. But polygamic law did not change. Some
wealthy and influential rulers and persons have always favoured it.
What surprises me most in this respect is the injudicious criticism
of polygamy by some Europeans. Are there not many men in Europe who,
besides their lawful wife at home, have paramours elsewhere? This
is worse than the polygamy of the Moslem Orient, as in the one case
the plurality of female companions of life has a legal aspect, and
the issue of the union is considered legitimate, while, on the other
hand, the unfortunate offspring of the _union libre_ of Europe are
disinherited outcasts, and their mothers can at any moment be thrown
into prostitution.