M. Perrot—Armenian customs—Man and wife—We keep our wives
for ourselves—My host's niece—Law about divorce—Shutting up
the wives—Turkish husbands—How to get a divorce—Marrying
a divorced woman—Population of Yuzgat—Crime—Mines in the
neighbourhood—Tax paid in lieu of military service—The
Circassians—Their promise to the Turkish Government—Tax
on land; on house-property; on corn—Cattle—Collectors of
taxes—Jealousy about religious matters—Dissensions amongst
Christians—American Missionaries—A loyal address—The market—A
bazaar two stories high—A walk through the town—Gipsy
women—An elderly dame—Obstreperous young ladies—The old woman
dances.
My host now returned, and informed me that M. Perrot, a French author
who wrote a book about Asia Minor, had resided beneath this roof. On
turning over the leaves of the work, which had found its way to Yuzgat,
I came to a page in which M. Perrot observes that "one day I inquired
of my host why he did not introduce me to the lady of the house?"
"It is our custom," was the reply. "And I find it a wise one. What good
does it do me if other men see my wife? I took her for myself; she is
my property. I have heard that you Europeans spoil your wives; mine is
educated properly. When I enter my harem, she comes to kiss my hand,
then she stands upright before me in a respectful attitude, and she
only opens her mouth when I address her."
On showing my host the paragraph, he observed, "When M. Perrot was
here, my father owned this house. I remember the circumstance well. I
was in the room when M. Perrot asked my father to introduce him to my
mother. I suppose my parent was under the impression that in Europe
you keep your wives for your guests; but anyhow we keep our wives for
ourselves."
"What!" I inquired, "would you not introduce me to your sisters or
mother?"
"No, certainly not."
Mr. Vankovitch here interposed with the remark that on the following
day my host's niece was to be affianced to her future husband; that the
bridegroom had not set eyes upon the face of his intended, and no one
in Yuzgat, save her own immediate relatives, had ever seen the young
lady.
"Well," I inquired, "and if the wife of an Armenian is unfaithful to
him, can he obtain a divorce?"
"No," replied my host; "our religion does not allow of such a step; he
does not even see his wife's face before marriage."
"Then he has no opportunity of studying her character, and she has no
opportunity of studying his."
"No."
"They are a set of fools," said Vankovitch to me in Russian, this
language not being understood by the proprietor. "They think that by
shutting up their wives, they can keep them out of mischief, but the
husbands are very much mistaken."
"We need not be surprised at it," he continued; "an Armenian lady is
in no way educated. She is confined in a harem. She is the slave of her
husband, and has to do all sorts of menial work for him—wash his feet,
rub them dry, and wait at table. From her earliest childhood a girl
is brought up to consider herself as a slave in her father's house;
until the Armenians abandon these barbarous customs, their so-called
Christianity will not do them much good. A Turkish husband has no
difficulty in obtaining a divorce—in fact he is not even put to the
expense of going to a court of law. All he has to do is to say, in the
presence of a witness, 'I renounce you,' and he is at once freed from
his wife, who is at liberty to go where she likes, and marry whomsoever
she pleases."
"If a Turk," added Mr. Vankovitch, "once renounces his wife before a
witness, he cannot withdraw his renunciation. There is a story that a
woman, who wished to be divorced from her husband, dressed up one of
her female slaves in man's clothes and provided her with false whiskers
and beard. On entering the harem late at night the husband found this
disguised figure lying by the side of his wife. He was furious, and at
once renounced the, as he thought, faithless lady. There is a curious
law about marrying a divorced woman which is not generally known by
Europeans," continued the speaker. "If a Turk has divorced his wife,
but she wishes to return to him and he to take her, the lady first of
all must be married to some other man, and the rites in their entirety
be accomplished; the new spouse then divorces her. After this process
she can return to her former husband.
"A husband who wishes to take to himself again his divorced wife,
generally chooses some beggar, almost always a very old man; he then
offers this elderly individual a sum of money to marry the lady and
afterwards renounce her. Sometimes, however, there are difficulties in
carrying out these arrangements. The lady takes a fancy to the beggar,
and the beggar to the lady. The pauper will not divorce her, and the
original husband is laughed at by the rest of the community."
There were 10,000 inhabitants in Yuzgat, but there was very little
crime. Only one execution had taken place during the last fifteen
years, and this had been for murder.
The town itself is, comparatively speaking, of recent date, its
construction dating back 130 years. The neighbourhood abounds with
mines, and I was assured that iron, silver, and coal had been found
near the city.
The Armenians did not serve in the army as soldiers; but in lieu of
military service, paid the Ottoman Government twenty-eight piastres
thirty-two paras every year for each male child, from his birth to his
death.
The Circassians, of whom there are a great many in this part of
Turkey, are not compelled to join the army; but they have promised the
Government that every able-bodied man amongst them shall turn out as an
irregular horse or foot soldier, should his services be required.
The people in the province of Angora are taxed as follows:—If ground is
cultivated, the proprietor gives the Sultan the tithe of the crop.
The owner of a house pays 4_l._ per 1000_l._ of the estimated value
of his abode, that is to say, if he is living in it himself. If on the
contrary he lets it, he must pay 40_l._ per 1000_l._ The tax for people
engaged in trade or commerce, is 30 per cent. on their profits. If a
merchant sells corn in a town, he has to pay a duty of two paras for
every twenty okas of grain purchased from him, and should he dispose of
a horse, sheep, or ox, in the market-place, he must give the Government
2½ per cent. of the proceeds of the sale. A farmer has to pay the
Government four piastres a year if he is the owner of a goat, and three
for each sheep he possesses. The collectors of taxes in almost every
instance were Mohammedans; many of the Christians grumbled at the way
they were assessed.
If an Armenian girl expresses a wish to become a Mohammedan, this gives
rise to great jealousy between the Turks and Christians. At the same
time the Armenians who profess the Armenian faith detest any member
of their community who has accepted the Roman Catholic or Protestant
doctrines. The Christians being much more intolerant towards the
dissenters from their respective creeds than the Turks are to the
Christians.
There has hardly ever been an instance of a Turk accepting
Christianity, but the American missionaries in Asia Minor were said to
have converted many Armenians to Protestantism.
The Roman Catholic missionaries have not been idle. A number of
Armenians no longer reverence the Patriarch in Constantinople, but look
upon the Pope as the Head of their Church.
The Turks laugh in their sleeves at the discord in the ranks of the
Christian community. They cannot understand why so much hatred and
ill-feeling should exist between people who worship the same Messias.
This difference of opinion amongst the Christians is by no means
displeasing to the Turkish authorities; it renders any union between
the Armenians and Russia exceedingly difficult.
The following morning a servant brought a paper to my host for his
signature. It was a loyal address from the principal people in Yuzgat
thanking the Sultan for the Constitution. None of the Armenians
believed in the reform. Most of them held the same opinion as the
inhabitants of Angora, namely, that the projected Constitution was
thrown out as a bait to catch some of the plenipotentiaries at the
Conference, and that when the Conference was forgotten the Constitution
would be numbered with the past.
Vankovitch now called. I walked with him to the market which he was
constructing for the townspeople. It was not a large building, being
about eighty yards long by thirty wide; the houses were each of them
two stories high, built of hewn stone and with glass windows; the
latter a great luxury for the natives, glass having to be brought all
the way from Samsoun, a port on the Black Sea. The difficulties of
transport were very great, half the glass arrived in a fractured state,
this, and the extreme difficulty of carriage, added enormously to its
cost price.
In the market there was literally nothing which would have attracted an
observer's attention. Some of the Armenians sold dye, wood, and goat's
hair; others traded in cotton stuffs and calicos, one or two American
lamps to burn petroleum were in the window of a small shop which was
kept by a Greek.
The engineer had experienced considerable difficulty in persuading
the townspeople to let him construct a bazaar two stories high. "Our
fathers have always been satisfied with one story," remarked the
tradesmen, "then why should not we?"
In spite of the opposition, Vankovitch, with the Caimacan's assistance
had managed to carry the day. The people who had grumbled the loudest
about the new order of things, were the first to take apartments in the
two-storied building.
We continued our walk through narrow lanes, and by the side of
tumble-down hovels, till we arrived on the summit of a hill, the
outskirts of the town. Some good-looking gipsy women with brown
complexions, large dark eyes, and long black hair, were standing at the
door of one of these habitations.
"These are the dancers," said Vankovitch; "Dr. Gasparini telegraphed
from Angora to ask me to arrange a gipsy dance for you. Let us go and
talk to one of the old women, and choose the girls who are to perform."
An elderly dame recognized my companion; she advanced, and invited us
to enter her house. When our errand was known, great excitement ensued
amidst the younger damsels of the gipsy community. Each one trusted
that her good looks and skill in the Terpsichorean art would influence
my companion in his choice.
"Be quiet!" said the old woman indignantly to some of the more
obstreperous of her young ladies, who, to show my companion their
agility, were performing a sort of cancan step, very different from
those dances which I had hitherto seen in the East.
"Now, then, Effendi," to my companion, "how many girls do you require?"
"Three."
"Well, three you shall have. The most beautiful and gazelle-like of
our tribe. I will come myself," continued the old lady, "and I too will
dance, if only to show the Frank Effendi what our dance is like."
It was as much as I could do to keep my countenance; the old woman was
very fat; some of the girls, catching my eye, went off into fits of
laughter.
"Ah! you may laugh, children," said the old woman indignantly, "but
none of you can dance like I can. They are not supple like I am,
Effendi. They cannot move their hips. They cannot sway the lower part
of their bodies. Look here!"
And straightening her aged limbs, the old woman commenced wriggling her
different joints, the girls applauding her, and beating time with their
hands to each movement of the dancer's body.
"Very good," said Vankovitch, as she sank down on a divan, with a force
which would have smashed any less strong piece of furniture. "Very
good. You dance like a stag. You shall come too."
"Thank heavens," he remarked in French, "that she did not throw herself
on to my lap, for this is the custom of these wild dancers; if she had
done so, there would not have been much left of me. But come along, let
us return; it is very stuffy here."
After making an appointment with the old lady for the dancers to
come to us on the following evening, we descended the hill and walked
towards the principal mosque in the town.