Osman Bey—A Circassian feud—Will there be a rising in
the Caucasus?—If England were to help us—A wonderful
servant—Mohammed—His Captain—An Armenian doctor—Business
is flat—The Christian population to be armed—Visitors
asking favours—Your reward will be in heaven—A
subscription—Promotion through favouritism—A sad story—A
cruel father—A servant arrested for debt—Failure of justice.
Soon afterwards I met Osman Bey, my acquaintance of the previous
day. He was on the point of leaving for a Circassian hamlet in the
neighbourhood. It appeared that a feud had arisen between the people of
this village and another one in its vicinity; the Bey was going there
to calm, if possible, the angry feelings of the inhabitants.
He remarked that in the event of war breaking out between Turkey and
Russia he should go to the Caucasus.
"Will there be a great rising in that country?" I inquired.
"It is very doubtful," was the answer; "our people have risen several
times;[17] no foreign power has assisted us, and the result is that we
have been decimated by our enemy. My countrymen are afraid of doing
anything, unless they feel certain that they will be aided in their
attempt. If England were to help us," he continued, "and could only
capture one Russian port on the Black Sea, the Circassians would have
confidence, and there would be a rising throughout the length and
breadth of our land."
On returning to my house I found the Zaptieh who had been defrauded by
my late servant. He was awaiting me with a candidate for Osman's place.
"Effendi, I have brought you a wonderful fellow," said the gendarme;
"if you send him with a message, he will fly; he will guard your purse
more carefully than his own."
It appeared that the wonderful man's name was Mohammed; he was a redif
soldier. His battalion would march in the course of a week or so to
Erzeroum. To avoid going with the troops he proposed that he should
engage himself as my servant until we reached that town, and then he
could join his battalion.
"But will your commanding officer give you leave to accompany me?" I
inquired.
"If the Effendi asks him," interrupted the Zaptieh.
Mohammed was apparently not above twenty-five years of age. He had a
pleasant, frank expression, and I determined to engage him, that is, if
I could obtain the sanction of his captain.
I now went to see this officer. He at once agreed to the proposal; that
is, if I would pledge myself to give up Mohammed at Erzeroum.
"How can I pledge myself?" I remarked, "he may run away on the road."
"That is true," said the officer; "but he is a straightforward
fellow—he will not do so. If I had the power, I would let you take him
as a servant for all the time that you remain in the country; but I
have no authority to do this, I am merely a captain."
The matter was settled. Returning to my house, I informed the man of
his officer's consent.
Mohammed was to have the same wages as Osman, and as he had a horse
of his own, which he wished to take to Erzeroum, I was to pay for the
forage of the animal, and could make use of him for the baggage. This
would be very useful; hitherto I had been obliged to hire a horse,
owing to my loss of Obadiah. Up to this time I had been travelling on
the postal track. It was possible to find horses. After leaving Sivas,
the next town I should reach, there would be no more postal-stations;
I should then have to trust to my being able to hire animals from the
peasantry, or be obliged to purchase another horse.
"I have a wife," said Mohammed; "will my lord give me a little money?"
"How much do you want?"
"Two liras."
"I wonder if he will bolt with the money, like the Tartar I engaged
last winter in Orenburg." This idea at once occurred to my mind. On
second thoughts, I remembered that he was well known to the Zaptieh,
and to many of the other inhabitants of Tokat; so I acceded to his
request.
An Armenian doctor called to see me. He had been educated in the
States, and spoke English with a most unmistakable Yankee drawl.
"How is business here?" I inquired.
"Very flat," said the medical gentleman; "the people do not put much
faith in doctors, that is, until they are really ill, and then we have
a busy time of it. They pill themselves," he continued, "and go in for
herbs and old women's remedies; they get them cheap, and grudge the
money which they must pay to a regular practitioner."
"You do not look very well," said the doctor.
"Thank you, there is not much the matter," I replied. The fact was
that I had a splitting headache, owing to the charcoal pan or mungo
which warmed the apartment. The gas from the charcoal being lighter
than the air, fills the upper part of the room. The Turks and Armenians
generally squat on the floor. They do not feel the effects of the fumes
so much as a person who is seated on the divan.
Another Armenian now paid me a visit. He was the telegraph
inspector in Tokat, and he informed us that orders had just been
sent from Constantinople to buy up all the available horses in this
neighbourhood.
"Things look warlike," he continued, "and the doctor," pointing to
his compatriot, "will have plenty of practice before long. The whole
Christian population is to be armed. It is clear that the Government
has not much faith in the Conference, and is doing its best to prepare
for war."
The Armenians in Tokat complained of the slack way in which justice was
administered throughout that district. According to the doctor, if a
man committed a crime, and could get away for a year or two and then
return to his home, he would not be pursued by the authorities; that
is, unless the aggrieved parties made a formal complaint.
"Yes," said another visitor, "three months ago fifty-four malefactors
escaped from the prison. Forty of them shortly afterwards surrendered;
the rest made their way to the mountains. Their ringleader, who is a
murderer, has been recently seen in Tokat: no one has cared to arrest
him."
Four young Turks entered the room; the eldest could not have been more
than three-and-twenty.
"What do you want?" I inquired.
"We do not wish to go to the war," replied one of them, who took upon
himself to be spokesman for the party.
"Why not?"
"Because we are married men and have children."
"I cannot help you."
"Yes, Effendi, you can; you might speak to the Caimacan, and he could
free us from military service."
"His duty is to send you to the front," observed the doctor.
"Yes, but he evidently likes the Frank, for we saw them riding
together, and if the Effendi would only ask him, he could not be so
inhospitable as to decline."
I was a little annoyed at this remark, and observed,—
"I certainly shall not ask for anything of the kind. Other people who
have wives and children are obliged to go, then why not you?"
"But they did not love their wives so much as we love ours," persisted
the man.
The Caimacan now called. Upon his arrival the four visitors, after
grovelling almost in the dust before him, took their departure.
"What did they want?" said the Governor.
I told him.
"It is very unpatriotic of them," he observed. "The cunning little
dogs, to ask you to intercede on their behalf! But they shall all go
with the next battalion!"
I was evidently destined to have a succession of visitors on that
afternoon, for no sooner had the Caimacan gone than another official
arrived. He at once commenced a conversation by saying that he had been
employed in collecting the redif soldiery from the different villages
in the neighbourhood, and had also started a subscription amongst the
wealthier inhabitants to provide the men with warm shirts.
"You have acted very kindly, and doubtless with the best motives," I
remarked. "Your reward will be in heaven."
"Yes," said the man, who did not seem quite to relish the idea of his
reward being so indefinitely postponed; "but the Effendi is going to
Sivas?"
"Yes."
"He will see the Pacha there."
"Very likely."
"Then will he tell the Pacha of my great merits, and ask him to give me
some higher employment?"
"If it pleases Allah, you will receive some higher post," I piously
observed. "Our destinies are in his hand."
"Yes," said the man, "so they are. But for all that, I wish that you
would speak to the Pacha for me."
From the two examples I have here cited, it will readily be seen that
a system of promotion through favouritism is very deeply rooted amidst
the Turks. I had been seen riding with the Caimacan. It was thought
that I might see the Pacha at Sivas—this was quite sufficient to induce
some of the inhabitants of Tokat to believe that any request I might
make to the Pacha or Caimacan would necessarily be granted.
"It was fortunate," here remarked the engineer, "that you told Osman to
give the baksheesh to a Corporal, and that a Turkish servant heard you
give the order. If the fellow had been a Christian, the servant would
never have taken the trouble to mention it to him. But the fact of the
Corporal being a co-religionist was too much for the servant. It has
enabled you to detect the fraud."
"This is one of the worst features of the country," he continued.
"The Turks will not do anything to aid a Christian at the expense of
a Mohammedan, even if the Mohammedan is most clearly in the wrong.
And it is much the same with the Christians in respect to their
co-religionists. The result is that the Armenians and Turks do not pull
well together. The law, too, is faulty, and requires amendment."
"Let me give you an example," continued Mr. Gasparini, "and one which
has come immediately under my notice, for it affected my own servant.
It sounds like a romance, but, alas! is too true! My servant's name
is Karatel Mermenk Ovooloo. He is an Armenian; his mother died when
he was a child; his father remarried, but behaved very badly to his
second wife, continually ill-treating her, and making his son bring
another woman to the house. The lad was very fond of his stepmother,
who was at that time seriously ill; at last he refused to bring his
father's paramour to their home. The father beat him severely and
apprenticed the lad to his own trade, that of a coppersmith. The mother
soon afterwards died, with an anathema on her lips at her husband's
paramour. The latter, strange to say, died herself three weeks
afterwards. In the meantime, the father gave the boy three piastres a
week for his clothes. The lad could not clothe himself for that sum, he
left his home and went into service. The parent succeeded in having the
boy turned away from several situations, but at last I took him. Now,
only the other day, the father went to the Cadi, and swore that his
son was in a coppersmith's business with himself, and in consequence
must pay half the tax on his trade. There is no truth whatever in
the statement, but the father's word has been taken, and my servant
arrested, and kept in prison for three days. The sum is only twenty-six
piastres, I would gladly pay it myself, but I have no money; the
government will not give me my salary; so here we are at a dead-lock."