eighteenth century, was by no means entirely pleasant, and indeed it
was not wholly without risks, even for an ambassador's wife. Lady
Mary, however, went everywhere and saw everything, and, in the midst
of a good deal of domestic discomfort, accommodated herself amazingly
to the cosmopolitan and polyglot life which she came to delight in. "I
live," she wrote, "in a place that very well represents the tower of
Babel, in Pera they speak Turkish, Greek, Hebrew, Armenian, Arabic,
Persian, Russian, Slavonian, Wallachian, German, Dutch, French,
English, Italian, Hungarian, and what is worse, there are ten of these
languages spoken in my own family." Children of three years old often
speak five languages, she says, a statement that would be as nearly
true now as it was then. This she professes to find annoying, it was
really delightful, other things were not so pleasant.
Constantinople in earlier times had not been a pleasant resort for
ambassadors. The _Mémoires sur l'ambassade de France en Turquie_,
written by M. le Comte de Saint-Priest, at the end of the eighteenth
century, show how difficult and dangerous had been the position of the
envoys. They are a brilliant sketch of the work of the able French
ambassadors who had endeavoured from the time of Francis I. and
Suleiman the Magnificent, to confirm an alliance which should secure
to France a flourishing trade in the Levant, and a powerful ally
against the House of Hapsburg. Their success was considerable, but it
was not infrequently interfered with by their own eccentricities.
Savari de Lancosme (1585) was so rash that his cousin Savari de Brèves
was sent out to supersede him, and he promptly induced the Turks to
imprison him in the Seven Towers.
Achille de Harlay Sanay (1611-17) procured the escape of an imprisoned
Pole, and was in consequence himself "outragé en sa personne et celle
de ses gens" and made to pay 20,000 piastres. The Comte de Marcheville
in 1639, found "le logis de l'ambassadeur si infâme, qu'on ne se
pouvait imaginer qu'un ambassadeur effectif pût y demeurer." He built,
among other additions, two chapels, "one public, the other interior."
The Turks were furiously enraged, and after a good deal of acrimonious
complaints, in which the people of Galata shared, the unhappy
ambassador was expelled the country. De la Haye, a few years later,
spent three months in the Seven Towers, and M. de Vautelec also had
unpleasant experiences. M. de Ferriol, illuminating his house on the
occasion of the birth of a French prince, found himself in danger of
expulsion. As late as 1798, a French ambassador, on the declaration of
war, was imprisoned as usual in the Seven Towers.
Lady Mary's friend the French ambassadress might tell her of some of
these catastrophes, but she shows no fear that they would happen to
herself. Her descriptions were evidently written with perfect freedom,
day by day, and it is that which preserves their freshness after
nearly two centuries. A passage or two will bring vividly before us
what English folk then thought of the Turkish power, and of the sights
of the capital.
Here she speaks of the Constitution, just as an orthodox English
politician would wish to speak.
"The Grand Signior, with all his absolute power, is as much a slave as
any of his subjects, and trembles at a Janizary's frown. Here is,
indeed, a much greater appearance of subjection than amongst us; a
minister of state is not spoke to, but upon the knee; should a
reflection on his conduct be dropt in a coffee-house (for they have
spies everywhere) the house would be raz'd to the ground, and perhaps
the whole company put to torture. No huzzaing mobs, senseless
pamphlets, and tavern disputes about politics;
A consequential ill that freedom draws;
A bad effect,--but from a noble cause.
None of our harmless calling names! but when a minister here
displeases the people, in three hours time he is dragged even from his
master's arms. They cut off his hands, head, and feet, and throw them
before the palace gate, with all the respect in the world; while the
Sultan (to whom they all profess an unlimited adoration) sits
trembling in his apartment, and dares neither defend nor revenge his
favourite. This is the blessed condition of the most absolute monarch
upon earth, who owns no law but his will."
To live close to such scenes was an education in Oriental politics.
Lady Mary lived still nearer to the outward show and pomp of the
Oriental despots. The state of the Sultans was reflected on the
ambassadors of powers with whom they desired to be friendly. When she
travelled from Selivria, along the shore of the Marmora, Lady Mary
and her husband had from the "Grand Signior" "thirty covered waggons
for our baggage, and five coaches for the country for my women." Of
the Sultan's own state she was most impressed, as travellers are
to-day, by the Selamlik. Thus she describes it:
"I went yesterday, along with the French ambassadress, to see the
Grand Signior in his passage to the mosque. He was preceded by a
numerous guard of Janizaries, with vast white feathers on their heads,
as also by the spahis and bostangees (these are foot and horse guards)
and the royal gardeners, which are a very considerable body of men,
dressed in different habits of fine lively colours, so that, at a
distance, they appeared like a parterre of tulips. After them the Aga
of the Janizaries, in a robe of purple velvet, lined with silver
tissue, his horse led by two slaves richly dressed. Next him the
kyzlier-aga (your ladyship knows this is the chief guardian of the
Seraglio ladies) in a deep yellow cloth (which suited very well to his
black face) lined with sables. Last came his Sublimity himself,
arrayed in green, lined with the fur of a black Muscovite fox, which
is supposed worth a thousand pounds sterling, and mounted on a fine
horse, with furniture embroidered with jewels. Six more horses, richly
caparisoned were led after him; and two of his principal courtiers
bore, one his gold, and the other his silver coffee-pot, on a staff;
another carried a silver stool on his head for him to sit on."
Her skill certainly lay chiefly in describing social functions or
eccentricities, and her description of S. Sophia--indeed she makes an
apology for her ignorance of architecture--shows a characteristic
absence of feeling or artistic knowledge. What she says of the mosque
of Suleiman however, is worth quoting.
"That of Sultan Solyman, is an exact square, with four fine towers in
the angles; in the midst is a noble cupola, supported with beautiful
marble pillars; two lesser at the ends, supported in the same manner;
the pavement and gallery round the mosque, of marble; under the great
cupola, is a fountain, adorned with such fine coloured pillars, that I
can hardly think them natural marble; on one side is the pulpit of
white marble, and on the other the little gallery for the Grand
Signior. A fine stair-case leads to it, and it is built up with gilded
latrices. At the upper end is a sort of altar, where the name of God
is written; and, before it, stand two candlesticks, as high as a man,
with wax candles as thick as three flambeaux. The pavement is spread
with fine carpets, and the mosque illuminated with a vast number of
lamps. The court leading to it, is very spacious, with galleries of
marble, of green columns, covered with twenty-eight leaded cupolas on
two sides, and a fine fountain of basons in the midst of it."
The liberality which allowed Christian ladies to see the mosques, and
even permitted Lady Mary, in spite of the horror of her friends and
the terrified protests of the French ambassadress, to go about in
Stambûl much as she would have walked in S. James's, was especially
the characteristic of the reign of Suleiman II., himself something of
a _savant_, and of Ahmed II., who actually allowed a printing press to
be established in the city. But none the less society and government
were essentially barbarous. Ahmed III. was himself deposed in 1730 by
an insurrection of the Janissaries. His nephew Mahmûd I., son of
Mustafa II., was his successor. Again within three weeks the leaders
of the revolution were executed before his face. "These executions," it
is quaintly said, "when they became known, instead of exciting the
slightest sedition, gave the greatest joy to the inhabitants of the
capital." Step by step the Turks lost ground, by treaties with Persia
(1732) and with Austria and Russia, by the mediation of France
(Belgrade, 1739); and the new policy of governing the lands of
Wallachia and Moldavia by "Fanariotes" (Greeks of the ancient families
who still dwelt in the Phanar), was far from successful. In
Constantinople itself there were _émeutes_ if not insurrections, and
incendiary fires which gave occasion for them. They were the usual
means of expressing dissatisfaction with the government, and the usual
means were taken to meet them, by the execution of the Sultan's
ministers. Mahmûd died in 1754. He was thought at least to have done
no harm; and his successor, Osman III., was regarded as equally
blameless.
Mustafa III. (1757-1774) had been many years in the Kafess. He was the
son of Ahmed III. His reign was a succession of misfortunes. The
astute policy of Catherine II. and her agents in Serbia and Croatia,
arousing the religious enthusiasm of the Christians against the
Moslems, the utter neglect of the Turkish army and ordnance, the
ignorance of the ministers, and the superstition of the people, seemed
to invite a certain and immediate destruction of the Empire. Disaster
after disaster at last awoke the Sultan and his ministers to the
necessity of employing European aid, and the French ambassador
Saint-Priest with the Baron de Tott was successful in reforming the
army, introducing the bayonet, founding a school of mathematics, and
infusing a new spirit into the Turks.
Mustafa died in 1774, at a time of unexpected success. He had seen at
least the necessity of reform. Abdul Hamed I., his brother, who
succeeded him, had been forty-four years a captive. He was not the
prince to restore the power of his Empire: the treaty of
Kutchuk-Kainardji (1774) further reduced its territory, and gave the
cause for war eighty years afterwards by the clause allowing to Russia
a right to represent to the Porte the grievances of the Christians in
European Turkey. In 1788 the Crimea was captured by Russia; in 1789
Abdul Hamed died. His nephew Selim III. (1789-1807) had to deal with
all the difficulties introduced into the East by the partition of
Poland, the schemes of Napoleon, and the Mediterranean policy of Pitt.
To follow these wars which resulted from the new political situation
would be impossible. It need only be said that the French occupation
of Egypt, and the decisive entrance of England into the Eastern
question created as great a revolution in the position of Turkey as
had occurred in any Monarchy of the West. The old alliance with France
was broken. It became the interest of England to preserve the
tottering power of Turkey as a counterpoise to Russia, and as a
security for her own interests in the East.
Internally Turkey, under the energetic Selim, made a new start. A
cannon foundry was begun at Galata, the Top-haneh so familiar to-day:
new troops, drilled and armed after the European fashion were
embodied; new taxes were levied, and a financial administration was
organized which made some pretence of following Western ideas.
After what has been said so often, it may almost go without saying
that there was an insurrection of the Janissaries to express the
orthodox opinion of these reforms. The separation of the artillery
from the Janissaries, and the creation of new regiments of infantry
for Constantinople, to act as a counterpoise to the Janissaries,
caused a serious revolt which was entirely successful, and the Sultan
was obliged to receive the Aga as his chief minister. In the very
midst of these troubles occurred the famous mission of Colonel
Sébastiani, which led to the forcing of the Dardanelles by the English
fleet under Admiral Duckworth. The fleet destroyed a small Turkish
flotilla in the Marmora and cast anchor before the city. It was
centuries since the people of Constantinople had seen a hostile fleet
threatening their city. They worked night and day to repair the
fortifications, to mount cannon, and to man the walls with an
efficient force. In five days nine hundred cannon were placed upon the
walls, and the English fleet had to retire. The Sultan was forced to
declare war against Great Britain.
Within a few weeks he was deposed by another insurrection of the
Janissaries, encouraged by the Sheik-ul-Islam. Again they assembled in
the Atmeidan, again they overturned their kettles, their picturesque
method of declaring that they would no longer eat the food of the
Sultan,--attacked the Seraglio, murdered all the ministers, and
deposed the Sultan. The ministers had gladly died that they might save
their master. It was not sufficient. Can a Padishah, who by his
conduct and his laws attacks the principles of the Koran, be allowed
to reign? Impossible. And Selim retired to the Kafess.
Mustafa IV. was a mere name under which the rule of the successful
revolutionaries was legitimated. Assassination and execution
proceeded. The Grand Vizier, in command of the army in Bulgaria, was
beheaded. He was the most conspicuous of a hundred victims.
The Pasha of Rustchuk, Mustafa Baraicktar, led 40,000 men to
Constantinople, to restore Selim. He had with him the standard of the
Prophet, which had accompanied the late Grand Vizier to the field.
Encamped outside the walls, he allowed Mustafa still to hold the
palace: a few murders and a few depositions were all that marked the
suspense. On July 28, 1808, Mustafa Baraicktar entered the city,
declared the Sultan deposed, and advanced to the Seraglio to restore
Selim III. While the troops were kept back at the gates, the Sultan
determined to secure himself. Selim, after a desperate struggle, was
murdered in the Kafess. "Take Sultan Selim to the Pasha of Rustchuk,
since he demands him," said Mustafa, and the body wrapped in a carpet
was thrown out. Mahmûd, the last surviving prince of the house of
Osman, but narrowly escaped: the murderers sought him everywhere, but
he was concealed under a heap of rugs. The avengers of blood burst in;
he was rescued: Mustafa IV. was thrust into the Kafess, and Mahmûd II.
at the age of twenty-three ascended the throne.
The reign of Mahmûd (1808-1839) witnessed the first real introduction
of Turkey into the atmosphere of the West. He had been trained by the
deposed Selim, to hate the Janissaries, to play the part, strange
indeed, of a reforming Sultan. Baraicktar was at his side.
It seemed at first that only a new and more blood-thirsty tyrant had
begun to reign. On the day of his accession, thirty-three heads were
exposed on the outer gate of the Seraglio, the Bâb-i-Humayoun: many of
the leaders of the Janissaries were strangled and thrown into the
Bosporus: even the women who had shown joy at Selim's murder were sewn
up in sacks and drowned at Seraglio point. Within a few months the
government of the new Sultan and his Vizier was in danger of ending
like those that had preceded it. On November 14, 1808, a new revolt of
the Janissaries broke out. They surrounded the palace of the Porte and
set fire to it. Baraicktar the Vizier escaped, but only a few days
later to meet death by exploding a powder magazine rather than fall
into the hands of his enemies. For four days the streets were
abandoned to carnage, and to the horrors of blood were added those of
fire. M. de Jucherau, a Frenchman then at Pera, has left a vivid
description, which is supplemented by that of an English traveller.
"No one," says that eloquent author, "attempted to stay the
conflagration, which in a short time made terrible progress. Soon the
most populous quarter of Constantinople was covered with a sheet of
fire. The cries, the groans of women, and old men and children,
attracted no attention and excited no pity. In vain they raised their
suppliant hands, in vain they begged for beams or planks to save
themselves from their burning houses by their roofs: their
supplications were vain: they were seen with indifference to fall and
to disappear among the flames. The desire of destruction was the only
feeling that then prevailed! Sultan Mahmood beheld the awful spectacle
from one of the lofty towers of the Seraglio, but not 'like another
Nero,' as some have unjustly asserted--the flames were not of his
lighting, and he was anxious that they should cease. He ordered
Cadi-Pasha to stop his carriage, and to retire with his troops within
the walls of the Seraglio, and despatched a hatti-sheriff to the
Janissary-agha, commanding him, as he valued his head, to exert
himself to stay the conflagration. As Mahmood was Sultan, and from the
pledge he had in his hands, was likely to continue so, even when the
revolt should end, the Janissary-agha trembled at the imperial mandate
and obeyed; but the fire was too intense and active to be subdued or
arrested, even by throwing to the ground whole stacks of houses: it
vaulted over the chasms thus made, and only found 'sufficient
obstacles in the public squares and in the mosques, whose vast cupolas
and massy stone walls have frequently preserved Constantinople from
entire destruction.'"[42]
The fire raged from the Seraglio to the aqueduct of Valens, and a
man-of-war in the harbour directed its cannon on the barracks of the
Janissaries in the At Meidan. The troops of the barracks on the other
side of the Horn, at the Arsenal and at Top-haneh, threw in their lot
with the Janissaries. Mahmûd within the Seraglio took the precaution
which he had so long refrained from: he ordered the murder of his
brother Mustafa IV., and the body was thrown out to the Janissaries.
In a few hours Mahmûd outwardly submitted. The new troops were
disbanded; the barracks were destroyed; the military schools, the
mathematical institution, the printing press, every sign of the
dangerous introduction of Western ideas, entirely disappeared. Even
the ladies of the Seraglio ceased to learn French, and Mahmûd
abandoned the enervating amusements of the opera and the ballet. For
sixteen years a curtain fell, raised only to show an occasional
massacre. Constantinople returned to its condition as the most
orthodox of Moslem cities. It was at this time that the greatest of
all European ambassadors at Constantinople first made acquaintance
with the power in whose fortunes he was to become so powerful a
factor. Stratford Canning came to Stambûl in 1808, as secretary to a
special mission. These were his first impressions of Turkey.
"The state[43] of Turkey itself was anything but satisfactory in view
of those powers who did not wish the Porte to become the prey either
of Russia or of France. The throne of the empire was filled by a
young Sultan, who had recently succeeded to his brother Mustafa, whose
immediate predecessor, their cousin Selim, had fallen a sacrifice to
the mutinous spirit of the Janissaries. Mahmûd, the reigning
sovereign, was for some time the last of his race. Young, ignorant,
and inexperienced, he had everything to apprehend from the
circumstances in which he was placed. Both morally and materially his
empire was bordering on decrepitude. The old political system of
Turkey had worn itself out. The population was not yet prepared for a
new order of things. A depreciated currency, a disordered revenue, a
mutinous militia, dilapidated fortresses, a decreasing population, a
stagnant industry, and general misrule, were the monuments which time
had left of Ottoman domination in the second capital of the Roman
empire and throughout those extensive regions which had been the
successive seats of civilisation, ever varying, generally advancing,
from the earliest periods of social settlement and historical
tradition. A continual and often a sanguinary antagonism of creeds, of
races, of districts and authorities within the frontier, and frequent
wars of little glory and much loss with the neighbouring powers, had
formed of late the normal condition of the Porte's dominions."
Most European observers thought that the Ottoman power was doomed to
almost immediate extinction; and the next few years increased the
illusion. The Mussulman population was everywhere declining; a new
Greek power was rising; and Ali Pasha at Janina seemed likely to
establish a new Mussulman domination which should destroy the Turkish
rule. Within a few years Greece secured her independence by rebellion.
But Canning saw plainly enough that Turkey was still strong. As early
as 1809 he wrote thus:--
"Very false notions are entertained in England of the Turkish nation.
You know much better than I do the mighty resources and native wealth
which this enormous empire possesses. I am myself a daily witness of
the personal qualities of the inhabitants, qualities which if properly
directed are capable of sustaining them against a world of enemies.
But the government is radically bad, and its members, who are all
alive to its defects, have neither the wisdom nor the courage to
reform it. The few who have courage equal to the task know not how to
reconcile reformation with the prejudices of the people. And without
this nothing can be effected."[44]
From 1821 the tide turned. The defects of the Turkish government did
not avail against the valour of the Sultan's army, and the dimensions
of Europe. The tragedies of those days passed far from Constantinople.
Missolonghi, Navarino, Athens, Janina, Adrianople, are names that
bring each its memory; but within the city of the Cæsars and the
Sultans a different tale was told. It was the great era of reform,
when at last Mahmûd was able to use his strength, and re-establish the
power of the Padishah.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the authority of the
Commander of the Faithful had sunk, decade by decade, till the murder
of a Sultan who showed an independent policy was as certain as the
sunrise. The Janissaries were the real masters of the city, and of the
Empire. The force which had been raised to carry out the absolute will
of the Sultan had now entirely superseded him. Anarchy was substituted
for the rule of an irresponsible despot. But Mahmûd had a character of
strength unknown in any Sultan for two centuries. He had matured his
plans, and in 1826 he was able to carry them into execution. But for
an utterly unforeseen disaster he would doubtless have been able to
secure his triumph earlier than he did. In 1823 the arsenal and cannon
foundry at Top-haneh were entirely destroyed by fire. A vast quantity
of military stores and ammunition was destroyed. Pera and Galata
suffered severely. It is said that fifty mosques and six thousand
houses were destroyed. Mahmûd attributed the fire to the Janissaries;
and he became the more determined to destroy them.
Already he had dealt with another enemy. In 1821 the plots of the
Hetairists, working for the liberation of Greece, became known. Mahmûd
immediately ordered all Greeks not engaged in trade to be deported
from Constantinople. Then he ordered the patriarch and Synod of
Constantinople to excommunicate the leaders who had engaged in the
massacre of Moslems. The act was issued; nor can the Church be
regarded as having done anything but what was demanded by Christian
charity.
Hardly was the excommunication issued before a number of rich Greeks
escaped from the city, evidently with the intention of joining the
revolutionary armies. On March 26 the city was filled with troops, and
arms were issued to the citizens. Several Hetairists were executed;
and when the news came of the murder of Moslems in Greece, Mahmûd, who
had already imprisoned seven Greek bishops, ordered the public
execution of a number of prominent Greeks, who were entirely innocent,
solely for the purpose of alarming their compatriots. But this was not
sufficient. On Easter Day, April 22, 1821, the Patriarch of
Constantinople, Gregorios, was summoned, at dawn, when he had finished
the offering of the Holy Eucharist in his Cathedral Church, into the
hall of the Synod at the Phanar, by the officers of the Sultan.
There, before the clergy and the heads of the chief Greek families, he
was declared deposed by the authority of the State, and the trembling
priests were required to elect a new Patriarch in his stead.
[Illustration: HOUSES IN THE PHANAR]
Within a few hours Gregorios was hung from the gate of the
patriarchate, with a document pinned to his breast, declaring him a
traitor in that he knew of the Hetairist conspiracy, and did not
reveal it. Of the charge there is no known proof; and the Greeks have
always regarded him as a martyr. If he knew the details of the
conspiracy at all it is more than probable that he knew them only in
confession; nor is it at all probable that he knew anything but that
the Greeks intended to strike for their freedom.
Three bishops were executed on the same day. It was not a day to be
forgotten. When the body of the martyred Gregorios was taken down it
was given to the Jews to be dragged through the streets and cast into
the sea. It was recovered by night and taken by ship to Odessa, where
it was interred with solemn ceremonial as the remains of a saint and
martyr.
This horrible deed was followed by the outbreak of anarchy in
Constantinople. The Janissaries called for a massacre of the
Christians in the city to avenge the Moslems who had been killed in
Greece. The Christian quarters were attacked, the Christian villages
on the Bosphorus were robbed, and the patriarchate was sacked. Greek
clergy and nobles were executed daily, and four bishops were among the
slain. No Christians were allowed to leave the city without a passport
or vengeance was exacted upon the family. The massacres that occurred
in Constantinople were tolerated if they were not organised by the
authorities; several subjects of Western nations were murdered. All
that was done by Christian Europe was to protest. The Russian
ambassador left Constantinople, having demanded that the massacres
should cease and the churches be rebuilt that had been destroyed.
Mahmûd replied that only traitors were ill-treated. But the massacres
ended, at least for a time.
While all danger of a Christian rising in Constantinople was thus
prevented, Mahmûd was maturing the plans which in 1825 made him at
last an absolute ruler, at least in his own city.
For seventeen years Mahmûd prepared for this great stroke. First by
gifts and offices he detached many of the supporters of the
Janissaries and the Ulemas from the party which supported them. Some
less important members of the body were arrested for infraction of the
laws and were publicly executed. Others were secretly made away with.
The Sultan was surrounding himself with an elaborate spy system and
with agents who were capable of dealing in detail with those whom he
wished to be put out of the way. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, in his
"Memoirs," says: "I remember that in crossing the Golden Horn from
time to time I had observed loose mats floating here and there upon
the water, and that in answer to my enquiries I had been told in a
mysterious manner that they had served for covering the bodies thrown
after private executions into the harbour." All this was done slowly;
the power of the Janissaries was gradually undermined; "almost
unparalleled craft and cruelty," some observers called the process,
but to Mahmûd it seemed absolutely necessary.
In 1826 the Sultan perceived that the time limit had come. A meeting
of all the chief functionaries of the Empire and chief officers of the
Janissaries was held. They agreed to submit to the new military
discipline and organisation which the Sultan designed. All signed
their names. On June 12 the first exercises of the new order were
begun. On the 16th the inferior officers and the soldiers declared
that they would not submit. The revolt was proclaimed in the ancient
manner. The kettles were overturned, and the whole force was called to
arms. Mahmûd crossed from Bekistasch to the Seraglio; the standard of
the Prophet was displayed; the city was filled with the troops upon
whom the Sultan could rely; the Moslem population rallied round the
green flag. The people assembled in the Atmeidan (the Hippodrome);
Mahmûd went to the mosque of Ahmed. The Janissaries were summoned to
submit to the new order. They in return demanded the destruction of
the "subverters of the ancient usages of the Empire." Then their fate
was sealed. They had advanced to the mosque of Bayezid; they were
rapidly driven back and hemmed in in their quarters in the Etmeidan.
Then from every side artillery was directed upon them. From his house
in Pera Stratford Canning, at dinner, saw "two slender columns of
smoke rising above the opposite horizon." What did they mean? The
Sultan, he was answered, had fired the barracks of the Janissaries.
The rest of the tragedy may best be told in Canning's own words:[45]
"The Sultan was determined to make the most of his victory. From the
time of his cousin Selim's death he had lived in dread of the
Janissaries. A strong impression must have been made upon his mind by
the personal danger which he had encountered. It was said that he had
escaped with his life by getting into an oven when the search for him
was hottest. His duty as sovereign gave strength as well as dignity to
his private resentment. That celebrated militia, which in earlier
times had extended the bounds of the empire, and given the title of
conqueror to so many of the Sultans, which had opened the walls of
Constantinople itself to their triumphant leader, the second Mohammed,
were now to be swept away with an unsparing hand and to make room for
a new order of things, for a disciplined army and a charter of reform.
From their high claims to honour and confidence they had sadly
declined. They had become the masters of the government, the butchers
of their sovereigns, and a source of terror to all but the enemies of
their country. Whatever compassion might be felt for individual
sufferers, including as they did the innocent with the guilty, it
could hardly be said that their punishment as a body was untimely or
undeserved.
The complaints of those who were doomed to destruction found no echo
in the bosoms of their conquerors. They were mostly citizens having
their wives, their children, or their parents, to witness the calamity
which they had brought in thunder on their necks. Many had fallen
under the Sultan's artillery; many were fugitives and outlaws. The
mere name of Janissary, compromised or not by an overt act, operated
like a sentence of death. A special commission sat for the trial, or
rather for the condemnation of crowds. Every victim passed at once
from the tribunal into the hands of the executioner. The bowstring and
the scimitar were constantly in play. People could not stir from their
houses without the risk of falling in with some terrible sight. The
Sea of Marmora was mottled with dead bodies. Nor was the tragedy
confined to Constantinople and its neighbourhood. Messengers were sent
in haste to every provincial city where any considerable number of
Janissaries existed, and the slightest tendency to insurrection was so
promptly and effectually repressed, that no disquieting reports were
conveyed to us from any quarter of the Empire. Not a day passed
without my receiving a requisition from the Porte, calling upon me to
send thither immediately the officer and soldiers comprising my
official guard. I had no reason to suppose that any of them had been
concerned in the revolt, and I was pretty sure that they could not
repair to the Porte without imminent danger of being sacrificed. I
ventured, therefore, to detain them day after day, first on one
pretext, then on another, until, at the end of a week, the fever at
headquarters had so far subsided as to open a door for reflection and
mercy. Relying on this abatement of wrath, I complied, and the
interpreter whom I directed to accompany them, gave every assurance on
their behalf which I was entitled to offer. The men were banished from
the capital, but their lives were spared, and many years later I was
much pleased by a visit from their officer, who displayed his
gratitude by coming from a distance on foot to regale me with a bunch
of dried grapes and a pitcher of choice water. Let me add that this
instance of good feeling on the part of a Turk towards a Christian is
only one of many which have come to my knowledge."
On June 17, 1826, the Janissaries ceased to exist. The Sheik-ul-Islam
formally proclaimed the extinction of the corps. A solemn divan was
held within the Seraglio, and the victory of Mahmûd was ratified by
the council. Then Canning writing on the 20th records the end of the
revolution which re-established the authority of the Sultan in a
position as absolute and despotic as it had been in the days of
Mohammed II.
"The Sultan's ministers are still encamped in the outer court of the
Seraglio, and I grieve to add that frequent executions continue to
take place under their very eyes. This afternoon, when the person, to
whom I have already alluded, was standing near the Reis Efendi's tent,
his attention was suddenly caught by the sound of drums and fifes, and
on turning round he saw, to his utter astonishment, a body of Turks in
various dresses, but armed with muskets and bayonets, arranged in
European order, and going through the new form of exercise. He
supposes the number to have been about two thousand, but never before
having seen troops in line he may have been deceived in this
particular. He says that the men acted by word of command, both in
marching and in handling their arms. The Sultan, who was at first
stationed at the window within sight, descended after a time, and
passed the men in review. His Highness was dressed in Egyptian
fashion, armed with pistols and sabre, and on his head in place of the
Imperial turban was a sort of Egyptian bonnet.
"Rank, poverty, age, and numbers are alike impotent to shelter those
who are known as culprits or marked as victims. It is confidently
asserted that a register has been kept of all persons who, since the
accession of the Sultan, have in any way shown a disposition to favour
the designs of the Janissaries, and that all such individuals are
diligently sought out and cut off as soon as discovered. Respectable
persons are seized in the street and hurried before the Seraskier or
Grand Vizier for immediate judgment. There are instances of elderly
men having pleaded a total ignorance of the late conspiracy, and being
reminded of some petty incident which happened twenty years ago, in
proof of their deserving condign punishment as abettors of the
Janissaries. Whole companies of labouring men are seized and either
executed or forcibly obliged to quit Constantinople.
"The entrance to the Seraglio, the shore under the Sultan's windows,
and the sea itself, are crowded with dead bodies--many of them torn
and in part devoured by the dogs."[46]
Théophile Gautier adds even more gruesome details. To the destruction
of the Janissaries was added that of the Becktash derviches. Then the
new army was formed, organized, drilled. For the rest of his reign,
Mahmûd's chief thought was to perfect the reforms which he had
inaugurated in blood. When in 1834 he struck coins bearing his own
portrait, so grave a breach of the rules of the Koran caused another
insurrection. It was suppressed with fearful severity, and added four
thousand victims to the tale. But the coinage had to be called in.
Fanatics, whom the people regarded as saints, coveted martyrdom by
seizing the Sultan's bridle as he rode over the new bridge which he
had made from Galata to Stambûl, calling him "Giaour Padishah" and
paying Heaven's vengeance on his head. Nothing moved Mahmûd. Without,
misfortunes befell his power on every side. He held steadfastly on,
and when he died in 1839, he left behind him a strong government, and
an appearance--it may have been little more--of approximation to the
ways of Western Europe. The aim of Mahmûd, indeed, was not unlike that
of Peter the Great: he wished to make his State an integral part of
the European system. Hitherto, admitted though she was into European
politics, coveted as ally and dreaded as a foe, Turkey had occupied no
place among the permanent factors of European politics. Mahmûd thought
to make Turkey, really and essentially, a European power. It was
impossible.
The external events of the reign, the revolt of Mohammed Ali, the
treaty of Adrianople, the creation of Greece as an independent State,
important as they were in the history of the Ottoman power, hardly
affected Constantinople.
In 1832, Stratford Canning returned on a special mission to
Constantinople. He found the outer change extraordinary. Mahmûd
received him as an European sovereign would receive. He began to think
a real reform of Turkey possible. He secured the concession that he
sought on behalf of Greece: "The new Hellas was lifted up to that
great mountain ridge whence the eye of the traveller may range
unchecked over the pastures of Thessaly." Canning, after renewed
experience of the delays and intrigues of the Turkish ministers, bade
farewell to the Sultan for the last time. His character of Mahmûd is
too important to be omitted from our view. It may well conclude what
we have to say of the most important reign in recent Turkish history.
"Resolution and energy were the foremost qualities of his mind. His
natural abilities would hardly have distinguished him in private life.
In personal courage, if not deficient, he was by no means superior.
His morality, measured by the rules of the Koran, was anything but
exemplary. He had no scruple of taking life at pleasure from motives
of policy or interest. He was not inattentive to changes of
circumstance, or insensible to the requirements of time. There was
even from early days a vein of liberality in his views, but either
from want of foresight, or owing to a certain rigidity of mind, he
missed at critical times the precious opportunity and incurred thereby
an aggravated loss. His reign of more than thirty years was marked by
disastrous wars and compulsory cessions. Greece, Egypt, and Algiers
escaped successively from his rule. He had to lament the destruction
of his fleet at Navarino. On the other hand, he gathered up the reins
of sovereign power, which had fallen from the hands of his immediate
predecessors; he repressed rebellion in more than one of the
provinces, and his just resentment crushed the mutinous Janissaries
once and for ever. Checked no longer by them, he introduced a system
of reforms which has tended greatly to renovate the Ottoman Empire,
and to bring it into friendly communion with the Powers of
Christendom. To him, moreover, is due the formation of a regular and
disciplined army in place of a factious fanatical militia, more
dangerous to the country than to its foes. Unfortunately his habits of
self-indulgence kept pace with the revival of his authority, and the
premature close of his life superseded for a while the progress of
improvement. Mahmûd when young had rather an imposing countenance; his
dark beard set off the paleness of his face, but time added to its
expression. His stature was slightly below the average standard, his
countenance was healthy, he wrote well, he rode well, and acquired a
reputation for skill in archery. It may be said with truth that
whatever merit he possessed was his own, and that much of what was
wrong in his character and conduct resulted from circumstances beyond
his control. Peace to his memory!"[47]
Abdul-Mejid (1839-1861), the son of Mahmûd II., had been brought up in
the harem. He was only sixteen at his accession, and was utterly
ignorant of politics. But he had some wise ministers, and the defeats
of the earlier part of his reign were wisely utilised. In 1841 came
the practical separation of Egypt, the family of Mohammed Ali being
established there as perpetual pashas or deputies of the Sultan,
paying tribute, but otherwise free and guaranteed in their position by
the Powers.
Unquestionably the great figure in Constantinople during the reign of
Abdul Mejid was Stratford Canning, who came in 1842 as British
ambassador. He remained till 1852. He returned in 1853, and he left
finally in 1858. During these years he devoted himself to the
preservation of Turkey as a Power, but only with the hope, and on the
condition, that she should become civilized. It may have been a
hopeless task, but in the endeavour it is astounding to observe the
high measure of success which came to the noble Englishman who gave
the best years of his life to it. Kinglake has immortalised him as
"the great Elchi." No greater ambassador ever lived; and his greatness
lay in the fact that he passed entirely beyond the range of ordinary
diplomatic functions, and made himself as really a part of the Empire
to which he was accredited as he was essentially the representative of
the British nation. Needless to tell again the tale that has been so
well told, of his diplomatic triumphs, of his supreme honesty and
loyalty, of his ceaseless energy, of his magnificent services to
humanity and religion.
Throughout the whole of his life in Turkey he kept his one aim
steadily before his eyes, and never deviated from it. If Turkey could
be saved he would save her; but it could only be done by carrying out
what had been the real intention of Mahmûd the reformer, and making an
Oriental despotism resemble an European government with constitutional
guarantees for personal and religious freedom. That in the long-run he
utterly failed is now quite plain. What he wrote more than fifty years
ago, in spite of superficial outward changes is really true to-day.
"There is no such thing as system in Turkey. Every man according to
his means and opportunities gets what he can, commands when he dares,
and submits when he must." None the less Canning won real victories.
He procured a declaration that the punishment of death should no
longer be inflicted on those who gave up Islam for Christianity. "It
was the first dagger," he wrote himself, "thrust into the side of the
false prophet and his creed." And indeed so long as Lord Stratford de
Redcliffe remained at Constantinople justice, toleration, good
government made progress such as could hardly have been conceived
before.
It is needless here to inquire how far the success of Turkey in the
Crimean War led to the casting aside of all reforms, or whether the
war was justified or how it was caused. Russia's declaration of her
protectorate over the Orthodox Church; the belief of England and
France that they were bound to protect Turkey against wanton
aggression; the earnest desire of "the great Elchi" to avoid war:
these things may be read in the Blue Books[48] and in Kinglake's great
History. Constantinople saw the encampment of British troops at
Gallipoli and at Skutari; and then came the sad days of the hospitals
on the Asiatic shore and the English cemetery where sleep so many
English dead. The Hatti-Humayun of February 21, 1856, seemed to embody
all that the best friends of Turkey could have wished, in its
abolition of all distinctions telling unfavourably against the
exercise of any religion, its fine declarations of freedom and
equality among all subjects of the Porte. But who could enforce it?
The story is pitiful, and it shall not here be told. Rather let it be
remembered when we sail into the harbour of Constantinople that the
Crimean Memorial Church which stands boldly on the heights of Pera was
the sign of the noble work for religion and freedom that had been done
by the great Englishman whose last public act in the city it was to
lay the foundation-stone, and whose noble life is simply commemorated
on a tablet within its walls.
It was in 1858 that this great embassy ended. Three years later Abdul
Mejid died; and his brother Abdul Aziz was girt with the sword in the
mosque of Eyûb. Under his rule outward reforms progressed gaily, but
the reckless extravagance of the Sultan brought the country to
financial ruin. Reforms, insurrections, the creation of Roumania, the
insurrection of Crete, how did these affect Constantinople? Not at
all. Only daily the financial disorder became more apparent. On May
10, 1876, the city witnessed a scene which might have seemed proof
that Turkey was regenerated. The Sultan's son was stopped in the
streets by crowds who demanded the dismissal of the Grand Vizier and
the Sheik-ul-Islam. From the gorgeous new palace which he had built on
the Bosporus came the reply of Abdul Aziz--"His Majesty is deeply
touched with the proof of confidence you place in him. It is his
pleasure in no way to resist the will of his faithful people." But it
was merely one of those delusive pictures which remind one of the
tricks of the genii in the Arabian Nights. There was no real change;
and on May 29, again resort was had as in the old days to the
Sheik-ul-Islam. A reformer, who had been but a few days elevated to
the post, he declared the lawfulness of deposing a Sultan whose
conduct was insensate, who had no political judgment, who spent on
himself sums which the Empire could not afford. At dawn on May 30 the
palace of Dolma Bagtché was surrounded by troops, the Sultan was
declared a prisoner, and then was hurried across to the old Seraglio.
A few days later he returned to the gorgeous palace of Tcheragan. On
June 4, he was found dead. It was certified that he had opened his
veins with a pair of scissors. Few Sultans have long survived
deposition.
Murad V. the eldest son of Abdul Mejid was received at the Seraskierat
with enthusiasm. Announcements were made which declared him a
reformer. He was Sultan for only three months. Within the first few
days a number of the ministers were murdered, as they sat in Council,
by the brother of the wife of Abdul Aziz. A few weeks later it was
declared that the Sultan was incapable of Government. He was deposed
with as much ease as his predecessor, no one knows to-day whether he
is alive or not, and Abdul Hamed II., his brother, reigned in his
stead. Of his reign little need be said. It has seen the Bulgarian
atrocities, the defeat of Turkey by Russia, the encampment of the
Russian troops at San Stefano, the proclamation of a Constitution, a
parliament with two houses opened by the Sultan himself. It has seen
also the suppression of that Constitution; it has seen the liberty of
Bulgaria, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Cyprus and Crete.
And Constantinople, what may be told here in brief is what cannot be
forgotten. The Sultan no longer lives, like his predecessors, within
earshot of his people. Yildiz-Kiosk high on the hills above the
Bosphorus secludes him from the world. No longer does the Commander of
the Faithful visit the mosques of Stambûl or ride through the streets
with a gorgeous military display. The massacres for which precedent
was set centuries ago have again given the city a ghastly fame. In
October 1895 crowds of Softas--religious students--assembled in the
Atmeidan and a massacre of Armenians began. The riots lasted for three
days. The authorities declared that the cause was the revolutionary
plots of the Armenians themselves, that they did their utmost to
preserve order, and that they would punish all who were responsible.
Ten months passed. Constantinople in the spring of 1896 was outwardly
at peace, but arrests were constantly being made, and there was a
general feeling of insecurity. On August 28, 1896, a band of Armenians
seized the Ottoman Bank at Galata, killing the guard and imprisoning
the officials. After some hours they were allowed to depart under a
safe conduct. But for nearly two days the city was given up to
massacre. Bands of Moslems rose simultaneously at different parts
before the police or the military appeared, led or accompanied by
Softas, by soldiers, by police officers. When the troops appeared they
looked on. The scenes in the streets beggar description. Christians
were butchered wherever they appeared, were chased into houses and
over roofs, were shot in their houses by men who took the tiles from
the roofs across the street, broke the windows, and then fired into
the rooms where Armenians had crowded for refuge. The churches were
filled with people who sought sanctuary, who had lost everything they
possessed and dared not leave the security of the sacred walls. The
churches of Pera and Galata, the buildings of the Patriarchate in the
Psamatia quarter seemed the only safe places. Of the numbers killed no
count can be given; two thousand certainly perished, but five thousand
has been declared to have been the total of the victims. For days the
dead-cart passed through the streets and the murdered Christians were
carried off with indescribable brutality to be cast into huge pits or
into the sea. It is impossible as yet to tell the full story. It seems
still like a horrible dream, a reminiscence of the worst terrors of
the Middle Age.
[Illustration: STREET IN GALATA]
The two acts of tragedy by which it has been attempted to destroy a
large, and that perhaps the richest and most progressive, part of the
population of Constantinople, emphasise an important historical
fact. Not only by the importations of Mohammed II., but gradually
during the four centuries and a half that have elapsed since the
Conquest, the population of Constantinople has changed its character.
Pera and Galata are the home of a mixed race, of whom every writer
says hard words, and of many nationalities still striving to preserve
their separate life. Greeks, Italians, Germans, French, English,
immigrants from the Balkan lands, are the most prominent, after the
Jews and the wealthy Armenians. The divisions that are to be seen in
the Orthodox Church, perpetuated by politicians for their own
purposes, are the reflection of the national and political divisions
that we pass through on our way to Constantinople and find there in
full force. Every league nearer to the city walls, as the railway
drags its tedious length, is a step nearer to barbarism; and Pera is
indeed but a poor outpost of civilisation. It has over it a veneer of
the West. As you walk through the streets you might think yourself in
an inferior Italian city; when you descend to Galata, down steep
streets, half stairways, you pass through the gate of the Middle Ages
into a town like any cosmopolitan seaport, crowded with sailors and
travellers of all nations.
The Galata bridge, the most wonderful pathway in Europe, with its
thousands of passengers in every strange garb, its Parisian carriages,
its Arab steeds bearing alert officers, its beggars, mollahs, white
turbaned and white coated toll-takers, its ceaseless stream of life
all day long, brings you to the harbour, the historic anchorage of
great ships for fifteen hundred years or more. "Eothen" has said once
for all what comes to mind as we gaze at that magnificent sight, life,
ships, walls, domes, minarets.
"Even if we don't take a part in the chaunt about 'Mosques and
Minarets,' we can still yield praises to Stamboul. We can chaunt
about the harbour; we can say and sing that nowhere else does the sea
come so home to a city; there are no pebble shores--no sand bars--no
slimy river beds--no black canals--no locks nor docks to divide the
very heart of the place from the deep waters; if being in the noisiest
part of Stamboul, you would stroll to the quiet side of the way amidst
those cypresses opposite, you will cross the fathomless Bosphorus; if
you would go from your hotel to the Bazaars, you must pass by the
bright blue pathway of the Golden Horn, that can carry a thousand sail
of the line. You are accustomed to the gondolas that glide among the
palaces of St Mark, but here at Stamboul it is a hundred-and-twenty-gun
ship that meets you in the street. Venice strains out from the
steadfast land, and in old times would send forth the chief of the
state to woo and wed the reluctant sea; but the stormy bride of the
Doge is the bowing slave of the Sultan--she comes to his feet with the
treasures of the world--she bears him from palace to palace--by some
unfailing witchcraft, she entices the breezes to follow her, and fan
the pale cheek of her lord--she lifts his armed navies to the very
gates of his garden--she watches the walls of his serail--she stifles
the intrigues of his Ministers--she quiets the scandals of his
Court--she extinguishes his rivals, and hushes his naughty wives all
one by one, so vast are the wonders of the deep!"[49]
But you cross the bridge, or you take a caique, and land under the old
walls; you pass through some gateway, scarcely recognisable; and in a
moment you are in a new life. It is the East. The hundreds of solemn
figures climbing the hill to the daily afternoon prayers at the mosque
of Mohammed the Conqueror; the busy market that goes on outside the
walls, the stalls displaying everything that man needs to buy, the
carpets, the great earthenware vessels, marked in white wax with
delicate arabesques, the fresh fruits, the strange liquors, the
stranger cates. A few yards off and you are among the streets that
belong to particular trades, the workers in brass, the cobblers, the
blacksmiths, the horse-dealers, the sellers of every conceivable
object under the sun, all in their windowless shops, laughing,
talking, selling, with that stately mien which makes a ceremonial of
the simplest act. There is no vulgar European haste here, no
chattering impatience to serve or to bargain; the ages as they have
passed over the place seem to have left their solemn impress on the
people. Let the story-teller come and amuse them; for themselves they
will not hurry or fret or speed. All is dignified, stately,
restrained. This is a Turkish quarter, but the Turks are rarely indeed
of pure blood. Almost every Asiatic race, and many European
nationalities, have gone to make the Turks of Stambûl--pilgrims from
the far East, Christian slaves, converts to Islam from every quarter
of the globe. Negroes are constantly to be met with, eunuchs, slaves,
and free trading folk. Pass further on and you are among the Jews, who
remain as large a proportion of the population as in the fifteenth
century, when some forty thousand of them were to be found in Stambûl.
It was they who first opened regular shops for the sale of
manufactured goods, and the greatest shops in the Bazaar to-day are
the property of Jews. In the great Bazaar with its intricate streets
and quarters, a great desolation reigns. The Jews and the Europeans
have invaded its recesses, and the pictures that the old books draw of
the haggling and the humour and the riches, have no meaning to-day. In
the enclosure of the Ahmediyeh you may see characteristic Eastern
sights. There a man sits being shaved. There are stalls heaped with
fruit. There are sellers pressing rich stuffs and linen on Turkish
ladies as they pass. And indeed it is not all stateliness even among
the Turks. Desert the streets of the leather-sellers and the
brass-workers, come down to the markets by the mosques, and there is
enough vigorous and vivacious life. In the harbour among the shipping,
where the rowers of caiques clamour for employment, in the Greek
quarter, or in the Psamatia among the poorer Armenians, there is
plenty of stir and movement. For a succession of pictures, there is no
city like Constantinople. Pilgrims from the far East, Mongolians,
Persians, men of Bokhara and Khiva, negroes from the heart of Africa,
armed many of them to the teeth, most with the strange wistful half
frightened look of strangers and foreigners in a civilisation of which
they have not dreamed; the groups at the fountains, the staid ancients
smoking solemnly at the doors, the closed windows with the wooden
lattices, through which sometimes comes a sound of soft music, the
tramp of armed men, the clatter of cavalry as they trot up the street,
the endless processions of donkeys and draught horses, and sometimes
camels,--these sights and sounds are, in the sunlight by the old
walls, in the narrow streets, or by the great domed mosques, never to
be forgotten or to be rivalled in Europe to-day.
Constantinople remains, with all its changes, a city of the dark ages.
At any moment the curtain may be lifted on a scene of tragic horror,
and meanwhile there is the grotesque mimicry of Western civilisation,
the parade of meaningless forms, justice, government, finance, which
in a moment may be destroyed, which never have, it is hardly an
exaggeration to say, any real meaning. How does the city fare? Even
now, interviews with officials, walks through the streets of Stambûl,
the sights of each day, remind one irresistibly of "a chapter in
Gibbon or some tale of wonder in the Arabian Nights." Soberly and
solemnly the Turks go about their business. Before the horrors of the
last decade an observer who knew well the people and the history wrote
these words.
"I have been present in the city during the deposition of two Sultans.
The most striking characteristic in the circumstances attending these
depositions was the utter indifference of the great body of the
native, and especially of the Moslem, population to the change which
was being made. There was a small but active party which took action,
but beyond this there was comparatively very little excitement; no
resistance, no rioting, no expression of dissatisfaction. When
newspaper correspondents and foreigners generally were aware that a
revolution was in preparation, it is impossible to believe that
thousands of Turks and rayahs were in ignorance of the fact. The
general feeling among the Sultan's subjects was one of indifference.
If the conspirators failed it would go hardly with them. If they
succeeded it would go hardly with the Sultan. That business only
regarded the parties concerned. Beyond a vague belief that any change
could hardly be followed by a worse condition of things than had
existed, there was no public sentiment on the matter."[50]
The words would be as true to-day. Save only at moments of sudden and
fanatic excitement, organised there can be no doubt at least under the
impression that there is a religious duty, and a command which may not
be disobeyed, the calm of the city is unbroken. We seem to be standing
with Candide when he heard the news that "two viziers of the bench and
the mufti had just been strangled at Constantinople, and several of
their friends impaled," and when he heard the instructive comments of
the old Turk who never knew the name of any vizier or mufti. "I
presume," said that sage, "that in general such as are concerned in
public affairs come to a miserable end, and that they deserve it; but
I never enquire what is doing at Constantinople. I am content with
sending thither the produce of my garden, which I cultivate with my
own hands." To-day it would seem that the people of Constantinople are
of the same mind with this philosopher. "Our country is rich, capable
of prosperity, and of supporting in comfort twenty times its present
population; but alas a gang of robbers has seized it," are the
published words of a Turkish prince. Vice and luxury and despotism
triumph. _Eh bien! je sais qu'il faut cultiver notre jardin._
This at any rate may be said. It is idle to prophecy the future of the
Ottoman power in Europe. Has the last Greek war really strengthened
it? Does the approach of Russia foreshadow an occupation of
Constantinople and the longed for return of S. Sophia to the worship
of the Orthodox Church? Of all people the English are the least fitted
to foresee the future. Nothing can be more ludicrous than the letters
of Tom Hughes, an observer acute enough, written from Constantinople
in 1862, in which he says that Islam is all but dead, and that what
the Turks want is the English public-school system. The Turk hears
such things with a smile; _il faut cultiver notre jardin_.
FOOTNOTES:
[34] Sandys' _Travels_, pp. 48, 49, ed. 1627.
[35] The form "Sultana" is only a Western one. The Turks use the word
Sultan for both sexes, placing it after the name in the case of a
female.
[36] Quoted by Ranke, _Ottoman and Spanish monarchies_ [Eng. trans.],
p. 12.
[37] Ranke, quoting Barbaro, the Venetian ambassador.
[38] Finlay, vol. v. p. 92. See Von Hammer, viii. 134, 317.
[39] Ranke, p. 25.
[40] Pp. 31-32.
[41] _Travels_, vol. ii., pp. 127-128.
[42] _Constantinople in 1828_, by C. MacFarlane, p. 306.
[43] _Life of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe_, by Stanley Lane Poole, 1
volume edition, p. 18.
[44] "Life of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe," by Stanley Lane Poole, 1
volume edition, p. 19.
[45] Life, pp. 137-138.
[46] Life, p. 139.
[47] Life, pp. 164-165.
[48] See the correspondence respecting the rights and privileges of
the Latin and Greek Churches in Turkey, presented to Parliament 1854.
[49] _Eothen_, pp. 30, 31.
[50] Pears, _Conquest of Constantinople_.