avoid contrasting this mode of action in the “barbarous” East, with that of “civilized” Europe, where even your very person is not sacred from the investigation of low-bred and low-minded individuals, from whose officious and frequently impertinent contact you can secure yourself only by a bribe. Perhaps the contrast struck me the more forcibly that we had embarked from Marseilles, where all which concerns either the Douane or the Bureau de Santé is à la rigueur—where you are obliged to pay a duty on what you take out of the city as well as what you bring into it—pay for a certificate of health to persons who do not know that you have half a dozen hours to live—and—hear this, ye travel-stricken English, who leave your country to breathe freely for a while in lands wherein ye may dwell without the extortion of taxes—pay your own Consul for permission to embark!
This last demand rankles more than all with a British subject, who may quit his birth-place unquestioned, and who hugs himself with the belief that nothing pitiful or paltry can be connected with the idea of an Englishman by the foreigners among whom he is about to sojourn. He has to learn his error, and the opportunity is afforded to him at Marseilles, where the natives of every other country under Heaven are free to leave the port as they list, when they have satisfied the demands of the local functionaries; while the English alone have a special claimant in their own Consul, the individual appointed by the British government to “assist” and “protect” his fellow-subjects—by whom they are only let loose upon the world at the rate of six francs and a half a head! And for this “consideration” they become the happy possessors of a “Permission to Embark” from a man whom they have probably never seen, and who has not furthered for them a single view, nor removed a single difficulty. To this it may be answered that, had they required his assistance, they might have demanded it, which must be conceded at once, but, nevertheless, the success of their demand is more than problematical—and the arrangement is perfectly on a par with that of the Greeks in the island of Syra, who, when we cast anchor in their port, claimed, among other dues, a dollar and a half for the signal-light; and, on being reminded that there had been no light at the station for several previous nights, with the additional information that we had narrowly escaped wreck in consequence, coolly replied, that all we said was very true, but that there would shortly be a fire kindled there regularly—that they wanted money—and that, in short, the dollar and a half must be paid; but herefrom we at least took our departure without asking leave of our own Consul.
From the Custom House of Galata, we proceeded up a steep ascent to Pera, the quarter of the Franks—the focus of diplomacy—where every lip murmurs “His Excellency,” and secretaries, interpreters, and attachés are
“Thick as the leaves on Valombrosa.”
But, alas! on the 1st day of January, Pera, Galata, and their environs, were one huge snowball. As it was Friday, the Turkish Sabbath, and, moreover, a Friday of the Ramazan, every shop was shut; and the few foot passengers who passed us by hurried on as though impatient of exposure to so inclement an atmosphere. As most of the streets are impassable for carriages, and as the sedan-chairs which supply, however imperfectly, the place of these convenient (and almost, as I had hitherto considered, indispensable) articles, are all private property, we were e’en obliged to “thread our weary way” as patiently as we could—now buried up to our knees in snow, and anon immersed above our ancles in water, when we chanced to plunge into one of those huge holes which give so interesting an inequality to the surface of Turkish paving.
Nevertheless, despite the difficulties that obstructed our progress, I could not avoid remarking the little straw huts built at intervals along the streets, for the accommodation and comfort of the otherwise homeless dogs that throng every avenue of the town. There they lay, crouched down snugly, too much chilled to welcome us with the chorus of barking that they usually bestow on travellers: a species of loud and inconvenient greeting with which we were by no means sorry to dispense. In addition to this shelter, food is every day dispensed by the inhabitants to the vagrant animals who, having no specific owners, are, to use the approved phraseology of genteel alms-asking, “wholly dependent on the charitable for support.” And it is a singular fact that these self-constituted scavengers exercise a kind of internal economy which almost appears to exceed the boundaries of mere instinct; they have their defined “walks,” or haunts, and woe betide the strange cur who intrudes on the privileges of his neighbours; he is hunted, upbraided with growls and barks, beset on all sides, even bitten in cases of obstinate contumacy, and universally obliged to retreat within his own limits. Their numbers have, as I was informed, greatly decreased of late years, but they are still very considerable.
As we passed along, a door opened, and forth stepped the most magnificent-looking individual whom I ever saw: he had a costly cachemire twined about his waist, his flowing robes were richly furred, and he turned the key in the lock with an air of such blended anxiety and dignity, that I involuntarily thought of the Jew of Shakspeare; and I expected at the moment to hear him exclaim, “Shut the door, Jessica, shut the door, I say!” But, alas! he moved away, and no sweet Jessica flung back the casement to reply.
CHAPTER II.
Difficulty of Ingress to Turkish Houses—Steep Streets—The Harem—The Tandour—The Mangal—The Family—Female Costume—Luxurious Habits—The Ramazan—The Dining-room—The Widow—The Dinner—The Turks not Gastronomers—Oriental Hospitality—Ceremony of Ablution—The Massaldjhe—Alarm in the Harem—The Prayer—Evening Offering—Puerile Questions—Opium—Primitive Painting—Splendid Beds—Avocations of a Turkish Lady—Oriental Coquetry—Shopping—Commercial Flirtations—The Sultana Heybétoullah—A Turkish Carriage—The Charshees—Armenian Merchants—Greek Speculators—Perfumes and Embroidery.
I have already mentioned that we arrived at Constantinople during the Ramazan or Lent; and my first anxiety was to pass a day of Fast in the interior of a Turkish family.
This difficult, and in most cases impossible, achievement for an European was rendered easy to me by the fact that, shortly after our landing, I procured an introduction to a respectable Turkish merchant; and I had no sooner written to propose a visit to his harem than I received the most frank and cordial assurances of welcome.
A Greek lady of my acquaintance having offered to accompany me, and to act as my interpreter, we crossed over to Stamboul, and, after threading several steep and narrow streets, perfectly impassable for carriages, entered the spacious court of the house at which we were expected, and ascended a wide flight of stairs leading to the harem, or women’s apartments. The stairs terminated in a large landing-place, of about thirty feet square, into which several rooms opened on each side, screened with curtains of dark cloth embroidered with coloured worsted. An immense mirror filled up a space between two of the doors, and a long passage led from this point to the principal apartment of the harem, to which we were conducted by a black slave.
When I say “we,” I of course allude to Mrs. ---- and myself, as no men, save those of the family and the physician, are ever admitted within the walls of a Turkish harem.
The apartment into which we were ushered was large and warm, richly carpeted, and surrounded on three sides by a sofa, raised about a foot from the ground, and covered with crimson shag; while the cushions, that rested against the wall or were scattered at intervals along the couch, were gaily embroidered with gold thread and coloured silks. In one angle of the sofa stood the tandour: a piece of furniture so unlike any thing in Europe, that I cannot forbear giving a description of it.
The tandour is a wooden frame, covered with a couple of wadded coverlets, for such they literally are, that are in their turn overlaid by a third and considerably smaller one of rich silk: within the frame, which is of the height and dimensions of a moderately sized breakfast table, stands a copper vessel, filled with the embers of charcoal; and, on the two sides that do not touch against the sofa, piles of cushions are heaped upon the floor to nearly the same height, for the convenience of those whose rank in the family does not authorize them to take places on the couch.
The double windows,