The Ottoman Empire: a Historical Encyclopedia [2 Volumes]

by Kia, Mehrdad;

  In one of these covered wagons, I went to the bagnio about ten o’clock. It was already full of women. It is built of stone in the shape of a dome, with no windows but in the roof, which gives light enough. There was five of these domes joined together, the outmost being less than the rest and serving only as a hall, where the portress stood at the door. Ladies of quality generally give this woman the value of a crown or ten shillings and I did not forget that ceremony. The next room is a very large one paved with marble, and all round it raised two sofas of marble one above another. There were four fountains of cold water in this room, falling first into marble basins, and then running on the floor in little channels made for that purpose, which carried the streams into the next room, something less than this, with the same sort of marble sofas, but so hot with steams of sulphur proceeding from the baths joining to it, ’twas impossible to stay there with one’s clothes on. The two other domes were the hot baths, one of which had cocks of cold water turning into it to temper it to what degree of warmth the bathers have a mind to.

  I was in my traveling habit, which is a riding dress, and certainly appeared very extraordinary to them. Yet there was not one of them that showed the least surprise or impertinent curiosity, but received me with all the obliging civility possible. I know no European court where the ladies would have behaved themselves in so polite a manner to a stranger. I believe, in the whole, there were two hundred women, and yet none of those disdainful smiles or satirical whispers that never fail in our assemblies when anybody appears that is not dressed exactly in fashion. They repeated over and over to me; ‘Güzelle, pek gazelle,’ which is nothing but ‘charming, very charming’. The first sofas were covered with cushions and rich carpets, on which sat the ladies, and on the second their slaves behind them but without any distinction of rank by their dress, all being in the state of nature, that is, in plain English, stark naked, without any beauty or defect concealed. Yet there was not the least wanton smile or immodest gesture amongst them. They walked and moved with the same majestic grace which Milton describes of our general mother. There were many amongst them as exactly proportioned as ever any goddess was drawn by the pencil of Guido. (pp. 57–60)

  With Women at a Turkish Bathhouse

  I never saw in my life so many fine heads of hair. I have counted a hundred and ten of these tresses of one lady, all natural. But, it must be owned that every beauty is more common here than with us. ’Tis surprising to see a young woman that is not very handsome. They have naturally the most beautiful complexions in the world and generally large black eyes. I can assure you with great truth that the court of England, though I believe it the fairest in Christendom, cannot show so many beauties as are under our protection here. They generally shape their eyebrows and both Greeks and Turks have a custom of putting round their eyes on the inside a black tincture that, at a distance, or by candlelight, adds very much to the blackness of them. I fancy many of our ladies would be overjoyed to know this secret, but ’tis too visible by day. They dye their nails rose colour; I own I cannot enough accustom myself to this fashion to find any beauty in it.

  As to their morality or good conduct, I can say, like Harlequin, that ’tis just as ’tis with you, and the Turkish ladies don’t commit one sin the less for not being Christian. Now that I am a little acquainted with their ways I cannot forbear admiring either the exemplary discretion or extreme stupidity of all the writers that have given accounts of them. ’Tis very easy to see they have more liberty than we have, no woman, of what rank so ever being permitted to go in the streets without two muslins, one that covers her face all but her eyes and another that hides the whole dress of her head, and hangs half way down her back and their shapes are also wholly concealed by a thing they call a ferace which no woman of any sort appears without. This has straight sleeves that reaches to their fingers ends and it laps all round them, not unlike a riding hood. In winter ’tis of cloth and in summer plain stuff or silk. You may guess then how effectually this disguises them, that there is no distinguishing the great lady from her slave and ’tis impossible for the most jealous husband to know his wife when he meets her, and no man dare either touch or follow a woman in the street.

  This perpetual masquerade gives them entire liberty of following their inclinations without danger of discovery. The most usual method of intrigue is to send an appointment to the lover to meet the lady at a Jew’s shop, which are as notoriously convenient as our Indian houses, and yet, even those that don’t make use of them do not scruple to go to buy pennyworths and tumble over rich goods, which are chiefly to be found amongst that sort of people. The great ladies seldom let their gallants know who they are, and ’tis so difficult to find it out that they can very seldom guess at her name they have corresponded with above half a year together. You may easily imagine the number of faithful wives very small in a country where they have nothing to fear from their lovers’ indiscretion, since we see so many that have the courage to expose themselves to that in this world, and all the threatened punishment of the next, which is never preached to the Turkish damsels. Neither have they much to apprehend from the resentment of their husbands, those ladies that are rich having all their money in their own hands, which they take with them upon a divorce with an addition which he is obliged to give them. Upon the whole, I look upon the Turkish women as the only free people in the empire. The very Divan pays respect to them and the Grand Signor himself, when a pasha is executed, never violates the privileges of the harem (or women’s apartment) which remains unsearched entire to the widow. They are queens of their slaves, which the husband has no permission so much as to look upon, except it be an old woman or two that his lady chooses. ’Tis true, their law permits them four wives, but there is no instance of a man of quality that makes use of this liberty, or of a woman of rank that would suffer it. When a husband happens to be inconstant, as those things will happen, he keeps his mistress in a house apart and visits her as privately as he can, just as ’tis with you. Amongst all the great men here, I only know the tefterdar (i.e. treasurer) that keeps a number of she-slaves for his own use (that is, on his own side of the house, for a slave once given to serve a lady is entirely at her disposal) and he is spoke of as a libertine, or what we should call a rake, and his wife won’t see him, though she continues to live in his house … (pp. 70–72).

  Women and Islam in the Ottoman Empire

  … As to your next enquiry, I assure you ‘tis certainly false, though commonly believed in our parts of the world, that Mohammed [Muhammad, the prophet of Islam] excludes women from any share in a future happy state. He was too much a gentleman and loved the fair sex too well to use them so barbarously. On the contrary he promises a very fine paradise to the Turkish women. He says indeed that this paradise will be a separate place from that of their husbands. But I fancy the most part of them won’t like it the worse for that, and that the regret of this separation will not render their paradise the less agreeable. It remains to tell you that the virtues which Mahommed [sic] requires of women to merit the enjoyment of future happiness are not to live in such a manner as to become useless to the world, but to employ themselves as much as possible in making little musulmans [Muslims]. The virgins who die virgins and the widows who marry not again, dying in mortal sin, are excluded out of paradise. For women, says he, not being capable to manage affairs of state, nor to support the fatigues of war, God has not ordered them to govern or reform the world but he has entrusted them with an office which is not less honourable, even that of multiplying the human race. And such as, out of malice or laziness do not make it their business to bear or to breed children fulfil not the duty of their vocation and rebel against the commands of God. Here are maxims for you, prodigiously contrary to those of your convents. What will become of your saint Catherines, your saint Theresas, your saint Claras and the whole bead roll of your holy virgins and widows, who, if they are to be judged by this system of virtue will be found to have been infamous creatures that passed their w
hole lives in a most abominable libertinism.

  I know not what your thoughts may be concerning a doctrine so extraordinary with respect to us, but I can truly inform you, sir, that the Turks are not so ignorant as we fancy them to be in matters of politics or philosophy, or even of gallantry. “Tis true that military discipline such as now practiced in Christendom does not mightily suit them. A long peace has plunged them into a universal sloth. Content with their condition and accustomed to boundless luxury they are become great enemies to all manner of fatigues. But to make amends, the sciences flourish amongst them. The effendis (which is to say, the learned) do very well deserve this name. They have no more faith in the inspiration of Mohammed than in the infallibility of the pope. They make a frank profession of deism amongst themselves or to those they can trust, and never speak of their law but as of a politic institution, fit now to be observed by wise men, however at first introduced by politicians and enthusiasts.

  If I remember right I think I have told you in some former letter that at Belgrade we lodged with a great and rich effendi, a man of wit and learning, and of a very agreeable humour. We were in his house about a month and he did constantly eat with us, drinking wine without any scruple. As I rallied him a little on this subject he answered me, smiling, that all the creatures in the world were made for the pleasure of man and that God would not have let the vine grow were it a sin to taste of its juice. But that nevertheless the law, which forbids the use of it to the vulgar, was very wise because such sort of folks have not sense enough to take it with moderation. This effendi appeared no stranger to the parties that prevail among us. Nay, he seemed to have some knowledge of our religious disputes and even of our writers, and I was surprised to hear him ask, amongst other things, how Mr. Toland did.

  My paper, large as it is, draws towards an end. That I may not go beyond its limits I must leap from religions to tulips, concerning which you also ask me news. Their mixture produces surprising effects. But what is to be observed most surprising is the experiment of which you speak concerning animals and which is tried here every day. The suburbs of Pera, Jtophana and Galata are collections of strangers from all countries of the universe. They have so often intermarried that this forms several races of people the oddest imaginable. There’s not one single family of natives that can value itself on being unmixed. You frequently see a person whose father was born a Grecian, the mother an Italian, the grandfather a Frenchman, the grandmother an Armenian and their ancestors English, Muscovites, Asiatics, etc.

  This mixture produces creatures more extraordinary than you can imagine. Nor could I ever doubt but there were several different species of men, since the whites, the woolly and the long-haired blacks, the small-eyed Tartars and Chinese, the beardless Brazilians, and, to name no more, the oily-skinned yellow Nova-Zemblians have as specific differences under the same general kind as greyhounds, mastiffs, spaniels, bulldogs or the race of my little Diana, if nobody is offended at the comparison. Now as the various intermixing of these latter animals causes mongrels, so mankind have their mongrels too, divided and subdivided into endless sorts. We have daily proofs of it here, as I told you before. In the same animal is not seldom remarked the Greek perfidiousness, the Italian diffidence, the Spanish arrogance, the French loquacity and all of a sudden he’s seized with a fit of English thoughtfulness bordering a little upon dullness [sic], which many of us have inherited from the stupidity of our Saxon progenitors.

  But the family which charms me most is that which proceeds from the fantastical conjunction of a Dutch male with a Greek female. As these are natures opposite in extremes ‘tis a pleasure to observe how the differing atoms are perpetually jarring together in the children, even so as to produce effects visible in their external form. They have the large black eyes of the country with the fat, white, fishy flesh of Holland and a lively air streaked with dullness [sic]. At one and the same time they show that love of expensiveness so universal among the Greeks and an inclination to the Dutch frugality. To give an example of this, young women ruin themselves to purchase jewels for adorning their heads while they have not the heart to buy new shoes, or rather slippers, for their feet, which are commonly in a tattered condition; a thing so contrary to the taste of our English women that it is for showing how neatly their feet are dressed, and for showing this only, they are so passionately enamoured with their hoop petticoats. I have abundance of other singularities to communicate to you, but I am at the end both of my French and my paper. (pp. 109–112)

  At the Home of an Ottoman Lady

  I went to see the Sultana Hafise, favourite of the last Emperor [Sultan] Mustafa, who, you know (or perhaps you don’t know) was deposed by his brother the reigning Sultan, and died a few weeks after, being poisoned, as it was generally believed. This lady was immediately after his death saluted with an absolute order to leave the seraglio and choose herself a husband from the great men at the Fort. I suppose you imagine her overjoyed at this proposal. Quite contrary. These women, who are called and esteem themselves queens, look upon this liberty as the greatest disgrace and affront that can happen to them. She threw herself at the Sultan’s feet and begged him to poniard her rather than use his brother’s widow with that contempt. She represented to him in agonies of sorrow that she was privileged from this misfortune by having brought five princes into the Ottoman family, but all the boys being dead and only one girl surviving this excuse was not received and she compelled to make her choice. She chose Bekir Effendi, then Secretary of State and above fourscore year old, to convince the world that she firmly intended to keep the vow she had made of never suffering a second husband to approach her bed, and since she must honour some subject so far as to be called his wife she would choose him as a mark of her gratitude, since it was he that had presented her at the age of ten year old to her lost lord. But she has never permitted him to pay her one visit, though it is now fifteen year she has been in his house, where she passes her time in uninterrupted mourning with a constancy very little known in Christendom, especially in a widow of twenty-one, for she is now but thirty-six. She has no black eunuchs for her guard, her husband being obliged to respect her as a queen and not enquire at all into what is done in her apartment, where I was led into a large room, with a sofa the whole length of it, adorned with white marble pillars like a ruelle, covered with a pale blue figured velvet on a silver ground, with cushions of the same, where I was desired to repose till the Sultana appeared, who had contrived this manner of reception to avoid rising up at my entrance, though she made me an inclination of her head when I rose up to her. I was very glad to observe a lady that had been distinguished by the favour of an emperor to whom beauties were every day presented from all parts of the world. But she did not seem to me to have ever been half so beautiful as the fair Fatima I saw at Adrianople, though she had the remains of a fine face more decayed by sorrow than time.

  But her dress was something so surprisingly rich I cannot forbear describing it to you. She wore a vest called dolaman, and which differs from a caftan by longer sleeves and folding over at the bottom. It was of purple cloth straight to her shape and thick set, on each side down to her feet and round the sleeves, with pearls of the best water, of the same size as their buttons commonly are. You must not suppose I mean as large as those of my Lord—but about the bigness of a pea; and to these buttons large loops of diamonds in the form of those gold loops so common upon birthday coats. This habit was tied at the waist with two large tassels of smaller pearl and round the arms embroidered with large diamonds; her shift fastened at the bosom with a great diamond shaped like a lozenge, her girdle as broad as the broadest English riband entirely covered with diamonds. Round her neck she wore three chains which reached to her knees, one of large pearl at the bottom of which hung a fine coloured emerald as big as a turkey egg, another consisting of two hundred emeralds close joined together, of the most lively green, perfectly matched, every one as large as a half crown piece and as thick as three crown pieces, and anoth
er of emeralds perfectly round. But her earrings eclipsed all the rest. They were two diamonds shaped exactly like pears, as large as a big hazelnut. Round her talpack she had four strings of pearl, the whitest and most perfect in the world, at least enough to make four necklaces every one as large as the Duchess of Marlborough’s, and of the same size, fastened with two roses consisting of a large ruby for the middle stone and round them twenty drops of clean diamonds to each. Besides this, her headdress was covered with bodkins of emeralds and diamonds. She wore large diamond bracelets and had five rings on her fingers, all single diamonds, except Mr. Pitt’s the largest I ever saw in my life. This for the jewelers to compute the value of these things, but according to the common estimation of jewels in our part of the world, her whole dress must be worth above £100,000 sterling. This I am very sure of, that no European queen has half the quantity and the Empress’s jewels, though very fine, would look very mean near hers.

  She gave me a dinner of fifty dishes of meat, which, after their fashion, was placed on the table but one at a time, and was extremely tedious, but the magnificence of her table answered very well to that of her dress. The knives were of gold, the hafts set with diamonds, but the piece of luxury that grieved my eyes was the table cloth and napkins, which were all tiffany, embroidered with silks and gold in the finest manner in natural flowers. It was with the utmost regret that I made use of these costly napkins, as finely wrought as the finest handkerchiefs that ever came out of this country. You may be sure that they were entirely spoilt before dinner was over. The sherbet, which is the liquor they drink at meals, was served in china bowls, but the covers and salvers massy gold. After dinner water was brought in a gold basin and towels of the same kind of the napkins, which I very unwillingly wiped my hands upon, and coffee was served in china with gold soûcoupes.