Leading the Blind

by Alan Sillitoe

  The town isn’t mentioned in Murray’s handbook for Turkey of 1854, and though if the Turks in general get a somewhat better reference for their would-be employers, it isn’t by much. On reaching Constantinople: ‘Those that mean to confine their excursions to Stamboul and its vicinity want no weapons, but those that mean to go inland had better provide themselves with some portable efficacious arms, such as the smaller size of Colt’s revolvers.’

  The traveller is told, with regard to the climate, that the ‘thin, pure and exciting air, is salubrious, but also very dangerous, and persons of a full habit, or those that are intemperate, are liable to acute diseases of an alarming character. Catching cold very frequently leads to bronchitis and pneumonia; intemperance produces dysentery.’

  Access to the city seemed easier in those days to what it was to become later. ‘On arriving in the Bosphorus the kaiks are by far the safest boats, if one gets into them and out of them with proper care; and the Maltese, anywhere but in Malta, are among the greatest scoundrels in the Levant. The stranger, if conscious of having no goods liable to duty (and it would be strange if he had), should refuse to be taken to the Custom-house, where he would be detained to no purpose.’

  If he does go through the Customs, however, he must, when finished, engage a hamal (porter) to carry his luggage. ‘The stranger should name the hotel he wishes to go to, and the hamal will conduct him. If more than one hamal seizes the luggage, they should be left to fight it out among themselves.’

  Murray states that, as a general rule, ‘before the hamals are sent away it is necessary to have a preliminary settling with the landlord. The hotels, or rather the boarding-houses which are called hotels, are full to overflowing, and for one guest who leaves the house, deterred by the prices, the landlord may have two or three next day. In any case the stranger should refuse to settle the price with the landlady if the husband be absent. He should rather wait for the return of the master of the house, for, greedy and grasping as the Greeks are (most of the hotel-keepers are either Greeks or Maltese), the women are by far more greedy and grasping, and decide their bargains with an unblushing hardness which utterly confounds the wanderer.’

  After more sermonizing on the incompetence and rapacity of the people, Murray goes on to say: ‘Though in the first instance it is necessary to go to an hotel, a prudent stranger will not remain here, but look out for some furnished lodgings.’ The only way to find them is to walk the streets, though the houses which display notices that rooms are to let are always full. However, should he at last find one he may be unlucky enough to be given dinner, which he will eat alone, ‘in the worst room of the house, served on a dirty tablecloth, by a grumbling servant, while the children of the house come in and look at the barbarian taking his meal’.

  Having settled the price of all this: ‘The next proposition, which the stranger should resolutely decline, is to take the rooms by the month. Some trifling difference in the price is held out as a bait, but it should not be swallowed. If taken for a month the landlord will also insist on prepayment, and every complaint of rudeness, filth, and neglect, is after that met with the cool rejoinder, “You are perfectly at liberty to go if you don’t like the house.”’

  If the traveller is lucky enough to get a room he should move in immediately, ‘for the landlords do not scruple to let the same room twice in a day, and he who comes first occupies it, while the man who comes too late is in a very awkward position, especially if he had given up his room in the hotel. A slow or careless person may most unexpectedly find himself on the pavement, with his traps loaded on the shoulders of two hamals, whose language he does not understand, but whose impatient gestures ask, as plain as words can tell, “Where in the name of all that is absurd, are we to go?”’

  As for getting information from the landlord or waiters of a hotel, ‘they know nothing, and, generally speaking, are not even able to tell the traveller in which direction to go to the British legation’.

  For those wanting to venture beyond Constantinople the guidebook says that travelling on horseback at the rate of twenty-five miles a day ‘involves hardships, exposure, and fatigue’. Even so, you are ‘in immediate contact with nature. A burning sun may sometimes exhaust, or a summer-storm may drench you, but what can be more exhilarating than the sight of the lengthened troop of variegated and gay costumes dashing at full speed along to the crack of the Tartar whip?’

  If our traveller be rich, intrepid, valiant and not disposed to consider his personal comfort – indeed he may be delighted to disregard it – he could take the road to Baghdad, perhaps as an army officer retracing his leisurely steps to his regiment in India.

  A steamship from Constantinople to Trebizond on the Black Sea would put him on the old Tartar road to Mosul, in modern-day Iraq. Not only that, but if he knew his classics he might choose to follow, though in reverse, the celebrated March of the Ten Thousand – Greek mercenaries commanded by Xenophon on their retreat from Persia where they had served under Cyrus in 401–399 BCE.

  The guidebook tells us that, after Mosul: ‘There is no danger whatever on the journey when the Beduin tribes are quiet; but if the traveller learns on inquiry that they are at war, either with each other or with the Sultan’s authorities, he should consult the Turkish officers and modify his plans accordingly.’

  When the traveller is deep into Mesopotamia we are treated by Murray in the handbook of 1854 to a passage which deserves to be quoted in full, for there could surely have been no more amazing piece of advice.

  If of an adventurous disposition, and not averse to run a certain degree of risk, the tourist might extend his sphere of observation by paying a visit to the great Bedouin tribe of Shammar. The first step is to get the consul at Moussul to send for some small sheikh of the tribe, who would not venture within a Turkish pasha’s grasp to meet a long account of plundered caravans unless he had the protection of a consulate. But with that assurance he arrives with 2 or 3 attendants on broken-down old mares or trotting dromedaries. He is remarkable for a scanty and unclean wardrobe, brilliant eyes and teeth, and a very dignified and gentlemanly deportment. A present must be made to him – a fur cloak for winter or a brace of Turkish pistols – to secure his good-will, conciliating him further by hints of additional largesse in the event of a safe return, and the traveller may then set out on his novel expedition.

  The desert once gained, there will be abundant sources of gratification for the lover of nature. As he rides over the boundless waste of short grass, unbroken by the smallest attempt at cultivation, he will also observe the sharp look-out kept by the Bedouin escort. All around the horizon is a vast solitude, and the little party creeps across it like lonely pilgrims through a deserted world.

  Suddenly is heard the word ‘horsemen’, uttered by some one perched on the back of a camel: at once all is excitement; the sheikh scans the horizon, and announces strangers, though none are visible to less practised eyes. The escort is on the alert; the sheikh receives his spear from the hands of his henchmen; the camels are left in the charge of a boy; led horses are mounted; the priming of pistols and guns is looked to, and the whole party is ready to fight or retreat according as the enemy may be in strength or not. The sheikh gallops up a small height to reconnoitre; comes back at full speed; shouts ‘enemies’, and in a greater force than their own.

  Not a moment is lost; sauve-qui-peut is the order of the day; and the Arabs disperse, leaving the traveller to make terms as best he can, probably a permission to return on foot and naked to the town. The wild-looking sons of the desert, mounted on rough but high-bred mares, comes down upon him like a whirlwind, with a loud unearthly yell, shaking their lances over their heads; and the interview is soon over, the tourist finding himself again alone on the broad plain, with or without a shirt, as the case may be. If any resistance has been made by him, any man or mare killed or wounded, the traveller’s adventures here terminate for ever in the thrust of a lance.

  It is more likely, however, that the
horsemen in the distance prove to be friends, for the Bedouins seldom venture to cross a dangerous district unless assured of the absence of all tribes with whom they have feuds. Under the direction of the sheikh the camp is pitched near some lonely spring, disturbing possibly thereby a troop of wild asses, which gallop off to drink at some safer place.

  After a few days’ journey of this kind are described in the distance numerous black specks which gradually assume the form of an encampment, the home of your Bedouin guides. As the party approaches it will be joined by scouts, who come careering towards it with intricate feats of horsemanship, spear in rest, to excite the admiration and respect of the unknown visitor.

  On arriving, the guest is taken to the largest tent, where he dismounts, and exclaims, ‘Salaam aleikum!’ Its inmates gravely respond, in a sonorous voice, ‘Aleikum salaam!’ When seated on the best carpet he is regaled with a small cup of black unsugared coffee, rendered still more unpalatable by an odious infusion of bitter-herbs. Presently a huge bowl of rice, cooked with butter, probably rancid, and lumps of mutton, certainly tough, is placed on the ground, and every one thrusts his fingers into it and helps himself. Each partaker of the feast retires when his appetite is satisfied, and leaves his place to another until the last remnants of the fare are devoured by a troop of naked and hungry children, and the bones by the lean curs of the encampment.

  All idea of privacy must be given up, as the tent of the stranger will be open to all visitors, who would be much offended if he were to say ‘Not at home’ to the least of them. With the exception of this intrusive disposition, the Bedouins will be found gentle, considerate, and anxious to please their guest. In the morning he may ride out on a hawking party.

  While the tourist is enjoying this rich treat, some plundering enterprise may perhaps be planned by the sheikh against the Aneyzeh tribe, which is in a state of perpetual foray and reprisals with the Shammar.

  If the traveller should wish to push his study of the desert so far as to run this additional risk, he must see that he be well mounted for a forced retreat, and he must equip himself in a Bedouin costume to avoid the danger of being captured with a view to a heavy ransom. Early in the morning the party will be on their mares, and, taking with them a few thin wheaten cakes for food and each a sheepskin cloak to sleep on, they start in a straight line to a point on the horizon at a good pace, that their enemies may be taken by surprise. All those whom they meet on their way, if of friendly tribes, are invited to join the expedition, which they are always ready to do, and the number of the party will probably soon be thus increased to about a hundred horsemen.

  When the ground becomes uneven, a scout is sent to every height to reconnoitre, and towards nightfall a concealed position is sought for a bivouac. No fires are lit, no tents are pitched, but each man throws himself on the ground to eat his dry bread and sleep beside his picketed mare, one being, however, on guard.

  An hour or two before daylight the word ‘mount’ is passed from mouth to mouth, and the mares are again put to their mettle. The arrival at the doomed encampment is timed so as to meet the flocks and herds just when they are being driven out in the morning to graze, and before they are scattered about on the pastures, that they may thus be swept off in a body.

  The war-chant is commenced. The mares prick their ears and snort with excitement. Those who have been told off to drive the captured cattle and carry off the booty separate from the main body, which gradually quickens its pace, the war-song becoming louder and louder, till a full gallop and a yell bring the assailants round some sheltering mound, and they charge in among the tents.

  A scene of disorder ensues which baffles description. The men of the plundered tribe spring out of their tents; some hurl their javelins at the horsemen, others fire their long rifles at them and quickly load, while the women shriek and fling stones; the cattle gallop in all directions with their tails in the air, and the hostile parties of drivers and fighters show the greatest activity in getting the herd together on the move, and in dispersing those who attempt to prevent its being taken away.

  If the Shammar be worsted, the sooner the traveller gets his mare into a gallop, in the direction whence he came, the better will it be for him; but, if successful, a few minutes will suffice to get the cattle on their way home, covered by a strong force in the rear, the Aneyzeh firing distant shots to harass them for some miles. The wounded are carried off, the dead left on the field, and, if prisoners have been taken, their ransom is transacted by regular embassies, as well as the conditions for the restoration of a part of the booty when the plundered tribe can afford it. Such incidents are of so frequent occurrence that the traveller will find no lack of opportunity for witnessing them, if it be his wish.

  If any English traveller was foolish enough to join such an enterprise; and some no doubt were, or it would not have been written about; and if he survived to tell the table, which he obviously did, he would then pursue his lucky and exhilarated way to Baghdad, where he would, we are told, ‘Meet with a little Anglo-Indian society, which will materially enhance the enjoyment of his stay there.’

  Such an adventure as the above may have been possible in the Turkish dominions of the 1850s, but by the beginning of the twentieth century a great deal had changed, proved by the fact that there were more guidebooks to the region, though Baedeker was published in German only. A volume was devoted to Constantinople in the Medieval Towns series, and a special edition, already mentioned, of the Blue Guide (in French) commemorated the opening of the Orient Express route. Apart from Black’s, there was Murray’s updated handbook to the Bosphorus and Dardanelles area, and fifty excellent pages in Macmillan’s Eastern Mediterranean, 1905.

  The Bradshaw of the day tells us that getting through the customs at Constantinople was less easy than formerly, but that: ‘A bakhsheesh of 5 piastres will expedite matters.’ Murray informs us: ‘Rifles, revolvers, foreign cigars, and tobacco are prohibited. Books, newspapers, and all printed matters are submitted to the censor; if not returned within a day, application should be made for them through the Consulate. Books such as the “Hand-book” and the “Continental Bradshaw” have, on occasion, been seized.’ Should this be the case, the traveller need not despair, because ‘Otto Keil, booksellers to H.I.M. the Sultan stock all books on the East, including Murray’s Handbooks’, according to an advertisement in Black’s guide.

  With regard to accommodation Murray says in his preface that ‘great changes have taken place in TURKEY within the last few years. Travellers who intend to make a long stay may sometimes take furnished lodgings, and have their meals at clubs, hotels, or restaurants. All the furnished lodgings are bad, and very few respectable. The sanitary arrangements and the attendance are wretched.’

  The traveller is warned against wearing a fez on his arrival in the East, which is ‘a very unwise thing to do, as by donning the native head-gear he ipso-facto loses his foreign prestige’. He is also told that: ‘There is no postal delivery at Constantinople; letters must be called for at the Post Office at which they are expected to arrive.’

  As for getting about, we read in Black’s: ‘With two or three exceptions, the streets of Constantinople are but little better than narrow, crooked, wretchedly-paved, and dirty alleys.’ As a guide or dragoman, Hutton, of the Medieval Towns series, strongly recommends: ‘Eustathios Livathinos as a most pleasant companion. Jacob Moses has also much experience.’

  We are also told in Black’s that: ‘The Jews are pretty numerous, and are, with some exceptions, the poorest and most wretched of all the races inhabiting Constantinople. Many of the Greeks, Armenians, and Jews are employed under the Government; but the majority of them are merchants, shop-keepers, artisans, hawkers, labourers, etc. They are officially styled “rayah” or “the herd”, a term which the Turks apply to the non-Mussulman subjects.’ The Guide Bleu says that ‘the Jews make up the part of the population of the Ottoman Empire the least hostile to foreigners’.

  One’s conduct has to
be continually monitored nevertheless, because on visiting the Aya Sophia Mosque, which Baedeker’s double asterisk makes a ‘must’: ‘Visitors should be careful not to touch anything.’ The Mediterranean Traveller, 1905, published for tourists from the United States, tells its readers: ‘All foreigners in Turkey are under constant suspicion and surveillance, and are greatly hindered in their personal and business affairs.’

  A section in Black’s dealing with theatres and music halls states that the theatre at Shehzdeh Bachi ‘should not be visited by ladies’. How you would pay your entrance fee would seem a problem, in any case, because the same book tells us: ‘There is practically no such thing as legal tender in Turkey, and payment may be made in coins of any current denomination.’

  Taking boats from one shore to another is no relaxing matter. ‘These craft are very crank, and the greatest care should be taken in getting in and out of them. They are not provided with thwarts for passengers, but the latter have to sit down on the cushions in the well, where if they only sit still they are safe enough.’