Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  He was led out from the depths of a gloomy den, which would have asphyxiated a Western horse, and received a very perfunctory grooming at the hands of one of the stable-men. But a more perfect Arab it would be hard to find out of Arabia. There were all the points I had dreamed of before visiting the At-Bazaar — the straight tapering legs, the small feet, the rather large and bony head, the tiny, sharp-pricking ears, and the fine silken coat of golden bay. He shook himself, and snorted with evident disgust at his quarters, as he was led out into the bright air, a king among beggars, a hero among scullions — and at least a fragment of my lost illusion was forthwith restored.

  But there are few such creatures to be seen in Constantinople, though the law against exporting horses from the limits of the Ottoman Empire is so stringent that not even those highest in power would venture to transgress it. It is more easily enforced, too, than the regulation which forbids the taking away of any object whatsoever upon which are written or printed words from the sacred writings.

  In connection with the horse market I am reminded of the Saddler’s Bazaar, a small quarter by itself adjoining one of the principal streets of Stamboul, the Divan Yol. The making of saddles and harnesses, and, generally speaking, the art of working leather, was formerly in high repute in a country throughout which horses, camels, and other beasts of burden were the only means of locomotion. The rich bestowed the greatest possible attention upon the trappings and equipments of the animals they used, and the workmen who produced these objects constituted a special guild. This art, like almost all others in Turkey, has greatly degenerated of late years, but certain things are still made better here than elsewhere. The Saddler’s Bazaar contains, I should think, about a hundred and fifty shops, low, shed-like buildings in which the occupants sit upon little wooden platforms just above the level of the street, with narrow verandas in front of them in which, during the daytime, the finished wares are hung up for sale. A great many things are made of so-called Russian leather, which is not more Russian than it is generally Eastern, and of which the peculiar smell is due to the process of curing by the smoke of leaves instead of by the ordinary process of tanning. Here may be seen elaborate saddles, covered with leather or stuffs or velvet, of the sort used by rich Turks in the country, though long out of fashion in the capital, and matched with cumbrous bridles decorated with ornamental hand-sewing. Saddle-bags are made here, too, of all descriptions, shapes, and sizes, simple and ingenious and useful for the long journeys on horseback into Asia which are often undertaken from Constantinople. But the best articles in the market are the mule-trunks of heavy Russian leather, admirably worked and nothing like which is to be found in Europe.

  There is no regulation in Turkey, I believe, against the burial of the dead within the walls of the city, but the prejudice against the disturbing of a grave is so strong that a vast amount of space is necessary for cemeteries. Besides innumerable tombs and many small burial-grounds in the neighborhood of the mosques within Stamboul, Pera, Stamboul itself and Scutari are all bounded on the land side by an almost continuous chain of grave-yards.

  Adjoining each mosque, as a general rule, is built the turbeh, or tomb, of the founder and of his wives and children. Most of these buildings are polygonal and in many cases octagonal, the eight sides corresponding with the names of Allah, Mohammed, and the six Imams. They are the most richly and beautifully decorated buildings in the city, and it is in them that the most valuable specimens of writing on tiles are to be found. The bodies of the dead are, according to Mohammedan custom, laid in the earth at a depth equal to the average height of a man, the grave of the Sultan or founder of the mosque being always opposite the door, and those of his wives and children disposed around his in symmetrical order. Over each grave is built up a wooden coffin or catafalque, of which the size corresponds with the importance of the occupant, the largest in Stamboul being that of Mehemet II. These coffins are covered with black velvet palls, very richly embroidered with silver and sometimes also with costly shawls, all of which have been to Mecca and have lain upon the tomb of the Prophet before being finally placed in the position they now occupy. One of the most curious of all the turbehs is that of Selim — if I am not mistaken — a Sultan who lies surrounded by his four wives and by no less than forty children, boys and girls, all of whom died in infancy. A little white turban distinguishes the graves of the boys from those of the girls. In each of the greater turbehs, in a silver box, is preserved one of the countless hairs of the

  Prophet’s beard, and a railing surrounds the graves, which in some cases is of solid silver. These buildings are treated as mosques, and the matted floors must not be defiled by feet which have touched the street without. At the head of the principal catafalque there are generally three or four folding book-rests of magnificent workmanship, supporting splendidly illuminated Korans, from which the mollah in charge reads chapters at stated times in the day. Some of these illuminations surpass in exquisite detail of finish and color anything to be seen in Europe, and the finest pages of the most famous mediæval missals would look coarse beside them.

  Besides the turbehs, there are small burial-grounds attached to many of the mosques, picturesque little places filled with diminutive graves and irregular tomb-stones, and thickly overgrown with shrubs and rose-bushes. It is not the custom in Turkey to keep graves in repair, and the monumental stones, being tall and slender and generally cylindrical, soon fall out of the perpendicular, leaning in every direction and lending the cemeteries a wild and fantastic appearance. Until Mahmud introduced the fez, the headstones of men’s graves were surmounted by carved representations of turbans, but since that time the fez is in universal use, painted scarlet when new, with a blue tassel. Upon the column below the cylinder there is frequently a long inscription, beginning with an invocation to God or a verse from the Koran, and followed by a short account of the dead man’s life. The tomb-stones of women either bear no symbol at all, or, as in the great majority of cases, are surmounted by a sunflower or something in the nature of an arabesque or plant. The inscriptions on them are almost invariably in verse. In very rare instances persons of great importance have very elaborate monuments, which are usually ugly in proportion as they are intended to be beautiful, and like the others are allowed to fall to ruin.

  In most of these small cemeteries there are narrow, well-kept walks at a lower level than the graves themselves, and contrasting oddly with the wild growth of trees and shrubbery on each side. Persons reputed to have led holy lives are often buried, especially in the country, in solitary graves surrounded by elaborate gratings and covered by roofs or domes, and it is not uncommon to see them brightly illuminated at night with votive lamps, like the tombs of saints in Catholic countries. For Mohammedans not only reverence the memory of the dead, but believe in the efficacy of their prayers and intercessions. It is a common thing, too, to see the shrubs about the graves of sainted personages covered with hundreds and even thousands of scraps of rag, torn by pilgrims from their garments and stuck on the bushes in the belief that the offering will preserve the individual from sickness.

  But the most picturesque and wild of all the places of burial are the great cemeteries without the walls. Magnificent cypresses of almost fabulous age overshadow the vast area occupied by the bodies of the faithful, casting a deep and gloomy shade even in midday in summer; and there is little or no undergrowth here, for the cypress does not favor other plants. As far as the eye can reach in every direction, there is an interminable confusion of gray tombstones, standing, slanting, and lying in every possible position which a straight object can assume. Here and there at wide intervals a spot of bright color is visible, where the fez on a man’s tombstone has not yet lost its color under the weather. The place is gloomy at midday, uncanny in the twilight, and ghostly at night. It is no wonder that the Turks should believe in ghosts, ghouls, vampires, and every conceivable posthumous horror. The belief in these things constitutes one of the most deep-rooted of popular Turkish super
stitions, and the fatalistic Mussulman, who would readily face death in any shape, would tremble like a child if obliged to pass through a cemetery at night. As a matter of fact the burial-grounds are by no means safe places, especially after dark, for this very superstition makes them a very secure refuge for deserters and malefactors.

  But in spite of their wild and gloomy aspect and ruinous condition, or perhaps in consequence of this state of things, the Turkish cemetery is infinitely more picturesque than the Christian churchyard, with its abominably tasteless monuments, its trim salad-like flower beds, and its insipid inscriptions — as superior in interest to an intelligent being as the primæval forest is to the creations of a landscape gardener. Modern religious art seems to be bad because it has kept pace with modern fashion, an error of which the Mussulman cannot be accused.

  There is something incongruous in treating dead men like books, to be arranged in neat order and catalogued as volumes are in a library. No one who clings to old-fashioned ideas can conceive of finding rest in such a neat and business-like establishment as a modern Christian cemetery. Since we do not believe in the worship of ancestors, as the Chinese do, and since those of us who believe in a future state are convinced that rest and reward or unrest and punishment are for the soul and not for the body, it seems both foolish and wicked to expend enormous sums for the preservation of what is by the hypothesis utterly worthless. Better to lie on the mountain-side under the sky, or to be dropped into the sea with a weight at one’s feet, or at least to be put quietly away without expense — or even to occupy a nameless grave under the Turkish cypresses, than to be the prey of the modern undertaker, sexton, marble-cutter, and municipality. But, after all, though death be a matter of necessity, burial will always be a matter of taste.

  I have hitherto said little about Pera, Galata, and the thickly populated suburbs on the northern side of the Golden Horn. The ancient city of the Genoese never formed a part of Constantinople, and will never be really incorporated with the Turkish capital. It is true that the Sultan now lives in Yildiz Kiosk, above the farther end of Beshik Tash, the “cradle stone,” on the Bosphorus, and the presence of the sovereign has naturally attracted a great number of high officials to the neighborhood.

  But Pera and Galata are chiefly inhabited by Christians and Jews, many of them being Europeans, and the aspect of the streets is consequently far less Oriental and less interesting. Pera, as everyone knows, is the aristocratic quarter, in which the European Embassies have their residences in winter and where successful Levantine financiers build themselves gorgeous palaces in the midst of reeking slums. As for Galata, it is the fermenting vat of the scum of the earth. It is doubtful whether in any city in the globe such an iniquitous population could be found as that which is huddled together by the water’s edge from Kassim Pasha to Tophane. It is indeed an interesting region to the student of criminal physiognomy, for the lowest types of what must necessarily be called the civilized criminal classes fill the filthy streets, the poisonous lanes, and the reeking liquor-shops, the terror of the Europeans above and the object of righteous hatred and loathing to the Turks on the other side. The Greeks and Armenians, who lead a sort of underground existence, here make a good living, and by no means a precarious one, by a great variety of evil practices. Being all Christians, they all claim the protection of one or other of the European Embassies, and the political situation of Turkey renders it practically impossible for the Ottoman authorities to arrest or punish one of these malefactors, the slightest interference with whose liberty might at once be made a casus belli by the foreign government whose protection he would claim. There is hardly a liquor-shop in Galata, and there are few even among the more respectable cafés in Pera in which a gambling hell is not kept in a quiet room at the back of the establishment. If the visitor’s good luck survives the ordeal of a roulette-table having two zeros and nine or ten numbers, so that he actually wins something that he might take away with him, the establishment has at its disposal a private police force to rob him and, if necessary, to cut his throat so soon as he makes for the door.

  As for Scutari, on the other side of the Bosphorus, it is a city of a very different type. The Turk is an Asiatic, and at the junction of the two continents distinguishes very clearly between the two. There are comparatively few Christians on the Asian side, and the houses which line the quiet streets show by their latticed windows that they are inhabited by Mussulmans. There is a certain air of peace, if not of prosperity, about Scutari, which is very restful after the crowded bazaars of Stamboul and the choking slums of Galata. There are few people in the streets, the carriages are old and shabby, and in the country, if not in Scutari itself, these are outnumbered by the primaeval ox-carts — low, long-bodied conveyances upon clumsy wheels, any one of them big enough to transport a whole family with its belongings. One often sees these family parties. The women and children, the former more closely veiled than in Stamboul, sit close together side by side from end to end, the paterfamilias generally squatting by himself at the tail of the cart. His expression resembles that of the European father under the same circumstances — a combination of anxiety, weariness, and shyness by no means becoming to the solemn Oriental face. The women, on the other hand, are intensely interested in the sights and incidents of the journey, and look longingly at your light carriage as you drive swiftly by. But there is not much to be seen in Scutari, unless you will take the trouble to climb the steep hill for the sake of the really magnificent view-obtained there.

  Kadi Keui, the ancient Chalcedon, is a much more interesting place, is more pleasantly situated, and, moreover, affords an attraction in the shape of a Turkish theatre, the only one existing in Constantinople or in the neighborhood. The playhouse is a flimsy construction of boards at the end of the broad meadow behind the town, the scenery is sketchy, the music abominable, and the audience consists entirely of men. But the establishment is owned and managed by a first-rate comic actor, a Turk of the Turks, who, if he were well supported, would do credit to any stage in the world. There are not more than two or three performances a week, which take place entirely by daylight, and it is the practice of the theatre to await the convenience of the audience before ringing up the curtain. Though the building is of the nature of tinder, everyone smokes perpetually, and as usual where Turks are gathered together, the ice-cream vender and the coffee seller are constantly in demand. The action of the pieces is located in more or less mythical Eastern countries, and the plays depend entirely for their success upon the talent of the acting manager and proprietor. But even for one unacquainted with the language, his acting is worth seeing.

  Beyond Kadi Keui, on the Sea of Marmora, and in full view of the Islands of the Princes, lies one of the most beautiful spots in the whole neighborhood. The Fenar Bagche, the Light-house Garden, is a lovely grove at the seaward end of a narrow tongue of land. In successive ages the ancient plane-trees have overshadowed a temple of Hera, a summer palace of Justinian, and the wild flowers which have overgrown the foundations of both. Here in the hot summer the sea-breeze blows perpetually; the Greek fishermen dry their nets in the sun and rest in the shade; and in the “Bay of Reeds,” between the point and the fashionable Moda Burnu, a few yachts and pleasure-boats ride lazily at anchor.

  This side is rapidly outdoing the Bosphorus in the public estimation as a summer residence, and the land is rising very quickly in value. The air is drier, and in the evening there is not what the guides call the “cold draught” from the Black Sea. The shore has but one defect, the almost total absence of trees, except at such points as Moda Burnu and Fenar Bagche.

  Of the Bosphorus itself it is scarcely possible to speak within these narrow limits. There is a great difference in opinion in regard to its beauty, but for my part I do not think it compares with the Gulf of Naples or with the southern coast of the Crimea. An irreverent American recently said that the Bosphorus was like the Lake of Como drawn through a keyhole. This is doubtless an exaggeration, but it is not witho
ut a foundation of truth. The massive towers of Kumeli and Anadoli Hissar, the European and Asiatic castles of Mehemet II., are imposing and picturesque, and the current of the Bosphorus runs between them at a rate which has earned it the name of the “Devil’s Stream.” But there is little else that has any claim to be called grand between Scutari and the mouth of the Black Sea. On the other hand, the shores are crowded with villages, villas, and dwellings of every description from the Imperial Palaces of Dolma Bagche and Beylerbey to the humble fishermen’s huts below Anadoli Kavak. Until lately the Bosphorus was exclusively and especially considered the fashionable summer-resort of Ministers of State, Ambassadors, and rich Greeks; but, as has been already said, it is now losing its prestige in favor of Moda Burnu and the Islands of the Princes. Nevertheless it has a charm and enchantment of its own. The low undulating hills are covered with gardens, many beautiful buildings rise from the water’s edge, and the water itself is crowded with craft of all sorts. There is little to distinguish one village from the next, though there are a few points of especial beauty, such as the Valley of the Blue Water — called by Europeans the “Sweet Waters of Asia,” where the Turks congregate on Friday afternoons, as at Kiathane, with their wives and families and cigarettes — Therapia, Buyukdere, and the Valley of Roses. At Buyukdere, which means “the great valley,” the Belgrade forest begins, stretching away for many miles to the shores of the Black Sea, as wild and beautiful a tract of woodland as can be imagined.