Constantinople old and new

In nothing is the natural soberness of the Turk more manifest than in his holidays. He keeps fewer of them than his Christian compatriot, and most of them he celebrates in such a way that an outsider would scarcely suspect the fact. This is partly, perhaps, a matter of temperament, and partly because Islam has not yet passed a certain stage of evolution. A holiday, that is, is still a holy day. Secular and patriotic festivals are everywhere of comparatively recent origin. In Turkey, where church and state are one to a degree now unknown in Western countries, there was no real national holiday until 1909. Then the first anniversary of the re-establishment of the constitution was celebrated on the 23d of July (July 10, old style). A highly picturesque celebration it was, too, in Constantinople at least, with its magnificent array of rugs and mediæval tents on the Hill of Liberty, its review of troops by the Sultan, its procession of the guilds of the city, and its evening illuminations.

Illuminations, however, were not invented by the constitution. Long before a 23d or a 4th of July were, the splendour-loving Sultan Ahmed III discovered how unparalleled a theatre for such displays were the steep shores of the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus. The accession day of the reigning sovereign made an annual occasion for great families to set their houses and gardens on fire with an infinity of little oil-lamps and, in all literalness, to keep open house. This was the one purely secular holiday of the year—unless I except the day of Hîd’r Eless. I have already pronounced the name of this mysterious divinity, who is also called Hîzîr, and whom Mohammedan legend associates with the Fountain of Life and with the change of the seasons. He is a distant relative of the prophet Elijah, of the god Apollo, and I suspect of personages still more antique. His day coincides with that of the Greek St. George, namely, April 23d, old style, or May 6th according to our mode of reckoning. I must add that he is frowned upon in orthodox circles, and feasted only in Constantinople or other localities subject to Greek influence. Nevertheless, many men who scorn the authenticity of his claims to reverence scorn not to go forth into the fields on his day, where they roast a lamb on a spit, eat pilaf, and otherwise rejoice over the return of the sun. And you should follow them to Kiat Haneh, if you wish to see a sight—so great and so characteristic is the press of those who celebrate the day. Perhaps they do so the more willingly because their coreligionaries the Persians keep in that way, a few weeks earlier, their own feast of No-rouz. No-rouz, New Day, is the most sensible New Year’s I know, falling as it does at the vernal equinox. The Turks also observe No-rouz, to the degree of sending each other pots of sweetmeat and poetical wishes that life may be as free from bitterness.

Having made these exceptions to the rule that holidays are holy days in Turkey, I now perceive I must make one more. It is almost as trifling as the last, however, for New Year’s is scarcely a holiday at all with the Turks. It is not a day of feasting, of visit-paying, or of present-giving. Persons of sufficiently exalted rank go to the palace to felicitate the Sultan or to inscribe their names in his register, and each receives a new gold piece—of no great denomination in these economical days. Ordinary mortals content themselves with exchanging good wishes and small change—lucky pennies, as it were. A penny is the luckier if it is obtained on some pretext, without mentioning the day. About this day is none of the monotonous invariability which distinguishes our own calendar. It is, indeed, the first day of the first month, Mouharrem, but of the old lunar year of Arabia. It therefore falls eleven days earlier every year, making the backward round of the seasons in a cycle of thirty-three years. A further element of latitude enters into its determination, and that of other strictly Mohammedan holidays, by the fact that the month is not supposed to begin until the new moon has been discovered by the naked eye. In the good old times this verification of the calendar gave rise to most refreshing divergences of opinion. New Year’s might be celebrated in different towns on a number of different days, according to the cloudiness of the sky; or, in case of a conflict of authorities, two days might even be celebrated in the same town. But the advent of the telegraph and a growing laxity in interpretations have brought it about that some one in the empire is pretty sure to see the new moon at the right hour. The day of the ascertaining of the new moon has a name of its own, arifeh. And mark that a Mohammedan, like a Hebrew day, begins and ends at sunset. The celebration of the eve of a holiday in Western countries is doubtless due to the old prevalence of the same usage.

The true holidays of Islam are connected with the life and teachings of its founder. These are seven in number. They commemorate the birth of the Prophet (12th of the third moon, Rebi ül Evvel); his conception (6th of the seventh moon, Rejeb); his ascension—accomplished, be it remembered, during his lifetime—(27th Rejeb); the revelation and completion of his mission (15th of the eighth moon, Shaban, and 27th of the ninth, Ramazan); the close of the fast of Ramazan (1st Shevval); and the sacrifice of Abraham (10th of the last moon, Zilhijeh). This is not the place to discourse of comparative religions, but it is interesting to note in passing the relation between these observances and those of the two other great religions which had their origin so near Arabia. This relation is further indicated by the lenten month of Ramazan and by the paschal week of Kourban Baïram. It is characteristic, however, of the puritanism of Islam and of the Prophet’s desire to put from him every pretence of divinity that his own anniversaries are celebrated the most simply. They have never been an occasion, like the great Christian festivals, for general feasting. On Mohammed’s birthday, to be sure—known as Mevloud, from a celebrated panegyric of the Prophet read in the mosques on that day—the hours of prayer are announced by cannon, and sweets are distributed, particularly to the poor and to orphan children. On that day, also, the Sultan goes in state to mosque. But otherwise the outsider knows of these anniversaries only by the illumination of the galleries of minarets. Whence the seven holy nights have come to be called the Nights of Lamps.

Equally characteristic, in a different way, are the two general holidays of the Mohammedan calendar. They are both known as Baïram—feast—and the outsider has no difficulty in being aware of them. Indeed, it would be rather difficult to remain unaware of so much cannon firing and flag flying. The month of Ramazan has certain festal features, but they are largely discounted by the total fast which every good Moslem observes during the daylight hours. The close of Ramazan is marked by three days of unlimited festivity. This, the lesser Baïram, is called Sheker, or sometimes Mendil Baïram—Sugar or Handkerchief Feast. Then people exchange sweets and handkerchiefs, if nothing else. It is, however, the time to tip servants and dependants, to make presents, to discharge debts, and in general to fulfil the law of the Prophet by dispensing zekyaat, the surplus of one’s goods. I was once presented with an interesting little leaflet, printed in silver, which was less a discreet advertisement than a tract as to the true Moslem’s duty in this regard. It represented half a fruit of the tree touba, under which in paradise all true believers will gather on the resurrection day, and the seeds of this fruit were circles in which were printed the exact quantity of certain comestibles to be given away at Baïram. Preparations for this generosity may be seen during the afternoons of Ramazan, when the bazaars and the fashionable street of Shah-zadeh-Bashi are crowded with shoppers. The courtyard of the mosque of Baïezid is also turned into a fair during Ramazan. There the beau monde of Stamboul resorts, that is to say the masculine part of it, two or three hours before sunset. Sweetmeats are by no means all that you may buy. Eatables of all sorts, perfumes, tobacco, cigarette-holders, and beads of amber and other materials are also sold, besides silks and rugs. In Abd ül Hamid’s time there was always a booth for the sale of porcelain from his little factory at Yîldîz. And every year the ancient pottery works of Kütahya send up a consignment of their decorative blue ware.

Both Baïrams are an occasion for paying visits. Everybody calls on everybody else, so that it is a wonder if anybody is found at home. In the case of the Sultan, however, there is no uncertainty. On the first morning of each Baïram he holds a great levee, which is attended by every one of a certain rank. The ceremony has taken place every year since the time of Baïezid the Thunderbolt, who held his court in Broussa in the fourteenth century. Foreigners take no part in this mouayedeh (exchange of feast-day wishes), or baise-main, as they prefer to call it, but the diplomatic corps and other notables of the European colony are invited to watch it from the gallery of the throne-room. Or sometimes a humbler individual may be introduced in the suite of his embassy, as was the fortune of the present scribe on the occasion of the first baise-main of Sultan Mehmed V.

It rather reminded me of youthful operatic days to march through the endless corridors and to climb the immeasurable stairs of Dolma Ba’hcheh Palace and to look down at last from the high east gallery of the throne-room. The top galleries of my youthful days, however, did not contain gilt chairs upholstered in blue and white satin or buffets set out with gold plate and presided over by lackeys in red and gold. The lackeys, though, did look a little like the stage. While a Turk makes a magnificent soldier or horseman, he never attains, impassive though he be, the sublime superiority of a European footman. Is it that his livery is unnatural, or is the human in him too strong to be quite purged away? The operatic impression was further carried out by a crystal chandelier, swinging from the dome exactly where it would cut off somebody’s view, and by the rococo arches surrounding the central square of the throne-room. This huge space was empty save for a crystal candelabrum standing at each corner and a covered throne in the middle of the west side. The throne was a small red-and-gold sofa, as we presently saw when an old gentleman removed the cover. He also looked carefully under the throne, as might a queen apprehensive of burglars or mice; but I suppose it was to make sure no bomb was there.

In the meantime the courtiers began to assemble: the cabinet at the left of the throne, the army and navy—in much gold lace—at right angles to the cabinet, the church under the east gallery. On the south side of the hall, facing the military, stood for the first time the new parliament. The senators, who have all been official personages in their day, wore their various uniforms of state. The deputies looked very European in evening dress and white gloves, but capped, of course, with the fez of rigour. Last to come in, taking their stand at the right of the throne, were the imperial princes. They had been waiting with the Sultan in an adjoining room, where they had paid homage to him in private. Then, preceded by the grand master of ceremonies, the Sultan himself entered. Every one made a temenna to the ground, that graceful triple sweep of the hand which is the Turkish form of salutation, while a choir hidden under one of the galleries chanted: “Thou wilt live long with thy glory, O Sultan, if God wills. Great art thou, but forget not that One is greater.” For those who had made obeisance the year before and many other years to Abd ül Hamid II there must have been something strangely moving in the spectacle of the kindly faced old man, after all not very majestic in person, who walked a little as if his shoes were too tight, yet who took his place at the head of that great company with the natural dignity of his house and race. He wore a stubby new beard, acquired since his accession; for it is not meet that the Commander of the Faithful should go shorn.

The ceremony was opened by a little old man in green, the Nakib ül Eshraf, whose business it is to keep the pedigrees of the descendants of the Prophet. He appeared from behind one of the crystal candelabra, bowed low in front of majesty, made a deep temenna, stepped backward, and offered a prayer. The Sultan and all the other Moslems present listened to it with their hands held up in front of them, palms inward. Then the first chamberlain of the court, holding a red velvet scarf fringed with gold, took his place at the left of the throne, the band in the north gallery—and a very good one—began to play, and the baise-main commenced. It was not a literal baise-main. I suppose the Sultan could hardly be expected to hold out his hand long enough for several hundred people to kiss. It was a baise-écharpe rather, as the Grand Vizier was the first to prove. He made the temenna—or salaamed, as we put it in English—stepped in front of the Sultan and salaamed a second time, kissed the chamberlain’s scarf and touched it to his forehead, salaamed a third time, and backed to his place. Hilmi Pasha was followed by his colleagues in order. When the last of them had paid homage, the chamberlain passed behind the throne to the right, and it was the turn of parliament. The senators, for most of whom the baise-main was no novelty, followed the example of the cabinet. But when it came to the deputies, they emphasised a new order of things by merely saluting, without kissing the scarf. To their speaker, the ex-exile Ahmed Riza Bey, the Sultan paid the honour of offering his hand. Ahmed Riza Bey started to kiss it, but the Sultan prevented him, at the same time drawing him forward past the throne and giving him a place at the left beyond the Grand Vizier.

The most picturesque part of the ceremony was when the ülema, the dignitaries of the cult, in their gold-collared robes and white turbans ornamented by a band of gold, paid homage. They did not come singly, as had their predecessors, but in a long flowing line of colour. At their head marched the Sheï’h ül Islam, the highest religious official in the empire, who is also a minister of state. He wears white, like the Pope. He was followed by the Sherif Ali Haïdar Bey, Minister of Pious Foundations. This handsome green-robed Arab is one of the greatest aristocrats in Islam, being an authentic descendant of the Prophet. And he has, if you please, an English wife. After him came a brilliant company of lesser green robes, followed by a succession of fawn-coloured and purple ones. Four dark blues and one sombre greybeard in black made a period to the procession. The long double line had, to the detached gallery-god view, the appearance of a particularly effective ballet as it advanced parallel to the diplomatic gallery, turned half-way across the hall at right angles, moved forward to the throne, and backed out as it came. And the band did not a little to forward the detachment of the gallery-god view by irreverently playing a potpourri from “Carmen” as the fathers of the cult made obeisance before the throne. The ülema were followed by the heads of the non-Moslem religions of the empire. This also was an innovation, and the Greek Patriarch made a brief address in honour of it. Last of all the army, the navy, and the civil dignitaries took their turn. This time the band played the march from “Tannhäuser”; and with real courtiers paying homage to a real ruler in a real throne-room, to that music, illusion became fantastic. When the last member of the official hierarchy had made his last temenna the Sultan withdrew, followed by the court, while the visitors in the gallery were invited to refresh themselves at the buffet. Then the chiefs of missions and their wives—but not humble individuals in their suites—were invited, by way of further innovation, to have audience of his majesty.

The unofficial side of Baïram is quite as full of colour in its more scattered way. Then every man who can afford it, or whose master can, puts on a new suit of clothes. He at least dons something new, if only a gay handkerchief about his fez or neck. It is interesting to stand at some busy corner in a Turkish quarter and watch the crowd in its party-coloured holiday finery. Friends meeting each other stop, seize a hand between their two, and solemnly rub cheeks. Inferiors try to kiss the hand of superiors, who try in turn to snatch the hand away, their success depending on the degree of their superiority. And everybody wishes everybody else a blessed Baïram. The bekjis—watchmen who have beaten drums during the nights of Ramazan in order to get people up in time for their last meal—march about collecting tips. They announce themselves by their drums, to which they often add a pipe or a small violin, and they carry a pole that is gaudy with the handkerchiefs people give them. The sound of music, however, often means that dancing is on. There is sure to be something of the sort wherever Kürds or Laz gather together. Your true Turk is too dignified for such frivolities. And be it well understood that the only women who dance in the open at Baïram are gipsies, hussies who love to deck themselves out in yellow and who blush not to reveal their faces or their ankles. I regret that I am too little of an expert in matters terpsichorean to enter into the fine points of these performances. I can no more than sketch out an impression of a big green tent in some vacant lot, of the high lights of brass that go with tea and coffee drinking in its shadow, and of fiercely moustachioed persons in tall felt caps, in hooded or haply goatskin jackets, and in wide trousers, if they be Kürds, or of slighter Laz with tight black legs that bulge out at the top and hoods picturesquely knotted about their heads, who join hands and begin very slowly a swaying step that grows wilder and wilder with the throbbing of a demon drum.

It is the children, however, to whom Baïram chiefly belongs. In their honour all the open spaces of the Mohammedan quarters are utilised for fairs and playgrounds. The principal resort of the kind is the yard surrounding the mosque of the Conqueror—or it used to be before gardens were planted there. I discovered it quite by accident one day when I went to Stamboul to see how Baïram was being celebrated and saw a quantity of carts, dressed out with flags and greens, full of children. I followed the carts until I came upon the most festive confusion of voices, of tents, of music, of horses, of donkeys, of itinerant venders, of fezzed papas, of charshafed mammas, of small girls in wonderful silks and satins, and small boys as often as not in the uniform of generals. Amidst them I remarked with particular pleasure a decorative Arab in white, who strode about with a collection of divinatory green birds. A countryman of his had a funny little peep-show, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, into which I was dying to look but considered myself too dignified to do so. Neither did I go into the tent which bore this ingratiating sign: “Ici on expose animaux vivans et la demoiselle laquelle à la poitrine une cavité.” In other tents the physical man was more particularly catered to. Indeed, stuffing seems to be the great affair of Baïram. I must not omit, however, the numerous contrivances for inducing motion more or less violent. Merry-go-rounds propelled by hand, swings in the form of boats, milder swings for girls, where one could sit under an awning like a lady and run no risk of being dashed to death, and a selection of miniature vehicles for the very little person, were so many arguments against Mr. Kipling and the East-is-East theory. Another argument was put forward by the discreet gambler, with his quick eye for the police, who in various familiar ways tempted youth to flirt with destiny.

It was with some misgiving that I first entered this assemblage, mine being the only hat and camera visible. But during the several Baïrams that I returned there no one ever seemed to resent my presence except one young and zealous police officer who made up his mind that I had no other purpose in visiting the fair of Fatih than to take photographs of ladies. At a tent where wrestling was going on they once demanded a pound of me for admission, supposing that I was a post-card man and would make vast gains out of their entertainment. But at another, where I paid the customary ten cents or less, I was invited into the place of honour; and there, no seats being left, a naval officer insisted on my occupying his—because, as he said, I was an amateur of the great Turkish sport and a guest, i. e., a foreigner. Occidental hospitality does not often take that particular form. Another trait struck my transatlantic eye when I happened once to be at Fatih on the last day of Baïram. The barkers had all been shouting: “Come, children! Come! To-morrow is not Baïram!” Presently cannon banged to announce ikindi, the afternoon hour of prayer, which is both the beginning and the end of Baïram. All about me I heard people saying: “Baïram is finished.” And Baïram was finished. It was only the middle of a sunny afternoon, and in any other country the merrymaking would have gone on till night. But the children went away, and men began taking down the swings and tents in the most philosophical manner. In 1911 and 1912 Baïram was hardly celebrated at all, as a mark of mourning for the Italian and Balkan wars.

The greater Baïram, called Kourban Baïram, or the Feast of Sacrifice, is more of a religious observance. It lasts one day longer than the other. It commemorates, as I have said, the sacrifice of Abraham. According to Mohammedan tradition, however, Ishmael and not Isaac was the hero of that occasion. In memory of the miracle of his escape every household that can afford to do so sacrifices at least one ram on the 10th Zilhijeh. Among the rich a ram is provided for each member of the family, and those who have recently died are not forgotten. It is also the custom to make presents of rams, as between friends, engaged couples, and masters and dependants. The Sultan is naturally distinguished among these donors by the scale of his generosity. He gives a sacrificial ram to each of the imperial mosques and theological schools, as well as to those whom he delights to honour. These huge creatures belong to a very aristocratic race. They are bred by a semi-religious, semi-agricultural community called the Saïeh Ojaghî, established since the early days of the conquest in the inner valley of the Golden Horn. The members of this community still maintain their mediæval customs and costumes and enjoy certain traditional privileges. In return for these they rear the imperial rams, which they bring in procession to the Palace every year about a week before Kourban Baïram. There the rams are bathed, their horns and hoofs are gilded, and they are further adorned by velvet muzzles a-glitter with gold fringe and mirror glass. It is not an uncommon sight, although in the already mythic days of Abd ül Hamid it was far more common, to see an immaculate aide-de-camp driving in an open victoria with one of these gaudy companions.

It naturally requires a great many rams to supply the demand of Kourban Baïram. Consequently the open spaces of the Mohammedan quarters are full of baa-ing and bargaining for a week or ten days before the sacrifice. The landing-stages of Scutari and Beshiktash are headquarters of this traffic, Top Haneh, and the vicinity of the mosques of Yeni Jami, St. Sophia, Mohammed II, and Baïezid II. The last is perhaps the largest and most characteristic of these markets. Single rams that have been grown for the occasion stand picketed near the mosque awaiting a well-to-do purchaser. They are sometimes as large and as gaily dressed as the Sultan’s rams. They wear a necklace of blue beads to keep off the Evil Eye, and bits of their uncut fleece will be tied up with tinsel or ribbon. I remember one which had a red silk sash on which was printed his name in gold letters—Arslan, lion. Such a kourban represents a sacrifice of five to fifteen pounds. Most buyers prefer to patronise the shepherds who bring their flocks into the city for the occasion. These shepherds, usually Albanians, make a very picturesque addition to the scene with their huge square-shouldered cloaks of felt, fancifully painted in red and blue. The sheep, too, are daubed with colour, to distinguish one flock from another. They sell for rather less than a pound apiece, growing cheaper as the day of sacrifice approaches. It is amusing to watch and to listen to the bargaining that goes on between shepherd and householder until their demands come within sight of each other. Most amusing, though, is it to see the ram—which, I suspect, is not seldom a sheep—when the bargain is made, carried away pickaback by one of the innumerable hamals who hang around for such an opportunity. These strange couples are the characteristic harbinger of Kourban Baïram, the ram staring over the man’s shoulder with vast apparent interest in the sights he sees, his hind quarters making the roundest and most comfortable curve in the small of the hamal’s back.

The actual sacrifice I have never seen, and I hope I never may. I once witnessed a cinematographic representation of what takes place at the Palace, and that was enough for me. The moving pictures represented his majesty returning from early morning prayer, alighting at the great door of Dolma Ba’hcheh, and greeting the dignitaries there assembled to receive him. He then read a brief prayer, took a knife from a platter handed him by an attendant, and passed it to the actual executioner. In theory, the head of each house is supposed to perform the sacrifice. The flesh must be given away, and the fleece, or its proceeds, is used for some charitable purpose.