THE YELLOW RACE.
The Yellow Race has also been called the Mongol Race, from the well-defined features of one of the families it comprises.
The principal characteristics which distinguish the individuals and the families belonging to the Yellow race, are, high cheekbones, a lozenge-shaped head, a small flat nose, a flat countenance, narrow obliquely-set eyes, straight coarse black hair, a scanty beard, and a complexion of a greenish hue.
However, all the members of the yellow race do not exhibit these distinct features. Sometimes they show but a few of them, whilst others of their characteristics would seem to identify them with the Caucasian group. It is thus very difficult to make the proper divisions in this race.
We will separate it into three branches—the Hyperborean, the Mongolian, and the Sinaic branches.
CHAPTER I.
HYPERBOREAN BRANCH.
The Hyperborean branch is composed of the various races inhabiting the districts in the vicinity of the North Pole, small in stature and possessing the principal characteristics of the Yellow Race.
The people belonging to the Hyperborean branch are nomadic, and their only domestic animals are the dog and the reindeer. They are spread over a vast surface, but are few in number. They support themselves by hunting and fishing. They are passionately fond of strong drinks, and their civilization is of a very rudimentary character.
Some of these people might perhaps be more properly classed under the Mongolian branch. Possibly some even should be classified in the White Race, for they have lost, under the influences of climate and of their mode of life, the distinguishing characteristics of the Yellow Race. As it is very difficult to make a natural classification of these people, we will retain that set up by M. D’Omalius d’Halloy.
This naturalist distinguishes, amid the people who compose the Hyperborean branch, seven families, taking the affinities of language as a basis. These are the Lapp, the Samoiede, the Kamtschadale, the Esquimaux, the Ienissian, the Jukaghirite, and the Koriak families.
The Lapp Family.
The Laplanders are thin and short, but pretty strong and active. Their head is disproportionately large. They have a round skull, wide cheek-bones, the broad flat Mongol nose, a protruding forehead, and goggle eyes. Their complexion is a yellowish brown, and their hair is usually black. This curious race of men is divided into two distinct classes, the nomadic Laplander and the sedentary Laplander.
The sole property of the former is his herd of reindeer. He takes these to the high grounds, and after spending the months of June, July, and August there, returns in September to his winter quarters. In his journeys to and fro, he uses the reindeer as beasts of burden. When the ground is covered with snow, he harnesses these useful quadrupeds to his sledge. (Fig. 90.)
Dogs are also used as draft animals in Lapland. On the borders of the scanty forests of Lapland and Siberia, the inhabitants of these barbarous countries may often be seen gliding rapidly by on a sledge drawn by dogs.
The usual life of the nomadic Laplander is about as wretched as can well be imagined. A tent stretched on four uprights is his abode summer and winter. The fire-place is in the middle of the tent, and the smoke escapes through an opening in the top. Five or six reindeer skins stretched round the fire form the beds of the whole family, to which the surrounding smoke serves as the only curtain. Their furniture consists of an iron pot and a few wooden pails. The Laplander carries in his pocket a horn spoon and a knife. He often, instead of wooden pails, makes use of the bladders of the reindeer. In them he carries the milk mixed with water which is his daily beverage. Whenever he sets out on a journey, he harnesses a pair of reindeer to his sledge.
This nomadic race, which formerly occupied a part of Sweden, is now much diminished in numbers. Thirty years ago their number, counting all that could be found in Russian, Norwegian, and Swedish Lapland, only came to twelve thousand.
The sedentary Laplander is usually some poor reindeer proprietor, who having ruined himself, and being unable to continue the life of a wandering herdsman, becomes a beggar or a servant. If he has still a little money left, he settles down on the sea coast, and turns fisherman, while his wife spins wool. His existence in the midst of men of a different race is then a solitary one. He is a regular pariah, despised by both Swede and Norwegian. His hut, his dress, his customs, are all different to those of the people amongst whom he has taken shelter. His children are not allowed to marry into any of the neighbouring families, and he is utterly and entirely alone amid strangers.
In his “Travels in the Scandinavian States,” M. de Saint-Blaize tells us how he suddenly fell in with an encampment of Laplanders in the night time. A hundred deer, whose immense antlers, interlaced the one with the other, produced the effect of a little forest, were grouped around the camp fires. Two young Laplanders and some dogs watched over the safety of the whole. Hard by were the tents. An old Laplander and his wife offered the traveller some reindeer milk. It was very oily, and reminded him of goat’s milk.
The same traveller tells us that when on a journey a Laplander’s wife gives birth to a child, she places it in a piece of hollow wood with the opening fenced in with wire to give play to the baby’s head. This log with its precious contents is then placed on the mother’s back and she rejoins the rest. When they halt, she hangs this kind of wooden chrysalis to the bough of a tree, the wire protecting the child from the teeth of wild animals (fig. 91).
The Samoiede Family.
The Samoiedes are a wandering race, spread over both sides of the great Siberian promontory ending in Cape North. Some of their tribes are also to be met with pretty far to the west, to the east, and to the south of this region. They support themselves by hunting and fishing on the borders of the Frozen Ocean. They bear much resemblance to the Tunguses of whom we shall speak later. Their face is flat, round and broad, their lips are thick and turned up, and their nose is wide and open at the nostrils. Their hair is black and coarse, and they have but little on their face. Most of them are rather under the middle size, well proportioned and rather thick set. (Fig. 92.) They are wild and restless in disposition.
The Kamtschadale Family.
We can only just make a note of the Kamtschadales, with whom the navigators of the Arctic seas have been for a long time acquainted. They inhabit the southern portion of the peninsula that bears their name. They are short men with a tawny skin, black hair, a meagre beard, a broad face, a short flat nose, small deep-set eyes, scanty eyebrows, immense stomachs, and thin legs.
More to the South, in the Kourile Islands, and on the adjacent continent, we meet with a race differing widely from the preceding one. They are the inhabitants of these islands, and are called Aïnos. They are of short stature, but their features are regular. The most remarkable of their physical characteristics is the extraordinary development of their hair. They are the hairiest of men, and it is this peculiarity that makes us allude to them. Their beards cover their breasts, and their arms, neck, and back are covered with hair. This is an exceptional peculiarity, particularly with men of the Mongol type.
The language spoken by the Aïnos, is strikingly like that spoken by the Samoiedes and by some of the inhabitants of the Caucasus. Their bodies are well formed and their disposition is gentle and hospitable. They live by hunting and fishing.
The Esquimaux Family.
Greenland and most of the islands adjacent to this portion of the American continent are inhabited by a people that have received the common name of Esquimaux and who constitute a very numerous family.
The principal and the most numerous tribes of the Esquimaux family belong to the American continent. But as they are quite distinct from the other inhabitants of this continent, and as they have a much greater resemblance to the people of Northern Asia, and to the Mongols, it is here that we mention them.
The head of the Esquimaux has a more pyramidal shape than that of the Mongols of Upper Asia. This is owing to the narrowing of the skull. Such an outward sign of degradation reveals at once the moral and social inferiority of these poor people. Their eyes are black, small and wild, but show no vivacity. Their nose is very flat, and they have a small mouth, with the lower lip much thicker than the upper one. Some have been seen with plenty of hair on their face. Their hair is usually black, but occasionally fair, and always long, coarse, and unkempt. Their complexion is clear. They are thick-set, have a decided tendency to obesity, and are seldom more than five feet in height.
During a journey undertaken by Dr. Kane of New York to the 82nd degree of northern latitude, this bold explorer spent more than a year amongst the Esquimaux who live at Etah, the nearest human abode to the North Pole. Men, women, and children, covered only by their filth, laid in heaps in a hut, huddled together in a kind of basket. A lamp, with a flame sixteen inches long produced by burning seal oil, warmed and lighted the place. Bits of seal’s flesh, from whence issued a most horrible ammoniacal odour, lay upon the floor of this den.
Fig. 93 represents the summer encampment of a tribe of Esquimaux, and fig. 94 a winter one. Fig. 95 represents a village, that is to say, a collection of huts made of blocks of snow which shelter from the excessive cold these disinherited children of Nature.
The seals from the bay of Reusselaer provide the Esquimaux with food during the greater part of the year. More to the south, as far as Murchison’s channel, the whale penetrates in due season. The winter famine begins to cease when the sun reappears. January and February are the months of hardship; during the latter part of March the spring fisheries recommence, and with them movement and life begin anew. The poor wretched dens covered with snow are then the scenes of great activity. The masses of accumulated provisions are then brought out and piled up on the frozen ground: the women prepare the skins to make shoes of, and the men make a reserve store of harpoons for the winter. The Esquimaux are not lazy. They hunt with a good deal of pluck, and are often forced to hide their game in excavations that the wild beasts may not get at it. Their consumption of food is very great. They are large eaters, not from greediness, but of necessity, on account of the extreme cold of these high latitudes.
Fig. 96 represents, according to Doctor Kane, the chief of an Esquimaux tribe.
Doctor Hayes, in his “Journey to the Open Sea of the North Pole,” published in 1866, has described the Esquimaux type. A broad face, heavy jaws, prominent cheek bones, a narrow forehead, small eyes of a deep black, thin long lips, with two narrow rows of sound teeth, jet-black hair, a little of it on the upper lip and on the chin; small in stature but stoutly built, and a robust constitution of a vigorous kind; such are the distinguishing characteristics of the people of the far north.
The Esquimaux style of dress seemed, to the learned traveller, pretty much the same for both sexes; a pair of boots, stockings, mittens, trousers, a waistcoat, and an overcoat. The father-in-law of one of his travelling companions wore boots of bearskin coming up to the knee, whilst those of his wife reached much higher, and were made of seal leather. Their trousers were made of sealskin, their stockings of dogskin, their mittens of sealskin, and their waistcoat of kidskin with the fur inside.
The overcoat, made of the skin of the blue fox, does not open in front, but is put on like a shirt. It ends in a hood covering the head like the cowl of a monk. The women cut their coat to a point, in order to confine their hair, which they gather together on the top of the head, and tie up in a knot as close and as hard as a stone, by means of untanned straps of sealskin. This is shown in fig. 93.
Seal-hunting is the chief occupation of the Esquimaux. The seal is a providential animal to the wild inhabitants of the shores of the Frozen Ocean of America, as the reindeer is the godsend of the Laplanders, inhabitants of the shores of the same seas in the north of Europe.
The eggs of the seabirds, particularly of the penguin, are a second source of food to these people. The Esquimaux run all sorts of risks to gather the eggs of these birds on the steep and giddy cliffs where their nests are found (fig. 97).
The Esquimaux can only count up to ten, the number of their fingers. They have no system of notation, and can assign no date to past events. They have no annals of any kind or sort, and do not even know their own age.
Temisian Family.
A people more generally known under the name of Ostiaks of Temisia. They speak a very different language from that of the Ostiaks of the Obi whom we have already mentioned as belonging to the White Race.
Jukaghirite and Koriak Families.
These are wandering people, becoming more and more absorbed in the Russian population. They live on the shores of Behring’s Straits, or in the interior, and much resemble the Samoiedes in their customs and in their language.
CHAPTER II.
MONGOLIAN BRANCH.
The peoples belonging to this ethnologic branch exhibit the characteristics of the Yellow Race in the most prominent manner. They are fond of a nomadic life, and have at different periods made wide conquests; but they have, as a rule, become absorbed in the races they have overcome. The Mongols are still, however, the rulers of the Chinese Empire. They belong either to the Buddhist or to the Mahometan faith.
This branch is divided into three great families, analogous with the differences in their language: the Mongols, the Tunguses, and the Turks. We may add to them a fourth family, the Yakuts, for these latter possess the physical characteristics of the Yellow Race, and speak a Turkish dialect.
The Mongol Family.
The most decided features of the Yellow Race are particularly prominent in the Mongol family. Its members have a larger head, a flatter face and nose, and smaller eyes than those of the other families. They have a broad chest, a very short neck, round shoulders, strong thick-set limbs, short bow-legs, and a brownish-yellow complexion. The most nomadic of the Mongol family live under the rule of the Russian and the Chinese Empires.
Fig. 99 represents a Mongol Tartar.
Three principal nations are to be found in this family: the Kalmuks, the Mongols proper, and the Burïats.
Kalmuks.—M. Vereschaguine, in his “Journey in the Caucasian Provinces,” has described the nomadic Kalmuks whom he met with on the frontier separating the Caucasus from the district of the Cossacks of the Don. Travelling villages are found on these dreary and monotonous steppes. The habitations of which these villages are composed consist of tattered tents. These contain, mixed up in an incredible confusion, boxes, cases, lassoes, saddles, and heaps of rags. A hearth is the only sign of a fireplace. During the heat of summer, the children of both sexes, up to the age of ten, run about almost entirely naked. In winter, in the midst of their terrible snowstorms, and when the thermometer is below zero, they remain for days together huddled up in their tents beneath heaps of their clothing.
A Kalmuk’s dress consists of a shirt, of a bechmet, of a wide pair of trousers, of red leather boots, and of a square cloth cap with a broad border of sheepskin fur, generally ornamented with an immense knob on the top. The more wealthy wear into the bargain an ample and lengthy dressing-gown. The women do not, like the men, wear a belt round their shirt; their hair falls from beneath their cap in several plaits tied up with ribbons of different colours.
Cunning, trickery, fraud, and theft, are the staple occupations of these nomadic tribes. The mother supports her child without the father troubling himself about it, and it grows up in a state of neglect.
The food of the Kalmuks is extremely primitive. Boiled flour, diluted with water and cooked up with pieces of horseflesh, forms the staple of their culinary art. They are fond of tea, and drink a great deal of it, but they season it so highly as to entirely lose its flavour. They are downright drunkards into the bargain, and in this respect the women and the children are not a whit behind the men. They sometimes spend whole days in gambling with greasy and ill-assorted cards.
The Kalmuks are capital horsemen. They also breed and break-in camels, which they sell in the Tiflis market.
Mongols proper.—The Mongols proper, or the Eastern Mongols, wander in the steppes of Mongolia. They are divided into numerous tribes, of which the most important have received the name of Khalkas.
Mongolia may be divided into two parts, as distinct by their political proclivities as by the nature and produce of their soil.
The southern part, an arid district, is only inhabited in the vicinity of the Chinese frontier, where numerous tribes of Mongol origin, direct tributaries of the Chinese Empire, are to be found. The northern division, entirely populated by Khalkas tribes, is fertile.
The Khalkas are subdivided into two castes: the Buddhist priests, and the black men who allow their hair to grow. The latter possess an aristocracy, leading like the rest a pastoral life, from whom are selected the chiefs of the tribes, chosen by election. The Khalkas could bring into the field at least fifty thousand horsemen; but they are wretchedly armed with worthless Chinese double-edged sabres. These are notched or spiral-shaped. Their other weapons are short spears, arrows, matchlocks with queer-shaped breeches, shields stuffed with sheets of leather, and coats of wire mail.
The life of a wandering Khalkasian is very uneventful. He begins his day by going round his flocks, and mounted on a horse which is never unsaddled, and which has spent the night fastened to a stake at the door of his tent, he gallops after the animals that have strayed away; then he bends his steps to a neighbouring camp to gossip with the herdsmen it contains. Returning home, he squats in his tent for the remainder of the day, and kills time by sleeping, drinking tea diluted with milk or butter, or by smoking his pipe; while his wives draw water, milk the cows, collect fuel, make cheese, or prepare wool and the skins of various animals for clothes and shoes.
The Khalkas, hospitable and sober, possess the primitive virtues of the Yellow Race; but they are unacquainted with either commerce or manufactures. The only things they produce are felt stuffs, a little embroidery, and some poorly tanned skin and leather. They dispose of their raw produce to Russian and Chinese traders, who cheat them as much as they can. The payments are made in blocks of tea, five blocks being an equivalent to one ounce of Chinese silver. This tea is composed of the coarsest kind of leaf and of the small twigs of the herb.
The dull and contemplative existence of the Khalkasian has few events to interrupt it. It is broken only by a pilgrimage, by a funeral followed by long festivities, by the arrival of a few travellers, or by a marriage. This last is, as among the ancient patriarchs, only a species of barter in which the girl is sold by her father to the highest bidder, and is an excuse for a week’s rejoicing, in which all concerned revel in orgies of meat, tobacco, and rice brandy.
The Burïats.—Miss Lisa Christiani, in the course of her travels in eastern Siberia, received the chiefs of some Burïat tribes who had made known their desire to pay her their respects. She met on the following day, on the banks of the Selinga, an escort, sent by the Burïats in her honour, composed of three hundred horsemen, dressed in splendid satin robes of various colours, and wearing pointed caps trimmed with fur; they carried bows and arrows in their shoulder-belts, and bestrode richly caparisoned horses (fig. 100). It was in this manner the traveller made her first acquaintance with this tribe.
At the time Miss Christiani fell in with them, the Burïats were celebrating the obsequies of one of their principal chiefs. The travellers were present at the funeral service and ceremonies, which were performed in a Mongol temple, and afterwards at the games which took place according to their ancient custom. These games included archery, wrestling, and horse and foot races. A banquet followed, at which roast mutton, cheese, cakes, and even some capital Champagne were served to the guests.
The Burïats number about thirty-five thousand men, dwelling in the mountains to the north of Baïkal. Their herds and flocks constitute their wealth. Their religion is Shamanism, a species of idolatry very prevalent amongst the inhabitants of Siberia. Their supreme God inhabits the sun; he has under his command a host of inferior deities. Amongst these barbarous people woman is considered an unclean and soulless being.
The Tungusian Family.
The Tungusian family consists of two divisions: the Tunguses to the north, and the Manchús to the south-east.
The Tunguses.—The Tunguses, who are scattered in Siberia from the Sea of Okhotsk to Ienissia and to the Arctic Ocean, are nomadic, and live on the produce of their hunting and fishing. Daouria to the north of China is their native country. Those who live under the Russian government are classified, according to the domestic animals constituting their principal resources, as dog Tunguses, horse Tunguses, and reindeer Tunguses.
The nomadic Tunguses of Daouria were described at the close of the last century by the Russian naturalist Pallas, the same who found on the shores of the Lena the antediluvian mammoth, still covered with its skin and coat of hair, the discovery of which caused so much excitement in Europe.
Manchús.—Fig. 101 represents the type of this race. We do not think it necessary to speak of them.
The Yakut Family.
The countenance of the Yakuts is still flatter and broader than that of the Mongols. Their long black hair flows naturally round their head, while but little grows on their faces: they keep one tress very long, to which they tie their bow to keep it dry when they are obliged, in the course of their wanderings or whilst out hunting, to swim across deep rivers.
| P. Sellier, p.t | Imp. Dupuy, 22, R. des Petits Hôtels | G. Regamey, lith. |
| MONGOLIAN | ESQUIMAUX |
| YELLOW OR MONGOLIAN RACE | |
We will take a few details about the country of the Yakuts and its inhabitants from the interesting travels of Ouvarouski, republished in the “Tour du Monde.” The land of the Yakuts has two different aspects. To the south of Yakutsk, it is covered with lofty rocky mountains; to the west and to the north, it is a plain on which grow thick and bushy trees. It contains numberless streams of considerable depth and width. The inhabitants, however, content themselves with boats made of planks or wooden and bark canoes, only capable of holding two or three persons. The reindeer is the principal means of conveyance used by the Yakuts.
The severity of the cold is very great in this country—greater, perhaps, than in any other part of Siberia. Its population is not more than two hundred thousand. The Yakuts (figs. 102 and 103) are stoutly made, though only of middle height. Their countenance is rather flat, and their nose is of a corresponding width. They have either brown or black eyes. Their hair is black, thick, and glossy. They never have any on their faces. Their complexion is between white and black, and changes three or four times a year; in the spring, from the action of the atmosphere; in the summer, from that of the sun; and in winter, from the cold and from the effects of the heat of their fires. They would make bad soldiers, as their peaceful disposition forbids them from ever fighting; but they are active, lively, intelligent, and affable. In their encampments their provisions are at the service of every traveller who seeks their hospitality. Let his stay last a week, or even a month, there is always more than enough for both himself and his horse. They are fond of wine and tobacco, but they endure hunger and thirst with remarkable patience. A Yakut thinks nothing of working for three or four days without either eating or drinking.
But let us quote Ouvarouski, the author of the description of the customs of the Yakuts.
“The land of the Yakuts,” says this traveller, “is so extensive that the temperature varies very much. At Olekminsk for instance, wheat thrives capitally, because there the white frost comes late; at Djigansk on the contrary, the earth always remains frozen two spans below the surface, and the snow begins to fall in the month of August.
“The Yakuts are all baptised in the Russian faith, two or three hundred of them perhaps excepted. They obey the ordinances of the church and go annually to confession, but few receive the sacrament, because they are not in the habit of fasting. They neither go out in the morning nor retire to rest at night without saying their devotions. When chance has befriended them, they thank the Lord; when misfortune overtakes them, they regard it as a punishment inflicted by the Almighty for their sins, and, without losing heart, patiently await better times. In spite of these praiseworthy sentiments they still preserve some superstitious beliefs, particularly the custom of prostrating themselves before the devil. When long sicknesses and murrains prevail, they cause their shamans to practise exorcisms and sacrifice cattle of a particular colour.
“The Yakuts are very intelligent. It is sufficient to hold an hour or two’s conversation with one of them to understand his feelings, his disposition, and his mind. They easily comprehend the meaning of elevated language, and guess from the very beginning what is about to follow. Few even of the most artful Russians are able to deceive a Yakut of the woods.
“They honour their old men, follow their advice, and consider it wrong and unjust to offend and irritate them. When a father has several children, he gets them married one after the other, builds a house for them next to his own, and shares with them his cattle and his property. Even when separated from their parents their children never disobey them. When a father has but one son he keeps him with him, and only separates from him if he loses his wife and marries a second who brings him other children.
“The wealth of a Yakut is estimated in proportion to the number of cattle he possesses; the improvement of his herds is his first thought, his principal wish; he never thinks of putting by money till he has succeeded in this object.
“Anger is acclimatized among all nations; the Yakut is no stranger to it, but he easily forgets the grudge he may owe to any one, provided the latter acknowledges his wrong and confesses himself to blame.
“The Yakuts have other failings, which must not be attributed to an innate bad disposition. Some of them live on stolen cattle, but these are only the needy; when they have taken enough to feed them two or three times from the carcase of the stolen beast, they abandon the rest; this shows that their only motive is hunger, from which they have suffered perhaps for months and years. Besides when the thief is caught, their princes (kinæs, from the Russian kniaz) have him whipped with rods, according to ancient custom, before everybody. The man who has undergone this punishment carries its degradation with him to the day of his death. His evidence can never be again listened to, and his words are of no weight in the assemblies where the people meet to deliberate. He can be chosen neither as prince nor as starsyna (from the Russian starchina, ancient). These customs prove that theft has not become a profession among the Yakuts. The thief is not only punished, but never regains the name of an honest man.
“Let a Yakut once determine to master some handicraft, and he is sure to succeed. He is at one and the same time a jeweller, a tinker, a farrier, and a carpenter; he knows how to take a gun to pieces, how to carve bone, and, with a little practice, he can imitate any work of art he has once examined. It is a pity that they have no instruction to teach them the higher arts, for they are quite capable of executing extraordinary tasks.
“They are wonderful shots. Neither cold nor rain, neither hunger nor fatigue, can stop them in the pursuit of a bird or an animal. They will follow a fox or a hare for two entire days without minding their own fatigue, or the exhaustion of their horse.
“They have a good deal of taste and inclination for trade, and are so well up in driving a hard bargain for the smallest fox or sable skin, that they always get a high price for it.
“The gun-stocks that they manufacture, the combs they cut and ornament, are works of great finish. I may also remark that their oxhide leather bottles never get foul, even if they are left for ten years full of liquid.
“Many of the Yakut women have pretty faces; they are cleaner than the men, and like the rest of their sex are fond of dress and fine things. Nature has not left them without charms. They cannot be called bad, immoral, or light women. They pay the same honour to their father and mother, and to the aged parents of their husband, as they do to the Deity. Their head and their feet they never allow to be seen stripped. They never pass the right side of the hearth, and never call their husbands’ relations by their Yakut names. The woman who is unlike this description is looked upon as a wild beast, and her husband is considered extremely unlucky.”
Fig. 104 represents a Yakut village and villagers.
The Yakuts profess Shamanism, an idolatrous religion practised by the Finns, by the Samoiedes, by the Ostiaks, by the Burïats, by the Teleouts, by the Tunguses, and by the inhabitants of the Pacific islands. Shamanists worship a supreme being, the creator of the world, but indifferent to human actions. Under him are male and female gods: some good, who superintend the government of the world, and the destinies of humanity; the others evil, the greatest of whom (Chaïtan, Satan) is considered to be nearly as powerful as the supreme Being. Religious veneration is also paid to their ancestors, to heroes, and to their priests, called Shamans; these latter in their ceremonies practise a great deal of sorcery.
Fig. 105 represents some of these Shamans.
The Turkish Family.
The people belonging to the Turk or Tartar family succeeded in founding, in very ancient times, a vast empire which included a part of central Asia from China up to the Caspian Sea. But the Turks, attacked and conquered by the Mongols, were subdued and driven back towards the south-west, that is to say to the south of Europe. There they became in their turn conquerors, and overcame, after laying it waste, a portion of Southern Europe.
The Turks had originally red hair, greenish-grey eyes, and a Mongolian cast of countenance. But these characteristics have disappeared. It is only the Turks who now-a-days dwell to the north-east of the Caucasus who possess the characteristics of the Mongols. Those who are settled to the south-west exhibit the features peculiar to the white race, with black hair and eyes. The fusion of the former with the Mongols, of the second with the Persians and the Arameans, explain these modifications. The Turks, more than all nations, manifest the deepest zeal for Mahometanism, and show the greatest intolerance for the followers of other creeds.
The Turkish family comprises rather a large number of races. We shall consider here only the Turcomans, the Kirghis, the Nogays, and the Osmanlis.
The Turcomans.—The Turcomans wander in the steppes of Turkestan, Persia, and Afghanistan. They stray as far as Anatolia to the west. The tribes who dwell in this last district have the shape and the physical characteristics of the White Race; those who inhabit Turkestan show in their physiognomy the admixture of Mongol blood.
The Turcoman is above the middle height. He has not strongly developed muscles, but he is tolerably powerful and enjoys a robust constitution. His skin is white; his countenance is round; his cheek bones are prominent; his forehead is wide, and the development of the bony part of the skull forms a kind of crest at the top of the head. His almond-shaped and nearly lidless eye is small, lively, and intelligent. His nose is usually insignificant and turned up. The lower part of his face retreats a little, and his lips are thick. He has scanty moustachios and beard, and his ears are large and protruding.
The Turcoman’s dress consists of wide trousers falling over the foot and tight at the hips, and of a collarless shirt open at the right side down to the waist, falling, outside the trousers, halfway down the thigh. Outside these an ample coat is fastened round the waist by a cotton or wool belt. It is open in front and slightly crossed over the chest. Its sleeves are very long and very wide, a little skull-cap is worn instead of the hair, and is covered with a kind of head-dress called talbac, made of sheep skin, in the shape of a cone with a slightly depressed summit. His shoes are a sort of slipper, or simply a sandal of camel or horse skin fastened to the foot by a woollen cord.
The type is more strongly defined in the Turcoman women than in the men. Their cheek bones are more prominent, and their complexion is white. Their hair is generally thick but very short; and they are obliged to lengthen their tresses with goat-hair loops and strings, to which they fasten glass beads and silver pearls.
We will not describe their dress, but will only observe that they wear a round cap on their head, to which they fasten a silk or cotton veil falling backwards. The whole is surrounded by a kind of turban of the breadth of three fingers, on which are some little squares of silver. One end of the veil is brought under the chin from right to left, and is fastened, by a little silver chain ending in a hook, on the left side of the face.
Trinkets, necklaces, bracelets, and chains play such a prominent part in the adornment of the Turcoman women, that a dozen of them together drawing water make as much tinkling as the ringing of a small bell.
The men wear no ornament.
Fig. 106 represents a camp of nomadic Turcomans.
M. de Blocqueville, who published in 1866, in the “Tour du Monde,” the curious account entitled “Fourteen months’ captivity among the Turcomans,” describes as follows the habits of these tribes:—
“The Turcomans keep close to their tent a sheep or a goat, which they fatten and kill on special occasions. The bones are taken out and the meat is cut up and salted; some of it is dried and acquires a high flavour much liked by the Turcomans; the rest, cut into smaller pieces and placed in the animal’s paunch, is kept to make soup out of. They collect the bones and other leavings, and stew them down in a pan so as to have some broth to offer on festival occasions to their friends and neighbours. The intestines fall to the children’s share, who broil them on the coals and spend whole days in sucking and pulling about this half-cleansed offal.
“. . . . . . Women are treated with more consideration by the Turcomans than by other Mussulmans. But they work hard, and every day have to grind the corn for the family food. Besides this, they spin silk, wool, and cotton; they weave, sew, mill felt, pitch and strike the tents, draw water, sometimes do some washing, dye woollen and silk stuffs, and manufacture the carpets. They set up out of doors, in the fine weather, a very primitive loom made of four stakes firmly fixed in the ground, and, with the assistance of two large cross pieces on which they lay the woof, begin the weaving, which is done with an iron implement composed of five or six blades put together in the shape of a comb. These carpets, generally about three yards long and a yard and a half wide, are durable and well made. Every tribe or family has its own particular pattern, which is handed down from mother to daughter. The Turcoman women are necessarily endowed with a strong constitution to be able to bear all this hard work, during which, they sometimes suckle their children, and only eat a little dry bread, or a kind of boiled meat with but little nourishment in it. It is especially turning the grindstone that wears them out and injures their chest.
“In their rare intervals of leisure they have always got with them a packet, of wool or of camel’s hair, or some raw silk, that they spin whilst they are gossiping or visiting their neighbours; for they never remain quite idle like the women of some Mussulman countries.
“The man has also his own kind of work; he tills the soil, tends the crops, gets in the harvest, takes care of the domestic animals, and sometimes starts on plundering expeditions in order to bring home some booty. He manufactures hand-made woollen rope; cuts out and stitches together the harness and clothing of his horses and camels; attempts to do a little trade, and in his leisure moments makes himself caps and shoes, plays on the doutar (an instrument with two strings), sings, drinks tea, and smokes.
“These tribes are very fond of improving themselves, and of reading the few books that chance throws into their hands.
“As a rule the children do not work before their tenth or twelfth year. Their parents up to that age make them learn to read and write. Those who are obliged to avail themselves of their children’s assistance during the press of summer labour, take care that they make up for lost time in the winter.
“The schoolmaster, mollah (priest or man of letters), is content to be remunerated either in kind, with wheat, fruit or onions; or in money, according to the parents’ position. Each child possesses a small board, on which the mollah writes down the alphabet or whatever happens to be the task; this is washed off as soon as the child has learned his lesson.
“The parents satisfy themselves that their children know their lessons before they set out for school: the women in particular are vain of being able to read. The men sometimes spend whole days in trying to understand books of poetry which come from Khiva or Boukhara, where the dialect is a little different to their own.
“The Turcoman mollahs spend some years in these towns to enable themselves to study in the best schools.
“All these tribes are Mahometan and belong to the Sunnite sect. The only external difference between them and the Persians of the Schiite sect, who recognise Ali as Mahomet’s only successor, consists, as is well known, in their mode of saying their devotions and of performing their ablutions.
“Whilst at their prayers, they keep their arms crossed in front of them from the wrist upwards only, instead of keeping them by their side like the Persians.
“Although they follow pretty regularly the precepts of their religion, they show less fanaticism and ostentatious bigotry than most other Easterns whom I have seen. For instance, they will consent to smoke and eat with Jews.
“Every Turcoman has an affection for his tribe, and will devote himself, if need be, for the common weal. Their proper and dignified manners are far beyond a comparison with those of their neighbours—even the inhabitants of Boukhara and Khiva, whose morals have become corrupted to a painful degree. I have seldom seen quarrels and disturbances amongst the Turcomans. Sometimes I have been present at very lively and animated discussions, but I never heard any low abuse or bad language as in other countries. They are less harsh towards their women, and show them more consideration and respect than do the Persians.
“When strangers are present, the women pass an end of their veil under their chin and speak in a low voice, but they are saluted and respected by the visitors, and enter into conversation with them without any harm being thought of it.
“A woman can go from one tribe to another, or make a journey along an unfrequented road, without having to fear the least insult from any one.
“When a Turcoman pays a visit he makes his appearance in one invariable manner. He lifts the door of the tent, bowing as he enters, then comes to a stop and draws himself up to his full height: after a pause of a few seconds, during which he keeps his eyes fixed on the dome of the tent, probably to give the women time to cover their chins, he quietly pronounces his salutation without making the slightest gesture. After exchanging civilities and inquiries about the health of relations and friends, the master of the tent begs the visitor to take a seat on the carpet beside him. The wife then offers him a napkin with a little bread, or bread and water, or some sour milk, or a little fruit. The stranger discreetly only takes a few mouthfuls of what is offered to him.”
The Kirghis.—The Kirghis (fig. 107) are a nomadic tribe. They inhabit the tract of country situated on the frontiers of the Russian and Chinese empires. They wander to and fro on wide spreading plains from lake Baikal to the borders of the Siberian steppes.
They travel armed, and always prepared, either for war or for the chase. As wild beasts attack men when by themselves, they nearly always travel on horseback in troops.
For the matter of that, the Kirghis never get off their horses. All business is settled, and all merchandise is bought and sold, on horseback. There is in a town, by name Shouraïahan, where the sedentary Kirghis reside, a market-place where buyers and sellers do all their business without leaving the saddle. The Kirghis are much below the middle height. Their countenances are ugly. Having scarcely any bridge to their nose, the space between their eyes is flat and quite on a level with the rest of their face. Their eyes are long and half closed, the forehead protrudes at the lower part, and retreats at the top. Their big puffy cheeks look like two pieces of raw flesh stuck on the sides of their face. They have but little beard, their body is not at all muscular, and their complexion is a dark brown.
The Kirghis are something like the Uzbeks, a race whom we can only just mention, but the latter, living in a temperate climate, are tall and well made, while the former, under the influence of a rigorous one, are short and stunted.
Both these people possess a certain kind of civilization in spite of their nomadic habits. In the districts in which they are in the custom of travelling, they have established relays of horses, a very necessary adjunct to their mode of life.
The Nogays.—The Nogays, who once constituted a powerful nation on the shores of the Black Sea, are now scattered among other peoples. Many of them still wander in nomadic tribes, on the steppes between the banks of the Volga and the Caucasian mountains. Others who have settled down are tillers of the soil or artisans. Such are those to be met with in the Crimea or in Astracan. M. Vereschaguine came across some Nogays on the Caucasian steppes. This Russian traveller says that they are peaceful and laborious, and more capable of becoming attached to the soil than the Kalmuks, whom they resemble a great deal in their mode of life and in their habits and customs.
The Osmanlis.—The most important members of the Turkish family are now the Osmanlis. The Osmanlis were the founders of the Turkish Empire and the conquerors of Constantinople.
A tendency to a nomadic mode of life is a strong instinct with this race. It degenerated as soon as it settled down anywhere, and this perhaps is the cause of the decline of the Turkish nation, which at present inhabits south-eastern Europe and Asia Minor.
The residence in Europe and the civilization of the Osmanli Turks date from the Hegira of Mahomet in the seventh century after Christ.
Physically speaking, their outlines would seem to ally them to the Caucasian race. This was the reason that they were so long classified among the White or Caucasian race; but most modern anthropologists place them in the Yellow Race.
The head of the Osmanli Turks is nearly round. The forehead is high and broad: the nose is straight, without any depression at its bridge or widening at the nostrils.
The Turkish head does not resemble the European head. It has a peculiar abrupt elevation of the occiput. Its proportions, however, are very good. Mongol descent can be traced in its shape, but scarcely in a perceptible manner, if the features of the face alone are to be taken into account.
The Turks, in general, are tall, well made, robust men, with a rough but often noble physiognomy, a slightly tawny complexion, and brown or black hair. Their carriage is dignified, and their natural gravity is still further increased by the ample folds of their dress, by their beard, by their moustachios, and by that imposing head-dress, the turban. They are the most recent of all the races of Asian descent who have become Europeanized, and they still preserve, especially in Turkey in Asia, the habits, the costumes, and the belief that distinguished them three centuries ago.
Now, as then, the Turks, like Easterns in general, restrict themselves to a frugal and principally vegetable diet. They drink no wine. Bodily exercises, such as riding on horseback and the use of arms, develop their strength. Their hospitality is dignified and ceremonious. They are small talkers, are much given to devotion, at least to its outward and visible signs; and they dwell in quiet unpretending houses surrounded by gardens. The Turk is a stranger to the feverish life of our European capitals. Lazily reclining on his cushions, he smokes his Syrian tobacco, sips his Arabian coffee, and seeks from a few grains of opium an introduction into the land of dreams.
Such is Turkish life among the higher classes. The common people and the labourers have none of these refinements of existence. Yet the lower classes are less unhappy in Turkey, and in the East in general, than are those of European nations. Eastern hospitality is not an empty word. A wealthy Mussulman never sends empty away the wretched who seek his assistance. Besides, it takes so little to support these temperate healthy people, and the earth so plentifully supplies vegetable produce in the East, that poor people can always find food and a roof to cover them. The Caravanserai are public inns where travellers and workmen are lodged for nothing; and the hospitality shown to the unfortunate wayfarer by the country land-owners is really patriarchal.
Polygamy is less in vogue in Turkey and in the East than is supposed. A Turkish woman being a very expensive luxury, that is to say, being in the habit of doing nothing and of spending a great deal, it is only very rich Mussulmans that can allow themselves the pleasure of supporting more than one wife. Sometimes, indeed, the bride’s parents insert a clause in the marriage contract, by which the husband gives up his right as a Mahometan to possess four wives.
Besides their legitimate wives, the wealthy and the great keep a collection of Georgian and Circassian slaves in the lonely sets of rooms, closed by Eastern jealousy to all prying eyes, which are called harems and not seraglios. It is only within these isolated apartments that Turkish women, whether wives or concubines, allow their faces and arms to be seen. Out of doors they are always wrapped up in a triple set of veils, which conceal their features from the keenest eye.
Mahomet permitted women to abstain from taking part in public prayer in the mosques. It is therefore only in the interior of the harem that any gathering of Mussulman women can take place. It is there, too, that they give one another parties and entertainments.
An erroneous impression of the Turkish woman’s position is prevalent in Europe. Many European women would be glad to exchange their lot in life and their liberty for the supposed slavery of the Turkish women. Of course we are only alluding here to their material position, and not speaking from a moral point of view.
The Turkish lady is born to total and complete idleness. A young girl who, at fourteen years of age, can not only sew fairly, but can actually read, is considered a very well educated person. If she can also write, and is acquainted with the first one or two rules of arithmetic, she is quite learned. The woman of the middle classes never condescends to trade, she is always idle. Even the poor woman rarely works, and then only when it suits her.
The Turkish woman then, to whatever class she may happen to belong, is a votary of the far niente. To drive away ennui, the wealthier make or receive visits or frequent parties. In the harems of the rich, each lady receives her friends in her own room. There they talk, sing, or tell one another stories. They listen to music, they go to pantomimes, to dances, and walk in the gardens. They pass the long hours agreeably by taking baths together, by swinging in hammocks, by smoking the narguilhé, and by giving elegant little dinner parties.
An evening party in a harem (la Kalva) is rather a rare occurrence, for night festivities are not among Mussulman habits. No man is present at these parties. As the guests arrive, the lady of the house begs them to be seated, and places them side by side on a divan with their legs crossed under them, or leaning on one knee. Coffee and a tchibouk with an amber mouthpiece are handed round. Small portions of fruit jelly are served on a silver embossed dish. Each guest, after a little ceremonious hesitation, helps herself with the only spoon in the dish, and which everybody uses. Each then puts her lips to a large tumbler of water which follows the jelly.
General and animated conversation then begins. The maids of the lady of the house seat themselves so that every one can see them, and begin to sing, accompanying themselves on the harp, on the mandolin, on little kettledrums, or on tambourines. Afterwards other young girls go through a kind of pantomimic dance. When the music and the dances are over, they play games of cards, and the party winds up with a supper (fig. 109).
Pleasure out of doors has other attractions. The Turkish ladies of the middle class frequent the bazaars and pay one another visits.
There are three kinds of these visits: visits that have been announced beforehand, unexpected visits, and chance visits. The last are the most curious. Several ladies collect together and go about in the different quarters of the town, paying visits to people whom they have never seen (fig. 110).
Walking parties in Constantinople are regular picnics. On Sundays and Fridays people leave town provided with all sorts of refreshments. The sultans have constructed on some of the public walks overhanging terraces, which overlook pieces of water and form level plots of ground. Tumblers and conjurors, musicians and dancers give performances on these terraces. Picturesque knots of women clad in their white yaschmacs, which cover the whole face and only reveal the nose, are to be seen there. Long flowing overdresses of a thousand different hues envelope the rest of their figure.
The Turk may be lazy, but he is not at all unsociable, and many of his characteristics indicate a great deal of gentleness. Like the Indians and the ancient Egyptians, the Turks, and Easterns in general, have a great repugnance to the killing of animals. Dogs and cats abound and swarm in the streets of the large towns, but no measures are ever taken to prevent the multiplication and the running wild of these animals. In Constantinople flocks of pigeons fly hither and thither and levy, on the barges laden with wheat, a species of black mail that no one disputes with them. The banks of the canals are thickly peopled with aquatic animals, and their nests are safe even from the hands of children, in our country such cruel enemies to their broods. This forbearance is extended even to trees. If it is true that in China the law requires every land owner who fells a tree to plant one in its stead in another spot, it is equally true in Turkey that custom forbids an avaricious land owner from depriving either town or country of useful and wholesome shade. The wealthy townsmen make it a point of honour to embellish the public promenades with fountains and with resting places, both of which, on account of the frequency of ablutions and of prayers required by the Mahometan religion, are indispensable. Those who can only perceive in the Turkish nation coarseness, ignorance, and ferocity, have been deceived by the pride natural to a Mussulman, which is made the more offensive by his silent and sometimes abrupt manners; but the basis of the Mussulman character contains nothing to offend. The Turks are only what it is possible for them to be with their lamentable institutions and their faulty laws.
Their law we know is simply despotism, which is carried out from the sultan down to the lowest official, unchecked by any guarantee of equity or of justice to individuals. The sultan (padishah, meaning great lord) appoints and dismisses at pleasure every dignitary and every official: he is the master of their fortunes and of their life. But anarchy is rife in the kingdom, and the sultan’s authority is not always obeyed. Pachas have attacked and annihilated the troops sent to drive them from their governorships; others have been known to dispatch to Constantinople the head of the general sent to crush and degrade them.
The pachas are the governors of the provinces. Their rank is reckoned by the number of their standards or tails. They unite under one head the military and civil power, and by a still greater abuse, they are deputed to collect the taxes. They would be absolute sultans in their own provinces if the law did not leave the judicial authority in the hands of the cadis and the naïbs.
A pacha with three tails has, like the sultan, the power of life and death over all the agents he employs, and even over all who threaten public safety. He keeps up a military force, and marches at their head when called on by the sultan. A pacha has under his orders several beys, or lieutenant-governors.
The interior organization of Turkey may be described as a military despotism. The Turkish nation continues to administer its conquest as if it were a country taken by assault; it leads the life of an army encamped in the midst of a conquered state. Everybody and everything is the property of the sultan. Christians, Jews, and Armenians are merely the slaves of the victorious Ottoman. The sultan graciously allows them to live, but even this concession they are obliged to purchase by paying a tribute, the receipt for which bears these words: “In purchase of the head.”
The same principle is carried out in regard to land. The Turks have no proprietary rights; they merely enjoy the usufruct of their possessions. When they die without leaving a male child, the sultan inherits their property. Sons can only claim a tenth part of their paternal inheritance, and the fiscal officials are ordered to put an arbitrary value on this tenth part. The officers of the State do not even enjoy this incomplete right; at their death everything reverts to the sultan.
Under such laws, it is not to be wondered at if nobody cares to undertake expensive and lasting works. Instead of building, people collect jewels and wealth easy to carry off or to conceal.
The sultan, like a man embarrassed with such an abuse of power, shifts the cares of government on to the shoulders of the grand vizier.
The grand vizier is the lieutenant of the sultan. He is the commander-in-chief of the army, he manages the finances, and fills up all civil and military appointments.
But if the power of the grand vizier is limitless, his responsibility and the dangers he incurs are equally great. He must answer for all the State’s misfortunes and for all public calamities. The sword is always suspended over his head. Surrounded by snares, exposed to all the tricks of hatred and envy, he pays with the price of his life the misfortune of having displeased either the populace or the highest officials. The grand vizier has to govern the country, with the assistance of a state council (divan) composed of the principal ministers. The reiss effendi is the high chancellor of the empire, and the head of the corporation of the kodja, or men of letters. This corporation, which has managed to acquire a great political influence, contains at the present time some of the best informed men of the nation. The duty of watching over the preservation of the fundamental laws of the empire is entrusted to the ulema, or corporation of theological and legal doctors.
These laws are very short: they consist only of the Koran, and of the commentaries on the Koran drawn up by ancient pundits. The members of this corporation bear the title of ulemas, or effendis. They unite judicial to religious authority; they are at the same time the interpreters of religion, and the judges in all civil and criminal matters.
The mufti is the supreme head of the ulema. He is the head of the church. He represents the sultan’s vicar, as caliph or successor to Mahomet. The sultan can promulgate no law, make no declaration of war, institute no tax, without having obtained a fetfa, or approval from the mufti.
The mufti presents every year to the sultan the candidates for the leading judicial magistracies; these candidates are chosen from the members of the ulema. The post of mufti would be an excellent counterpoise to the authority of the sultan, if the latter had it not in his power to dismiss the mufti, to send him into exile, and even to condemn him to death.
The foregoing political and judicial organization seems at first sight very reasonable, and would appear to yield some guarantee to the subjects of the Porte. Dishonesty unfortunately prevents the regular progress of these administrative institutions. The venality of officials, their greed and their immorality, are such, that not the smallest post, not the slightest service, can be obtained without making them a present. Places, the judges’ decisions, and the witnesses’ evidence are all bought. False witnesses abound in no country in the shameless way they do in the Turkish empire, where the consequences of their perjury are the more frightful, since the cadi’s decision is without appeal. Justice is meted out in Turkey as it was meted out three hundred years ago among the nomadic tribes of the Osmanlis. After a few contradictory pieces of evidence, after a few oaths made on both sides, without any preliminary inquiry, and without any advocates, the cadi or simply the naïb, gives a decision, based upon some passage of the Koran. The penal code of this ignorant and hasty tribunal merely consists in fining the wealthy, in inflicting the bastinado on the common people, and in hanging criminals right out of hand.
Yet Turkey possesses a kind of system of popular representation. The inhabitants of Constantinople elect ayams, real delegates of the people, whose business it is to watch over the safety and the property of individuals, the tranquillity of the town, to oppose the unjust demands of the pachas, the excesses of the military, and the unfair collection of taxes. These duties are gratuitously performed by the most trustworthy men among the inhabitants. The ayams undertake all appeals to the pacha, when there exist any just grounds of complaint, and if he does not satisfy them, they carry their appeal to the sultan.
Every trade and handicraft in Turkey possesses a kind of guild or corporation which undertakes to defend the rights of the association and of its individual members. The humblest artisan is protected in all legal matters by this corporation. It is unnecessary to say that the corporation enforces its rights before the judges by pecuniary means.
It is a great mistake to imagine that the Mussulman religion predominates in Turkey. In Turkey in Europe, not more than a quarter of the population profess the creed of Mahomet. The remainder are Christians, subdivided into the leading sects of that faith. The Greeks, the Servians, the Walachians, and the inhabitants of Montenegro belong to the eastern Greek Church. The Armenians are numerous, and are the more powerful on account of their known character for austerity and honesty. Other religious communities, such as the Jakobites, called Kopts in Egypt, the Nestorians, and the Maronites, have some influence, from the unity which reigns among their different sects; the Druzes, for instance, defy the Mahometans to their very face. There are more Jews in Turkey in Europe, than in any other country.
All these brotherhoods, excepting the Druzes and the Maronites, were formerly deprived of the free right of worship, were liable to marks of ignominy, and were handed over, defenceless, to injustice. But in the beginning of our century, an edict of the sultan declared all his subjects, regardless of their religion, equal in the eyes of the law.
Mahometanism, which prevails in Turkey, and in the greater portion of the East, dates from the 610th year of our era. Its principal doctrines are purification, prayer, and fasting. The fasting takes place in the month of Ramazan, a month which is the Mussulman’s Lent, and during which all food must be abstained from in the daytime. It is followed by the festival of Beyram, during which the faithful are allowed to make up for their preceding abstinence. A legal charity is instituted by their creed. It consists in giving every year to the poor a fortieth part of their movable property. Another religious injunction is the pilgrimage to Mecca, which every Mussulman is obliged to undertake at least once in his lifetime.
Their devotions take place five times a day. Friday is the day of rest for the Mahometans, as Sunday is that of the Christians, and Saturday that of the Jews.
Mahometanism has inherited from the ancient Arabs the practice of circumcision. Mussulmans are forbidden to drink intoxicating drinks, but are allowed to marry four wives, and to make concubines of their female slaves. Their religion deprives them of all liberty of will, as it tells them that everything that can happen, either for evil or for good, is settled beforehand. It is this fatalism that paralyzes all individual enterprise, and prevents the march of progress.
Mahometanism has not been more exempt than other creeds from schisms, which have brought to pass religious wars always so terrible in their consequences.
Its precepts, which have their advantages from a religious point of view, have many disastrous consequences when we regard mankind’s physical constitution. The interdict on the use of wine, for instance, has given rise to the secret consumption of alcoholic drinks, and to the public use of opium.
The Turks, although their literary civilization is still in its infancy, possess a system of public education. The mosques of Constantinople, of Broussa, and of Adrianople, have colleges attached to them. Young men are sent from all parts of the Mussulman empire to these colleges, where they receive some amount of education. When they have finished their course of study, in which the commentaries on the Koran play the principal part, and when several examinations have tested their proficiency, the pupils receive the title of mudir or professor. All civil and judicial posts are monopolized by this educated class.
But in Turkey, what knowledge there is, remains absorbed among a small quantity of individuals; no channel exists for the free intercommunication of ideas.
Their kodjas, or writers, have indeed given their fellow countrymen a large number of works, much esteemed by them—works on the Arabic and Persian languages, on philosophy, on morality, on Mussulman history, and on the geography of their country. But these writings, whatever their value, never reach the mass of the nation. There are but few printing presses in Turkey; the copyist’s art, such as it existed in Europe in the middle ages, still flourishes there. The state of literature in Turkey shows us what modern civilization would have become in Europe, without the assistance of the printer.
With this general want of literary and scientific knowledge, we naturally expect to find Turkey far behindhand in art, in manufactures, and in agriculture. The latter, in fact, is in a sad state throughout the whole extent of the Ottoman empire. Manufactures exist in a few towns; in Constantinople, in Salonica, in Adrianople, and in Rustchuk. Their principal manufactures are carpets, morocco leather, a little silk, thread and swords. Their commerce consists in the export of their raw produce; such as wool, silk, cotton, leather, tobacco, and metals, particularly copper; wine, oil, and dried fruit are also largely exported. The Turks are good cloth manufacturers, gunsmiths, and tanners. Their works in steel and copper, and their dyes, are equal to the best articles of European manufacture.
The Greeks, who are very numerous in Turkey, follow all kinds of trades and callings. They make the best sailors of the Ottoman empire, while the Armenians are its keenest traders. The latter travel all over the interior of Asia and India; they have branch establishments and correspondents everywhere. Most of them, while pursuing some mechanical art, are at the same time the bankers, the purveyors, and the men of business of the pachas, and other great officials. Jews show in a less favourable light in Turkey than in Europe; any business suits them, if they can make something out of it.
Figs. 111 and 112 represent two common Turkish types—a barber and a street porter.