Among the objects which attract attention, as one moves through the streets, are the public fountains scattered over the city. They are found everywhere, and are often remarkable for their architectural beauty. Their number is explained by the fact that the old system of water-supply did not bring water into the houses, but only to the different quarters of the city, thus making it necessary to have, at convenient points, outlets from which the inhabitants could obtain water, either by coming to draw it for themselves, or by engaging the services of water-carriers. However inconvenient this arrangement may seem, it was always a pleasing sight to see groups of women and children gathered towards evening about the fountain (Tchesmè) of their district to fill graceful, bright-coloured pitchers at the gushing faucets, and then to wend homewards. It took one far back in the ways of the world, and was a bit of the country in the town. Nor are the faithful water-carriers (sakka) forgotten, who brought water in great leathern vessels, shaped like a blunderbuss, hung horizontally by a strap from the left shoulder, and who poured the contents into a large earthenware vessel within your house. The aqueducts of Valens, Justinian, and other Byzantine Emperors, as well as the Basilica Cistern (Yeri Batan Serai) still act their part in furnishing the city with water. Until recently, the only other source of water-supply was either rain-water led from the roof into a cistern built under the house, or water brought in barrels from springs in the surrounding country. The introduction of water from the Lake of Derkos, which lies close to the Black Sea, to the west of the Bosporus, has been a great boon to the city, but it is not in favour for drinking purposes.

The most interesting fountains are those known as Sebil, generally pious foundations, and next to the mosques and turbehs, the best specimens of Oriental Art in the city. The finest example of this form of fountain is the well-known Fountain of Sultan Achmed III. (1703-1730), which stands to the east of S. Sophia, near the Grand Entrance to the Seraglio, and which was designed by that Sultan himself. The fountains are polygonal chambers; with broad, brightly-painted, wooden eaves; with sides of gilded open iron work, or of marble slabs, over which carved flowers and fruits are spread in profusion; and, often, surmounted by fantastic little domes. Within, is found a tank from which a man keeps full of water a number of metal cups, attached by chains to the iron work, but accessible, through the openings in it, to every thirsty wayfarer, without money and without price. The living, personal, human element in this mode of distributing water is as impressive as the fairy form of the monument. Furthermore, water-carriers, paid from the funds which endow a fountain, go about the streets to give “the water of life” freely to any person who asks for it.

To erect a public fountain is a very usual form of public benefaction among Moslems, and is regarded as highly meritorious. It is common to find, in the garden wall of Turkish mansions along the Bosporus, a fountain opening on the side of the quay for the relief of any passer-by, and especially of boatmen, who come on shore to tow their craft against the current. To repair a fountain is also a work of merit; an idea that, on one occasion, gave rise to a curious incident. The fountain in a certain Turkish district, although very much the worse for use, was for some reason left neglected by the community. Whereupon a Christian neighbour proposed to put the fountain in order at his own expense. The offer was welcome, but it raised a difficult question. Would the original Moslem builder of the fountain not lose the merit of having constructed it, if his work were restored by a Christian? Would the Moslem community in the district not lose merit, for allowing the fountain to be repaired by an alien in creed? And so the matter was laid aside for consideration. At last it was settled to the satisfaction of all parties on the following understanding. The Christian might be allowed to execute the necessary repairs, if he renounced any merit for doing so, and agreed that all the merit of the good deed should belong to the original Moslem builder of the fountain. To this way out of the difficulty, the Christian had no objection, and, after signing a legal document to that effect, he was permitted to carry out his kind intention.

Turks are extremely particular in regard to the quality of the water they drink, and are willing to be at much trouble and expense to obtain water of the kind they prefer. To be a perfect beverage, water must issue from a rock, fall from a height, be of medium temperature, flow rapidly and copiously, taste sweet, spring in high and lonely around, and run from south to north, or from east to west. The excellence of any water is accordingly determined by the number of these conditions it fulfils. It is remarkable how much pleasure Turks find in visiting a famous spring in the country, to spend the whole day beside it, under the shade of trees, doing little else but drink carafe after carafe of the water, as the elixir of life. Resorts of this description abound on the shores and in the valleys of the Upper Bosporus, under such names as “The Water of Life,” “The Silver Water,” “The Water under the Chestnut Trees,” “The Water beside the Hazels.” The spectacle of the great gatherings there, on Fridays, arrayed in bright colours, seated tier above tier on the terraced platforms built against the green slope of a hill, the women above, the men below, all in the deep shade of branches meeting overhead, forms a picture beyond a painter’s power to reproduce.

In this connection may be mentioned also the attractive little scenes upon which one comes frequently in walking through the city—quiet nooks, a little off the great thoroughfares, with a vine or westeria spread on a trellis across the street for an awning, and a group of humble workmen, seated on low stools at the door of a cafeneh, sipping tiny cups of coffee, drinking water, smoking the narghileh, too happy to speak much. Occasionally, the court of a small khan, or a portion of a large court, is thus canopied by a trellised vine, making an oasis in the desert of lowly toil.

CHAPTER XI

religious colouring

Another striking feature in the life of Constantinople is the extent to which life here has a religious colouring. The Turkish State is a theocracy. Its supreme law is a code reputed to be Divine. Citizenship is secured by the profession of a particular religion. Obedience to the law of the land is obedience to the will of God. The defence of the State is the defence of a faith. Patriotism is piety. To die in battle is to belong to the noble army of martyrs. The cemetery on the hill above Roumeli Hissar is known as “The Field of the Witnesses” (Martyrs), because the resting-place of soldiers who died while Mehemet the Conqueror was building, in 1452, the castle which should command the passage of the straits, and cut the communications of the city with the lands around the Black Sea during the forthcoming siege, “when the bud would open into flower.” The picturesque cemetery, shaded by oaks, on the hill above the Genoese Castle, overlooking the entrance to the Black Sea, a view that Darius I. and Herodotus came to admire, is also named “The Field of Witnesses,” because there, it is supposed, Saracen soldiers who fell in an attack upon the castle were buried. Such cemeteries are holy ground, and sepulture in them is regarded as a great honour. The attendance of the Sultan at the midday public prayers on Fridays is the official act of the Caliph of the Mohammedan world. He ascends the throne after girding his sword at the grave of the first standard-bearer of the Prophet, in the Mosque of Eyoub. The mantle of the Prophet, his green standard, his staff, sword, bow, are enshrined in the Seraglio as the sovereign’s regalia, and are annually visited by the Sultan as a great State function. Around that standard all true Moslems must rally when Islam is in peril. No great act of Government may be performed until the chief doctor of the Sacred Law, the Sheik-ul-Islam, has been consulted, and sanctions the act, as in accordance with the supreme authority of faith and righteousness. Sultan Abdul Azis and his nephew, Sultan Murad, were deposed only after such sanction had been obtained.

Upon this theocratic conception of the State, the exclusion of the Christian subjects of the Empire from the army is based. For, how can aliens in religion be enlisted under the banner of the Faith? Hence the institution of the janissaries in the early history of the Ottoman Power, whereby children of Christian parentage were taken from their homes and brought up as Moslems, to furnish recruits for the army. It was an ingenious device to maintain the religious character of the military force of the Empire, and yet to prevent the burden of filling the ranks from resting exclusively upon the faithful. The abolition of the child-tax, however fortunate to others, proved a great injury to Turkey. It not only deprived the Sultans of their finest troops, but has been one of the principal causes of the great decrease in the Moslem population of the country; as that class of the community alone has since been called to sustain the losses involved in military service. The mortality among the soldiers of the Turkish army from disease and war is so great that the Moslem population is rapidly dying out, and well-informed medical experts are heard to say, “The Eastern Question will be solved by the disappearance of the Turks in the natural course of things.”

The theocratic character of a Moslem State facilitates, indeed, the incorporation of different races in the same social and political system, seeing that all distinctions between men are obliterated by community in the faith of Islam. And it is impressive to see how closely the Mohammedan world, though not free from sects, is knit together by religious principle, and how strongly it cherishes the brotherhood of believers. In it, not in theory only but also in practice, the black man and the white man are fellow-citizens and of the same household. But on the other hand, because of its theocratic constitution, it is impossible for a Moslem State to accept reforms which seek to secure equality of rights among its subjects, on the ground of a common humanity. Nothing is more opposed to the deepest convictions of a genuine Moslem than the idea that men of a different faith from his own can be his equals. There is no one who can be more polite than a Turk; no one who can treat you in a more friendly and flattering manner than he. Yet persons who have known him well, nay, who have loved him, testify that even in the relation of private friendship they have never felt that a Turk had given them his whole self, but was a friend with reservations that might lead him to act toward you in the most unfriendly manner. His religion confers on him an inaccessible superiority, from which he cannot descend without becoming a faithless son of Islam. His interests are superior to those of an infidel. He is a religious aristocrat, and no patrician of old or of modern days has resisted the demands of plebeians or commoners for equality more obstinately or strenuously than a Moslem opposes the pretensions of unbelievers to be placed on a parity with him. In the case of the patrician, it was a matter of pride; with the Moslem, it is a case of conscience. Though it may seem a small matter, it is a significant fact that a Turk can wish the salutation of peace only to a fellow-Moslem, and that in the exchange of courtesies with persons not of his faith he expects to be saluted first. Rather than admit equality in any real and absolute sense, it would seem as if the wreck of the Empire were preferred—“faithful unto death.”

The outward forms of Mohammedanism are exceedingly impressive. The muezzin’s call to prayer—at dawn, at noon, in the afternoon, at sunset, and three hours later at night—floats through the air like a voice from the upper world. No music of bells evokes such a sense of the Divine Majesty as his proclamation, “God is Great, there is no God but God.” However grand or however humble a mosque may be, whether frequented by the most intelligent or the most ignorant of the people, it contains nothing that tells of superstition, nothing that belittles or lowers the conception of the Most High. One can understand why, when Islam and Christianity confronted each other in the Byzantine Empire, there were emperors who, for upwards of a century, strove to banish pictures and statues from the worship of the Church. And where is the reverence of the human soul before God expressed so utterly, as when the Moslem worshipper, washed clean, with shoes off his feet, stands, bows, kneels, prostrates himself before his Maker, in silent prayer? There is no more impressive religious service in the world than that celebrated, under the dome of S. Sophia, on “The Night of Power,” in the season of Ramazan. Under the dim light of hundreds of small, hanging lamps, fed with oil, as in days past, ten thousand men are then gathered upon the floor of the mosque for evening worship, their hearts stirred by the associations of the sacred season. It is essentially a service of silent prayer. The silence is made only the more impressive by the brief chant or vehement ejaculation that occasionally breaks the stillness, to afford pent feelings some relief. But though dumb with awe, the multitude cannot rest. The emotion is too strong for complete suppression, and the vast congregation heaves to and fro, rises and falls. It stands upon its feet, bends low, sinks to the floor, kneels, prostrates the head to the very earth, filling the great church with a sound as of distant thunder, or the sea breaking upon the shore. It is a scene of intense humility and veneration. And yet it is so grave, so quiet, so controlled, that the dignity of the worshippers is never lost. It is the homage of the great to the Greatest. It is a remarkable combination of reverence and of self-respect. Except in the practices of certain orders of dervishes, the Howling Dervishes for instance, nothing in the attitude of a Moslem at his devotions betrays an overpowering feeling due to the weakness of human nature. The consciousness of belonging to the élite of the religious world, the sense that the worship is paid to the One, True, Great Allah, beside whom there is no other God, and that it is offered in a form worthy of the Divine nature, inspire an elevation of soul like the pride of great nobles in the presence of a mighty over-lord. A devout Moslem is an aristocrat to the tips of his fingers.

Partly because of the natural reserve of Moslems in speaking with Christians on religious matters, and partly on account of the influence of the social institutions, which Moslems have inherited from an inferior stage of civilisation, it is exceedingly difficult to determine the ethical power of Islam in the inner life of its adherents. Perhaps the following remark, made by an intelligent Mohammedan to a Christian friend, gives a glimpse into the spirit of the system. “Christianity is perhaps the best religion, but it is too high for frail human beings. Therefore God, in His mercy, has given us another religion, Islam, which, if not so lofty as yours, is more easy of attainment and practice.” Certainly, the distinction of Islam is the force with which it insists upon the unity, spirituality, and greatness of God. A dogma, not a moral ideal, is its chief concern. Nevertheless, although the system does not develop the loftiest character, it does secure a demeanour that commands respect. The submission to the Divine will, which it inculcates, may have its defects; but it has likewise its merits. If it saps energy, it fosters seriousness, calmness of spirit amid life’s vicissitudes, and a dignified acceptance of the inevitable. If Islam fails to inculcate disinterested virtue, or to inspire goodness on a grand scale, it urges the performance of many beautiful deeds of kindness.

Almsgiving is one of the great duties incumbent upon a Moslem. During Ramazan and the two festival seasons of Bairam, tables are set in the houses of the wealthy classes, to which poor neighbours are made welcome. Groups of beggars gather then about the houses of the rich to receive liberal portions of pilaf, and meat stewed with vegetables, besides a present of money or some article of dress. Connected with the principal mosques of the city, there are endowed soup-kitchens (Imarets), at which, along with the softas and imaums of the mosque, the poor of the district can obtain soup every morning, and once a week pilaf and zerdé (sweetened rice, coloured yellow with saffron). During Ramazan, pilaf and zerdé are supplied every evening. The lame, the blind, the halt, are usually allowed to cross the bridges over the Golden Horn without paying toll, and to travel by the steamers on the Bosporus free of charge. The regard of Turks for animals is well known. If, again, the legal and ascetic prohibition of the use of intoxicants by Mahomet is not the noblest method of educating free agents in self-control, the sober habits of a Moslem community and the rarity of violent crimes in it, when uncontaminated by foreign influence, are advantages not to be despised. A distinctive feature of a Turkish quarter in town or village is the absence of a wine-shop. On the other hand, the segregation of the sexes, while it diminishes the “social evil,” fosters a sensual tone of thought and feeling in Mohammedan society, that contrast most unfavourably with the chivalrous sentiments entertained towards womanhood in Western civilisation. The martial spirit congenial to Islam has its admirable side, but, by the unfortunate sanction of the use of the sword for the suppression of unbelievers, unspeakable atrocities have been committed under the mantle of religion; as, indeed, wherever a similar sanction has been allowed. Opinions differ as to the lengths to which this spirit would go, if Turkish Power were, under certain circumstances, driven to despair and brought to bay. Will the part of Samson Agonistes be repeated then?—“The edifice, where all were met to see him, upon their heads and on his own he pulled.” There are some who think so. But much may be said in favour of the contrary opinion. The Turk is a brave man, but he can be cowed by superior strength, firmly applied. A Turkish maxim says: “The hand you cannot cut, kiss, and press to your forehead.” This is not like Samson.

It is not, however, only the Turkish community that presents a religious colour. The same is true of the other communities of the country. With them, also, the nation has come to be the Church. This is due, in part, to circumstances anterior to the Turkish Conquest. The theological disputes between Christians in the earlier centuries of the history of the Church, even if purely religious and philosophical at first, erelong assumed a national character, and became respectively the banners around which racial distinctions and political antagonisms rallied, and acquired a consistence which endures to this day. How deeply ingrained in the Christian population of the country, to-day, is the spirit to see things under a religious colour appears, sometimes, in small but significant ways. A poor Greek woman, anxious to find a husband for her daughter, who was neither young nor beautiful, was informed that a worthy boatman was prepared to marry the girl. He had everything to recommend him, but he was an Armenian. “What!” exclaimed the mother, turning indignantly to the friend who recommended the man; “What! do you wish me to give my daughter to an Arian? No; let her rather die.” Evidently the woman was not an expert in the use of theological terms, for the Armenians are not Arians. But her reply shows that old theological disputes, which one might suppose had been forgotten, have left their impress upon the popular mind, and are associated with national distinctions. The division between Eastern and Western Christendom is not merely a religious schism. The organisations known as the Coptic Church, the Nestorian Church, the Armenian Church, are not simply different ecclesiastical denominations, or various schools of thought. They are as much, if not more, the assertion of national peculiarities. They have maintained, so far as the times allowed, a people’s independence; preserved the ties which bound a people to its past; and continued the use of its ancestral speech at home, in the affairs of social life, and in the worship of God. With the Turkish Conquest, this fusion of national and religious sentiments became, if possible, more complete. The new rule, involving the loss of political freedom, and the ascendency of an alien faith, made the Church dearer, and left her to be the only sphere of anything approaching national life and independence. The distinction between Church and Nationality consequently passed out of sight. And nowhere is the idea that to change one’s religious profession is to be false to one’s people, and that to be a faithful churchman is to be a patriot, more strongly entrenched than among the adherents of the Christian communities in Turkey. On the other hand, the new rulers could not hope, and did not desire, to assimilate the Christian populations of the country, or to incorporate them in one political body. What with the differences of race, creed, language, civilisation, a gulf was fixed between the conquerors and the conquered. The two parties could be nothing else but distinct and alien communities. Under these circumstances, policy and necessity led the conquerors to maintain the different organisations in which they found the subjugated peoples already arranged. To divide and conquer may not be the highest statesmanship, but it was a principle that, in the condition of the country, could be quickly applied. For one thing, by that process the power of the conquered to rise would be crushed. Furthermore, to leave the different churches of the land to their own ways was, after all, the only solution of the problem how to govern people who, because of their religious beliefs, and their social institutions, could not be brought under the operation of the Sacred Code of Islam. It would, so far, please the conquered. It would accord with that regard for use and wont, for what he calls Adet, which the Turk cherishes. It was practical, and in harmony with the theocratic conception of society familiar to the Moslem mind. Hence the Turkish Government has been accustomed to classify the various peoples of the Empire according to their respective creeds, and has granted them a considerable measure of self-government, in such matters as marriage, inheritance, education, the management of charitable institutions, and jurisdiction over the clergy. As these bodies were ecclesiastical corporations, their ecclesiastical chiefs became at once their rulers, both in religious and in civil affairs, and their representatives in all transactions with the Ottoman authorities. In fact, these communities have enjoyed privileges that give them, in some respects, a status similar to that conferred upon foreigners by the Capitulations. On the principle of religious classification, Greeks, Roumanians, Bulgarians, Servians, were considered members of the same civil community, because members of the same Church. And, on the same principle, if an Armenian left his National Church to join the Roman Catholic or the Protestant communion, he passed beyond the authority of his former ecclesiastical superiors not only in matters spiritual but also in matters secular, acquiring with his new beliefs a new legal standing, as a “Latin” or an “Evangelical.” In this new character, he came under the protection of another chief, was placed under new regulations, and made amenable to a different court. It is because of this intimate union of the religious and the civil, that converts from the National Churches in the Empire have been compelled to form themselves into distinct civil communities, and to incur the odium of, apparently, deserting their own people. But only thus could they escape the pains which their original ecclesiastical authorities had the power to inflict upon dissident subjects; only thus could the Turkish Government grant the converts a legal independent status in religious life.

This method of dealing with the Christian subjects of the Empire worked, on the whole, smoothly, until the idea of nationality, which has been such a powerful factor in the recent history of Europe, spread also among the various peoples of Turkey, inspiring them to assert their distinctness from one another, and to seek liberation from the rule of the dominant race. Then great searching of hearts arose. For the new idea was subversive of a system based upon the principle that the fundamental bond of unity between men is community of faith. Hence, when the Bulgarians demanded to be organised into a community distinct from the Greek community, though one in doctrine with it, and to have bishops and an ecclesiastical head of their own nationality, the request proved a source of considerable difficulty. The chiefs of the Greek Church, under whose authority the Bulgarians had been placed since 1767, as fellow-believers, naturally opposed the demand, taking ground upon the principle that, “In Jesus Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free”; a principle which Moslems could appreciate. Turkish statesmen opposed the demand as unconstitutional, and contrary to custom; at the same time, suspecting it to be a step towards ultimate political independence.

Under these circumstances various expedients were suggested, whereby the desired result might be secured in harmony with the law of the land. By some of their friends, the Bulgarians were advised to separate from the Greek Church on some unimportant point of doctrine or ritual, and so acquire the right before Turkish law to form a distinct community. Another proposal was to declare themselves Protestants, and thus not only escape from the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople, but gain the support of Protestant nations. Yet another plan was to join the Roman Catholic Church, with the advantage of receiving the protection of France. The movement in favour of the last course went so far that a Bulgarian priest was consecrated a Roman Catholic bishop; but the scheme was abruptly terminated by the spiriting away of that personage to Odessa, with all the paraphernalia of his office. Eventually, under Russian pressure, the demand was granted, and the Bulgarians became a distinct civil and religious community on the ground of difference of nationality. They were, however, a religious corporation before the eye of the law, and in view of the large Bulgarian population still under Turkish rule, especially in Macedonia, the Exarch of the Bulgarian Church must reside in Constantinople to have his authority over that class of the community recognised by the Turkish Government. As though to add more religious colour to the arrangement, the Patriarch of Constantinople, in 1872, laid the Bulgarian Church under the sentence of excommunication as schismatic.

The form in which the Bulgarian question was settled has furnished a precedent which other nationalities, in furtherance of their political aims, have not been slow to appeal to, and which the Turkish Government, with the object of weakening their Christian subjects by sub-divisions, has been, of late, disposed to follow. In the province of Macedonia the system is carried out to perfection. There Bulgarians, Greeks, Servians, and Kutzo-Wlachs, all adherents of the Greek Orthodox Church, have had the fires of their national rivalries fanned into fiercer flame by being organised into different religious communities, under different ecclesiastical superiors, with the result that a situation exists in that province than which nothing more complicated can be imagined.

Before leaving the subject, it is only just to remark that, perhaps, the world has not sufficiently admired the tenacity with which the various Christian peoples of the Near East have adhered to their faith and nationality, in the face of hardships and temptations to which some of their members succumbed. If their life has been stagnant, it is not altogether their fault. Their circumstances have been exceedingly adverse to growth. But they have kept the treasure, although the vessel which has contained it may be earthen. However much the identification, or confusion, of political and religious issues has wrought mischief among these peoples, however much it has quenched their spirit of brotherly love, it is to their churches that they are mainly indebted for the preservation of their national consciousness and aspirations. Amid the darkness, the churches kept the lamp of hope ever burning. They consecrated patriotism by associating it with loyalty to God. They made faith firmer by uniting it with the love of fatherland. And their peoples have lived to see the light of a new day. There is something pathetic in the fact that all this was rendered possible by the degree of self-government in civil and religious matters granted them by their conqueror. There is something tragic in seeing the policy which a conqueror adopted as the only method to establish his rule—nurse the life of his foes, and forge the instruments of his ruin. But men are not always masters of their fate.

CHAPTER XII

turkish women

In the appearance and lot of Turkish women we see, perhaps, more distinctly than in any other feature of life in Constantinople the perpetuation of the ideas and usages which give to Turkish society its peculiar character and physiognomy. The assertion is often made that, according to the Moslem creed, woman has no soul. This is a mistake. While man, indeed, is considered to be woman’s superior on the ground of his higher natural endowments and of his services as bread-winner, the Koran, at the same time, recognises her spiritual nature and religious capacity. “Verily,” says that authority, “the resigned men and the resigned women, the believing men and the believing women, the devout men and the devout women, the truthful men and the truthful women, the patient men and the patient women, the humble men and the humble women, the charitable men and the charitable women, the fasting men and the fasting women, the chaste men and the chaste women, and the men and women who oft remember God, for them hath God prepared forgiveness and a mighty recompense.” Although the female companionship which forms one of the delights of the Mohammedan Paradise will be furnished by the houris, still earth-born women are also present in the abodes of bliss. Hence a Turkish mother, mourning the loss of her little girl, can find comfort in putting over the child’s grave this epitaph:—“The bird of my heart has flown from its cage to find a place in the gardens of Paradise.” If Moslem women do not attend public worship in the mosques, the reason is not any spiritual disqualification, but the idea that the sexes should associate as little as possible. Yet elderly women may be seen at their devotions in a mosque out of the hours of public worship, while during the religious season of Ramazan special services for women are held in some of the great mosques of the city, as well as in the imperial harem and in the harems of wealthy personages, such services being conducted by popular preachers. But after all is said that can be said to prove that honourable views concerning woman are cherished in a society constituted by Moslem thought, it remains true that the fundamental conception underlying the organisation of that society and forming its dominant spirit is of an opposite character. That conception, we should in justice remember, is not peculiar to Islam. On the contrary, it has prevailed outside the Mohammedan world; it has contaminated even the life of Christendom. Nevertheless, the view that man and woman are not equals, that the latter is chiefly made to minister to the pleasure of the former, and that they are morally dangerous to each other, has nowhere been applied so consistently, on so large a scale, and for so long a period in the very presence of a higher civilisation, as in Moslem society. Such a view demands naturally and necessarily that men and women should be kept apart as much as the conditions of human existence permit. Where polygamy, concubinage, and easy divorce are lawful social arrangements, woman must be put behind the shelter of a jealous protection. She must be placed out of sight, secluded, guarded, and, when she appears in public, veiled and forbidden to display her ornaments. Men, on the other hand, must avoid looking at a woman they meet abroad, remembering that “God will reward the Muslim who, having beheld the beauties of a woman, shuts his eyes,” and that, though the first look is excusable, because often unavoidable, the next is unlawful. The outward manifestations of these ideas are seen on every hand in the Turkish life of Constantinople. Hence the division of a Turkish home into apartments for men (selamlik) and apartments for women (harem), into the former of which no Turkish lady enters, and into the latter of which only the nearest male relatives are admitted. Hence also the two doors leading from the street respectively to these divisions of the house; hence the latticed screens outside the windows of the harem to conceal the inmates from even the hurried glance of passers-by. If you have occasion to call upon a Turk who keeps no man-servant, and a woman comes to answer the door, she will, before opening it, inquire who has knocked. If the caller is a man, and the master of the house is out, she will refuse admittance in a tone which makes you feel happy to depart; if the master is in, she will open the door ajar, leaving you to open it wide, after you have given her time to announce your visit, and retire from view. There is no such thing in Turkish life as a mixed social gathering of ladies and gentlemen. For husband and wife to walk, or drive, or boat together was unknown until quite recent times, and when such proceedings occur they are regarded with disfavour. In tramway cars, in trains, on steamers, in waiting-rooms, men and women occupy different compartments. Should the ladies’ cabin on the steamers which ply between the city and the suburbs on the Bosporus or the Marmora be unoccupied at starting by Turkish women, gentlemen are permitted to seat themselves in it, and to keep their places so long as Moslem women do not appear. But if a Turkish lady embarks at a station on the way, the cabin must be forthwith vacated by its male occupants, who do not present the air of the lords of creation as they wander to find other seats. On one occasion a foreign lady and gentleman reached a certain pier on the Bosporus some time before the arrival of the steamer, which was to convey them to the city, and, finding the ladies’ waiting-room empty, seated themselves in it. Presently an elderly Turkish woman, belonging to a somewhat humble class of society, appeared, accompanied by her son, a lad some fourteen years old. According to strict etiquette the gentleman should have left the room. But, as the lady he was escorting wished him to remain, and as the Turkish woman looked a motherly person and had her boy with her, he kept his seat, forgetful of use and wont. Suddenly the lad in the hanum’s company went out. As the event proved, it was to bring the man in charge of the pier upon the scene. The latter approached the gentleman, whom he knew well, and in the politest possible manner whispered the information that the Turkish woman opposite objected to the presence of a man. There was nothing to be done but for the intruder to withdraw with as little awkwardness as the situation admitted, and the matter seemed settled to the satisfaction of all concerned. But the indignation of the foreign lady at the discomfiture of her escort was too great for the troubled waters to be calmed so easily. Rushing out after him, she begged him to protest on her behalf against the presence of the Turkish lad in the ladies’ room when she was there. So the faithful man in charge of the pier proceeded to eject the youth likewise, while the fair complainant resumed her seat in order to maintain her point until the steamer came up. How her Turkish sister felt under the circumstances does not appear, but the incident illustrates the influence upon the native mind of the idea that men and women should be kept strictly apart.

For a woman’s hair to be exposed to public view is considered an extreme humiliation. A poor Turkish woman on her way to an asylum threw herself in a fit of wild excitement upon the ground, and, in doing so, threw off the veil which covered her head. “Alas, alas,” screamed the female friends who accompanied her, “she is showing her hair!” as though that exposure was the worst feature of the case.

It would be a mistake, however, to infer from what has been said that the seclusion to which Turkish women are consigned deprives them of all freedom and social influence. The reverse is true. Wealthy ladies control their own property even after their marriage. Furthermore, if seclusion denies women certain privileges, it wins for them certain rights—the right, above all, to have their seclusion respected. It secures for them the regard cherished for those who have a great public duty to perform, and entitles them to all the support requisite for the discharge of that duty. A highly educated Turk, upon hearing of the annoyance given to some Turkish ladies by the inquisitive gaze of certain foreigners, expressed his indignation in the following curious fashion: “Such conduct towards European ladies would not be strange, for they exhibit themselves to public view, and must take the consequences; but to treat Turkish ladies thus, when they have the right to enjoy perfect privacy, was intolerable impertinence.” Although it is not becoming for a Turkish lady to go out by herself, a company of Turkish women may go anywhere, not only without fear of molestation, but without attracting the slightest notice. Even the police shrink from interfering with them. Sometimes Turkish women will refuse to pay toll for crossing the bridges which span the Golden Horn, and defy all the attempts of the toll-men to enforce payment. One has seen Turkish women embark on a Bosporus steamer without tickets, and when challenged for doing so, take off a slipper, strike the ticket-collector, and proceed on their way none the poorer. Like a famous thistle, a Turkish woman cannot be touched with impunity. Nor is it strange that a man’s female relatives should influence him in Turkey, as much as they do in other countries and in similar ways. After all, men and women are everywhere much the same, and no artificial arrangements can altogether prevent the operation of natural forces. Indeed, a man is, perhaps, more liable to be swayed by his female relatives when they are the only women he meets. But be that as it may, women related to the great officers of State exercise considerable political influence. The mother of the Sultan, known as the Validé Sultana, is the first lady in the land, and, if a woman of capacity, is a power behind the throne. It is reported that the famous British ambassador, Sir Stratford Canning, had once occasion to suggest to the Sultan of his day that in taking a certain course of action the sovereign of the Empire was yielding to a mother’s counsels. “True,” replied the monarch, “but she is the only friend I can perfectly trust as sincerely devoted to me.” Several years ago, delay in the payment of salaries, no unfrequent occurrence in Constantinople, caused great suffering among the humbler employees of the Government. Other methods of redress having failed, the aggrieved parties betook themselves to the weapon of female force. Accordingly, a large body of women, mostly the wives of the poor men, but including professional female agitators, invaded the offices of the Minister of Finance. They filled every corridor, swarmed upon every stairway, blocked every door they could find, and made the building resound with lamentations and clamours for payment. The Minister managed to escape by a back entrance. But the women would not budge. It was vain to call in the police or soldiers to intervene. The indecorum of a public application of force in dealing with the women would have created too great a scandal, and so the authorities bowed before “the might of weakness,” and made the best terms they could induce the victors to accept. A more recent experience of the power of Turkish women to interfere, in spite of their seclusion, with the affairs of the outer world, may be added. The owners of a piece of land adjoining a Turkish village on the Bosporus decided to enclose their property with a substantial wall of stone and mortar. As the ground had long been a pleasant resort for the women and children of the village, especially on Fridays, where sitting on the ground under the shade of trees they enjoyed the fresh air and the beautiful views on every side, the villagers very naturally regretted the loss which the erection of the wall would involve, and they determined to prevent the execution of the work to the utmost of their power. The opposition first assumed a legal form. It was urged that the wall would interfere with the water-course which supplied the village fountain, and furthermore, would include a piece of land belonging to the community. Both objections were shown to be without foundation, and building operations were begun. No difficulties were raised until the wall approached the fountain and the land in dispute, when it became evident that if the work proceeded farther the opposition would resort to violent measures. In the hope of coming to a friendly understanding with the villagers by additional explanations, work was suspended for some time, but the negotiations to establish peace having failed, the erection of the wall was continued. The work had not gone far, when a band of women appeared, led by the principal female personage in the community, who enjoyed the distinction of being both the widow of the late imaum of the village mosque and the mother of the present incumbent of that office; a dark-visaged dame, with a sharp tongue. Not a single man accompanied the women. Armed with sticks and stones, the band of Amazons rushed upon the workmen and drove them off. The intervention of the police obliged the women to retreat, but, when the masons returned next morning to their work, they found the women already upon the scene of action. The imaum’s widow with another woman had seated themselves in the trench and defied the erection of the wall over their bodies! Again the police interfered, and, after all methods of gentle moral suasion had proved useless, they actually lifted the imaum’s widow somewhat forcibly out of the trench. She took the affront so much to heart that she kept her bed for several days. There was a consequent lull in the storm. But soon the women resumed the struggle, coming in the dark and tearing down a considerable portion of the building. The wall had therefore to be guarded by the police during the day, and by watchmen during the night. Still the women would not abandon the contest, and, as a supreme effort, sent a long telegram to the Palace, invoking the sovereign’s aid and protection. In reply, they were invited to send a deputation to the Police Court connected with the imperial residence. The pasha of the Court was a veteran official who, though he could not read, and knew to write only his own name, had reached his responsible position by force of character and the possession of common sense. He expounded the law to the women before him, informed them that he intended to enforce it, and gave them a tremendous scolding for the manner in which they and their sisters had behaved; seasoning justice, however, with mercy, to the extent of presenting them a small sum of money wherewith to meet the expense of their visit to him and of their telegram.

The young imaum of the village was also summoned, and made to understand that, unless his mother’s influence was employed to keep the peace, he should lose his place. Accordingly, the war stopped, but there were threats that the two persons most concerned with the erection of the wall would be stoned to death. The threats were so serious that even a brave Croat, in the service of the proprietors of the enclosed ground, advised the superintendent of the works to avoid a road which would expose him to assault. “I am an old man,” replied the latter, a Briton, “it will not matter much if I am stoned to death.” “But,” answered the Croat, “will it not be a shame to be killed by women?” It was an ungallant remark to make, in view of the spirit displayed by the women, yet a characteristic expression of that poor estimate of womanhood against which the weaker sex has still to contend in the East—the estimate which led Abimelech, long ago, when at the point of death by a blow from a woman’s hand, to beseech his armour-bearer to kill him, lest men should say “a woman slew him.”