THE SWEET WATERS OF EUROPE
A pleasure resort near the upper end of the Golden Horn much in favour in the spring, when every Friday afternoon crowds of Turkish ladies with their children flock there for recreation by the water-side.
But the world moves, and Turkish women move with it. The last generation has witnessed remarkable changes in their habits both in the capital and in other great cities of the Empire. For one thing, there has been a striking change in the matter of dress. The time was, when a Turkish woman brought vivid colouring into every scene she adorned. Her yashmak, enveloping head and face and neck in white gauze; her feredjé enfolding her form down to the feet in red, green, blue, pink, or any other hue she fancied; her yellow boots and yellow overshoes, worn like slippers, made her as gay and bright as a butterfly or a flower. What wonderful pictures did groups of women thus attired form, as they squatted on a red rug spread on the green grass under the shade of cypresses or plane-trees, beside the Sweet Waters of Europe and the Heavenly Waters of Asia; or as they sat in long rows by the shores of the Bosporus to drink in the salt air, to watch the blue waters and the hurrying to and fro of boats and sails and steamers; or as they floated in a caïque over the quiet sea. What a fantasia of colour they made as they went slowly past, seated in a long, narrow wagon (arabah), its high sides bright with painted flowers and gilded arabesque, under a scarlet awning edged with gold fringe, drawn by white oxen, over whose heads heavy red tassels, attached to rods fixed in the yoke, waved with every motion of the creaking wheels!
THE YASHMAK
The veil is sometimes so transparent that it scarcely conceals the features at all.
But this feast of colour has ended, and the world of Turkish womanhood has exchanged the brightness of summer for the sober tints of autumn. The yashmak is now universally discarded, except by the ladies of the imperial household who are still required to wear it, as well as a black feredjé; the only bit of bright colour permitted being in the matter of the headkerchief of tulle they wear under the yashmak. In the costume of the mass of Turkish women, the feredjé has been replaced by the charshaf, a mantle worn over the head and about the body down to the feet, drawn in slightly at the waist. The material and the colour of the garment differ according to the means and taste of the wearer, but the colour is always quiet and subdued. To the portion of the charshaf above the eyes a dark veil is attached, and this can be worn over the face, or thrown back over the head, as the wearer pleases. When thrown back, a Turkish lady’s face is seen as plainly as that of her European sister. The charshaf may also be made of two pieces of cloth in order to secure a better fit, and although the garb might seem to defy artistic arrangement and effect, it is often very becoming and graceful. It would appear that the charshaf was the original dress of Turkish women, with the important difference from the present fashion that the veil could not be thrown back, and was furnished with two holes for the eyes, as among Moslem women to-day in Persia and India. The yashmak, it is said, came into vogue at the time of the Conquest, being an adaptation of the veil worn then by women of the Christian peoples of the land. Its abandonment for the sake of a style which permits greater freedom is a sign of progress. But the change, which was made some thirty years ago, roused considerable opposition. Merchants in the bazaars objected to it, because a charshaf required less material to be made up than a feredjé, and consequently injured trade. Others found fault with it simply because it was an innovation; while others feared that when worn with the veil down it might facilitate disguise in carrying on social or political intrigues. Nay, imperial iradès denounced and forbade the new mode. But all was in vain, for even in Turkey it is possible for women to have their own way. Nor is it only in their out-door dress that Turkish women have introduced alterations. They have done so likewise in their dress when at home. The baggy trousers, the embroidered vest and jacket, which constituted the costume in which a Turkish hanum reclined upon her divan, have been replaced, in the progressive section of Turkish female society, by garments after European fashions. A Turkish bride belonging to a wealthy family wears a wedding dress like that which adorns a young lady under similar circumstances in Western lands, the only difference being that the former allows her hair to hang down, and decorates it with long narrow streamers of tinsel, pieces of which she presents to her young friends for good luck. Elegant tea-gowns and the latest Parisian robes are worn in wealthy harems. Turkish ladies, indeed, have yet to adopt the low-necked dress, but, not to be altogether behind the times, they make their servant-maids don that attire on great occasions. When the maids are dark-skinned daughters of Africa, the effect is not flattering to the costume. But after all, these changes are interesting chiefly as indications of the fact that the spirit of Turkish women has come, to some degree, under the influence of new ideas. Polygamy is on the decline. Greater attention is now paid to the education of girls among all classes of the community. In wealthy families it is common for the daughters to have English or French or German governesses, and to be instructed in the ordinary branches of education, even to the extent of doing something so foreign as to learn to ride. In a few instances, Turkish girls attend foreign schools, and it is a most significant sign of the times to see the female relatives of such girls present at the public proceedings of these institutions. Periodicals providing special literature for ladies have appeared, and there are Turkish authoresses, some of whom enjoy a great reputation among their countrywomen. As might be expected, this upward movement meets with opposition, as upward movements always meet wherever they occur. Such a thing has been known as an imperial iradè, commanding all foreign governesses to be dismissed from Turkish homes, because of teachers pernicious ideas. On the eve of Ramazan it is usual to issue strict orders for Turkish ladies to keep their veils down. A Turkish lady once attended, with her husband, an “At Home” in a foreign house. Shortly thereafter, the police called upon the gentleman, late in the evening, as the custom is in this part of the world, and informed him that he was wanted at the police-court next morning on important business. What that business was the police did not condescend to say, preferring to make night uncomfortable for the couple, by keeping them in suspense. Upon appearing at the court the husband learned that the visit of his wife to a foreign house, on the occasion referred to, had been noticed and duly reported to the authorities, and he was warned (under threat of severe penalty) not to allow the offence to be repeated. At public gatherings at the Sweet Waters of Europe and Asia, the police watch the behaviour of Turkish ladies as though so many naughty or helpless children were abroad. One has seen a policeman order a lady to put up the window of her carriage, because she attracted too much admiration. At another time, one has seen a company of respectable Turkish ladies, who were enjoying a moonlight row on the Bosporus, packed home by the police. The life of educated Turkish women is rendered hard and humiliating by such restrictions. On the occasion of a visit to a Turkish gentleman in his garden, it so happened that two of his nieces, not knowing that any one was calling, came to greet their uncle. Surprised at seeing a man with him, the young ladies started back, as gazelles might start at the sight of a hunter. Their uncle, however, summoned them to return, and with extreme courtesy introduced them to his visitor, with the information that one of the young ladies could speak English. Conversation in that language had not gone far, when another gentleman was announced. Instantly the girls sprang to their feet and darted away as for dear life. “See,” said the uncle in tones of mingled vexation and sorrow, “See what it is to be an educated Turkish lady!”
THE SWEET WATERS OF ASIA
Another favourite pleasure resort much frequented by Turkish ladies in summer.
A Turkish gentleman of high rank wishing his daughters to enjoy the advantage of a European education, but anxious to spare them as much as possible the chagrin and ennui of being educated above the station of a Turkish lady, hoped to attain his object by having his girls learn to speak French without being able to read in that language. Such experiences are disheartening. But, as the pale flowers which come ere winter has wholly gone herald the spring and foretell the glory of summer, so the recent improvements in the lot of Turkish women, however slight they may appear meantime, warrant the hope of further progress and final emancipation.
To live in Constantinople is to live in a very wide world. The city, it is true, is not a seat of lofty intellectual thought. Upon none of its hills have the Muses come to dwell. It is not a centre of literary activity; it is not a home of Art. Here is no civic life to share, no far-reaching public works of philanthropy to enlarge the heart, no comprehensive national life to inspire patriotism, no common religious institutions to awaken the sense of a vast brotherhood enfolded within the same great and gracious heavens. If one is so inclined, it is easy for life here to be exceedingly petty. And yet, it is certain that to live in Constantinople is to live in a wide world. It is not for any lack of incentive that a resident here fails “to think imperially” or to feel on an imperial scale. When a man possessed by the genius of the place quits the city to reside elsewhere, the horizon of his life contracts and dwindles, as when a man descends from the wide views of a mountain peak to the life pent within the walls of a valley. For nowhere else is the mind not only confronted, but, if one may thus express it, assailed by so many varied subjects demanding consideration, or the heart appealed to by so many interests for its sympathy.
The very geography of the place offers a wide outlook. As a part of his everyday experience, a resident of Constantinople lives within sight of Europe and Asia. Every day of his life, he sees the waterway that runs between the two great continents thronged with vessels of every nation, hurrying to and fro to bring the ends of the earth together. Then, how much human power has been enthroned here—the dominion of Byzantium for one thousand years; the rule of Constantine and his successors for eleven centuries; the sway of the Ottoman Sultans through four hundred and fifty years. If what we see has aught to do with what we are, here is a mould in which to fashion a large life. But Europe and Asia are present in more than their physical aspects, or in long periods of their history. Their civilisations also meet here. On every side there is the pressure of a dominant Oriental society and polity, with its theocratic government, autocracy, the creed of Islam, polygamy, slavery, eunuchs, secluded and veiled womanhood, men in long robes and turbans, sluggishness, repose, the speech of Central Asia softened by the accents of Persia and Arabia, minarets, domes surmounted by the Crescent, graceful but strange salutations, festivals which celebrate events in a course of history not your own, and express joys which have never gladdened your soul. And mingling, but not blended, with this world of Asiatic thought and sentiment and manner, is a European world, partly native, partly foreign, with ideas of freedom, science, education, bustle, various languages, railroads, tramways, ladies in the latest Parisian fashions, church bells, the banner of the Cross, newspapers and periodicals from every European and American capital, knitting scattered children to the life of their fatherland. The members of the foreign communities in the City of the Sultan do not forget the lands of their birth, or of their race and allegiance. Though circumstances have carried them far from their native shores and skies, physical separation does not sever them from the spirit of their peoples. Nay, as if to make patriotic sentiment more easy, foreigners are placed under the peculiar arrangements embodied in what are termed the Capitulations, whereby, in virtue of old treaties, they enjoy the privilege of living to a great extent under the laws of their respective countries, with little interference on the part of the Ottoman Government. When your house is your castle, in the sense that no Turkish policeman dares enter it without the authorisation of your Consulate or Embassy, when legal differences between yourself and your fellow-countrymen are submitted to judges, and argued by barristers, bred in the law which rules in your own land, when your church and school can be what they are at home, and when you can forward your letters, not only to foreign countries but even to some parts of the Turkish Empire, with a stamp bearing the badge of your own Government, it is natural that European residents in Constantinople should be able to preserve their special character, both after living here for many years, and also from generation to generation. A Mohammedan polity is opposed to the assimilation of strangers, unless the aliens become converts to Islam. Whatever process of assimilation goes on in Constantinople appears in the slow changes of the East towards some likeness to the West. Otherwise, the European world is as present to the view as the Asiatic, and together they spread a wide vista before the mind.
Furthermore, what a broad outlook does the heterogeneous population afford! Whether you walk the streets or stay at home, on the mart of business, at all large social gatherings, in all public enterprises, you deal with diverse nationalities and races. Everywhere and always a cosmopolitan atmosphere pervades your life. One servant in your household will be a Greek, another an Armenian, a third a German or an Englishman. Your gardener is a Croat, as tender to flowers as he is fierce against his foes. The boatmen of your caïque are Turks. In building a house, the foundations are excavated by Lazes; the quarrymen must be Croats; the masons and carpenters are Greeks and Armenians; the hodmen, Kurds; the hamals, Turks; the plumbers, Italians; the architect is an Englishman, American, or a foreigner of some other kind; the glaziers must be Jews. Fourteen nationalities are represented by the students and professors of an international college.
When the season of pilgrimages comes round, the streets are thronged by Tartars, Circassians, Persians, Turcomans, on their way to Mecca and Medina, wild-looking fellows in rough but picturesque garb, staring with the wonder and simplicity of children at the novelties they see, purchasing trifles as though treasures, yet stopping to give alms to a beggar, and groping for the higher life.
Nor is it only in great matters that this wideness of human life comes home to the mind in Constantinople. It is pressed upon the attention by the diversity that prevails, likewise, in matters of comparatively slight importance; in such an affair, for example, as the calculation of time. For some, the pivotal event of history is the birth of Christ; for others, it is the Flight of Mahomet from Mecca to Medina, and accordingly, two systems of the world’s chronology are in vogue. One large part of the populations still adheres to the primitive idea that a new day commences at sunset, while another part of the community defers that event until the moment after midnight. Hence in your movements and engagements you have constantly to calculate the precise time of day according to both views upon the subject. The time-tables of the steamers which ply between the city and the suburbs on the Bosporus and the Sea of Marmora, adopt “Turkish time,” and require you to convert the hour indicated into the corresponding hour from the European or “Frank” standpoint; and the same two-fold way of thinking on the subject is imposed upon all persons having dealings with the Government and the native population in general. A similar diversity exists in regard to the length of the year. The Turkish year consists of twelve lunar months, a thirteenth being added from time to time to settle accounts with the sun. The question when Ramazan, the month of fasting by day and of feasting at night begins, or when the festival of Bairam commences is determined, at least formally, by the appearance of the new moon, upon the testimony of two Moslem witnesses before a judge in any part of the Empire. Thus these religious seasons might commence on different days in different localities, the moon not being visible in some places, on account of the state of the weather. The formula in which the approach of these seasons is now announced to the public, since the increase of astronomical knowledge in Turkish circles, is a curious compromise between former uncertainty and actual assurance on that point. “Ramazan begins (say) on Tuesday next, provided the new moon is visible. If not, the Fast will date from Wednesday.” Alongside the Turkish mode of measuring the year, there is the method introduced into the Roman world by Julius Cæsar, the “Old Style,” followed by Greeks and Armenians, and also the “New Style,” the mode of reckoning inaugurated by Pope Gregory XIII., now thirteen days in advance of the Julian Calendar. Accordingly, to prevent mistakes in regard to a date, letters and newspapers are often dated according to both styles. With some the year begins in March, with the advent of spring; with others it commences in September, when autumn gathers in the fruits of the earth; others make January, in midwinter, their starting-point. The difference between the “Old Style” and the “New Style” involves two celebrations, as a rule, of Easter, two observances of New Year’s Day, while Christmas is celebrated three times, the Armenian Church having combined the commemoration of that festival with the more ancient festival of the Epiphany. For one section of the community, moreover, the day of rest is Sunday, for another Saturday, for yet another the day of special religious services is Friday. All these differences are not matters seen at a remote distance of place or time; they are not curious items of archæological lore. On the contrary, they enter into the practical experience of your workaday life, compelling you to see things from various points of view, and to conform with the ways of humanity in manifold directions.
Then what a diversified scene is spread before the mind by the variety of religious faiths professed here. A native of Constantinople put the case before the Parliament of Religions, held at the Chicago Exposition, thus: “We have a Parliament of Religions every day in Constantinople.” The faith of Israel, Mohammedanism, and Christianity, are here matched against each other in great organised communities, with the marks of the controversies and wars which form so large a part of the history of this Eastern world fresh and clear upon them.
Here are the sects and schools of thought which divide Islam; the Sunnites who maintain the legitimacy of all the Caliphs, the Shiites who hold that Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, was his first lawful successor, and who gather annually in the court of the Validè Khan in Stamboul, to cut and gash themselves, like their brethren in Persia, as they mourn the murder of Ali’s sons, Hussein and Hassan; the Howling and the Dancing Dervishes who hope to apprehend the Divine in their ecstasy, the Bektashs Dervishes, more rationalistic, more tolerant, more latitudinarian. Here are the sects that divide the Christian world; Orthodox Greek, Roman Catholic, Gregorian Armenian, Protestant, representatives of the Nestorian Church, and of the Syrian Jacobites. What long vistas of Church History are thus open on every hand; what different modes of conceiving truths stare you in the face at every turn!
Finally, but not least, there is the spacious outlook afforded by the political situation, of which Constantinople has long been the centre. The question of the continued existence of the Ottoman rule in Europe, if not also in Asia, has been a burning question for many generations, affecting both the destiny of the peoples subject to that rule and the interests and relations of all the Great Powers of Europe. It is one of the biggest, most important, most complicated problems that can occupy the minds of the statesmen of the world, and it has no less magnitude in its appeals to the concern of philanthropists. Here, to speak with malice to none and with charity for all, is a rule established by the might of conquest over different races, rival nationalities, various creeds. As already observed, the conquerors have neither wished nor been able to efface these distinctions, nor have the conquered had any inclination to be merged into a common life and polity. In such a state of things it is not surprising that no love has been lost. Legend has it that the battle of Chalons was waged with such ferocity, that, after the bodies of the combatants lay cold upon the ground, their spirits continued to fight in the air. The struggle between the conqueror and the conquered in Turkey has raged in their hearts even when, to all appearance, it seemed to have ended. In thought and sentiment the country has always been in a state of war. That a rule carried on in the spirit of conquest and of religious exclusiveness should have involved intolerable treatment of the subject peoples is only what might be expected, notwithstanding occasional good intentions. And that peoples thus treated, and persistently reminded of their subjugation and inferior legal standing should never abandon the hope of deliverance, and should even endeavour to create opportunities to achieve emancipation is, likewise, only what might be expected. Whether the subject peoples could have already gained their liberty, if they had been united, is a question open to debate. But what is certain is that their rivalries, their dissensions, and their natural but incompatible expectations, have retarded the realisation of their ambitions. To a large extent, this is their misfortune; the fate imposed upon them by their circumstances. Look, for example, at the situation in the European portion of the Empire. How can any one expect Roumanians, Servians, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Albanians to forget their historical antecedents, their race distinctions, and their associations with different parts of the country, in order to become one nationality? How can they be persuaded to combine in a common effort to become free, while the points in dispute between themselves remain unsettled? The question is rendered yet more difficult when these peoples, as is often the case, dwell side by side in the same section of the country.
Here is a tangle of claims which an impartial mind finds hard to unravel, and feels tempted to relegate to the sword that cuts the Gordian knot. The fundamental difficulty that hinders the solution of what is known as “the Eastern Question” is the absence of a large homogeneous population within the bounds of the Empire, to which the Government of the country can be transferred from the hands of the present ruling race. No single people, under Ottoman rule, can replace the Turk in the mastership of the whole Empire. It is a property that must be divided, and the division of the inheritance, if it is to be carried out in the spirit of justice and common sense and not of partisanship, is a matter of extreme perplexity. Hence the occasion for the interference of the Great Powers of Europe, sometimes to assist the weak, sometimes to repress risings, sometimes to limit the area of disturbance, sometimes to extort concessions, sometimes to appropriate a portion of the spoils, always to guard their own interests, real or artificial. That interference is crippled, often paralysed, by mutual jealousies, by native dissensions, by greater concern for the success of foreign schemes than for the welfare of the country, by the dread of a great war, by inability to answer clearly the question, What next? The spectacle presented by the action of the Powers is not always edifying. It has, at times, provoked the opinion that they are not powerful, but powerless. But the historical evolution which is in process has brought great actors upon the scene. It keeps great themes continually before the mind. Again and again, it has been accompanied with the tramp of armies, and resounded with the thunders of war. It is studded with Conferences and Congresses, at which the foremost statesmen of the day have discussed the destiny of this city and land, as the most momentous problem of European politics. It is still overshadowed by war-clouds.
Nor has all this been a vain show. In the course of the past century, liberty has won many victories in the Near East. Servia, Roumania, Bulgaria, Greece, have risen from the dead and become independent and progressive nations. Old national memories, stretching, in the case of Greece, as far back as classic times, have united with modern ideas to restore the continuity of history, and to hasten the day when the whole of Europe will move forward together. The flood which covered the land has slowly subsided. Tract after tract of the devastated earth has risen above the waters, and is reclaimed for new life and fruit. And the forces which have produced this wonderful transformation still operate. Who can stay their power? What precise form the final consummation will assume—a federation, the rule of a Free Russia, a group of independent but friendly States, partition between the Great Powers—is a secret no one can meantime divine. The unexpected may happen. But the future destiny of a city which has acted so great a part in the past, and which is capable of acting an even greater part in the time to come, is only another reason why life here is so large. What other city presents such a problem? One may as soon dwell by the shore of an ocean, or in view of peaks rising to heaven, and fail to be impressed by the greatness of the world, as live in Constantinople without realising the vastness of human interests and problems.