The Dervishes of Constantinople, What are They?—How They Live and What They Do—Unclean and Devout Beggars—Where They Bury their Dead—Opening their Circus—Removing the “Doubter’s” Boots—An Amusing Situation—Clearing the Floor—Human Top-Spinning—Dropping into Jelly-bags—A Pliable Lot of Living Corpses—The Howling Dervishes—Where and How they Live—A House Full of Madmen—A Shrieking Chant—“La Hah il Allah”—Stirring up the Wild Beasts—Spectators Joining in the Chorus—Horrible Superstitious Rites—Treading on Sick Children—Reaching Paradise by Bodily Tortures—A Sad Disappointment—The Founder of the Sect and Who He Was—Pulling Teeth as a Proof of Sanctity.
ONE of the stock-sights of Constantinople is the performances of the dervishes, which can be witnessed every Friday throughout the year.
The dervishes are to Islam what the bare-footed friars are to Christendom; they are men whose lives are devoted to holiness and idleness in unequal portions, and they subsist upon charity or from the endowment of their mosques.
Most of the orders of dervishes in Constantinople, Damascus, and Cairo, have comfortable homes and very little to do; the members say their prayers daily, and devote an hour to their peculiar worship on Friday, and beyond this they do very little. But there are many dervishes not as well off, who are obliged to work or beg in order to make an honest living, and they greatly resemble Christian monks, in preferring beggary to labor. They argue that they have more time to devote to religious observances in the former case than in the latter, and therefore it is the duty of the less pious public to support them in idleness. But the public does not always see it in this light, and hence the dervishes sometimes find begging unprofitable, and are forced into respectable occupations. The dervishes are a lazy and uncleanly set. They profess to live a life of abstinence, but I was told of cases where they have been known to drink rum with great devotion.
The most noted of the dervishes are the Whirling and Howling sects; sometimes the former are called Dancers, and the latter Singers, but it is a libel upon dancing and singing to call them so. The performance of the Whirling Dervishes resembles dancing about as much as a frog resembles a prairie chicken; the Howling Dervishes could give a pack of wolves seventy-five points in the game and beat them easily, and their devotional exercises resemble singing as much as the noise of a monster tin-shop resembles the opera of Trovatore, as rendered at the London and Paris opera houses.
My first visit to these gentry was at the convent of the Whirling Dervishes. It is situated on the hill of Pera, close by the principal hotels, thus affording an agreeable contrast to our excursions among the mosques and bazaars, which requires a long walk to Stamboul. The convent covers quite an area, and has a neat garden and several cosy buildings. I was told that the convent owns several surrounding buildings, and that the income from these furnishes a very good revenue, on which the dervishes live comfortably. In the garden in front of the building there are the tombs of several “ex-whirlers,” and I was told that it is the practice of the monks to bury their dead on their own premises, instead of sending them to the Mount Auburn of Constantinople.
These dervishes are a decent lot of fellows, much less fanatical than the “howlers,” and always, ready to allow strangers to attend their circus, on condition that they leave their boots at the door and behave themselves, while the curtain is up.
Our party of half-a-dozen went there rather ahead of time, and was obliged to wait in the front yard for the opening of the hall. Some of the dervishes were around there and treated us just as they treated the fence or the gate posts. They said nothing to us nor we to them, except that our guide made a feeble effort to ascertain when the affair would begin.
By the time the doors were opened the party of spectators numbered thirty or more—all strangers like ourselves. There was the usual trouble in removing boots, and the “Doubter” was obliged to call a couple of Turkish loafers to assist him in getting his feet in order, for admission. He caused considerable delay, and it was suggested that for the future he had better leave his boots at home, and set up for a monk of the bare-footed order.
When we were properly un-booted we were allowed to pass the doorway and stand in the interior of the convent.
The building is quite plain; the part that we saw was circular, and consisted of a space in the centre for sacred waltzes, with a floor carefully polished, and waxed to such an extent that it lacked very little to render it useful as a mirror. Around this arena there was a low balustrade, and between this balustrade and the walls was the station of the spectators. Our party of foreigners was allowed about a quarter of the space surrounding the ring, another portion was assigned to the musicians, while the remainder was devoted to Moslem spectators! Above this floor was a gallery supported by graceful columns; a part of the gallery was assigned to Moslem women, and there was a loge or box for the Sultan whenever he chooses to honor the dervishes with his presence. At one corner is a little box for women, furnished with gratings for them to peep through.
The ornamentation of the ball room was as simple as that of the mosques—no pictures nor statuary, but only texts from the Koran, some of them highly illuminated. On the left hung a large board, like a table of laws; to what use it could be put was a puzzle. Lamps are hung all around the building. To the right of the place of worship, under a projecting roof, and of an octagonal form, is a marble fountain, of fine execution. Here devout Moslems perform their ablutions, before entering the main theatre.
We waited some time, and it was no easy matter to wait, as we had to rest like the party at a public dinner when somebody proposes the memory of Washington—standing and in silence.
After a while a solemn old fellow wearing a hat an inch thick and shaped like a sugar-loaf, entered the ring and squatted on a small carpet which was spread just opposite the entrance. As soon as he was seated, the rest of the party, to the number of twenty-five or thirty, made their entrée and bowed very low before the first comer. He was sheik, or chief of the lot; the rest were the rank and file—the common fellows who were obliged to wait his orders.
They did not come in with a rush, but very slowly, one and two at a time, so that they consumed at least a quarter of an hour in getting into their places.
In bowing to the sheik they bent their bodies so that their backs became horizontal, and I longed for a spirit-level that I might ascertain if these fellows were on the square. Each of them wore a sugar-loaf hat like that of the boss, and like his, made of coarse felt of a reddish grey color. Each was wrapped in a long cloak of dark blue cloth, and as they stood in their places, they held these cloaks tightly around them. Later—after the service began, they threw aside these robes and revealed a long skirt of the same color, and not unlike a hoopless petticoat in its general appearance. The skirt was wide at the base, but gathered closely at the waist, and the part above the waist was by no means a bad fit.
The prayers began with the sheik in the centre, and there were many prostrations, bows and genuflections before they were ended. Then there was a chant, which was taken up by the orchestra, in which the only instruments were flutes and light drums or darboukas. The music was not at all disagreeable, but, like all Oriental melody, had a good deal of monotony mingled with its plaintiveness. Up to the opening of the music, the dervishes were standing in the arena, and as it began, they closed their eyes, and seemed to be indulging in a species of intoxication. In a few minutes one of them began to turn mechanically, and at the same time opened and extended his arms with the palm of his left hand turned upward, while that of the right was downward.
Scarcely was he under way before another, and then another set his engines in motion, and in a few minutes the whole party was under a full head of steam. They whirled so rapidly that the centrifugal force caused their skirts to expand and stand out at a sharp angle to the perpendicular, just as you have seen the dress of a fashionable woman extend itself during an exciting waltz. Sometimes they reminded me of so many pieces of machinery—their skirts forming a sort of cone.
These dervishes perform the double feat of whirling round and moving onwards at the same time.
Occasionally they revolve for awhile with both arms extended, like windmills.
Half of them appear to have their eyes closed, and to be dancing in a sort of drunken ecstacy, but somehow they did not run against each other, and the performance went on in good order. The chief whirled a little while with the rest, and then he moved about in the group urging the slow ones to whirl faster, and occasionally hurrying up the musicians, by beating time with his hands to a somewhat quicker measure. After a while he halted the music a couple of minutes, and the “whirlers”. slowed down to half speed and wiped off the perspiration. Several of the “whirlers” now drove back the surrounding crowd with sticks, and for about two minutes I thought there was a lively prospect of a first-class row.
The halt did not long continue. The chief gave a signal and the music began again as lively as “St. Patrick’s Day in the Morning,” for it was in double quick time, and made warm work for the gentlemen engaged. The whirling was now in dead earnest, and made the skirts expand like those of the première danseuse executing a pas seul when she revolves across the stage in her finale which is to secure her the thundering plaudits of the audience.
They whirled.
And whirled.
And they kept on whirling.
And they whirled some more.
And they kept it up until the brains of the spectators were in a whirl, and some of them (spectators, not brains) had their money’s worth and went away.
After a while one of the dervishes threw up the sponge (figuratively), by sinking down on the floor in a state of exhaustion and perspiration.
He was as pliable as a jelly-fish, and the attendants who came to his relief handled him with care through an apparent fear that he would drop to pieces. Soon another fell, and then a third, and then a fourth, and then the chief gave the signal for stopping the roulette. The dervishes had been on the whirl nearly twenty minutes, and were quite ready to finish the game. Towards the end I noticed that the toes of some of them were terribly cramped, and the veins of their feet swollen like drum cords.
They gathered up their morning wrappers, and after bowing profoundly to their chief, walked slowly from the room. This was the end of the affair, and we returned to the outer door where we mounted our boots, paid our “backsheesh” and departed.
None of these dervishes were corpulent, but whether from accident or design I am unable to say. They were all of a lean and hungry build, and all were pale in the face except one, who was a negro, and couldn’t have paled however much he wished to. Their exercise is not calculated to develop obesity, and if one should grow fat he would be obliged to change his profession, as he couldn’t keep up with the rest without killing himself with overwork. Their faces were not prepossessing as a general thing; some had a pleasing cast of features, but the majority were of an aspect decidedly forbidding.
Before we left the place I told our guide that I could give the chief a hint which might be of service to him.
“Tell the sheik that we have machinery in America which we use for drying clothes in large laundries. The clothes are put into a cylinder which revolves above five thousand times a minute, and throws the moisture out by the centrifugal force.”
“Yes, but that no good would be for ze dervish. He dry his clothes just like somebody else, and no have much clothes to dry.”
“Not for his clothes,” I replied, “but for the service we have just attended. Let them erect such a machine in their ball-room, and have it large enough to hold all the worshippers. Put them inside and start the engine, and they could do more whirling in, fifteen minutes than they can do in a week in the old fashioned way.”
“I think ze Moslem no like such machine, but I speak to ze sheik next time I see him. How much cost one machine?”
I went on to explain its cost and advantages to the innocent guide, who did not suspect that he was being hoaxed. Whether he spoke to the dervishes about it or not, I am unable to say, but at all events he never made any report of the matter to me.
The “Howling Dervishes” are another sort of devotees. Their convent where I visited them was more like a mosque than was that of the Whirlers, as it was much larger and had a high roof. The walls were bare of ornament, except of inscriptions from the Koran; on the side, where stood the altar, there was a lot of implements of warfare, including spears, arrows, old matchlocks, swords and various other odds and ends, all of an ancient appearance. We went through the usual process of leaving our boots at the door, but we were not obliged to stand during the performance. A polite attendant brought chairs enough for seating all the strangers, and thus made us comfortable. There were about fifty worshippers, and they stood in a semicircle, with their chief inside. He began a low chant which included one of the chapters of the Koran, and was joined in the chant by the rest of the party.
At each verse they threw their heads forward, with a jerk, and immediately threw them backwards. The chant was very soon concluded, and without any pause the chief started the formula, “la Hah! il Alla!”
Now we began to understand why these pious individuals were called “howlers.” The sound that they produced was more like the noise of a menagerie, when the keeper stirs up the beasts, than like the tones of the human voice. It was a rough and rather prolonged bark and howl, in which the word Allah! was all that could be understood. The movement of the head became an inclination of the whole body from the hips upward; at one instant the men were bent nearly double, and at the next they had their heads thrown forward, so that their faces were horizontal, and there seemed a probability that the worshippers would fall backward.
They had removed their turbans, as no head-dress could stand this wild motion, unless glued or nailed on. Many of them wore their hair long, and the masses of chevelure swung in the air like so many dirty mops, from which a kitchen-maid is endeavoring to shake the superfluous water.
The noise became frightful, and several ladies of the visiting party, as well as some of the gentlemen, had their money’s worth in a very little while.
Every minute or two some of the dervishes fell exhausted to the floor; two foamed at the mouth and became wildly insane, so that it was necessary for others to hold them, or carry them out of the room.
There were several negroes in the room, and I observed that they howled the worst and were first to become frenzied. They raved like mad men, and indeed they were for a time furiously mad. I am sure Bedlam would be considered a quiet and well-behaved place, in comparison with the mosque of the “Howling Dervishes.”
There were fifty or more Moslem spectators, and some of those on-lookers became so excited that they joined in the service and soon were as frenzied as the rest. Among them was a soldier—a negro—who had not been five minutes in the charmed circle before he fell writhing to the floor, and foamed at the mouth, as though he had swallowed an entire soda fountain.
The spectacle is far more disagreeable than that of the whirling dervishes. You want to go away, and you are held there by a strange fascination; you cannot imagine how things can be any worse than they are five minutes after the howling has begun, and yet you know perfectly well that it will be much worse before the end. You feel that you have had enough and you want to go, and then you feel that you ought to stay, as you will miss some of the fun by leaving.
I don’t know a place where one is more swayed by conflicting emotions than while assisting at the devotional exercises of these gentlemen. I think an American or Englishman feels very much as did the tender-hearted Romans (if there were any), at the gladiatorial combats in the Coliseum, or at the matinees, where the Christians “on the half-shell” were served up to tigers that had been on short rations for a fortnight.
Civilization in its advance into the Orient has robbed these dervish-entertainments of some of their interesting features. While the howling was going on, people used to bring sick persons, particularly children, and place them on a sheepskin spread on the floor inside the semi-circle. The chief stood upon these invalids and danced about on them, and this homoeopathic treatment was supposed to do the patients much good. If they recovered, it was natural enough that their cure should be considered miraculous; if they died it was in accordance with the will of God, and the dervishes could not be blamed for an occasional failure.
Then they used to wrap barbed chains around themselves, or around any person who had an inquiring turn of mind and wished to make an experiment.
They took down some of the swords and spears, and stuck the points into their arms and legs without manifesting any pain. In fact, they practiced a variety of tortures, or what seemed so to the infidel spectator.
When I went to the show that day, I was expecting a delightful time, as I had been reading a book in which all these entertainments were described. Soon after we entered the mosque, an officer with a couple of policemen at his side, came into the room and took his place against the wall, and inside the semi-circle, which was just then forming.
“What is that officer here for?” I inquired of the guide.
“He comes to regulate the behavior of the dervishes. To see that they do not tread on sick children, as they used to do, and to prevent the devotees from lacerating themselves.”
“And shall we have no tortures to-day?”
“None at all. The government forbids it.”
Imagine my disappointment. I had expected to lunch full of horrors, without returning to the hotel, and here I was cut down to seeing a lot of grown men make temporary maniacs of themselves, and to hear the worst human howling that ever saluted my cars. All the beautiful pictures that my fancy had painted of seeing sick children trodden under the feet of the priests, and pious devotees cutting themselves with swords and spears, had quite vanished and would never be realized.
The age of sentiment is gone. Shall we ever welcome its return?
The Oriental governments are slow to move, but they do move after all. Moslem fanaticism is every year diminishing, and many of its cruelties are brought to an end. Occidental civilization in its aggressive course has accomplished much, and will do more as time rolls on.
Most of these sects are not held in great esteem by the people, though there are many Moslems who believe that the whirling, howling, and other performances of these gentry, are caused by divine inspiration, and consequently should be held in reverence.
The Turkish government has on several occasions contemplated the suppression of some of the orders of dervishes, particularly those that possess considerable wealth. There are persons uncharitable enough to suppose that this contemplated suppression is induced by the fact that the property of the dervishes would revert to the government in case the sects were discontinued.
Some of the sects have a great deal of fasting and prayer, and make their ceremonies interesting by the addition of various bodily tortures. It is said that a sect was founded in the first century of the Hegira by a holy man named Uvies. Among other farewells to worldly pleasures, he required his followers to draw all their teeth, in remembrance of the Prophet’s loss of two teeth at a battle on behalf of Islam. Painless dentistry was not, then in vogue, as nobody had discovered chloroform, ether, or laughing gas. Uvies did not get very far with his sect, and it expired soon after his death. Another pious Moslem tried to start a sect of dervishes in which every member should have his eyes put out during the ceremony of initiation. He was obliged to be chief and all hands, as he never found anybody to join his order. The devout Mohammedans couldn’t see it.
Far-Away Moses, the Famous Guide—His Numerous Brothers—His Shop in the Great Bazaar—An Evening at the “Foreign Club”—Dreaming of Polyglots and the Tower of Babel—More “Backsheesh”—Passing the Custom House—How they Protect Home Manufactures—Standing Up for One’s Own Country—“Honesty ish te Besht Bolicy”—Borrowing Money at Twenty per cent.—The Start from Constantinople—A hint to Travelers—Sleeping in Public on the Stage—Interviewing the Purser—A Satisfactory Arrangement—Baron Bruck and his Career—Unwelcome Intruders—Classic Ground—One Trifling Peculiarity.
I HAD “done” the sights of Constantinople—bazaars, mosques, dogs, dervishes and other things—and was ready to depart.
I had even “done” and been “done” by Far-Away Moses, the famous guide whom Mark Twain has sent down to posterity, and had bought several articles in his shop.
Moses is guide and merchant, and when he is not attending to business in the one branch he is attending to it in the other.
He is a dignified Oriental with a Jewish cast of features, and he bows in a way that Mr. Turveydrop would envy. He has a shop—one shop—in the Great Bazaar, but a stranger might suppose that he owned half of Constantinople.
The guides and runners are on the lookout for Americans and are always ready to take them to the shop of Far-Away Moses. The joke of the matter is that they take them somewhere else, where they can get a larger commission on purchases, and invariably tell you that it is the shop of the venerable F. A. M., Esq. If you are familiar with the features of Moses, they tell you he is just out but you can trade quite as well with his brother who is on hand to accommodate you. But if you have not met the original you are introduced to some English-speaking Turk, Jew, or Christian who affectionately inquires after Mark Twain and hopes he is well and happy.
I think about seven dozen “brothers of Far-Away Moses” were pointed out to me, and they resembled him, each other, and themselves, about as much as a cup of coffee resembles a row of mixed drinks in an American bar room.
Moses admits that like the friend of Toodles “he had a brother” but he denies fraternal relations with all the “brothers” that hang about the bazaars and hotels.
Moses narrates an experience of his mercantile life such as we sometimes hear of in America. He shipped a lot of goods to Vienna at the time of the Exposition, and on these goods he figured a handsome profit on his mental slate. They were sent by steamer to Trieste, and thence by rail to Vienna. On arrival the boxes were found to contain old iron, straw, and pieces of wood, and Moses was in great grief, for the original lot had cost him about six hundred pounds sterling.
He tried to recover, but the two companies—steamboat and railway—played “Spenlow and Jorkins” on him most admirably. Each said that the robbery must have occurred while the boxes were in charge of the other concern, and after much trouble Moses received nothing by way of indemnity. Neither company would pay a centime until the locality of the robbery had been proved, and as this could not be shown, there was no payment. And to add to the loss he could not even recover the freight charges, which he had paid in full before removing the boxes from the railway station and discovering his loss. It rained cats and dogs for two days before I left, and, as Turkish sight-seeing requires fair weather, I was kept imprisoned most of that time in the hotel. Our Consul-General, Mr. Good-enow, kindly introduced me to the Foreign Club and enabled me to break the monotony of the evenings with a few hours in the luxurious house where the association has its home. To judge by the appearance of the club, its cuisine, and other things, the foreigners in Constantinople know how to live well, and are determined to practice what they know.
The club includes many nationalities—English, French, American, German, Russian, Italian, Greek, Spanish, Swiss, and others,—in its membership, and a visit to its rooms gives one an idea of the cosmopolitan character of the population of the Queen City of the Orient. Turks are not excluded, a Turkish gentleman being just as eligible to membership as any other. Diplomates, merchants, bankers, government officials, gentlemen of fortune with nothing to do, and the other miscellaneous characters that make up a club in a large city, were pointed out to me among the members that dined and lounged in the club-house.
French was the prevailing language, but you would hear enough of other tongues in the course of an evening to make you dream all night of the Tower of Babel, and the unhappy gentlemen that found it a losing speculation.
On the morning of our departure the weather cleared up, and we had the satisfaction of bidding farewell to Constantinople under a bright sky and in the glow of a warm sunshine. Our baggage was piled on the backs of some able-bodied porters, and we followed it and them down the hill of Pera, in the same solemn procession as we first mounted it.
The Custom House was lenient in consequence of a “backsheesh” of two francs, and the odds and ends that we had bought in the city were not disturbed.
Two of our party had laid in a liberal supply of Broussa silks and other specialties of Constantinople, and consequently they did not want the officials to be inquisitive. They thought they got off cheap at two francs, and I think they did.
And here is a good place to say something about the export duty on Turkish manufactures. The English, as we all know, are very earnest in advancing free trade; they have it, and want everybody else to enjoy its blessings. Whether their theories are right or wrong I do not propose to discuss, as I am not writing a book on political economy. England believes emphatically in free trade—free export and free import—and every Englishman would tell you that a tax on manufactured exports would be the very thing to cripple home industries.
I have been informed, whether with absolute truth I cannot say, but I believe my authority was good, that the Turkish export tax was imposed in consequence of the advice of the then British Minister at Constantinople. The Turkish cabinet sought his advice as to the best means of encouraging manufacture in the Ottoman empire and making them a source of revenue.
“Nothing simpler,” replied His Excellency the British Minister; “put a tax on your exports; make all your manufactures exported to foreign countries pay a tax, say, of ten per cent., and you will make a handsome revenue for the treasury, and enable the manufacturer to realize such, a profit as to stimulate your home industries to a wonderful extent. The protection and encouragement of home enterprise is the first duty of every government. England keeps a careful watch over her manufacturing interests and does everything to stimulate them, and you can see the result in the immense prosperity of our island.”
The embassador was faithful to the land he represented; he wasn’t going to make an ass of himself by telling the Turks anything that would tend to the injury of British commerce. If manufacturing industry was developed in Turkey, it would very likely interfere, in some branches, with Birmingham or Manchester, and this is what no true English representative would wish.
I like to see a man stand up for his country and his friends.
If you are a lawyer or bootmaker, a doctor or blacksmith, in a country village with just business enough for one, you don’t want a rival setting up there, and if any young fellow wants to know how to start in your trade and is determined to try, it is necessary to lie to him and put him on the wrong track, in order to be just to yourself and your family.
“Honesty ish de best bolicy,” said a clear headed German once upon a time, “but it keeps a man tam poor.”
When your advice is asked by your neighbor, don’t fly away with the notion that you want to do him any good.
Remember that charity and all other noble sentiments should begin at home, and be careful not to advise him to anything that will interfere with yourself.
Turkish manufactures have been for some time in a languishing condition. In the early part of the present century Turkey had several important industrial centres; the most noted of them were Bagdad, Aleppo, Dierbeker, Broussa, Smyrna, Scutari, and Tournovo. Aleppo alone had forty thousand weavers engaged in i making goods of silk or cotton, either mixed or single, and in producing cloth of silk or gold thread, for which Aleppo was famous. The city now has scarcely a fifth of her former number i of weavers; and in the other places, where there were extensive manufacturers, the business has fallen off in about equal proportion. Improved machinery in England and France, and the heavy taxes on manufactures, have caused the decline; and though the government has sought to revive Turkish industry, it has not yet succeeded.
The export trade of Turkey consists mainly of raw materials, such as wool, silk, cotton, tobacco, wheat, drugs, dyes, opium, honey, and sponges. The principal manufactured exports are carpets and red cloths. The value of the imports is about double that of the exports, and much of the raw stuff sent out of Turkey comes back in the shape of manufactured goods. And this state of affairs is steadily increasing.
Turkey has become so far civilized that she has saddled herself with a stupendous debt, borrowing the money in Europe, at enormous rates of interest, and then borrowing the money to pay that interest with. She has about as much prospect of paying it as the President of the Fat Men’s Association has of learning to fly and setting up for a carrier pigeon. She has miserable roads all through the interior of the country, and only within a few years has she given any attention to building railways. She has lots of palaces, and an immense fleet of iron-clads; and when any luxury is wanted she always finds the money to buy it.
When I was in Constantinople the further construction of the railway, that is intended to connect with the Austrian system, was stopped for the want of funds. “The government is very hard pressed just now for money,” said one of the officials, “and our docks and railways must wait.”
A week later the same gentleman met me and volunteered this important information:
“Six hundred sea-coast breech-loading cannon have been ordered from Krupp, the great fabricant of artillery, and the money for them is to be deposited in Paris within the next two months.”
Krupp does not make breech-loading cannon for nothing, and he generally has the money down before he makes them.
Turkey can find money enough when she wants palaces and ships of war, but she can’t afford railways and docks. Remember, there are no docks at Constantinople where a sea-going ship can lie. They want them, but cannot afford the expense.
Now that I have had my growl, we will go on as if nothing had happened.
We were rowed out to the steamer which lay at anchor, with steam up, and was announced to sail at ten o’clock.
For some reason the departure was delayed until nearly eleven, and in consequence of this detention there was a row between the captain and chief engineer. The latter was responsible for the consumption of coal; he had been told that the steamer would sail at ten, and it was not fair to burn up his coal while lying at anchor.
The captain replied chat he would sail when he got ready. Engineer threatened to report to the management—captain told him to mind his own business—and there were several other remarks of a lively character.
As soon as the engineer retired below, the captain hustled some of his friends over the side, and the steamer sailed. The threat to report to the management had its effect.
Memorandum for travellers in the Orient:
When you feel that any imposition has been practised on you by any high attaché of a steamship, don’t make a noisy row about it, but go quietly to the one who has offended you, and in calm and dignified tones ask him to give you the name and address of his managing director. Give him a card on which to write it, thank him politely for the address and walk away. In less than ten minutes you will obtain what you previously wanted, and quite likely more than you expected. The captains do not like to have complaints going to the management, and will do anything in reason to avoid it.
To illustrate:—I one day took passage on a steamer, and was on board half an hour before she sailed. I went at once to the purser’s office, paid my fare, and asked for a room. Purser said I could not have a room, but must sleep on a sofa in the cabin.
Now, if there is one thing that I dislike more than another, it is to sleep in public on the stage in presence of a crowded audience. I want a room to myself when it can be had, as I know that while sleeping I appear best alone. And I always secure my passage early for this very reason. In the present instance, I had visited the office of the company in a vain effort to secure a place. The agent told me the tickets were sold only by the purser.
On the back of my ticket was the announcement that no room could be secured until paid for. I waited around the office, and after the boat left the port, half-a-dozen men, of the same nationality as the purser, came and paid their fare, and were assigned to rooms. Then I went to the office and complained of unjust treatment; the purser said he could do nothing for me, and unless I was careful, I wouldn’t have so much as a sofa in the cabin.
I went to the captain and complained, and the captain referred my case to the purser.
Then I returned to the purser, and put on a calm exterior, though I felt inside as explosive as an overcharged soda-fountain.
“Will you be so kind,” I said, “as to give me the address of the managing director of this company?”
“Why do you want it?”
“I have occasion to write him a letter on business of the company.”
“What business?”
“A mere trifle. Never mind what it is. It will interest him, and be beneficial to the company.”
“The name of the managing director is —————”
“Please write it on the back of this card,” and I gave him my personal card, on which to inscribe the name. The purser turned red, pale, blue, green, yellow, pink, crimson, ultra-marine, and scarlet; he could have sold his face at a high price just then to a maker of kaleidoscopes. He began writing, stopped, began again, and altogether was at least two minutes in writing the name and postal direction.
When he had finished I took the card, stowed it away in my pocket, and retired to the deck, where I proceeded to solace myself with a cigar and a study of the receding shores.
Two minutes after I reached the deck, I saw the purser and captain in deep consultation near the wheel-house. Two minutes later the purser, cap in hand, came to me, and said to me that one of the reserved rooms had not been claimed, and was at my disposal. Would I condescend to look at it?
I condescended, and descended to the cabin. The room was comfortable, and all my fancy had painted it. I was mollified, thanked the purser for his politeness, ordered the steward to! bring my baggage, and was speedily installed in the apartment. The purser could not have been more civil to the governor of the Fejee Islands than he was to me during the rest of the voyage.
We steamed out of the harbor of Constantinople towards the Sea of Marmora.
First vanished the shipping in the Golden Horn, and the never-ceasing stream of people crossing the bridge of boats. Then the irregular terraces of many-colored houses in Fera and Golata were lost to sight, though to memory dear; and then our eyes lingered on Stamboul with its mosque-crowned hills, and the Seraglio palace with its surroundings of groves jutting into the widening mouth of the Bosphorus. The sunlight played on the roofs, and domes, and minarets of Stamboul, and brightened the hills that formed the back-ground of the picture.
Long time the city remained in view, but at last it became a jagged strip of white in the horizon, then a scarcely perceptible streak like a sandy beach by the sea shore, and then it was lost to sight altogether.
I repeat what I have said elsewhere, that by far the best approach to Constantinople is by the Black Sea, and not from the Sea of Marmora; not only as concerns the city itself, but with reference to the charming panorama of the Bosphorus, which becomes more and more brilliant each mile that we advance, until at last the anchor drops at the entrance of the Golden Horn, and we stand in front of the Queen of the Orient.
The steamer that carried us belonged to the Austrian Lloyds (Lloyd Austriaco).
The company has a fleet of some forty steamers engaged in the navigation of the Mediterranean and adjoining seas, and it has its headquarters at Trieste.
In 1833 one Baron Bruck established at Trieste a reading room and marine exchange similar to the celebrated Lloyd’s at London and from which he took the name. The members of the exchange became a powerful company for commercial and industrial purposes.
In 1836, it established a newspaper which still exists; in 1837, it started a line of steamers; and in 1849, an institution devoted to printing and art. It has become a most important association and exerts a powerful influence upon the politics and finance of the Austrian Empire. Its founder became the Austrian minister of finance, but owing to certain jealousies he was removed in 1860.
His mortification at his downfall terminated in suicide.
To travel on the ships of this company costs on the average about twelve dollars a day (gold), inclusive of passage, room, and meals. Wine is charged extra, and the steward expects a financial remembrance when you bid him farewell. The servant who has attended you at table is likewise on hand when money is visible, and is generally more civil then than at other times.
During most of the day the mountains on the coast of the Sea of Marmora were in sight but too far away to be little more than outlines. We passed the Dardanelles at night, while all of us were in our bunks, which proved to be the happy hunting grounds of many members of the well-known sporting family, Cimex lectularius.
We were not greatly refreshed by our slumber, and passed a unanimous vote that the next time we were obliged to travel on that line we would seek passage on another steamer.
Morning found us running among the islands of the Greek Archipelago, and there was not an hour of the entire day when we did not have some of them in sight. They had a bleak, barren appearance, as they contained scarcely any trees on the sides visible to us, and the slopes of the rocky shores were very steep. There were not many indications of inhabitants, but now and then we could see villages near the water or perched high up the sides of the mountains, where it evidently required a great deal of glue to make them stick.
I am somewhat confused as to the names of the islands we passed and cannot attempt to give them all. I will only venture on Lemnos, Skyros, Andros, Tinos, and Kuthnos, and I won’t be very sure about these. There were Delos and Naxos, Melos and Kimolos, Mykonos and Paros and there were more ‘oses if anybody wants them. We were not a very large party and there were more islands than enough to go around. And then there were some other islands that like the lion in the boy’s picture book, couldn’t get any prophet Daniel.
The Greek Archipelago is scattered around promiscuously; it would have been vastly more convenient if the islands had been set up in rows like potato-hills, but I suppose they would not have been so picturesque as they are in their present arrangement.
I observed one geographical peculiarity and made a note of it, that every island, without regard to size or position, was surrounded by water.