The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume X Part 20

Agriculture is even in a worse state. One often hears the complaint that the cost of all the necessities of life has increased in Constantinople fourfold since the annihilation of the Janizaries, as if heaven had decreed this punishment on those who exterminated the "soldiers of Islam." The fact, while true, should probably be explained differently, for, since the events referred to, the great granaries of the capital, Moldavia, Wallachia, and Egypt, which formerly had to send half of their harvests to the Bosphorus, have been closed. In the interior n.o.body will undertake the growing of grain on a large scale, because the government makes its purchases according to prices of its own choosing. The forced purchases by the government are a greater evil for Turkey than her losses by fire and the plague combined. They not only undermine prosperity, but they also cause its springs to dry up. As a result the government must buy its grain in Odessa, while endless stretches of fertile land, under a most benignant sky and at only an hour's distance from a city of eight hundred thousand people, lie untilled.

The outer members of this once powerful political body have died, and the heart alone has life. A riot in the streets of the capital may be the funeral procession of the Ottoman Empire. The future will show whether it is possible for a State to pause in the middle of its fall and to reorganize itself, or whether fate has decreed that the Mohammedan-Byzantine Empire shall die, like the Christian-Byzantine Empire, of its fiscal administration. The peace of Europe, however, is apparently less menaced by the danger of a foreign conquest of Turkey than by the extreme weakness of this empire, and its threatened collapse within itself.

A TRIP TO BRUSSA

TRANSLATED BY EDMUND VON MACH, PH.D.

[This is the fourteenth of the Letters Concerning Conditions and Events in Turkey. It is dated from Pera, June 16, 1836.]

Yesterday I returned from a short excursion to Asia, which I really should describe for you in poetry, because I ascended Mount Olympus.

But since I did not reach the summit, and did not climb farther than the foot, or more properly speaking the toe, of the giant you will get off with prose.

I embarked on the eleventh, in the afternoon, in a small Turkish vessel, and a fresh north wind carried us in four hours to the rocky promontory of Posidonium (today Bosburun, the point of ice), a distance of eight miles. Here the sea was running very high, and our _reis_, or helmsman, who was squatting on the high and delicately carved stern of the ship, was beginning to chant his _Allah ekber_--G.o.d is merciful--when the wind died down so completely toward dusk that we did not reach Mudania before eight o'clock next morning.

The horses were soon ready, and up to Brussa I pa.s.sed through a country that was doubly charming after the lonesomeness of Roumelia, which had been all I had seen for six months. Everything is under cultivation, planted less with corn than with vines and mulberry trees. The latter, which serve as food for the silkworms, are trimmed low like bushes, with the crowns cut off, as we do with willows. Their large bright green leaves cover the fields far and wide. The olive trees grow here in groves of no mean size, but they have to be planted. The whole richly cultivated country reminds one of Lombardy, especially of the hilly landscape near Verona The distant view is as magnificent as the foreground is lovely. On one side you see the Sea of Marmora and the Princess Islands, and on the other the glorious Mount Olympus, whose snow-clad peak rises above a broad girdle of clouds. The flowering vineyards filled the air with rich scent, a.s.sisted by caprifolium blossoms in luxuriant growth, and a yellow flower the name of which I do not know.

When we had crossed a ridge of low hills, we saw Brussa stretched out before us in a green plain at the foot of Mt. Olympus. It is indeed difficult to decide which one of the two capitals of the Ottoman rulers is more beautifully situated, the oldest or the newest, Brussa or Constantinople. Here the sea and there the land bewitches you. One landscape is executed in blue, the other in green. Relieved against the steep and wooded slopes of Mt. Olympus, you see more than one hundred white minarets and vaulted domes.

The mountain rises to the regions of almost perpetual snow, and supplies the inhabitants of Brussa with wood to warm themselves in winter and with ice for their sherbet in summer. A river, called Lotos, winds its course through rich meadows and fields of mulberry trees, where giant nut trees with dark foliage and light green planes, white minarets and dark cypress trees rise to the sky. Vines climb up the mighty trunks and attach themselves to the branches, whence they droop again to earth, while Caprifolium plants and thriving creepers superimpose themselves on the vines. Nowhere have I seen such a wide and thoroughly green landscape, except from the tower of Lubbenau, overlooking the woods along the Spree. But here you have in addition the richer vegetation and the glorious mountains which surround the plain. The abundance of water is surprising; everywhere brooks are rushing along and springs are gushing from the rocks, ice cold and boiling hot, side by side. In every part of the city, even in the mosques, water is bubbling from countless fountains.

As is the case with all Turkish cities, the beautiful picture vanishes the moment you enter Brussa. The smallest German town surpa.s.ses Constantinople, Adrianople, or Brussa in the charm of its buildings and still more in comfort. Only the mosques and the _Hanns_, or caravansaries, the fountains and public baths are magnificent. In the earlier times of the Ottoman monarchy no ruler was permitted to build a mosque before he had won a battle against the infidels. The mosques in Brussa are smaller and less beautiful than those which were built later, but they possess the added interest of historical memories.

There you find such names as Orchan, Suliman, Murad, in short, all the heroes of the victorious period of Islam.

The mosque of Bajasid attracted me most because of its excellent architecture. Bajasid is the man whom the Turks call Ilderim, or the Lightning. The monument of the mighty conqueror, who himself was conquered and died in a cage according to the legend, stands alone in the shadow of mighty cypress trees. The largest of the mosques used to be a Christian cathedral. It is lighted from above, the middle vault having been left open. The beautiful Asiatic starry sky itself has become its vault. The opening is covered with a wire screen, and below it in a wide basin a fountain is playing.

I will not say that even the largest mosques, the Sultan Selim, for instance, in Adrianople, or Sulamanich in Constantinople, make the same impression or inspire the same reverence as St. Stephan's in Vienna, or the cathedrals of Freiburg and Stra.s.sburg. But every mosque, even the smallest, is beautiful. There is nothing more picturesque than the semi-circular, lead-covered domes and the slender, white minarets rising above the mighty planes and cypresses.

When the Ottomans conquered the provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire they preserved the Greek Church architecture, but they added the minarets, which are of Arabian origin.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COUNT MOLTKE]

The _Hanns_ are the only stone dwelling-houses to be found. They are built in the shape of rectangles with an open court. Here, at least in the larger ones, you will find a mosque, a fountain, a small kiosk for n.o.ble travelers, and a few mulberry trees or plane trees. All about the court there is a colonnade with pointed arches; and, beyond that, rows of cells, each one with its individual vault. A mattress of straw is the only furniture for the traveler, who finds neither service nor food in these _Hanns_.

We dined in thoroughly Turkish fashion at the _Kiebabtshi_. After our hands had been washed we sat down, not at but on the table, where my legs were terribly in the way. Then the _Kiebab_, or small piece of mutton, broiled on the spit and rolled in dough, was served on a wooden platter. It is very good and tasty. It was followed by salted olives, which are wonderful, by the _helva_, i. e., the favorite sweet dish, and by a bowl of sherbet. This consists of water poured over grapes and thoroughly iced. The whole dinner for two hearty eaters cost one hundred and twenty paras, or five shillings.

The comforts of the Turkish baths I have described to you in an earlier letter. The baths of Brussa are distinguished, because they are not artificially but naturally heated, and so much so that you would not think it possible, at first, to enter the great basin of clear water without being parboiled before you could leave it again.

From the terrace of our bath we had a beautiful view, and it was so comfortable there that we hated to leave.

On the thirteenth we rode to Kemlik, at the end of the Bay of Mudania, where there is a dockyard. This is the most beautiful spot I have seen. The clear surface of the sea is lost here between the high and steep mountains, which leave just enough s.p.a.ce for the little town and the olive woods. Twilight is very brief in this country, and night had come when we reached the town gate, but what a night! Although the moon happened to be new, objects were distinguishable at a considerable distance, while the evening star shines here so brightly that shadows are cast by its light.

At three o'clock in the morning we were again in the saddle, riding toward the East through a valley and between high mountains, along the same road which Walther von Habenichts once followed with his twelve thousand crusaders. The hills were covered with olive trees and flowering bushes filled with nightingales. At sunset we reached the extensive lake of Isnik. The gigantic walls and towers on the opposite sh.o.r.e used to protect a powerful city, for which the crusaders often fought. Today they surround the few miserable huts and rubbish heaps which centuries ago were Nicea. It was here that an a.s.sembly of one hundred learned bishops expounded the mystery of the Trinity, and decided to burn all who held a different view. What would these proud prelates have said if a man had prophesied to them that the time would come when their rich and mighty city would be a rubbish heap, and their cathedral the ruins of a Turkish mosque; when the empire of the Greek emperors would be destroyed, and their own exegesis, yes, even their entire religion, would have disappeared from these parts, and when for hundreds of miles and through hundreds of years the name of the camel-driver of Medina would be the only one in the mouths of the people.

The Moslems, who abhor all pictures, have covered with whitewash the paintings in the Greek churches. In the Cathedral of Nicea, where the famous council was held, there glistens even today through the white coating of the wall, where the high altar used to be, the proud promise, I.H.S. (_in hoc signo_, i. e., under this sign, the cross, you will win). But directly over it is written the first dogma of Islam, "There is no G.o.d but G.o.d." There is a lesson of tolerance in these faded inscriptions, and it seems as if Heaven itself wished to listen as well to the _Credo_ as to the _Allah il allah_. One of the chief pursuits of the honest Turks is what they call _Kief etmek_, literally "creating a mood." It consists of drinking coffee in a comfortable place and smoking. Such a place _par excellence_ I found in the village where we made a stop. Imagine a plane which extends its colossal branches horizontally for almost one hundred feet, burying in its deep shadow the nearest houses. The trunk of the tree is surrounded by a small terrace of stone, below which water is gushing from twenty-seven pipes in streams as thick as your arm, and rushing off as a lively brook. Here, with their legs crossed, the Turks sit, practising--silence.

A JOURNEY TO MOSSUL

TRANSLATED BY EDMUND VON MACH, PH.D.

[This is the forty-third letter of Moltke's Letters from Turkey, and is dated from Dshesireh on the Tigris, May 1, 1838.]

I told you in my last letter that we should be going on an expedition against the Arabs. This did not materialize. Nevertheless, I had the opportunity of making the acquaintance of a very interesting part of the country. On April 15, von Muhlbach, I, and two fully armed _agas_ of the pasha, together with our servants and dragomans, embarked on a vessel built in a style well known even in the times of Cyrus, a raft supported by inflated sheep-skins. The Turks look upon hunting as a sin, they despise venison and beef, but eat an enormous quant.i.ty of sheep and goats. The skins of these animals are cut in front as little as possible and removed from the carca.s.s with great care. Then they are sewed up and the extremities tied up. When the skin is inflated (which is done quickly and without touching the skin to the mouth) it is exceedingly buoyant and can hardly be made to sink. From forty to sixty such bags are tied together in four or five rows under a light framework of branches. There generally are eight skins in front and eighteen in the back. The whole is covered with a litter of leaves over which rugs and carpets are spread. Taking your seat on these you glide downstream with utmost comfort. Because the current is swift, oars are not needed for progress, but only for steering the raft, keeping it in the middle of the course, and avoiding the dangerous rapids. On account of these rapids we had to tie up every night until the moon was up, but in spite of this we covered the distance, which by land would have taken us eighty-eight hours, in three and one-half days. The river, therefore, must flow with an average velocity of almost four miles per hour. In places it is much swifter, and in others decidedly slower.

The Tigris leaves the mountains near Argana-Maaden, and flows past the walls of Diarbekir, where it is apt to cause slight inundations in summer time. It then receives the Battman river flowing in a southerly direction from the high Karsann-Mountains and carrying more water into the Tigris than this river contained before. Immediately after the union of these two rivers the Tigris enters another mountainous territory formed of sandstone. The gentle curves of the broad and shallow river are transformed into the sharp criss-cross angles of a ravine. The banks are abrupt, often vertical on both sides; and on top of some steep, rocky slopes your eye may discover groves of dark-green palms, and in their shadows the settlements of tribes of Kurds, who in this region are mostly cave-dwellers.

The town of Ha.s.sn-Kejfa (Hossu-Keifa), situated on a high rock whence a narrow staircase descends to the river, offers a most unusual aspect. The old city below has been destroyed, and only a few minarets still pointing to the sky indicate that mosques and houses once stood here. The inhabitants were obliged to retreat to the top of the cliff, where they built a wall of defence on the only accessible side. In the narrow ravine I discovered huge blocks which had rolled down from above. People have hollowed them and are using them as dwelling places. These "huts" today make up a small, very irregular town, which, however, possesses even a bazaar. By far the most noteworthy remains are the ruins of a bridge which used to cross the Tigris.

There was one gigantic arch with a span of between eighty and one hundred feet. I do not know whether the credit for such a daring structure should be given to the Armenian kings or the Greek emperors, or perhaps even to the califs.

It is impossible to travel more comfortably than we did. Stretched out on downy pillows, and provided with victuals wine, tea, and a charcoal basin, we moved down the stream with the rapidity of an express coach and without the least exertion. But the element which propelled us persecuted us in another form. Rain poured from the sky incessantly after our departure from Diarbekir. Our umbrellas no longer protected us, and our cloaks, garments and carpets were soaked. On Easter day, just as we were leaving Dshesireh, the sun broke through the clouds, warming our stiffened limbs. About two miles below the city the ruins of another bridge across the Tigris are still in existence, and one of its piers creates a fierce whirlpool whenever the water is high. The exertions of the men at the oars were of no avail, and irresistibly our small ark was attracted by this charybdis. With the speed of an arrow we were sucked down below the surface, and a big comber broke over our heads. The water was icy cold, and when in the next moment our raft, which had not capsized, continued its way downstream as innocently as if nothing had happened we could not help laughing at one another, for we were a sad looking sight, everyone of us. The charcoal basins had gone overboard, a boot swam alongside, while each one of us hastened to fish out some little object. We made a landing on a small island, and since our bags were as thoroughly soaked as we were ourselves, we had to disrobe and spread our entire toilet in the sun to dry as well as possible. At some distance a flock of pelicans were taking their rest on a sandbank and sunning their white plumage as if in derision of our plight. Suddenly we saw that our raft had got loose and was floating off. One of the _agas_ immediately jumped after it and fortunately reached it. If he had failed we should have been left on a desert island in nothing but nature's own garb.

When we were tolerably dry we continued our journey, but renewed downpours spoiled the moderate results of our previous efforts. The night was so dark that we had to tie up, for fear of being drawn into other whirlpools. In spite of the biting cold, and although we were wet to the skin, we did not dare to light a fire which might have attracted the Arabs. We silently pulled our raft into the shelter of a willow tree and waited longingly for the sun to appear from behind the Persian frontier mountains and to give us warmth.

Not far from Dshesireh the Tigris enters another plain and leaves behind the high and magnificent Dshudid mountains on whose bright and snow-clad peaks Noah and his mixed company are said to have disembarked. From here on the scenery is very monotonous; you rarely see a village, and most of those you see are uninhabited and in ruins.

It is apparent that you have entered the country of the Arabs. There are no trees, and where a small bush has survived it is a _siareth_ or sanctuary, and is covered with countless small rags. The sick people here, you must know, believe they will recover when they sacrifice to the saint a small part of their garments.

On the top of an isolated mountain of considerable height we could see at a great distance the ruins of an old city. When we approached it we actually pa.s.sed along three sides of this mountain, on the north, east and south. The city was, I suppose, the ancient Bezabde of which the records say that it was situated in the desert and surrounded on three sides by the Tigris. Sapor laid siege to it after he had taken Amida and, when he had captured its three legions, gave it a Persian garrison.

Gliding past the ruins of the so-called old Mossul we discovered toward evening the minarets of Mossul. This is the most easterly point which I have visited, and my Turkish companions had to face west when they offered their evening prayer, while in Constantinople the moslems are looking for the _Kibla_ in the southeast.

Mossul is the important half-way station for the caravans from Bagdad to Aleppo. Being situated in an oasis of the desert the city must at all times be on the lookout against the Arabs. The walls which completely surround the city are weak but high, and offer sufficient protection against the irregular bands of mounted Bedouins. The Bab-el-amadi gate, mentioned in the time of the crusaders, is still standing, although it has been walled up. Most of the dwellings are built of sun-dried bricks and a kind of mortar which hardens within a few seconds. Following an Oriental custom great weight is attached to beautiful and large entrance doors (_Bab_). You can see arched portals of marble (which is quarried immediately outside the city gates) in front of houses and mudhuts the roofs of which scarcely reach to the points of the arches. The roofs are flat, made of stamped earth (_Dam_), and are surrounded by low walls and parapets. In most of the larger houses you can see traces of their having been hit by bullets, and the fortress-like aspect of these dwellings reminds you of the palaces of Florence, except that here everything is smaller, humbler and less perfect.

The inhabitants of Mossul are a remarkable mixture of the original Chaldean populace and the Arabs, Kurds, Persians and Turks who successively have ruled over them. The common speech is Arabic.

Indshe-Bairaktar, the governor, received us with great courtesy and had us quartered with the Armenian Patriarch. The Nestorian and Jacobite Christians of Mossul have the most beautiful churches I have seen in Turkey, but they are living in discord and hatred. One of these churches happened to belong, I do not know why, to two congregations, and since everything which the one did in these sacred halls was an abomination in the eyes of the other, the beautiful vault had been divided by a brick wall directly in the centre.

Our Jacobite Patriarch was greatly troubled about having to house heretics, but he much preferred us to Nestorians or Greeks. Since no Christians, moreover, had ever been received with so much honor by the Pasha, and the most important Mussulmans came to pay us their respects, he treated us well, and even sold me a Bible in Arabic and Syrian (Chaldean).

In the northwesterly corner of the city the plateau falls off abruptly toward the river. Here the water of the Tigris is raised by a contrivance, which makes use of a high kind of derrick, leathern hose, and a rope which is pulled by a horse. The long nozzle of the hose empties into huge brick basins whence the water is distributed over fields and gardens. But only the empty areas within the walls and the fields adjacent to the city are cultivated. If only a fraction of all the water rushing past Mossul could be used for irrigation purposes this whole country would be one of the most fertile of the world. This idea undoubtedly induced the people ages ago to build the powerful stone dikes which hem in the course of the river a few hours above the city. Surely, it would not be difficult to irrigate all the fields from there, but the Arabs hovering about the city make the harvesting of the crops too uncertain.

There is a bazaar especially for the Arabs immediately outside the walls of Mossul, built there for the purpose of keeping these suspicious characters from entering the city proper. Over the confusion of many small mud-huts some slender palm trees rise to majestic heights, the last ones of the desert. These palms are like reeds grown to the proportions of trees. They are typical of the south, and give confidence to the Arabs who seem to feel that they are way up north and yet still in the land of the myrrh and the incense.

Here the children of the desert congregate and, pushing their bamboo-spears into the sand--point down, squat on the ground to admire the glory of a city--even though it be a city which affects the European with the very opposite of glory, but which for hundreds of miles has no equal.

Perhaps no people have preserved their character, customs, morals, and speech as unchanged through centuries as the Arabs, and have done so in spite of the most manifold changes in the world at large. They were nomads, shepherds and hunters roving over little-known deserts, while Egypt and a.s.syria, Greece and Persia, Rome and Byzantium rose and fell. And then, inspired by one idea, these same nomads suddenly rose in their turn and for a long time became the masters of the most beautiful valley of the old world, and were the bearers of the then civilization and science. One hundred years after the death of the Prophet, his first followers, the Sarazenes, ruled from the Himalayas to the Pyrenees, and from the Indies to the Atlantic Ocean. But Christianity and its higher spiritual and material perfection, yes even its intolerance, which its high morality should have made impossible, drove the Arabs back again from Europe. The rude force of the Turks undermined their rule in the Orient, and for the second time the children of Ishmael saw themselves driven out into the desert.

Those Arabs who had reached a higher state of culture, and had settled down to the pursuit of agriculture, commerce, or industry, had to sink the lower before the oppression of a rule of iron. The artificial dealings of a government trying to imitate European methods, and the a.s.sistance of the Franks, the introduction of the census and of taxes, of duties and monopolies, standing armies and conscriptions, the barter of offices and the leasing of custom houses, slavery and the vices of the east, together with the energy, indomitable will and marvelous luck of Mehmet Ali, all combined in one grand achievement--I mean the monumental tyranny, never yet equalled, under which the fellahs today are groaning in Egypt and the Arabs in Syria, and under which a whole country has been transformed into a private domain, and a whole people into personal slaves.

By far the greater part of the Arabic nation, however, had remained true to its old customs, and no despotism could get hold of them. The extent of the Asiatic and African deserts, their fiery sky and parched soil, and the poverty of the inhabitants have ever been the protection of the Arabs. The rule of the Persians, the Romans, and the Greeks was never more than partial, and often existed only in name.

The Bedouin today, like his fathers of old, is still living the life of want, care, and independence, roving through the same steppes as they, and watering his herds from the same wells as they did in the time of Moses or of Mahomet.

The oldest descriptions of the Arabs fit the Bedouins of our day.

Unquenchable feuds are still dividing the several tribes, the possession of a pasturing place or of a well still determines the welfare of many families, and blood-feuds and hospitality still are the vices and virtues of this people of nature. Wherever along their frontiers the Arabs come in contact with foreign nations war is the result. The children of Abraham divided among themselves the rich and fertile countries, while Ishmael and his tribe were cast out into the desert. Shut off from all the other people the Arabs consider foreigners and foes to be identical and, unable to procure for themselves the products of industry, they believe they are justified in appropriating them wherever they find them.