The Ship Dwellers Part 12

INTO THE DARDANELLES

We saw but little of the Isles of Greece. It was night and we were tired after a hard day; most of us, I think, turned in early. Now and then a light--a far tiny speck--appeared in one quarter or another--probably a signal beacon; that was all.

But in the morning--it was soon after breakfast--a gray bank rose up out of the sea, and the word went round that it was Asia. That was a strange thing for a boy who had been brought up on the prairies of the Middle West--to look across the bow and see Asia coming up out of the sea. It brought back a small, one-room, white district schoolhouse, dropped down on the bleak, level prairie, and geography-cla.s.s of three, standing in a row and singing to the tune of _Old Dan Tucker_ the rhymes of the continents:

"Asia sixteen millions, The largest of the five grand divisions."

It was not much of a rhyme, nor much of a tune, but there was a swing in the way we did it which fixed those facts for life. They came back now, and I had to get hold of myself a little to realize that this was the same Asia with all those square miles--the land of the Arabian Nights, of the apostles and the patriarchs--the wonderful country I had one day hoped to see. And presently we were off the Plains of Troy, pa.s.sing near where the ships of the Greeks lay anch.o.r.ed, all of which seemed very wonderful, too, I thought. We were in the Dardanelles, then, following the path of those first Argonauts who set sail with Jason, and of that later band who set out in the _Quaker City_, forty-two years ago. No lack of history and tradition and old a.s.sociation here.

But how one's information does go to seed; all of us knew something, but none of us knew much. Not one of us knew positively whether the h.e.l.lespont was the same as the Dardanelles or as the Bosporus, and when, with the help of the guide-book, we decided that it was the former, we fell into other luminous debates as to where Leander swam it when he was courting Hero and where Xerxes built his bridge. The captain said that both these things took place at Abydos, which he pointed out to us, and then we were in trouble right away again as to whether this was the Abydos of Lord Byron's poem, or merely another town by the same name. At all events it was not much of a place.

On the whole, the sh.o.r.es of the Dardanelles are mostly barren and uninteresting, with small towns here and there and fortifications. At one place some men came out in a boat and went through the formality of letting us enter the country. It did not seem much of a permission; I could have given it myself. But I suppose we had to have theirs; otherwise they might have reached us with some kind of a gun.

We entered the Sea of Marmora, pa.s.sed a barren island or two; then the sh.o.r.es fell back beyond the horizon, and most of us put in the rest of the day pretending to read up on Constantinople. It was dark when we dropped anchor in the mouth of the Bosporus, and we were at dinner--a gala dinner, after which we danced. A third of the way around the world to the westward, in a country called America, a new President would be inaugurated to-morrow, and in the quiet dusk of our anchorage, with the scattered lights of Asia blinking across from one side and a shadowy, mysterious grove and a fairy-lighted city on the other, we celebrated that great occasion in the West and our arrival at the foremost mart of the East by dancing before Stamboul.

That should have ended our day, but when we were about to break up, a boat-load or two of uniformed officials with distinctly Oriental faces and fezzes came aboard and opened business in the after cabin, going through our pa.s.sports. Then for an hour or so there was most extraordinary medley of confused tongues. We had all our own kinds going at once and several varieties of Constantinoplese besides. And what an amazing performance it was, altogether--something not to be equalled anywhere else on the earth, I imagine, unless in Russia--a sufficient commentary on the progress and enlightenment of these two laggard nations.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ONE'S AGE, STATED ON OATH, GOES WITH A Pa.s.sPORT]

Curious how some of our ladies hesitate about showing their pa.s.sports.

One's age, stated on oath, goes with a pa.s.sport.

XVIII

A CITY OF ILLUSION

I suppose there is no more beautiful city from the outside and no more disheartening city from the inside than Constantinople. From the outside it is all fairyland and enchantment; from the inside it is all grime and wretchedness. Viewed from the entrance of the Bosporus, through the haze of morning, it is a vision. Viewed from a carriage driven through the streets it becomes a nightmare. If one only might see it as we did--at sunrise, with the minarets and domes lifting from the foliage, all aglow with the magic of morning--and then sail away from that dream spectacle, his hunger unsatisfied, he would hold at least one supreme illusion in his heart.

For that is what it is--just an illusion--the most superb fantasy in the whole world. We left anchorage soon after sunrise and moved over abreast of Galata a little below the bridge that crosses the Golden Horn and connects this part of Constantinople with Stamboul. We are lying now full length against the street, abreast of it, where all day long a soiled, disordered life goes on. It is a perpetual show, but hardly a pleasing one. It is besmirched and raucous; it is wretched.

Hawkers, guides, beggars, porters weave in and out and mingle vociferously. To leave the ship is to be a.s.sailed on every side. Across the street is a row of coffee-houses where unholy music and singing keep up most of the time. Also, there are dogs, scores of them--a wolfish breed--and they are seldom silent. This is the reverse of the picture.

As the outside is fairyland, so this is inferno.

We battled our way to our carriages and drove across the bridge to Stamboul. Perhaps it would be better there. But that was a mistake--it was worse. We entered some narrow, thronging streets--a sort of general market, I should say--that fairly reeked with offal. We saw presently that nearly everybody wore rubbers, or stilted shoes--wooden sandal things, with two or three inches of heel and sole--and we understood why; it was to lift them out of the filth. I have had dreams where, whichever way I turned, lay ordure and corruption, with no way out on any side. Such dreams were hardly worse than this. A pa.s.senger of our party--a lady--said afterwards:

"When we drove through those streets I felt as if I had died and gone to h.e.l.l."

Yet on the whole, I think h.e.l.l would be cleaner. I am sure it would not smell so. I have no special preference for brimstone, but I would have welcomed it as we drove through those Constantinople streets.

I know what they smell like; I can describe it exactly: they smell like a garbage-can. Not the average garbage-can--fairly fresh and leading the busy life--but an old, opulent, tired garbage-can--one that has been filled up and overlooked, in August. Now and then at home a can like that gets into the garbage-wagon, and when that wagon comes along the street on a still summer morning it arrests attention. I have seen strong men turn pale and lovely women totter when that can went by.

It would have no distinction in Constantinople. The whole city is just one vast garbage-can, and old--so old--why, for a thousand years or more they have been throwing stuff into the streets for the dogs to eat up, and the dogs can't eat some things, and so--

Never mind; enough is enough; but if ever I get home, and if ever I want to recall vividly this vision of the East, I shall close my eyes when that garbage-wagon drives by, and once more the panaroma--panorama, I mean--of these thronging streets will unfold; I shall be transported once more to the heart of this busy city; I shall see again all the outlandish dress, all the strange faces, all the mosques and minarets, all the magic of the Orient, and I shall say, "This is it--this is the spicy East--this is Constantinople--Allah is indeed good!"

It was at the entrance of the mosque of St. Sophia--a filthy entrance through a sort of an alley--that we heard our first cry of "Baksheesh!"--a plaintive cry from a pretty, pathetic little girl who clung to us, and called it over and over like the cry of a soul being dragged to perdition--"Bak-she-_e-e-sh_! Bak-_sh-e-e-e-sh_!" a long-drawn-out wail. Not one of us who would not have given her freely had we not known that to do so would be to touch off the cyclone--the cloud of vultures hovering on the outskirts. One's heart grows hard in the East; it has to.

At the door of the mosque there was a group of creatures who put slippers on us and made a pretence of tying the wretched things. They didn't do it, of course, and one had to slide and skate and straddle to keep from losing them--which thing would be a fearful desecration--we being "Christian dogs." The Apostle in those slippers, skating and straddling and puffing his way through St. Sophia's was worth coming far to see.

It is a mighty place, a grand place, but it has been described too often for me to attempt the details here. It is very, very old, and they have some candles there ten feet high and ten inches through (they look exactly like smooth marble columns and make the place very holy), and there are some good rugs on the floor. Several of our party who are interested in such things agreed that the rugs are valuable, though they are laid crooked, as they all point toward Mecca, whereas the mosque, originally a Christian church, stands with the points of the compa.s.s.

It has been built and rebuilt a good many times. The Emperor Justinian was its last great builder, and he robbed the ruins of Ephesus and Baalbec of certain precious columns for his purpose. On Christmas Day, 537 A.D., he finished and dedicated his work. Altogether he had spent five million dollars on the undertaking and had nearly bankrupted the empire. Nine hundred years later the Turks captured Constantinople, and Mohammed II., with drawn sword, rode into St. Sophia's and made the b.l.o.o.d.y handprint which remains the Moslem ruler's sign-manual to this day. They showed us the print, but I don't think it is the same one. It may be, but I don't think so--unless Mohammed was riding a camel.

Some kind of ceremony was in progress when we arrived, but as usual in such places, we did not mind. We went right in just the same, and our guides, too, and we talked and pointed and did what we could to break up the services. Old turbaned sons of the Prophet were kneeling and bowing and praying here and there, and were a good deal in the way. Sometimes we fell over them, but we were charitably disposed and did not kick them--at least, I didn't, and I don't think any of the party did. We might kick a dog--kick at him, I mean--if we tripped over one, but we do not kick a Moslem--not a live one. We only take his picture and step on him and muss him up, and make a few notes and go.

I have been wondering what would happen to a party of tourists--Moslems, for instance--who broke into an American church during services, with guides to point and explain, and stared at the people who were saying their prayers, and talked them over as if they were wax figures. An American congregation would be annoyed by a mob like that, and would remove it and put it in the calaboose. But then such things wouldn't happen in America. We have cowed our foreign visitors. Besides, there is nothing in an American church that a foreigner would care to see.

We went to other mosques: to Suleiman, to Ahmed, to the "Pigeon" mosque with its gentle birds that come in clouds to be fed, but there is a good deal of sameness in these splendid edifices. Not that they are alike, but they seem alike, with their mellow lights, their alcoves and sacred sanctuaries; their gigantic wax candles; their little Turkeys--Turkish boys, I mean--rocking and singing the Koran, learning to be priests. And everywhere, whether it be prayer-time or not, there were old bearded men prostrated in worship or bowed in contemplation. Quite frequently we sat down on these praying men to rest a little, but they were too absorbed to notice it.

There were no women in the mosques. The men supply the souls and the religion for the Turkish household. A woman has no use for a soul in Turkey. She wouldn't know what to do with it, and it would only make her trouble. She is allowed to pretend she has one, however, and to go to mosque now and then, just as we allow children to play "store" or "keeping-house." But it's make believe. She really hasn't any soul--everybody knows that.

Constantinople is full of landmarks that perpetuate some memory--usually a b.l.o.o.d.y one--of the Janizaries. Every little while our guide would say, "This is where the Janizaries conquered the forces of Abdullah VI."; or "This is where the Janizaries overthrew and a.s.sa.s.sinated Mahmoud I."; or "This is where the Janizaries attacked the forces of His Sacred Majesty Bismillah II.," and everybody would say, "Oh, yes, of course," and we would go on.

I said, "Oh yes, of course," with the others, which made it hard, later on, when I had worked up some curiosity on the subject, to ask who in the deuce the Janizaries were, anyway, and why they had been allowed to do all these b.l.o.o.d.y things unreproved.

By and by we came to a place where the guide said that eight thousand of them had perished in the flames, and added that fifteen thousand more had been executed and twenty thousand banished. And we all said, "Oh yes, of course," again, and this time I meant it, for I thought that was about what would be likely to happen to persons with Janizary habits.

Then I made a memorandum to look up that tribe when I got back to the ship.

I have done so, now. The Janizaries were a body of military police, organized about 1330, originally of young Christians compelled to become Moslems. They became a powerful and terrible body, by and by, and conducted matters with a high hand. They were a wild, impetuous horde, and five hundred years of their history is full of a.s.sa.s.sinations of sultans and general ravage and bloodshed. In time they became a great deal more dangerous to Turkey than her enemies, but it was not until 1826 that a sultan, Mahmoud II., managed to arouse other portions of his army to that pitch of fanatical zeal which has made Janizaries exceedingly scarce ever since. I think our guide is a Janizary--he has the look--but I have decided not to mention the matter.

We skated through mosques and the tombs of sultans and their wives most of the day, appraising the rugs and shawls and general _bric-a-brac_, and dropped into a museum--the best one, so far, in my opinion. They have a sarcophagus of Alexander there--that is, it was made for Alexander, though it is said he never slept in it, which is too bad, if true, for it is the most beautiful thing in the world--regarded by experts as the finest existing specimen of Greek art. We lingered a long time about that exquisite gem--long for us--and bought photographs of it when we came away. Then we set out for the Long Street of Smells, crossed the Galata bridge, and were at the ship--home.

We have only made a beginning of Constantinople, for we are to be here several days. But if it is all like to-day I could do with less of it. I have got enough of that smell to last a good while, and of the pandemonium that reigns in this disordered aggregation of thoroughfares, humanity and buildings--this weird phantasmagoria miscalled a city.

Through my port-hole, now--I am on the street side--there comes the most devilish concatenation of sounds: dogs barking and yelping, barbaric singing, wild mandolin music, all mingled with the cries of the hawkers and street arabs, and when I reflect that this is the real inwardness of that wonder dream we saw at sunrise, I am filled with a far regret that we could not have satisfied ourselves with that vision of paradise and sailed away.

XIX

THE TURK AND SOME OF HIS PHASES

If one wants to get a fair idea of the mixed population of Constantinople, when the city's phantasmagoric life is in full swing, he may walk slowly across the Galata bridge, or he may stand still and watch the kaleidoscope revolve. Every costume, every color and kind of fabric, every type of Oriental will be represented there. It is a wild fancy-dress parade let loose--only that most of the bizarre costumes are rather dingy and have the look of belonging to their wearers, which is less likely to be so on an artificial occasion.

The red fez predominates as to head-gear, and sanguinary waves of them go by. But there is every manner of turban, too, and the different kinds are interesting. Some of them are bound with rope or cord; some with twisted horsehair (those are Bedouins, I believe); some are wound with white muslin--these are worn by priests--and some are wound or bound with green, which indicates that the wearer is a descendant of Mohammed himself--that is, a "Son of the Prophet." The Prophet seems to have a good many descendants--not so many as Israel had in the same length of time, but still an industrious showing.

One might suppose that these wearers of the green turban would be marked for special honor, and perhaps they are, but by no means are they all men of leisure. I saw one "wearer of the green" tooling a tram to the Seven Towers, and another son of the Prophet--a venerable man--bowed beneath a great box until his white beard and the rear elevation of his trousers nearly dragged in the dust.

I think, by-the-way, I am more interested in the Turkish trousers than in any other article of national dress. They are rather short as to leg, but what they lack in length they make up in width and general amplitude. There is enough goods in the average pair of Turkish trousers to make a whole suit of clothes with material left for repairs. They are ridiculous enough from the front and the rear, but I rather like a side view best. The long after-part has such a drooping pendulous swing to it, and one gets the full value of the outline in profile and can calculate just what portion of it is occupied by the owner, and can lose himself in speculation as to what the rest is for. I like freedom and comfort well enough, too, in my clothes, but I would not be willing to sacrifice in the length of my trousers for the sake of that laundry-bag effect in the rear. I can admire it, though, and I do, often.

At the Stamboul end of the Galata bridge is the most picturesque group, I believe, in the Orient. A coffee-house is there, and in front of it all the picture types of the East are gathered, with not a single Caucasian face or dress. When I used to look at the gorgeously extravagant costumes and the flowing beards and patriarchal faces of the paintings and ill.u.s.trations of the East, I said: "No, they do not really exist. They may have done so once, but not to-day. I have seen the Indian of my own country in his native sage-brush. And he is no longer the Indian of the pictures. His dress is adulterated with ready-made trousers and a straw hat; his face is mixed in color and feature; with the Orient it must be the same."