The Ship Dwellers Part 14

For Abdul Hamid is no longer monarch except by sufferance. A tyrant who in his time has ordered the ma.s.sacre of thousands; has imprisoned and slain members of his own family; has sent a mult.i.tude to the Bosporus and into exile; has maintained in this enlightened day a court and a rule of the Middle Ages--he is only a figurehead now, likely to be removed at a moment's warning.

The Young Turk is in the saddle. Hamid's force of twenty thousand spies has been disbanded. Men-of-war lie in the Bosporus just under Yildiz, ready to open fire on that royal palace at the first sign of any disturbance there. The tottering old man is still allowed his royal guard, his harem, and this weekly ceremonial and display to keep up a semblance of imperial power. But he is only a make-believe king; the people know that, and he knows it, too, best of all.

We had special invitations from the palace and a special enclosure from which to view the ceremony. We had cakes, too, and sherbet served while we waited--by the sultan's orders, it was said--but I didn't take any. I thought Abdul might have heard I didn't care for him and put poison in mine. That would be like him.

I was tempted, though, for we had driven a long way through the blinding dust. It was hot there, and we had to stand up and keep on standing up while all that great review got together and arranged and rearranged itself; while officials and black Nubian eunuchs, those s.e.xless slaves of the harem, ran up and down, and men sanded the track--that is, the road over which his majesty was to drive--and did a hundred other things to consume time.

One does not hurry the Orient--one waits on it. That is a useful maxim--I'm glad I invented it. I said it over about a hundred times while we stood there waiting for Abdul Hamid, who was dallying with certain favorites, like as not, and remembering us not at all.

It was worth seeing, though. Brigade after brigade swung by to the weird music of their bands--billow after billow of brown, red, and blue uniforms. The hillside became a perfect storm of fezzes; the tide of spectators rose till its waves touched the housetops.

Still we waited and watched the clock on the mosque. n.o.body can tell time by a Turkish clock, but there was some comfort in watching it.

Presently an informing person at my side explained that Turkish chronology is run on an altogether different basis from ours. There are only three hundred and fifty-four days in a Turkish year, he said, which makes the seasons run out a good deal faster, so that it is usually about year after next in Turkey; but as it is only about day before yesterday by the clock, the balance is kept fairly even.

He was a very entertaining person. Referring to the music, he said that once the sultan's special bra.s.s band had played before him so pleasingly that he ordered all their instruments filled with gold, which was well enough, except for the piccolo-player, who said: "Sire, I am left out of this reward." "Never mind," said the sultan, "your turn will come." And it did, next day, for the band played so badly that the sultan roared out: "Ram all their instruments down their throats," which was impossible, of course, except in the case of the piccolo-player.

My entertainer said that formerly cameras were allowed at the Selamlik, but that an incident occurred which resulted in prohibiting cameras and all suspicious articles. He said that a gentleman engaged a carriage for the Selamlik, and explained to the driver that he had invented a wonderful new camera--one that would take pictures in all the colors--and instructed him just how to work the machine.

The gentleman had to make a train, he said, and couldn't wait for the sultan to arrive, but if the driver would press the b.u.t.ton when the sultan reached a certain place the picture would take, after which the driver could bring the camera to the Pera Palace Hotel on a certain day and get a hundred piastres, a sum larger than the driver had ever owned at one time. Then the gentleman left in a good deal of a hurry, and the driver told all the other drivers about his good-fortune while they waited; and by and by, when the sultan came, and got just to the place where the gentleman had said, the driver pressed the b.u.t.ton, and blew a hole seventy-five feet wide and thirty feet deep right on that spot, and it rained drivers and horses and fezzes and things for seven minutes. It didn't damage the sultan any, but it gave him a permanent distaste for cameras and other suspicious objects.

Laura, age fourteen, who had been listening to the story, said:

"Did they do anything to the driver who did it?"

"Yes; they gathered him up in a cigar box and gave him a funeral. No, the man didn't call for the camera."

I am sorry I have kept the reader waiting for the Selamlik, but the sultan is to blame. One may not hurry a sultan, and one must fill in the time, somehow.

Some carriages go by at last, and enter the mosque enclosure, but they do not contain the sultan, only some of his favorite wives, with those long black eunuchs running behind. Then there is a carriage with a little boy in it--the sultan's favorite son, it is said--the most beautiful child I ever saw.

A blare of trumpets--all the bayonets straight up--a gleaming forest of them. Oh, what a bad time to fall out of a balloon!

A shout from the troops--a huzzah, timed and perfunctory, but general.

Then men in uniform, walking ahead; a carriage with a splendid driver; a pale, bearded, hook-nosed old man with a tired, rather vacant face. Here and there he touches his forehead and his lips with his fingers, waving the imperial salute. For a moment every eye of that vast concourse is upon him--he is the one important bauble of that splendid setting. Then he has pa.s.sed between the gates and is gone.

Thus it was that Sultan Abdul Hamid attended mosque. It seemed a good deal of fuss to make over an old man going to prayer.

We drove from the Selamlik to the Dancing Dervishes. I have always heard of them and now I have seen them. I am not sorry to have it over.

Their headquarters are in a weather-beaten-frame-barn of a place, and we stood outside for a long time before the doors were open. Inside it was hot and close and crowded, and everybody twisted this way and that and stood up on things to get a look. I held two women together on one chair--they were standing up--and I expected to give out any minute and turn loose a disaster that would break up the show. There wasn't anything to see, either; not a thing, for hours.

We were in a sort of circular gallery and the dancing-floor was below.

We could see squatted there a ring of men--a dozen or so bowed, solemn, abstracted high priests in gowns of different colors and tall fezzes.

These were the dervishes, no doubt, but they didn't do anything--not a thing--and we didn't care to stare at them and at the dancing-floor and the rest of the suffering audience forever.

Then we noticed in our gallery a little reserved section with some more abstracted men in gowns and fezzes, and after a long time--as much as a thousand years, I should think--there was an almost imperceptible movement in this reserved compartment, and one of the elect produced some kind of reed and began to blow a strain that must have been born when the woods were temples and the winds were priests--it was so weirdly, mournfully enthralling. I could have listened to that music and forgotten all the world if I hadn't been busy holding those two women on that chair.

The perspiration ran down and my joints petrified while that music droned on and on. Then there was another diversion: a man got up and began to sing. I don't know why they picked that particular man--certainly not for his voice. It was Oriental singing--a sort of chanting monotone in a nasal pitch. Yet there was something wild and seductive about it--something mystical--and I liked it well enough.

Only I didn't want it to go on forever, situated as I was. I wanted the dancing to begin, and pretty soon, too. It didn't, however. Nothing begins soon in the Orient.

But by-and-by, when that songster had wailed for as much as a week, those high priests on the dancing-floor began to show signs of life.

They moved a little; they got up; they went through some slow evolutions--to limber themselves, perhaps--then they began to whirl.

The dance is a religious rite, and it is supposed to represent the planets revolving about the sun. The dancers serve an apprenticeship of one thousand and one days, and they can whirl and keep on whirling forever without getting dizzy. The central figure, who represents the sun, has had the most practice, no doubt, for he revolves just twice as fast as the planets, who are ranged in two circles around him. His performance is really wonderful. I did not think so much of the others, except as to their ability to stand upright. I thought I could revolve as fast as they did, myself, and I would have given four dollars for a little freedom just then to try it.

Would that constellation never run down? The satellites whirled on and on, and the high priest in the middle either got faster or I imagined it. Then at last they stopped--just stopped--that was all; only I let go of those two women then and clawed my way to fresh air.

We went to the bazaars after that. There is where the _Kurfurster_ finds real bliss. He may talk learnedly of historic sites and rave over superb ruins and mosques and such things, when you drag him in carriages to see them. But only say the word bazaar to him and he will walk three miles to find it. To price the curious things of the East; to barter and beat down; to walk away and come back a dozen times; to buy at last at a third of the asking price--such is the pa.s.sion that presently gets hold of the irresponsible tourist who lives on one ship and has a permanent state-room for his things.

You should see some of those state-rooms! Jars, costumes, baskets, rugs, draperies, statuary--piled everywhere, hung everywhere, stowed everywhere--why, we could combine the stuff on this ship and open a floating bazaar that would be the wonder of the world.

The bazaars of Constantinople are crowded together and roofed over, and there are narrow streets and labyrinthine lanes. One can buy anything there--anything Eastern: ornaments, inlaid work, silks, curious weapons, picture postals (what _did_ those _Quaker City_ pilgrims do without them?), all the wares of the Orient--he can get a good deal for a little if he is patient and unyielding--and he will be cheated every time he makes change. Never mind; one's experience is always worth something, and this particular tariff is not likely to be high.

We bought several things in Constantinople, but we did not buy any confections. The atmosphere did not seem suited to bonbons, and the places where such things were sold did not look inviting. Laura inspected the a.s.sortment and decided that the best Turkish Delight is made in America, and that Broadway is plenty far enough east for nougat. In one bazaar they had a marvellous collection of royal jewels: swords with incrusted handles; caskets "worth a king's ransom"--simply a ma.s.s of rubies, emeralds, and diamonds--half a barrel of such things, at least, but we didn't buy any of those goods, either. We would have done so, of course, only they were not for sale.

We called at the bazaar of Far-away Moses, but he wasn't there. He died only a little while ago, and has gone to that grand bazaar of delight which the Mohammedans have selected as their heaven.

As usual, Laura and I were the last to leave. We were still pulling over some things when our driver, whom we call Suleiman because he has such a holy, villanous look, came suddenly to the entrance, waving frantically.

We started then and piled into our carriage. The rest of our party were already off, and we set out helter-skelter after them, Suleiman probably believing that the ship had its anchors up ready to sail.

We were doing very well when right in front of a great arch one of our horses fell down. We had a crowd in a minute, and as it was getting dusk I can't say that I liked the situation. But Suleiman got the horse on his feet somehow, and we pushed along and once more entered that diabolical Street of Smells. It had been bad day by day, but nothing to what it was now. There were no lights, except an oil-lamp here and there; the place was swarming with humanity and dogs, general vileness permeating everything. The woman who thought she had died and gone to h.e.l.l could be certain of it here.

It seemed that we would never get out of that street. We had to go slower, and the horrible gully was eternal in its length. How far ahead our party was we did not know. We were entirely alone in that unholy neighborhood with our faithful Suleiman, who looked like a cutthroat, anyhow. I wished he didn't look like that, and Laura said quietly that she never expected to see the light of another dawn.

b.u.mpety-b.u.mp--bark, howl, clatter, darkness, stench--rolling and pitching through that mess, and then, heavenly sight--a vision of lights, water, the end of the Galata bridge!

We made our way through the evening jam and the wild bedlam at the other end, crossing a crimson tide of fezzes, to reach the one clean place we have seen in Constantinople--that is, the ship. The ship is clean--too clean, we think, when we hear them scrubbing and mopping and thumping the decks at four o'clock in the morning, just about dog-howling time.

Which brings me to a specimen of our ship German--American German--produced by a gentle soul named Fosd.i.c.k, of Ohio. He used it on the steward after being kept awake by the ship-cleaning. This is what he said:

"Vas in d.a.m.nation is das noise? How can I schlaff mit das h.e.l.lgefired donner-wetter going on oben mine head?"

That is the sort of thing we can do when we get really stirred up. It is effective, too. There was no unseemly noise this morning.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Note--a year later.--The Selamlik here described was among the last of such occasions. A few weeks later, in April, 1909, Abdul Hamid regained a brief ascendancy, ordered the terrible ma.s.sacres of Adana, and on April 27th was permanently dethroned. He was succeeded by his brother, Mehmed V., who attends mosque with little or no ceremony. Abdul meantime has retired to Salonica, where he is living quietly--as quietly as one may with seventeen favorite wives and the imminent prospect of a.s.sa.s.sination.

XXI

LOOKING DOWN ON YILDIZ

Heretofore, during our stay here, whenever any one happened to mention the less attractive aspects of Constantinople, I have said: