Turkey Part 3

Their social position is also different from that of other servants, for as foster-mothers they have a say in the child's upbringing, and their own children can claim kinship as foster-brothers or foster-sisters.

Strange and incongruous connections are often the result, as, for instance, in the case of an acquaintance of mine in Smyrna, a British subject and manager of a bank. His foster-brother, a Greek, took to the mountains, and was known as the famous brigand, Caterdjee Yiani, and many a time the latter escaped detection and arrest by hiding in the house of his British milk-kinsman.

Wet-nurses in the Sultan's palace are, it is stated, invariably Circa.s.sians, and their own children become playmates with the Crown Princes, and are not forgotten in after life. The foster-mother enjoys a t.i.tle of courtesy, and often her influence in the palace comes next to that of the reigning Sultan's mother. In the case of the wet-nurse of Sultan Abdul Aziz, her power was such that frequently the appointment or dismissal of Governors and other State officials depended on her good-will.

Greek servants are as a rule honest, but very slovenly, and at first very raw and unused to the ways of civilized life. They love to go about barefooted, or shuffle in slippers. Their hair is seldom combed, and their garments hang loosely about them. Their head-dress is a printed kerchief, called a _fakiol_, which they wear both indoors and out of doors, but the more advanced wear hats, and consider it such a distinction, that a man-servant of mine, who wanted to get married, could not describe his intended to me in more flattering terms than by saying that "she wears the _capello_" (hat).

On Sundays they put on their finery and are very keen to go to church, and gossip with their fellow-servants in the women's gallery. It was probably to similar t.i.ttle-tattling, so common in Eastern churches, that St. Paul referred when forbidding women to "speak in the churches."

Factories are so seldom to be seen in Turkey that women have few opportunities of employment as factory-girls, but in the silk-spinning factories in Brusa Greek, Armenian, and Turkish girls work side by side.

Their great ambition is to be possessed of and wear gold coins about their persons, but specially a five-lira piece, representing about 4 10s. of our money. Too eager to wait until their savings enable them to buy that coin, they go to a money-changer and receive one immediately on credit, paying him weekly a stipulated instalment, and interest at 12 per cent. a year in addition. The result is that when they have paid off the debt they find that the coin has cost them at least 6 or 7; but in the meanwhile their feminine vanity has been gratified, and the coin displayed three or four years earlier than otherwise.

A curious cla.s.s of people to be found in nearly every village in Turkey, and even in the interior of Arabia, Egypt, and Khartoum, is that of the _bakals_, or grocers, who are Greeks from Kaisarieh, in Karamania (Asia Minor). Fat, dumpy, and oily, with dirty, baggy trousers, greasy vests and shining countenances, they are as like one another as two peas. They have practically the monopoly of the retail grocery business, and their shops contain everything you can imagine in the way of Eastern articles of diet--bread, cheese, black olives, salted anchovies, sardines, curdled milk called _yiaourt_, oil, vinegar, salt, sugar, rice, sausages, and dried meats, honey, b.u.t.ter, dried fruits, tallow candles, matches, etc.

Their little boys--chips of the old block--go round every house, calling out "_Bakalis_" and catering for orders, or bringing them back in conical bags of brown paper. Nearly everybody buys on credit, and an account is run up (not always too honestly) which, after a short time, becomes formidable, and credit is stopped till an instalment is paid.

The _bakals'_ book-keeping is of the most primitive type, and will baffle the sharpest chartered accountant; but mistakes are seldom on the wrong side.

A peculiar method for recording the number of loaves of bread distributed in each house is that of the _tchetoula_, and consists in cutting a notch on a piece of stick for every loaf taken. The householder retains the stick, and receives a new one when the amount is paid. Another method is to make a chalk-mark on the door, and efface it on payment.

With a community living from hand to mouth like the Eastern, it is difficult to know what they would do without the ubiquitous _bakal_.

Besides making himself useful in the catering-line, he frequently is the only man in his village who can read, and is resorted to both for reading and writing letters. His correspondence is carried on in Turkish words, but with Greek characters, full of conventional signs and contractions, and is next to impossible to decipher.

Stray newspapers sometimes reach him, and the news of the day is conveyed by him to clients; and should there be a Christian church in his village, he is sure to be one of its dignitaries, and as _psaltis_, or precentor, preside over the singing.

Another curious product, if I may so call it, of the Greek market is a cla.s.s of beggars known as the _Volitziani_. They come from villages in Thessaly, and are young women who put aside their best garments, and don an old black skirt and black jacket, so as to a.s.sume an air of abject poverty. When about to start they receive from their community a beggar's staff, as a badge or pa.s.sport of their functions, and they proceed to Constantinople, or any other town where begging offers advantageous prospects. On their arrival they borrow or hire two or three children, one of which is an infant, and which they drug and cause to sleep on a handkerchief spread out in a corner of the street. The beggar sits beside it, putting on her most tearful looks, and when any likely pa.s.ser-by approaches, she raises her voice in supplication, and sends the other children to pull at his coat-tails. These _Volitziani_ frequent the neighbourhood of churches, and their appeal is: "Give for the sake of the souls of the departed." The result is a plentiful harvest of coins, which enables them to return with a bagful to their country. The beggar's staff is then hung behind the door as a trophy.

Should they desire to proceed on another begging expedition, a second staff is given them, and so on, and at each successive return the staff that has done service is deposited behind the door. Sometimes as many as seven make up the trophy. Young men desiring to find wives with money pry behind the door, and form an approximate idea of the fortune of the owner, the one with seven staffs taking, of course, the palm.

Constantinople was once the great resort of beggars of all descriptions, and lines of them used to exhibit on the Galata Bridge (see frontispiece) all manners of deformities to elicit sympathy, but one of the reforming measures of the Young Turks was to expel them from the city. In ill.u.s.tration facing Chapter III. you will see one of these wayside beggars.

CHAPTER VI

JEWS--SUPERSt.i.tIONS

We read in the New Testament of Jews scattered all over the Roman Empire. The same is true of them to-day in Turkey. Their princ.i.p.al resorts are Constantinople, Smyrna, Salonica, and the other great towns.

Some are original colonists, princ.i.p.ally from Palestine; others are exiles from Spain in 1493. Common vicissitudes with the Moors, who had also been ejected from Spain, created sympathy for them in the Moslem world, and, to the honour of the Turk let it be told, they were offered a shelter and a home. These immigrants introduced with them the jargon which they had employed in Spain, and which consists of a mixture of Hebrew and Spanish, and is known as Judeo-Spanish. To it have been grafted a number of Italian and Turkish words, and it has been adopted as the common vernacular of both cla.s.ses of Jews above mentioned.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CEMETERY BY THE BOSPHORUS.]

Another division is that of Hebrews from Russia, Poland, and Austria.

These do not understand Judeo-Spanish, but speak corrupt Russian and German, and differ from their southern brethren in features and customs; they all adhere to the law of Moses, and accept the teaching of the Prophets. There exists also a sect of Jews called _Dunmes_, or turncoats, who are both Mahomedans and Jews. Ostensibly they are the former, and observe all Moslem rites, but secretly they practise those of the Hebrews also.

The Dunmes give their children two names, one a Turkish, such as Mustapha, and the other a Hebrew, such as Jacob.

They reside chiefly in Salonica, and are very fanatical, and were the ringleaders of a riot against the Christians in 1870. On the other hand, several have distinguished themselves recently by joining the Reform Party in Turkey, known as Young Turks, who overthrew Sultan Hamid, and introduced the Const.i.tution.

Perhaps they are the only cla.s.s of Jews who are seamen, and it is interesting to watch their flotilla of small boats board the steamers that arrive in Salonica. From their screams and shouts, you would think yourself in pandemonium. The originator of the sect was a certain Sabbatai Levy, who proclaimed himself the Messiah in 1648, but afterwards accepted Mahomedanism to save his life. His adherents believe in his return, and it is stated that one of their number always awaits the arrival of the railway-train in Salonica to offer him a welcome.

Jews in Turkey are not relegated to ghettos, as in several European cities, but all the same they live in separate quarters, as, indeed, do all the other nationalities. Their quarters may be recognized by their malodorous smells, their filth, and the numerous families residing in the houses, and also from the babel of tongues, and the shrill, discordant voices of women or children shouting to each other or quarrelling.

Jews in the East engage princ.i.p.ally in commerce, banking, money-changing, p.a.w.nbrokerage, dealings on the Stock Exchange, watchmaking, and shopkeeping.

A feature among them is the early age at which boys commence earning their daily bread. As young as six or seven you may see them going about with trays containing cigarette-papers, pins, matches, and similar cheap articles. Boys in this country will marvel at the ease and rapidity with which mere tots can work calculations mentally in the course of their business.

When they grow up to manhood many engage in window-cleaning, an occupation which has come to be a Jewish speciality, and which an Eastern servant will resent if called upon to undertake. Others go about riveting or cementing broken china, or, with a small charcoal brazier and soldering irons, as tinkers; others sell a special kind of sand for cleaning pots and pans, which they hawk about under its Latin name of _arena_. Some make a speciality of buying, washing, and sorting empty bottles, which they afterwards re-sell with profit; others, of course, buy up old clothes, or, with a capacious wooden box slung over their back, go about selling all those little articles which are indispensable to ladies. When called to a house they spread out all their paraphernalia, and the bargaining, which Easterns take such a delight in, begins--buyer and seller trying to outwit and deceive each other--the housewife feeling happy and virtuous all day if she has beaten down the Jew to one-third of his demands, and the Jew unhappy because he had not charged more.

Hebrew marriages in the East occur at an early period of life, fifteen with girls and eighteen with boys, and even earlier in Palestine. The result is large families and much dest.i.tution, but with all that one seldom sees any Jewish beggars, their system for relief of poverty being so admirable. They are frugal in their habits, living largely on bread, salt-fish, leeks, and onions, and, during the season, on fruits. The produce sold in their shambles is, moreover, of the cheapest and most inferior quality, yet, notwithstanding all this, the Jews are the longest lived and healthiest of the Eastern races.

The dress of those in Constantinople consists of two or three long gowns, open below the knees; the sleeves are long. Their head-dress is the Turkish fez. In winter they wear long furs over their gowns. Married women cover their hair with a sort of bag-like embroidered kerchief, called _yemeni_, which is painted with flowers and ornamented with lace and seed-pearls.

Within recent years much has been done, both by the Jewish Alliance and the Scottish and English Mission Schools, to educate boys and girls, and there is certainly a great improvement.

Jews are fatalists, and are convinced that the decrees of fate are unalterable, yet they imagine that Providence may be cheated and thus deterred from its purposes. Accordingly, if Joseph happens to fall ill, and there is a likelihood of his dying, they forthwith change his name into, we will say, Benjamin, and they expect that when the Angel of Death arrives to fulfil his mission he will think he has made a mistake, and gone to the wrong house. So everyone in the room keeps addressing the invalid as Benjamin, and, should he recover, they all congratulate themselves on their masterly deception.

Another expedient, but princ.i.p.ally connected with children's ailments, is to trap the malevolent demon who has induced the sickness, and this they profess to do by laying a trail of sugar from the child's sick-bed to a well. The greedy demon follows the track, and gets drowned!

Dread of the evil-eye is as prevalent with the Jews as with the other races in Turkey. They believe that there are certain malignant spirits in existence who are envious of men's happiness and do all they can to destroy it, especially when any self-praise or praise by others has been expressed by the lips. This power, it is further believed, is not restricted to demons, but is also shared by individuals, especially those possessing blue eyes. Quite an elaborate series of antidotes or prophylactics are adopted as a preservative against such influence, the most potent of which is to prefix to each commendation the magic spell-word _Mashalla_--_i.e._, "In the name of G.o.d." To this may be added the power of the blue bead, the evil spirit having a great predilection for that colour. Hence, if you praise a child for its beauty, and it happens to wear blue beads, the spirit's attention will be so absorbed with the bead that it will not hear your remarks. Another preservative is garlic, which has a repellent effect on the evil spirit.

As a consequence, everything in Turkey that has to be protected from the evil-eye is decorated either with the one or the other, and you seldom see a horse, a draught ox, or even a donkey, that has not a string of blue beads about its neck. Children wear these charms on their caps; and the prows of boats, the roofs of houses, cages of birds, and even hovels have a bunch of garlic suspended with strings. It is even stated that bouquets of flowers formed of spices, and in the centre of which garlic is nestled, are sent as a present to the mother of a new-born infant, as a safeguard both to herself and the child.

Suspended along with the garlic on the gables of Turkish houses framed texts from the Koran are often to be seen, and on the doorposts of Hebrew houses a small tablet with the word _Shadai_ (the Almighty).

Jewish houses have also imprinted on the walls the impress of a man's hand, with the five fingers outstretched. In Christian houses the prophylactic takes the form of a cross, which frequently is nailed on the eaves during the process of building.

CHAPTER VII

GIPSIES--SUPERSt.i.tIONS

A people resembling the Jews in that, like them, they are "found scattered toward all the four winds of heaven, and there is no nation whither these outcasts have not come," are the gipsies. They are to be met with in every part of the Sultan's dominions, and in physical appearance, manners, and character they are very similar to those in our country.

Moslems and Christians vie with each other in holding them in execration, and they are branded by the former as the _Kitabsis_, or "bookless" nation, because of the unwritten form of their beliefs and worship. Yet the presence of gipsy-girls at weddings and other ceremonies is much in demand, in order to amuse the guests with their dancing and singing, to the accompaniment of the tambourine or the flute.

The men are frequently blacksmiths, or they rear horses and donkeys (besides stealing them), and frequently earn something by the sale of a.s.ses' milk, which is considered beneficial for chest complaints. The she-a.s.s is led early in the morning to the patient's door, and the newly-drawn milk taken while quite warm and frothy.

The children, of course, beg and steal, but the most fruitful occupation of the women is that of fortune-telling, the usual methods employed being the reading of the palm of the hand and cards. A little mirror placed in the bottom of a small box is also consulted.

But divination and fortune-telling is not limited to gipsies; tall negro-women, with great rolling eyes, may be seen seated on the ground in public squares, with groups of inquirers of both s.e.xes around them.

They divine by means of beans or black pebbles (see ill.u.s.tration facing Chapter VII.).