I know not whether others have made the same remark, but I have frequently observed that the breakfast after a ball, where the party is an agreeable one, is a most delightful repast. The excitement of the previous night has not entirely subsided—the “sayings and doings” of “ladies bright and cavaliers” afford a gay and unfailing topic—and all goes “merry as a marriage bell.” Certain it is, that in this instance my theory is borne out by the result; for, on the termination of the meal, the family insisted on our remaining with them during our stay at the Fanar. Servants were accordingly despatched for our bandboxes and dressing-cases, and we established ourselves comfortably round the tandour until dinner-time.
As the house which Logotheti occupied during the winter months was merely hired,1 and, although extremely handsome and spacious, was greatly inferior in magnificence to his residence on the Bosphorus, he did not consider it expedient to give the ball himself, lest he should offend many whom he had neither time nor space to invite; but requested one of his friends, Hage Aneste, or Aneste the Pilgrim, a Primate of the Greek church and a near neighbour, to open his house in the evening, and the arrangement was completed at once.
If I had been pleased with Logotheti in the heat and hurry of a ball room, I was infinitely more delighted with him in the bosom of his family. His gentle and courtly manners, and his unaffected and fluent conversation, rendered him a charming companion; and the hours flew so swiftly in his society, and that of his amiable family, that dinner was announced before the morning had appeared to be half spent.
At half past nine, we were in the ball-room, which I entered on the arm of Logotheti, and I was considerably startled during our progress up stairs by the manner of his reception. Our host and hostess met us on the first landing-place, where they bent down and kissed the hem of his garment, despite his efforts to prevent this truly Oriental salutation. Their example was followed by all those who made way for us; and, as he led me through the noble saloon in which we were to dance, and seated me in the centre of the sofa, at the upper end of a drawing-room that opened into it, every one rose, and continued standing until he had taken possession of a chair.
Coffee having been handed round, Logotheti conducted me back into the saloon, where we opened the ball with a Polonaise; after which, quadrilles, waltzes, cotillons, and mazurkas, followed each other in rapid succession; and, after having been introduced to more persons than I could possibly recognise should I ever meet them again, and dancing until near six o’clock in the morning, I walked another Polonaise with our agreeable host, and quitted the ball-room with more regret than I ever experienced on a similar occasion.
We remained the morrow at the Fanar, and I carried away with me no memories save those of kindness and courtesy. Seldom, very seldom indeed, have I passed three days of such unalloyed gratification as those for which I am indebted to Logotheti and his friends.
No circumstance impressed me more strongly during this very agreeable visit, than the rapid strides which the Constantinopolitan Greeks are making towards civilization. The Turks have a thousand old and cherished superstitions that tend to clog the chariot wheels of social progression, and which it will require time to rend away; the Armenians, who consider their Moslem masters as the ne plus ultra of human perfection, are yet further removed from improvement than the Turks; while the Greeks, lively and quick-minded, seize, as it were by intuition, minute shades of character as well as striking points of manners. Locomotive, physically as well as mentally, they indulge their erratic tastes and propensities by travel; they compare, estimate, and adopt; they pride themselves in their progress; they stand forth, scorning all half measures, as declared converts to European customs; and they fashion their minds as well as their persons, after their admitted models.
The Turk is the more stately, the more haughty, and the more self-centered, of the inhabitants of the East; but in all that relates to social tactics he is very far inferior to the keen, shrewd, calculating, intriguing, Greek.
The Moslem will fix his eye upon a distant and important object, and work steadily onwards until he has attained it; but, meanwhile, the active Greek will have clutched a score of minor advantages, which probably, in the aggregate, are of more than equal weight. It is the collision of mind and matter—the elephant and the fox. Intellectual craft has been the safety-buoy of the Greeks; had they been differently constituted, they would long ere this have been swept from the face of the earth, or have become mere “hewers of wood and drawers of water.” As it is, there is so strong a principle of moral life in this portion of the Greek nation, that, were they only more united among themselves, and less a prey to intestine jealousies and heart-burnings, it is probable that in these times, when Turkey lies stretched like a worsted giant at the mercy of the European powers, the heel of the Greeks might be shod with an iron, heavy enough to press her down beyond all means of resuscitation; in possession, as they are, of the confidence of those in power.
Animal force has subjugated the Greeks—subjugated, but not subdued them; their physical power has departed, but their moral energy remains unimpaired; and it is doubtful whether human means will ever crush it.
CHAPTER VI.
Difficulty of Obtaining an Insight into Turkish Character—Inconvenience of Interpreters—Errors of Travellers—Ignorance of Resident Europeans—Fables and Fable-mongers—Turkey, Local and Moral—Absence of Capital Crime—Police of Constantinople—Quiet Streets—Sedate Mirth—Practical Philosophy of the Turks—National Emulation—Impossibility of Revolution—Mahmoud and his People—Unpopularity of the Sultan—Russian Interference—Vanity of the Turks—Russian Gold—Tenderness of the Turks to Animals—Penalty for Destroying a Dog—The English Sportsman—Fondness of the Turks for Children—Anecdote of the Reiss Effendi—Adopted Children—Love of the Musselmauns for their Mothers—Turkish Indifference to Death—Their Burial-places—Fasts—The Turks in the Mosque—Contempt of the Natives for Europeans—Freedom of the Turkish Women—Inviolability of the Harem—Domestic Economy of the Harem—Turkish Slaves—Anecdote of a Slave of Achmet Pasha—Cleanliness of Turkish Houses—The Real Romance of the East.
There is, perhaps, no country under heaven where it is more difficult for an European to obtain a full and perfect insight into the national character, than in Turkey. The extreme application, and the length of time necessary to the acquirement of the two leading languages, which bear scarcely any affinity to those of Europe, render the task one of utter hopelessness to the traveller, who consequently labours under the disadvantage of explaining his impressions, and seeking for information through the medium of a third person, inferentially, and it may almost be said totally, uninterested in both. The most simple question may be put in a manner calculated to influence the reply; as the rivulet takes the tinge of the soil over which it passes—a misplaced emphasis may change the nature of an assertion; and no one requires to be reminded of the difficulty, if not impossibility, of meeting with an individual so straightforward and matter-of-fact as to translate as though he were perpetually in foro conscientiæ. Thus the means of communication between the native and the stranger have an additional and almost insurmountable impediment in this respect, superadded to the natural and palpable obstacles presented by opposing and diffluent prejudices, customs, and opinions.
Flung back, consequently, upon his own resources; soured, perhaps somewhat, by the consciousness that he is so, and judging according to his own impressions, the traveller hazards undigested and erroneous judgments on the most important facts—traces effects to wrong causes—and, deciding by personal feeling, condemns much that, did he perfectly and thoroughly comprehend its nature and tendency, he would probably applaud. Hence arise most of those errors relative to the feelings and affairs of the East, that have so long misled the public mind in Europe; and, woman as I am, I cannot but deplore a fact which I may be deficient in the power to remedy. The repercussion of public opinion must be wrought by a skilful and a powerful hand, They are no lady-fingers