Having performed this agreeable ceremony, we returned to the principal apartment, where our party received an addition in the person of a very pretty old massaljhe, or tale-teller, who had been invited to relieve the tedium of the evening with some of her narrations. This custom is very general during the Ramazan, and is a great resource to the Turkish ladies, who can thus recline in luxurious inaction, and have their minds amused without any personal exertion. Coffee was prepared at the mangal, and handed round: after which the elder lady seated herself on a pile of cushions placed upon the floor, and smoked a couple of pipes in perfect silence, and with extreme gusto, flinging out volumes of smoke, that created a thick mist in the apartment.
I had just begun to indulge in a violent fit of coughing, induced by the density of this artificial atmosphere, when in walked a slave to announce the intended presence of the gentlemen of the family, and in an instant the whole scene was changed. The two Turkish ladies whom I have already mentioned as being on a visit in the house rushed from the room barefooted, in as little time as it would have required for me to disengage myself from the tandour; the less agile massaljhe covered her face with a thick veil, and concealed herself behind the door—the Juno-like daughter (one of the most majestic women I ever remember to have seen, although very far from one of the tallest) flung a handkerchief over her head, and fastened it beneath her chin: while the son’s wife caught up a feridjhe, or cloak, and withdrew, muffled amid its folds, to her own apartment. The elder lady was the only one of the party undisturbed by the intelligence: she never raised her eyes from the carpet, but continued inhaling the aroma of the “scented weed,” gravely grasping her long pipe, her lips pressed against its amber mouthpiece, and her brilliant rings and diamond-studded bracelet flashing in the light.
In a few minutes, the aged father of the family was squatted down immediately opposite to my seat, smothered in furs, and crowned with the most stately looking turban I had yet seen: on one side of him stood a slave with his chibouk, which his wife had just filled and lighted, and on the other his elder son, holding the little brass dish in which the pipe-bowl is deposited to protect the carpet. Near him, on another cushion, lay the tobacco-bag of gold-embroidered cachemire, from which the said son was about to regale himself, after having supplied the wants of his father: and a few paces nearer to the door reclined the handsome Soliman Effendi, the adopted son to whom I have already alluded.
While the party were refreshing themselves with coffee, which was shortly afterwards served to them, a cry from the minarets of a neighbouring mosque announced the hour of prayer; when the old man gravely laid aside his pipe, and, spreading a crimson rug above the carpet near the spot where he had been sitting, turned his face to the East, and began his devotions by stroking down his beard and falling upon his knees, or rather squatting himself in a doubled-up position which it were impossible to describe. For a while his lips moved rapidly, though not a sound escaped them, and then suddenly he prostrated himself three times, and pressed his forehead to the carpet, rose, and folding his arms upon his breast, continued his prayer—resumed after a brief space his original position, rocking his body slowly to and fro—again bent down—and, repeated the whole of these ceremonies three times, concluding his orison by extending his open palms towards Heaven; after which, he once more slowly and reverentially passed his hand down his beard, and, without uttering a syllable, returned to his seat and his pipe, while a slave folded the rug and laid it aside. I remarked that at intervals, during the prayer, he threw out a long respiration, as though he had been collecting his breath for several seconds ere he suffered it to escape, but throughout the whole time not a single word was audible. The rest of the party continued to laugh, chat, and smoke quite unconcernedly, however, during the devotions of the master of the house, who appeared so thoroughly absorbed as to be utterly unconscious of all that was going on around him.
I ought not to have omitted to mention that, on entering the harem, each of the gentlemen of the family had deposited on a table at the extremity of the apartment his evening offering; for no Turk, however high his rank, returns home for the night, when the avocations of the day are over, empty-handed: it signifies not how trifling may be the value of his burthen—a cluster of grapes—a paper of sweetmeats—or, among the lower orders, a few small fish, or a head of salad—every individual is bound to make an offering to the Dei Penates; and to fail in this duty is to imply that he is about to repudiate his wife.
The father of the eldest son, Usuf Effendi, had brought home Ramazan cakes, but Soliman Effendi deposited on the tandour a boksha, or handkerchief of clear muslin wrought with gold threads, and containing sweetmeats; among them were a quantity of Barcelona nuts, which, in Turkey, are shelled, slightly dried in the oven, and eaten with raisins, as almonds are in Europe. In the course of the evening, the elder lady resumed her place at the tandour; and, in the intervals of the conversation, she amused herself by burning one of the nuts at a candle, and, having reduced it to a black and oily substance with great care and patience, she took up a small round hand-mirror, set into a frame-work of purple velvet, embroidered in silver that was buried among her cushions, and began to stain her eyebrows, making them meet over the nose, and shaping them with an art which nothing but long practice could have enabled her to acquire.
Their questions were of the most puerile description—my age—why I did not marry—whether I liked Constantinople—if I could read and write, &c., &c.; but no impertinent comment on fashions and habits so different from their own escaped them: on the contrary, they were continually remarking how much I must find every thing in Turkey inferior to what I had been accustomed to in Europe: and they lost themselves in wonder at the resolution that had decided me to visit a part of the world where I must suffer so many privations. Of course, I replied as politely as I could to these complimentary comments; and my companion and myself being much fatigued with the exertions that we had made during the day, we determined to retire to our apartment, without waiting to partake of the second repast, which is served up between two and three o’clock in the morning.
From this period the Turks remain smoking, and sipping their coffee, detailing news, and telling stories, an amusement to which they are extremely partial, until there is sufficient light to enable them to distinguish between a black thread and a white one, when the fast is scrupulously resumed. But it may be curious to remark, that, as not even a draught of water can be taken until the evening meal, and, (still greater privation to the Osmanli,) not a pipe can be smoked, they have adopted a singular expedient for appeasing the cravings of re-awakening appetite. They cause opium pills to be prepared, enveloped in one, two, and three coatings of gold leaf; and these they swallow at the last moment when food is permitted to be taken; under the impression that each will produce its intended effect at a given time, which is determined by the number of envelopes that have to disengage themselves from the drug before it can act.
The apartment wherein we passed the night was spacious and lofty; and the ceiling was lined with canvass, on which a large tree in full leaf was painted in oils; and, as this was the great ornament of the room, and, moreover, considered as a model of ingenious invention, one of the slaves did not fail to point out to us that the canvass, instead of being tightly stretched, was mounted loosely on a slight frame, which, when the air entered from the open windows, permitted an undulation intended to give to the tree the effect of reality. I do not think that I was ever more amused—for the branches resembled huge boa constrictors much more than any thing connected with the vegetable kingdom: and every leaf was as large and as black as the crown of a man’s hat.
Our beds were composed of mattresses laid one above the other upon the floor, and these were of the most costly description; mine being yellow satin brocaded with gold, and that of my companion violet-coloured velvet, richly fringed. A Turkish bed is arranged in an instant—the mattresses are covered with a sheet of silk gauze, or striped muslin, (my own on this occasion was of the former material)—half a dozen pillows of various forms and sizes are heaped up at the head, all in richly embroidered muslin cases, through which the satin containing the down is distinctly seen—and a couple of wadded coverlets are laid at the feet, carefully folded: no second sheet is considered necessary, as the coverlets are lined with fine white linen. Those which