OR,JWTHS ABOUT Tl 
 
 KESNIN BEY.
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 KESNIN BEY.
 
 THE 
 
 EVIL OF THE EAST; 
 
 OR, 
 
 TRUTHS ABOUT TURKEY. 
 
 TOLD BY 
 
 KESNIN BEY. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 VIZETELLT & CO., 16 HENRIETTA STREET, 
 COVENT GARDEN. 
 
 1888
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PREFACE ...... ix 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A TRAVELLER'S FIRST IMPRESSIONS. DISEMBARKATION AND 
 
 DISENCHANTMENT. THE DOGS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 CUSTOM-HOUSE OFFICERS AND BEGGARS. FUGITIVE 
 
 THOUGHTS ABOUT GALATA TOWER. THE DEFILE OF 
 NATIONS ON KARAKEUY BRIDGE . . 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ISLAMISM. POLYGAMY J DIVORCE J REPUDIATION. WHAT A 
 
 WIFE COSTS IN TURKEY. FANATICISM. A DAY AND A 
 
 NIGHT DURING THE GREAT FAST. COGNAC AND CON- 
 SCIENCE . . ... . 33 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE TUIIKISH PEASANT HOW THE AUTHORITIES PROTECT 
 
 THE CULTIVATOR. IS AGRICULTURE IN A FAIR WAY 
 
 TO SUCCESS? HOW BRIGANDAGE THRIVES IN TURKEY. 
 ABSENCE OF MEANS OF COMMUNICATION'. . 52
 
 VI CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE TURKISH OFFICIAL. HOW HE OFFICIATES. SALARIES 
 THAT ARE CHIMERICAL AND SALARIES THAT ARE FABULOUS. 
 THEORY AS TO THE UTILITY OF BAKSHEESH. BUDGET- 
 WEEVILS. . . . . .80 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE INTERIOR OF A GOVERNMENT OFFICE. PROFILE OF A 
 
 MINISTER. ETERNAL VACATIONS. THE ART OF OBTAIN- 
 ING CONCESSIONS AND OF NOT PROFITING BY THEM 104 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE TURKISH SOLDIER. HIS VIRTUES ARE HIS OWN; HIS 
 
 FAULTS HE GETS FROM HIS SUPERIORS. THE GERMAN 
 
 PASHAS. HEROES IN TATTERS . . . I 1 7 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MYSTERIES OF THE HAREM. A TURKISH FAMILY. OTTO- 
 MAN CIVILITY AND OTTOMAN COOKERY. A PLEA FOR 
 EUNUCHS ..... 125 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE PERSIANS AT CONSTANTINOPLE. VALIDE HAN THE 
 BLOODY FESTIVAL OF HASSAN AND HUSSEIN . 144 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 TURKISH FINANCE. CUSTOM HOUSE OFFICIALS. THE SARRAF 
 NUISANCE. AN EMPIRE FOR SALE . . 152 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE TURKISH POLICE. WHAT IS A TOWN WELL PROTECTED BY 
 POLICE? INSURANCE COMPANIES AGAINST MURDERERS. 
 SPIES LARGE AND SMALL. DRAINS AND DISEASE. 172
 
 CONTENTS Vll 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CHRISTIAN'S IX THE EAST. ARMENIAN'S REAL AND SHAM. 
 
 THE FUTURE OF ARMENIA . . 191 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE GREEK : ANCIENT AND MODERN. WHAT EUROPE EXPECTS 
 
 FROM HIM AND WHAT HE EXPECTS FROM EUROPE. 
 
 PROGRESS MADE BY THE NATION SINCE THE WAR OP 
 
 INDEPENDENCE. FORCE OP PATRIOTISM AMONG HE- 
 
 LLENKS ..... 206 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE JEWS IN TURKEY. RE-EMIGRATION TO PALESTINE. 
 
 SHADY TRICKS PLAYED UPON FOREIGNERS. JEWS WITH 
 
 REAL AND SHAM NOSES . . . 219 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE LEVANTINES : OR THE WEST IN THE EAST. THE BOARDS 
 
 OF GREEN CLOTH IN PERA. STUCCO FINANCE AND PASTE- 
 BOARD ARISTOCRACY .... 232 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 EUROPEANS IN PERA. "THE PENITENTIARY COLONIES." 
 
 WOES OF THE PERA LANDLORD. WHY THE EUROPEAN 
 
 CONTINGENT IS REDUCED . . . 244 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 PROGRESS OF GERMANY IN THE EAST. GENERALS AND 
 
 MINISTERIAL COUNCILLORS. GERMAN SOCIETY AND 
 
 GERMAN SOCIETIES . . . . 253 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE FRENCH IN THE EAST. . . . 269
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 PERA AND PEROTES. TURKS AND TOMBS. MUSIC AND 
 THEATRES. HOW THEY DANCE IN PERA . 284 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 SWINDLING AND SWINDLERS IN PERA. BOGUS BORDEAUX. 
 THE ART OF IMITATION. SCENT, CHEMISTS AND QUARAN- 
 TINE. IN THE BAZAARS . . . 298 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE LOCAL PRESS. JOURNALISTIC TROUBLES. THE LEECHES 
 OP THE PRESS BUREAU. CENSORSHIP AND SENSELESS- 
 NESS. HOW BOOKS AND PLAYS ARE EDITED IN TURKEY. 
 CUSTOM HOUSE CRITICS AND THEIR LITERARY IN- 
 STINCT . . . . .312 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE FUTURE OF TURKEY | WHAT WILL IT BE ? POSSIBLE HE- 
 CONSTRUCTION OF A GREEK EMPIRE. FROM MOSCOW TO 
 STAMBOUL. THE BANQUET OF NATIONS. THE EVIL OF 
 THE EAST DRIVEN FURTHER EASTWARD . . 322 
 
 APPENDIX ...... 328
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE EAST ! A magic is in the very word, that suggests 
 fairyland, a paradise upon earth that we have loved in 
 dreams and would fain affect in reality. 
 
 In fancy we see the blue waters of the Bosphorus glancing 
 in sunlight, with grey and pink marble kiosques on either 
 side ; the hills above them covered with dark cypresses, 
 witli mimosas and balmy pines. Like giant lances the 
 slender minarets stand out in sharp relief against the sky, 
 while frail caiques dart ceaselessly across the azure stream, 
 their oars lightly touching its surface, as lightly as the 
 wheeling gulls that brush it with their wing. 
 
 On shore a medley multitude forever files past, a throng 
 of strange types taken from all points of Europe, from 
 Asia, from Africa, in dresses broidered with silk and gold,
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 and gay with many a rare and radiant dye. On all sides a 
 very Babel of tongues is heard, and under the sombre 
 vaulted bazaars the garish crowd moves on to the dim 
 lighted mosque, where on richly-woven carpets from 
 Smyrna or Bokhara the faithful kneel in prayer near 
 lustrous columns of smooth porphyry and granite. See 
 there, the fair Circassian girls, with eyes like flaming 
 coals beneath their filmy yashmak ; their talk in Turkish 
 is as the language of birds, so soft, so caressing to the ear 
 is it ; and yet harmonious, vibrating as the chords of a lyre. 
 And there, too, are the Sultanas, those mysterious beings 
 who taste candied rose-leaves under the shade of broad 
 leaved platana trees beside white marble fountains most 
 rarely sculptured, while, as an evening mist across the 
 leafy gardens of their retreat, the aromatic fumes of 
 Lattaquieh or of Yenidjeh forever float. 
 
 The East ! it is the sun ; a globe of ore in fusion ; gilding 
 with its rich rays each cupola and spire ; touching each 
 roof with gold ; lighting up each window at Scutari ; 
 shooting its flaming arrows into the deep waters of the 
 Bosphorus ; lending fresh lustre to the crescent that tops 
 all the most stately buildings of the city. The East ! we 
 may liken it to the moon ; to white Luna walking in her 
 clear heaven, on some voluptuous tranquil night, amid the 
 imposing hush and silence of created things ; it is the cool 
 night-wind that carries with it the perfume of roses which
 
 PREFACE. XI 
 
 in clusters hang above the swift dark Bosphorus stream. 
 Yes ; the East is all that ; it is more ; it is a poem, ever 
 changing, ever new ; a poem, visible, tangible, whose resist- 
 less charms possess the soul with subtle unimagined 
 languors. 
 
 Such is the East ! In such wise has it been pictured by 
 many famous writers ; rare spirits of fine temper and 
 exquisite imagination. They spent there a few weeks of 
 enchantment and in their first fervour recorded in feverish 
 terms their feelings when in this trance of ecstacy. 
 Lamartine, Chateaubriand, Theophile Gautier, Gerard de 
 jSTerval, Madame de Gasparin, Edmond About, all these 
 succumbed to the spell. 
 
 Yes ; the East is in truth such as these writers viewed 
 it and described it ; all that, but for a brief while only ; its 
 poetry is for the tourist who passes by, for the traveller 
 who goes on his way, regretful, remembering. 
 
 For him who remains in the country, who strives to 
 study manners, customs, who seeks to analyse the truths 
 that underlie all this poetry, it is something far different. 
 The East is fairyland, perhaps ; but take good care never 
 to spoil the charm by going behind the scenes. What 
 change, what disillusion awaits you, in such case! Before 
 the keen, stern gaze of the psychologist or the student of 
 practical economy, all these fine outward shows give place 
 to shameful realities ; what had before allurement now
 
 Xll PREFACE. 
 
 provokes repulsion ; the sense of deception strikes you to 
 the heart and is as gall and wormwood in the mouth, 
 then it is that one perceives hi how far this fair land has 
 been spoilt by the men who inhabit it ; this land so rich, 
 so fertile, yields nothing but misery ; this clear, pure sky 
 only covers horrors ; in these white palaces, dark crime has 
 lodging, and in the midst of calm Nature, hypocrisy, selfish- 
 ness flourish and take root. Mixed with the delicate 
 perfume of jasmine, one may scent the foul odours of 
 corruption. 
 
 It is, in truth, a people that is falling to decay in these 
 marble mansions and at the side of these blossoming trees. 
 Disorder, greed, ambition, vice, crime, all that mixes like 
 the muddy inland streams that add their filthy tribute to 
 the clear noble waters of the Golden Horn. In proportion 
 as an observer looks deeper into the depths of life at 
 Constantinople he stands aghast before this rottenness 
 which seems limitless, which has so battened upon the fail- 
 body that now only the semblance of life is left. 
 
 The authors whose names have just now been quoted 
 were not insensible to this reaction. They saw the reality, 
 folt the disenchantment, but would not stay to consider it. 
 It is told of one shrewd epicure, that when visiting 
 Constantinople he refused to come on shore, but preferred 
 to contemplate the city's loveliness from the deck of his 
 yacht. As a prudent dilettante, he feared that landing
 
 PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 might create for him too cruel a deception ; and so he 
 chose rather to preserve all the pristine freshness of his 
 dreams about the place. Other authors, less circumspect, 
 have soon crossed the threshold of disenchantment, but 
 when face to face with astounding revolting realities, they 
 turned away their eyes, exclaiming : " Do not spoil the 
 East for me ; let it be mine still as I imagined it ! " . . . 
 This note of disenchantment is specially remarkable in 
 the last chapters of De Amicis' book. Doubtless, in the 
 back slums of Stamboul or of Pera, he met the real East 
 face to face. Some unlooked-for episode ; some grim 
 anecdote told to him at night by friends ; things casually 
 noted in the day, all these were forced to break the spell 
 and to plant within him the germs of unbelief. When he 
 ends his book, it is with a tinge of disgust that contrasts 
 strangely, ironically, with the note of enthusiasm of 
 his first days in the city. Nausea overpowers him ; and 
 he hastens to depart, so as to avoid the necessity of 
 destroying his manuscript. The truth, indeed, is this, 
 that the magical aspect of the city is but as a mask to 
 hide the melancholy picture of a people in the last stage 
 of decay. Social depravity, corruption, immorality, and 
 enervation of chai'acter have sufficed to make both Mussul- 
 man and Christian rotten to the core. To-day, the taint 
 is everywhere ; all have it ; it is not an empire that is 
 breaking up ; -it is a society that is perishing.
 
 XIV PREFACE. 
 
 Often in my mind I have likened Constantinople to 
 those women of pleasure, attractive, alluring from without, 
 with smooth, clear skin, bright eyes, and pearly teeth ; but 
 
 N 
 
 their beauty is false ; and from within a hidden malady 
 saps their blood and transmits its poison to their lovers. 
 
 This dreadful malady, so common in Constantinople as 
 to be almost endemic, the Turks, with touching naivete. 
 call le mal rangais. We would point out to them that 
 this scourge had its origin in the East ; our ancestors 
 brought it back with them as a souvenir of the crusades 
 and of their sojourn in the Land of the Crescent. The 
 French evil is really the Eastern evil, like leprosy, like 
 cholera, like typhus, and many another infectious disease. 
 Thus we commit a legitimate act of self-defence in re- 
 naming it the Evil of the East, and in letting this title 
 serve as the theme for our study in social and oriental 
 physiology. 
 
 Thousands of times one has spoken of the Sick Man, 
 but one has never ventured to state precisely the cause of 
 his sickness. Such is the task that I set myself in this 
 book. The consultation exacts a certain boldness, frank- 
 ness of language. It also requires that firm will that 
 refused to let the voice of truth be stifled by protest or 
 recrimination. 
 
 Dreamers in plenty have sung the charms, the allure- 
 ments of the intoxicating East. We must now go deeper,
 
 PREFACE. XV 
 
 we must probe the core of things, plunge the scalpel into 
 the quivering flesh, lay bare the gangrenous sores, and 
 reveal the causes that must make death imminent. Not 
 the Ideal, but the Real engages us ; we must quit the 
 East of our dreams ; we must enter the East of reality.
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A TRAVELLER'S FIRST IMPRESSIONS. DISEMBARKATION AND 
 
 DISENCHANTMENT. THE DOGS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 CUSTOM-HOUSE OFFICERS AND BEGGARS. FUGITIVE 
 THOUGHTS ABOUT GALATA TOWER. THE DEFILE OF 
 NATIONS ON KARAKEUY BRIDGE. 
 
 ERE long the tourist will be able to arrive by the 
 Oriental Express at Stamboul terminus, being well nigh 
 worn out with the tedious journey from Adrianople to San 
 Stefano. Giving up his ticket to an official in uniform as 
 he leaves the station, he will find the usual cab, and the 
 usual cabman waiting outside to transport him to his hotel. 
 This will seem commonplace indeed, though by such a 
 method of approach to the city he will have avoided the 
 horrors of boarding the steamer at Varna, the inevitable 
 sea-sickness in the Black Sea and all the irksome delays of 
 quarantine. But on the other hand he may feel sure that 
 in this way he has lost at least one half of all the charm of 
 his journey. 
 
 Truly, nothing is more marvellous than the arrival at 
 Constantinople by way of the Bosphorus ; and it is this 
 B 
 
 :
 
 1 8 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 route that the true tourist must ever prefer, if he be a 
 real traveller, not a personally conducted one. 
 
 After a night on the Black Sea, the Austrian Lloyd 
 steamer at dawn reaches the mouth of the Bosphorus. All 
 the passengers, be they well or sick, scramble on deck, for 
 the scene that opens out before them is perhaps the most 
 beautiful in the world. It was here, at this point, that 
 an English General once said to me, "Now sir, no more 
 talk, no more questions ; open your eyes as wide as you 
 can, and take in impressions that during your whole life- 
 time you will never receive again." 
 
 Passing the Symplegades rocks, whose fame lives in the 
 legend of the Argonauts, the steamer enters this strip of 
 sea, with its impetuous current, that divides two conti- 
 nents. The long files of villas (yalis) against whose marble 
 steps the blue waves break to foam ; the irregularly built 
 houses with arched windows guarded by wooden lattices 
 and iron gratings, behind which, in fancy, whole batteries 
 of bright eyes seem to lie in ambush ; the gardens, 
 fragrant and shady with blossoming trees, with roses and 
 glycinas that lean over the hedges and shake down their 
 scented glories on to the eddying stream ; the graceful 
 minarets placed here and there along the route ; the low, 
 brown hills above, crowned with dark cypress, brushwood 
 and pine ; all these things in harmony form one grand 
 panorama that rivets the traveller's gaze, and that, once 
 viewed, he can never, never forget. 
 
 There, on the right, is Buyukdere, and farther, Therapia, 
 summer resorts, these, of diplomacy and its flunkeys, and of 
 all the would-be aristocracy of the Turkish capital. There 
 is the Giants' Mountain, in majestic outline against the
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 19 
 
 sky, and there, poised on rocks, the towers of Roumeli and 
 Anatoli Hissar. On the" opposite bank stands the exquisite 
 marble palace of Gueuksou, set like a white jewel to mark 
 the entrance to the famous valley called " Love's Tourney." 
 Here, in this romantic spot, the fair Turkish dames 
 assemble on every Friday in autumn. Wrapped in their 
 bright-hued feradjis, they walk or sit in groups on the 
 emerald turf and sip sherbet in the green shade of plantain 
 trees. See yonder, Bebek, with its picturesque fleet of 
 fishing boats beside leafy gardens. Near it lies Arna6utkeui, 
 the bright little village by the waters' edge which but a 
 year ago was wrecked in a night by tire. Now Beylerbey 
 is reached a grand palace whose chiselled marble front 
 is reflected in the stream as by a mirror of steel. This 
 sumptuous mansion for monarchs lies desolate to-day ; 
 silken hangings veil its broad windows ; on its interior 
 splendour no eye now looks; and of the rare and costly 
 menagerie attached to it in the days of the strangled Sultan 
 Abdul Aziz nothing remains save one superb tiger that, 
 wearied and lonely, regrets the vanished day when the 
 Padishah would give him a minister's bones to crunch. 
 
 When this point is reached, steamers in plenty meet the 
 view ; and caiques stud the water as one nears the great 
 city. Suddenly it appears like some goddess, voluptuously 
 stretched at length along the horizon, framed on the one 
 side by the European faubourgs from which rises the 
 Galata Tower, and on the other, by the holy town of 
 Scutari. Further in middle distance one sees Kadikeui, 
 the ancient Chalcedon ; and in the distance the snow- 
 powdered peaks of Mount Olympus with the azure sea 
 of Marmara to the right.
 
 20 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 As a centre-piece to the picture is Seraglio Point with 
 its array of kiosques, of domes and cupolas, and its high 
 crumbling walls, the barriers of this time-worn citadel of 
 Sultans, where many a dark deed of blood and lust has 
 been done. Hard by the palace is San Sofia, with its four 
 minarets that speak to us of the sumptuous, turbulent 
 period of Byzantine rule and empire. And on the Seven 
 Hills thousands of wooden houses are grouped, whose tints 
 of delicate brown or burnt-out red all blend into one har- 
 monious stripe of colour, and above them the minarets like 
 alabaster lances show clear in the cool grey atmosphere at 
 dawn. Below, at the foot of Stamboul, the Golden Horn 
 extends its surface which is thickly covered as with a 
 net-work of interwoven masts and rigging. 
 
 As the steamer drops anchor, she is on the instant 
 assaulted by a mimic fleet of pirates in the form of 
 shouting boatmen, ragged porters, and servile interpreters, 
 who make the unfortunate traveller their prey, pounce 
 upon his luggage and would without scruple tear him 
 asunder into four pieces, if from each piece baksheesh were 
 obtainable. Why of course, a tourist who arrives for the 
 first time at Stamboul not knowing the customs, nor the 
 language nor the money of the country, of course such a 
 person is a lawful prize, a very mine of riches unexplored ! 
 Young couples on their honeymoon or lovers are most 
 sought after, for warm ardent hearts are ever generous ! 
 
 To make such loud-voiced gentlemen hear, it is necessary 
 to be as noisy as they. One must swing one's cane in the 
 air in order to win from these imperious servitors respect. 
 The wisest plan is to choose the best looking boatman 
 from the mass, and to put yourself under his protection.
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 2 1 
 
 Then watch with what brutal egoism the fortunate pilot 
 drives off other candidates for your favour as he takes 
 possession of his passenger ! For henceforth the passenger 
 becomes his property something little more than fare and 
 less than prey. 
 
 The boat brings you to the Police Bureau, where an 
 official, who very often cannot read, scrutinises your pass- 
 port and your person. All is in order : you may pass on 
 to the Custom-House, or rather float on, for the boatman 
 has not yet finished his task. The guide who accompanies 
 you will now hint that it is customary to apply silver oint- 
 ment to the palm of the custom-house officer who examines 
 your luggage. This functionary has already appraised you, 
 taken stock of you, put his own rate of value upon you. 
 You tickle his palm with one or with two white francs; 
 at once all is simplified ; the visit to the Custom-House 
 becomes one of pure formality, or, to be more exact, the 
 whole formality disappears. This is your first insight into 
 Oriental life. The poor wretch of a Custom-House officer 
 stands lowest 011 the scaling-ladder used by those thieves 
 who, one and all, make resolute, impudent assault upon 
 your purse. Is he to blame 1 The luckless employe only 
 earns about a sovereign or five-and-twenty shillings a 
 month : and even that pittance is not paid to him. 
 
 When franked through the Customs, your luggage is 
 hoisted on to the shoulders of a robust, swarthy Armenian, 
 a native of the interior, from Trebizond or Sivas, and at 
 his heels you make your entry to the glorious capital of 
 Turkey. 
 
 The first thing for surprise is the squalid aspect of the 
 streets, the pavement being formed of irregular blocks of
 
 22 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 stone of all sizes and all shapes that present a bewildering 
 succession of sharp angles and treacherous cavities. You 
 trip over the former, and you slide with unpleasant sudden- 
 ness into the latter. These pitfalls are full of black, fetid 
 water ; a swarm of pestilent flies broods there ; and the 
 pungent stink stifles you. A novice still, you give a side 
 glance and look down at the mass of ordure that lines the 
 thoroughfare ; at rotting vegetables ; offal over which dogs 
 snarl and wrangle ; here and there a cat with its head 
 beaten in ; an empty petroleum tin ; and many broken 
 bottles and pots. Curled up on the sun-scorched flagstones 
 lie numberless dogs, shaggy, mangy, diseased, and covered 
 with scars and bleeding sores. As you see all this, the van- 
 guard of the beggars makes its assault upon you, whining 
 in Greek, in Italian, in Spanish, and French. Such is their 
 insistance, that they pluck you by the sleeve and pat your 
 shoulder while uttering deafening wails both singly and in 
 unison. To escape their importunity you walk on as fast 
 as possible, taking swift strides across the narrow, dirty 
 streets, bordered by the rows of brothels which are near 
 the Custom-House at Galata. Brushing past evil-looking 
 louts who reek of mastic and garlic, you mount the dusty 
 fetid street leading up to Pera. On the heights above, fleas 
 in thousands and bugs in hundreds of thousands await your 
 advent, not to speak of mosquitoes, gad-flies and Dame 
 Nature's other instruments of torture. 
 
 By our drawing this pleasant picture for him, the reader 
 must not imagine that we hold a brief against the East. To 
 do so, were puerile. It is evident that Constantinople cannot 
 resemble either Paris or Vienna; the perpetual laisser aller 
 in all this is the essential feature in Asiatic life. One can
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 23 
 
 never hope to change the cardinal points, or to put the West 
 in the East. If ancient Byzantium had straight, even, clean 
 streets, well kept, well lighted, it would be as monotonous 
 as any other European capital. It would lose all its local 
 colour. All these petty signs of wretchedness should pro- 
 voke neither anger nor chagrin. The best way is to take 
 all with a light heart. 
 
 Still, there ought to be reforms ; and the public streets 
 might be made better and more presentable, if only the 
 municipal authorities had more money. All could be 
 washed and swept and garnished ; the question is merely 
 one of patience. The evil, the real evil, for which we re- 
 serve our criticisms, is the moral disorder, the soiled 
 morality, the putridity of character everywhere discernible. 
 On that score Constantinople is past cleansing ; and no 
 municipal broom nor any disinfectant could ever make the 
 city sane. 
 
 As regards the filth of the streets one might criticise the 
 utter nonchalance of the police and of the inhabitants, who 
 will let a dead dog lie rotting in the sun for ten days 
 before their door rather than trouble to pitch the carcase 
 into the Bosphorus. In Constantinople one would rather 
 be in a bad way than in a good way. Because this last is 
 only obtainable by taking trouble ; and no one will ever 
 take trouble. 
 
 To have an idea of what Constantinople might become if 
 in the hands of Europeans, one has only to compare it with 
 Alexandria or with Cairo. What a contrast ! Properly 
 to appreciate the difference one must study separately each 
 detail in the organisation of the two countries. One must 
 inspect the quays, custom-house, docks and railways at
 
 24 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 Alexandria, and at Cairo, examine the methods of tele- 
 graph and postal service, see the telephones, the lighting, 
 drainage and system of street cleaning, and mark the orderly 
 dress and bearing of the soldiers and policemen. The 
 parallel is eminently disadvantageous to Turkey. Yet both 
 countries are Mussulman. Egypt, however, is the East that 
 goes forward with the march of Western civilisation. 
 Turkey is the East that goes backward, that stands still. 
 The latter is like China ; the former like Japan ; and yet the 
 inhabitants of the vice kingdom of the Nile are far from 
 being a nation perfect at all points ; financial disorder there 
 is most lamentable ; and officials are not all of them above a. 
 bribe. But Egypt has striven to copy the good and 
 valuable institutions of Europe ; Turkey rejects them as 
 much as she can. By a strange irony of fate it is the 
 Empire of the Pharaohs that has to pay over to the 
 Ottoman government a tribute of eight millions of francs. 
 The civilized country is the vassal of the barbarous nation. 
 
 No sooner has he reached his hotel and has been installed 
 in his apartment than the traveller eagerly sets out to climb 
 up Galata Tower which serves watchers on the look- 
 out for outbreaks of fire in the capital. Once at this 
 height, the charm begins to work anew and one gazes down 
 with untiring delight upon the huge city. Now is the 
 moment to say a word about the way in which Constanti- 
 nople is divided and to specify these divisions. 
 
 Briefly there are three main parts of the town : the 
 Turkish part at Stamboul, the European quarter at Galata 
 and Pera, and the holy quarter at Scutari. It is some- 
 thing to know this much ; but that is not enough, for the 
 ethnography of the capital is far more complicated.
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 25 
 
 Thus, at Sfcamboul there is the vast Greek quarter of 
 Phanar, famed for the distinguished men born there ; 
 beside it lies Balata, a district inhabited by the Carait 
 Jews. There is another Greek quarter near Baloukli, a 
 monastery renowned for its little fish, half-red half-black ; 
 another at Psamatia, and an Armenian quarter at Coum- 
 Capou. Similarly, at Galata it is the Greek community 
 that is in the ascendant ; but in this quarter the confusion 
 of nationalities is even more bewildering ; while further on, 
 at Top Hane, near the Arsenal, the Turks are in a majority. 
 In Pera also there is a rich Armenian quarter at Taxim, 
 and a Turkish one at Djhanguir Mahallesi. The valley 
 below Pera is lived in by paupers of all nations. This for- 
 bidding, foul-smelling dale, divided by a large open drain, is 
 called Kassim Pasha. A faubourg of Talmudist Jews with 
 a vast cemetery stretches away beyond, and closes this side 
 of the town. 
 
 From all this it is plain that the cosmopolitism of Con- 
 stantinople is extremely confused. To sum up : the city 
 is half Turkish, half Greek. Turks only form half 
 the population of Constantinople. Greeks and Armenians 
 make up most of the other half, their majority being rein- 
 forced by Jews and Europeans. The main elements are 
 Turkish and Greek ; round these are grouped detachments 
 of all possible nationalities, some coming from Asia and 
 sent thither from Europe. All this heterogeneous mass 
 lives as it has lived for centuries, without ever having 
 become fused or melted into one. It is not a nation, not a 
 society, but a jumble of colonies, in juxtaposition the one to 
 the other, divided by insurmountable barriers of customs, of 
 language and of ideas. More than this : each community
 
 26 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 professes to defy and disdain the others ; and all mutually 
 try to exploit one another as much as may be. The 
 Armenian speaks scornfully of the dishonesty of the Greek ; 
 the Greek again scorns the seYvility of the Armenian who 
 willingly courts and truckles to the Mussulman ; while both 
 shrug shoulders when talking of the Turk, who however 
 gives them as good as he gets, never losing an inch of that 
 serio-comic majesty under which he cloaks his laziness and 
 ignorance. The Levantine by reason of his European 
 descent thinks himself vastly superior to all. As for the 
 Jew, he is put at the bottom rung of the social ladder ; in 
 this hierarchy he hardly passes the level of the boot-black. 
 
 Constantinople is a city of mutual disdain. The hand of 
 every man is against his neighbour. Each person treats 
 his fellow as an enemy, or rather as a debtor. The Turk 
 never scruples to refuse to pay his debts to the European ; 
 the Armenian exploits the Turk, the Greek, and if need be, 
 the Armenian ; the Greek fleeces every one he comes near ; 
 the European does his best to keep up with such past 
 masters in the art of swindling, while the Jew with his dirty 
 finger eagerly seeks to scrape up a piastre or two here and 
 there, regardless of buffets and snubbing. 
 
 To this centre of fraudulent traffic each nationality brings 
 its contingent of vice and dishonesty. Yet one may always 
 affirm that if the ignorance and sloth have been imported 
 from Asia, the vanity and demoralisation have come from 
 Europe. 
 
 Despite such race hatreds and rivalry of appetites, all 
 these herds pasture together in peace by a sort of tacit 
 compromise. Moreover, in Constantinople the matters 
 which most irritate men do not exist. There are neither
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 27 
 
 discussions as to political preponderance nor contests for 
 the triumph of certain social ideas. Political passions can 
 but be fomented under an absolute and theocratic govern- 
 ment ; social ideas imply a feeling for human solidarity. 
 All that in the East is as volapuck. Everybody is only busied 
 about getting rich ; each man's brains are like a little 
 money-box into which abstract truths by reason of their 
 greatness can never enter. 
 
 This social egoism presents at least one convenience ; it 
 leaves to each absolute and entire liberty. As no general 
 interests exist, every man is free to pursue and protect his 
 own private interests. Nowhere in the world is one as free 
 as in Turkey ; but this liberty is as great for knaves as for 
 honest folk ; it comes from the total indifference and apathy 
 of the law. 
 
 Provided he neither attack the Sultan nor religion, a 
 man may do pretty much as he likes ; but there is this draw- 
 back, that all evil-minded lucre lovers and thievish debtors 
 have every sort of facility to practise their villainy. For a 
 nation this is a situation of great peril, and, in a way, a 
 return to barbarism. What kind of people is that which 
 works exclusively for itself, which seeks to live at the 
 expense of others, and above all, at the expense of the 
 social organism ? To rob and plunder the Turkish Govern- 
 ment : what a rare advantage is this ! What matter for 
 laughter are the many scurvy tricks played upon it by the 
 most knowing ! 
 
 It is for this reason that Turkey in Europe is fatally 
 condemned to disappear; it will disappear, because it does 
 not exist. When you say the word " France," you mean 
 by that the collection of Bretons, Provencals, Normans,
 
 28 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 and Flemish who are welded together by a solidarity of 
 interests, by common affection, by what is called national 
 feeling. The same with Germany and with Italy, whereas, 
 in Turkey, there is nothing of the kind. Turkey is not a 
 nation ; she is what Bismarck once called Italy, a " geo- 
 graphical expression." 
 
 A state composed of divers and of rival nationalities, 
 like England, like Austria, can exist on the condition that 
 it provides excellent administration for all, insuring at once 
 safety from within and greatness from without. Now, 
 administration in Turkey is nothing but an abominable 
 scourge. Public security does not exist, for brigandage 
 flourishes at the very doors of Constantinople. And for 
 the Ottoman Empire, exterior greatness and power are now 
 but a legend, an historic memory. If European Turkey yet 
 lives, she owes her existence to the rivalry of nations, all 
 alike tortured with lust to devour her. Lst but one of 
 these nations set its finger on the feet of clay that support 
 the Ottoman image, and it will in that moment topple and 
 fall. 
 
 Let us go down lower from Galata Tower to the Kara- 
 keuy or Valide-Sultane Bridge, this famous bridge on which 
 wondering tourists may watch all Oriental types go past, 
 and never weary of the sight. Here one may study the 
 nationalities of Western Asia, of the extremity of Europe 
 and of North Africa. We may term it the Bridge of 
 Nations. The eye is charmed by all this stir and move- 
 ment, dazzled by this array of bright colour and variety of 
 types. A thousand things create surprise and a thousand 
 questions rise to the lips of the curious. But those impres- 
 sions and sensations we leave to the traveller who has just
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 29 
 
 arrived. Let us coldly, impassively examine men and 
 things. 
 
 See that Pasha of bestial mien and port, with his 
 dyed eyebrows and hollow eyes under their puffy lids. 
 He was once a Janissary. He has committed more 
 crimes than the worst of our gallows'-birds ; but, as many 
 men of high place are his accomplices, they have made 
 him governor of one of the most important provinces. 
 Naturally the old soldier was well versed in the art of 
 squeezing money out of his subordinates, and so has 
 managed to amass quite a fortune. In fact, he has quite a 
 respectable number of strong boxes all filled with Turkish 
 pounds. He is a slave to the most absurd superstition. 
 In the morning when he rises he throws up his fez in the 
 air. If it fall on his head, that augurs well for the day's 
 doings ; if not, woe betide that luckless wretch who appeals 
 to him for justice ! At night before entering his bedroom 
 he draws cabalistic signs upon the floor and then leaps at a 
 bound from the threshold right into his bed, placed in the 
 middle of the room. These are not all his eccentricities. 
 He lias a harem of youths, and gives all his minions 
 Government appointments whenever he can. It is this 
 individual who is at the head of the most civilized province 
 of the Empire. It is he who there directs its proper 
 administration, its finance and the true course of justice. 
 
 There goes another, gravely seated astride a pretty 
 rnule. He is said to be not quite right in his head ; and 
 his sudden fits of fury suffice to scare away all his subor- 
 dinates. As governor of a province, he treated the people 
 with rare brutality and with unparalleled coarseness. To 
 this mental disorder, he adds ignorance of no common kind,
 
 30 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 and a strange invincible difficulty of comprehension. See- 
 ing that for a long while he had been in the army, the post 
 was assigned to him of Minister of Agriculture and 
 Commerce. 
 
 Now another governor passes. When formerly minister of 
 finance, it was he who had to treat with the railway company 
 constructing the line joining the Constantinople- Adrianople- 
 Philippopoli route with that of Sofia-Belgrade-Vienna. 
 Like a prudent man, he drew up two Cahiers de charge, 
 one in conformity with the intentions of the Turkish 
 Government, and the other which entirely met the views of 
 the Company in question. Of course this Robert Houdin 
 submitted for ratification to the Sublime Porte the first of 
 these two contracts. As soon as the final text had been 
 adopted by the Government, hi ! presto ! with his magic 
 wand he transformed this Cahier de charge into the other 
 one ; and for this conjuring feat he received from the Com- 
 pany the modest fee of forty thousand Turkish pounds. 
 True, the Turkish Government later refused to ratify the 
 contract, but in order to punish this untrustworthy nego- 
 tiator he was appointed governor of an important province. 
 
 That elegant Circassian with a row of gold cartridge-cases 
 on his breast that rides proudly past on a superb horse, 
 strangled once with his own hand two poor young girls. 
 Their family were for bringing the murderer to justice by 
 having recourse to law ; but the Turkish Government like 
 to flatter and keep in with the Tcherkesses, for it is they who 
 furnish the Pasha's harems with the most beautiful maidens, 
 and they who put their ferocity at the service of the great. 
 All hope of obtaining justice had thus to be abandoned; the 
 assassin is at large, and lias resumed his former functions.
 
 THE EVIL OE THE EAST. 31 
 
 You fat Bulgarian going by can neither read nor write. 
 He is in all respects a savage. But he had the skill to 
 collect a small fortune with which he bought the goodwill 
 of certain Pashas at the War Office. And they nominated 
 him to the post of sheep-purchaser to the Imperial army. 
 Bv dint of adroit bargaining he has become a millionaire. 
 
 *, O 
 
 To-day, he has a palace at Stainboul and villas everywhere. 
 In his lecherous dreams he sees the forms of adorable 
 women. At once he sends for his painter and bids him 
 execute portraits that must in all points faithfully answer 
 to his description. When after repeated correction, these 
 pictures approach the ideal of which the Pasha dreamed, 
 Circassian panders of the most practised sort are despatched 
 to the Caucasus and to the shores of the Caspian Sea to 
 bring back for their lord the type of loveliness revealed to 
 him in sleep. Quite like a fairy-tale, is it not? When this 
 droll collector of girls goes by, every one bows; and he 
 receives salutes from those poor soldiers whom, to enrich 
 himself, he allowed to starve. 
 
 That Effendi in long black coat, cut Turkish fashion, with- 
 out collar or facings, was employed at the Ministry of 
 Finance. But he overdid his part as pilferer when the 
 last loan was negotiated ; and the Government, losing 
 patience, was forced to prosecute him. Happily he managed 
 to bribe his judges, and so lives now tranquilly on the 
 handsome estate which by theft he was able to buy. 
 
 That young namby-pamby with shifting, unsteady gaze 
 and loose lip is a species of Oriental parasite. He sings, 
 and plays the guitar ; he is much in request among great 
 personages for his artistic and other talents. For the 
 moment he is kept by an officer high up in the service.
 
 3 2 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 whose shameful vices have their recompense in a terrible 
 affection of the spinal marrow. And this minion is now 
 on the look-out for another amateur of his charms. His 
 trances are just those of any. trull who has lost her keeper 
 and hopes to find some reliable customer. 
 
 That big European, wearing the large rosette of the 
 Medjidieh, is a spy in the pay of the Imperial Palace. 
 His bluff manner and boisterous good humour are his pass- 
 port to all social gatherings. One is surprised to meet him 
 everywhere, and one asks by what door he got in and by 
 what window he will go out. On seeing him, everybody 
 suddenly talks in a whisper; and yet people accept the 
 hand he holds out to all. Although he talks a great deal 
 himself, one ear is always open to catch anything said be- 
 hind his back. He is obliging; he will cut out paper 
 figures to please the young folk, and is as zealous a match- 
 maker as any mamma with seven unmarried daughters. 
 
 There, in that victoria, goes an influential personage ; 
 he is the Sultan's head physician. He married a prostitute 
 whose favours every Perote could buy for ten francs. De- 
 spite her sudden exaltation to rank, this Messalina has not 
 retired from her profession, but uses the impotence and the 
 money of her old husband to house and enrich her young 
 lovers. 
 
 I assure you that, philosophising thus during a brief stroll 
 across the Bridge, one feels infinite consolation and refresh- 
 ment when one looks at the honest faces of the street-dogs, 
 forgetful of their manginess and revolting sores. At least, 
 if you stretch out your hand to them, they will eagerly re- 
 quite your caress with affection that is neither feigned nor 
 false.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ISLAMISM. POLYGAMY ; DIVORCE ; RKPUDIATIOX. WHAT A 
 
 WIFE COSTS IN TURKEY. FANATICISM. A DAY AND A 
 
 NIGHT DURING THE GREAT FAST. COGNAC AND CON- 
 SCIENCE. 
 
 WHEN discussing the decadence of Oriental nations it is 
 customary to shrug one's shoulders and ascribe the evil to 
 Islamism. " All that is Mahommed's fault." The solution 
 has the advantage of being extremely simple ; then, again, 
 it flatters Christian self-respect, and they can so revenge 
 themselves for the epithet of "dogs " which the Mussulman 
 so liberally and so freely bestows upon them. 
 
 Yet, to us, this idea seems wholly superficial and conse- 
 quently inexact. Islamism, to our mind, is no more hostile 
 to civilisation than any other religion. Although we do not 
 intend to start any theological discussion which might 
 at once make our readers ready to skip, it is yet necessary 
 to say a word or two about Islamism, for it was Islamism 
 which created that strange reality we call the East. With- 
 out Islamism, the East would only be a cardinal point. 
 
 The sun on rising would meet the same men and the same 
 C
 
 34 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 things that it saw when setting ; and for this meritorious 
 star that would surely be most monotonous. It is Islamism 
 which approved and consecrated the law of polygamy, the 
 characteristic trait in Asiatic morals. It is Islamism that 
 gave us the minaret, the main distinguishing feature of 
 Oriental architecture. 
 
 According to Mussulman ideas, religion sums up and 
 contains all; politics, justice and learning. The enemies of 
 Turkey are always styled " unbelievers " ; a war is always 
 "a holy war " ; the soldiery fight under the green standard 
 of the Prophet ; the Sultan is at once sovereign and pontiff, 
 Padishah and Caliph. 
 
 The priests or ulemas do not form, as with the Christians, 
 a caste of sacred character. They are theologians, men of 
 learning. Ulema is the plural for alym, learned, derived 
 from ylm, science. They are also judges (cadis) or teachers 
 (hodjas). The sacred writings or cheriat form the basis of 
 all legislation ; only in proportion as the relations with the 
 West have grown more extensive, certain laws have been 
 added to these sacred documents that are just taken from 
 the French code. So to remark upon these is needless ; we 
 will only stay to note certain special points in Mussulman 
 law. 
 
 Assuredly the most disastrous of these institutions is the 
 law of vakouf or of foundations. By virtue of this law, 
 when a man dies childless, his property reverts to the 
 mosques. These mosques are in possession to-day of lands 
 the estimated extent of which, though varying, may be con- 
 sidered as one third of the Empire. Thus the mortmain 
 property exempt from taxation covers a very large part of 
 the dominions of the Sultan. It will easily be seen how
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 35 
 
 disastrous is such a system to the treasury revenues and to 
 the agricultural prosperity of the country. 
 
 These huge estates, made thus useless to commerce, 
 serve only to foster the sloth of a goodly portion of the 
 Ottoman nation. For the personnel of the mosques is 
 numberless. There are some that have several hundreds 
 of sheiks (doctors) kliatifs, imams, muezzins, without count- 
 ing the mollahs who reside at the religious seminaries 
 (mcdresseh) or the families of all these priests, doctors and 
 professors with their servants and their slaves. All these 
 persons only consume without producing anything. This 
 is important to note ; for this defines the fundamental vice 
 of Ottoman society. 
 
 The Turk practises no trade, engages in no commerce. 
 There is a proverb which says. " The Frank has science, 
 the Armenian, commerce ; the Osmanli, majesty." Thus, 
 the Turk is majestic ; and, for him, that is enough ; only 
 unfortunately in our matter-of-fact day, majesty is not a 
 means of existence. 
 
 The Turk leaves all trade to folk that in his eyes belong 
 to an inferior race. He declines to be either a hatter or a 
 tailor or a bootmaker, a grocer or a carpenter. Only four 
 professions does he deign to recognise as fit for him, viz., 
 those of government official, soldier, priest or agriculturist. 
 
 The word "agriculturist" must not deceive us ; let there 
 be no illusion about it. We shall see further on that the 
 Turkish cultivator, finding that the Government taxes and 
 imposts deprive him of all chance of profit, has adopted 
 for some time past the system of producing only just 
 sufficient for his own personal consumption. If by any 
 chance there should be a small surplus of grain, lie buries
 
 36 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 it all against next year. So in this way he contributes 
 very little towards providing for the general consumption ; 
 and Turkey has to buy her wheat and flour from Hungary 
 and from Russia. But first and foremost, the Turk is a 
 functionary ; to be that is his life's Jream. He knows well 
 enough that he will be badly paid ; and paid at rare inter- 
 vals, too. In fact, in each year he expects to lose a third 
 of his salary. No matter; his one desire is to get an 
 official appointment, for that flatters his vanity and suits 
 his sloth. If the Turk as agriculturist produces little, the 
 Turk as functionary produces absolutely nothing. On the 
 contrary, he lives at the expense of the State. 
 
 So with the Turkish soldier. He ranks as a destroyer of 
 budgets. . The priest, again, gets his living by the law of 
 vakouf, and produces as little as do the other three. In 
 all cases, therefore, the Turk is always the consumer 
 never the producer. He must get his living at the expense 
 of the Government taxes. Who then pays those taxes 1 
 The Greeks, the Armenians and the other lesser nationalities 
 in whose hands are the commerce, industry and agriculture 
 of the country. To put the whole thing into a nutshell ; it 
 is the Christian who maintains the Mussulman. The Turk, 
 plunged in his dreamy kief, watches the others work : 
 
 "Ah ! qu'il est doux de ne rien faire 
 Quand tout s'agite autour de nous ! " 
 
 Iii his eyes, work is a misfortune, a punishment, a sign of 
 inferiority. Therefore he has a deep disdain for the activity 
 of the Christians ; he is even opposed to it ; and when he 
 perceives that it is suddenly developing, lie doggedly 
 thwarts it. " Do nothing yourself, nor ever let others do 
 aught either," might be taken as the traditional motto of
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 37 
 
 Turkey. Hence all these vexing petty intrigues, all these 
 administrative absurdities and iniquities, which finally 
 disgust the most energetic and persevering persons who 
 come to the East to carry through some enterprise. Travel 
 through the country and wherever you go you will see 
 empty factories, deserted farms, and unworked mines. On 
 all sides, ruin and disorder a veritable land of the dis- 
 heartened. Ask the natives and they will answer : 
 11 There, a Frenchman, or an Italian or a German set up, 
 and started this or that commercial enterprise. After some 
 years of perpetual hindrance, he gave up in despair ; he 
 was forced to quit a country in which the Government's 
 sole aim is to stifle and thwart all private enterprise." 
 
 Let us go back to the subject of vakouf. That sovereign 
 who should have sufficient energy to abolish this institution 
 would render immense service to the country. Yet how can 
 one suppose that the Head of Religion would ever dispossess 
 that Religion, and so raise up against himself all the 
 hatred and bitterness of so powerful and vindictive a body 
 as that of the ulemas 1 Even in the last war, the mollahs 
 showed signs of rebellion. To bring them under, it needed 
 a most terrible system of repression. Every night a certain 
 number of the guilty were secretly put into boats and, 
 bound hand and foot, were flung into the sea. The Bos- 
 phorus next morning threw up their corpses on the beach, 
 so revealing to the terror-stricken population the mysteries 
 of expeditionary justice. In Turkey, fanaticism cannot 
 be trifled with. Vakouf will live as long as Islamism 
 endures. 
 
 Another legal eccentricity may here be noted, viz., the 
 permission to reclaim through a third party without
 
 38 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 indemnity the possession of an object or of property which 
 originally belonged to the claimant. This liberty is of 
 course grossly abused. In Turkey false witnesses are a 
 drug in the market ; you call buy them like melons or 
 gourds, and there is a lively competition among them. 
 Nothing is easier than to procure an obliging witness at a 
 modest rate, and this facility becomes greater when the 
 person to be fleeced is a foreigner. Thus on the simple 
 assertion of one of these hired witnesses a Turk can get 
 hold of any object that he desires. The system of obtain- 
 ing money by pledges becomes impossible, for the debtor 
 may take it into his head not to refund the sum borrowed 
 or to redeem his pledge. Usurers mutually profit by this 
 situation to impose the hardest of conditions upon needy 
 wretches ; there are bogus sales, and interests of one and 
 two per cent, paid weekly. In no country perhaps have the 
 usurer's tricks reached such a pitch of perfection. We will 
 not now dwell further upon the subject of Ottoman law, for 
 it is one to which we shall repeatedly have occasion to 
 return. Need it be added that venality among judges 
 thrives and flourishes, and that the chances of the success 
 of a lawsuit are measured by the plaintiffs fortune ! Besides 
 venality, there is abject, limitless servility. It is well nigh 
 hopeless to try and contend with a high functionary ; if 
 that functionary be attached to the Palace, one is condemned 
 without a hearing. And in most of these cases, consular 
 agents and European lawyers do wisely when they advise 
 their compatriots to bear things patiently and hold their 
 peace 
 
 So much, then, for the judicial attributes of the ulemas ; 
 and there is little to be said regarding public instruction.
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 39 
 
 For, despite the efforts made by Government, all is still in 
 its infancy. At Constantinople, besides the great Franco- 
 Turkish college of Galata-Serai, there are a few fairly good 
 Turkish schools of the elementary sort. In some of the 
 larger towns of the Empire others have been founded ; all 
 that they need ai-e pupils to learn, and masters to teach. 
 These establishments have been started less with a view to 
 the spread of education than as a take-in, a sham to deceive 
 the eye. In the villages, again, all that a hodja has to do 
 is to recite or rather to chant to the peasant children the 
 opening verses of the Goran. This psalmody is always 
 accompanied by rhythmical swaying of the body, usually 
 associated with porcelain china figures on a mantelpiece ; 
 such oscillatory movement would seem to be indispensable 
 to Orientals, in order properly to digest the matter which 
 they teach and are taught. The Turkish language, grandj 
 melodious as it is to the ear, has this draw-back that it is 
 so difficult to read and write as to be almost inaccessible to 
 the mass. To know it even fairly, one must have studied 
 Persian and Arabic. Hence it comes that the lower classes 
 are doomed to hopeless ignorance ; while to most foreigners 
 the written language is wholly incomprehensible. 
 
 In Japan, a system has lately been adopted by which the 
 national language is transcribed in European characters. 
 This might be done as regards Turkish, also ; and a uniform 
 method of transcription of this sort would wonderfully 
 facilitate relations between the East and the West. The 
 Armenians have already realised this idea, for in Stamboul 
 several newspapers are published, that are written in Turkish 
 but printed in Armenian character. The main point would 
 consist in the choice of a uniform method of transcription :
 
 40 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 as a matter of fact, each grammarian has his own. Let us 
 take for instance the word beuyuk, great. It will be found 
 spelt in five different ways : bouyouk, bouyuk, buyuk, 
 benyeuk. There is no doubt that this innovation would 
 raise a regular tempest of opposition in the world of ulemas ; 
 they are ever fearful lest the Holy Books should be trans- 
 lated ; in fact, Europeans are now forbidden to take out of 
 Turkey a copy of the Goran. 
 
 All that we have just said about laws, only applies to 
 Mussulman civil and public life. Let us now climb over 
 the wall of private life, a wall decorated at its ridge by 
 bits of broken bottles, and let us look closer at the organi- 
 sation of a Turkish family. In other terms, we will speak 
 of polygamy, an institution, which for unfaithful husbands 
 in the West is a cause for merriment and contempt. But 
 if the matter be coldly considered, there is no real reason 
 why polygamy should be cited as the main cause for the 
 decay of Oriental society. Polygamy, in principle at least, 
 is not a concession made to man's libertinism ; it is another 
 conception of family life, that is all. True, it maintains 
 the wife in a state of civil and social inferiority ; but from 
 a private point of view, the wife is mistress in her own 
 home. Just as in the West, she is the mother of the 
 family in every sense of the word. 
 
 Thus one must give up those burlesque ideas which still 
 exist in Europe as to life in the harems, which French 
 people with ludicrous persistency still call serais (palaces). 
 On the banks of the Seine or the Thames when a Turkish 
 family is spoken of, one imagines a fierce, turbaned Pasha, 
 wrapped in loose, gold-embroidered robe, armed with a 
 scimitar and smoking a narghile, while his wives, half-
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 41 
 
 veiled in gauze garments, recline around him on rich 
 carpets in every voluptuous posture of temptation and 
 allurement. He is imagined as a sort of Laocoon, not girt 
 about with serpents, hut with the warm bodies and caress- 
 ing limbs of Odalisques ; in a word for Frenchmen, the Turk 
 is a man who can always afford himself the expensive 
 luxury of a vast lupanar. 
 
 Polygamy is quite another thing ; these little amuse- 
 ments are wholly contradictory to Mussulman law. By 
 that law, the husband is obliged to provide each of his 
 wives with a separate apartment where she may live with 
 her children and servants ; and each wife, no matter what 
 may be her age, her religion, or her nationality, is entitled 
 to the same treatment. The Goran in delicate fashion has 
 gone so far as to ensure for all wives a certain equality in 
 marital privileges, and it imposes upon husbands certain 
 obligations that may not unfrequently be difficult to fulfil. 
 Thursday night is the night set apart for the first wife ; 
 the husband must then do his best to give her a proof of 
 his conjugal fidelity ; this weekly passion is almost obliga- 
 tory. In all this, however, there is something evidently 
 matter-of-fact and humdrum ; here there are no voluptuous 
 orgies, no outbursts of unbridled sensuality. A Turkish 
 family consists of a series of separate families headed by 
 one husband. 
 
 From this system it is plain that the husband draws the 
 most advantage. "With you," said a Turk to me once, 
 " it often happens that your wife is in a bad humour or out 
 of sorts ; with us, we are always sure to find one of our 
 wives ready to give us a charming welcome." And another 
 added : " The European wife soon gives up being amiable
 
 42 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 to her husband ; the Mussulman wife, on the contrary, is 
 always watching how she can captivate her husband, 
 for she is ever afraid of her rivals, and strives by all 
 means in her power to have -influence over him, and so 
 ensure for her children a prosperous future." 
 
 Moreover, let us not forget that the Turk, the real bona- 
 fide Turk, who, by living in Constantinople has not been 
 corrupted, is essentially a family man. He is ignorant of 
 other pleasures than those of his own home. He never 
 goes to club, to theatre, or to concert ; no amusements 
 appeal to him, for the simple reason that few or none exist. 
 Married when quite young, at sixteen or seventeen, the 
 Turk conceives no pleasure, no happiness greater than that 
 of having many children. How far removed are we, then, 
 from the seductive odalisques whose pictures, in the East, 
 are only to be seen on biscuit-tins ! 
 
 What we have just said relates to Turkish home life as it 
 was once, and as it still is, in the provinces. Needless to 
 say, that in Constantinople such patriarchal traditions 
 have speedily been altered ! Polygamy has there become 
 a sort of means to keep up the sinking flame of lust and 
 perpetually to stimulate the sensual faculties ; without 
 doubt this ceaseless over-excitement has greatly helped to 
 bring about the decay of. the race and to sap its energy and 
 force. Look at the Constantinople Turk ; he is no longer 
 the conquering hero of a bygone day, tall, brawny, robust, 
 with whom the Frankish proverb originated " as strong as 
 a Turk." He is a sort of little, weedy voluptuary, lean, 
 shrivelled, doubled-up ; a prey to consumption and to 
 venereal disease. 
 
 As a logical consequence, polygamy when thus understood
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 43 
 
 and practised could not fail to destroy itself ; and this is 
 what in fact has happened. So soon as polygamy has no 
 other end and aim than to create a large family with several 
 branches, and one husband as the trunk of the tree, it can 
 only be a means for ceaselessly supplying a man with new 
 wives ; it is domestic debauchery. It is far simpler as well 
 as far cheaper to renounce polygamy and to have recourse 
 to repudiation according to the easy simplified fashion of 
 the Mussulman law. " Why," said a Turk naively to me 
 one day, " why, when my wife no longer does what T want 
 should I be forced to live with her ? " In fact, polygamy is 
 becoming every day more rare ; and this for several reasons. 
 
 First of all, despite his affected disdain for Western civili- 
 sation, the Osmanli does his best to copy as closely as possible 
 Parisian manners and customs. Nowadays it is considered 
 very chic (the Turks have got hold of the word) to have 
 only one wife. Polygamy has gone out of fashion. 
 
 Then in the second place, since private and public business 
 is in so disastrous a state, the Turk, even if rich, cannot 
 meet the expenses which the separate maintenance of several 
 wives entails. Each wife must have a special set of apart- 
 ments and at least four or five servants. The cost is too 
 great a one for a Turk ; he prefers to have several wives, 
 but in succession ; and economy thus makes him a mono- 
 gamist. 
 
 Finally, the influence of the wife has to be taken into 
 account. In proportion as the young Turkish females 
 become less ignorant, they can the better appreciate the 
 value of the position acquired by their sex in the West ; and 
 they can then fight with all their force against an institution 
 that for them is at once prejudicial and humiliating.
 
 44 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 Immediately upon her betrothal a girl of good family exacts 
 from her future husband the promise never to take a second 
 wife ; and on a betrothal night such a promise costs little, 
 especially in Turkey. What most threatens the happiness 
 of the young wife is the putting-away, not polygamy ; and 
 we must avow that the .former is far more immoral than the 
 latter. Thus, as polygamy decreases, morality becomes 
 looser, and family-ties more slack. Cases of abortion 
 have now become formidably frequent ; the fact that a 
 Turkish wife is in a way exempt from the penalties of 
 Ottoman law only serves to favour such a crime. 
 
 The formalities of marriage and divorce are in themselves 
 simple enough. Before the wedding ceremony, the amount 
 of the bride's dowry is fixed and that of her indemuity, in 
 case she be put away. In villages, poor girls often get this 
 indemnity paid in advance, fearing that on the fatal day 
 they may not have any money left and be abandoned with- 
 out resources whatever. The bride's trousseau consists of her 
 own linen, with a chemise and a veil, the bridegroom having 
 to supply her with a,feradji or outdoor cloak, a mirror, soap 
 and napkins. Such are the main elements of the corbeille 
 de mariage that with the rich are extremely costly. The 
 newly-married pair receive the nuptial blessing from the 
 imam; and then the girl, covered by her bridal veil, is led into 
 the bridal chamber, and here she and her husband repeat a 
 special prayer, after which he may strip off the veil and 
 contemplate at will the charms of her who hitherto had 
 been half hidden from his gaze. Is there not much charm 
 and freshness in so simple a ceremony as this ? Surely it is 
 preferable to the bustle, humbug and grimacing which always 
 accompany weddings in civilised countries.
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 45 
 
 So much for the good side of Turkish married life ; now 
 let us look at the reverse. To put away his wife, the Turk 
 pays her the sum agreed upon, and then from the imam he 
 gets a square piece of paper having thereon the religious 
 formula authorising the dissolution of the marriage. It is 
 then that the husband may make use of the consecrated 
 phrase: Avretim bosh ola, "Let my wife be free!" It is 
 only the husband who can ask for a divorce, and the claim 
 may be mutual for the following motives : joint consent, 
 insufficiency of money given for the wife's maintenance, 
 voluntary absence of the husband, his apostacy or his 
 impotence. This law of divorce which obliges the husband 
 to pay the dowry money, is thus an effective weapon in the 
 hands of young wives of wealthy family. 
 
 By a ridiculous clause in the law, when a husband desires 
 to take back his divorced wife, she is bound first to wed 
 another man, if only for one night. Blind men are usually 
 chosen for this agreeable office ; so poor Belisariuses in the 
 East have now and again their little compensations. 
 Besides his four legitimate wives, the Turk may have slaves 
 if he likes, but he is obliged to marry any one of these who 
 bears him a child. Officially speaking, there is no longer 
 any traffic in white flesh ; and the slave bazaars have been 
 solemnly closed. But this is a trade that thrives none the 
 less. All about the Top Hane arsenal there are hans kept 
 by Circassians where pretty girls are for sale. A young 
 girl costs from 2500 francs to 3000 francs, but the price of 
 course goes as high as 10,000 francs and more. The 
 Circassian girls themselves are glad enough to get into such 
 establishments; they prefer the easy life of a Turkish harem 
 to the dull miserable existence of their compatriots. In
 
 46 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 these slave-shops they can recover from the fatigues of their 
 journey, and acquire that degree of plump sleekness which 
 Orientals affect. So they go through a moderate course of 
 feeding up. Custom exacts tliat every year during the 
 festival of Ba'iram, the Queen mother should offer a beautiful 
 slave to the Sultan. This example is followed by other 
 exalted personages. The Caliph Abdul Aziz had thus as 
 many as 1200 women in his harem. 
 
 The Circassians who do the recruiting work for these 
 Ottoman girl-shops are base, blood-thirsty villains, dreaded 
 and detested by all the people ; but for all that they swagger 
 about the town with kkandjar at side and pistols at belt, 
 proud of the protection given them by nympholeptic pashus 
 and other epicui-es in dainty female flesh. When reaching 
 Turkey, the sight of tramways and lamp-posts makes one 
 think that civilisation and progress have there got a hold. 
 But scratch, the Turk in his fez and overcoat, and you will 
 find the Turk in turban and caftan ; he is not civilised ; he 
 only pretends to be so ; he has only exchanged his pristine 
 rudeness for a seeming softness of manner. 
 
 What we have just said for polygamy we may repeat for 
 fanaticism, with which the Turk is so bitterly reproached. 
 But fanaticism has no whit helped towards the dissolution 
 of Oriental morality ; on the contrary, this sentiment is a 
 force for a nation, above all for a theocratic nation. It is 
 fanaticism which has made Turks and Arabs great. In the 
 believer who willingly deprives himself of all ; who bears 
 cold, hunger and fatigue without a murmur; who rushes 
 forth to combat like a martyr and dies like a hero in him 
 we have the most perfect type of the soldier who makes 
 empires great and strong. In a State where religion and
 
 THE EVIL OF TEE EAST. 47 
 
 country are solid and immutable, fanaticism is the purest 
 expression of sincere patriotism. 
 
 Let us add that Turkish fanaticism, the hatred cherished 
 by believers in the Goran for all other religions is perfectly 
 logical. "We in no wise mean to make an apology for 
 Islam, but we can well understand why the Mussulman 
 believes himself superior to all other men. What is the 
 religion of Mahommed if not an exalted form of Deism based 
 on the conception of one Almighty and Eternal God, on the 
 doctrine of punishment and recompense in the life to come, 
 on equality, brotherly kindness, the protection of the weak 
 and the respect of laws? It is a religion that admits 
 neither of dogmas, symbols nor mysteries, and, as regards 
 superstition, it is far behind the greater portion of Christian 
 sects. Thus the Turk naturally deems his religion a far 
 loftier, purer one than any other, because it is less material. 
 He is used to the clear, simple conception of one God and 
 one Divine law interpreted by inspired men. How can his 
 mind accept so complicated a dogma as that of the Trinity, 
 which forms the basis of all Christian religions ? What is 
 he to think of the mysterious doctrines of the Eucharist or 
 of the worship of certain miracle-working statues and 
 shrines] To him, this is but idolatry in its grossest form. 
 So it comes that all efforts on the part of Christians to con- 
 vert Mussulmans have been fruitless. But, on the other 
 hand, Islamism makes numerous proselytes, chiefly in 
 Africa, where it soon replaces the religion of the locality. 
 Turkey's depression and enervation can thus never be attri- 
 buted to the doctrine of Mahommed. It comes from the 
 manners and the temperament of the Osmanlis, from their 
 sloth and ignorance. It is the fatal consequence of having
 
 4 8 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 substituted a soft, sensual existence for the stirring life of 
 battle and conquest led by their ancestors. 
 
 Fatalism has largely helped to produce this enervation, 
 albeit such a doctrine is nowhere to be found in the Goran. 
 And does not the Gospel contain like teaching when we 
 hear that the lilies of the field, who toil not, neither spin, 
 are watched over and protected by that Almighty God 
 whose guardianship is the same and more for man than his 
 care for the birds of the air ? The theory of the Mussul- 
 man Holy Book is no other than this, but the Turks have 
 known how to make it fit with their idleness and indolence. 
 " So God will ; inch allahf" is what they ejaculate on every 
 occasion ; and thus they avoid the trouble of making the 
 slightest effort. If things go wrong and they fail, they say, 
 "Thus was it written ;" and thus they save themselves the un- 
 pleasantness of making mutual reproaches. But as the good 
 God never took the pains to find them in clothes, in boots, 
 in sugar, or other necessaries, the Turks had to buy these 
 things in Europe without ever trying to produce them 
 themselves. To such a pitch had this come, that Turkey 
 possessed tributary states, working for her and supplying 
 her with pocket-money ; in a word, she was a nation kept 
 by her neighbours. But these neighbours have to-day 
 recovered their freedom and shut their purse, so that, like 
 the grasshopper in the fable, the Turk finds himself in a 
 great fix. He has no money ; and he knows that he is in 
 capable of earning any. 
 
 Religious sentiment, like all other sentiments, has be- 
 come much weaker in the Turkish capital. The great fast 
 of Ramazan, when every believer ought to abstain from 
 drinking, eating or smoking during the whole day from
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 49 
 
 sunrise to sunset, is no longer strictly observed, except 
 among the poor classes. It has become a pretext for car- 
 nival orgies which are kept up throughout the night until 
 the dawn. During the day, if one abstain from anything, 
 it is from work ; the Turk sleeps all day because he has 
 been gormandising all night. During the month of Rama- 
 zan, administrative life in Turkey is at a stand-still ; the 
 public offices are opened at most for an hour or so daily, and 
 the officials never come there; the rickety machine suddenly 
 stops altogether ; there is no such thing as urgency, but all 
 important affairs are put off until after Bairam, a four-days' 
 festival that succeeds Ramazan. 
 
 As much might be said for the non-observance of the 
 Goran's law forbidding the use of spirituous liquors. Turks 
 publicly drink mastic, the absinthe of the Levantine, and 
 some can manage to absorb ten or twelve glasses a day. 
 AVine is also served at their tables, but they have a special 
 liking for cognac. To soothe their conscience they call it a 
 medicine which has to be taken for their health's sake and 
 their often infirmities. Many wine shops in Stamboul 
 gravely have the word '' Pharmacy " put up in big letters 
 over the door. The window front is filled with Martell's 
 Three Star Brandy, (sham stuff, all of it) imitations of fine 
 champagne, and base, sweet, fiery mixtures that pass with 
 the unsuspecting for curacoa and chartreuse. Poor deluded 
 Turks ! They style such vile concoctions " remedies," and 
 believe in their efficacy ! At some of these so-called 
 " pharmacies " one can buy nothing in the way of drugs 
 not even a packet of bicarbonate of soda or a pennyworth 
 of sulphate of magnesia. The other day I met a function- 
 ary just about to empty a huge tumbler of brandy, because, 
 D
 
 5 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 as he said, he had scratched his finger when getting out of a 
 caique. I surprised him not a little by affirming that cog- 
 nac was a remedy only of service for external use. 
 
 Even devotees delight to sacrifice to Bacchus with wine 
 and spirits, when they only get the chance. I well recollect 
 the copious libations of wine, beer and kirsch offered to me 
 once, by an amiable dervish ; and that in mid Ramazan. 
 This bout had its sequel when the imam of a certain mosque 
 astonished us by the prodigious quantity of champagne that 
 his snowy turbaned head could stand. Till then, we had 
 no idea of the faculty for absorption possessed by an imam. 
 The poor fellows, though, are far from being over-rich, and 
 one cannot blame them for profiting by any chance to play 
 the glutton and make a little money. If they could, they 
 would willingly sell the pillars of the mosques, the holy 
 carpets and the gorgeously embroidered tapestries that deck 
 their sacred buildings. In fact, this is clone again and 
 again. At St Sophia, the imams worry every tourist who 
 comes there to make them buy little cubes of mosaic that have 
 been knocked out or that have fallen from the roof. Much 
 the same thing is done at St Mark's, Venice, only not by 
 priests, but by rapacious guides. The credulous delight to 
 hear that these bits of mosaic come from two indisputable 
 sources. Some are found in the sand at Phener Baghtche, 
 where was once a Pagan temple. Others fall from the 
 vaulted roofs, and are carefully collected and preserved. 
 We should be only too glad to believe both these versions, 
 only let us cocfess that after no little exploration we were 
 unable to discover a single hodja at Phener Baghtche grop- 
 ing in the sand for the relics of a Pagan temple. And on 
 the other hand, if little cubes of mosaic fall from the
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 51 
 
 vaulted roof of San Sophia, this is only natural and inter- 
 esting. How else would the herd of tourists be provided 
 with portable souvenirs 1 In one little mosque that I 
 visited, the hodja actually insisted on my buying the entire 
 mosaic covering one of its cupolas. At Adrianople and 
 other towns, tourists have been able to buy the choice 
 plaques of faience decorating the walls of the mosques. All 
 the houses of European residents at Constantinople are full 
 of such curiosities, which once upon a time were to be got 
 for a few paras. But prices have gone up, and for this the 
 English are to blame who in their passion for bric-a-brac 
 pay cash down, without ever troubling to bargain. A 
 philosophical Turk said to me once, when I remonstrated 
 with him as to the commercial attitude of a hodja attached 
 to one of the mosques: "What's to be done 1 ? The poor 
 wretch only earns two pounds (or 46 francs) a month; and 
 he lias got two wives ! " 
 
 Did not one of the late Sultans condemn to destruction 
 the magnificent walls of Constantinople, one of the wonders 
 of the East 1 What end had he in view ? It was because, 
 through the sale of the materials, he hoped to realise a sum 
 of a hundred thousand francs to be spent in buying a 
 present for the Queen mother. It needed most energetic 
 intervention on the part of the British Embassy to prevent 
 this act of vandalism. Yes ; we must verily affirm that the 
 art treasures of ancient Byzantium are in safe and sacred 
 keeping ! 
 
 After this archeological sigh, let us conclude by repeating 
 that, if the Mahommedans are in a ripe stage of decay, the 
 fault cannot be set down to Mahommed.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE TURKISH PEASANT. HOW THE AUTHORITIES PROTECT 
 
 THE CULTIVATOR. IS AGRICULTURE IN A PAIR WAY 
 
 TO SUCCESS ? HOW BRIGANDAGE THRIVES IN TURKEY. 
 
 ABSENCE OF MEANS OP COMMUNICATION. 
 
 "THE Turk whom the use of power has not corrupted, 
 whom oppression has not debased, is certainly one of those 
 men who please most by a happy blending of good qualities. 
 Never does he cheat you ; honest and upright, he is true as 
 steel to his own folk ; extremely hospitable ; respectful yet 
 never servile, discreet, tolerant, benevolent ; and very kind 
 to animals." Such is the judgment passed upon the 
 Osmanli by Elise"e Reclus, the great geographer; and it 
 were impossible to have said anything better or truer ; his 
 opinion agrees, moreover, in every respect with that of 
 those travellers who have made a close study of the East. 
 
 To find this Turk, however, whom " the use of power has 
 not corrupted," one must look for him in the heart of the 
 provinces, never in the great towns. It is to him that 
 this praise applies ; but alas ! it applies to him only. 
 
 The most noteworthy traits of his character are probity
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 53 
 
 and a dread of lying. In this above all things he is dis- 
 tinguished from the Turk of Constantinople, who cheats 
 and lies with really admirable impudence. He in no way 
 differs from the Armenian or the Greek whose pastime it is 
 to dupe the poor Mussulman yokel, and who laughs at him 
 into the bargain. 
 
 His sobriety is proverbial ; no European peasant could 
 stand such frugality, nor subsist upon such simple fare as 
 coarse black bread and draughts of cold water. Upon this 
 the Turkish peasant easily lives. The dram-shop for him 
 does not exist. In his personal habits he is very clean, for 
 his religion exacts that he shall often perform his ablutions. 
 For all that, he loftily ignores the simplest rules of health. 
 His home is a mere den dug out of the ground, without 
 furniture and void of windows. 
 
 In general, the Turkish peasant is a monogamist. If he 
 take a second wife it is because he wishes " to have a second 
 servant." But he treats this latter affectionately and 
 adores his children. One cannot too greatly praise his 
 kindness to animals. In many of the provincial districts 
 the donkey has the privilege of two days' holiday in the 
 week. This sentiment of gentleness, which does such 
 honour to a bellicose people like the Turks, is to be re- 
 marked throughout the entire nation. Thus, at Stamboul, 
 the inhabitants show great kindness to the vagabond 
 street-dogs, and they are pained to see brutal Greeks and 
 Levantines wantonly strike and kick the poor animals if 
 they lie in their path. So soon as a bitch has puppies they 
 lodge her at the side of the street, in an improvised kennel 
 made out of an old box lined with straw and old bits of 
 carpet. At the threshold of most doors in Stamboul you
 
 54 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 will find little panikins full of water, while, during Rarnazan 
 the Turks provide food for all the dogs in their neighbour- 
 hood. 
 
 Let us here note a characteristic trait. If a young Turk 
 is in a mood to lash out, after having come in, say, for a 
 thumping legacy, he goes to the nearest baker's and buys a 
 quantity of bread which he distributes among the dogs of 
 the quarter. It is a great pleasure for him to see all those 
 beaming eyes, snuffling noses and wagging tails. The poor 
 brutes are so glad of a kind word or a pat, that their 
 expressions of gratitude prove often over-demonstrative, 
 for their muddy paws and muzzles are not very desirable 
 things, albeit readily, honestly offered. 
 
 The Turk is generous ; he rarely refuses alms to a beggar, 
 and if unable to give it, he politely says, " Ynayet Allah ! " 
 May God help you ! This is certainly far more courteous 
 than to send the beggar to the deuce, as do Europeans. 
 
 The hospitality of the Turk is proverbial. So soon as a 
 visitor arrives, coffee and cigarettes are brought to him ; 
 and if he consent to stay, all that is best in the house is set 
 apart for his benefit ; but this is done with that innate tact 
 which avoids importunate questioning. 
 
 It will be seen that the Ottoman peasant has qualities 
 which prevent one from despairing as to the regeneration 
 of the country. When the gangrenous element that makes 
 the administration rotten shall have been removed, the 
 Turkish race will once more be fused, welded, and find the 
 wellsprings of its ancient vitality among the Turkoman 
 tribes that people the high table-lands of Asia Minor. 
 
 To all these virtues the Turkish peasant, of course, joins 
 imperfections. He is not an energetic worker. If he
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 55 
 
 delves, it is because he must ; and, so soon as he can, he 
 returns to his kef, never troubling, never dreaming about 
 his future position. His only care in producing is that his 
 family may live. Why should he do more? It would 
 never profit him aught. First of all would come the tithes- 
 collector, a veritable vampire who buys from the State the 
 right of that oppression and extortion wickedly practised 
 upon the poor peasant. Then, he has to submit to being 
 fleeced by the governor-general (vali), the prefect (mutes- 
 sarif) and sub-prefect (caimakam) ; while, if some exalted 
 personage happens to be travelling through the country 
 with his escort, he must be hospitable and find billet and 
 board for all, as well as for soldiers passing through the 
 village on their way to the depot. Such is the fear which 
 prevails among the peasantry at the news of the approach 
 of either " functionaries " or soldiers, that often they 
 abandon all and take refuge in the mountains until the 
 calamity be overpast. 
 
 There was once a governor who hankered after a farm 
 worth a good 25,000 Turkish pounds. He sent for the 
 proprietor and told him it suited his purposes to buy the 
 estate, but at a price which he himself would fix, viz.: 
 5000 pounds. The unfortunate owner made a wry face ; 
 but had to bow gracefully and accept this magnificent 
 offer, knowing too well what remonstrance or opposition 
 would cost him in the end. But this was not all. The 
 vali sent again for him, and actually rented the farm to 
 him at the modest rate of 2500 pounds ! Its lawful owner 
 said nothing, but submitted to this additional piece of 
 injustice. Finally, the astute governor exacted a further 
 payment of 2500 pounds, due, as he said, for repairs on
 
 5 6 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 the farm, for felling timber, etc., etc. In brief, the lawful 
 owner was thus robbed of his property, without getting so 
 much as a single penny in exchange. But he dare not 
 complain ; if he did, it would only make matters far 
 worse. Under these circumstances, of what use is it to 
 work for others? Of what use is it to improve each 
 shining hour and make the soil yield every year richer 
 fruit? One does as little work as possible; the earth is 
 sure to give just enough for one's needs. To quote a 
 practical instance, the use of manure is utterly unknown. 
 Instead of employing it to make the soil richer, the 
 peasants use it as a combustible ; and what a combustible ! 
 From horse-dung and cow-dung women make strange sorts 
 of patties and cakes, which they dry in the sun and then 
 put away for winter fuel. Failing to find supplies either 
 of wood or of charcoal, they are forced to make use of this 
 filthy compound, which, when burnt, gives out a most 
 nauseous smell. 
 
 In Constantinople, every day one sees barges laden with 
 the refuse and sewerage of the city, which are calmly, 
 indifferently emptied into the sea at the entrance of the 
 Golden Horn. Each year some thousand francs' worth of 
 valuable manure are thus flung into the Bosphorus, taint- 
 ing, poisoning its waters ; and all the while the soil grows 
 more sterile through need of nourishment. 
 
 The Turkish cultivator, ground down by ruthless taxa- 
 tion, living from hand to mouth, having no one to teach or 
 to advise him, becomes of necessity thriftless and impro- 
 vident. He has neither the means nor the inclination to 
 save and be economical ; but he miserably vegetates, de- 
 prived of everything and leaving it to Allah to look after
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 57 
 
 his future. He is at the mercy of usurers who are the 
 veritable scourge of the provinces. Jews, Armenians, 
 Greeks, vie with each other in exploiting the poor innocent ; 
 and, hemmed in by these voracious harpies, the wretched 
 Turk is driven to accept their monstrous conditions. His 
 honesty often forces him to spend his whole life in working 
 to pay off a skinflint creditor, who, each year manages to 
 hold the victim tighter in his toils, and spider-like, sucks 
 him dry to the very last drop. 
 
 To all this may be added the evils of conscription. By 
 a deplorable decree, it is the Mussulman alone who must 
 perforce serve as a soldier ; Greeks and Armenians are 
 exempted, on payment of a trifling tax yearly. With 
 regard to the future of Turkey, nothing more lamentable 
 than this system can be imagined. While from Otto- 
 man agricultural districts the best workmen are thus 
 called away, and thousands of fathers taken from their 
 starving families, the Christians are quietly allowed to 
 increase and multiply, improving their commerce and 
 enlarging their families. So it comes that in certain dis- 
 tricts the Greek element predominates over the Mussulman 
 element. Another law yet more deplorable is the one that 
 decides that all inhabitants of Constantinople, even Mussul- 
 mans, are exempt from serving in the army. Thus the 
 system of recruiting exclusively affects the Turkish agricul- 
 turist population ; to ruin it, to annihilate it, no better 
 means than this could ever have been found. 
 
 What a grievous time it is each year when the young 
 fellows have to "go for soldiers!" Most of them are 
 married and have children. They must leave all ; leave 
 their family in want and distress for three or four years,
 
 58 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 not counting the extra three in the reserve, the eighteen 
 years in the Landwehr, and the six more in the Landsturm. 
 
 Thus fardels of all kinds are heaped upon the back of the 
 poor cultivator. It is impossible to form a just idea of the 
 wretched state of agriculture among the Ottoman rural 
 population. Every year, almost, there is a dearth in the 
 land, and hundreds die of starvation. The terrible famines 
 of 1874 and 1878 will still be remembered by all ; and last 
 year at Adana, though exaggerated descriptions were 
 printed of it by an imaginative American missionary, the 
 drought was yet a very severe one. Immense tracts of 
 fertile land are left untilled. Outside Constantinople, out- 
 side any of the larger cities, the eye can only gaze upon 
 vast, lonely steppes. M. Tchihatchew registers an area of 
 600 square miles, out of which hardly 50 miles have been 
 cultivated. Wheat produce is only a fifth of what it ought 
 to be ; so that, to supply the towns, grain has to be 
 imported from Russia. The Turk does not even take the 
 trouble to grind this foreign corn himself. He prefers to 
 procure it in the form of flour, paying to Russia or to 
 Hungary the cost of grinding. Suppose that war broke 
 out : one would only have to blockade the entrance to the 
 Bosphorus and to the Dardanelles ; Constantinople would 
 then be simply starved out. 
 
 But not only wheat is wanting ; there is a lack of meat 
 as well. In all the valleys there is wonderfully rich 
 pasturage for cattle ; and yet no beasts are made to thrive 
 upon it. One never sees any fine oxen or cows. Beef is 
 almost a rarity ; milk costs more than it does in Europe ; 
 while the better sort of butter is imported from Italy, 
 another kind, more like wheel-grease, being supplied by
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 59 
 
 Russia, and grandly styled " Siberian Butter." Spread on 
 shoe-leather, it is efficacious. 
 
 In this country which furnishes the West with the finest 
 breed of horses in the world, the Syrian breed, one can 
 only find little stunted bastard horses without nerve or 
 staying powers. To provide the cavalry with mounts in 
 1866, Turkey had to purchase at a great cost 4000 to 5000 
 horses from Hungary. 
 
 Vineculture has somewhat improved, especially since 
 France increased her import trade in raisins. But wine 
 making is forbidden by the Goran, so poor Turkish 
 peasants can take 110 part in an industry that for them 
 might prove the most lucrative of all. It is exclusively 
 in the hands of Greeks and Europeans. 
 
 With his callousness, his resignation, or, if you will, his 
 fatalism, the Turkish cultivator lives patiently in the midst 
 of all these stings and arrows of outrageous fortune ; he 
 suffers from them ; he succumbs to them ; but he never 
 dreams of looking for their causes and for their remedy. 
 These causes are : 
 
 1st. The wretched organisation of the department of 
 agriculture. 
 
 2nd. The insufficiency of means of transport. 
 
 3rd. The insecurity of the country districts. 
 
 4th. Ignorance. 
 
 The Ottoman department of agriculture is a most divert- 
 ing institution. We will here make a silhouette of it, with 
 certain details ; and this will save us the description of 
 other establishments of the same ilk. 
 
 At the head of it, of course gravely stands the Minister. 
 He has so little to do, that about him there is little to
 
 60 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 say. He may be a lawyer, or a colonel to-day, and to- 
 morrow, an admiral, for, according to Turkish notions, no 
 special competence is required from any of the Ministers. 
 Thus you will often see men who have been in succession 
 governors of provinces, heads of the Post and Telegraph De- 
 partment, or Grand Viziers, suddenly made into Ministers of 
 Public Instruction, of Police, of Public Works, or of Finance. 
 The true impulse must of course come from the Director of 
 the Agricultural Department. And he belongs to that class 
 of Turkified Armenians about whom we shall have a word 
 to say later on. Puffed up by a stay of some years in 
 Paris in the midst of the Socialist effervescence of 1848, he 
 makes grand parade of his special attainments. It is true, 
 that while in France he followed a course of instruction at 
 two government schools of agriculture ; but for the good 
 repute of those schools be it said, that he always bravely 
 maintained his place among the lowest in the form ; and 
 his fellow students still have lively recollections of him, as 
 suffering, from an Oriental cancer of no common kind. 
 
 On his return to Turkey where all is a lie and a sham, 
 reputation as well as knowledge, this knowing person soon 
 saw what line to take and how, in the midst of universal 
 ignorance, he could make capital out of his famous sojourn 
 in France and of his brilliant career at two celebrated 
 schools of Agriculture. Instead, therefore, of risking his 
 renown by taking up practical agriculture, he preferred theo- 
 retical, administrative agriculture, for this last is far less 
 compromising. And, thanks to that dogged spirit of 
 intrigue peculiar to Armenians, he succeeded in making the 
 Turks invent a so-called Department of Agriculture and 
 then put him at its head.
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 61 
 
 The Minister who set his seal of approval to the decree 
 founding this institution must verily have thought that a 
 new era of prosperity and progress had dawned for Otto- 
 man agriculture. Unfortunately the newly created depart- 
 ment met with the same fate as that of others. With 
 agriculture one had little to do ; but one had a great deal 
 to do with intriguing. The department, filled as it was 
 with persons less competent than its chief, soon became a 
 sort of hot-bed for jealousy and petty ambition. One tries 
 for advancement ; another strains at a decoration ; a third 
 sighs for an appointment. Each endeavours to overset his 
 rival, to distance his fellow-runner in the match for place 
 and profit, but no one has ever had the courage to open a 
 technical book. If an important matter presents itself, he 
 is at once hampered, '' got at," by someone who wants to 
 make capital out of it, or else in vanity to use it as an 
 advertisement for his "zeal and unflinching devotion" to 
 his Sovereign. As to the country's interests, as to the 
 advance of agriculture or the welfare of the peasant, not a 
 thought is given to such things ; the idea alone were enough 
 to dumbfounder all " zealous functionaries ! " 
 
 Should any technical difiiculty arise, the Director of 
 Agriculture sweeps it aside with matchless aplomb. Who 
 can contradict, who shall gainsay him ? Worthy of note 
 indeed are the pontifical air and tone with which he dic- 
 tates his imperious orders, for he is clever enough to know 
 that in the eyes of the Turks a hesitating air brands you at 
 once as an ignorant poltroon. You must be grand, 
 omniscient in mien and port. With what majesty did he 
 not one day order the vines to be irrigated with sea water, 
 and this on hillsides situated some twenty metres above the
 
 6l THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 level of the Sea of Marmora ! Then, again, his lofty 
 interdictment of the manufacture of sulphate of ammonia, 
 being hurtful, so he said, to agriculture ! What charming 
 impromptu names he found for pestilent blights that touched 
 the lemon and fig-trees and ruined the silk-worm crop ! 
 But let us have done with this mountebank ; at least such 
 poor Europeans as were languishing in the marsh lands 
 had to thank him for providing them with a few moments 
 of hilarity. What serious result can ever be looked for 
 from such an administration a" opera bouffe in which the 
 leading part is taken by a clown who "goes in for" agricul- 
 ture much as the famous General Bourn " went in for " 
 strategy, and who gives the key-note to his band of 
 insignificant satellites? They sing and act their parts with 
 indifference ; all they think about is their salary, which is 
 always overdue. 
 
 Latterly many young Turkish students have been sent to 
 France, where they have benefited by the sound and 
 thorough education which the best schools there could give 
 them. But, when back again in Turkey, they at once dis- 
 covered that education is capital that cannot be utilised, 
 and that their first and foremost duty is to be agreeable 
 to their superiors. Knowledge is nothing ; flattery is 
 all. Indeed, their schemes for improvement only dis- 
 turb the sweet serenity of the bureaux, and detract 
 from the lustre of the splendid planet round which they 
 revolve, the omnipotent, omniscient Director. So, if they 
 be men of ideas, they are promptly sent off into the heart 
 of the provinces ; but in a haphazard way, with no definite 
 instructions to carry out, and above all, with no recognised 
 authority whatever. Here it is thought that laziness may
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 63 
 
 destroy their zeal, and that the conviction of their utter 
 uselessness may effectually serve to calm their ardour. In 
 a few years they become as sterile, as supine, as the rest, 
 sagely siding with the non-progress party, and comfortably 
 abandoning all idea of advancement or of improvement. 
 Then, when emasculate and flaccid they fall to the dead 
 level, the Department tolerates and even rewards them as 
 good and faithful servants who straightway enter into the 
 joy of their lord. 
 
 One of the greatest misfortunes of Turkey is that no 
 count is taken of a man's intellectual or moral worth. 
 Place, promotion ; all that goes by kissing. Here, if any- 
 where, one may confirm the melancholy truth of the 
 proverb : " A prophet is not without honour save in his 
 own country." As a general rule, the obscurest, shallowest 
 charlatan is sure to get the better of the man who is honest, 
 conscientious and thorough. Thus many young Turks may 
 be seen wandering about Stamboul ex-pupils of the Ecole 
 Centrale de Paris, of the Ecole des Mines, or other leading 
 French Colleges ; and for years and years they stroll about 
 in search of a place, going from Department to Department, 
 from Ministry to Ministry, wasting their precious years of 
 youth, and losing gradually but surely all their zeal and 
 energy of purpose. They spend whole afternoons in the 
 bureaux, sitting hands folded and cross-legged on shabby 
 divans, fingering their eternal bead necklaces, in an attitude 
 half-solicitous, half-resigned. This exhausting employment 
 soon saps their energy and weakens their character. Very 
 soon they go with the current. When disillusionised, they 
 at once perceive that their chiefs have only one policy, and 
 that is, to thwart all attempts at progress, and ferociously
 
 6} THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 to maintain the statu quo. These mandarins are all for 
 remaining stationary, immovable ; a step forward might 
 shake their prestige, might damage their reputation ; and so 
 
 
 
 they are ever on the watch for malleable, supple characters, 
 for washed-out intellects, for limp, gelatinous temperaments. 
 In order to get on, to come to the front, the best thing 
 is to forget all that you have learnt, and unhesitatingly to 
 accept worn-out, superannuated ideas. Highly-trained 
 hypocrites will even go so far as to say that they prefer 
 these ideas, and will slily declare, that to be a good 
 functionary, one can never really be ignorant enough. 
 
 A sly Turk who has managed to hide under his fez the 
 wit of a Parisian, said once in our hearing to one of his 
 compatriots who had just returned from the Western 
 Babylon : " Listen to me, my good friend. Buy a big 
 fez the biggest you can find. Shove it right down over 
 your head till it touches your eye-brows. Order a coat cut 
 Turkish fashion and a pair of double-soled boots. Don't 
 wear those fly-away cravats; they are far too modern. Say 
 little, and above all never utter the word ' Paris.' Pretend 
 to have wholly forgotten that wicked city. If folk ask 
 you about it, shoot out the lip like a man disillusioned. 
 If with all that you can manage to grow a stomach, verily 
 you are a saved man ! " 
 
 This explains to us why the authorities do nothing for 
 agriculture, and why the latter is in such a wretched state ; 
 and so we may understand how it is that this country, 
 the richest and most fertile in the world, presents such a 
 picture of barrenness and neglect. From this land it was 
 that Europe got corn, the peach, the cherry, the apricot, 
 the plum, besides plants, shrubs and trees in plenty. It was
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 65 
 
 the land of Canaan, the earthly Paradise, the granary of the 
 world ; and now it barely can give food to its sparse popu- 
 lation.* Throughout this fertile land many persons perish 
 of hunger ; in the interior, whole towns tumble down to 
 ruin ; the highroads have become dangerous ravines, all 
 overgrown with thorns and briars ; the stone bridges, built 
 by Sultans in bygone days, have fallen in and are now patched 
 up into shaky fords with rotten timber and logs of pine. 
 So rickety are these that the traveller dare not risk 
 crossing them on horseback. He sends his horse on by a 
 servant, and walks over on foot, the safest way being to 
 find a ford hard by, which peasants have clumsily con- 
 structed for their own use. In some of the plains one 
 notes a minaret in ruins, the last vestige, this, of a 
 vanished village, and a sign that life in the land is slowly 
 becoming extinct. 
 
 What we have just said regarding the Department of 
 Agriculture is equally applicable to the Administration of 
 Forests. No country is richer in timber than Turkey. It 
 furnishes several rare species. France for instance has 
 only twelve sorts of oak ; Asia Minor yields fifty-two kinds, 
 twenty -six of which are not to be found elsewhere. The trees 
 by their exuberance and height show how excellent are the 
 climate and the soil in which they thrive. And yet the 
 work of wanton devastation surpasses all belief. Whole 
 forests have been hacked down and neA r er a thought given 
 to their renewal ; they are sold for a miserable pittance to 
 concessionists who know the resistless almighty power of 
 baksheesh ; and so, as a result, we have a wild massacre of 
 trees and limitless pillage. 
 
 * Six inhabitants to every square kilomatre.
 
 66 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 Just to get a little ready money the Government has 
 bartered, squandered away incalculable treasure. There 
 you have the Apres nous le deluge theory pushed to its 
 utmost limits. 
 
 The forests are for the most part devastated by their 
 inhabitants. They chop the trunks of the great trees in 
 half, and scoop out these halves, making basins for the rain 
 which slowly rots the heart of the wood. This is said to 
 make the work of fi re-wood-chopping easier. In other 
 districts the trees are burnt down, as their ashes are often 
 needed for cooking purposes. Que voulez-vous ? There is 
 no regular system of exploitation, "no markets for the sale of 
 timber, no personnel nor any competent chief to direct and 
 superintend the forestry work. What is to be done with 
 riches that can profit them nothing] The peasant's 
 vandalism may just as well continue unchecked. For that 
 matter, the habit of burning down forests is common 
 among all Oriental people. Shepherds and peasants start 
 a forest fire sometimes wantonly, but more often to effect 
 a clearing and get at virgin soil which for a few years will 
 yield splendid crops. And then, if there be a falling off, 
 more trees are burnt, and another portion of the forest is 
 destroyed. All this effectually serves to dry up the soil 
 and the streams that nourish it ; so that by degrees the 
 miserable peasant finds himself a victim to his own wanton 
 stupidity. 
 
 About twenty years ago, a French mission came to Turkey 
 to devise ~vays and means for saving the wrecked forests 
 and for reconstructing them. It laid down elaborate plans 
 for proper exploitation and for re-grafting. What has 
 become of these fine and laboriously-conceived theories?
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 67 
 
 They are still spoken of with admiration, but the system of 
 intermittent plunder still holds good ; and Turkey ere long 
 will not have timber sufficient to repair the vessels of her 
 fleet. But why should any anxiety be felt about a future 
 in which no one any longer believes 1 
 
 For agriculture as for forestry, the insufficiency of means 
 of transport is a most terrible obstacle. Besides the main 
 roads that are often in a deplorable state, there are only 
 bad routes along which no carriage can pass. Parts of the 
 so-called carriage-roads are so bad that vehicles drive in 
 preference over the open country that stretches on either 
 side of the chaussee. By virtue of this simple system, there 
 are three or four contiguous and parallel roads ; and, as 
 each wears out, another is made by encroaching upon the 
 fallow land lying beside it which is rarely or ever cultivated. 
 Transport service can only be effected by horses, camels or 
 mules. In Constantinople you will see long files of scraggy 
 horses all lashed together and dragging seven or eight 
 blocks of unhewn stone clumsily tied on with cord to their 
 saddle-girths, or a dozen planks placed cross-wise on the 
 brutes' backs, one end aloft and the other trailing in the mud. 
 So in the same way, sand, chalk, bricks, tiles and firewood 
 are carried from place to place. The cost of transport 
 when performed in this petty fashion of course makes the 
 price of provisions very much higher, and hinders the 
 peasant from successfully resisting foreign competition. 
 There is no other resource for the cultivator but to 
 bury his surplus crop underground, as he cannot find a 
 market for it. 
 
 Under such conditions it becomes not only impossible 
 for the inhabitants of districts situate far inland to export
 
 68 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 their grain, but even different centres can have no com- 
 munication the one with the other. A district where the 
 crops have given a rich surplus cannot send off its wealth to 
 a district where famine is decimating the population. 
 While such a state of things exists, it is vain to talk of the 
 advance of Ottoman Agriculture ; nay, while it lasts, the 
 country must ever remain menaced by the perils and the 
 horrors of famine. 
 
 True, for some years past, there has been a talk of rail- 
 Avays, but how many of the fine plans put forward have met 
 with success? In Asia Minor, there are only the lines from 
 Smyrna to Alacher and to Nazli, with a short line from 
 Adana to the interior. Nothing has yet been done in 
 this direction, though groups of concessionists, English, 
 French, and German, swarm. They are at great pains 
 to study the route, prepare their plans, and to draw up 
 their schemes clearly and succinctly, and, above all, gain 
 the goodwill of the pashas. But nothing can ever conquer 
 the callousness of the Turk, nor his hostility to the Euro- 
 pean. Every evening new promises are given, that with 
 the morrow are put off; it is one series of perpetual post- 
 ponements, of shifts, of sham objections and a whole string 
 of ludicrous formalities that are made endless on purpose. 
 For the Turks, though they will not roundly refuse to hear 
 of progress, yet do their best to discourage every attempt at 
 securing it. 
 
 One of the most singular examples of this hostility may 
 be furnished by the story of the Moudania Broussa railway, 
 quite close to Constantinople. Broussa, once the ancient (and 
 some day perhaps the future) capital of the Ottoman empire, 
 has an important trade in silk and cotton embroideries. Its
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 6q 
 
 commerce in wine, fruit and vegetables is also considerable, 
 while its thermal springs are widely renowned. The Govern- 
 ment accordingly decided to construct a railway between 
 this beautiful city and the Moudania, the port whence 
 steamers start for Constantinople. This line, forty-two 
 kilometres in length, may be found marked on any map by 
 the unwitting tourist ; yet let -him not be deceived ; the 
 railway is there, but it does not work. Since 1875 the line 
 is complete, the platform, station, sheds are all erected and 
 in readiness, even the locomotives ; and yet all is at a stand- 
 still. It is the railway belonging to the Sleeping Beauty 
 in the Wood. The sheds are empty and inossgrown, the 
 locomotives slumber in a corner, the rails are all rusty, and 
 winter rains have done much to destroy the railroad that 
 in some way resembles the skeleton of a serpent. The 
 peasants living near carry off anything they may fancy, 
 while the refreshment room at the station is given up to 
 Angora goats. Who will play Prince Charming to this 
 drowsy railway and rouse it from its lethargy 1 ? Many 
 have tried to do so, but none could resist that terrible 
 enchanter, or rather disenchanter, the Ottoman Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Side by side with the bad roads and difficulties of com- 
 munication we have brigandage, which thrives and flourishes. 
 Talk to a Turkish official about the dangerous state of the 
 provincial districts, and he will assure you that no country 
 enjoys greater tranquillity and order than his own. But 
 travel through these districts and question the inhabitants ; 
 read a few of the bald reports in local and official journals, 
 and then judge for yourself as to the truth of such a 
 pleasant assertion. Everywhere brigandage thrives and
 
 70 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 prospers. In one place Bulgarians are to the fore, in 
 another Albanians ; here, Greeks ; there, Kurds, Turcomans, 
 Zeibeks. At any moment these villains make a raid on 
 villages, kill or garotte the inhabitants, plunder the crops, 
 carry off the cattle, sack houses, and rape pretty girls or 
 take their rich fathers prisoner. For these latter the 
 brigands ask a heavy ransom, the amount of which they 
 obligingly fix themselves ; and if, at a given hour, the 
 money be not paid over to them at the place indicated, an 
 ear or the nose of the victim is hacked off prior to beheadal. 
 Another pastime much in vogue is to burn prisoners in a tar- 
 barrel. A notorious bandit, when captured lately, made it his 
 boast to have roasted in such a fashion no fewer than eleven 
 people. Not even Turkish functionaries are spared. A 
 governor-general was stabbed in the streets of his capital, 
 another was butchered with all his family, while a bishop 
 was seized on his own premises and carried off to the hills. 
 These are not exceptional cases, they arc well-nigh daily 
 ones ; of so common occurrence as to be hardly noticed. 
 They do not happen only in remote districts and mountainous 
 regions, but also in the suburbs of great cities. Outside the 
 gates of Smyrna you are no safer than outside those of 
 Salonica. The recent capture of four young Englishmen at 
 Bournabat near Smyrna, and the subsequent death of Mr 
 Oscar Whittall, one of the prisoners are still fresh in every- 
 body's memory; at Kartal, at Kandilli, on the Bosphorus, 
 brigands swarm. They killed two gardeners at the latter 
 place last autumn, roasting one wretched man alive by 
 soaking him in petroleum. Even at Pera, it is unsafe to 
 venture down the slope into the foul-smelling Kassim 
 Pasha quarter, for stabbing and robbery are over common
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 7 1 
 
 there. At night in the side-streets Europeans have often 
 lost their money and their lives. 
 
 Tragic stories of this sort are a byword in the villages of 
 the interior. Here, a traveller's head was chopped off; 
 there, a consul was massacred, and his wife and servant 
 violated. At another place a farm was burned down and 
 its inmates put to horrible tortures in order to discover 
 where their money and valuables were hidden. The 
 villagers dare not resist ; they either flee or yield to their 
 ferocious assailants. They even fear to ask the police or 
 gendarmery to help, dreading a more awful vengeance. 
 They prefer to be on the strong side, and keep in with the 
 brigands. No such thing as public safety exists ; and the 
 peasant has only one safeguard, viz., to be as poor as 
 possible. With nothing to lose, he has nothing to fear. 
 
 Brigandage in Turkey is far from being regarded as a 
 shameful trade. To have a " brother in the mountains " is 
 a common vaunt ; and you will hear a man frankly confess 
 that he is a brigand who has retired from business. Several, 
 as age comes upon them, turn into respectable sheep- 
 dealers. One became a monk at Mount Athos ; and another 
 of my acquaintance ironically entered the gendarmery. 
 
 Thus, everything is against the peasant : the authorities, 
 who do nothing but harass him ; the usurer, who sucks him 
 dry ; the brigand, who robs him of all he possesses. Can 
 it be wondered, then, that under such conditions, he is such 
 a poor farmer, so ignorant, so stupid, so maladroit 1 ? It 
 cannot be affirmed that Ottoman agriculture is in its 
 infancy ; that were to say too little. It is better to state 
 at once that it has remained just as Adam left it on the 
 day after his fall. Assuredly at the time of the Greeks
 
 72 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 and Romans it was more advanced ; it has since gone 
 backwards. If the soil in Turkey still produces something, 
 that is because it yet retains somewhat of its former 
 extraordinary fecundity. There is no real attempt at 
 tillage. The gromid is lightly raked up and a few handfuls 
 of seed scattered over it that are never properly covered 
 up. There is no system of irrigation, no use of manure. 
 So much for Ottoman agriculture. The fruit trees grow ut 
 hap hazard, as they best may ; they are never lopped or 
 pruned. So much, again, for Ottoman arboriculture. Only 
 in the marshy districts does produce receive greater care, 
 so as to prove remunerative. 
 
 Yet by degrees this fertility diminishes and the cultivator, 
 apathetic though he be, begins to grow uneasy. He has 
 heard that his ancestors in their day got back from tlm 
 ground eighteen or twenty per cent, of seed to one per cent, 
 given; now, it hardly yields six or seven. So he looks 
 about for a remedy of this evil and goes to the Department 
 of Agriculture for advice. And the Department of Agri- 
 culture promises salvation and a remedy by giving him 
 technical instruction. Let us see a little how this system 
 of technical instruction has been organised. 
 
 The idea of founding a Technical School of Agriculture 
 to train up Turks to be thrifty, competent farmers, is in 
 itself an admirable one, deserving of all praise. The way 
 in which this idea has been realised, is, however, the most 
 ridiculous imaginable. In a land so eminently favoured by 
 Nature, it would have been easy to find a piece of ex- 
 cellently fertile soil, well-watered and near some highroad 
 or railway. Several such spots were suggested. But 
 intrigue and baksheesh sufficed to let the authorities pitch
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 73 
 
 upon a dry, sterile plateau called Hal Kale, devoid of 
 water and without verdure of any kind ; a solitary spot in 
 the mountains, far removed from any main route or town 
 or railway. To convert this arid place into anything like 
 a centre of fertility, large sums of money had to be spent. 
 To maintain on these desolate heights some hundred pupils 
 and with a numerous staff of professors and workmen, the 
 cost, was of course, considerable, as provisions, clothing and 
 every necessary had to be transferred thither as to a desert 
 island. Even to buy a pair of boots one had to waste six 
 hours in going and returning. 
 
 That is not all, however. On this plateau, under the 
 guise of farmhouses, a veritable fortress was speedily built, 
 having huge walls .and an infinity of windows and postern 
 gates. On the esplanade in front of it, ten thousand men 
 could easily have manoeuvred. There was no thought 
 about agriculture, about the needs and requirements of a 
 college. It was just one orgie of bricks and mortar; a 
 lavish heaping of stone and tile, the enterprising workmen 
 and architects having a great joy therewith. Assuredly, if 
 they had not been stopped, they would have piled up the 
 masonry until it touched the sky. This architectural 
 freak, however, did not last for more than one winter ; in 
 1886, a goodly portion of the building fell in. Two hundred 
 and fifty thousand francs had been spent already ; and 
 another hundred and fifty thousand were needed to com- 
 plete the masterpiece. 
 
 Luckily, however, at this juncture public attention was 
 called to the scandal. A committee was appointed which 
 soon decided that the buildings had been so badly con- 
 structed as in no way to serve their purpose. When the
 
 74 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 Director of the Agriculture Department asked for funds to 
 complete his noble work, the Council of Ministers amiably 
 invited him to pull'down half the "fortress" and re-build it 
 according to the system adopted by local engineers. So it 
 is evident that all poor rustics in Asia Minor will have yet 
 long to wait before they derive any benefit from the 
 Department of Agriculture. 
 
 We have sought to present the Turkish agriculturist as 
 a good fellow, honest, sincere, but like one of his own 
 sheep, fleeced and maltreated by everybody. How is it 
 that such difference should exist between Tweedledum and 
 Tweedledee, between the rustic Turk, who is the oppressed, 
 and the Ottoman "functionary," who is the oppressor 1 ? 
 
 Both are the same race ; they speak the same language ; 
 they have the same religion. And yet it is impossible to 
 imagine two more utterly different beings. It is because 
 the official world is a poisonous, pernicious world, infect- 
 ing all who move in it ; honesty gives place there to 
 base and impudent venality; good faith, candour are 
 regarded as proofs of imbecility. Lying is " the only 
 wear," untruth the only coin which passes current; and 
 respect is transformed into abject servility. 
 
 Add to this harmonious ensemble a ferocious thirst for 
 material enjoyment a limitless lust for lucre ; the venom 
 of rivalry, green-eyed jealousy and ambition without scruple 
 or check; and there you have the melancholy picture of the 
 moral condition of the governing class, of the officers of the 
 State. Rarely in such a sea of corruption does one find 
 vestiges of the race's original qualities, such as benevolence, 
 simplicity, courtesy and gentle treatment of the weak or 
 the wronged.
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 75 
 
 The evil comes from above. A Turkish proverb says, 
 It'll iik ba^hdan cocar, " A fish stinks in the head first." 
 This hints at the corruption of those in power. And in 
 truth it is from the sovereigns and their surroundings that 
 the poison has descended to the people. 
 
 To grow convinced of this, one should read the history of 
 Turkey, a history little known in Europe, but which is 
 just one terrible tissue of abominable butchery and lust. 
 As one turns the pages of it, they seem to stain the fingers 
 with blood. Beneath the glory of conquerors and the 
 splendour of victorious armies, we find a series of foul 
 atrocities without parallel in the annals of any nation : 
 giving records of human beings tortured with red-hot pincers, 
 roasted on spits, cut into slices, grilled alive. Thus it 
 is but with horror that we can regard the palace of the Old 
 Seraglio, that at once provokes admiration and repugnance. 
 The blood of the massacred seems to stream down its 
 grey marble walls, while heads of victims gibber at us 
 from the spikes that top them. See, from yonder postern 
 gate, corpses sewn up in sacks were flung out into the 
 Bosphorus. Behind those gratings, strangling and poisoning 
 were done. That is the cage in which a Sultan imprisoned 
 his brothers ; here stands the porphyry column on which 
 grand viziers were beheaded ; and there the door whence 
 women of the harem were thrown into the sea. This 
 palace, all of it, was once the theatre of the most revolting 
 orgies ; blood-thirsty monsters here held revel and gave 
 rein to their ferocity and their lust. 
 
 Can one believe that the character and dignity of the 
 most energetic nation on earth could ever have resisted 
 such fearful contagion 1 Go to Yedi-Coule, to the Castle
 
 7 6 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 of the Seven Towers. There you will be face to face with 
 horrors. There victims were hung, drawn, quartered, 
 chopped to pieces. There you will see the so-called Well 
 of Blood ; and you can read on the walls, the inscrip- 
 tions of the doomed. Only lately, in a walled up room 
 were found piles of human bones and skulls. Why was all 
 this 1 Because, in this fair land, under a sky so clement, 
 all belonged to one man, to one tyrant, who knew no law 
 other than that of his vengeance and his lust. 
 
 But there have been autocrats in Europe, some one will 
 urge. In Turkey, autocracy is quite another thing. The 
 nation does not exist. There is only one man, sovereign 
 and absolute master of all things and all people. He is 
 proprietor of all lands, houses and estates, and of all the 
 wealth of all his subjects. He can dispose of their money 
 as of their life ; can take from them wife and children. 
 The army is his also. In a phrase, there is no such thing 
 as fatherland for the Osmanli ; he and his belong to the 
 Padishah ! 
 
 It is true that this state of things has to-day undergone 
 modification, but the principle yet exists; and it is just 
 this principle which in bygone days began to act as gangrene 
 for Turkey. Then, what awful records have we of the 
 Sultans' reigns ; of Selim who massacred 40,000 persons 
 suspected of heresy, and was for exterminating all the 
 Christians of the Empire; of Amurad III, that drunken 
 debauchee who murdered his five brothers ; of Mahommed 
 III who killed nineteen of his brothers, and let his own sou 
 be butchered ; of Murad IV who caused the massacre of 
 100,000 people ; of Mahommed IV, who gave full power to 
 hio Grand Vizier to work what monstrous infamy he listed,
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 77 
 
 in common with the Janissaries, that evil band who seized 
 upon comely Christian youths in the streets, and forced 
 them to submit to their unnatural lust ; who strangled 
 their rulers, and butchered women and children at will. In 
 our own century, even, we have the massacre of the Greeks 
 at Constantinople ; and that of the Chiotes, when 25,000 
 persons were strangled and 45,000 others led off into slavery ; 
 the persecution of Christians in the East ; the Bulgarian 
 atrocities; and the throttling of 15,000 Maronites, really 
 provoked by the Turkish Government, but hypocritically 
 laid to the score of the Druses. Then we come to that 
 ferocious monster Abd-ul Aziz (murdered by his Ministers 
 in the Dolma Baghtche Palace, by opening his veins), and 
 finally to the luckless Moorad, buried alive in his palace at 
 Tcheraghan, accused of dipsomania by some, and canonised 
 as a martyr by others. 
 
 There you have history, official history ; but the study of 
 it should lead one to go further and make one penetrate 
 into the inner life of all these sovei-eigns, viziers and pashas. 
 Then one would speedily conclude that no more frightful 
 history than that of Turkey exists. After reading such 
 terrible pages it is like waking from a nightmare to see all 
 these grave Turks in long coat and fez calmly walking 
 along the bridge at Karakeuy. But have a care ! they are 
 civilized only on the surface ; at the first opportunity the 
 brute reasserts itself. 
 
 A people used to live under such a system of ferocious 
 oppression was fatally doomed to decay. No sooner did the 
 princes give an example of blind and brutal egoism than 
 straightway all the functionaries, great and small, followed 
 in their wake and played their part of petty despots to the
 
 7 8 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 best advantage. All glory, happiness and interest being 
 centred in the sovereign, the nation slowly died out, un- 
 thought-of, uncared-for. 
 
 Terrified at such alarming progress towards dissolution 
 the last Sultans sought to effect certain reforms. Abdul 
 Medjid made a step in the right direction, but how many of 
 his projected reforms were ever executed 1 The habits and 
 customs of the country were opposed to such schemes; thus 
 the loyal endeavours of this caliph were checked and 
 paralysed. 
 
 At the present day Turkey is governed by a Sultan who 
 is well-intentioned, moderate, benevolent and animated by 
 an evident desire to promote the prosperity of his people. 
 He makes considerable sacrifices in favour of public 
 instruction, corrects administrative abuses and devotes all 
 his efforts towards the creation and development of national 
 industry. Turks joyfully hail Abdul Hamid's peaceful 
 reign of reform, yet not one of them will move a single step 
 along the road which he points out. They wish the country 
 to progress, yes ; but nobody will do anything towards this 
 end. Each person doggedly persists in remaining where he 
 is, and asks that others be made to move on. So this reign, 
 like those before it, will repair nothing, for in Turkey 
 all is irreparable ; and the country can only be saved 
 by its complete and thorough reorganisation on new 
 ground, in a more bracing climate. " The Sick Man " 
 must be made to breathe the pure air of the great plains 
 of Asia, Stamboul's vitiated atmosphere is killing him. 
 By a strange and sad continuity of events, it is the 
 sovereign, the most enlightened of his race, who himself 
 is helping to work the ruin of his Empire and who is
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 79 
 
 fighting vainly against the fatal consequences of his pre- 
 decessors' sins. 
 
 That, then, is the actual situation in Turkey. At the 
 bottom of the ladder is the agricultural class, too poor and 
 too ignorant to try and save the nation by a miracle of 
 energy ; at the top of it, the official world, rotten with 
 egoism and every shameful vice ; and with no belief left in 
 the future of the race. 
 
 Corruption has come from the top ; regeneration can 
 never come from the bottom. To save this nation, a series 
 of catastrophes is needed, which shall upset the adminis- 
 trative aristocracy and of necessity bring the sovereign into 
 close contact with the people we were going to say, with 
 the democracy, did such word not infer that the men com- 
 posing it had a certain cognisance of their rights and 
 moreover, a firm desire to guard them.
 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE TURKISH OFFICIAL. HOW HE OFFICIATES. SALARIES 
 
 THAT ARE CHIMERICAL AND SALARIES THAT ARE FABULOUS. 
 THEORY AS TO THE UTILITY OF BAKSHEESH. BUDGET- 
 WEEVILS. 
 
 WE have now to touch the core of the evil, for we are 
 going to speak of the Turkish official. In Europe his 
 reputation counts as none of the best ; but in reality he is 
 worth even less than that reputation, poor though it be. 
 
 The candidate for a Government appointment is generally 
 ill-fitted for his post, ignorance being habitual to his nation. 
 When he has gone through a successful course of study at 
 the Galata Sera'i College or at the Ecole d* Administration, 
 this is doubtless in his favour, though the latter establish- 
 ment leaves much to be desired, and hardly passes the 
 level of primary schools in France. But more often than 
 not, such guarantees are never exacted. He gets his 
 appointment because he is the son, or the grandson of a 
 pasha ; because he has a relative at the Palace ; in a word, 
 because he is backed up by some "influential personage." 
 The art of self-recommendation by proxy, I'art du piston,
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 8 1 
 
 as they say in France, has in Turkey reached quite pheno- 
 menal proportions ; but the curious part of it is that this 
 backing-up is all priced, all saleable. 
 
 We do not only allude to the little presents made to a 
 " high functionary " who has taken the successful candidate 
 under his august patronage. More than that, the whole 
 affair degenerates into a hard and fast bargain. As the 
 young aspirant is often devoid of all resources, he is obliged 
 to sign a contract by which he agrees to hand over to his 
 patron a part of his salary for a fixed period. This reminds 
 one of the percentage claimed by servants' or governesses' 
 registry-offices in France or in England. In Turkey, again, 
 it is the system adopted for the appointment and advance- 
 ment of a Government official. When a post falls vacant, 
 there is lively competition and a perfect ferment of in- 
 trigue. Each candidate secures a "protector" who in- 
 terests himself in the success of his protege, and, for 
 monetary reasons, tries to make him distance rivals and 
 come out first on the list. What cunning, what wiles 
 and flattery, does not this magnate use, the anxious can- 
 didate meanwhile pestering him night and day, and feeding 
 the fire of his zeal ! 
 
 The nomination when proposed by the Minister competent 
 to do so, has to be ratified by His Highness the Grand 
 Vizier and then submitted to the Imperial Chancery for 
 the Sovereign's sanction. No sooner is the news of his 
 appointment officially announced, than the nominee is at 
 once besieged by the clerks and office employes of his 
 patron all eager for their share of baksheesh. By what 
 subtle intuition did these clever underlings divine that 
 some business was afoot between their master and the 
 F
 
 82 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 candidate ? It verily does honour to the wonderful scent 
 of the Oriental, that he can discover the odour of a 
 baksheesh like the odour of truffles, while yet buried in the 
 earth. Tho nominee, puffed up with pride and joy, is 
 lavish in his "tips" right and left to voracious subalterns, 
 determining to make up for such generosity later, when he 
 in turn shall be able to bleed his colleagues. 
 
 He then proceeds to learn the routine of his work, which 
 is not very complicated. It mainly consists in studying 
 official habits, and how speedily to assume the character of 
 the consummate functionary. The first things to be ac- 
 quired are calm, gentleness, imperturbable politeness and 
 profound obsequiousness towards superiors. He must learn 
 how to flatter his chiefs by gradual doses given at judicious 
 intervals not less, say, than three times a week. He must 
 above all avoid doing, or proposing to do, anything that 
 might be disagreeable to them, for, in Turkey, officials hate 
 to be troubled by work, by objections or by remarks of any 
 kind. The neophyte should never forget this; moreover, it 
 is easy for hiui to maintain an attitude of prudent reserve, 
 he being never asked to take the initiative nor to act upon 
 his own responsibility. 
 
 For all administrative operations there is a sort of con- 
 secrated formula, never varying, which has to be adapted 
 to the business in hand, or, rather, the business has to be 
 adapted to the formula ; as the essence of the matter is 
 nothing as compared with the form. Every document not 
 drawn up in accordance with this superannuated formula 
 is considered as null and void. It must be cast in the 
 ancient mould or it is worthless. 
 
 To shape a budding functionary it is usually the custom
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 83 
 
 to put him for three or four years in an office where he has 
 constant opportunity of studying the said formulae and 
 can thus cram them into his head. Having thoroughly 
 mastered them, he straightway is qualified to edit and 
 draw up official documents, for he has learnt the knack of 
 writing with the requisite pomp and inflation of style. 
 Turkish official language, be it noted, is distinguished by 
 phrases almost immeasurable in length ; the great art in 
 building up these is to interweave a batch of incidental 
 propositions that are casually grafted on to gerundives and 
 participles with one single verb tagged on at the end. 
 Phrase-architecture of this sort is of course a hindrance to 
 clarity of thought and of comprehension ; and so it comes 
 that such documents have to be commented upon and 
 interpreted like any obscure passage in Holy Writ. At 
 times you may see three or four Government underlings in 
 close confab over some Note that has come from the Sub- 
 lime Porte (from the Grand Vizierate, probably), and all 
 are cracking their heads to try and discover what instruc- 
 tions are wrapped up in these sinuous, winding, slippery 
 phrases. But in this roundabout style lies the very genius 
 of the Turkish language; so why should we quarrel with it? 
 His head once stuffed with these indigestible formulae, the 
 poor functionary is considered extremely capable : higher 
 than this, he certainly never intends to aim. To read a 
 technical work treating questions which ought to interest 
 him professionally, never enters his head ; nor dare he 
 attempt to introduce improvements in his branch of the 
 service. Still less will he venture to put any personal 
 touches to a document or correct in it some erroneous 
 notion. And so, all his life long he remains incompetent
 
 #4 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 to judge of questions that are daily submitted to him. He 
 does not administrate ; he is an official ; and he officiates. 
 That is all. 
 
 The wonderful sloth of Turkish bureaucracy is proverbial. 
 I would only remind those luckless Europeans of it who 
 have ever essayed to stir up these mastodons. The Turk 
 will make the same person wait upon him ten or a dozen 
 times to save him the bother of writing a letter. He will 
 invent the most astounding excuses to avoid having to 
 scrawl three lines. To dip his reed-pen in the ink is for 
 him a painful effort ; to look for a sheet of paper is a veri- 
 table act of heroism ; to get up might in all likelihood make 
 him ill. He will gladly offer the visitor coffee and 
 cigarettes ; will listen to him with patience ; will promise 
 all ; and infallibly ask him to call in a few days. Business 
 is thus dragged on in Turkey over months and over years. 
 I myself went eighty-three times to the Ministerial Depart- 
 ment to obtain the solution of a little matter, which after 
 twenty months of waiting is not yet settled. I should like 
 such of my compatriots as rebel against the languor of 
 French administration, to be sent out for a while to Con- 
 stantinople. They would return to their homes humbled 
 and repentant, accusing themselves of black ingratitude. 
 
 If an Ottoman functionary be absent through death or 
 change of office, all that he has begun is broken off. The 
 papers left on his desk are religiously respected ; with him 
 his office dies. Six months should generally be allowed for 
 a reply to be obtained in any business matter pending, ten 
 months being needed for a nomination, provided you go 
 every day to the bureau in question and bully the officials 
 there. For payments you must dawdle about a year ; there
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 85 
 
 are no limits to waiting for a concession ; it may last ten, 
 fifteen, twenty years. As a result of the functionary's 
 laziness, we have his unpunctuality ; and in this he is 
 singularly favoured by the system of timekeeping that 
 obtains in Turkey. 
 
 Twelve o'clock corresponds with sunset, so that every 
 day the hour alters, there being a delay for six months, 
 and an advance for six months of the year. Hence the 
 necessity of tampering daily with one's watch, moving the 
 hands forwards or backwards ; and no chronometer, how- 
 ever solidly made, can ever resist such treatment, while 
 nobody can flatter himself that he has really got the exact 
 time. 
 
 The Mosque of Yeni Djami is supposed to give it, but as 
 every Turk cannot pass this charming edifice daily, it is 
 plain that complete anarchy reigns among Mussulman 
 watches. This irregularity in time brings with it irregularity 
 in habits. Two persons agree to meet at a fixed hour, but 
 neither comes to the place of meeting until long after the 
 time appointed, each counting upon the other's delay. 
 Clerks go to their offices at a certain hour, and they leave 
 them at a certain hour also. It is the system of " Pretty 
 nearly," or "Just about that." 
 
 Temperament and vanity make the Ottoman functionary 
 afraid to be too soon ; and thus there are these insufferable 
 delays which go far beyond the patience of Europeans, and 
 serve to exasperate the coolest of them. Want of precision 
 in habits and in ideas, that is one of the cardinal vices of 
 Ottoman administrators, if indeed it be not a dishonest 
 method of bringing business matters to grief, that do not 
 quite hit their taste.
 
 86 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 In order to see a person for ten minutes you must lose a 
 whole day. There is no recognised hour for visits or for 
 meals. You eat when there is food going, when you feel 
 hungry, when it graciously pleases your cook to serve up 
 something. If asked to dine with a Turk, go to him in the 
 morning, but do not expect to sit down to table till evening 
 At any rate, look upon your whole day as wasted ; and as 
 you are expected to stay the night with your host, this helps 
 you to get through the best part of another day as well. 
 
 When the young functionary is well saturated with the 
 spirit of sloth and of routine, he has only to think of two 
 things, viz. to draw his salary, and by hook or crook to 
 secure promotion. Verily, the former operation is a pain- 
 ful one; professional beggary even has less bitterness about 
 it. Let a Turkish official present himself at the Pay 
 Department. The cashier replies in brutal fashion : 
 
 " There's no money ! " 
 
 " When will there be any 1 " 
 
 " How do I know ? " 
 
 After such an encouraging announcement the Turk has 
 nothing for it but to wait, and finally fall into the clutches 
 of the Jews. Arrears of salary often date back seven, 
 eight, twelve months, sometimes more. To a compatriot 
 of ours twenty-two months' salary was overdue. But 
 ia this respect, be it averred, Turks are worse off tlmn 
 foreigners. 
 
 What is to be done? The poor Osinanli, who almost 
 always has a family and several children, tries to make 
 capital out of his official position. If charged to conclude 
 a bargain, he comes to a private understanding with the 
 contractor by which the State shall be swindled, fleeced.
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EA.ST. 87 
 
 If sent on a mission of inspection, he allows himself to be 
 bribed, and glosses over ill deeds he has been charged to 
 denounce and punish. To the items of his travelling 
 expenses he sticks on a heavy percentage which more 
 than reimburses him for his actual outlay. In a word he 
 cheats the State in every possible way. Then, before 
 submitting a business proposal to the proper quarter, he 
 exacts a fee ; and if this be not high enough he can make 
 the whole thing collapse, taking a bribe meanwhile from 
 the other side, from the parties competing with those who 
 originally solicited his intervention. The affair may event- 
 ually come to grief ; but he, anyway, has got his money 
 twice over. So he sells his credit and influence by retail ; 
 it is the only tangible means of revenue which his position 
 affords him. 
 
 The evil would not be as great as it is if the official had 
 loyalty or patriotism sufficient to protect before all things 
 the interests of his country and not to compromise its 
 future. Were this but so, one could really not accuse him 
 of a great crime if he took a baksheesh here and there for 
 private business affairs which he helped to make successful. 
 For the State does not pay him ; and, poor fellow, he has to 
 live. But unfortunately the thirst for gain is so great that 
 more often than not the country's interests are unscrupu- 
 lously sacrificed, and its future compromised in irremediable 
 fashion. What disgraceful monopolies, what fatal contracts, 
 what ruinous concessions have thus been granted ! If 
 Turkey to-day is prevented from rising, it is because her 
 !>est resources have been taken from her by degrees. Piece 
 by piece the country's prosperity has been delivered over 
 to rapacious European capitalists ; and to-day the Govern-
 
 88 THE EVIL OF THE EA.ST. 
 
 ment finds itself inextricably entangled in contracts which 
 make its ruin sure. 
 
 One of the most famous examples of these thievish con- 
 tracts was the construction of the railway line from Con- 
 stantinople to Adrianople. In this business a certain baron 
 of the financial world and other enterprising gentlemen 
 managed to rouler the Ottoman Government with truly 
 astonishing coolness. As the State granted a very high 
 subvention for every kilometre constructed, the con- 
 cessionists conceived the ingenious idea of multiplying tho 
 number of kilometres, increasing the entire length of the 
 route by constant curves arid windings. Study the Adria- 
 nople railway ; it is the very apotheosis of the curve. Tho 
 line lovingly meanders round the borders of lakes and 
 streamlets and over the undulating valleys ; it makes 
 flourishes great and small, seeming to catch at every possible 
 pretext for dawdling on the way. It reminds one of those 
 rivers of which our good friend Fenelon speaks in Telemaque : 
 "By long detours, they seem to retrace their steps as if they 
 would fain return to their source, being unable to quit such 
 an enchanting land." So, too, the Adrianople line seems 
 always as if it were fain to return to Constantinople. As 
 poetry, even though in prose, this all is charming enough ; 
 but it becomes far less so when an industrial and economic 
 question is at stake, and when one reflects that this 
 lengthening of the line is just nothing more or less than a 
 base trick to cheat the Ottoman Government and extract 
 from it a heavier subvention. For the profit of a few 
 speculators, the interests of the whole country have been 
 sacrificed and its future seriously handicapped. Thanks 
 to all these curves, the speed at which trains travel does
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 89 
 
 not exceed the honest jogtrot of a tramway, going at the 
 rate of twenty kilometres an hour sometimes less. The 
 very way in which the line is laid down would not permit 
 of rapid locomotion, and express trains can consequently 
 never run. To-day this question becomes graver as the 
 branch-line now joins the main one to Sofia, Belgrade, 
 Pesth, Vienna and Paris. It is the direct route between 
 England, France, Constantinople and Western Asia the 
 one which the Orient express is to take. The branch line 
 from Adrianople to the Turkish capital will thus inevitably 
 have to be reconstructed in parts, mended in others, and 
 generally straightened out. 
 
 Moreover, on this astounding railway, all the stations 
 (such as those of Adrianople, Ouzoun-Keupru and others) 
 are situate at an hour or an hour-and-a half's distance from 
 the respective towns. At Adrianople, indeed, a new 
 railway or tramway ought to be constructed, connecting 
 the city with the railway station. Such mysterious sur- 
 prises make one think that one has been transported to a 
 land of opera-bouffe ; and instinctively one listens to catch 
 the distant strains of Offenbach. For, after all, these plans 
 and specifications were all submitted to the Imperial 
 Ottoman Government, whose commissioners superintended 
 the construction of the line and who, surely, had no need 
 of a skilful engineer to point out to them that the whole 
 affair was one colossal hoax that has now cost the State 
 some tens of millions of francs. But wherefore wonder? 
 In the East there is an all-powerful magician, the Divine 
 Baksheesh, who can darken the sight and dull the intelli- 
 gence of even the sharpest. 
 
 One might multiply examples of this kind, but in Europe
 
 90 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 they are becoming well-known, and everyone is aware what 
 such sham contracts are worth, in which the successful 
 competitor is nominated beforehand, being naturally he 
 that has promised the biggest baksheesh to the authorities, 
 who (naturally also) will get the worst goods at his hands. 
 Just so is it with concessions for mines or for public 
 works; all is fictitious, laughable, false. The outside of 
 Western honesty is copied, but only with a view to hide up 
 the shameless bribery and corruption of Ottoman officials. 
 The Turk thinks he has made a great step in imitating our 
 printed forms, in copying the headings of deeds and con- 
 tracts as they are framed in Europe, in aping all our 
 formulae. In fact, for him does not his administration 
 become reduced to just a set of formula?? Argal : if the 
 administration be bad, change the form of it, and all will 
 go well. It is the spirit which kills ; it is the letter that 
 makes alive. Nobody, however, is so silly as to believe 
 that these surface-changes can do aught to better the 
 mind or the morals or the temperament of Ottoman 
 officials. It is the old story of the Turk who thinks he 
 has turned into an apostle of progress, because he puts on a 
 London-made coat or gets his stick-up collars straight 
 from Paris. 
 
 Besides his perpetual itch to make money, the Turkish 
 functionary hungers for another thing, for promotion, for 
 place, for a grade. It must first be noted that as in the 
 army so in the civil department, the same hierarchy 
 obtains. These dignities, although independent of the 
 functionary's office and bringing with them no emolument, 
 are yet greatly coveted, for they raise the official socially and 
 mark him off as a member of the true Turkish aristocracy-
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 9 1 
 
 The titles, or rutbes, are : Salice, Sanie, Miralai, Oula-Senf- 
 8ani, Oula-Senf-Evvel, Bala and Vezir. They correspond 
 to the military grades of promotion from major to marshal. 
 Upon these seven titles all the ambition of the Ottoman 
 bureaucrat is centred. To decorations he gives little heed, 
 for the very servants and valets of the palace can sport 
 the Osmanie, while at Court receptions the breasts of 
 eunuchs blaze like the sun at noon. Sultan Aziz used even 
 to decorate his fighting cocks for their prowess. Ottomans 
 thus, do not care to take the same level as cocks or as 
 capons ; and they smile inwardly at the eagerness of 
 Europeans to secure a Second Class or Fourth Class of the 
 Medjidieh. But again, as regards promotion the case is 
 different ; to get one of the seven grades in question, a 
 Turk will use all his cunning. He becomes on a sudden 
 active, zealous, even laborious. Thirst for work is the first 
 and most certain symptom of this disease. With feverish 
 tenacity, he exaggerates his own merits and depreciates the 
 worth of others. Sometimes he even goes to the length of 
 writing lampoons ; and, not content with being the servile 
 toady of his superiors, he becomes the rabid reviler of his 
 best friends. 
 
 In the Ottoman official world, esprit de corps is a thing 
 unknown. There is no such thing as brotherhood, no such 
 thing as solidarity. Every one for himself; and every 
 man's hand is against his neighbour. Do your colleague a 
 bad turn ; for, depend upon it, when he gets a chance, he 
 will be equally obliging. 
 
 See those two young fellows who go by, chatting cordially 
 and calling each other "brother." Down the streets they 
 walk with their little fingers linked, like a pair of rural
 
 9 2 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 lovers ; such simple friendship reminds you of Orestes and 
 of Pylades. Another disillusion ! there is not a tithe of 
 truth or of candour between them ; falsehood is all. 
 Orestes will go to his chief and tell him any secrets that 
 he may have been able to worm out of his comrade, .and, 
 while repeating these, will put in black touches of his own. 
 Pylades runs off to his patron to denounce his friend as a 
 dangerous malcontent full of bitter words for the Govern- 
 ment and of disrespect for his sovereign. Strangest thing 
 of all ; each will know that night the ill which the other 
 has said about him. But never think that the disclosure 
 will lead to a quarrel or an estrangement. To-morrow, 
 they will link their little fingers just as affectionately as 
 before, calling each other by the same tender names. 
 One thing there is of which the Turkish official world 
 knows absolutely nothing ; and that is, dignity of character. 
 Each man despises his colleague too mtfch to be vexed at 
 his base calumnies. Moreover, he despises himself ; and 
 he knows that, if the chance came, he would prove just as 
 contemptible as another. 
 
 Yonder functionary, wearing, one hardly knows why, a 
 brilliant military uniform is the spy and private detective 
 of the Chief. He goes from Department to Department, 
 under pretence of chatting with this or that official. But 
 in reality his work is to scrutinise the visitors who come to 
 the different bui'eaux, to take note how long they stay, and 
 how they look on leaving. His cleverness consists in 
 piecing together such shreds of conversation as he may 
 chance to pick up, and to make therefrom such deductions 
 as shall serve him eventually. Then, back he goes to his 
 patron and serves him up the plat du jour with an
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 93 
 
 appetising sauce of his own confection, sparing neither 
 friend nor relative, in his haste to be spicy, not even his 
 poor brother-in-law, to whom perhaps he owes all. Why 
 he wears a uniform is thus easily conceivable ; it is simply 
 a livery ! 
 
 The real professional backbiter, again, plays the spy on 
 two enemies at once, tarring on the one against the other 
 and fanning the flame of their hate, so that, later, he may 
 secure the post of the one through the good graces of the 
 other. 
 
 It is impossible for a Frenchman or an Englishman who 
 has gone through the mill, and who knows by experience 
 all the painful intricacies of Ottoman official life, not to 
 come out from it all disgusted and utterly sick at heart. 
 And therefore, one can easily conceive why foreigners will 
 never consent, not even for the most tempting offers, to 
 renew their contracts with the Government. 
 
 By cruel lessons the official, yet green and enquiring, 
 soon learns the truth of this double maxim in which all 
 administrative life in Constantinople is summed up : " Trust 
 no one or you will be betrayed ! " " Always tell lies, 
 otherwise nobody will believe you ! " Lying is a malady of 
 so endemic a nature that possibly a straightforward person 
 might be the dupe of his own sincerity. One is obliged to 
 festoon the truth and garland it in so pretty and pleasing 
 a way as to hide it altogether. If you mean " a hundred," 
 you must say " ten thousand ; " otherwise, your questioner, 
 used to translate " ten thousand " by " a hundred," will 
 think that you only mean "ten." Everything is in the 
 superlative degree ; instead of adding, multiply ; that is the 
 general rule and the whole syntax of this special language
 
 94 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 Turkey is the home of the inexact sciences. When au 
 Ottoman shows you a thing, reverse your opera-glass if you 
 would get an idea of its just size. 
 
 Moreover, lying is an accomplishment by no means to be 
 despised ; and, for telling him an untruth, no Chief would 
 ever bear his subordinate any ill-will, though he might if he 
 chose to be frank and speak out. Consequently, the sub- 
 ordinates must cheit rather than be disagreeable. The main 
 point is to win his Chief's favour rather than his confidence. 
 Some underlings will do all sorts of little jobs for their 
 master, fetching and carrying, executing his commissions, 
 nattering his vanity and his greediness. The least of 
 these bureacrats has the title of Excellency so soon as he 
 obtains the rank of oula. Surely never was there such a 
 firmament of Excellencies ! Knowing employees make the 
 best and most efficacious use of this term as a salve and an 
 emollient. Others, by frequent visits to their superiors, 
 afi'ord him solace in his official cares by telling him dis- 
 gusting stories, by singing romances or by twangling the 
 guitar. Some play the pander to his passion for Christian 
 flesh, and pilot him to places where, by day as by night, 
 one is ever sure of a friendly reception. Some even . . . 
 
 But, pleasing one of these influential personages will not 
 suffice, one must side with him against his enemies. It is 
 impossible to remain neutral or to maintain one's independ- 
 ence of character. As in old Rome, the subordinate must 
 espouse his patron's cause and hate those whom he hates. 
 Turkish society is thus broken up, divided into factions ; 
 but not as in France, where religion or politics are the 
 engines of division. In Turkey, men are separated by 
 personal jealousy, by pride, by spite.
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 95 
 
 A singular hostility reigns between the Government 
 authorities properly so called and the personnel of the 
 Imperial Palace. The Palace counts as a privileged State 
 a sort of Empyrean floating above the nation's head. 
 All those who draw breath in this Imperial ether, because 
 they live near the sovereign, are notable for their over- 
 weening impertinence, and look down in lordly 'fashion 
 upon other functionaries. The most influential of them all 
 is the Kisleri Agha, the head eunuch and chief of the 
 Imperial harem. He has the rank of Marshal of the 
 Palace, and his credit is unlimited. After the Sultan, this 
 gelding counts as the first person in the Empire ; he stands 
 above the law, and if so minded, may fearlessly box a 
 recalcitrant Minister's ears. He goes by the pretty name 
 of Europeanophagus or devourer of all that is European ; 
 and he poses as the rabid defender of Asiatic barbarism. 
 Following his example, various palace functionaries have 
 declared themselves independent and in no wise obliged to 
 obey the Government of the country ; they do all they can 
 to thwart it, and make a vaunt of holding it in derision. 
 
 Most of these budget-weevils live on idly in fat laziness ; 
 their offices which they never fill are sinecures. Some- 
 times they assume queer titles which recall those of the 
 Janissaries in bygone days Head of the Scullions, Super- 
 intendent of the Sideboard, Head of the Forage and 
 Provender Department, Director of the Aviary, and the 
 like. Such are the posts they occupy, though these posts 
 are very far from occupying them. Big and little, potent or 
 puny, they are all filled with most insufferable arrogance, 
 though verily in point of insolence the smaller fry bear off the 
 palm. To get an idea of human impertinence, listen to a
 
 c,6 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 Palace eunuch bullying one of his master's servants, and it 
 will make you sad to reflect how base are both beings ; the 
 one who has arrived at such a pitch of brutal insolence, 
 the other who has fallen so low as to be powerless to reply. 
 
 One must not think that this world up at the Palace is 
 a little world, consisting of a small group of limpet-like 
 individuals. It is a legion living within the sacred pre- 
 cincts, thriving, fattening there, and enriching itself at 
 Imperial expense and Imperial generosity. Each of these 
 " Directors " and " Chiefs " has a dozen or more of servants 
 under him, who in their turn have other domestics that 
 obey their orders. Three thousand is the number of those 
 persons who daily receive their mid-day pilaf; the cost of 
 nourishing them exceeds, it is said, 60,000 francs per diem. 
 At noon whole battalions of cooks file past carrying on 
 their head broad platters on which are little saucepans. 
 It is the courtiers' dinner going by ! The number of 
 chickens that are devoured would suffice to satisfy the 
 most ravenous of armies. 
 
 But corporal nourishment is not enough to content these 
 ogres; each has always something to petition and to beg 
 for himself, for his brother, for his cousin, or for his cousin's 
 friend. And the sovereign, whose generosity knows no 
 limits, always gives : to this one, a house ; to that one, an 
 estate ; to a third, a snuff-box set in brilliants ; to a fourth, 
 some gift on the occasion of a marriage or the birth of a 
 child. Newly-appointed Ministers often receive a palace 
 or a villa as a present, not to speak of lesser gifts in the 
 shape of sabres with jewelled hilts, costly watches, etc. 
 These brief facts are enough to show that the Palace is a 
 gulf in which is swallowed up a greater part of the riches
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 97 
 
 of the country. Officially the Sultan is satisfied with a Civil 
 List which does not exceed twenty-five millions of francs ; 
 hut to that must be added the revenues derived from the 
 immense Crown property ; lands which include over twelve 
 hundred farms, and the precise extent of which has never 
 been accurately stated. Their rental alone is valued at 
 twenty-two millions of francs. Besides, there are other 
 revenues of various kinds ; and the sovereign, by virtue f 
 the laws of Tanzimat or of Reform, always reserves the right 
 to appropriate such and such State resource if he need it ; 
 and moreover, he sets his Ministers a bad example by taking 
 baksheesh himself; sums which are valued collectively at 
 sixteen millions of francs. Thus the Palace absorbs- 
 devours sixty millions of francs annually ! 
 
 To sum up : the Sultan is obliged to board and lodge 
 part of the Mussulman population of Constantinople. Add 
 to this the fact that he is personally charitable ; that when 
 any public calamity visits the land, such as a famine or a 
 fire, he gives largely, royally ; that if a village or a quarter 
 be burnt down he rebuilds it partially, if not wholly, at his 
 own cost ; that he gives money to the army, to the fleet, to 
 the sick and infirm, to poor students, as well as supplying 
 funds for the construction of hospitals, mosques and schools. 
 All the Sultans have indeed had a mania for building. A 
 European is astounded at the sight of so many huge palaces, 
 of sober exterioi-, but most marvellously decorated within. 
 Deserted monuments, these ; forsaken, ill-kept and falling 
 to ruin ; created by the caprice of a moment, but a caprice 
 that lasted rarely as long, and never longer than the life of 
 him who hud it. On either side the Bosphorus banks such 
 white gleaming kiosques are to be seen ; an unromantic
 
 98 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 lady once compared them, not unhappily, to wedding- 
 cakes. Go inland through the provinces ; everywhere you 
 will see Imperial residences, but, like those on the 
 Bosphorus, all deserted, decayed. Nothing more mournful 
 meets the eye than these splendid edifices slowly rotting on 
 lonely plains ; one is reminded of the precious vestiges of 
 civilisation on which explorers light in Assyria and Upper 
 Egypt. In every city of the Empire there is a kiosque set 
 apart for the Sultan, which he never inhabits. Truly 
 prodigal is the luxury which marks these palatial abodes ; 
 rare marbles, rich and costly woods, enamel in silver and 
 in gold, mirrors and lustres from Venice, mosaics from 
 Florence and Rome ; choice furniture, the best samples of 
 buhl and marqueterie work, with deep-hued carpets, soft, 
 velvety as fur. These magnificent abodes are nominally 
 guarded by majordomos who live .there with their families 
 in comfortable drowsiness and ease. How many hundreds 
 of millions of francs have thus been squandered which 
 might have been usefully spent in making roads, in fertilis- 
 ing valleys, in cutting canals, in constructing ports ! 
 
 Each denizen of this world at Yildiz has one pre-occupa- 
 tion, and that naturally is how best to maintain his place 
 by trying to give proofs of zeal and usefulness. Courtiers 
 high and low all try to get into their master's good books, 
 and win his confidence by perpetually hinting at the 
 insecurity of his position. They pretend to be mainly 
 anxious to defend their sovereign, 'but in reality they want 
 to defend their own place, and to stick fast to that. They 
 raise up between the Padishah and his people an insur- 
 mountable barrier ; and it is their policy to maintain tin's 
 isolation, traditional indeed to Eastern monarchs, for in
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 99 
 
 olden times, ambassadors were only suffered to see the 
 Sultan through a gilded grating. 
 
 All these Court men devote what wits and what imagi- 
 nation they have to inventing new causes for fear, ever 
 preparing false rumours of plots, of assassinations, of 
 conspiracies. The greatest statesmen, the worthiest and 
 most honest servants of the Empire cannot come off un- 
 scathed from such pestilent calumnies, that are always 
 muttered hypocritically with bated breath negative 
 slandei's such as : "That Pasha is getting far too powerful 1 " 
 'This one talks overloud and wears a dangerously determined 
 air ! " "That other is always in Pera, and associates too 
 frequently with Europeans ; without S2)ecial authorisation, 
 he attends Ambassadors' balls ! " "Such an one gets journals 
 from Paris, the dreadful hot-bed of Socialism ! " and so on. 
 By continual scares of this kind, the path to progress is 
 barred and the sovereign in such an atmosphere of terror 
 and alarm is, as it were, morally paralysed, and hindered 
 from carrying out his good intentions. 
 
 For several years past the Sultan has not dared to leave 
 the enceinte of his palace at Yilcliz. Not only does he never 
 visit any city of his Empire, but he fears to show himself 
 at Stamboul or on the Bosphorus. His officious counsellors 
 paint these places for him as so many dreadful gins and 
 pitfalls, full of bombs and of dynamite. By a religious lav/ 
 the Head of the State is obliged every Friday -the Moslem 
 Sabbath to attend public prayer at one of the mosques : 
 and this weekly ceremony of the Selamlik was once celo 
 brated at Stamboul with great pomp and splendour. Now, 
 the Sultan Abdul-Hamid goes occasionally to the Beshiktash 
 mosque at the base of Yildiz Hill, but more frequently, in
 
 ICO THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 fact, as a rule, to the Hamidie mosque, named after his 
 Imperial Majesty, a brand new edifice of white marble 
 built by the sovereign for convenience' (some say for 
 safety's) sake, on the crest of the slope, just outside his 
 palace gates. 
 
 The brief route from the Palace to the mosque, is closely 
 guarded by troops ; and not one person in the curious 
 crowd of spectators can possibly approach within killing 
 length. Dignified, imposing as is the spectacle, it yet 
 forces upon one the conviction that the Padishah, the 
 Noble Commander of the Faithful is voluntarily as great a 
 prisoner at Constantinople as is His Holiness the Pope in 
 Rome. 
 
 Yildiz Palace in truth is almost a fortress in itself. 
 Poised on the high ground above Pera, at considerable 
 distance from Staruboul, its massive walls environ a regular 
 park into which no one may ever penetrate. Vast barracks 
 surround it, and at a moment's notice the Sultan could lind 
 himself hedged round by an army. Roads across the park 
 lead down to the Bosphorus, where, off Dolnia Baghtche, 
 two Imperial yachts lie always at anchor ; one of them has 
 her steam up always, whether it be night or day. 
 
 Spies in shoals patrol the city, lurking in public places 
 and worming their way into families, whom by one lying 
 phrase they often manage to ruin. Some of these Palace 
 inouchards are familiar figures ; and in the restaurant or 
 the Bierhalle on seeing them, people point the finger and 
 drop their voice simultaneously. But most of them are 
 disguised so that, meeting them, you know them not, nor 
 whether, evilly, they may wrench your lightest and most 
 harmless word from its meaning, and give to it a suspicious
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. IOI 
 
 sense ! So it comes that in public, men talk always of 
 trivial matters, and conversation becomes dry, lifeless, 
 without any touch of individuality, of personal feeling 
 about it. 
 
 Fear of plots has led to precautions that are positively 
 incredible. The importation of all explosive and inflam- 
 mable matter is strictly prohibited. At no cost whatever 
 can engineers procure dynamite with which to carry on 
 their operations ; agriculturists dare not purchase sulphate 
 of carbon, though it would save their vines from the ravages 
 of the phylloxera. Even to regiments, no blank cartridges 
 are served out when on drill. Occasionally the sale of 
 fireworks is forbidden ; the experiments with electric light 
 have been suspended ; telephones are also under the ban. 
 It has never been possible to establish telegraphic communi- 
 cation between the Tower of Galata, where are stationed 
 the watchers who signal fires, and the head-quarters of the 
 local tire-brigade at Taxim, which is at the other end of the 
 town. And so runners, barefoot and dressed in red rags, 
 have to carry the news across the whole length of Pera and 
 first send the firemen to their work. 
 
 Another fact more curious still ; a fact that borders on 
 buffoonery. The local post has been suppressed ! Why ? 
 Because certain droll fellows took it into their head to 
 write comic letters to the Sultan and to the Grand Vizier. 
 Immediately like a thunderbolt comes the decree ; from 
 head-quarters the local post is struck dead by it is 
 abolished ! The red letter-boxes with their white crescent 
 still sadly cling to walls at many a street-corner, and the 
 pretty new stamps serve to enrich the album of the 
 assiduous collector. To-day, throughout the whole of
 
 102 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 Constantinople and its suburbs it is impossible to communi- 
 cate with anyone by stamped, directed letter. You must 
 send a friend or your servant ; and if you have not either 
 of these commodities, you must go yourself, perhaps hire a 
 horse and certainly lose half-a-day. What a charming aid 
 h this to commerce ! 
 
 Such are some of the lamentable results of the work of 
 rapacious Court hangers-on and parasites who only try to 
 terrify their sovereign and poison his peace of mind. It 
 may well be that the tragic fate of his predecessors inclines 
 the Sultan to melancholy and sad thoughts ; but the fact is 
 noteworthy that all revolutions have had their birth in the 
 palace itself, among the relatives or the courtiers of tin- 
 sovereign. No people is more devoted, more trusting. 
 more patient or more reverent than the Turkish nation. 
 Did the Padishah summon them, in a moment a hundred 
 thousand breasts were bared to defend his own. And yet 
 against a people such as this he raises up every possible 
 entrenchment ; and he looks for safety in the centre of his 
 most dangerous foes. That is why Turkey resembles a 
 Hock without a shepherd. Sovereign and people live too 
 far apart ; they are severed by a massive immovable line of 
 courtiers who from the sovereign's hand take the money that 
 by right belongs to the people. 
 
 In all these lavish expressions of fidelity the Sultan, 
 however, would appear to put but slender trust. Except 
 at Selamlik, he rarely shows himself to the Palace crew ; 
 lie lives in seclusion in his apartments, surrounded by 
 certain officers personally attached to him, and upon whose 
 loyalty and devotion he can count. As to the others, lie 
 boards and lodges them ; for, failing that, they might eat
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 103 
 
 him up. He lives in perpetual fear of poison ; and expert 
 chemists are specially told off to analyse his food. Poison, 
 indeed, has ever been a common method for getting rid of 
 disagreeable Sultans ; so on this score he has every reason 
 to be afraid. To make sure of the faithfulness- of all his 
 protectors he refuses none of their requests, but heaps 
 favours and kindness upon them. Alas! devotion which 
 is bought has never the worth of that which is freely 
 given, which "is all for love and nothing for reward." 
 
 Such is the troubled, sad existence of the Padishah. It 
 would verily need a Colbert, honest, blunt, and brutal to 
 make a clean sweep of all these useless Palace vermin, and 
 let the money now squandered upon them be put to a 
 patriotic use. Alas ! in Europe, Colberts are extinct ; in 
 Turkey they would be assassinated, and that right soon.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE INTERIOR OF A GOVERNMENT OFFICE. PROFILE OF A 
 
 MINISTER. ETERNAL VACATIONS. THE ART OF OBTAIN- 
 ING CONCESSIONS AND OF NOT PROFITING BY THEM. 
 
 To MAKE a minute anatomical study of a Turkish Govern- 
 ment office, one must get inside that rotten hulk called a 
 Ministry, and examine its rickety, tumble-down state 
 within. So, for this purpose let us proceed to Stamboul, 
 climbing the narrow, dirty, break-neck streets which lead 
 up to the hill on which the Seraskierate or War Office 
 stands ; and there we shall be face to face with one of 
 those heavy, massive buildings that are copies (and bad 
 copies, too), of European barracks. 
 
 In the court-yard surges a clamorous crowd of Turkish 
 women, all pushing, shouting, gesticulating before a grating, 
 at which the face of an imperturbable clerk appears. 
 Those not in the front row tie their petitions or documents 
 to the tips of their umbrellas, and push them under the 
 nose of the imperturbable clerk, or else wave them franti- 
 cally in the air, while such ladies as are strongest of lin.b
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 105 
 
 and of nerve try to break through the motley throng, amid 
 much cackling and many screams. Most of these poor 
 women are widows and daughters of officials who come to 
 get the miserable pension awarded to them by the State. 
 How many weary hours are theirs of waiting, and how 
 often they come and yet return and come again, Allah 
 only knows ! Some squat stoically in a corner of the 
 court-yard ; and seeing them thus huddled together with 
 their chin upon their knees, one is convinced that no woman 
 takes up so little room upon earth as a Turkish woman. 
 Others smoke cigarettes to while away the time, or drink 
 water which they draw from au adjacent well. Some 
 bring their babies with them and rock them in an impromptu 
 cradle made by a shawl slung to a bush. All of them wail 
 and lament indignantly, showing to each other the papers 
 they hold, with the Imperial cypher and an infinity of 
 mii/tufti or stamps upon it 
 
 Let us pass through this circle of unfortunates and go 
 into the building itself. At the foot of the staircase we 
 find an apartment where shoes and goloshes are left. In 
 Europe the impression still obtains that this habit, in the 
 East, of taking off one's shoes on entering a mosque is due 
 to a religious motive. Nothing of the kind ; it is simply 
 done for cleanliness' sake. Dust lies a foot thick in the 
 streets in summer, and in winter the rich black mud is 
 more than half a metre in depth, so that Turks have to 
 wear over-shoes, or double shoes, goloshes, in fact, which not 
 only outside every mosque but at the threshold of every 
 decently furnished house they are obliged to leave. There 
 is all the more reason for this as the floors on which they 
 walk are usually covered with handsome carpets and rugs.
 
 106 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 Unfortunately Ottomans of the lower class have not the 
 means of buying these overshoes, and so they merely take 
 olT the sort of leather cases which serve as boots, and, 
 sockless, go into mosque or ministerial mansion barefoot 
 and unashamed. Let us hasten to add that owing to the 
 frequent ablutions prescribed by the Goran, the state of 
 these corporal extremities leaves rarely aught to be desired. 
 Many Turks in Constantinople wear boots of the European 
 sort with elastic sides, but they still persist in taking them 
 off when in a house or on board a Bosphorus steamer, sitting 
 undiscomfited in their socks. Indeed this is the Oriental's 
 invariable habit a manoeuvre performed in three successive 
 movements. Movement one : off boots and on to sofa ; 
 movement two : draw up feet on to divan and cross legs ; 
 movement three : open tobacco box and begin to roll 
 cigarette. A pleasant type of this ceremony I once saw at 
 a public school on prize-day. The Government functionary 
 who presided had placed his boots in front of him on the 
 platform. These poor boots were already past their first 
 youth ; the lappets of their ears hung shyly, timidly down ; 
 they seemed to blush before the brilliant assembly ; like 
 certain Ministers, they seemed to be wholly wanting in 
 prestige. Before embarking upon his speech, the presi- 
 dent put on his shabby boots again ; for him that was as 
 good as sipping the traditional glass of water to clear 
 his throat. But let us have done with externals, nor let 
 us longer dally with boots outside the door. Here is the 
 ante-chamber ; we will enter it. 
 
 Squatting in line along its walls, are petitioners, all with 
 a grievance, who have come some fifty times or more to 
 claim money due them by the Government. There they sit
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 107 
 
 for four or five hours at a stretch, occasionally drinking 
 coffee or water which last is served out to them by an 
 itinerant seller who carries a huge wickerwork jar. And 
 when closing-time comes, these luckless persons file out into 
 the street with a resigned air, determined to return on the 
 morrow. Sometimes as they depart, a clerk whispers to 
 them encouragingly : "Your business is being looked into, 
 so come back again in a few days." 
 
 Here you may see Government contractors who for five 
 or six months have been waiting to have their accounts 
 settled ; journeymen whose weekly pay has been abruptly 
 stopped, and of which they vainly hope to get at least a 
 fraction ; and many another victim of official dishonesty 
 and extortion. Merely to contemplate the patience and 
 humility of these petitioners makes one convinced that they 
 will go straight to heaven ; and is not that a consoling 
 thought ? 
 
 They go and they come back, some of them tw,enty, others 
 sixty times, without ever growing weary or desperate. And 
 they are right ; for experience has taught them that 
 Turkish officials never busy themselves about a matter save 
 just in. that moment when the person interested puts it 
 before them. Bureaucracy cannot walk by itself ; it must 
 be pushed along ; it is like a toy watch devoid of mechanism, 
 the hands of which must be turned round with the finger. 
 
 These ranks of resigned applicants are swelled by numerous 
 beggars, all ragged and ready to exhibit their hideous sores. 
 la one corner a dirty, shockheaded dervish with hairy chest 
 glares at you out of his wild eyes ; liquor-sellers stroll about 
 in groups ; while gambolling babies laugh and cry at will 
 011 the staircase. A functionary of high position passes,
 
 108 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 when everybody rises ; some bolder applicant makes a 
 faint attempt to speak to him, but then feebly subsides 
 upon his haunches, gives a twitch to his bead necklace, and 
 prefers to rest and be thankful. 
 
 Lift up, now, the heavy curtain which hides the door of 
 one of these bureaux, and let us indiscreetly take a peep at 
 the inside. On large arm chairs covered with Aleppo silk 
 some ten or twelve employes sit in a doubled -up position. 
 The seats are all rubbed to shabbiness by the constant 
 friction of boots and shoes ; in fact, the stuffing peers out 
 in places. Before each person there is a small table which 
 forgive the simile resembles a night-stool ; on this are ink 
 and pens, besides two or three tiny trays for cigarette-ash. 
 
 Some of the employes are writing with a reed pen, 
 (yalem) skilfully tracing those pretty Turkish or rather 
 Arabic characters which look for all the world like garlands. 
 The sheet of paper is placed in the palm of their left hand, 
 for it is not customary to write upon a table. Now and 
 again the copyist pauses to admire as a dilettante should, 
 the half line which his genius has just given to the world. 
 His colleagues remain silent: inert, they do not talk, 
 they do not laugh, they do not read. Plunged in their 
 kef (A Turkish expression for lazy ease) they twiddle 
 their chaplet which Orientals invariably carry in their 
 hand as a pastime and toy. They never look at a book, 
 a pamphlet, a newspaper. Twice during the afternoon 
 coffee is brought to them ; and from time to time they 
 call for a glass of water; this is the only sign they ever 
 give of vitality. 
 
 In the office of a Chief of Department, the scene changes. 
 Visitors enter without being announced ; they salute, sit
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 109 
 
 down, salute again, accept a cigarette, take coffee in a little 
 porcelain cup without a handle which stands in an egg- 
 shaped socket of filigree work called zarf. This done, 
 they subside upon the sofa in a comatose state. The 
 wretched functionary has never an instant for reflection or 
 for making advance in the work on hand. Beggars file past 
 him at every moment ; itinerant sellers of pens, of ink, of 
 cigarette-holders, of matches. On one chair a mangy cat 
 is feeding its kittens ; fleas cut their capers on all the 
 carpets ; while the common or household bug makes daring 
 ascents up tables or divans, and even ventures to scale the 
 dizzy heights of the official desks. 
 
 All at once from an ante-chamber, the chanting of a 
 muezzin calls the faithful to prayer, when some of the 
 clerks hasten to a room set apart for devotional purposes, 
 the floor of it being covered with a carpet, on which they 
 may kneel and prostrate themselves. Often, in the middle 
 of a Cabinet Council, one or two members present will 
 quit their armchair, and in a corner of the room, unroll 
 t'.ieir prayer-carpet and begin their genuflexions, the dis- 
 cussion continuing meanwhile. 
 
 At other times a madman will enter the Council Chamber 
 and yell at its inmates, but no one loses for that an inch of 
 his wonted gravity. A servant endeavours to remove 
 the poor maniac by arguments and soft persuasion, never 
 by force, for the Mussulmans have a superstitious respect 
 for lunatics, believing them inspired from above. I am 
 convinced that some cracked people make capital out of this f 
 for I have noticed that the acuter symptoms of insanity 
 rapidly disappeared on the administration of a remedy in 
 the form of a few ten-franc pieces.
 
 HO THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 As will be seen, working clays at Government Offices 
 are not very numerous Friday is the Turkish Sunday, 
 when all the Public Offices are closed, on Saturday the 
 Jews have their weekly day of rest, when some of the 
 Banks and most of the big financial houses are not open ; 
 and Government offices do little or nothing. Oil Sunday 
 they keep holiday again, for all Armenians and Greeks, 
 remain at home. On Wednesday, there is a Cabinet 
 Council at the Sublime Porte, and employes never come to 
 their offices on that day. So only Monday, Tuesday, 
 Thursday and a part of Saturday remain as working days, 
 and, on Monday, matters do not make great progress, for it 
 is difficult to set to work after three consecutive days of 
 sweet sloth ! Besides these holidays, there are Turkish 
 festivals and eves of festivals ; the Ramazan, the Bairam, 
 the Courban-Bairam, the Anniversaries of the Sultan's 
 birth and accession, the Armenian and Greek feast-days, 
 etc., etc. 
 
 Much abuse has been levelled at the cartons verts used by 
 French authorities, but what are they by the side of the 
 enormous boxes which stand in Turkish Ministerial lobbies, 
 covered with cowhide and studded with huge copper nails. 
 In these are preserved all Ottoman official documents that 
 are packed away there in fine disorder. A Levantine of 
 caustic tongue said once to me : " You see that the Turks 
 are always thinking of their forthcoming flitting ; they 
 have already packed up their archives." 
 
 We have just examined the material conditions of Turkish 
 bureaucracy ; now let us endeavour to define the spirit of 
 it. What little we have said was with a view to point out 
 their blind adherence to a fossil routine, and their adaman-
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. Til 
 
 tine resistance to all Western ideas. They fight shy of the 
 European because they are afraid of work ; every step 
 forward needs an effort, so they say, " For heaven's sake let 
 there be no progress, so that we may remain tranquil !" 
 
 What firm will and what patience are needed by the 
 unlucky concessionist who has at last formulated his demand 
 for a concession, and seeks to obtain the Imperial firman ! 
 How many resolute competitors have not repented their 
 rashness in starting upon so ill-starred an enterprise ! 
 Some, disgusted, have abruptly broken off all their negotia- 
 tions ; others, unwilling to sacrifice the heavy sums already 
 spent in preparing the way to success, linger on, hoping 
 against hope. Six or seven years of chagrin and suspense 
 are often wasted in this way; and the concessionist. may 
 count himself lucky if the Government do not basely put 
 into the contract some apocryphal clause of such insidious 
 a nature as practically to ruin the whole enterprise. 
 
 From all the many examples of this, let us choose that of 
 M. Moutran, who for many years past has solicited the 
 permission to construct quays along the Golden Horn. 
 For Constantinople this would prove a source of wealth, 
 and help greatly to make the city healthier. All steamcis 
 and merchant vessels have to anchor in mid-stream ; they 
 cannot approach a wharf, for none exists ; and passengers 
 or goods have to be transferred to land in boats and barges. 
 When once goods are brought on shore, they have to be 
 carried by Jta7nals (the street porters), or else brought in 
 little rickety bullock-carts to their destination. Thirds 
 could have been no worse than this in the fifteenth century. 
 In this respect Constantinople is four centuries behind 
 Smyrna and Alexandria. Well, to obtain the concession
 
 i 1 2 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 for these quays, M Moutran (who has already furnished 
 Turkey with excellent light-houses) had to spend more than 
 half a million of francs ; but without any result. Apropos 
 of this, the following pretty story was told. 
 
 Some years ago, as the festival of Ba'iram drew near, 
 there was absolutely no money in the Treasury! How 
 terribly embarrassing! For this is a time for merry-making 
 and rejoicing with high and low, both in public and in 
 private. It is like the Giaour's Christmastide, when gifts 
 and visits are exchanged. Sweetmeats and sugar are then 
 freely distributed, so that the festival lias come to be styled 
 Cheker Ba'iram or the Sugar Feast. For four days guns 
 are fired ; vessels in harbour are gay with flags ; there are 
 official receptions and brilliant illuminations. But fore- 
 most above all other pleasant surprises, are the money 
 presents which His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, distributes 
 among his faithful subjects, to officers, to functionaries, and 
 others. All the soldiers of the Constantinople garrison 
 (and it is a very large one) are invited in batches, during 
 Ramazan, to dine at the Palace, and each receives a gift of 
 money. For a whole month, then, the Sovereign entertains 
 from six hundred to seven hundred persons every evening ; 
 and the bill thus run up is no trifling one. 
 
 That year it so happened that there was no money ; and 
 so there could be no fetes. The Ba'iram looked as though 
 it would be a most melancholy festival. What a bad im- 
 pression such impecuniosity would make upon the people 
 and upon the army ! Then the authorities thought of M. 
 Moutran and his famous concession. In exchange for a loan, 
 the Government agreed to grant it to him. Proposals were 
 made, but so much time was spent in negotiating, that the
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 1 13 
 
 Bairam drew near before anything was settled. At the 
 last moment the Turkish authorities made up their mind ; 
 late on the eve of the festival the firman of concession was 
 awarded to M. Moutran, who gave a glance at the precious, 
 long coveted document and signed a cheque for the sum 
 agreed upon. The treasury messengers at once rushed off 
 to the Imperial Ottoman I 1 , ink, roused the cashier and by 
 virtue of the magical name of the Sultan, got him to cash 
 the cheque. On waking next morning M. Moutran looked 
 closer at the firman of concession. He saw that the first 
 part of the document was in accordance with his proposals, 
 but that into the main part of it certain modifications had 
 been cunningly introduced which rendered it practically 
 invalid. Furious at this, he hastened to the Grand Vizier, 
 tore up the firman, and with a wrath quite European did 
 not hesitate to give him a piece of his mind. Happily by 
 virtue of his previous concession he was entitled to receive 
 the lighthouse revenues ; and so in this way he managed to 
 recover the sum thus borrowed ! 
 
 It would take us over long to recount the sad history of 
 concessions; suffice it to say that the Ottoman Government 
 only cares to grant concessions of a diplomatic kind. 
 Turkey gets her coal from England and her petroleum from 
 Russia and America. Yet though she possesses both coal 
 and petroleum in abundance, she can never decide to profit 
 by them. Near Heraclea there is a coal mine of some 120 
 to 130 kilometres in length from west to east, and 10 
 kilometres in breadth. In certain places the coal stratum 
 is four metres thick. For several years past European 
 companies have striven to obtain the right of exploitation
 
 H4 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 of this rich mine, but all their money and energy spent have 
 been wasted ; Turkey continues to buy her coal from 
 Card iff and Newcastle. 
 
 As we are speaking of England, apropos of this envious 
 
 nation it seems fitting here to make certain reservations in 
 
 favour of Turkey, so that we may not be charged with 
 
 injustice or prejudice as regards the Ottoman Government. 
 
 One must admit that many improvements in the transport 
 
 service and in the construction of seaports would have been 
 
 made, if the rivalry of European States, and above all, the 
 
 insufferable egoism of England, had not created such heavy 
 
 obstacles. It is Great Britain who has always prevented 
 
 the construction of the great railway from Constantinople 
 
 to Bagdad and to the Persian Gulf. It may be urged that 
 
 if these obstacles had not existed, Turkey would probably 
 
 have carried out none of the fine schemes that she cherished. 
 
 That is very likely ; but in any case she has now the excuse 
 
 of saying that she is not mistress in her own house. The 
 
 Great Powers treat her, not as a nation, but as a question. 
 
 Every time she tries to move, there is growling in some 
 
 part of Europe. England, above all, whose capacity for 
 
 exploiting unscrupulously and ungenerously the peoples 
 
 under her sway, jealously watches each movement of Turkey, 
 
 and would prefer to render her paralytic rather than to see 
 
 her take a step which should profit another rival nation. 
 
 Financiers have often specified to the Turkish Government 
 
 such imported articles as ought properly to be made liable 
 
 to duty, this proving a considerable source of revenue to 
 
 the impoverished treasury. But even there the Porte is not 
 
 free to act; it is bound down by treaties which forbid it
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 115 
 
 not to work its own ruin. England often waxes tender 
 over "The Sick Man," but yet she is careful to keep 
 the patient in a state of anemia from which she draws 
 profit. 
 
 After these few lines in defence of poor Turkey, let us 
 round upon her once more and reproach her for thwarting 
 and tormenting her wretched concessionists. Were an 
 inquiry instituted, the list of complaints made by these 
 latter would be well-nigh interminable, while some of the 
 pretexts put forward by the Ottoman officials would indeed 
 create amusement. 
 
 The Dercos Water Company, which supplies Constan- 
 tinople with water, tried to lay down a line of rail from 
 Dercos Lake to a neighbouring port ; but the Government 
 always refused to permit this, upon the grounds that it was 
 a railway, and that all the necessary formulae for the con- 
 struction of a large railway must be gone through ! 
 
 At Panderma a French company asked for permission to 
 establish at its own cost a steamboat service between the 
 mouth of a river and the mines which it was working. It 
 could not, however, obtain such authorisation, though no 
 reasons for this obstinate refusal were vouchsafed by the 
 Porte. Hundreds of enterprises have thus collapsed owing 
 to the obstinacy and pigheadedness of the authorities. As 
 regards mining, a company may count itself lucky if the 
 mine in question be situated near the seaboard ; in the 
 interior, exportation becomes positively ruinous, owing to 
 lack of means of communication. The roads and paths are 
 utterly impracticable for carriages or carts ; all must be 
 carried by camels, horses or mules, and these beasts can
 
 H6 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 only bear about a fifth or sixth part of an ordinary load. 
 This question of means of transport, a vital one for agri- 
 culture, is no less so for industry. The needful money for 
 road-making has often been exacted from ratepayers and it 
 has as often been paid. What, then, has become of it? 
 It has disappeared by infiltration, leaving behind it no 
 trace.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE TURKISH SOLDIER. HIS VIRTUES ARE HIS OWN ; HIS 
 
 FAULTS HE GETS FROM HIS SUPERIORS. THE GERMAN 
 
 PASHAS. HEROES IN TATTERS. 
 
 IF the Turk as a functionary be detestable, he is, on the 
 other hand, an excellent soldier. Islamism may count 
 indeed as the type of the church militant. On Fridays in 
 the mosques the imam reads the Goran with a drawn sword 
 in his hand. ^Yar, for the believer, is an act of faith ; it 
 lighted the enthusiasm of the ancient martyrs. 
 
 Conscription exclusively touches the agricultural class, 
 the best one of the whole nation. Moreover, the Turkish 
 private presents a blending of qualities such as no European 
 soldier possesses in the same degree. First and foremost, 
 he is astonishingly sober ; he never touches wine or spirits ; 
 a handful of rice or a crust of black bread with a little 
 mutton, for beef is not eaten, form his sole food. Fatigue, 
 cold, heat, poverty, he is proof against all ; being always 
 resigned if death should come, his courage is dauntless. 
 Patriotism, or, if you will, fanaticism of the most ardent
 
 Il8 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 kind inspires hini, sustains him and ever holds before him 
 the picture of a paradise where eternal ecstasies shall be his, 
 after all the miseries of this earthly life. It is curious that 
 Christians should have imagined a material hell, with 
 boilers, furnaces and a whole assortment of instruments of 
 torture ; their paradise, however, is a purely abstract con- 
 ception. Mussulmans, on the other hand, are temperate in 
 giving details as to the punishments in store for sinners, 
 while they have invented an empyrean abode of the most 
 sensual sort. For them, the bliss of the elect is one eternal 
 spasm. 
 
 How often in the last war was not the Turkish soldier 
 forced to march fasting all day long, either because of 
 Ramazan or because of the negligence of contractors, who, 
 while amassing fortunes, suffered the army to starve ! The 
 poor soldier, broken in spirit by want of food and having no 
 wrap or blanket to defend him from the bitter cold of a winter 
 in the Balkans, yet fought for days together, unflaggingly 
 and without a murmur. He knew that he was dying for 
 his Sultan and his religion ; in that lay his heroism. 
 
 Though naive and ignorant, the Turkish soldier is not 
 unintelligent, above all things he is stimulated by a sincere 
 wish to learn his trade. Many a time in an angle of the 
 Seraskierate court-yard we have watched raw recruits going 
 through their musket drill by themselves, one giving the 
 word of command and the other obeying it. Think that 
 this is in Turkey, in the classic land of laziness and 
 indifference ; and then say if such zeal be not admir- 
 able ! 
 
 The Turkisli soldier is well-disciplined, docile, respectful 
 and easily led. He is an excellent instrument which the
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. lip 
 
 native officers are incapable of putting to its effective use. 
 All his merits are his own, inherent to himself ; his defects 
 come to him from without, from bad administration, from 
 the gross negligence of his superiors. 
 
 For instance, strip off his uniform and you will find him 
 a veritable savage. Look at the bands of recruits which at 
 certain times in the year arrive at the capital in their 
 national costume, and you will soon perceive that despite 
 the European cut of tunic and trousers, and despite all 
 Prussian military science, the Turkish army is but a 
 modern form of the famous hordes of Ghengis-Khan. 
 During a campaign, the soldiers are ferocious barbarians 
 armed with the last new rifle, who ruthlessly slash and 
 behead their wounded and dying foes who lie about the 
 battle-field. A foreigner, for the Turk, is always a heretic ; 
 it is every good Mussulman's duty to help in exterminating 
 the whole race. One is reminded of the fakirs of yore who 
 when returning from their pilgrimage to Mecca armed 
 themselves with kltandjars dipped in poison and swore to 
 wound all Christians whom they might chance to meet. 
 This way of being agreeable to the Lord is no longer 
 tolerated nowa-days; but the idea still exists: n all minds, 
 the idea which gave to Oriental wars all their ferocious, 
 bloody character. The fanatical soldier is capable of any 
 monstrous act of cruelty ; witness the so-called " Bulgarian 
 atrocities " over which there was such a scream in Europe. 
 Mussulmans hide their hate and horror of Gia6urs under a 
 veil of tolerance, but these passions are roused and revived 
 on the day of battle. At the time when sedition among 
 Greeks and Armenians had to be repressed, the acts of 
 horrible cruelty surpassed belief ; whole populations were
 
 120 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 massacred ; unheard of tortures were devised with that 
 fertility of imagination peculiar to Asiatics. 
 
 Flattered by the Sultan, who has need of him, and 
 encouraged by the ulemas who see in him the last support 
 of Moslem fanaticism, the Turkish soldier shows an insolent 
 disdain for foreigners, very different from the bland courtesy 
 of Ottoman officials. In Stamboul and in Pera the soldier 
 delights to make the European give place to him in the 
 street, and will often push him off the pavement into the 
 mud ; while, if a lady be with her husband or brother, she 
 forms the subject of indecent remarks, which happily she 
 does not understand. When a European girl passes before 
 the guardhouse of a Turkish barrack she is almost certain 
 to be hailed by licentious words and gestures. If in time 
 of peace such things occur in the most civilised city of 
 Turkey, imagine what happens when a town is taken by 
 storm and when the soldier may give rein to his brutal 
 lust! 
 
 Even towards his compatriots the soldier shows a sullen 
 haughtiness. The inhabitant of Stamboul since the last 
 disastrous wars may have learnt a little modesty, but the 
 soldier has kept all his stubborn pride of race. In his blind 
 ignorance he still believes that all the sovereigns of the 
 earth are vassals of his Padishah. A legend still widely 
 believed tells how a certain Sultan once shut up in the castle 
 of Seven Towers kings and emperors of all nations. After 
 a while in a sudden fit of generosity he sent them back to 
 their respective countries ; but, in order to distinguish 
 them, he had them dressed each in a different costume, 
 which was at once adopted by each nation, who thus 
 received back their ruler and made his dress their model
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 121 
 
 until the present day. In this way Mussulmans explain 
 the variety in dress of the different nations of the globe. 
 We would only ask them if their ingenious Sultan may 
 also be held responsible for the short frocks and masher 
 collars of modern male and female swells ! 
 
 Beit noted that the defects here instanced of the Turkish 
 private in no way detract from his merits as a soldier. On 
 the contrary, fanaticism, cruelty and pride of race are 
 resources that in war time cannot be too highly prized. 
 They greatly helped to swell the military power and might 
 of the Osmanlis ; but that was long ago. To-day, they 
 only surprise and disgust, for they are signs of ignorance 
 rather than of real force. 
 
 The Government has made considerable sacrifices for its 
 army, it being a constant source of pre-occupation. The 
 military budget absorbs a great part of the country's 
 resources. The method of armament has undergone great 
 improvement ; and the Turkish soldier has now an excellent 
 repeating rifle, the Snyder. Germany, by the way, has 
 just done a good stroke of business by selling to Turkey a 
 part of its old stock of Mauser rifles, just as previously it 
 sold to the same buyer six of its second-hand torpedo boats. 
 Krupp furnishes the artillery department with its guns 
 and ammunition, while all regulations and theories are 
 precisely those of the German army. The cavalry is 
 splendidly mounted, thanks to the immense purchases of 
 horses made by the War Office in Hungary. The Turks 
 are excellent horsemen ; and wonderful is the way they 
 manage their mounts, often riding these without a saddle. 
 
 How comes it, then, that with such remarkable virtues, 
 the Turkish army is still so faulty in the field ? Because it
 
 122 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 is so badly officered. The Turkish officer is ignorant and 
 lazy : what is more, he is so badly paid as to be almost 
 reduced to poverty. This daily fight with penury uses up 
 all his zeal and ambition. The rates of pay are most 
 unequal. A muchir, or marshal, gets 1700 francs a month ; 
 a liva, or general of brigade, gets 2000 francs. On the 
 other hand, a yuz bashi, or captain, hardly receives 80 
 francs, and a lieutenant, 50 francs, besides certain articles 
 of uniform. Such sums are always irregularly paid. Most 
 of the officers are mai-ried, and have their own little home 
 where they take refuge and neglect their profession, which 
 only brings them trouble and bitterness. Here lies the 
 secret of the Turkish army's weakness, in a day when the 
 worth of an army depends mainly upon the efficiency of the 
 staff officers who direct it. 
 
 The Ottoman officer is brave ; he will let himself be 
 killed and never yield a step. He is almost as great a 
 fanatic as the private soldier. In 1886 we remember to 
 have heard certain officers speak exultingly in favour of 
 the Holy War ; and this is what it is. The Sultan goes 
 n state to the old Seraglio, where are the holy relics of 
 the Prophet, and brings forth Mahomet's Green Standard, 
 iust as of yore French kings brought out and waved the 
 oriflamme before their people. The Holy War is thus 
 declared. Every Mussulman, according to a religious law, 
 must strangle his wife and children, burn his house, and 
 destroy everything which might link him to life. It is 
 a war for the desperate, who go out to battle never to 
 return, and who walk forth to death with hate and rae 
 
 * O 
 
 in their heart, having but one thought, to slay as many 
 of their foes as they can before being killed themselves.
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 123 
 
 Turkey is at this pitch, still, while Europe comfortably 
 entertains all sorts of grand philanthropic ideas for the 
 conversion of the heathen abroad, forgetting that the 
 untamed barbarian lies at her very door. 
 
 To strengthen her staff officers, Turkey has applied to 
 Germany for some of her best men. Since 1870 the German 
 Empire stands first in Europe as regards military prestige, 
 and the armies of all the Powers have now tried to copy, 
 whether rightly or wrongly, the Prussian army system. The 
 Gi-i man Government was not slow to profit by the chance of 
 getting a foothold in so important a strategic position, over 
 which European diplomacy for centuries has wrangled. So 
 officers d'rlitc were promptly placed at the service of the 
 Ottoman Government, the most celebrated of whom is Baron 
 von der Goltz Pasha, well-known in Europe by his excellent 
 military works. These generals are all paid so largely and 
 so regularly as to amaze and irritate their Turkish brother 
 officers. Gifts, decorations and flattery are lavished upon 
 them ; and if one of them should show the faintest inclina- 
 tion to return to his Vaterland, at once his salary is doubled 
 he gets another grander decoration ; his wife and daughter 
 are also decorated ; for the Turkish Government most 
 gallantly provides a decoration for ladies, the Order of the 
 Chefakat. Seemingly, then, Turkey has put the well-being 
 of her army into the hands of German teachers, but, in 
 a thoroughly Ottoman spirit of contrariety, she only cares 
 to listen to them, while always persevering in her old system. 
 The task of these generals, brilliant though it appear, is 
 not freed from disillusion or disappointment. The German, 
 to do him justice, is conscientious, painstaking, and an 
 energetic worker : it vexes him to remain inactive, and to
 
 124 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 see that he cannot properly fulfil the mission which he has 
 accepted. More than once Von der Goltz Pasha was for 
 resigning his command ; and though the Turks held out 
 golden offers, these would not tempt him ; upon a character 
 of that stamp, money had little influence. So then promises 
 in plenty were made that the programme laid down by 
 His Excellency should be faithfully followed ; but of course 
 these promises melted into thin air, and it needed an official 
 order from Berlin to keep the chafing general at his post. 
 A sceptical Turk once wittily remarked to one of these 
 Pashas : "Why does Your Excellency complain? You get 
 your pay and heaps of attention ; only one thing is asked of 
 you namely, to do nothing Go to the brasserie ; drink your 
 beer ; and never thus trouble the peace of your conscience ! " 
 The Government only permits regiments to fire with 
 blank cartridge. Only think ! The palace parasites 
 never would permit ball-cartridges to be recklessly distri- 
 buted among soldiers, for who knows to what dangerous 
 use they might not put them ? It is fortunate indeed that 
 they have left the army its Snyder rifles, not replacing these 
 by guns of zinc with tin bayonets. The soldier thus goes 
 into action having never in his life fired a rifle. In order 
 to teach him how to aim, a German officer has invented a 
 little apparatus, a kind of sight to be placed on the barrel, 
 which enables the instructor to control the tirer's aim and to 
 discover if he can judge distances correctly. For the artillery 
 a similar system more tiresome yet prevails. Before going 
 into battle the Turkish gunner has never fired a bombshell 
 or an obus. These facts may give one some idea of the 
 difficulties which meet the German Pashas in their task of 
 army instruction.
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 125 
 
 With such miserable pay as he gets, the Turkish soldier 
 is often in tatters, his boots are split open and the toes 
 stick out of them, his trousers and tunic are faded, shabby, 
 torn and buttonless, his sword is rusty and bent. The 
 uniforms of officers leave also much to be desired, though 
 German influence has helped greatly to correct slovenliness 
 in this respect. Young lieutenants dress like the Prussians 
 as nearly as they can, wearing a close-fitting tunic with 
 double row of buttons, semi-tight trousers and plain stripe 
 in red or gold crosswise on the cuffs. 
 
 On Fridays, for Selamlik, the soldier makes himself as 
 smart as possible to escort his sovereign to the mosque. 
 Then all the uniforms are irreproachable and the regiments 
 have a very spick and span appearance. Let us specially 
 mention the famous negro regiment which is in Zouave dress 
 with turbans ; negroes indeed that are more white than 
 black, though the sappers that march at their head with 
 large leather aprons and burnished axes look like real 
 statues of bronze. The silken standards, richly embroidered 
 in silver, glitter above the flashing bayonets, while the 
 sturdy cavalrymen ride past in their Kalpaks to the crash 
 of trumpets. The Turks have now no cavalry band, but 
 have replaced this by cornets-a-piston. They have also 
 done away with drummers for which the French have such 
 an affection ; and they have no regiment of cuirassiers. 
 German influence has brought about all these changes. 
 
 A detail which surprises Europeans is that a sentry when 
 on guard always has a companion sitting beside him with 
 whom he can chat. They always mount guard in pairs. 
 This is also done in the gendarmery and the police. If the 
 sun be too hot, they leave their post and stand on the other
 
 126 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 side of the street in the shade, a neighbouring cafedji will- 
 ingly brings them each a stool, and so the hours on guard 
 are wiled away in a sweet reverie. . It is needless to explain 
 why there are no cantinieres in Mussulman regiments ; 
 they are replaced by soujis or water-sellers, who will render 
 the utmost service if called upon to do so. 
 
 To resume : despite the want of good officers and the de- 
 fects in the system of military instruction, the Turkish army, 
 by reason of its courage, its devotion and its enthusiasm, is 
 a formidable one. It would assuredly fight doggedly and 
 to the very death. If military science be wanting to it, 
 everybody from field marshal to private would do his duty, 
 and vanquish or fall together, being animated by the same 
 sentiments and ideas. There is neither hesitation, nor 
 those divisions that result from diversity of religious or 
 political opinion. 
 
 For the Ottoman army, perhaps the time of conquest has 
 passed because of its intellectual inferiority ; but it can 
 still resist its foes gloriously ; and from its despair, if van- 
 quished, its victorious foes will assuredly have much to fear.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MYSTERIES OF THE HAREM. A TURKISH FAMILY. OTTOMAN 
 
 CIVILITY AND OTTOMAN COOKERY. A PLEA FOR EUNUCHS. 
 
 HITHERTO we have made a study of the Turk in public life 
 as priest, as magistrate, as functionary, as soldier. We 
 are now going to visit him at home, and cross the threshold 
 of those dwellings which for Europeans are wrapped in 
 mystery. Our indiscreet glance shall even penetrate into 
 the harem and view its secrets. 
 
 Every Turkish house is divided into two distinct parts : 
 the selamlik for men, and the haremlik for women. It 
 is a bisexual abode. The selamlik consists of one or more 
 rooms where the master of the house receives his friends 
 his visitors or his creditors. That is the male side of the 
 house. The harem is joined to the selamlik by a long 
 passage closed by a door, " the door of felicity " through 
 which no profane foot of male may pass. If your imagina- 
 tion be vivid enough, you can suppose that behind this 
 door stands a grim eunuch armed with a gloaming scimitar.
 
 128 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 la reality there is only an old beldame there, who trans- 
 mits the orders of her mistress and takes in the parcels 
 brought by men-servants. -Harem windows are easily 
 recognised by their wooden gratings which permit the 
 person behind them to see all without being seen. Like 
 the ladies themselves who live there, the harem wears a 
 veil to screen it from the vulgar eye. It has an outer door 
 by which ladies can leave or enter the house, and which is 
 always open to their female friends. At this mysterious 
 portal it is not uncommon to see a Parisian milliner or a 
 music-mistress knocking, for Turkish ladies like to dress 
 now-a-days as much like Parisiennes as they can without 
 stays ; and the piano-strumming nuisance is as terrible at 
 Stamboul as anywhere else. Here we might say a word 
 or two about Turkish music. 
 
 To the European just arrived it is simply an insufferable 
 noise. ' The airs have neither rhythm nor key ; notes long 
 drawn out are suddenly followed by a startling cadence 
 embellished by shakes, appoggiature and twirls of all sorts. 
 The whole has the effect of a musical epileptic fit ; and this 
 impression is strengthened by the performers who, while 
 twangling and trilling scream lustily in a throaty nasal 
 voice. The intonation is as charming as that of a loco- 
 motive's whistle with the little vibrato at the end. It is 
 positively terrifying to watch the unfortunate dilettante 
 trying to bring out of his larynx sounds that most resemble 
 the mewing of a jealous torn cat. The muscles of his neck 
 are distended, and sweat covers his brow from which his fez 
 is tilted back. With half-shut eyes he howls into the void 
 as if he were suffering from a horrible stomach-ache. Per- 
 fection in this art of song consists in prolonging certain
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 129 
 
 high notes until the breath fails, and in finishing up by odd 
 little fiorituri that die away in the recesses of the nose. 
 
 A foreigner hearing all this for the first time is so 
 bewildered that he willingly yields to his impulse to escape 
 from so distracting a noise. The first impression, however, 
 should not be allowed to guide him. Let him forget the 
 quaint execution, endeavour to listen several times to the 
 same air and try to understand the metaphysics of this 
 kind of melody. He will then discover more than one 
 musical motive that is both charming and original. It is 
 of course painful to follow all these disjointed jerky phrases 
 that the performer vainly tries to play in six-four or eight 
 time. In fact, it is a wearisome essay in musical gymnastics ; 
 abrupt changes of key, wild chromatic ascents and declen- 
 sions, galaxies of false notes. But after some time it will 
 be seen that these airs are based upon a gamut unused by 
 us, but which, as a scale, is no less logically constructed. 
 It is 
 
 do, rth, mi fa 
 so/, (ah, si, do. 
 
 It is composed of two semi-scales formed of a tone and 
 a half-tone between two semi-tones. The song has a sweet 
 melancholy, a plaintive tenderness about it. Words and 
 melody are moreover closely connected, the former being 
 almost always marked by delicate sentiment. This is the 
 text of a romance written by Chevki Bey, which is now in 
 vogue : 
 
 Hale nezimdu adjercen sevdiguim dinle beni 
 A benim roulii rcvanum seven enlsunmiseni 
 Firkat olmassa dirgh iylemezem djan ou teni 
 A benim rouhi re'vanem seVen enlsunmiseni.
 
 *3 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 Memalik sana feda iylem^mek eldemidir 
 Her ne var ice" heba iylememek eldemidir 
 Ache'ken guiah ou hata iylememek eldemidir. 
 
 N 
 
 When I lie on my death-bed, thou wilt mourn for me, beloved, 
 For loving thee, sweet heart, why must I die ? 
 If in this world no parting were, I had not thus given up my life 
 for thee. 
 
 Must I then die for thee, for loving thee ? 
 
 How shall I not give up to thee all I possess ? 
 
 How shall I not yield thee just all I am ? 
 
 How shall I not make sacrifice of all that lives, for thee ? 
 
 But this intermezzo musicale has probably bored the 
 reader, whom we left standing at the door of the harem. 
 So with him we will now continue our visit. The furniture 
 of a Turkish house is extremely simple, especially in the 
 selamlik, as the Turks have the good sense not to let a 
 desire for show make them display all their finest and most 
 expensive things. These they reserve for their inner 
 apartments. The carefully white-washed walls are rarely 
 papered or hung with tapestry or carpets. In some of 
 the finest palaces the walls are completely bare, and all 
 splendour and richness of decoration are reserved for the 
 ceilings. There are neither bookshelves nor pictures, what- 
 nots nor cabinets ; occasionally a frame is hung up contain- 
 ing a verse of the Goran embroidered in gold on a blue 
 ground, or in vermillion on a gold ground. A Smyrna or 
 Daghestan carpet adorns the parquet floor, and a large 
 divan is placed against two sides of the apartment. There 
 is no open fire-place nor stove ; but a mangal or brazier of 
 burnished copper, often very handsomely wrought, supplies 
 this want. On a whatnot of the purest Faubourg St 
 Antoine style stands a clock of no less pure Faubourg St
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 231 
 
 Denis pattern ; picturesque sconces are hung close to vulgar 
 petroleum lamps ; there is a profusion of staring waxwork 
 flowers, shrined in a glass case, and several tawdry little 
 ash trays strewn about here and there. The clock, be it 
 added, is often a musical one, and plays " La Fille de 
 Madame Angot," or the " Beautiful Blue Danube," for the 
 Turk dearly loves a musical box or a hurdy-gurdy which 
 turns out tunes to order. Never think to find in a Turk's 
 house beautiful Damascus furniture, inlaid with mother-o'- 
 pearl and ivory, or indeed any of those Oriental treasures 
 which are occasionally for sale in the bazaars, and which 
 remind one of the Arabian Nights. The interior of a 
 Turkish house at Constantinople is all that is most common- 
 place, vulgar and inartistic. In Arab houses at Damascus 
 or at Cairo one may yet admire furniture and hangings 
 that still keep their local colour, and preserve yet something 
 of true Oriental magnificence and splendour. 
 
 For the harem, again, are reserved rich carpets and divans 
 ablaze with gold embroidery and velvet cushions covered 
 with marvellous needlework. Here, too, are draperies and 
 shawls of quaint design, plates of bronze and of beaten 
 silver, crystal goblets and all the many little Western knick- 
 knacks bought or received at Bairam and other festivals. 
 The centre of the room is always left vacant ; no table is 
 ever placed there, for it would only be in the way. Turks 
 like large rooms with little or no furniture in them ; and 
 their first care is to get fresh air. In this respect the 
 Turkish house is far inferior to the Arab one with its inner 
 court and fountain. But the Turkish house is more gay 
 perhaps, on account of the many windows which adorn at 
 least two-thirds of its front. Along the Bosphorus stand
 
 13 2 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 whole rows of kiosques, which are literally made up of 
 windows. This shows that the main point for Turks in 
 building a house is to make it a well-ventilated one, where 
 its inmates may rest in temperate, refreshing atmosphere. 
 
 Talking of windows, let us add that the Turk, for whom 
 architecture and painting have little charm is on the other 
 hand deeply sensible of the beauties of nature ; he has an 
 evident appreciation for tranquil, fair horizons, and knows 
 how to choose sites that command views of the loveliest 
 landscapes. In this, one may recognise a contemplative 
 people. 
 
 So much for the house. Now for those who live in it. 
 What do they do 1 The answer is a plain one : they do 
 nothing. Dressed in his loose feradji and baggy linen 
 trousers, the master of the house spends whole days curled 
 up on a divan, smoking cigarettes and looking out of window. 
 You will never see him reading a book or a newspaper. He 
 is sunk in his kief a sort of nirvana or state of bodily and 
 intellectual somnolence ; a state between sleep and waking, 
 a state of torpor and stagnation, animal and mental. 
 
 If friends call, they are received with the most cordial 
 effusion. Cigarettes are brought, with coffee, preserves, 
 rose-flavoured cakes and mastic. After the first civilities 
 have been exchanged, talk, slow, grave and measured, begins. 
 Only after some minutes of silence does a question get its 
 answer, and conversation is always pitched in the most 
 moderate, friendly key. It would seem as if sage philo- 
 sophers were exchanging ideas pregnant and weighty with 
 wisdom. But listen, and you will note that these ideas 
 and reflections seem profound because they are totally 
 hollow. All is conventional, all conforms to a sort of
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 133 
 
 ritual, it is like reading a manual of conversation, it is a 
 mere interchange of antiquated, cut and dried compliments 
 mixed up with trivial tittle-tattle, vague opinions as to the 
 weather and the crops, and a few dull stories made duller 
 by the citing of antediluvian proverbs. In all such talk 
 there is not a single touch of a personal, individual sort ; it 
 is lighted up by no original opinion nor any flash of thought. 
 Great and burning questions for men, such as politics, 
 religion or social philosophy are naturally shut out from 
 discussion ; economic, industrial and commercial problems 
 are unknown, since in such servile occupations the Turks 
 have no part. Xobody reads anything, and moreover the 
 Government is careful to suppress all news. So there is 
 nothing of interest to communicate, and ordinary dialogue 
 in its pompous monotony leaves the head empty and the 
 intellect sluggish. Add to all this that the rules of civility 
 oblige one to pile up grand adjectives and epithets such as 
 "Your blessed health," "Your exalted person," "I, your 
 humble servant," " I, the dust of your holy feet," etc., etc. 
 If the visitors stay for dinner, after an interminable 
 period of waiting, a servant brings in a large tray that is 
 placed on a low fcible or stool. This tray holds hollow 
 metal dishes which contain the food. Xeither knives nor 
 forks are served out to guests, but each with his right hand 
 rends the meat andjbreaka the bones, deftly severing joints 
 with his nails. The Turks are wonderfully adroit in this 
 piece-meal work. They only use the thumb and two 
 fingers of the right hand, for one must be careful never to 
 put the left hand into the dish. With their three fingers 
 they can scoop up the pilnf far better than with a spoon. 
 The meal is soon over, when everyone conscientiously goes
 
 134 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 to perform his ablutions at a white marble fountain in an 
 adjoining apartment. In some wealthy Stamboul houses 
 little forks are now used, but this Western luxury is far 
 from common, and is rather an innovation calculated to con- 
 tent European guests. 
 
 One word as to Turkish cookery. It is both varied and 
 appetising, though always greasy and somewhat indi- 
 gestible. Mutton and chicken form the staple fare, beef 
 being rarely or never eaten, as Turkish agriculture does not 
 allow of oxen being killed for food. Mutton is prepared in 
 the form of little knobs, grilled on a spit with flakes of lard 
 and sage-leaves, much as they roast ortolans or beccojlchi 
 in Italy. Chicken, whether boiled or roast, is usually 
 served with rice or tomatoes ; sometimes with bamias, a 
 singularly slimy vegetable, like a green capsicum in form 
 and a slug in taste, of which both Turks and Greeks are 
 extremely fond. On the preparation of vegetables, how- 
 ever, the Turkish cook expends all his art ; the dishes of 
 cucumbers, vegetable marrows, tomatoes and vine-leaves 
 stuffed with tasty force-meat are really excellent, and 
 would adorn any European menu. Pilaf, the national dish, 
 always ends up the meal, when all pieces de resistance have 
 been demolished. The rice should never be over-cooked, 
 and may be flavoured with saffron or tomato-sauce. As for 
 salads, their name is legion ; lettuce and cucumbers are 
 often eaten raw. For some of the sauces, sour milk or 
 yaourt is used, of which the Turks eat much. Flaky, short 
 pastry called paklava, despite its bath of butter, sugar and 
 honey, is excellent. Then there is mahlebi, a sort of custard 
 made with flour, sugar and milk, with a dash of rosewater 
 to flavour it ; helva, pekmes and many other sweetmeats
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 135 
 
 more or less tempting. The Turk is a past master in the 
 art of making sweets, sugar-plums, jams, preserved and 
 candied fruits and syrups. Let us not forget the rahat 
 locCum or Lumps of Delight which have achieved fame in 
 Europe, nor the eternal simit, a sort of hoop of biscuit or 
 cracknel, covered with grains of sesame, which the Mussul- 
 man nibbles at any odd moment in the day. 
 
 As dinner is often served late in the evening, it becomes 
 difficult for guests to return to their homes, especially if 
 their host's house be situated on the Bosphorus, for after 
 seven o'clock P.M. there is no steamer to take them back 
 to town. They must therefore sleep under their enter- 
 tainer's roof. He has mattresses put down on the floor 
 of the solamlik ; slaves bring to each guest a nightgown 
 and slippers wrapped up in richly broidered silk, and after 
 bidding all his friends good-night, the master of the house 
 returns to the harem. This habit of sleeping at friends' 
 houses is a general one and derives from the time honoured 
 traditions of hospitality. A Turk often stays with friends 
 in this way for three or four days before he returns home. 
 And, though Ottoman wives are used to these frequent 
 disappearances of their husbands, they still are uneasy as 
 to the reason of these absences. With much cleverness 
 and cunning they set a watch upon him, and between harem 
 and harem there is a system of private communication 
 which often results in the confusion of the faithless spouse. 
 Despite the seeming state of slavery in which the wife is 
 kept, the husband must nevertheless be very prudent and 
 wary when meditating such escapades. Far from having 
 perfect freedom outside his own home, as in Europe, he 
 must for ever be on his guard, for he is surrounded by
 
 136 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 a tribe of veiled and masked inquisitors relations, friends 
 and servants of friends of his wife, whom he knows not, 
 but who know him well, and. will faithfully report all his 
 little frailties to his jealous injured spouse. 
 
 The life of Turkish dames is yet lazier than that of their 
 lords. It is made of visits to pay and to receive, long 
 shopping excursions to Pera, longer chats in the baths or 
 outside the mosques. At home the mother is busy with 
 her babies, which she brings up with more tenderness than 
 wisdom ; then, a great resource is afforded in dress and in 
 changing toilettes several times a day. Most of the Turkish 
 ladies, even the prettiest, paint and plaster themselves in a 
 deplorable fashion ; with rose and rice powder they make 
 their cheeks a lively white and red, while carmine paste 
 deepens the hue of their lips, and cosmetic darkens their 
 eyebrows. With antimony powder they touch up their 
 eyelids, so as to add brilliance and intensity to their gaze ; 
 they also chew mastic which strengthens the gums and 
 sweetens the breath, while dyeing their finger nails and even 
 the palms of their hands with henna. Parisian vagaries, 
 alas ! have even reached the banks of the Bosphorus, and 
 now fair Circassians dye their magnificent black tresses a 
 greenery -yallery colour, or else a flaming red, the colour of 
 mahogany varnish. The hair is cut short in front and 
 frizzed, being plaited behind, occasionally ornamented by 
 feathers, false flowers, or jewels, which may be distinguished 
 under the filmy head-dress which covers all. 
 
 Many of the Turkish ladies in Stamboul dress like 
 Europeans, with embroidered skirts, flounces and bustles, 
 but in the staring colours of the stuff' and trimming of their 
 gowns they show their Oriental taste for bright and strongly
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 137 
 
 contrasted tints. Often, with a most expensive toilette, 
 they will wear coarse stockings without proper garters to 
 keep them from wrinkling round their legs. This careless- 
 ness is the more striking, because the Mussulman dames, so 
 jealously veiled in the upper part of their person, are most 
 free iu the exhibition of their calves and ankles. It was 
 this which made De Amicis say somewhat maliciously that 
 a Turkish lady's modesty stopped at her knee and sometimes 
 higher. They are almost always deplorably shod, either in 
 double-soled shoes that are too large and too heavy, or in 
 little slippers of satin and pasteboard. Their walk is 
 totally devoid of grace ; it is a sort of clumsy balancing 
 that reminds one of the rolling gait of a rhinoceros, and 
 gives to the youngest and prettiest woman an air of 
 decrepitude and age. The whole dress is hidden under 
 the feradji, a large loose-fitting cloak. Considering that 
 the yashmak, or muslin veil covers up the brow and lower 
 part of the face, leaving only the eyes visible, it must be 
 granted that a lively imagination indeed is needed to fall 
 in love with any of the Turkish ladies that one meets in 
 the street. . 
 
 What amuses foreigners much is to see the little Turkish 
 girls taken out for a walk dressed up " to the nines " in 
 miniature ball dress of pink or yellow silk, with long 
 trains, and covered with flounces, lace, ribbons, and gold 
 embroidered velvet. The child's head is often decked with 
 artificial flowers and feathers. The little Turkish boys 
 often wear a complete officer's uniform, with a sword and 
 epaulettes. The Osmanli is very careful about his dress, 
 being got up with an exquisiteness which his stately 
 would-be majestic manner only sets in relief. But many
 
 138 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 of the Turks are extremely dirty, both in their person 
 and in their dress. With greasy coats, dirty nails, and 
 dirtier linen, they lounge in the Pera brasseries over pots 
 of beer for hours together. 
 
 Besides dressing, walking out and chatting, the Turkish 
 lady has no diversions whatever. She is utterly ignorant, 
 and it is only lately that some little attempt has been made 
 at giving her instruction. True there is a most successful 
 school for Turkish girls at Stamboul, under the sole 
 direction and superintendence of a young Irish lady, but 
 many old Turks are full of gloomy prophecies about such 
 attempts to civilise, and with many a solemn headshake, 
 declare that it will all lead to domestic revolutions and 
 the breaking up of homes. Perhaps they are not so far 
 wrong. The young wife has neither the resource of books, 
 of the theatre nor of little social gatherings. Being 
 always kept away from men, her mind can never get that 
 clearness and brightness which only comes from continual 
 contact with male intellect; with her husband, she has only 
 one subject of conversation : the pleasures of the flesh ; 
 and in her descriptions she uses words the coarseness of 
 which would shock a navvy. Hers is not exactly licentious- 
 ness, ribaldry of expression, but rather naive, ingenuous 
 realism. She talks like a naturalist of the Zola type, but 
 without knowing it. 
 
 One very meritorious quality the Mussulman wife 
 possesses : she is faithful to her husband. Does this 
 result from those terrible laws which condemn the 
 adulteress to be sewn up in a sack with vipers, and flung 
 into the Bosphorus ? Is it an effect of her perpetual 
 separation from the stronger sex, which saves the woman
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 139 
 
 from falling a victim to her own weakness, and to the 
 charms of an Eastern Don Juan 1 Anyhow, adultery is 
 extremely rare. 
 
 Those young bloods of Pera who brag of their conquests, 
 and the ravages they have worked in Mussulman homes, 
 are little more than impertinent humbugs. In the first 
 place, they are far too cowardly to risk their delicate 
 skin in romantic adventures which might all too easily 
 take a tragic turn. Moreover, the means of accosting and 
 of meeting a woman are so rare and so perilous, that such 
 intrigues, if they ever occur, would only owe their success 
 to accident. If any women do this sort of thing, it is those 
 whose husbands, in their capacity of State functionaries, are 
 called away from home to the provinces for a considerable 
 time. 
 
 Probably our readers will now ask us a very natural 
 question. It is this : If the wife in Turkey does nothing 
 whatever, and if the husband only smokes cigarettes on his 
 divan all day, who is it that manages the house 1 Here we 
 touch upon a radical vice of Ottoman society. The manage- 
 ment of the house is entrusted to the head servant, a sort 
 of majordomo who orders, buys and pays. It is easy to 
 understand how this personage swindles his masters, taking 
 bribes from the tradesmen who want his custom, and pre- 
 senting the most fantastic bills to his mistress, who is 
 powerless to question their accuracy ! No family ever 
 knows how much it spends a year, nor what sum husband 
 and wife may devote to dress or amusement. 
 
 In all things Turkey is the land of the uncertain, the 
 indefinite. So long as there is any money in the cash-box,
 
 M THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 gold is flung out of windows, and, as we have seen, there 
 are a good many windows in Turkish houses ! 
 
 The eflendi rackets in Pera; his wife ruins herself in 
 purchases at the bazaars, while the servants pillage and 
 swindle with fresh zeal. When the funds run low, no one 
 has any anxiety, but all continue to squander until the 
 bottom of the money chest can be seen through the coins 
 that half conceal i. Then tradesmen are no longer paid, 
 promises and postponements sine die are lavishly made, in 
 fact, all the thousand well-known tricks to baffle duns are 
 used. The greatest families and the wealthiest State 
 officials have thus their periods of extreme penury; and, if 
 you question European merchants, it is surprising to hear 
 quoted, as among their bad debtors, persons noted for their 
 opulence, and who, from their position as Government 
 servants, have princely incomes. 
 
 What is the poor creditor to do 1 In the law courts he 
 is not sure of justice, though his cause may be a right one ; 
 and should he win his case, that would be no great help. 
 For when it comes to executing judgment upon his creditor, 
 how shall this be done? The Turk's domicile is inviolable ; 
 he cannot be evicted, nor can his goods be sold. As for 
 his salary, that belongs to the saraf or usurer, to whom he 
 has pledged it at a heavy percentage. The best way is to 
 wait, to be patient, to call, not once, but a hundred times 
 upon your debtor and try to catch him at a moment when 
 he has got a little money. 
 
 What plaintive recitals may be heard from the lips of 
 English tailors or French dressmakers who can get no pay- 
 ment from their clients, and who bitterly curse the day 
 when first they set foot in this wretched land of debt and
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. I4 1 
 
 deceit ! Occasionally the situation becomes worse, and the 
 Turk, with a certain brutal insolence, waxes wrath with 
 his unfortunate Christian duns. Hating work himself, he 
 has a deep disdain for such as live by it. In a way it is 
 the disdain of the aristocrat for the shopkeeper. The Turk 
 does not mince matters, but calmly issues the order, " give 
 those people & beating ; " and it is carried out. We once 
 saw a poor Paris milliner whipped and half strangled by a 
 palace official of standing whom she had civilly asked to 
 pay her bill. Many European tradespeople, especially 
 women, are afraid to present their bills without being 
 attended by the kavas or gendarme of their consulate. The 
 Turk is furious at having to pay his debts to a Christian, 
 and regrets the good old time when the giaour could be 
 fleeced with impunity. 
 
 Another source of worry in Ottoman households is the 
 number of servants employed. In every respectable 
 family there are a whole shoal of domestics each with a 
 special function to perform and who on no account would 
 consent to do anything else. One opens the door ; another 
 draws water ; a third looks after the fires ; and so on. In 
 the harem there is kitchenmaid, a washerwoman, a semps- 
 tress, a nurse for each baby and even a woman to dress the 
 little girls' dolls ! Then there are black slaves ; and 
 eunuchs. 
 
 We confess our inability to understand how, in the year 
 of grace, 1888, Europe still tolerates the existence of 
 eunuchs. A great fuss was made in favour of the 
 emancipation of slaves, and England, on this occasion, 
 took an initiative that was as laudable as it was noisy.
 
 142 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 But, after all, these niggers from America and the 
 Colonies were, as a rule, fairly well treated. They were 
 doing useful work, for they were tilling the ground ; and, 
 in marriage and fatherhood, they had their consolation. 
 Can their lot be compared with the cruel fate in store for 
 eunuchs? Given over at a tender age by mercenary 
 parents to rapacious executioners, they are forced to 
 submit to a most horribly painful operation ; and figures 
 show that more than half the number of castrates never 
 survive it. Livingstone says that two out of three 
 succumb, while we have Sir Bartle Frere's assurance that 
 every year a million of African negroes are sent as slaves 
 to Turkey, Persia, and Egypt. Out of these five of such 
 slaves, only one reaches his destination. Thousands of 
 youths are thus wantonly immolated each year, while the 
 others are condemned to remain all their life-time an 
 object of horror and scorn. What have they done to 
 merit this ? Is it not abominable, iniquitous that such 
 ferocious deeds should be done unhindered ? 
 
 These poor fellows are the victims of their parents' 
 shameless greed and of the idiotic barbarity of the Turks. 
 Yet Europe which never ceases to meddle in all the Forte's 
 affairs has not yet found a way to put a stop to such a dis- 
 graceful state of things. It is a sort of homicide committed 
 publicly every day in Europe, in that Europe that is so 
 proud of its civilisation and its philanthropy ; committed 
 at thirty hours' distance from Vienna, Budapest or Odessa. 
 Will not the Western nations who once shed so much 
 blood to protect persecuted Christians in the East devise 
 a way to stamp out the remnants of such ferocious tyranny ?
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 143 
 
 Is the nineteenth century, famed for its grand conquests of 
 humanity, to pass over and yet permit a nation encamped 
 on the edge of European soil to mutilate its thousand 
 children in such hideous wise, while letting tens of thousands 
 perish on the road to thraldom and infamy? Fuori i 
 barbari I
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE PERSIANS AT CONSTANTINOPLE. VALIDE HAN THE 
 
 BLOODY FESTIVAL OP HASSAN AND HUSSEIN. 
 
 WE ought not to close this study of the Mussulman popu- 
 lation of Constantinople without adding a few words about 
 the Persians, who form an important element in the 
 Stamboul commercial world. No less than 10,000 or 12,000 
 in number, they live in three Hans (buildings like large 
 cloisters or monster barracks) where they sell carpets, 
 embroidered stuffs, astrachan, tea, tobacco for narghiles, 
 arms, and choicely-wrought metal plates and vases. 
 
 Wholly unlike the Turk, the Persian is laborious, active, 
 and a clever man of business. He runs along the streets, 
 while the Mussulman walks slowly and gravely ; he has 
 the true commercial instinct, real genius for trade, of which 
 lie knows all the tricks and artifices. He is cunning, too, 
 and sly, telling lies with surprising dplomb. While the 
 Turk does not trouble to count, the Persian counts remark- 
 ably well ; and, in exacting interest, is positively rapacious. 
 At bottom, he is more barbarous than the Osmanli, but he 
 is less effete; he has more backbone; his intelligence is
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 145 
 
 clearer, quicker. In brief, we might say that Persia may 
 one day become a great nation, while Turkey is but the 
 remains of what was a great nation. 
 
 The Persians are to be recognised by their long caftan 
 (like a dressing gown) of dove-coloured stuff, tied at the 
 waist by a broad band of silk. Over it they wear a loose 
 open robe of some dark material ; their head-dress is 
 the well-known astrachan calpak, which nowadays is 
 dwindling in size, some being hardly bigger than an or- 
 dinary fez. 
 
 To make a closer study of the Persian colony, the 
 foreigner should be present at the festival of Ali, at once a 
 touching and a horrible one, which is kept on the 10th of 
 Mouharrern, the first month of the Mussulman year. As 
 few Europeans are usually at Constantinople when this 
 awful ceremony takes place, we shall give a detailed 
 description of it, for it counts as a most characteristic 
 feature in Oriental life. 
 
 A word first as to the origin and scope of this ceremony. 
 Ali, the nephew and son-in-law of Mahomet gave his son 
 Hussein as bride the only daughter of the Persian King 
 Yezdidjird. Ali's family thus possessed at once sovereign 
 power and religious supremacy. But, in the strife at this 
 epoch Ali was assassinated in the mosque of Koufa* while 
 his two sons Hussein and Hassan were strangled in the 
 most horrible manner at Kerbela, with their families and 
 seventy of their friends. Mussulmans in Persia still 
 remember this massacre with great dread and grief ; they 
 commemorate its anniversaries by funei-al processions and 
 self-tortures of the most awful kind. In some parts of 
 
 * Hence the ancient writing, Konfic; 
 K
 
 146 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 Persia, tazieh or mystery plays are performed, in which 
 Ali, Hussein, Hassan, with their wives and children figure. 
 For many of the Shiite sects, AH stands on the level of 
 Mahomet ; some see in him the most perfect and spotless 
 of the thousand incarnations of Allah. This idea also 
 obtains among certain Turks ; and even among Jewish 
 and Nestorian tribes. Nine-tenths of the Persians are 
 Shiites, differing in this way from the Turks and Arabs 
 who despise them. Yet the Ottoman Government, in a 
 praiseworthy spirit of tolerance, allows the Persians full 
 liberty to celebrate their festival unchecked. 
 
 The most important part of the ceremony takes place at 
 Valide"-Han, a huge building which, from without, resembles 
 a mediaeval fortress. It is inhabited by some five or six 
 thousand Persians and has a quadrangle twice or thrice as 
 large as the Palais Royal in Paris. This court-yard is 
 surrounded by a double row of galleries lighted by ogival 
 arcades ; it is like the cloisters of some immense monastery 
 of the twelfth and thirteenth century. The galleries lead 
 to rows of cells and little rooms which are used as offices, 
 shops, or private apartments. In the corridors, cooking is 
 done for members of the colony ; and cafedjis stand at all 
 points ready to serve customers. The whole building is of 
 massive stone ; and with its granite walls, portcullis and 
 iron-barred windows, closely resembles a fortress of the 
 middle ages. And that, in fact, it was ; a stronghold in 
 troublous times for merchants, and a store-house for their 
 goods. 
 
 The Festival of AH is preceded by nine days of prayer, 
 and it ends at sunset on the tenth day. The court of 
 Valide'-Han is completely draped with black, when night
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 147 
 
 comes on, and countless lamps and candelabra of crystal 
 and coloured glass are placed against the walls, Venetian 
 and Bohemian mirrors being hung behind ( and beside these, 
 that reflect the glitter of a thousand lights. Portraits of 
 the Shah of Persia, or of the Lion and the Sun, are also 
 displayed in every part. All round the court, sofas, 
 chairs, and divans are placed for the accommodation of 
 distinguished visitors, who come to witness the spectacle. 
 And soon Kavasses from the embassies arrive, heralding 
 the appi'oach of foreigners. Pretty Europeans, who for 
 two nights could not sleep for 'thinking of the blood they 
 should see flow, walk timidly up with their husbands ; and 
 brazen-faced ambassadresses and Levantine ladies, who, so 
 far from feeling shocked, stand on chairs, and, with opera- 
 glasses, glut themselves upon the dreadful sight. The 
 Persians receive these fair visitors with exquisite courtesy, 
 bringing, for their refreshment, tea, with slices of lemon 
 in it, served in little crystal glasses, besides cigarettes and 
 narghiles for the men. The Turks crowd in from all 
 parts, especially the officers and the ulemas ; there are at 
 least 20,000 spectators, the galleries of the second floor 
 being crowded with Turkish and Persian women. The 
 latter are recognisable by their sad-coloured robe and 
 black veil of gauze, which wholly masks their face. 
 
 The festival begins : from afar the strident sound of 
 cymbals is heard ; it is the funeral cortege approaching. 
 Now night has fallen, and the great braziers, set at 
 intervals all round the court, are lighted, which contain 
 pinewood, steeped in petroleum. The flames leap up 
 fitfully in the wind, and weirdly illuminate the whole 
 scene.
 
 148 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 The first procession passes ; the musicians, going before, 
 repeat, in plaintive rhythm, in six notes mi, re, do, si, la, 
 sol a tender mournful phrase, which is played by seven or 
 eight clarionets in unison. Each note, which has the value 
 of 2/4 measure adagio, is accentuated by a cymbal stroke. 
 It is impossible to imagine the melancholy charm of this 
 touching melody ; no funeral-march could produce a more 
 saddening effect. Then suddenly bursts of grief are heard 
 throughout the crowd ; it is the Persians mourning for the 
 death of the two young heroes, Hassan and Hussein. 
 While some sob mechanically, others are really carried 
 away by their sorrow into hysterical weeping, and the 
 tears stream down their cheeks. Then a ulema or a dervish 
 addresses the throng, and rehearses the whole sad story 
 of the young men's martyrdom at Kerbela. His recital is 
 now and again interrupted by sobs and wails, and all his 
 listeners cover their eyes with their hands and weep 
 bitterly. The cortege then moves on : at its head walks 
 a man carrying an enormous staff, wrapped round with 
 rich shawls ; behind him floats the standard of the 
 Prophet, besides black and white banners, with em- 
 broidered inscriptions. Richly-caparisoned steeds, draped 
 with finely-wrought hangings and saddle-cloths, follow ; 
 they are the war-horses of the young martyrs' seventy 
 friends. Reversed on the empty saddles are two damas- 
 cened shields and two scimitars with crossed blades. 
 Another horse carries a surt of palanquin, representing 
 the tent in which Hussein and his family were murdered. 
 Through the blue and black hangings of it are seen his 
 young wife with her babes. Horsemen, dressed in black, 
 escort this group, flinging from time to time handfuls of
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 149 
 
 straw into the air. The last horse of all has a white saddle- 
 cloth, and trappings bedaubed with red to imitate blood, 
 while two pretty doves with carmine-stained wings are 
 perched on the saddle, to which are bound two long gold 
 arrows. These birds symbolize the pure souls of the two 
 martyrs. 
 
 After the horses, two rows of Persians walk, beating 
 their naked breasts and crying in a hollow voice, "Hassan ! 
 Hussein ! '' Then, the clank of chains is heard, and 
 another band of men passes. Their dress is black, with 
 white letters upon it, which makes them look like demons. 
 Their back is bared to the waist, and with long iron 
 chains, which they grasp in both hands, they whip them- 
 selves furiously, each stroke, as it falls on their naked 
 backs, being marked by the crash of cymbals. We noticed 
 that these flagellants have a certain skill in breaking the 
 force of their self-inflicted blow before it falls ; but, for 
 all that, their backs are often covered with blood and 
 horribly wounded. 
 
 This, however, is nothing. The most awful part has 
 now to come. Uttering wild cries, some two or three 
 hundred men advance in double file ; they are bare-headed, 
 and wear long white gowns. They are the Nezirs. Each 
 with one hand grasps the girdle of his neighbour ; in the 
 other he holds a gleaming scimitar, with which he gashes 
 his shaven head until the blood streams from it, drenching 
 his face, and staining his white gown crimson. No pen 
 can ever paint all the horror of this scene, which the 
 braziers illuminate and make more grim. So, in two lines, 
 these crimson, dripping heads go past, their features con- 
 tracted by spasms of pain and religious frenzy, and with
 
 ISO THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 wild eyes ever and again blinded by blood and clotted 
 gore. Each Nezir has his defender, who walks behind 
 him, and, with a staff, breaks the force of the self-inflicted 
 wound. Sometimes a regular struggle ensues between the 
 fanatic, who would make himself a martyr, and his pro- 
 tector, who strives to save him from death. From some 
 their sabres have to be wrested by force. We saw a child 
 of eleven inflict upon itself such frightful wounds that it 
 had to be seized, and its weapon forcibly taken away. 
 These hand-to-hand combats, the noise of sticks beating 
 against bloody sword blades, the dull chop of gleaming 
 scimitars upon human skulls, the streams of blood, the 
 wild frenzied cries, the glare of torches ; the delirious, gory 
 faces ; the crash of cymbals, and the scent of resinous 
 pinewood all this was as a picture for us of some grim 
 battle of barbarians in Asia, a contest between two rival 
 hordes, and, to quote the poet's words, we felt that we 
 were here 
 
 " As on a darkling plain, 
 
 Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, 
 Where ignorant armies clash by night. " 
 
 Having thrice filed, past, this procession of blood-stained 
 phantoms moves off to another Han, and then to a third, 
 where they go through the same horrible tortures. When 
 passing before the Persian ambassador's box, the fanatics 
 raise their smoking, bloody sabres aloft and petition for 
 the pardon of certain prisoners, a favour that is never 
 refused. 
 
 Other processions succeed the first and the festival ends 
 about nine or ten o'clock at night. In 1 886 we saw some ten 
 thousand persons thus file past, over six hundred of whom,
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 151 
 
 the Nezirs, tortured themselves in this way for nearly three 
 hours. The Nezirs are devotees who have made a solemn 
 vow in some grievous illness or great danger. Sometimes 
 a barren woman will swear that if she bear a male child 
 he shall be a Nezir. 
 
 On leaving this hideous spectacle we go to the baths, 
 whither the victims have been led ; and it reassures us 
 somewhat to find that most of the wounds are not 
 dangerous, being only on the crown of the head and liable 
 to heal quickly. When the unfortunate men have been 
 stripped and washed, hardly any trace of their gashes can 
 be detected. Their head is bound up in linen cloths, over 
 which they put their fez ; and their blood-stained gowns 
 they carefully preserve and carry away with them, as, 
 according to a religious law, they must inter it on the 
 morrow in sacred ground. 
 
 When returning to Pera, we notice several Persians 
 going home with their heads wrapped up in linen, a bloody 
 sabre in one hand and a hideous gory bundle in the other. 
 Their tranquil appearance would lead one to suppose they 
 were members of a corps de ballet going back to supper 
 after rehearsal. We recognise the tobacconist from the 
 corner shop in our street, the man from whom we 
 occasionally hire horses, and the tea-seller close to our 
 house. To-morrow they will all be cured of their wounds 
 and with their compatriots must go to the Great Cemetery 
 at Scutari and there offer up prayers. It is in this place 
 that the horrible festival is brought to a close.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 TURKISH FINANCE. CUSTOM HOUSE OFFICIALS. --THE SAKKAF 
 NUISANCE. AN EMPIRE FOB 'SALE. 
 
 IN the present chapter we shall touch upon Turkish finance. 
 At this announcement, our readers with a smile will pro- 
 bably shake their heads in significant fashion. Indeed, as 
 regards the bad reputation of Turkish finance there is 
 nothing more to be said ; it is a reputation that is solidly 
 established. At the very word " Turkish securities," 
 pocket-books, purses and safes shut with a snap and a 
 shiver. So it is useless to write long elegies upon so 
 distressing a subject, though to show the causes of this 
 discredit may not be without interest to some. 
 
 First and foremost we denounce the irregular system of 
 taxation and the absurd manner in which this taxation is 
 enforced. We have already seen that Crown and Church 
 property are exempt from taxation. Being without 
 statistics, it is impossible to estimate the extent of land 
 which these two exceptions comprise, but undoubtedly it is 
 immense, as in the Bagdad districts Crown property is
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 153 
 
 almost illimitable ; it is only known to extend from such 
 and such a chain of mountains to such and such a river. 
 Tit lies are still estimated on the promise of the crop. 
 Thus, when tho corn is threshed, the cultivator is obliged 
 to let the wheat lie in the open air. in exposed places, until 
 it pleases the tax collector to pass by. During this time, 
 the grain is parched by the sun or made rotten by rain and 
 damp soil. Birds and other little nibblers of the field 
 collect tithes on their own account, and so forestall the 
 two-footed nibbler who represents the Empire and who 
 stubbornly exacts his share. Thus there is a double loss, 
 both for the producer and for the State. 
 
 To realise tithes the Treasury is forced to become a 
 grain merchant and consequently to suffer by the fluctua- 
 tion of the markets. If the crop be abundant, the price of 
 cereals falls and the State only realises an insufficient sum. 
 With such a system as this, try and establish a budget ! 
 
 Again : in each province a group of speculators exists 
 that buys up the tithes, and the reader can thus easily 
 imagine that an understanding has long been come to 
 between such speculators and the tithes-collectors. Either 
 party does his best to plunder the State as much as he can. 
 Tiie tithe may thus be compared to a stick of barley-sugar 
 at which everybody takes a good suck before letting its 
 owner enjoy it. The deficit is easily explained by the 
 inclement season : rain and drought are two excellent 
 excuses with which to meet any indiscreet questioning. 
 By this system of embezzlement, therefore, the State only 
 gets about 60 per cent, of the taxes to which properly it is 
 entitled. 
 
 To remedy these abuses the Government makes over the
 
 154 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 tithes revenues to concessionists ; and then another diffi- 
 culty arises up. These "serpents of the desert" who look 
 to make thumping profits, showvthemselves wholly merciless 
 towards the poor peasants, treating them with the utmost 
 harshness and severity. Armenians, who excel at this 
 kind of work, enjoy a unique reputation ; even towards 
 their compatriots they are inexorable, persecuting them 
 with truly fiendish cruelty, so that the unfortunate rate- 
 payers prefer to have dealings with the Government 
 employes. Then it is that some of the peasants in despair 
 make their escape to the woods and mountains where they 
 live upon roots and whatever grain they may have been so 
 fortunate as to hide. Of what use is it to work if they be 
 thus despoiled of the fruit of their labour ? 
 
 Besides the tithes, there is veryhu, an income-tax of 
 from ten to twenty-five per cent, imposed upon all 
 Ottoman subjects. There is also the bedel askerie or tax 
 for exoneration from military service, which all young non- 
 Mussulman subjects have to pay. We have already 
 pointed out how dangerous for the future of Turkey is this 
 idea of excluding from her army all Ottoman subjects who 
 profess the Christian faith. While seeking to favour the 
 Mussulman element, Turkey is surely, albeit unconsciously, 
 preparing its effectual removal. 
 
 The customs duty on import goods in Turkey is at the 
 rate of 8 per cent.; and there is a duty of 2 per cent, 
 imposed upon expoit goods. Clearly this duty at the 
 outset seems to have been invented expressly to dwarf and 
 stunt the development of national industry. In such way 
 Turkey thinks she favours her exportation movement ! 
 What is yet more irrational is that corn exported from
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 155 
 
 Trebizond or from some Asiatic port to Constantinople 
 must be subjected to this 2 per cent, duty ; consequently 
 there is a rise in the price of bread, a rise which the 
 Turkish consumer only encourages. This system thus 
 favours foreign competition, and it is often cheaper and 
 more profitable to get certain articles from abroad. For 
 instance, no one in Turkey has ever yet succeeded in 
 producing potatoes at a price moderate enough to compete 
 with those imported from Marseilles and Trieste. To eat 
 a beefsteak in Constantinople, one must get the beef from 
 Russia, the butter from Italy, the potatoes from France 
 quite an international beefsteak, is it not 1 ? Turkey only 
 ah ! we beg pardon, Turkey does supply something : she 
 supplies the parsley. 
 
 We have already said a word or two about the " opera- 
 tions " of custom-house officials. Every traveller on reach- 
 ing as on leaving Constantinople is obliged to slip a 
 baksheesh into the hands of the custom-house officer, even 
 though his luggage contain nothing liable to duty. The 
 Turkish authorities calmly shut their eyes to this scandalous 
 proceeding. Indeed, why should they not 1 * How else are 
 the wretched employes to live on their twenty-five francs a 
 month if they ever get them 1 The tourist cannot avoid 
 giving this fee, even though he open all his portmanteaux. 
 Woe betide you if you are refractory and protest. The 
 custom-house officer can then be very nasty to you and 
 cause you no end of .inconvenience. He will " make hay " 
 with your things, smashing the most fragile by sheer 
 inadvertence, and confiscating anything rare or valuable on 
 the most impossible pretext. It is all an exasperating 
 system of tyranny, the more odious because it masks itself
 
 1 56 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 behind sham laws and regulations. But whatever you do, 
 never attempt to argue or dispute, or the law will of a 
 certainty put you in the wrong,, however right you may be. 
 The best plan is gently, gracefully to capitulate, and 
 unhesitatingly to submit to a nuisance which everybody is 
 obliged to bear. 
 
 At the custom-house there is no fixed scale of taxes for 
 goods. Custom-house offices exist at Stamboul as well as 
 at Galata; accordingly differences of the most sui-prising 
 sort result. For on the same article at one office you will 
 pay just half as much duty as at the other. The tax of to- 
 day is never the tax of yesterday ; and to-morrow it is sure 
 to be changed, for all depends upon the official's caprice, 
 upon the degree of his ill-humour, upon the amount of the 
 arrears of salary due to him, upon his digestion or his 
 indigestion. Officials with yellow, haggard cheeks are 
 usually severer than potbellied ones of lymphatic tempera- 
 ment. If they have occasional half-hours of ferocity, they 
 have minutes, on the other hand, of suavity and matchless 
 courtesy. Deem yourself lucky if they only fleece you 
 with moderation. 
 
 Let me quote a personal case, to confirm these assertions. 
 When I brought my furniture with me to Turkey, by the 
 intervention of an Ottoman functionary, I was able to 
 establish my rights to exemption from paying duty, as all 
 the things I brought with me were not new, but had seen 
 service. On this occasion I was careful to present a 
 certificate, made valid by the Turkish Legation in Paris. 
 The director of one of the Custom-Houses was so courteous 
 as to put himself out so far as to confirm the legitimacy 
 of my claim. Yet, despite the presence of this exalted
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 157 
 
 personage, I had yet to pay, on the quiet, one hundred and 
 fifty francs to his subordinates, so as to avoid tny luggage 
 being overhauled and pulled about, when I should certainly 
 have lost countless little nick-nacks. As it was, the whole 
 time a spectacled " functionary " was gravely examining 
 all my books in. a corner, throwing down such as were 
 displeasing to his fastidious taste on the muddy ground. 
 Later on I shall have something else to say as to this 
 bibliophile and his revision of my library. On leaving 
 Turkey, I had to get another new certificate, when a 
 superior officer was so kind as to verify the fact that I had 
 nothing to pay nothing except seventy francs as a fee for 
 such verification ! 
 
 When one has done with these douaniers, there are the 
 porters or hammals, who each want their baksheesh. To 
 them must be entrusted your luggage or your merchandise, 
 you must accept their prices, and meekly bear the conse- 
 quences of their clumsiness and brutality. For, in fact, there 
 is no redress, though merchants continually make vigorous 
 protest against the existing state of things. At Smyrna, 
 such tradesmen as did not buy the sympathy and goodwill 
 of these gentlemen were victimised in every conceivable 
 manner, their cases of goods being always battered about, and 
 occasionally rifled. A bulky volume could be written upon 
 the scandals of the Turkish Custom -House, but we leave 
 the Avhole sorry matter to be treated energetically and 
 effectually by the several European Chambers of Commerce 
 at Constantinople and Smyrna. It is at least to be hoped 
 that they will use every effort to protect the interests of 
 their compatriots. 
 
 Indirect taxes have another destiny. They are given
 
 IS 8 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 over to a vast bank, which undertakes the service of the 
 Ottoman Public Debt. These indirect contributions are : 
 
 Annual Revenue in 
 Turkish Pounds. 
 
 Salt . . . 639,589 
 
 Spirits . . . 220,896 
 
 Stamps . . . 133,122 
 
 Fisheries. . . 38,400 
 
 Silk . . . 23,809 
 
 Tobacco . . . 759,342 
 
 To these must be added the contributions from Cyprus 
 and East Roumelia, at the time when this latter province 
 paid its tax. The control of the tobacco revenues has 
 been entrusted to a private company, the Regie, which 
 pays in to the Public Debt an annual sura of seventy-five 
 million piastres. This wretched Regie is an object of 
 hatred and execration for the Mussulman peoples, who set 
 lire to the depdts, massacre the agents, and promote 
 smuggling with untiring audacity. Every day there are 
 tales of desperate and bloody encounters between the 
 coldjis, or gendarmes of the Company, and smugglers, the 
 latter being usually victorious. 
 
 The Public Debt is administered by a Council over 
 which alternately the representative of the English, French 
 and German bond-holders presides. This body makes 
 praiseworthy efforts to develop the vitality of the six 
 branches of production conceded to it ; but unfortunately 
 it is first obliged to act in concert with the Turkish 
 Government which effectually paralyses all its efforts. 
 Many a time the Administrative Council might have
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. l$9 
 
 wrought great progress in the culture of the vine and of 
 the mulberry as well as in the rearing of silkworms, had 
 it only not been obliged to draw along in its train that 
 drowsy, self-opinionated slug, the Department of Agri- 
 culture ! 
 
 Events in Bulgaria have been very damaging to the 
 resources of the Public Debt ; especially is this true as 
 regards the revenues obtained from salt, silk, fisheries, 
 and tobacco. As for East Roumelia it has ceased to pay 
 its annual redevance. The State has now only the revenues 
 derived from passports, forests, mines, posts and telegraphs, 
 and the tributes of certain vassal provinces. One cannot 
 travel in the interior of the Empire without a passport or 
 teskere. It costs three francs. As for the forest revenues, 
 they can only steadily diminish, on account of the ceaseless 
 robbery and destruction to which they are subject. The 
 mines revenue is far from being that which it might be, as 
 the proper working of some of the richest is impossible, 
 owing to the want of means of communication ; and yet 
 few countries are so well endowed as Turkey, with argenti- 
 ferous lead, iron, copper, boracite, antimony, etc. In 
 Albania, there are huge coal-mines, while Macedonia 
 possesses considerable mineral wealth. 
 
 It may here be added that all the accounts of these 
 several imposts and taxes are in a hopeless tangle. This, 
 of course, is due to the muddle purposely made by the 
 collectors, who delight to trouble the waters in which they 
 fish. Turks usually put down totally different receipts on 
 one and the same list. Then, again, when these receipts 
 are checked, the difference in the almanacs brings about 
 a confusion which might rank with that of Babel. There
 
 160 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 is the Turkish calendar, the Arabic calendar, the Greek 
 calendar, the Gregcman calendar, the Jewish calendar and 
 the Coptic calendar. Each day therefore represents six 
 different dates. Thus October 2nd, 1886, is also the 20th 
 of September, 1886; the 3rd Mouharrem, 1304; the 20th 
 Houl, 1303 ; and the 3rd Tisri, 5647. We may call this 
 the art of muddling up dates. Go, now, and try to estab- 
 lish a budget with this chronological jumble and this 
 antagonism between sun and moon ! 
 
 The postal revenues are far from brilliant, as the 
 greater part of the service is absorbed by the foreign 
 Post Offices established in Turkey. At Constantinople 
 there is an Austrian Post Office, a British Post Office, a 
 German Post Office, a French Post Office, and a Russian 
 Post Office. The same establishments, exist in all the 
 maritime and commercial towns of the East. At Smyrna 
 most letters are sent through the French Office. In 
 Europe it may seem strange to some that Turkey should 
 permit foreign nations to start on her soil a postal service, 
 which in other countries counts as a thoroughly national 
 institution, and which insures a considerable revenue to 
 the State. More than once the Ottoman Government 
 made attempts to get rid of these voracious worms 
 gnawing at her vitals. But the nations interested have 
 always objected, pleading, as a reason, the insufficiency 
 and the insecurity of the Ottoman postal service. 
 " What ? " they exclaimed to the Porte. " You have just 
 abolished your local post, so admitting your own incapacity 
 to transmit a letter from one corner of Constantinople to 
 the other, and then you would pretend to undertake to 
 carry the correspondence of our compatriots all over the
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. l6l 
 
 Empire ! When you have got your own postal service 
 thoroughly organised, we will talk over the matter again." 
 So poor Turkey must drag along as best she can. It is 
 touching to note that the Ottomans themselves always 
 make use of the European post offices whenever they can. 
 
 From all this it will be seen that the Treasury revenues 
 are extremely limited, and, while all pressure is put upon 
 the people, only about half is obtained of what, under good 
 and sound administration, might be collected. Though on 
 the rate-payers these taxes fall heavily, they weigh very 
 little when transferred to the coffers of the State. The 
 greater part of the revenues is eaten up by the army, a 
 goodly portion being absorbed by the Palace and its swarm 
 of lazy parasites, so that little remains to be devoted to 
 public works, to civil administration, or to education. 
 Under such conditions, the State is forced to have recourse 
 to two expedients : it does not pay its tradesmen it does 
 not pay its servants. 
 
 As regards the former, it is less at its ease than as 
 regards the latter. For, from time to time, some small 
 sums of money have perforce to be paid over to those who 
 furnish the Government with goods. Were that not done, 
 they might absolutely refuse to supply it with fui'ther 
 necessaries. But this is a favour that is bought dearly. 
 For six, seven, eight months creditors have to dun the 
 Porte twice or thrice a week, which represents a loss of 
 from ten to twelve days per month. They are led such a 
 dance, from Dan to Beersheba, from Government office to 
 Government office ; and at every stage in this agreeable 
 jaunt, a clerk gravely sticks on to the bottom of their 
 petition a little slip of paper on which he has scrawled a
 
 1 62 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 few lines. In six months' time, the strips of paper, like 
 the tail of a kite, have grown to the length of two metres. 
 The upper part being the older, has already got yellow with 
 age ; this peculiar change of tint is a sign that the hour of 
 payment draws near. Then there are most extraordinary 
 signatures which have to be examined and ratified by 
 officials who have always "just gone out;" and one also 
 must await the decisions of mysterious councils that never 
 meet. The surest plan for a State creditor is to make an 
 agreement with some influential official and promise him 
 twenty per cent, upon the sum due. In this way the 
 weary waiting is in some degree abridged ; though all is 
 not over ; for the cashier of the Ministry will do his best 
 to foist upon the luckless creditor paper securities that are 
 of little or no value ; drafts upon this or that provincial 
 treasury which nobody is ever likely to find. These paper 
 securities are called havales ; and, in converting them into 
 hard cash, one's loss is usually from fifty to ninety-five per 
 cent. We knew of an unfortunate merchant who had been 
 thus paid in havales, payable at the provincial treasuries. 
 In getting them cashed he spent more money than the 
 amount due to him, for he had to travel all over Turkey. 
 In fact, he had become a regular nomad, and talked of 
 living henceforth under a tent ! 
 
 What, then, is the result of all this costly mystification ? 
 Well aware that they will not be paid until after endless 
 delays and then only at the cost of ruinous sacrifices, the 
 creditors grossly exaggerate the amounts due to them, 
 making the sum almost double, so that eventually they 
 may just get half. Thus it is the State serves to 
 demoralise commerce. Be it here noted that we are speak-
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 163 
 
 ing of the most honest tradesmen. Others, void of any 
 finer scruples, make an arrangement with the Government 
 clerks and employes to pillage the Treasury; and it is 
 these persons who very quickly become rich. By chicanery 
 of this sort three-fourths of the biggest fortunes in Pera 
 have been made. 
 
 As to functionaries, their lot is really lamentable. Some 
 have to wait six months without ever getting a single 
 farthing, others have claims for back-pay that extend over 
 a year ; and we knew certain officials who had not been 
 paid for four years. This explains the wretchedness of 
 the official world, a wretchedness aggravated by the usual 
 improvidence of Turkish families who never can be brought 
 to economise. Some dishonest sort of profit must be made 
 out of one's official position ; and business must be thwarted 
 so as to force the interested parties to open their purses. 
 In this sort of semi-brigandage the official is sure of the 
 aid and support of his colleagues and his superiors, who 
 hold grave confabs and make solemn plots to swindle the 
 State or private individuals, much as some latter-day Fra 
 Diavolo might organise an expedition to carry off some 
 notable inhabitant or extort a ransom from his horror- 
 struck family. 
 
 Despite all this chicanery, it most frequently happens 
 that the functionary is of necessity forced to raise loans at 
 ruinous interest, and barters away his patrimony or his 
 future pay to the sarrafs, a body of usurers of which it may 
 be as well to say something here. 
 
 The sarrafa as a corporation count about 4000 members, 
 and in principle represent the modest and angelic phalanx 
 of money changers. Have you no small change 1 Then
 
 164 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 the sarraf vf\l\ supply you with it at a trifling profit. Can 
 anything be more honest ? But in reality the phalanx of 
 changers hides the diabolical band of usurers. These 
 vampires are everywhere; tranquilly seated behind their 
 little glass counter, they are to be found at street corners, 
 in passages and on the ground floor entrances to shops and 
 lodging-houses, while others take up their position in a 
 tobacconist's or a fruiterer's, or even at the door of a 
 Government office. Wherever you go, there is the sarraf 
 ready to bleed you. 
 
 And first with regard to small change, be it noted that 
 silver money is less sought after than the metallic. This 
 dearth of small money is a scourge for Oriental commerce 
 and the source of flagrant abuses ; it is a continual em- 
 barrassment and check to trade. Certain proprietors of 
 brasseries have even gone so far as to have metal tickets 
 made, worth forty or fifty paras, and these they serve out 
 to their clients as a coinage that has currency in every 
 beer shop. Yet metallic money exists, only it is all in the 
 hands of the sarraf s, who are too clever to let it go, but 
 make their living by preventing the public from getting at 
 it, and by maintaining the depreciation of silver. 
 
 The Turkish pound in gold is nominally worth 100 
 piastres, but owing to the low rate of silver, it is actually 
 reckoned at 108 piastres. On the other hand, 100 piastres 
 only represent 91| piastres in metallics. So it will be seen 
 what a fine field for their manoeuvres the sarrafs possess. 
 Their most reliable base of operations is of course the 
 medjidie', a silver piece of 20 piastres, similar to the French 
 5-franc piece, but really only worth 4 francs and 20 cents. 
 The medjidie" of 20 piastres is only accepted at 19 piastres ;
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 165 
 
 and the sarraf when he changes it for you, gives you with 
 four metallics, three silver five-piastre pieces, on each of 
 which when changed you lose 10 paras or a fourth of a 
 piastre. So that the poor medjidie after all is only worth 
 18 piastres and a quarter. Moreover it is an object of 
 terror and aversion to everybody, and shopkeepers will 
 readily invent any pretext for not accepting it, and any 
 ruse for getting rid of it. There is no fixed rule about 
 this, for while banks and commercial houses in Stamboul 
 only take the niedjidie at 19 piastres, bakers, butchers, 
 grocers, fruiterers, restaurant-keepers, and most of the 
 Pera tradesmen will accept it at its full value- 20 piastres. 
 Clever housekeepers, too, have a wonderful talent for 
 getting rid of their niedjidies in the shops where they buy 
 things ; they know how to make the sum total of their 
 purchases reach just 12 or 15 piastres, so that when break- 
 ing a medjidie they always can get back 7 or 8 piastres in 
 small change. I remember well with what triumphant joy 
 my cook, a Viennese Jewess, came to me once and stated 
 gleefully that for a whole month she had only changed one 
 single medjidie at less than its full value, viz., at 19 
 piastres. 
 
 Another strange fact ! On the Karakeuy Bridge there 
 are two Turkish Steamboat Companies (the Mahsousse and 
 the Shirket-i-Hairie) for the service to stations on the 
 Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmora. One of these takes 
 the medjidie at 20 piastres ; the other will only give 
 19 in exchange. So, if you can spend three minutes 
 in going from one ticket-office to another, you may actually 
 make the huge profit of one piastre ! 
 
 European merchants reckon the Turkish pound at 23
 
 1 66 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 francs, and banking-houses at a rate varying from 22 
 francs 75 cents, to 22 francs 90 cents. The rate is very 
 low when it is a question of pounds to be received, and 
 very high when pounds have to be paid away. The 
 Consulates and certain European Post-Offices only take 
 the Turkish pound at 22 francs 50 cents., and the 
 medjidie* at 4 francs. Between ourselves, these establish- 
 ments ought to make a pretty living by this ingenious 
 system of accepting silver at 2^ per cent, below its proper 
 rate. True, you are allowed the privilege of paying in 
 European gold, but to do this, again, you must go to the 
 sarraf, so the whole thing revolves in a horribly vicious 
 circle. 
 
 As a result of all this, in Constantinople everybody is 
 changing money from morning till night. In the morning 
 you change a pound for inedjidie"s, losing half a piastre. 
 Then, again, you change a medjidie' and lose a piastre, 
 while on every five piastre-piece you lose twenty paras, or 
 a penny. Thus your day is spent in losing money, and 
 your pound, instead of representing twenty-three francs, 
 only realises about twenty-one. When changing money 
 to pay toll at the bridge, in the tramways, on the Bos- 
 phorus steamers, or at the Galata Tunnel, similar losses 
 have to be incurred, which fall heaviest upon the artisan, 
 the clerk, or the Government employe". They are the 
 chief victims of this vile system. How are they to make 
 their little purchases for the house 1 They must get small 
 change somehow ; all the medjidie's in the world will 
 never help them to buy bread. A thrifty shopkeeper 
 would rather refuse to sell something for a few piastres 
 than take a medjidie'. In not a few places you may as
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 167 
 
 well die of hunger as not, if you have only those great 
 white pieces of silver in your pocket. 
 
 We once knew a crafty eating-house proprietor who 
 made an arrangement with certain sarrafs, always to get 
 from them every morning a good provision of metallics. 
 And, without wincing, he always changed at their full 
 rate, making no deduction, all the medjidies that his 
 clients tendered to him for their lunch or dinner. As a 
 consequence, his restaurant was crowded, for everybody 
 came thither to dine or breakfast at a place where the 
 fare was good, and where the host, when you paid your 
 bill, always changed a medjidie for twenty piastres 
 without a farthing knocked off. Sly dog ! He stuck on 
 a piastre here and there to the prices in the menu, and so 
 amply made up on one side what he lost on another. 
 
 But small change is but the smallest of the sarrafs' 
 sources of revenue. They undertake the keeping of deeds 
 and family documents ; they also advance money on jewels, 
 precious stones, and plate. Here they have every possible 
 opportunity to put pressure upon their hapless victims. In 
 view of the prevailing depression, they make their terms 
 each month more exorbitant, for clients flow in upon them 
 in plenty. As lending money on pledge is forbidden by 
 Mussulman law, recourse must be had to bogus sales. In 
 this way they at once become, proprietors of the objects 
 left with them in pawn. The honestest among them ask 
 as much as 1 per cent, a week, i.e., 52 per cent, a year. 
 What a paradise, then, for usurers is this dear Turkey ! 
 
 The sarrafs also discount State papers, and the havale's 
 or Government drafts on provincial treasuries given in 
 payment to contractors or Government officials. These
 
 1 68 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 latter, in their distress, have to throw themselves into the 
 arms, or rather into the tentacles, of the sarrafs, who 
 advance them the amount of their back-pay at the modest 
 discount of 50 or 60 per cent. It is strange to note that 
 the tax demanded is much less high for the salaries of the 
 first quarter than for those of the second. The financial 
 year begins in March ; and the sarrafs know that for the 
 first month or so, the salaries are more regularly paid. 
 Autumn salaries, again, are considered as well nigh 
 chimerical. 
 
 The entire Turkish authorities may be said to be the 
 prey of the sarrafs. Each functionary has his own 
 particular vampire, who draws, his life-blood. Certain of 
 these droll bankers manage to get hold of the salaries of a 
 hundred employe's in the same Government office. Thus, 
 at one swoop, they can claim an enormous sum from the 
 State, and put it in a position of the utmost embarrass- 
 ment. The Minister of Finance, as their debtor, has to 
 come to an arrangement with them for the settlement of 
 their claims ; and he must submit to their influence. 
 Many stories about this are afloat stories which no one 
 can verify ; certain cashiers of the Finance department 
 are said to have secretly agreed not to pay the Government 
 Officials, so that these latter might be forced to go to the 
 sarrafs. But let us not be too spiteful ; there is enough 
 matter for scandal, as it is ! As regards these sarrafs, one 
 has often thought of drawing their teeth and paring their 
 claws. But, what tamer of wild beasts will undertake 
 such work 1 Everybody in Turkey, from the portliest 
 Pasha to the most meagre quill-driver, has dealings with 
 them ; everybody is in their debt as well. Thus, it is
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 169 
 
 impossible to do away with them ; all one can do is to 
 abuse them roundly. 
 
 This sketch of the financial situation in Turkey explains 
 the misery of the country generally, and of private people. 
 It is not surprising that, amid such disorder, commercial 
 interests should suffer terribly. Private fortunes melt 
 away, and wealthy families, seeing their substance dis- 
 appearing, are not slow to quit a country which has as its 
 motto and device, " Make haste to grow poor ! " 
 
 And, in truth, within the last five or six years, there 
 has been a general exodus. There was once a numerous 
 and opulent colony of foreigners ; people lived in grand 
 style, for money was not scarce nor hard to get, and fetes 
 and revels were the order of the day. By degrees, Pera 
 became transformed, assuming the appearance of a bright, 
 gay town, instead of being the home of outcasts and 
 failures from all nations. But this is all changed now. 
 The real Crcesi emigrated, the stucco millionaires remained 
 of necessity, but they have tied their purse-strings tight ; 
 everyone lives at home and saves, for nobody is satisfied 
 with the present, nor has faith in the future. The signs 
 of Turkey's decay are so manifest, that each man foresees 
 certain, inevitable ruin approaching ; and prepares for this 
 by abstinence. Most persons, let it be said, look forward 
 to the smash as being a deliverance, a fortunate catastrophe. 
 Often have we heard Turks exclaim, in a paroxysm of 
 selfish excitement : " Anything, anything, rather than 
 remain in this state ! " 
 
 The collapse has been hastened on by the famous fall in 
 Turkish Consols. The good Ottomans, in their simplicity 
 and ignorance, had set all their hopes upon these securities
 
 1 70 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 which were worth about ten to eleven per cent. It was 
 charming for the Turks every six months to be able to 
 convert their little rectangular piece of paper into cash. 
 So far more convenient than cultivating their own property 
 at great trouble and expense ! In fact, everyone tried to 
 sell his estates, if he had any, so as to buy these fascinating 
 Consols. The very word consolidated has something re- 
 assuring, something non-perishable about it. Then came 
 the disaster which everybody knows. For the entire 
 population it was a terrible blow, from the petty artisan 
 who had risked all his little savings to the rich proprietor 
 who had exchanged his farms and lands for a few pages of 
 chromo-lithographed paper. And the country to-day is 
 still crushed beneath the weight of this catastrophe ; it has 
 neither resources nor nerve enough to shake it off. After 
 the immense fire of 1870, they were able to rebuild Pera, 
 but the smash in Turkish funds was more fatal yet, and 
 from its ruins nothing new may spring. 
 
 Add to all this that from time to time a war helps to 
 swell the public debt. With every campaign, Turkey 
 loses a piece of her Empire, and her resources are each 
 time enfeebled. How, then, can one doubt that the end is 
 near and inevitable, or that Turkey must perish or be 
 transformed 1 Yet has she vitality sufficient to bear 
 metamorphosis 1 That is the question. 
 
 The Government may perhaps gain delay by selling, 
 every now and then, bits of the Empire. It is the system 
 adopted by young prodigals who try to save themselves 
 from ruin by bartering away each year a part of their 
 patrimony. Turkey gave up Cyprus to the English ; she 
 has let them ruin Egypt on the pretext of re-organisation.
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 171 
 
 The Porte could not prevent Roumelia from breaking 
 away from her suzerainty and from joining Bulgaria, 
 already emancipated eight years before. Turkey will have 
 other sacrifices as bitter as these to make, if she would 
 escape bankruptcy. There are still all the islands of the 
 Archipelago, which can be sold at auction. And then, on 
 part of the Ottoman territory, a board might be set up, 
 with this melancholy inscription : 
 
 EMPIRE FOU SALE 
 
 Apply to the Sublime Porte, Stamboul, just opposite 
 Courou Tchesrne. 
 
 Germany and England will do all the bidding, for Russia 
 would prefer to help herself without paying. France again 
 is so busy in setting up and setting down her Ministers, 
 that she seemingly has forgotten the very existence of the 
 East ; and only when all has been satisfactorily settled 
 without her and against her, will she become aware of it, 
 alas ! too late.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE TURKISH POLICE. WHAT IS A TOWN WELL PROTECTED BY 
 
 POLICE 1 INSURANCE COMPANIES AGAINST MURDERERS. 
 SPIES LARGE AND SMALL. DRAINS AND DISEASE. 
 
 WHAT can the police be in a huge heterogeneous town, 
 peopled by the dregs of a hundred different nations, where 
 each person only tries to live at the expense of his neigh- 
 bour ; where manners and customs are both barbarous and 
 licentious ; where justice, broken up into fractions among 
 ten consular tribunals, becomes powerless under the rule of 
 a government at once weak and despotic, ignorant and 
 capricious, with a worthless administration and a venal 
 magistracy? Must not the police perforce fall in with 
 the stream of tendency making for lawlessness? 
 
 It is indeed powerless to face all its duties, owing to the 
 vast number of crimes and offences. What its superiors 
 ask the Turkish police before all things to do is that the 
 town have the appearance of being orderly, and that it 
 shall seem fairly decent in its indecency. Thus the main 
 task of the police consists in preventing murder in broad 
 daylight.
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 173 
 
 It is only fair to admit that public safety in Pera is now- 
 far greater than it used to be. As a rule, one may walk 
 unmolested as well by night as by day in the Grand Rue 
 de Pera, though it is dangerous to risk going down after 
 dusk to the Galata or Kassim Pasha quarters, for there one 
 might easily be stabbed and robbed. 
 
 Nightly assaults and robberies have moreover become 
 far less frequent since the introduction of gas in Pera, and 
 the establishment of bekdjis or night watchmen in the 
 streets. But yet they occur often enough. We remember 
 the story of the captain of some English vessel who was 
 accosted at midnight near the garden of the Petits Champs 
 by a foot-pad, who politely opened conversation by saying, 
 " May I trouble you for a light 1 " 
 
 " Oh ! certainly," replied the captain, drawing his 
 revolver from his pocket. Putting his cigarette in the 
 barrel he presented it thus to the thief, who promptly took 
 the hint and disappeared. 
 
 Pickpockets in Pera, however, are rare. Perhaps it is 
 that the field of their operations is not a very fertile one. 
 The result of their exploring their neighbours' pockets may 
 have been no very satisfactory one, for in Pera one must 
 never judge by appearances, as all that glitters is not 
 gold ; it is often only nickel or aluminium. Burglary still 
 flourishes in Pera a modern form of brigandage much in 
 fashion. Occasionally some of the more famous house- 
 breakers are so maladroit as to fall into the hands of the 
 police. Then there are interminable enquiries and counter- 
 enquiries, all conducted in the true Turkish spirit of 
 formalism and indecision. It is exasperating to see how 
 the Osmanlis will waste whole months in bringing mis-
 
 174 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 creants to justice and in handing over the guilty to the 
 law. 
 
 Street fights occur almost every day, mostly in the 
 Greek and the European quarters. The Turk, grave and 
 courteous as he is, never lets himself be compromised 
 in a public quarrel. The Armenian, sly and cowardly, is 
 afraid of blows, and the Jew, who hardly dares raise his 
 eyes, would certainly never dare to raise his hand. But 
 the boisterous, swaggering Greek loves discussion ; he 
 grows hot, rants, swings his arms about, rolls his eyes and 
 shakes his fist in front of his antagonist's nose. Fortun- 
 ately, this fury is more noisy than deadly ; two Greeks 
 will often go on abusing themselves for an hour before 
 resorting to blows. The quarrel proceeds to its pitch in 
 terrible crescendo; then, just as the ferocious disputants 
 seem about to spring at each others throats, they suddenly 
 separate, each going different ways and grumbling loudly 
 meanwhile. Occasionally, however, when rage gets the 
 better of them, blows and boxes of the ear resound, and 
 their dispute is settled by the pistol or the knife. 
 
 Let us suppose that you have gone into a brasserie to 
 have a glass of beer. When the waiter brings it you, he 
 will, at the same time, tell you the news. " Yesterday, a 
 Greek shot a Bulgarian at the door of our brasserie." 
 
 " Did he, really 1 " 
 
 " Yes ; they began to quarrel here, but happily we were 
 able to get them to go outside." 
 
 The phrase is a characteristic one ; the combatants are 
 hustled outside the door, simply from motives of decency, 
 just as one might hunt a little pussy out of the room, if it 
 showed any marked desire to puke. If policemen ever
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 175 
 
 interfere, to their credit be it said that they are most 
 energetically brutal ; they have a way of administering 
 kicks obliquely, which is quite irresistible. 
 
 Another important task for the police to fulfil is that of 
 seeing that taxes are regularly and promptly paid by 
 itinerant fruit merchants, pedlars, and the like. The 
 shouts and abusive language of these poor wretches, when 
 their baskets and scales are wrested from them, are dread- 
 ful ; a sympathetic crowd collects round the victims and 
 lustily performs a chorus of protest and indignation. The 
 delinquent is then taken to the nearest police station a 
 dirty, tumbledown place, often wholly unfurnished, and 
 destitute even of pen or paper wherewith to write down a 
 report. 
 
 The Kassim Pasha quarter enjoys almost European 
 celebrity as a type of a suburb supreme in filth, misery 
 and vice. It is a valley devoid of trees, which has become 
 a sort of cloaca maxima for the whole city. This drain, 
 which is called a stream and goes by the poetic name of 
 "The Nightingales' Stream," runs through the whole 
 quarter and spreads out all its beastly contents to the sky. 
 The yellow water might fitly be termed a concentrated 
 essence of dead dog, for either bank is decorated with 
 the carcases of these hapless animals, that lie strewn amid 
 broken crockery, empty tins, and various kinds of offal. 
 On the banks of this pestilential stream stand numbers of 
 low, wooden shanties, built anyhow and huddled together 
 like rotten fungi at the foot of a tree. These huts are 
 inhabited by a whole multitude of human beings. So 
 narrow are the streets that two men cannot pass them 
 abreast ; the rain has made such deep ruts in them that
 
 176 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 walking becomes extremely difficult. Hidden hands may 
 dart out from behind walls and with long knives despatch 
 their victim before he has time to utter a cry. Whoever 
 chooses to risk his life in these places, is never sure to 
 come out alive, not even in broad noonday. The police do 
 not venture to explore such murderous dens, but let their 
 inmates devour each other unchecked ; and woe betide the 
 heedless tourist who strays thither ! 
 
 Sometimes, from a Pera hotel, the disappearance of a 
 visitor is suddenly announced, and not a trace of him is to 
 be found. The consulate tries to rouse the police from 
 their torpor, and an inquiry, more or less thorough, is 
 instituted. After a while, nothing more can be done than 
 to draw up a report and sell the traveller's effects to pay 
 his hotel bill. It may safely be wagered that the ill-starred 
 tourist let himself be entrapped, believing some false 
 promise to bring him into relation with a lovely houri 
 who lodged in one of these terrible quarters of the town, 
 that never give up their prey. 
 
 Of the two routes leading down from the hill on which 
 Pera is built one leads to Kassim Pasha and the other to 
 Galata, another sort of cosmopolitan slaughter-house. This 
 quarter, in many points, resembles the environs of the 
 London Docks. It is a collection of ninth-rate hotels, 
 taverns, brothels, and music halls. The very place 
 sweats vice and debauchery. Walk up the dark, dirty 
 staircases of one of these low establishments, pretentiously 
 styled Concert Lyrique, Dancing Hall, etc. Through the 
 dense clouds of tobacco smoke you may distinguish a few 
 ill-favoured persons who are talking a sort of volapiik made 
 up from ten or a dozen different languages, one and all
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 1 77 
 
 mispronounced. Their voices are husky with doctored 
 alcohol ; and at times they crack ribald jokes with the 
 ladies who bring them their liquor Italians, Greeks, 
 Germans, Israelites ; the very lees and dregs of Western 
 whoredom. From time to time some draggled, painted 
 songstress steps on to the stage, who in the bills is styled 
 artiste des Concerts de Paris. In a harsh, grating voice 
 she trolls out a dull or dirty French chansonette, as 
 unhealthy, as repulsive as herself. Is this all that Western 
 civilisation can send Eastwards? It would seem as if 
 Europe had chosen this corner of Turkey whither to 
 export all its refuse, its offal. 
 
 Amid such a rotten gang it is strangely sad to see bands 
 of Bohemian girl-musicians, with bright, fresh, smiling 
 faces, who have left their home to win a dowry in the 
 East. They make up the female orchestras, which at one 
 time were so popular in the Danube provinces and in 
 Turkey. The conductor who wields his baton over their 
 music controls their morals also, and is answerable for 
 their virtue by contract. No record exists of one of these 
 fair violinists having ever gone astray. When they have 
 finished playing their overture or pot pourri, they willingly 
 accept from gallant members of the audience a glass of beer, 
 or some coffee, flowers, and sweets. Nor would they even 
 refuse a supper or a pleasure-trip to Prinkipo or Buyukdere, 
 on the condition that friends or their director's family ac- 
 companied them. Without being either prudish or bold, 
 they seem quite disposed for matrimony ; the prettier of 
 them indeed often make excellent marriages. The others 
 go back to their mountains, each with their modest dowry, 
 and they easily find husbands. In Bohemia there is a 
 M
 
 I? 8 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 district where all the young girls of their own free will 
 follow for some years this wandering life, learning from 
 earliest infancy to scrape upon a 'cello or a violin. It is a 
 strange and touching contrast to see these fresh-faced girls 
 amid such a herd of vile, vicious people ; they might be 
 likened to lilies of the valley growing at the miry edge of a 
 stagnant pond. 
 
 The entire Galata quarter is given up to vice and crime. 
 At night the sound of ribald songs fills the streets ; bands 
 of young men visit brothel after brothel ; all night long 
 they drink mastic or liquors more fiery, and then when 
 heads grow hot, there is a lively play of the truncheon and 
 the knife. If by chance there should be a corpse, it is so 
 easy to drop it quietly into the Bosphorus, which just there 
 is some sixty feet in depth. 
 
 We already stated that there are no wharves at Con- 
 stantinople, and this murderous quarter runs down sheer 
 into the sea, which is ever ready to engulf the victim and 
 shield the murderer. All this might be remedied, if along 
 the Golden Horn large and well-paved quays were con- 
 structed. Mortality and hygiene in other countries are 
 always closely allied. In Turkey, however, both are 
 paralysed. 
 
 The Ottoman police reminds us of the sword of Monsieur 
 Prud'homme created to protect the bourgeois class, and, 
 if need be, to oppress it. Certain Ministers of Police have 
 made most scandalous profits by their abuse of the 
 arbitrary authority which is theirs. It will suffice indeed 
 to warn some luckless citizen suspected of this or that 
 crime. The poor wretch, well aware that absolute inno- 
 cence in Turkey is a very feeble guarantee, begins to
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 1 79 
 
 tremble in every limb, and tries to buy, at no matter 
 what price, the silence of the police. It is simply black- 
 mail, as levied by judges, magistrates, police-inspectors and 
 their subordinates. 
 
 This trick is often played, and with invariable success, 
 upon houses of ill-fame, gambling hells, and other low 
 resorts. Nor would there be great harm in this, if the 
 money thus amassed by taxing prostitution could be of 
 benefit to the State, instead of disappearing into the 
 pockets of certain functionaries who, in their turn, live by 
 the prostitution of justice. 
 
 Some years back there was a great stir about a poor 
 fellow accused of coining false money. The unfortunate 
 man energetically asserted his innocence, but it appears 
 that, in the well attached to his house certain tools and 
 instruments of a compromising nature were found. The 
 charge against him looked graver yet, until the hand of 
 the police was detected in the whole affair. It was the 
 police who had the happy idea of hiding these instruments 
 in the unlucky individual's well. This time the Govern- 
 ment was forced to take action ; and the Minister of Police 
 lost his post. Soon afterwards, however, he was appointed 
 governor of one of the chief towns of the Empire ; and 
 an important concession has lately been granted to him. 
 
 Only lately a friend of ours was stopped in the street, 
 in broad daylight, by an unknown individual, who struck 
 him violently in the face with his fist, and instantly ran 
 off. Perhaps this ferocious assault was the result of an 
 error, but an error, anyway, of the most unpleasant sort. 
 The victim of it was at once arrested, and led off between 
 two zajrtiefe to the police-station ; and there he was called
 
 l8o THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 upon to pay a Turkish pound before he could recover his 
 liberty. His first care was to rush to his consul for 
 redress, but the latter sought to calm the fever by saying : 
 
 " What's to be done 1 If you like, we can institute an 
 inquiry, but the affair will last for months, and its probable 
 result is highly doubtful, for you don't even know of what 
 nationality your assailant was. Take my advice ; forget 
 the blows you have received, and the money you have 
 spent. We consuls have to reserve our influence and 
 intervention for graver matters, for criminal affairs." And 
 the consul, after all, was perfectly right. The moral of 
 this story is, that at Constantinople your country's repre- 
 sentative can protect you efficiently, but only after you 
 have been murdered ! It is a sort of posthumous protection. 
 
 Often at the bazaar a merchant, with a face like a 
 jackal's, has been pointed out to me by persons, who 
 whispered mysteriously : 
 
 " That man, over there, is the chief of the Constan- 
 tinople brigands." 
 
 " What 1 There are brigands at Constantinople 1 " 
 
 " Yes ; foot-pads who nightly attack people, and stab 
 and rob them." 
 
 " And these wretches have really got an acknowledged 
 leader 1 " 
 
 11 Of course they have ; chiefs that give them their 
 password, and represent them in their transactions with 
 the public." 
 
 The villains, indeed, do consent to negotiate that is to 
 say, one can negotiate with them. Young bloods who like 
 to run risk at night in dangerous quarters of the town, 
 may come to an arrangement with these professional cut-
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 181 
 
 throats. For a certain sum, they can purchase a guarantee 
 against all assassination or robbery ; and, if need be, 
 they can call in the brigand's help to rescue them from the 
 police. It is a sort of insurance society, where you pay so 
 much to be saved from nightly assaults. 
 
 There are other enterprising persons who, for a certain 
 modest sum, engage to thrash anyone upon whom you 
 desire to be avenged. So, without compromising yourself 
 in the least, you can administer, by proxy, a whole shower 
 of blows to an enemy or a dun ; " half a shower, half-price ; 
 quickness and despatch," etc., etc. 
 
 The operations of all these industrious gentlemen have 
 grown more complicated ever since at night in all the 
 streets, bekdjis or watchmen have been stationed. From 
 sunset to sunrise these bekdjis are on guard, and their 
 business is to track burglars and to prevent them from 
 breaking into houses. They carry a long staff having a 
 heavy iron ferrule, which they perpetually beat on the 
 pavement. In the silence of the night, this noise becomes 
 deeply irritating to the nerves of such as find it hard to 
 sleep. It is as if the bekdji desired to warn housebreakers 
 of his approach, so that they might promptly be upon 
 their guard. Could anybody be more obliging? 
 
 The bekdji is also there to give the alarm in case of fire. 
 Nothing is more grim at night than to hear the cry ringing 
 through the streets : " Yang/tin Var I " There is fire ! 
 The syllable var is prolonged until the breath gives out ; it 
 sounds like a long wail of despair. The cry is taken up by 
 the bekdjis in other neighbouring streets and soon rings 
 throughout the whole town. Like a distant echo one hears 
 it far off, at the extremity of Stamboul.
 
 I 82 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 If in Constantinople there be a lack of order, what shall 
 be said of the police in villages and in the country 1 There 
 are, it is true, couroudjis or husbandmen, who look after 
 fields and crops, and are paid for so doing by wealthy 
 land-owners, but their task consists chiefly in making long 
 journeys to the nearest town ; and they cannot contend 
 effectually against marauders. 
 
 As for the gendarmerie, in number it is totally insuffi- 
 cient. In Albania, in Macedonia, the brigands have 
 become masters of the country ; they can extort ransoms 
 at will from the inhabitants, who would rather treat with 
 them than have recourse to Government protection. Wise 
 people prefer to sacrifice at once a certain sum to appease 
 the bandits ; it is a safer plan than to count upon the help 
 of the gendarmerie. In many places, too, an amicable 
 understanding is effected between the brigands and the 
 police. The gendarmes, badly paid as they are by the 
 Government and in a wretched condition themselves, are 
 quite willing to accept subsidies from the brigands they are 
 set to catch. So, by an admirable system of this sort, the 
 police always arrive too late, in time only to lock the 
 stable door when the steed is stolen. Certain bands of 
 brigands live on unmolested for years ; the names of their 
 chiefs are as familiar as household words to the police, who 
 are also accurately acquainted with their habits and can all 
 but fix upon their abode. They have their agents, their 
 men of business, their managers. These kings of the 
 Turkish mountains are real potentates who levy taxes upon 
 their subjects that are always most promptly and exactly 
 paid. They even can afford themselves the luxury of main- 
 taining, at their own expense, the gendarmerie of the State.
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 183 
 
 Besides the ostensible police force, of whose deeds and 
 customs we have here spoken, there is at Constantinople a 
 whole host of spies. An autocratic Government like that 
 of Turkey, suspicious, craven as it is, cannot do without 
 inoiicJiards, and to recruit these is easy in a town where 
 persons prompt to do any dirty work abound. The palace 
 spies alone are estimated at 3000. Their duties consist in 
 inventing and in imagining plots, and in doing harm to any 
 Court personage whose influence seems to be getting 
 dangerous. Thus they pretend to show their zeal and 
 affection for their sovereign. We never met with any 
 ex-employe who would consent to make revelations to us 
 concerning the organisation of this secret police ; but in 
 Pera certain individuals are pointed out as official spies. 
 They are mostly Greeks and Armenians, Levantines and 
 Europeans, who live in a free and easy style, no one know- 
 ing their means of existence nor their precise occupation. 
 There are spies belonging to all ranks and to all nation- 
 alities. Some slily make their appearance at tables d'hote 
 or at public taverns ; others play the man of the world, and 
 by hook or crook get into the best society. The clerk is a 
 spy upon his employer, and the servant upon his master ; 
 there are spies and counter-spies. No one can count him- 
 self safe from such vermin. 
 
 A rich Armenian may give a dinner to a few intimate 
 friends. With the dessert politics are discussed ; and each 
 guest complains of the misfortunes that are his. Next day 
 the host is torn from his family sxiled without a word of 
 \varning. He gets notice to cross the frontier within 
 twenty-four hours. Which one of his guests was it who 
 denounced him 1 Xo one can tell, though each believes his
 
 184 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 neighbour to be the spy who acted in so vile and cowardly 
 a manner. 
 
 A professor publishes a volume of fables, which obtains 
 the hall mark of the Press bureau and of the Government 
 authorities. But a spy, anxious to give a proof of his zeal, 
 manages, by twisting the sentences, to discover certain 
 seditious expressions in these babyish dialogues. A fable 
 has always a double meaning ; it is this which characterises 
 such sort of writing; and so it is easy to misinterpret the 
 author's intentions and to make him say things which he 
 never dreamed of saying. The poor fable-writer is accord- 
 ingly dismissed from his post with the most brutal abrupt- 
 ness. If he complains, he may be sent off to some savage 
 country for change of air. 
 
 A General, who, in the last war distinguished himself, 
 perceives that his vines are like to fall a prey to the 
 phylloxera. French and Turkish specialists, when called 
 in to pronounce upon the case, advise the immediate use 
 of sulphate of carbon, a substance that is both inflammable 
 and explosive. Instantly, some spy rushes off to the 
 Palace to accuse the General of having imported the 
 phylloxera to his vineyards on purpose to have a pretext 
 for procuring combustible material designed to blow up 
 His Imperial Majesty's residence. In this infernal scheme 
 the General, so it is said, has been aided by certain evil 
 French anarchists, newly come from the land where kings 
 are guillotined and palaces petroleumised. 
 
 For some of his friends, an official asks leave to visit 
 the Dolma Bagtche* Palace. Evidently this is done with a 
 plot as its ultimate scope and end. An engineer proposes 
 to set up a telephone service. A plot ! a plot ! a wicked plot !
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 185 
 
 Occasionally, this sort of thing borders on the grotesque, 
 as when the Ministry of Marine permitted the fleet to 
 make trial experiments in electric signalling. An order 
 was promptly issued to suspend such experiments, as these 
 jets of light flung upwards at the moon had scandalised 
 the entire official world ! 
 
 A charity fete is to be held at Cadikeui, on the Asiatic 
 side of the Bosphorus, and the Turkish steamboat 
 companies arrange to bring back the visitors to Pera and 
 Galata after the dancing and fireworks are over. But, 
 when the party breaks up, there are no steamers ! Their 
 departure has been officially forbidden. Why] "Because 
 His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, is not accustomed to see 
 steamers running on the Bosphorus at such abnormal 
 hours ; they might possibly be a source of uneasiness to 
 Him." It is evident that the Padishah had no knowledge 
 whatever of the midnight steamer-service, nor, if aware of 
 it, would he have created such ridiculous objections. They 
 were simply the outcome of the shrivelled brain of some 
 officious underling, who hoped thereby to win favour in the 
 eyes of his chiefs. But such things do not always remain 
 within the limits of the ridiculous. 
 
 Occasionally, foreigners, who doubtless have been pointed 
 out by spies as dangerous, disappear. A few days later 
 they are found stabbed and lifeless in some by-street. 
 The consulate straightway makes a fuss, and orders an 
 inquest to be held, while the police pretend to be 
 superhumanly active in tracking the assassins. Whole 
 reams of paper are covered with long reports and 
 minutes of evidence, drawn up by zealous and humani- 
 tarian officials. But, of course, it all leads to nothing.
 
 1 86 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 Of course, the murderer is never found. Some perfectly 
 innocent individual is arrested, and, after gross ill-treat- 
 ment, set free; or else the deceased is declared to have 
 committed suicide. If the poignard seem an impru- 
 dent means of destruction, there is always the Bosphorus. 
 Its blue waves tell no tales. With a block of stone round 
 his neck and twenty metres of salt water above his head, 
 of what use for a man to rise up and protest that he has 
 been the victim of a foul plot ! Nor is poison a weapon to 
 be disdained ; a little after-dinner dose of arsenic with 
 one's coffee, just as a pick-me-up, or rather as a lay-me-low ! 
 Most effective this, as a means for suppressing certain 
 persons who are suspected and who have been exiled to 
 remote provinces. This is what comes of absolute power, 
 placed in the hands of the weak and the impotent. Excess 
 of energy in the means ; want of energy in the individuals. 
 In this way a State is brought to ruin. It was this which 
 destroyed the Venetian oligarchy. 
 
 Before ending this melancholy chapter, we must say a 
 few words about a puissant body which has continual 
 relations with the police ; we mean the touloumbadjis or 
 volunteer fire-quenchers, composed almost exclusively of 
 hammals (porters) or caikdjis (boatmen). 
 
 Owing to the deplorable state of most of the streets, 
 carriages, trucks and carts cannot pass along them, so 
 luggage and packages of all sorts have to be carried by 
 men on their back. In all Constantinople, (would you 
 believe it ?) there is hardly a single truck or wheel-barrow. 
 Everything is carried by hammals, those two-footed beasts 
 of burden, as The'ophile Gautier styled them. In Con- 
 stantinople, there are some twenty thousand porters, most
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 187 
 
 of them Armenians from the Van, Sivas, and Trebizond 
 districts, whom speculators engage and bring to Galata, 
 paying the expense of their journey, an expense which the 
 hammals are called upon to refund by regular instalments. 
 These men are marvellously strong ; one of them can 
 carry up unaided, to the second floor of some lodging, a 
 piano, a harmonium, or if need were, a marble fountain. 
 They live in quarters, and the inhabitants of each quarter 
 are obliged to employ the hammals in their street, so that 
 these, having no rivalry to fear, can easily maintain or 
 even raise their tariff". 
 
 The porters as well as most of the boatmen form the 
 ancient and irrepressible corporation of touloumbadjis or 
 volunteer firemen. Everybody knows by hearsay or by 
 experience how frequent fires in Constantinople are so 
 frequent, indeed, that they have almost ceased to be re- 
 garded as serious misadventures. They occur on an average 
 of one every two nights. Nor are such disasters trifling 
 ones, whole districts, whole villages being reduced to cinders 
 in a night time. For there are quarters where all the 
 houses are built of wood crazy, sun-baked shanties, wedged 
 closely together, which burn like match-boxes. Only last 
 winter the pretty village of Arnaoutkeui, poised on the 
 slopes beside the Bosphorus, was destroyed in a few hours, 
 the flames darting their cruel tongues down to the very 
 edge of the water, and robbing a thousand fugitives of their 
 modest home. At Scutari, too, a similar catastrophe 
 occurred some months since, when three-fourths of the 
 town was burnt down, and over a thousand houses were 
 totally destroyed. There is no need here to remind readers
 
 l88 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 of the burning of Pera in 1870, when hundreds of persons 
 perished. 
 
 The touloumbadjis are called upon to help in combatting 
 such awful disasters. And with what means do they do 
 this ? They carry a ridiculously small hand pump, the size 
 of a Huntley and Palmer biscuit-tin, which perhaps holds 
 two decanters full of water a plaything, in fact, a pretty 
 little toy ! Besides this they have a ladder, rope, hooks, 
 and a huge paper lantern, which is carried along at the 
 head of the band. No tribe of Zulus let loose for plunder 
 at night can compare in brutal picturesqueness with this 
 horde of white touloumbadjis running at full speed through 
 the streets on their way to a fire. As soon as the alarm is 
 given, the hammals strip, and transform themselves into 
 firemen, taking off jacket and hose and remaining in their 
 thin shirts and drawers. They go bare foot, too, which is 
 surely a strange precaution to take when walking over 
 redhot cinders and burning timber. 
 
 Though the touloumbadjis make a great parade of their 
 anxiety to rescue life and property at a fire, this is but a 
 hollow profession of help. They are only thieves in 
 disguise who loot the burning buildings. The population 
 fears their presence more than that of fire. They have a 
 marvellous scent for safes, or for those nooks and hiding- 
 places where jewellery or money is kept. They are even 
 accused of incendiarism, so that they may turn a penny by 
 the event ! 
 
 After all the disastrous fires in Pera and its neighbour- 
 hood, the Ottoman Government determined to establish a 
 fire brigade, which has been organised by a Hungarian 
 officer, Szechenyi Pasha, who at present directs it entirely.
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 189 
 
 He is the Captain Shaw of Constantinople, and his brigade 
 is thoroughly efficient, and proves of invaluable service 
 whenever a fire breaks out. But it is not sufficient in 
 itself to cope with every disaster. Three or four brigades 
 similar to this one should be organised, and the louloum- 
 badjis ought to be suppressed. But these latter are such a 
 powerful and turbulent body of men that the Government 
 is afraid to abolish it altogether. It shrinks at incurring 
 the displeasure of some twenty thousand sinewy sons of 
 Anak, who, if roused, would stick at nothing. There is 
 furious rivalry between the men of Count Szechenyi's 
 brigade and the touloumbadjis ; very often a free fight 
 ensues between regulars and volunteers while all the 
 houses are burning. The touloumbadjis are firmly con- 
 vinced that the regular fire brigade is a brigade of 
 usurpers, who, so to speak, have stolen their fires from 
 them. They despise these paid rescuers, and loudly vaunt 
 their own disinterestedness. But the people, who know 
 their worth, only mutter the prayer : " Allah ! save us all 
 from fire, and from the touloumbadjis." Latterly, fires in 
 Pera have become less serious, for when a quarter, or a 
 block of houses is burnt down, it is usually rebuilt in more 
 solid style not of wood, but of stone and iron. For all 
 that, the masonry is of so poor a sort that it needs 
 perpetual mending. 
 
 Despite such improvements, however, the insurance com- 
 panies refuse to insure a lot of houses all standing together 
 in the same street ; they will insure a limited number of 
 buildings in each quarter. The rate of insurance is very 
 high, and it varies according as the house has a wooden
 
 19 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 staircase, iron shutters, or is placed in a good or bad 
 quarter. 
 
 As we are not afraid of realistic details, when to give 
 them may possibly do some practical good, let us say a 
 word as to the great question of drainage and water-closets. 
 
 In the East these latter are of the most primitive kind 
 a simple hole in the ground, leading nowhere, and which, 
 whether by night or day, emits the most appalling smell. 
 Thanks to so elementary a system as this, the air in every 
 house is infected ; and the stink in each, insupportable. No 
 use for any embarrassing questions as to where is the W.-C. 
 By a peculiarly subtle, yet unmistakable aroma, you detect 
 its position immediately on entering a house. Yes, 
 embarrassing questions are thus avoided ; yet what a terrible 
 state of things should an epidemic break out in the city !
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CHRISTIANS IN THE EAST. ARMENIANS REAL AND SHAM. 
 
 THE FUTURE OF ARMENIA. 
 
 AN Irish humorist, who has lived for many years in 
 Turkey, and knows it thoroughly, remarked to me once : 
 " It is the Christians who have corrupted the Turk." This 
 may sound like a paradox, but in fact it is a great truth. 
 For, wherever the Turk lives isolated from the Christian, 
 as, for instance, in the heart of Asia Minor, he has kept all 
 the qualities of his race probity, truthfulness, simplicity. 
 He may perhaps be a pilferer by nature, and have an 
 unconquerable bent for brigandage, but they are family 
 traditions these, which tend gradually to disappear. 
 
 On the contrary, contact with Christians turns the Turk 
 into a hypocrite ; he becomes greedy, double-faced and a 
 liar. All the nobility of his character is effaced ; European 
 civilisation, instead of making him better, only emasculates, 
 softens, debases him. If the Christian be not exactly a 
 corrupter for the Turk, it is only just to admit that the 
 juxtaposition of the two races most frequently produces
 
 I9 2 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 fatal results as well for the one as for the other. So, at 
 the mouth of great rivers, the mixture of salt water with 
 fresh, engenders that sort of putrefaction which takes the 
 form of a pestilence or an epidemic. 
 
 In the same way that the Christian perverts the Turk, 
 so the Turk perverts the Christian. The worshippers of 
 Christ, who live in the midst of the worshippers of 
 Mahommed, are not of more immaculate morals nor of 
 cleaner conscience than they. They look upon the Mussul- 
 man as an oppressor who may be duped and exploited with- 
 out scruple. But the Christians act in like manner towards 
 each other. Co-religionists, who pray together in the same 
 chapel, rob each other with touching reciprocity. Why 
 not 1 So used are they to perpetual pilfering and plunder, 
 that the instinct to exploit one's neighbour becomes irresis- 
 tible. One must pick, pick, pick at everything within 
 fingers' reach ; if fingers be not long enough, one must 
 stretch out an arm. This is the new gospel of the East : 
 "My little children, cheat one another." You could 
 imagine that you were on a battle-field after the fight, 
 when marauders indiscriminately search the knapsacks and 
 pockets of friends or of foes alike. 
 
 What conclusions are we to draw from all this 1 ? That 
 this indigestible mixture of races and religions has been 
 one of the causes of the decadence of the Turk. It is 
 nothing more than a school for mutual demoralisation. 
 The remedy, then, is that as soon as possible, the Mussul- 
 man element should be separated from the Christian 
 element. We have seen how Greece, Bulgaria, Servia, 
 and Roumania fared when freed from the yoke of the 
 Crescent. How much did not these nations gain in
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 193 
 
 dignity of character, in energy, in morals ! For them, it 
 was a veritable renascence. And for Armenia, we doubt 
 not that such deliverance would mean the same thing. 
 
 Justly enough, the Armenians pride themselves on being 
 one of the most ancient peoples in the world. They have 
 preserved their ancient writing and their national language. 
 They are proudly mindful that most of the excellent 
 fruits brought into Europe first had origin in their 
 country ; the grape, the apple, the pear, the plum, cherry, 
 quince, mulberry, gooseberry, and almond. Here, in this 
 region too, the savage ancestors of the dog, the ox, the 
 goat, the sheep, the pig, and possibly the camel, had their 
 existence. Thus, Armenia is a land which deserves the 
 respect and gratitude of Europe, while most religious 
 traditions are agreed in placing at the foot of her mountains 
 the cradle of humanity. 
 
 In their own country, in these rocky mountainous 
 districts, which stretch from the Black Sea to the valley of 
 the Euphrates and to the Caspian Sea, the Armenians are 
 an honest, laborious people, of gentle disposition, and 
 greatly attached to their beliefs and to their historical 
 traditions, while ignorant of the refinements of luxury. 
 Though by nature docile, this nation has ever had much to 
 suffer from the ferocity of the Turk ; and to-day, the acts 
 of oppression and of wanton cruelty committed by Pashas 
 and governors-general are over frequent, provoking coura- 
 geous protests from the Armenian clergy. But who in 
 Europe cares to support the pleas for redress put forward 
 by the weak ? At the Berlin Congress, the Armenian 
 Patriarch pleaded the cause of his compatriots, obtaining a 
 
 favourable hearing, besides a promise of reform and of 
 
 N
 
 194 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 protection. Can anybody now say which of these protec- 
 tory clauses has ever been put into execution 1 
 
 Since Russia has advanced to Batoum, so swallowing up 
 a part of Armenia, emigration has set in, and a large 
 number of Armenians, living in Turkey and Persia, have 
 gone over to settle upon Muscovite soil, just as Mussul- 
 mans, quitting the Caucasus, take refuge in the Ottoman 
 provinces. Thus a double emigration current has been 
 formed, its result being to increase the number of 
 Turkomans resident in Armenia, and more and more to 
 draw away Armenians into Russia. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that, whenever a nation loses its 
 independence, the members of that nation are dispersed, 
 and go to seek their fortune in all the points of the globe. 
 And so, to-day, Armenians are to be found everywhere 
 in the Danube provinces, in Greece, in Egypt, in France, 
 in Italy, in England, in America. On the coast of the 
 Sea of Marmora, near Ismidt, there are whole villages 
 peopled solely by Armenians. In Constantinople, however, 
 the most important colony exists, most of its members 
 being engaged in commerce. Others, again, having doffed 
 their national pride, occupy posts in the Turkish service. 
 It was to these latter we alluded at the beginning of this 
 chapter, saying they had greatly helped to corrupt the 
 Turkish authorities. To save ourselves from returning to 
 the subject later, it may be as well to speak of it at once. 
 
 One may boldly assert that whatever is worst in the 
 Ottoman administration, is due to the Armenians. The 
 reason for this is a very simple one. The Turk, up to a 
 certain point, works for the good of his country ; the 
 Armenian works for no one but himself. Far from being
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 195 
 
 zealous to promote the prosperity and might of the 
 Osuianlis, his main interest is that things may go as badly 
 as possible. More intelligent, astuter, with greater fore- 
 sight and capacity for work than the Mussulman, the 
 Armenian is the Past Grand Master in the art of cheating. 
 He knows how to be at once servile and intriguing, pliable 
 and obstinate. To reach his ambitious ends, he will shrink 
 from no servile act, however degrading. Excess of vanity 
 makes him humble. He knows how to bow and scrape 
 before his Ottoman chief, whom he condemns. He pre- 
 tends to admire his superior, when really he is laughing at 
 his incapacity and his ignorance. 
 
 That for which the Armenian race receives most reproach 
 is its utter want of dignity of character. So striking is 
 this defect, that one finds it unanimously pointed out in all 
 works dealing with the East. Glance at the greatest and 
 most influential persons of the Armenian nation. Agop 
 Pasha, Minister of the Civil List and the Sultan's right 
 arm, is a remarkable administrator and a financier of the 
 first order. But he is surrounded by a little group of 
 intriguing Armenians, who dominate him and lead him to 
 commit acts of unpardonable weakness. Abraham Pasha, 
 the Rothschild of the East, won his millions by pandering 
 to the pleasures of the Sultan Abdul Aziz, and these 
 pleasures consisted in putting poor Armenian slaves on the 
 palace stage and causing them to be torn to pieces by 
 savage dogs. His brother-in-law, Nubar Pasha, the illus- 
 trious Egyptian Minister, has made himself the docile 
 servant of the English invaders and the agent of the foreign 
 army of occupation. Take those three men, and you have 
 the most celebrated.
 
 1 96 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 Not only does the Armenian bear snubbing patiently, 
 but he knows how to accept it with a smiling face and an 
 air of hypocritical abnegation. And when a European is 
 ill-treated by a Turk, he retaliates, exclaiming " Oho ! you 
 take me for an Armenian, do you 1 " 
 
 Many is the time that we have seen Armenians, mortal 
 enemies both, mutually load each other with affectionate 
 promises and walk about hand in hand, though either a 
 few minutes previously, had declared that the other was an 
 infamous scoundrel. Frank opposition, overt hostility are 
 things unknown to the Armenian. He delights to smell 
 out a secret, if need be, playing the eavesdropper and then 
 running off to his chief to report everything that he has 
 seen and heard. In all his machinations he will sacrifice, 
 without so much as a moment's hesitation, his compatriots, 
 his friends, his family. The poor Armenian peasants of 
 Asia Minor would have reason to fear the tyranny of their 
 compatriots far more than the Turkish yoke. 
 
 Some go so far as to sacrifice their conjugal honour and 
 speculate upon the beauty of their wives as a stepping-stone 
 to advancement. If they do not absolutely encourage this 
 kind of prostitution, at least they close their eyes upon such 
 peccadilloes. 
 
 The Armenian is before all things a lover of filthy lucre ; 
 he has a remarkable aptitude for financial questions and an 
 instinct for usury. The Armenian functionary may be 
 considered as he who brought venality in Turkish bureau- 
 cracy to such a pitch of perfection. If corruption did not 
 exist, perhaps it is he who invented it. In many ways he 
 is strangely like the Jew ; he has the same intelligence, the 
 same sagacity and servility of nature.
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 197 
 
 Thus our Irish humorist was not wholly wrong in saying 
 that the Christians had corrupted the Turks ; let it be 
 noted, however, that the number of Armenian functionaries 
 is relatively a limited one. If the Ottoman Government 
 sincerely desired to winnow the chaff from the wheat and 
 to purify its official world, it would be easy enough to 
 expel certain demoralisers and to reconstruct an adminis- 
 trative body that should be wholly national. For certain 
 inevitable questions of a technical kind, the temporary help 
 of European specialists could be called in. That would be 
 less dangerous for the Porte than to give important 
 Government posts to persons of doubtful nationality, whose 
 aim is not to be of profit to Turkey, but to make Turkey 
 be of profit to them. Moreover, as regards instruction and 
 professional competence, the Armenian is really in no way 
 superior to the Turk, but he has the talent of making the 
 latter believe in his ability. For this, he is so jealous of 
 the interference of Europeans who might destroy this sham 
 prestige. Armenian officials have no great love for any 
 foreigners whom by chance the Ottoman Government may 
 have pressed into its service. 
 
 Let us turn now from these sham Armenians, and speak 
 of the really interesting portion of the nation, of that part 
 which has never renounced its sentiments of nationality. 
 
 With singular imprudence, the Turkish Government, 
 tyrannical and cruel in certain respects, has yet allowed its 
 Christian subjects great liberty as regards their political 
 organisation. Far from trying to assimilate this with her 
 own, Turkey appears to have been careful to respect all 
 their elements of solidarity, their traditions, and the sen- 
 timent of their community of origin. The Armenians and
 
 198 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 the Greeks have their National Assembly, their Deputies, 
 their Finance Departments. The Patriarch, assisted by a 
 Council, plays the part of a veritable President of the 
 Republic ; and a governing body of this sort organises a 
 system of public instruction, directs the intellectual move- 
 ment and superintends charitable institutions. 
 
 As regards his subjects, the Turk is careful only to 
 extort money from them, and to keep them in a state of 
 perpetual terror. " What does it matter what they think, 
 provided they fear, and, above all, provided they pay." 
 The Government never moves a finger either to instruct 
 them, to better their condition, or to draw them to itself. 
 Is this from laziness or from disdain ? One cannot say. 
 But the fact remains that the rayas possess such inde- 
 pendence as they could never have under a Government of 
 the most constitutional kind. On the other hand, they are 
 perpetually subjected to a system of iniquitous extortion 
 and of capricious persecution. Viewed from a purely 
 political standpoint, such a system of feebleness and 
 tyranny would seem to prove that the Turks have com- 
 mitted a cardinal blunder. A conquering nation ought 
 never to remain callous towards the peoples that it lias 
 brought under ; and its genius consists in conquering and 
 effacing the antipathies that exist between its several 
 subjects. During past centuries, the Osmanli should have 
 sought to make what was individual in the customs, 
 traditions, and language of his rayas disappear. They 
 should have been welded into one body ; they should have 
 all been forced to serve in the army ; and public instruction 
 should have been developed for all. In a word, with all 
 these broken fragments of peoples, one solid nation should
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 1 99 
 
 have been built. But this is just what the Turk could not 
 or would not do ; he has awkwardly maintained a state of 
 dislocation, and to-day the crazy edifice looks as if, at any 
 moment, it might fall to pieces. 
 
 Thanks to this relative autonomy, the Armenians and 
 the Greeks took all trade and industry into their hands, 
 growing rich at the Turk's expense, having easily distanced 
 him in intellectual culture, and in ideas as to progress. In 
 fact, they are now more civilised than their masters ; and 
 the laws of social equilibrium tend to reverse their position, 
 and to put those uppermost to-morrow who to-day are at 
 the bottom. 
 
 The Armenian thinks himself superior to the Turk ; he 
 considers that he is on a par with the European, and that 
 he suffers greatly in being forced to live under the sway of 
 semi-barbarians. Thus he is wholly disposed to welcome 
 an emancipation, and to put himself under the protection 
 of a great civilised nation. If Russia should accept the 
 role of redeemer and rescuer, this would give her great 
 facilities for extending her territory south of the Caucasus. 
 
 It is mainly by his clear, flexible intelligence, good sense 
 and active mind, that the Armenian resembles the Euro- 
 pean, showing a keen interest in all discoveries and a desire 
 to move with the march of progress. This Oriental nation 
 has a remarkable affinity with the French, for whom it 
 professes great sympathy. The cultured Armenian speaks 
 French fluently, without any perceptible accent ; he is 
 acquainted with French literature, and reads all the 
 novels and newspapers so soon as they reach him from 
 Paris. All that occurs in the Western world interests, 
 captivates him, whereas the Turk, absorbed in the contem-
 
 200 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 plation of his narghile, takes interest in nothing. The fair 
 Armenians, intelligent and coquettish as they are, soon 
 adopt Paris fashions, and with some success ; although they 
 still exhibit traces of an Eastern taste for garish, inhar- 
 monious colours and for jewels or ornaments of enormous 
 size. Such a nation seems to have been created to be a 
 nation of tradesmen and bankers. The Armenian, if 
 trained to it, would also prove a good agriculturist. He 
 has but one idea, however, and that is money ; he only 
 measures a man by the length of his purse. In the East, 
 the sole talents of which one ever speaks are talents of gold. 
 As regards education, the Armenian does not count it a 
 means for the development of ideas, for strengthening the 
 judgment, for improving the morals. In his eyes, it is but 
 an instrument, a tool for the successful forging of business 
 transactions ; and he only appreciates such ideas as can be 
 immediately utilised quickly to make money. Of science 
 and scientists he has a very poor opinion ; a professor gets 
 little or no consideration. One only becomes a teacher- 
 after having failed as a wholesale grocer. "To teach 
 children to read forsooth ! Is that a trade for any man of 
 parts, who might earn as much as a hundred pounds a 
 month ! " 
 
 From such false ideas, public instruction suffers ; and so, 
 iu the schools, young Armenians are taught reading, 
 writing, and above all, arithmetic that being the art of 
 counting. To this, some smattering of modern languages 
 is added a little Turkish, French, and English. When a 
 young man possesses these acquirements, his studies are 
 abruptly brought to a close and he is placed in a counting- 
 house or a shop. Moreover, according to Eastern ideas, no
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 20 1 
 
 one is considered to be a man of worth, unless his hair be 
 white. Thus, experience is confounded with knowledge. 
 Respect for the aged is, of course, a noble and salutary 
 virtue, yet it is none the less true that the exclusive pre- 
 ponderance of the gerontocracy acts as a clog upon the 
 advance of a country, and checks it in its impulses towards 
 progress. Thus it comes, that Armenia is often deprived 
 of those of her sons, who, aware of their intellectual 
 superiority, come to Europe to develop their powers in 
 first-class Continental Colleges, and many afterwards refuse 
 to return to their own country, where their talents are 
 neither appreciated nor rewarded. In this respect, the 
 Armenian is far inferior to the Greek, who has enthusiasm 
 for things of the mind, and a reverence for the beautiful. 
 
 These ideas, however, have undergone change at least, 
 among the Armenians of Constantinople. The National 
 Council has made praiseworthy efforts to raise the standard 
 of education in the various schools, and to permit pupils 
 who distinguish- themselves to enjoy a more liberal course 
 of instruction. Indeed, it would seem to have been under- 
 stood that what constitutes the true greatness of a nation 
 is the worth of its leading men. A nation, like an army, 
 must have a distinguished staff. At Constantinople, 
 several excellent Armenian Colleges exist ; and one has 
 lately been founded, the Jftcole Cenlrale, which corresponds 
 in every point to the best establishments of its class in 
 Europe. If the taste for instruction be not yet very 
 thorough, as a fashion it is gaining ground. To the great 
 honour of the Armenian nation be it noted that the very 
 porters of Constantinople, rough fellows brought into the 
 city from the wilds of Trebizond and Van, can nearly all
 
 202 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 of them read ; and, sitting at street corners on their 
 wedge-shaped, leathern pack, you may see them eagerly 
 conning their newspaper while waiting for a job. This, in 
 itself, is a considerable result. 
 
 Constantinople counts many rich Armenian bankers 
 among its inhabitants. Let us not ask too closely how 
 their fortunes were made, for in making such inquiries we 
 should have to put aside all Western ideas as to rectitude 
 and probity. Let us not forget, though, that in the East 
 usury is a recognised profession, and that no person has the 
 slightest scruple in fleecing the Government. Thus most 
 of such wealth has been amassed either by furnishing goods 
 to the State or by lending money to private individuals. 
 There is no need here to expatiate further upon this 
 subject. 
 
 The Armenians are also reproached with want of courage. 
 True, in Constantinople, they give all too many examples 
 of their long-suffering nature if not of their deplorable 
 pusillanimity. But is not such a fault the result of long 
 and ruthless oppression? They have grown used to 
 swallowing affronts just as one may grow used to swallow- 
 ing cod-liver oil, without so much as a wry face. Yet 
 we must not forget those intrepid Armenians from the 
 mountains of Zeitoun, who so valiantly fought against the 
 Turks. They have never yet been brought under ; and 
 while refusing to pay any taxes, they forbid Mussulmans 
 to enter their territory. 
 
 The Armenians are divided into two sects, the Orthodox 
 or Gregorians, and the Catholic Armenians. These latter 
 recognise the supremacy of the Pope, and have thus drawn 
 closer to the Latin Church. In return, the Vatican has
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 203 
 
 made certain concessions, such as the marriage of the 
 inferior clergy, the observance of national rites and cere- 
 monies at mass, which may be said in Armenian and not 
 in Latin. Gregorian Armenians and Catholic Armenians 
 have little sympathy for each other. The latter copy 
 European ways and customs as closely as possible, and 
 possess important educational establishments at Venice, 
 at Vienna and elsewhere. The Mourad Rafael College and 
 the Convent of San Lazzaro are too well known to need 
 more than a single phrase of mention, though if the former 
 had laymen and not sluggish, dishonest priests at its head, 
 the nation, for whose benefit the college was founded, 
 could not but reap advantage. 
 
 The Armenians have faithfully preserved their national 
 language with its ancient alphabet of thirty-six letters, 
 which apparently dates from the Phenician epoch. As a 
 language, it is one of the richest that exists, containing 
 most of the sounds which the different European languages 
 have : the Italian c, the German ch, the Russian i, etc. 
 To the ear, it is singularly harsh and unmelodious, a series 
 of nasal splutterings, nearly every word ending with s. 
 But, as a vehicle for poetry, it is said to be excellent. 
 The national literature, indeed, consists chiefly of poems, 
 and several patriarchs and priests are cited as lyrical 
 writers of surprising power and sweetness. We might 
 remark that many of the leading Armenian families of 
 Constantinople never converse in their own language. 
 Turkish or French is talked, but Armenian rarely, except 
 with servants. 
 
 Authors disagree as to the exact number of the 
 Armenian population, but private information permits us
 
 204 '-THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 to rate it at somewhat over four millions. The Patriarch 
 of the Orthodox Armenians resides at Etschmiadzin, 
 which is now in Russian territory. It is he who confers 
 the right of investiture upon the patriarchs of Constanti- 
 nople, Jerusalem, and Sis. The clergy, as a body, enjoys 
 great influence, for it represents the National Admini- 
 stration, and it directs the progress of national educa- 
 tion. 
 
 Owing to their easy-going, placid humour, and their 
 inconsistent temper, it is difficult to believe that the 
 Armenians will ever succeed in obtaining their autonomy. 
 All that this nation ought to wish is that it should become 
 a compact State under the protection of a great European 
 Power. ly the logic of events, Russia would seem to be 
 destined to become Armenia's Suzerain Power, now that 
 she stands already at the doors of Erzeroum. Let us hope 
 that, if she ever have them, Muscovy may treat her new 
 subjects as they deserve, sparing them the tracasseries 
 of her official world, and all the petty jealousies of her 
 clergy. 
 
 Armenia is a nation which merits the sympathy of all. 
 That people is only to be admired which, during centuries 
 of barbarous oppression, has kept its national language 
 and its national customs intact. Its faults, which are 
 servility, dissimulation, want of honesty and of energy, are 
 the natural consequences of long servitude. Once let 
 Armenia regain her liberty to expand, and she will become 
 a flourishing nation, thanks to the intelligence of her 
 inhabitants, to their aptitude for industry and commerce, 
 to their sense of order and of economy. Let us add that
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 205 
 
 Armenia already possesses painters, musicians, and men 
 of letters, who have gained celebrity in Europe, while 
 the best actors among Orientals are Armenians. Thus, 
 this people is called upon to march in the van of 
 progress through these barbarous regions ; possibly, in 
 its turn, it may one day play the part of civiliser and 
 reformer.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE GREEK : ANCIENT AND MODERN. WHAT EUROPE EXPECTS 
 
 FROM HIM AND WHAT HE EXPECTS PROM EUROPE. 
 PROGRESS MADE BY THE NATION SINCE THE WAR OF INDE- 
 PENDENCE. FORCE OF PATRIOTISM AMONG HELLENES. 
 
 DURING the epoch of the Greek War of Independence, 
 Europe found no praise sufficient for the Greek people. 
 In prose and in verse their courage was celebrated and 
 their misfortunes bewailed, while classic memories were 
 called up to hymn the resurrection of Greece and to predict 
 its future prosperity. After such bursts of enthusiasm, a 
 reaction set in, and Europe proved unjust towards her 
 quondam hero. She seemed vexed not to find in him all 
 the qualities which she supposed he possessed. Still 
 intoxicated with the fumes of mythology, she expected to 
 find a nation of demi-gods, and lo ! she found a nation of 
 semi-barbarians ! So she denied the Hellenes even those 
 good qualities which they possessed. Spite, like love, is 
 blind. 
 
 Too soon was it forgotten, however, that the Greek 
 nation had for centuries been held in bondage under the
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 207 
 
 Mussulman's brutal yoke. To desire that Greece should 
 at once have all the virtues that were hers in olden time, 
 joined to all the sweetness and light of modern peoples, 
 were verily to desire too much. Of a convalescent, one 
 would never ask feats of strength. It must always be 
 remembered, that under the Turkish rule, no notion of 
 progress, no idea as to instruction, could ever find its way 
 to these unfortunate populations. Boys and young men 
 were afraid even to walk through the streets in broad day- 
 light lest they should fall into the hands of the brutal 
 Janissaries, who would make them victims of their 
 monstrous lust. At night only they could visit in mys- 
 terious fashion subterranean schools near the churches, 
 where a priest or some notable member of the colony gave 
 them lessons of the most rudimentary kind. 
 
 Greece has only just been born again ; and she has all 
 the headstrong, wilful, capricious temper of a child, 
 though by no means of an incorrigible child. Instead of 
 exacting from her premature perfection, it were more 
 charitable to aid her in her impetuous efforts towards this 
 end. 
 
 In common fairness, one ought not to judge the Greek 
 merely by the type seen at Constantinople. One should 
 go to Athens in ord'er to know what he has already become, 
 and what he may yet become. With what taste and 
 intelligence has he not altered and embellished this 
 beautiful town ! What an impulse has he not given to 
 education and to the fine arts ! He has built roads, 
 organised public works, an army, a fleet ; in fact, within 
 fifty years this little people, which started with nothing, 
 for it had neither capital nor means of communication, has
 
 208 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 distanced its old masters, the Turks, and now takes rank 
 among the nations of Europe. 
 
 The Greek is gifted with astonishing intelligence ; the 
 commonest workman has a facility of comprehension truly 
 remarkable. This fineness of perception attests the anti- 
 quity and nobleness of the race. If it' often lack judgment 
 and reflection, it will acquire these qualities when it can 
 study more completely the exact sciences. It is an in- 
 dustrious nation, and has monopolised almost all the trades 
 in the East. At Constantinople,' Smyrna, Trebizond, 
 Damascus, even at Alexandria and Cairo, all the trades- 
 men are Greeks the tailors, bootmakers, hatters, restaur- 
 ant keepers, grocers, glaziers, painters, carpenters, bakers ; 
 all are Greeks. They may be said to have all the activity 
 of the East concentrated within their hands. All the 
 shopmen, waiters, and barbers are Greeks ; so are the 
 dressmakers, the modistes, the laundresses. If Constanti- 
 nople and Smyrna have fine shops, well stocked with all 
 articles dear to Europeans, and arranged on the model of 
 the best Paris and London houses, it is to the Greeks that 
 such progress is due. Do away with the Greek population 
 in Turkey and it will be no longer possible either to eat, 
 drink, dress, or furnish one's house. 
 
 To these talents for taking the initiative, to this facility 
 for assimilation add that the Greek possesses rare aptitude 
 for the sea. By French Navigation Companies, Greek 
 sailors are always sought for; and if the regulations 
 allowed it, all the crews of French vessels in the Mediter- 
 ranean would consist of Greeks. Unfortunately for the 
 young kingdom, capital has been wanting to provide her 
 with a fitting armament, but in time, when great fortunes
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 209 
 
 have been suffered to be built up, we shall see the Greek 
 fleets cover the ocean. 
 
 Not that the descendant of Homer is impeccable. He 
 has his faults. He is notably charged with being untrust- 
 worthy ; his word cannot be depended upon. His honesty, 
 in truth, leaves not a little to be desired ; his cunning 
 comes very near fraud ; and he lies in the most impudent 
 manner, To these vices, the Greek of Pera adds others 
 less serious ; he is noisy, blustering, familiar, obsequious, 
 dissolute, a gamester and a drunkard. But faults such as 
 these are the microbes in the corrupting atmosphere of 
 Constantinople. The Athens Greek has more dignity and 
 self-respect ; he is sober, and his morals are neither better 
 nor worse than those of other peoples. He is accused of 
 being quarrelsome, volatile, and presumptuous ; but could 
 not such imperfections be attributed with equal justice to 
 certain Western nations? 
 
 We are here specially occupied with the Greek residing 
 in Turkey, that is to say with the Greek who has not 
 been regenerated by the exhilarating air of independence. 
 He is generally detested by the Turk and the Armenian, 
 who affect great disdain for his turbulence and unreliable- 
 ness. The Greek on his part blames the Armenian for his 
 servile fawning nature, while he treats the Turk with ill- 
 concealed contempt. Since the war of independence, since 
 the events in Bulgaria, the Greeks openly assume an atti- 
 tude of menace towards the Ottoman Government. They 
 are convinced that Macedonia and Roumelia, including Con- 
 stantinople, belong to them by right, and, in their eyes, the 
 Turks are worn-out usurpers for whom the day of final reckon- 
 ing has at length dawned. Perhaps they are not wholly wrong
 
 210 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 in thinking thus; but such aspirations do not sort with the 
 actual resources of this little people, which has yet a vast 
 work of organization to achieve. Despite such magnificent 
 ideas, however, the Greek raya has not yet got rid of the 
 sly ways which mark a subject people. Hence the falseness 
 with which he is charged ; he has never been able to cure 
 himself of cheating. If he be a sharp intelligent merchant, 
 that is not to say he is an honest one. Too often, he only 
 proves to be the polumetis Odysseus of antiquity. He would 
 never scruple to break his word, if it suited him ; and in 
 honesty he is far inferior to the Turk. If summoned to 
 appear before the local tribunal, he changes his nationality 
 with surprising quickness. Proteus-like, he is to-day a 
 Mussulman and to-morrow a Hellene. Even the Greek 
 consuls complain of the part they are compelled to play 
 when forced to give protection to individuals whose nation- 
 ality is as doubtful as their morals. 
 
 The Greek is strongly attached to his religion, being in 
 this respect still a fanatic. It is commonly thought in the 
 West that Greece and Russia are closely joined to one 
 another by a common bond of faith. Quite the contrary ; 
 in this field they are implacable enemies ; and the Greek 
 clergy would assuredly never accept the spiritual yoke of 
 the Czar. The Greek religion is still farced full of super- 
 stitions ; at Jerusalem no festival of the Church passes over 
 without conflicts between Greeks and Latins ; it was after 
 one of these bloody brawls that Turkish soldiers were per- 
 manently stationed at the church and crypt at Bethlehem. 
 The people are wholly in the hands of the lower clergy, 
 whose bigotry is on a par with their ignorance. It is at 
 Jerusalem that the scandalous fetes of the Holy Fire take
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 211 
 
 place during Holy Week. The patriarch accompanied by 
 two priests enters the Holy Sepulchre and is there shut up, 
 where an angel is supposed to bring him fire from heaven 
 at which he lights tapers and presents these to the faithful 
 through an opening in the wall of the grotto. Then comes 
 a most disgraceful scuffle, when thousands of people crammed 
 into the Basilica push and hustle each other in the most 
 brutal manner while striving to be the first to light their 
 candles at the Divine flame. Many such devotees are 
 killed in the crush ; in 1884, four hundred corpses were 
 left lying on the pavement of the holy building ; and the 
 help of the Turkish police with scimitar or yataghan in 
 hand, had to be called in. From the flaming tapers wax 
 falls in streams upon the devotees, whose dress often catches 
 fire, their beard and hair being terribly singed. The cere- 
 mony is hardly over when all those so commissioned start 
 off to travel through Palestine lantern in hand, bringing 
 the Holy Fire to their co-religionists in neighbouring towns. 
 Pilgrims from Russia carry back with them little lamps or 
 tapers lighted at the celestial flame which are kept burning 
 night and day. Terrible is the task for them to keep this 
 divine spark unextinguished until they reach their homes. 
 When they arrive, they are mobbed by the faithful who 
 come from far and near, and gladly pay dearly for the 
 privilege of lighting their taper or candle at the consecrated 
 lamp. Underneath all this religious fervour there is a spirit 
 of trade and of speculation. But it is useless to denounce 
 such abuses. All such superstitions will quickly disappear 
 when education, ever-spreading, shall have touched the 
 masses. 
 
 One of the gravest charges that can be brought against
 
 212 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 the Greek Church is that it encourages idleness, by adding 
 to the number of its religious festivals. These are only so 
 many more opportunities for idleness given to the people. 
 In some districts, no fewer than two hundred and eighty 
 festivals are observed yearly. Under such conditions, 
 labour of any sort becomes impossible. The Greek clergy 
 would act at once wisely and patriotically if they did away 
 with so many petty feasts, on which rest from work is 
 exacted. That would permit the Greek nation to march 
 more rapidly along the path to progress ; on the other 
 hand, the popes themselves could so anticipate the ruin of 
 their influence. Indeed, one can foresee the moment 
 when the Hellene, with his critical mind, his turn for 
 reasoning, and dislike of discipline, will shake off the yoke 
 of religion, and become once more the sceptical, mocking 
 people which he was in ancient days. 
 
 The Greek has been reproached with want of courage ; 
 this is, as it seems to us, a wholly unjust accusation. In 
 their war of independence, the Hellenes gave proof of true 
 heroism. Many a time they have revolted against the 
 Turks, never caring for the barbarous punishment which 
 must inevitably follow such revolt. How many Greeks, 
 too, have sacrificed their lives in their devotion to the 
 national cause ? It should be noted, too, that until lately 
 a large majority of Hellenes followed the noble profession 
 of brigandage, a fact which at least shows that neither 
 energy nor audacity are wanting to them. 
 
 True, the Greek as you have him in Pera, is noisy, 
 demonstrative, but more blustering than dangerous; hot- 
 headed, but with a certain instinctive prudence which 
 often serves to calm the ardour of his blood. As to noise
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 213 
 
 and a row, lie loves it ; it is in his temperament. At 
 Easter, bis favourite pastime is to fire off pistols in the 
 streets. Not seldom the weapons used for this purpose are 
 old and rickety, so that accidents more or less serious 
 occur ; hands are blown off', and heads wounded by the 
 bursting of revolver barrels. Every year the nuisance 
 increases ; but for all that the Turkish police have never 
 yet succeeded in putting a stop to it. " The Turks," say 
 the Greeks, " would never dare to hinder us from observing 
 our ancient rites and customs." At midsummer, large bon- 
 fires are lighted in Pera and at Tatavla, and devotees dance 
 merrily above the flames. Indeed, the Greeks delight in 
 dancing and in dance music. On every fete-day (that is to 
 say for three-fourths of the year) you may see them sitting 
 at little tables in some tavern, drinking mastic, or heady, 
 sweet wine from the Archipelago, munching meanwhile 
 their nicze, which consists of an anchovy and a tiny piece of 
 bread, slices of pickled cucumber, caviare, dried fish, or 
 olives. If an organ-grinder or a stray violinist passes, he 
 is at once summoned to play his liveliest stave; the com- 
 pany form a semi-circle, each holding the other's shoulder, 
 and they begin their dance, a sort of quadrille-figure, with 
 wriggling movements ad libitum. One man leads the rest, 
 waving his handkerchief with all the grace of a bayadere, 
 and executing steps that it would puzzle an acrobat to 
 copy ; and all this to the monotonous tunes ground out of 
 lanternas or barrel-organs, which in turn play Turkish, 
 Roumanian or Viennese dances. 
 
 Unlike the Turks, the Greeks have a feeling for harmony 
 and for rhythm. Many of their charming national songs
 
 214 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 they sing in chorus with a great deal of taste. Among the 
 most popular of these we may cite 
 
 Auo TouAaJC/a fn^acn ; Asv fj,s tvt\ii\ Affvp fiffai ffav TO 
 
 The fairest side of the Greek's character is certainly his 
 ardent patriotism. Hear .him speak of his native country ; 
 his whole face lights up ; his eyes sparkle ; and it is plain 
 that for country's sake he is capable of the utmost devotion. 
 In 1886, many young fellows left Constantinople, gave up 
 their appointments and bade farewell to their family in 
 order to go to Athens, enter the army and fight for their 
 country's freedom. This love for fatherland the Greek 
 takes with him everywhere. When he has amassed a 
 fortune in a foreign land, his first thought is for the mother 
 country. He sends thither large sums for building schools 
 and hospitals, for maintaining museums and for the restor- 
 ation. of ancient buildings. He comes to the aid of indigent 
 students and struggling men of letters. Wealthy Greeks will 
 give as much as from two to five hundred thousand francs 
 towards the endowment of a school ; and often such legacies 
 amount to millions. It was thus that the magnificent 
 Zappion College in Pera was built a real palace which 
 has been set apart for the education of girls, a grandiose 
 building with a large staff of mistresses and professors, in 
 fact with nothing wanting to make it an establishment of 
 the very first class. At Constantinople the Greeks have 
 the ficole Pallas, the Lycfe Hellenique, the vast Ecole du 
 Phanar and others. In European Turkey and in Asia 
 Minor there are 1069 elementary schools and 1247 primary 
 schools, all founded by Greeks, while in important centres, 
 colleges of a higher sort exist. Those who would make a
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 215 
 
 special study of this question, ought to read M. Chassiotis' 
 excellent volume, ' L' Instruction Publique en Grece.' One 
 cannot too greatly praise such munificent acts on the part 
 of wealthy Greeks. The merchant, the artisan and the 
 banker after their daily work find leisure in which to dis- 
 cuss educational schemes, to visit establishments, attend 
 examinations and distribute prizes. It was Greece that in 
 1834 made education obligatory throughout the kingdom, 
 thus, in the very year of her birth, setting an example to 
 Europe. 
 
 From such remarks, it will be seen how Greece, with her 
 limited budget, heavy debts, and ill-regulated finance, has 
 yet contrived in so short a time to found universities, 
 schools, libraries, and museums. The Greek delights to 
 enrich and beautify his fatherland, to supply it with the 
 material and intellectual resources necessary to its advance- 
 ment. He loves nothing more than to give it somewhat of 
 its old splendour. Ought not such ardent patriotism as 
 this to win the Greeks pardon for many things 1 
 
 A convincing proof of the great vitality of this people is 
 its power of assimilation. Every foreigner settling in a 
 Greek town soon becomes Greek himself ; he adopts the 
 language, the mien, even the physiognomy of the Greeks. 
 Statistics prove that Bulgars who emigrate to the Greek 
 towns of Asia Minor soon lose their original type and are 
 merged in that of the Greeks. This is more remarkable 
 among Europeans who settle in the East. All the children 
 speak Greek, seemingly without having ever learned it; 
 and those of the third generation have the features, the 
 look, the gesture, the tone of voice of the Greeks. To this 
 force of absorption, add the great fecundity of marriages
 
 216 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 and it will be readily seen that the growth of the nation 
 must be very rapid. A day will come when Greece will 
 play a part diprimo cartello in the settlement of the Eastern 
 question. 
 
 We cannot quit the Greeks of Constantinople without a 
 word or two as to the fair sex. This omission would be all 
 the more unpardonable, as the Greek ladies of Pera and 
 Galata are veritable beauties. Were we the shepherd 
 Paris, we would give them each and every apple at our 
 disposal. In Pera one meets superb heads, proudly set 
 upon bodies that might serve as models for the most perfect 
 statue. If the Armenian be now and again as beautiful, 
 the Greek to our mind surpasses her in expression, in the 
 charm of her glance and of her smile. Like all Levantines, 
 the Greek lady (at least the Greek lady of Pera) is a great 
 coquette ; and she is so fond of finery, smart clothes and 
 jewels, that she would sacrifice far higher pleasures to 
 possess them. To get herself pretty toilettes, she would 
 willingly let her family submit to certain sacrifices, and 
 would deprive them of home comforts if her new bonnet or 
 her new dress were at stake. 
 
 She adores showy, staring gowns that have a super- 
 abundance of trimming, huge bonnets, and dazzling parasols. 
 Seeing her go past with that air of proud conviction, one 
 can easily guess what supreme importance she attaches to 
 all her frippery. She tries to terrify all humble souls into 
 admiration. "It is not she but her toilette that takes the 
 air." Yet she never doubts but that her own personal 
 beauty is worth far more than all its elaborate setting. 
 To such pretentiousness, then, to these constant efforts to 
 elicit admiration, some of the dulness which reigns in the
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 217 
 
 Pera salons is due ; it is the heavy allied to the frivolous. 
 The European, above all the Frenchman, is weary at 
 watching this perpetual procession of demi-goddesses ; and 
 he vaguely regrets the absence of some simpler nymph clad 
 in plain garments, who trips it with light unaffected step. 
 
 To call the Greek woman a coquette, is to call her vain ; 
 and in truth she possesses a good dose of vanity even the 
 humblest. A Greek servant would never deign to carry a 
 parcel. Rather would she lose the best of places with a 
 kind master and good wages than lower herself to such an 
 indignity. We recollect the unfortunate experience of a 
 French lady who soon after her arrival in Pera went out 
 with her maid to buy a cabbage. Until that moment all 
 had gone well ; but when it came to carrying the cabbage, 
 the servant threw up her arms in horror, declaring that 
 she was no common street-porter to carry parcels ! The 
 lady unused to such Oriental touchiness, insisted, where- 
 upon the fair Hellene ran off as fast as possible, leaving 
 the unlucky vegetable in the arms of her mistress, who 
 never again saw the fugitive. 
 
 As we are on the subject of Greek servants, let us here 
 say that their reputation for honesty is none of the highest. 
 Not only are they content with perquisites ; they also take 
 a fancy to articles of dress a handkerchief, a fan, a shawl. 
 Some even make themselves beautiful with their mistress's 
 jewels. O feminine coquetry ! what crimes are not com- 
 mitted in thy name ! The Greek maid servant is garrulous 
 too far more garrulous than any daughter of Eve is 
 ^allowed to be. This may come from the language ; soft, 
 iuent, harmonious as it is, it tempts one to be voluble. If 
 you would have an idea of what the human mouth can 
 achieve, listen to two Greek women telling each other an
 
 218 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 interesting anecdote ; yet may Heaven save you from 
 watching a brace of beldames wrangle ; such a tempest of 
 harsh sounds was never heard ! 
 
 In order to get a just idea of the diapason of these 
 yelling puppets one should walk any evening through the 
 Greek quarters in Smyrna, where one may see all the 
 women outside their house doors, cackling ceaselessly at 
 each other across the street ; magical sounds these to 
 charm a poet's ear at the dreamy twilight hour! Un- 
 willing that our chapter should have so harsh and dis- 
 cordant a final note, let us admire the great tenderness 
 which G reek mothers show towards their children ; let us 
 praise them, too, for their patriotism. In this, they are 
 no whit behind their husbands. Education will doubtless 
 tend to remedy their defects, which for the most part are 
 superficial ones. 
 
 It is from the Greeks, and notably in Pera, that the demi- 
 monde draws its recruits. So developed in that city is the 
 commercial instinct, that one easily comes to regard love as 
 a stepping-stone to lucre. Yet if the morals of Greek shop 
 girls in Constantinople leave something to be desired, tra- 
 vellers are unanimous in praising the chastity of the popula- 
 tions of the Morea, Attica and Thessaly. And yet many of 
 the inhabitants of these districts are only ex-brigands, that 
 from the time of their possessing a national Government, 
 have settled down into being honest fathers of families. Thus 
 the trade of brigandage has been less harmful for the nation 
 than the corrupting life of Constantinople. It is these re- 
 doubtable bandits who have preserved for Greece her 
 traditional honesty and energy, qualities needed for the re- 
 generation of her sons who dwell on Turkish soil, depraved 
 as they are by the corrupt pernicious atmosphere of Pera !
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE JEWS IN TURKEY. RE-EMIGRATION TO PALESTINE. 
 
 SHADY TRICKS PLAYED UPON FOREIGNERS. JEWS WITH 
 
 REAL AND SHAM NOSES. 
 
 THE Jews of the East in nowise resemble those Israelitish 
 bankers, who, with their millions, dazzle the world of 
 London, Paris, and Vienna. An axiom such as this needs 
 no demonstration. They differ greatly even from the 
 middle-class European Jews who make their living by 
 usury on a modest scale. Nor have they anything in 
 common with the handsome Hebrews of Algeria, notable 
 for their stalwart form, resolute bearing, and noble mien. 
 
 The Turkish Jew has something slovenly, greasy, ill- 
 smelling, and unbuttoned about him. Persecuted, trodden 
 down as he has been for centuries, he has a servile, cringing, 
 timid manner. While his co-religionists in the West have 
 grown rich and respectable, he has remained in his poverty, 
 a poverty that is only equalled by his ignorance. Such is 
 the Jew of Constantinople : his appearance is only a trifle 
 less filthy than that of the Jerusalem Jew. This last is a
 
 220 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 sight, with his greasy pelisse and fur cap or soft felt hat, 
 the legendary hat which seems to have reached the East 
 by rolling along through all the drain-pipes of Europe. 
 What gives this modern Hebrew such a comic look are 
 two long tags of hair which droop like limp curlpapers on 
 either side of his face. With young plump-cheeked Jews, 
 these grotesque curls have the colour of barley-sugar, while 
 they hang round the lantern jaws of their seniors like steel 
 corkscrews, framing the huge nose and swart eyebrows 
 that resemble those of some lugubrious punchinello. 
 
 If it be difficult to give an idea of the dirtiness of a 
 Jerusalem Jew, it is quite impossible to describe the 
 squalor of his dwelling-place the very quintessence of 
 filth and fetor. The narrow winding streets reek with 
 offal and ordure of all kinds, exhaling noisome pestilential 
 odours. Not even do the dogs, those public scavengers, 
 venture to come into such streets ; they are too filthy even 
 for them. In some places, piles of muck stand which 
 assuredly date from the time of that good man Job. 
 
 But let us leave Jerusalem where we found it and go 
 back to Constantinople. The Jews are divided into two 
 sects, the Caraites and the Talinudists, two communities 
 that are sharply and effectually separated, first by their 
 diversity of beliefs and then by the Golden Horn, which 
 happily has placed half a kilometer of deep water betwixt 
 them. We say " happily," because these two sects cannot 
 abide each other ; indeed, one would eat the other up, if it 
 could, which proves anyway that they have an excellent 
 appetite and a stomach not easily troubled by trifles. 
 
 There are two colonies of Jews ; those from Spain, who 
 were driven thence by the Inquisition ; and those imported
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 221 
 
 from Eastern Europe, the Achkinazira. The former speak 
 a corrupt sort of Spanish, and the latter, bad German dis- 
 figured by an insufferable accent. The Spanish Jew colony 
 is at Hasskeu'i, while the others live at Balata, on the out- 
 skirts of Stamboul. 
 
 The Constantinople Jew may be termed a jack-of-all- 
 trades, except perhaps of those which need a certain 
 expenditure of physical strength. Above all, he is a pedlar 
 and colporteur. In all the towns of Turkey you will meet 
 him with his basket, or flat, glass-lidded box slung round 
 his neck. If you care to wait and watch them file past, 
 you will see itinerant vendors of every kind of commodity, 
 from fez to slippers, from pots to pencils. Some carry 
 about Persian carpets, brass plates and embroidered shawls, 
 the poorer sort sell old iron and buy empty boxes, while 
 those who are sly and know their market, carry packets of 
 obscene photographs for sale to such as can be tickled by 
 such mental aphrodisiacs. 
 
 Many Jews play the housekeeper ; and such patterns of 
 docility are they, that their incorrigible dirtiness is ex- 
 cused. As bootblacks they also shine, and above all, as 
 disciples of Pandarus. It is they who procure the in- 
 genuous foreigner fair Circassians that have been "reserved" 
 for some Pasha's harem ; it is they who discover some 
 Orient pearl imbedded in a German oyster-shell. It is 
 they who for a few coins of gold would reveal to the in- 
 quisitive even a corner of Mahomed's paradise. 
 
 Under a pretext of conducting the foreigner to beauteous 
 houris, most difficult of access, he is led about for an hour 
 through a maze of narrow, winding streets, and finally 
 brought by dark by-ways to a mysterious abode into which
 
 222 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 he is introduced with all sorts of startling precautions. 
 The house, needless to say, is only a common brothel. And 
 the unfortunate tourist has to pay a hundred or two 
 hundred francs for the same sort of pleasure which only 
 costs the Perote five or ten shillings according to the tariff. 
 
 Indeed, in a case like this, imagination is all. The dirty, 
 dismal room, with its vulgar furniture and petroleum lamp, 
 becomes for the imaginative tourist the boudoir of an 
 Eastern harem. In the rapacious hag who manages this 
 frowsy establishment, he sees a wily duenna whom he must 
 corrupt with gold, and the damsel who unbares her charms 
 to his sight and touch, becomes for him a love-tortured 
 odalisque struggling with all virgin modesty to conquer her 
 reluctance. Be it noted that this sham virgin is always 
 either a Greek or an Armenian girl who wraps a few yards 
 of muslin round her body, from which she has not even 
 removed the hair, as Turkish women always do. The 
 impressionable foreigner, however, ignores this detail, and 
 firmly believes that he clasps in his arms a shrinking, 
 palpitating houri of the truest type. Perhaps, though, he 
 has a moment of distrust and of suspicions when the 
 rapacious hag, as she shows him out, says, " Sir, don't forget 
 auntie ! " 
 
 Not long ago, a Hungarian came to stay at one of the first 
 hotels of Constantinople. Excellent as they are in many 
 points, it is not exactly on the side of modesty that Hungari- 
 ans err. They readily recognise themselves as the first nation 
 in Europe and have profound belief in their extraordinary 
 success with women. So our hero was not a whit surprised 
 at being told by one of the Hebrew guides who haunt such 
 hotels, that his curled moustachios had brought grievous
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 223 
 
 trouble to the heart of a fair Turkish lady of high degree. 
 She solicited a rendezvous. At midnight he must go forth 
 to it, armed to the teeth. Ah ! what a romantic adventure 
 was this fit for the columns of a penny newspaper ! Rain 
 fell in torrents ; the carriage creaked and jolted along 
 down perilous defiles ; it passed through obscure quarters 
 peopled by desperadoes and cut-throats ! (Hasskeu'i, the 
 Jews' quarter, as it was afterwards known). About one 
 o'clock in the morning the intrepid young Don Juan was 
 with great secrecy brought into a lonely house. An old 
 woman rushed to meet the newcomers and began a violent 
 conversation with the guide, her words gaining emphasis by 
 the gestures of terror with which they were accompanied. 
 The dragoman thereupon informed his victim that the 
 Pasha (it could only have been a Pasha) had not gone out as 
 usual that evening ; consequently one must wait until he 
 fell asleep before the fair houri could escape. 
 
 The bold Hungarian deceiver was hidden behind a 
 curtain while fearful fragments of phrases were whispered 
 in his ear, such as: "Fierce Eunuch;" "The Bosphorus 
 is deep ; " " A sack filled with vipers." Then he was left 
 alone in a dark room to meditate upon the dangers incur- 
 red by such Oriental conquests. Having remained in this 
 heroico-comical situation for upwards of an hour, a light 
 appeared, and the fair hanoum entered timidly, all 
 trembling in her gauze drapery which floated round her 
 like a cloud. Needless to say that our hero found a way 
 to dispel the cloud, so winning the reward of all his sacri- 
 fices. Let us hope that the reward was worth them all ; 
 though in all likelihood young Jupiter of the Danube found 
 his Danae of the Bosphorus all too prone to put a
 
 224 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 literal interpretation upon the legend of the shower of 
 gold. 
 
 A few days later he was astonished to see walking past 
 his hotel door a young person conscientiously rouged and 
 powdered, smirking and simpering in a European costume 
 of the loudest type. He could not believe his eyes ; yet 
 they had not deceived him, it was no other than the 
 mysterious odalisque, the Eastern enchantress. How had 
 she fled from the harem ? Why this disguise ? As she 
 went by, she shot a glance from her dark eyes at the hotel, 
 while a smile played round her vermillion lips. Our hero 
 was at a loss what to think, when he noticed that the 
 glance and the smile were directed, not at him, but at the 
 waiter of the hotel. 
 
 "Do you know that person 1 ?" he asked of the waiter, 
 while vainly trying to check his heart-throbs. 
 
 " Oh ! yes, I know her well enough, and others that are 
 like her too. She is an Armenian girl, and lives with 
 Madame Rosa. Don't you trust her, sir ; the guides often 
 make her play the Turkish woman to take in foreigners ; 
 but, if you care about it, I can get her for you for a 
 medjidie." 
 
 O poetry of Oriental love ! Thou, likewise, are naught 
 but an illusion : like poetry, like love, like the East ! 
 
 As stage managers of such little comedies as these, the 
 Jew excels ; we might call him the stage manager of 
 International Mystery Plays. He will sell anything and 
 everything, if he can only find somebody to buy ; he is 
 completely blind to the dishonourable nature of certain 
 transactions. If asked to execute a commission of the 
 most immoral sort, he willingly accepts, provided the price
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 225 
 
 of his services be duly fixed. In his eyes, any act is a fair 
 and honest one, if only the payment for it be fair and 
 honest too. 
 
 A friend told me that during the first weeks of his stay 
 in Pera he was nightly pestered by gangs of Jews who 
 importuned him with their indecent proposals. "Would 
 the Baron like to be introduced to a Circassian, a Greek or 
 an Armenian girl 1 " For the Jew, every foreigner is a 
 Baron ; it is a title exquisitely flattering to the dignity of 
 commercial travellers and wholesale shopkeepers, and when 
 a man is flattered, he is always more generous; noblesse 
 oblige. Well, this friend, from sheer curiosity, if not from 
 the devil within him, let one of these Jews take him to a 
 Turkish beauty who, unfortunately for her, knew no other 
 Oriental language but Italian. But there was no possi- 
 bility of retreat ; the Rubicon had been crossed. When it 
 came to paying the price of the entertainment, our friend 
 let a ten paras piece (equivalent to one half-penny) fall on 
 the floor. Next day at dawn, he found the Jew standing 
 at the door of his hotel with the missing coin in his hand. 
 
 "It was not worth while troubling about," said the 
 master to his virtuous servant. 
 
 " Nay, but the Baron does not know me," answered the 
 latter, drawing himself up to his full height. "I never 
 keep money except that which I have honestly earned." 
 
 He said this in all sincerity, for the profession of pander 
 has nothing low or degrading about it for Jews. A father 
 destines his son at quite an early age for this lucrative 
 trade. So, at night one may see the big sharks walking 
 with the little sharks, the former being vastly proud of the 
 prowess of their offspring.
 
 226 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 Jewesses have quite as much talent for this sort of busi- 
 ness as their sires. In waters where the shark swims, the 
 naiads, too, disport themselves. In the East, it is a 
 recognised fact that no young and lovely Jewess ever resists 
 a serenade, to the obbligato accompaniment of louis d'or. If 
 her virtue be dear to her, dearer yet shall she prove for her 
 seducers. 
 
 Despite his humble, obsequious air, despite the elastic 
 nature of his conscience, the Jew at heart keeps all the 
 rigour of his religious beliefs, and shows a stubborn attach- 
 ment to the traditions of his race. It is rare for a Jew to 
 become a convert ; indeed, a Hebrew is quite as great a 
 fanatic as a Mussulman. But his zeal is stifled, gagged by 
 fear ; if he hates the Christian much, he dreads him yet 
 more. His intolerance is limited to breaking crosses 
 where none can see him, to throwing filth at night time 
 outside the doors of churches, or to parodying Catholic 
 ceremonies in his own home. 
 
 Such pitiable acts of mimicry and spite should not cause 
 surprise, remembering, as one must, what awful, atrocious 
 persecutions the Jews had to suffer for centuries. Outlaws, 
 beggars, and treated like the worst of criminals, they had 
 hardly the right to live and possess a family or a home. It 
 was the grand inquisitors and their most Christian majesties 
 of Europe who trampled on the Jewish race and made it 
 vile. And to-day in many countries such odious persecution 
 exists. There are towns where Jews are pursued with 
 sticks and stones, and where they would be hung if the 
 authorities did not interfere. In Roumania, the people 
 demand the expulsion of the Jews ; at Pesth we ourselves 
 saw the populace assail them with stones ; and in Russia,
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 227 
 
 the ignorant peasantry are for burning them all at the 
 stake. We Frenchmen can hardly realize such abominable 
 cruelty ; and it is a great honour for our nation to have set 
 Jews upon the same footing as that of other citizens. 
 What a difference, too, between the Paris Jews and those 
 of other cities or countries ! So used are we to exercise 
 religious tolerance that we make no difference between a 
 Jew, a Catholic or a Calvinist. The title of Frenchman 
 supersedes all others ; and we no more bear a grudge 
 against a man because he is an Israelite than because 
 he has red hair, or no hair at all. Why should we be put 
 out at all by such simple qualificatory adjectives 1 
 
 On the contrary, in certain countries, the Jews are in 
 such disfavour, and so implacably harrassed, that they 
 occasionally pretend to be of another religion. I have 
 known Germans, Viennese, Servs, who for eight or ten 
 years acted a diurnal comedy so as not to confess themselves 
 to be sons of Moses. In Hungary the hostility to Hebrews 
 is so great, that it has had a political result which was 
 quite unexpected. Can it be believed that, in this 
 country which boasts, not without a reason, of its liberal 
 ideas, the Chamber of Lords should have refused to estab- 
 lish the validity of civil marriage ! It fears in this way to 
 allow wealthy Israelites to wed Christian maidens of good 
 family. And at the present time, marriages in Hungary 
 are as much the monopoly of the clergy as they were in the 
 eighteenth century. In face, then, of such persistent and 
 implacable hostility, the Jews have thought it politic to 
 abandon their distinctive surnames. So farewell to such 
 names as Levy, Aaron, Goldstein, Kaufmann, Solomon, 
 etc. They now adopt Hungarian surnames of the most
 
 228 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 irreproachable sort, with a true Christian ring about them. 
 Some have even made modifications in their national 
 character. They pretend to be openhanded and generous, 
 lend money without interest, give princely pourboires, and 
 "lash out their silver penny" like any lord. But such 
 prodigality as this is all a sham, a take-in ; scratch but 
 these Moacenas of stucco and you will find the Hebrew 
 with his shameless greed. Do what he may, the Jew will 
 ever be betrayed by two things : the nose and the eye ; the 
 nose with its hooked shape like the beak of a bird of prey, 
 and the eye with its oblique look, a sort of double ray, a 
 ray which looks and a ray which seems to look. Since the 
 recent persecutions which have taken place in Russia, 
 Austria, Hungary, Germany and Roumania, many Jews 
 have emigrated, seeking an asylum of refuge in the cradle 
 of their race, at Palestine, Jerusalem, Jaffa and elsewhere. 
 
 No one can deny to the Jew his intelligence and finesse ; 
 lie has veritable genius for trade, above all, for trade in 
 precious metals. He is gentle, obsequious, and courteous 
 towards the fair sex. Pride of family is in him strongly 
 developed ; but his most praiseworthy trait is his devotion 
 to his co-religionists. Despite his cupidity, he is charitable 
 and readily loosens his purse-strings when the poor and 
 infirm of his race need succour. He will make great 
 sacrifices, too, if schools or benevolent establishments have 
 to be maintained. The rich thus constantly aid the poor, 
 and thus put into practice the most Utopian teachings of 
 the socialists. 
 
 The Jewish community of Constantinople, despite its 
 feeble resources, is the best administered and the best 
 regulated of all the " nations " which dwell in this vast
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 2 29 
 
 city. The Hebrew colony has the best schools and the 
 most active and energetic philanthropic associations. 
 
 Such results are in a great measure due to the Alliance 
 Israelite Universelle, an admirable institution, which not 
 only carries out its charitable programme, but which like- 
 wise undertakes the more difficult task of the regeneration 
 of the race. In the entire Levant, in Egypt, in Algeria, 
 and Morocco, the Alliance has rendered signal service. At 
 Constantinople it has started French and German schools, 
 the teachers in these being earnest, hard-working enthu- 
 siasts. Each establishment is kept up by the wealthiest 
 members of the Jewish colony, who subscribe handsome 
 sums for their maintenance. At Jaffa, the Alliance has 
 founded a practical school of agriculture, which to emigrant 
 Jews will prove a most valuable institution. For, if the 
 Hebrew rarely tills the earth, that is not to say that he is 
 incapable of turning agriculturist. The truth is, that for 
 many centuries he has never been suffered to possess in 
 safety the lands that were his. Shut out, too, from trade 
 corporations, he has mainly devoted himself to usury, to 
 traffic with money. But recent examples permit one to 
 affirm that the latter-day Hebrews, descendants of the old 
 shepherds of Judah, will know well how to turn to account 
 this fair land of Canaan, which Turkish negligence has 
 suffered to lie fallow. The olive, vine, fig, nut, and banana 
 all nourish in Palestine ; so, too, does the sugar cane, while 
 the orange trees rival those of Cyprus and Algiers. 
 
 We have just spoken of a nation that is dispersed ; and 
 to these remarks let us add a few words concerning another 
 wandering race well-known in the East, the gipsies or 
 Tchinganes, as the Turks call them. They are mostly of
 
 230 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 low stature but well-formed, and their attitudes at times 
 are of surprising grace. They have intelligent faces, full 
 of spirit and vivacity, and the women in their youth may 
 claim to be called pretty. But both sexes live in a state 
 of extreme dirtiness ; their cottages are no more than filthy 
 huts built with broken planks, and patched up with rags or 
 paper. Here men and animals live in the most extra- 
 ordinarily promiscuous fashion. The inner circle of the 
 walls of Stamboul is decorated by rows of such squalid 
 hovels, which makes one think how exquisitely apt is the 
 Eastern motto that meets the eye on every wall and at 
 every turn Commit no nuisance, etc. . . . 
 
 The gipsies are, above all things, horsemongers, letting 
 out horses for hire in the public streets. Everywhere you 
 may see them leading their proudly caparisoned chargers, 
 and touting for clients in the most noisy and persistent 
 fashion. The horses are good beasts, gentle and sure- 
 footed as a rule ; but perpetual riding ruins them, and they 
 are but the wrecks of what were once serviceable mounts. 
 They are always saddled and bridled, by night as by day, 
 and occasionally they sleep standing at a street corner. 
 Twice daily they are fed on a few handfuls of chopped 
 straw, and sometimes they get a little barley. Hay is a 
 luxury unknown to them. One should not forget that at 
 Constantinople carriages can only pass through a few of 
 the main streets, so that one is often obliged to have 
 recourse to these poor, jaded quadrupeds. The Tchinganes 
 treat their beasts kindly, and delight to dress them up with 
 ornaments of glass or amulets stuck on their harness. 
 
 The women sell lavender and herbs ; they tell fortunes ; 
 sing ; clap their hands, and beat the tambourine. Some of
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 231 
 
 them dance in the manner of Egyptian dancing girls, and 
 their most sprightly sign of satisfaction at your liberality, 
 is to stick the piastres you give them on to their foreheads 
 or their throats with spittle. They ask nothing better 
 than to sell their charms for cash ; and at a most moderate 
 rate, too. I remember hearing a pretty gipsy girl tell an 
 old Turk, who was pestering her on the Karakeuy Bridge, 
 " I am game ; only, if you go with me, as I am pretty, 
 you'll have to give me a hundred paras (about eightpence). 
 The line rose to my lips : Ces files de Bolieme ont le cceur 
 genereux ! Generous, indeed ; for what will they not give 
 you for eightpence 1 
 
 The race shows no sign of possessing religious beliefs. 
 Each tribe recognises the authority of a chief whose power 
 appears to be absolute. Children get no education what- 
 ever, but learn to beg as soon as they can walk ; when they 
 grow older, they add yet other accomplishments, such as 
 the adroit theft of fruit from orchards or of pullets from 
 farm -yards. Take them all in all, they are marauders, 
 unpleasant, disagreeable if you will, but not dangerous 
 criminals. Then, in a picture, how effective they are !
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE LEVANTINES ; OR THE WEST IN THE EAST. THE BOARDS OF 
 GREEN CLOTH IN PERA. STUCCO FINANCE AND PASTE- 
 BOARD ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 HITHERTO we have spoken of the purely Eastern elements 
 of the Constantinople population. We now pass on to deal 
 with imported races, with nationalities not of pure metal 
 but that contain alloy. These are the European colonies, 
 formerly classed under the generic name of Franks ; hence 
 the appellation "Frankish quarter," "Frankish time/' 
 " Frankish style," etc. 
 
 Besides the two main elements, Oriental and European, 
 there is a third element, the Levantine. One is not yet 
 agreed as to the exact application of the name. We are, 
 however, of opinion that the term Levantine should be 
 given to everyone born of a European family that is resi- 
 dent and definitely settled in the East. 
 
 The Levantine is proud of his European descent, and 
 would not for the world have you confound him with the 
 Greeks and Armenians, whom he calls " natives." As re- 
 gards himself, it would be rather difficult to define his
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 233 
 
 origin. Many claim a sort of approximate descent from 
 old Italian, French, Hungarian and Slav families. As we 
 have already said, they all more or less do things as the 
 Greeks do ; and Greek is the language that they speak at 
 home among themselves. But in public they talk French, 
 that being the language of the best society. 
 
 The inhabitants of Pera, Perotes as they are called, are, 
 generally speaking, Levantines. The rest of the population 
 consists of Greeks, Armenians, and Europeans who are not 
 yet Orientalised. The Levantine it is who gives the tone 
 to the others and who controls the manners of this com- 
 posite troupe. 
 
 He has the qualities and the defects of the different 
 nations amid whom he lives ; nor in many respects does he 
 differ from the inhabitants of a small provincial town. He 
 poses, is affected and very vain ; his mind is small and his 
 judgment, narrow ; he treats trifles as if they were matters 
 of importance, and is wholly indifferent to things of the 
 utmost beauty. Thus Pera is like a little provincial town, 
 with all its prejudice, ignorance, inquisitiveness and 
 spite. 
 
 Though there are perhaps fifty or sixty thousand inhabi- 
 tants in Pera and its suburbs, " Perote society," so called, 
 only counts some thousand or twelve hundred persons. 
 This limited body takes upon itself to be a faithful reflex of 
 European manners and customs as they exist on the banks 
 of the Bosphorus. The Levantine is full of pretensions, 
 and gives himself tremendous airs. Disdaining the servility 
 of the Greek or the Armenian, he affects on the other hand 
 an air of boorish presumption which he believes to be 
 dignity. For this reason he is little beloved by the
 
 234 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 " natives," while to bona-fide Europeans he is simply in- 
 sufferable. 
 
 To keep up this part of a superior being, and in order to 
 play it satisfactorily, he has to have recourse to false swagger, 
 and to trying to impress others with a sense of his quality. 
 In a land like this, where all is deception and counterfeit, 
 the great art of dust-throwing must never be neglected. 
 So he flings dust audaciously in the eyes of all, and invents 
 stories that might even astonish a horse-marine. The high 
 opinion he has of his own importance as a European makes 
 him fashion's slave. If caught doing or wearing something 
 not quite c/tic, he would be covered with confusion. And 
 so the Pera dandy is a third-rate imitation of the Paris 
 dandy ; just as ridiculous, though not nearly so well- 
 dressed. Tailors who know their clients' weakness, make 
 them pay tremendous prices for their smart clothes, which 
 are rarely well-cut and usually of shoddy. All the same, 
 the prices charged are those of the best Paris or London 
 tailor. If they had a turn for French verse-making, they 
 could rhyme Pera with opera, never omitting the most 
 important rhyme of all : paiera. 
 
 In this petty Oriental city, just as in the meanest of 
 provincial towns, folk spend their time in criticising each 
 other and in saying all sorts of spiteful things. Towards 
 anyone who essays to get beyond the usual dead level, no 
 pity is shown, but there is rejoicing over one sinner that 
 slips lower in the mud, as his fall sets the mediocrity of the 
 others in relief, and seems to raise them somewhat in their 
 own esteem. Every man would deem his day lost, unless 
 ere night came he had been able to backbite somebody ; 
 and a Perote lady's main occupation consists in collecting,
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 235 
 
 sorting, and repeating the spiteful speeches of her friends. 
 Most of this drawing-room twaddle is very poor stuff ; void 
 of point or of wit ; the chatter of raidwives or of washer- 
 women ; just as vulgar and just as dull. That comes from 
 the astounding poverty of ideas, which is the natural result 
 of the Levantine's profound ignorance. In his youth, he 
 may have had an entirely superficial education, an education 
 soon cut short, and from which he got very little profit. 
 His stock-in-trade consists mainly of a smattering of modern 
 languages at which he is fluent enough, though he has 
 never read any standard authors, either French Italian or 
 German. And his talk has the ring of a manual of con- 
 versation about it, a sort of Ollendorffian grace : 
 
 " Have you the fine hat of your worthy brother ] " 
 
 " No ; but I have seen the pretty hammer of the aged 
 carpenter." 
 
 The Levantine takes little or no interest in reading ; 
 high-toned local journals and reviews do not exist ; and at 
 soirees or parties one rarely or never meets a distinguished 
 artist, a man of learning or of letters. The theatre is still 
 in a rudimentary state. Occasionally Italian or French 
 companies come to Pera to play in opera or in opera-boufie. 
 They never attempt high comedy that section of dramatic 
 art which most develops the mental faculties and refines 
 the taste. 
 
 This intellectual ^poverty of the Perote causes him to care 
 little about education or its uses ; a professor, in his eyes, 
 is a tradesman like anybody else ; more exacting maybe, 
 than the baker ; less dear, though, than the tailor. If he 
 wants to praise exuberantly, he will never say : " He is a 
 man of great talent," but exclaim with enthusiasm, " I have
 
 236 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 seen him spend as much as ten pounds in one day ! " To 
 all finer pleasures of the mind he is callous, as well as to 
 any in which he can have no part. I would strongly advise 
 no lecturer to try his fortune in such a place as Pera. Even 
 the greatest artists, a Rubinstein or a Sarasate would find 
 it hard to give a concert and make it pay, unless they were 
 backed up by their respective embassies, when Her Excel- 
 lency Madame this or that would send round tickets for the 
 entertainment, and everybody would fear to affront her by 
 refusing to buy them. 
 
 In Pera, the man of title is an article highly appreciated, 
 even though he have neither hair nor teeth. Levantines 
 doat upon crests and coats of arms. This is the place to 
 send a complete stock of seedy baronets and ^third-rate 
 lords ; on the heights above the Golden Horn they would 
 be eagerly welcomed by smiling lips and radiant eyes. 
 "Viscount Slopperton has just been here." "We went 
 out driving with the Marchioness of Muddlepate ! " " Lord 
 Lucifer Linnethead is coming to dinner ! " What music 
 resides in phrases such as these ! How they act like a balm ; 
 delicious words that are a joy to utter ! Besides their 
 success socially, these young noblemen stand a good chanco 
 of wedding some wealthy Levantine damsel, who is willing 
 to regild their tarnished coat of arms with some of the 
 gold supplied by her dear, vulgar, wealthy papa. 
 
 In the East, the romance of every day that yet awaits 
 the novelist is the romance that tells how the father of the 
 family came to Turkey without shoes to his feet and witli 
 scarcely a rag to his back. He started life there by carry- 
 ing on all sorts of petty trades until he could manage to 
 traffic in filthy lucre also ; in fact, until he could turn
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 237 
 
 usurer. At this trade he made a pretty fortune. The 
 dream of his eldest daughter is to be a countess, and, if 
 possible, a marchioness. Money she has got ; it is not 
 that which tempts her ; it is a name, a title. Always 
 remember that she has no ancestors. She has a father, it 
 is true, but a father cannot count as an ancestor ; at the 
 most he is the beginner of a pedigree. 
 
 Often alas ! in society like this, at once lax and in- 
 tolerant, sham noblemen, stucco counts, and aluminium 
 dukes get a place. But what does that matter? Who 
 cares to dispute their right to the titles they bear, or to 
 examine their patents of nobility 1 
 
 "Come to my arms, my noble son-in-law ! " 
 
 What comes, then, from such marriages, where shady 
 finance weds bric-a-brac nobility 1 The bridegroom lets his 
 wife cover herself from top to toe with coats of arms, and 
 put huge coronets on all the plates and chairs, while he is 
 delighted at being able to lead his old life of spendthrift 
 and gambler. To do things on a grand scale is rather 
 difficult in Pera, though all there is in keeping with the 
 rest. No race courses ; no ballet girls of the Grand Opera, 
 no Cafe de la Paix ; no Restaurant des Ambassadeurs : 
 nothing of that sort ; but there are always the girls who 
 sing at music-halls to be debauched, or orgies to be held in 
 any cheap brothel. If pleasure of this kind be somewhat 
 vulgar, there is the board of green cloth, and by gambling 
 one may go to the devil just as fast as ever one likes. 
 
 Pera, be it known, is filled with gambling hells. In the 
 Grand' Rue, the centre street of the whole town, there are 
 some twenty or thirty roulette tables. Sometimes you find 
 three or four in a row. The proprietors are wary enough
 
 238 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 and know how to keep their little business dark. The 
 ground-floors of such houses are occupied by shops of the 
 most respectable sort ; the rooms above are let to worthy 
 lodgers ; but there is one little apartment somewhere at 
 the back which is lived in by Mr X or by Madame Z. 
 Most evenings, he or she entertains a few friends ; and 
 anyone is a friend, if he have but a few pounds in. his 
 pocket and know the password. In such mysterious 
 sanctuaries, worshippers assemble to adore the goddess 
 Roulette, whose high priests are Baccarat and Poker. No 
 fear of the police, for the domicile of Europeans is sacred 
 and inviolable. 
 
 Moreover, the Turkish authorities would never try to 
 put down the private hells, since they tolerate the public 
 ones. Go into any music-hall, you will see five or six 
 gloomy-looking individuals drinking mastic or beer, and 
 listening to the lugubrious wailing of some lugubrious lady, 
 styled in the bills " Marquise de P and whose repu- 
 tation is as threadbare as her voice. How can such 
 establishments pay, you ask, for the executants are more 
 numerous than the executed ? Evidently this is a problem 
 not to be solved at first sight. But it is a very simple pro- 
 blem. If you glance round the hall you will discover a 
 little door against which in silhouette is seen a man, who 
 looks the very type of a spy. Go boldly through it and 
 you will join a crowd of people standing round a roulette- 
 table. People of all classes and all nationalities are there; 
 and with haggard faces and bloodshot eyes they stop in this 
 stifling, tobacco-poisoned atmosphere till dawn, when they 
 drink a plevna or two, just to settle their nerves before 
 going to bed. A plevna is a mixture of vermouth, rum, and
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 239 
 
 lemon juice ; in default of this delightful drink, they swallow 
 the yolk of an egg in a glassful of curacjoa. It is the 
 roulette that pays for the violinists and all their twingle- 
 twangle in the outer or concert room. Music is the pre- 
 text, while gambling is the reason, for such temples of sound. 
 The orchestra is a bore sometimes, and the big drum often 
 shakes the nerves of some more sensitive gambler. If one 
 could but have music-halls without any music, how delight- 
 ful that \vould be ! 
 
 One beerseller, both intelligent and thrifty, was content 
 to place an old cracked piano in his tavern ; and he engaged 
 a man for modest wage to thump upon it all night without 
 ceasing. He thereupon styled himself impresario, and 
 wrote over the door of his beer-shop " Concert Lyrique." 
 Then he added a roulette-table ; and the trick was done. 
 An ingenious way, this, of paying for the hire of his piano, 
 was it not 1 
 
 The police respects all these pickpockets, and the Govern- 
 ment alone in order to show its solicitude and regard for its 
 Ottoman subjects forbids all wearers of the fez to enter 
 these temples of vice. Nevertheless this protective measure 
 is no more respected than others of its kind. Turks come 
 in to listen to the music, thrust their fez into their pocket 
 and walk bareheaded into the gambling-room. But they 
 must above all things beware of a big moustachioed long- 
 shanked fellow, dressed sometimes like a gendarme and 
 sometimes like a civilian or a cavalry-sergeant. He is put 
 there to spy upon such naughty Turkish officials as wander 
 from the paths of virtue and stray into these dens of vice. 
 Next day he recommends them to the tender mercies of 
 His Highness the Grand Vizier.
 
 240 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 Besides these hells, public and private, there are clubs, 
 both respectable and expensive, where the gathering of 
 gamers is more select, and where the play is higher. We 
 know of a club in Pera whose members many of them 
 live entirely by their luck at poker and baccarat. They 
 make as much as fifteen hundred and two thousand a year. 
 An enterprising person has used the bright idea of asking 
 for the Turkish Government's permission to make a Monte 
 Carlo of one of the Princes' Islands, which is situated at 
 about an hour's distance from Constantinople. The island 
 itself is a charming one ; the climate is salubrious ; there 
 are pleasant walks and drives, and it is perhaps destined 
 to become the Monaco of European Turkey. Many pretty 
 villas have already been built there, and even a few 
 paltry casinos. When Constantinople shall be connected 
 by express train with Pesth, Vienna, Berlin, and Peters- 
 burg, we shall see Greeks and Wallachians, Russians and 
 Hungarians flocking to this Eden in the sea. It would be 
 a clever idea to draw them thither by a gambling estab- 
 lishment, which should replace Spa, Homburg and Baden 
 when Western prudery suppresses these centres of iniquity. 
 
 The Turkish Government so far has refused to let itself 
 be seduced, despite the millions held out to dazzle its eyes. 
 The ulemas have declared gambling to be immoral, but they 
 have not counted upon the omnipotent influence of bak- 
 sheesh which will, sooner or later, one day serve to silence 
 the scruples of the older Mussulmans. "Let the Christians 
 ruin themselves if they will ! " 
 
 The Levantine who has grown rich by usury or by shady 
 tricks of some sort, has no very tender conscience. If he 
 is pitiless as regards the little absurdities of his associates,
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 241 
 
 he is most indulgent as regards their acts of well, let us 
 say, of indelicacy. He has the true spirit of the financier 
 who will never forgive a trifling error of two francs, but 
 who witli gaping mouth will frankly admire a regular good 
 fraud to the tune of two hundred thousand francs. 
 
 A father of a family, a retired banker and a millionaire, 
 learns that his son has run heavily into debt. This consti- 
 tutes the primary cause of his displeasure. But there is 
 something worse still. The degenerate son, in order to 
 satisfy his rapacious creditors borrows money at the rate of 
 forty per cent. At this, the righteous father and quondam 
 banker feels thoroughly indignant. He sends for the 
 young prodigal and ends his lecture thus : " At all events, 
 if you're such a fool as to borrow money at the rate of forty 
 per cent, you might go for choice to your father instead of 
 filling the pockets of some harpy of a Jew ! " 
 
 One can imagine how the young Levantines, brought up 
 on such theories turn out. Ignorant and vain, they lead a 
 life of vulgar debauchery, a life in which there is neither 
 illusion for the senses nor gaiety for the heart, a life void 
 of originality as of wit ; while their notion of squandering 
 is to fling sovereigns out of the window in handfuls, as if to 
 proclaim the fact that money was no object. Levantine 
 families bitterly complain that the young men desert the 
 circles of good society, that marriages become every day 
 more rare, that matches once made always prove unfortu- 
 nate. But have they ever troubled to train their children 
 carefully, to give them ideas and tastes that might serve to 
 raise and refine them intellectually 1 Far from it. They 
 have only dinned this axiom into their ears. "All can be 
 done by money ; thus all must be done to get money." 
 Q
 
 242 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 Again, does the young Levantine woman do anything 
 towards keeping her husband at home 1 Her ruling passion 
 is dress, to which she sacrifices all. When she walks out 
 she is loaded with jewels and lace. At home, she disdains 
 to dress herself neatly, or even decently. She looks as 
 though she had just jumped out of bed. Everything 
 dangles and droops about her ; her touzled, unkempt hair ; 
 her flabby, pendulous breasts, her half fastened skirts and 
 slippers down at heel ; it all suggests a weeping willow ! 
 So she spends her day curled up on a divan which fits into 
 a bow-window overlooking the street. Now and again she 
 sips a cup of coffee, nibbles at a bon-bon or drinks a glass 
 of water, smoking all the while countless cigarettes. In 
 reading she takes no interest whatever ; she knows nothing 
 about new books or new journals of fashion ; needle- work 
 or fancy-work fatigues her ; and the house-keeping is left 
 entirely to the servants. If friends come, they help her to 
 kill time with their empty, frivolous talk, for they can 
 neither converse about theatres, concerts, novels, nor 
 sermons ; so they have to drag on their dreary gossip 
 about trifles, and get up an interest in the price of toma- 
 toes or the size of a flounce. How to kill time ; a 
 Levantine's whole life is given up to solving that problem ! 
 Such a hollow, artificial existence as this cannot fail to 
 blunt the mind. Life becomes a series of half-worries and 
 half-pleasures while, from a material point of view, it does 
 not even offer the compensation of a comfortable home. 
 To satisfy her craving for dress, the young wife denies to 
 her house a thousand necessaries. The furniture is either 
 scanty or in a most shabby state, while the table is ill- 
 appointed and ill-kept. If, some Sunday, you should meet
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 243 
 
 two shopkeepers with their wives, examine their get-up ; 
 and you are sure to find that the husband has seedy linen 
 and shoddy clothes. The young Levantine wife however, 
 displays a profusion of rings and bracelets, while large 
 brilliants dangle from her ears. 
 
 Mean, vicious, selfish as he is, the Levantine is incapable 
 of doing aught towards reviving or regenerating the East. 
 He is powerless to effect progress of any kind ; and to the 
 decay that surrounds him he is totally indifferent. He is 
 quite happy in that he has given to his neighbourhood a 
 coat of European whitewash ; he believes that, therewith, 
 he has transformed Turkey ; and he will willingly call Pera. 
 " a miniature Paris."
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 EUROPEANS IN PERA. "THE PENITENTIARY COLONIES. 
 
 WOES OP THE PERA LANDLORD. WHY THE EUROPEAN 
 
 CONTINGENT IS REDUCED. 
 
 WHY do Europeans visit the East 1 What do they come 
 to do there 1 Many things. Some (the more fortunate, 
 these) travel thither to visit this matchless land and spend 
 a fortnight of enchantment in mosques and bazaars, in 
 floating up and down the lovely Bosphorus and in studying 
 Asiatic types and costumes. If chance favour them, they 
 may even be able to penetrate into one or two of the mar- 
 vellous palaces which for the public are always difficult of 
 access. Then they depart, enraptured with their stay, 
 declaring that the East is the most beautiful part of God's 
 world and that the inhabitants of Constantinople are far 
 too richly favoured in being able to inhabit such a paradise. 
 Their sole cause for regret is that they have been disgrace- 
 fully fleeced ; and they furthermore admit that, after two 
 weeks' stay, they have not yet managed to understand the 
 intricacies of Turkish time and Turkish money. These
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 245 
 
 favourites of fortune have been able to realise their day 
 dreams. Let us have regard for their happiness. For 
 them, the East is still an earthly paradise. 
 
 Other Europeans there are who came to Pera to try 
 their luck at a time when Turkey still had wealth and 
 vitality. To this class belong merchants, contractors, 
 teachers, professors, and petty tradesmen. Many of them 
 have succeeded in " making their pile " ; but the good time 
 has gone for doing that, now ; and they bitterly regret it. 
 They grumble at the stagnant state of business, at the 
 general decay of the country, at the villainous administra- 
 tion of those in office, at the dishonesty of native creditors. 
 In brief, they heap a thousand curses upon the East, and 
 upon themselves, for having had the unlucky idea of 
 coming thither. For them, the East is nothing short of 
 Purgatory. 
 
 Finally, there is a more numerous, more restless class of 
 Europeans. These are they who made their own country 
 too hot to hold them, either by theft, by fraudulent 
 bankruptcy, or by some flagrant outrage upon public 
 morals. They all came to Constantinople without a penny 
 in their pockets, and plunge into this cosmopolitan rabble, 
 to hide themselves and get their living there. For such 
 people as these, the East becomes Hell. 
 
 Among such strange types, one meets bigamists, triga- 
 mists, men of ambition who have failed, decayed sons of 
 decayed families, political refugees, unfrocked priests, 
 gentlemen too light of finger for Europe, deserters, 
 adventurers, and ruined merchants. Pell-mell, one en- 
 counters honourable men who have come to grief, and 
 impudent rogues. The former try to hide their misery,
 
 246 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 the latter, their degradation. All alike are in search of 
 their daily beefsteak ; and nearly all, be it said, succeed in 
 obtaining it. For if living for the tourist be extremely 
 dear, for the resident it is astonishingly cheap. " With just 
 a few piastres, a man can pay for his wants of the day. 
 He can get a furnished room for ten or twelve shillings a 
 month, and a fairly decent dinner for ninepence. 
 
 But, be it noted, if one can live in Turkey with a little 
 money, that little money is hard to earn in a country where 
 industry and agriculture do not exist ; where there are no 
 public works, where commerce and banking remain concen- 
 trated in the hands of Armenians and Greeks. Since the 
 great smash, everyone cuts down his expenses, reduces the 
 staff of his servants or of his clerks, and hermetically seals 
 his purse. What is the poor devil of a European to do, see- 
 ing that he knows neither Greek nor Turkish 1 It needs all 
 his fertility of resource and his unwearying activity to pull 
 him along. Perhaps he sets up as a house agent or furni- 
 ture broker for new comers ; perhaps he will take to selling 
 European goods, wines, sausages or cheese ; perhaps he will 
 give lessons in sciences, languages or arts, of which very 
 likely he himself is ignorant. But above all, he will learn 
 how to put into practice those rules from the Grand Money 
 Lender's Manual. In no city has the game of " Beggar 
 my Neighbour " reached such a pitch of perfection. There 
 are people who live in Pera that for years have never 
 possessed so much as a five-franc piece on which there was 
 no mortgage. Wonderful is their instinct for borrowing 
 from Peter to pay Paul ; and they have brought the prin- 
 ciple of the divisability of credit to its highest possible 
 pitch.
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 247 
 
 Always be on your guard if you go out into the street. 
 In ten minutes or so you will meet a friend more or less 
 known to you who overwhelms you with professions of his 
 friendship and attachment. Button up your pockets, for 
 this explosion of cordiality is aimed at your purse. Should 
 you seem unmoved by this gushing prelude, he will re- 
 double the warmth of his avowals, reducing at the same 
 time the amount of his demand. I once met a species of 
 German baron, frightfully hard up, who, after having tried 
 to borrow the loan of ten pounds from me, was eventually 
 content to accept the loan of ten paras, or one halfpenny, 
 wherewith to cross the Bridge of Stamboul. Others, less 
 ambitious, will try, in default of getting money out of you, 
 to make you offer them wine. With exquisite pleasantry 
 they will take up the bottle in front of you and pour them- 
 selves out a bumper. At my table d'hote, a facetious chubby- 
 faced Styrian used to play the game of gallantly draining 
 the glass of his fair neighbour ! 
 
 Pera then has its Bohemia, full of recruits drawn from 
 the Bohemias of all the other countries. One may see 
 them any evening playing their game of dominoes, while the 
 luckless tavern-keeper gloomily tots up the sums due to him 
 by his faithful customers. All these needy cosmopolitans, 
 with a shady past and a misty future, never fail to pick 
 each other to pieces with mutual energy. There is no 
 sense of compatriotism which binds them together ; but 
 each wishes to adorn his brows with a halo of purity, and 
 to relegate the rest to the category of reprobates. "Such 
 a person is a dangerous swindler." " That man there is a 
 bad lot; he lives with his niece!" "This fellow is a spy 
 in the pay of the police ! " If a discussion is started, you
 
 248 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 see the disputants draw revolvers from their pockets ; but 
 the business rarely gets beyond a brawl followed by mutual 
 head-punchings, after which those present declare honour to 
 have been satisfied ; and everybody is turned out of doors. 
 
 A malicious old fogey once called the European colonies 
 in Pera, " the penitentiary colonies." The term was not 
 quite a just one, for often in this heterogeneous centre 
 there are more of the sinned against to be found than of the 
 sinning. But the miseries of daily life bring all to the 
 same level of selfishness and malice. 
 
 What draws all these pariahs of society to Constantinople 
 is the great liberty which all foreigners enjoy in Turkey. 
 The European's domicile is sacred ; though he be thief or 
 assassin, the police dare not enter his house without proper 
 authorisation from the consul empowered to give it. If 
 anyone is arrested by the police, he can at once appeal to 
 his ambassador to release him. There are no duties and no 
 taxes to pay in Turkey, neither to the treasury nor to the 
 municipality. Do you wish to start a business or open a 
 shop 1 You need no authorisation to do this ; there are no 
 patents, no licenses. The Government does not busy itself 
 about you, provided you do not busy yourself about it. 
 
 If you take legal proceedings, the case is heard before 
 your consular tribunal, and you are judged according to the 
 laws of your own country. Your consul becomes at once 
 your judge, your notary, your lawyer and your mayor. 
 And thus the European in the East is a redoubtable per- 
 sonage ; in everything he has the advantage over the native. 
 They dub him playfully chaj)kale adam, the man with the 
 hat ; but it is the hat that now takes the lead of the fez. 
 
 The European has his postal and telegraph offices, his
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 249 
 
 quarter is lighted by gas and has all modern European im- 
 provements such as an underground tunnel to connect 
 Galata with Pera, tramways from Galata to Chichli, etc., 
 etc. He has also the simulacra of amusements ; nowhere 
 else would he enjoy such independence. He has even the 
 privilege of not paying his rent, for a clause, all too chari- 
 table, in Ottoman law forbids a landlord to expel his 
 insolvent lodgers. If the lodger does not pay, the land- 
 lord begs him to be so kind as to go ; he will even pay him 
 a premium in order to induce him to quit the premises. 
 Sometimes he will push his unselfishness to the point of 
 hiring another apartment, and of asking him to occupy it. 
 This law, which for debtors is such a godsend, gives rise 
 occasionally to most curious incidents. 
 
 A European, who owned a large house near the Anglican 
 Church, had let the ground-floor of it to certain of his 
 compatriots ; and they soon deemed it wholly unnecessary 
 to pay their rent. The landlord used every means to make 
 his imperturbable tenants quit the premises, but these 
 worthy folk declared that the apartments suited them 
 literally down to the ground, and that they really intended 
 to stay. So the situation remained for some weeks, when 
 the rabid landlord believed that he had hit upon a trick 
 that should rid him of the intruders. Profiting one Sunday 
 by their absence in the country, he put a padlock on the 
 door of the apartment, and nailed boards across the 
 windows and shutters. The lodgers, on their return, gave 
 vent to demoniacal rage, declaring that their youngest 
 daughter, a tender girl of five summers, had been bar- 
 barously shut up in the apartment ! Though difficult to 
 believe, this was actually the case. The landlord hastened
 
 250 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 to set his youthful prisoner free ; but too late. The family 
 had attested the presence of the little girl in one of the 
 barricaded rooms, and accordingly sued the landlord for 
 damages at the Consular Court. And, would you believe 
 it ? the poor man, who had met with scant luck all round, 
 was sentenced to a year's imprisonment for the " sequestra- 
 tion of a minor " ! 
 
 Landlords have thus grown extremely prudent, and 
 candidates for lodgings have to find a kefil, or security for 
 their solvability and good conduct, who will declare them 
 to be honest lodgers. Naturally, no one is in a hurry to 
 go bail in this way, and a thousand reasons are found for 
 shirking such responsibility, so that newcomers often 
 cannot get a roof to shelter them for weeks together. 
 
 Another anecdote. A venerable doctor was bothered by 
 his hall porter and by the wife of this functionary who 
 discharged the important duties of cook. The recalcitrant 
 couple lived in the porter's lodge, and this lodge, as it 
 seems, was a charmingly airy place. The doctor, exas- 
 perated, determined to drive the guilty pair from their 
 earthly paradise. But, more sly than their ancestors 
 Adain and Eve, the porter and his spouse refused to go. 
 They affectionately declared that they could never leave so 
 good a master nor abandon so excellent a lodge. The 
 knowing doctor had to resort to stratagem, and having by 
 some pretext lured them out of the house, he installed 
 their successors in their absence. Imagine what a furious 
 quartet was later performed by this pair of Boxes and 
 Coxes ! Indeed, the police found it so moving, that they 
 had to interfere. 
 
 The deplorable state of business in Turkey and the in-
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 251 
 
 
 
 creasing number of failures have singularly reduced the 
 European contingent. Many needy adventurers, finding 
 no occupation, have returned to their mother country. On 
 the other hand, those nababs who came to Turkey at the 
 propitious moment now desert it. Certain colonies, and 
 notably the French colony, have diminished by a half or 
 two-thirds. These departures have been one of the causes 
 of the famous smash ; they were also brought about by fear 
 of the acts of horrible cruelty which the Turks would com- 
 mit when the day came of their final fall. Already in the 
 last war, when the Russians reached San Stefano, the 
 Europeans of Constantinople were all in mortal fear. It 
 was everywhere rumoured that the Mussulmans intended 
 to massacre the Christians and these latter fled from Pera 
 to hide themselves in the neighbouring villages, principally 
 in such places as were near the Russian army. The same 
 feai-s prevail to-day, and all is to be dreaded from the 
 ferocity of the Osmanli on that day when he sees Constan- 
 tinople escape for ever from his grasp. 
 
 Fears such as these are not puerile ; and they ought to 
 be taken into consideration by the Great Powers who have 
 assumed the task of settling the painful Eastern question. 
 We know for a fact that in the last war, certain young 
 Turkish patriots had resolved to blow up St Sophia, the 
 moment the Czar's army entered the streets of Stamboul. 
 Others purposed to set fire to the whole city, most of which 
 is built of wood, and so renew for Muscovites the hoiTors 
 of the burning of Moscow. Xor let us forget that, from a 
 Mussulman point of view, the strangling of infidels is a 
 pious work, and a sure means of gaining a place in heaven. 
 
 These are hypotheses which deserve attention. They
 
 252 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 fix a fearful responsibility upon that nation or, on those 
 nations who shall succeed in laying hands upon this worm- 
 eaten Byzantium. To protect the lives of Christians in the 
 East ; to preserve the masterpieces of Byzantine art ; what 
 a hazardous mission is this for a conqueror ! May the 
 future spare us a repetition, on the banks of the Bosphorus, 
 of the infamous bombardment of Alexandria. 
 
 Let us turn our thoughts, however, from the future to 
 the present. It is not only the apprehension of a coming 
 catastrophe which causes Europeans to leave Constantinople. 
 What discourages them is the ill-will of the authorities, 
 with their insufferable exactions and their stubborn 
 opposition to all progress. To those vices of the Turks, the 
 faults have to be added of the Europeans themselves who 
 can neither unite nor concert together to make an opening 
 in the inert masses. It is this which we shall endeavour 
 to show by a study of the two chief colonies of the East, 
 the German and the French. To you, Messieurs les Teutons, 
 I cede the place of honour !
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 PROGRESS OF GERMANY IN THE EAST. GENERALS AND 
 
 MINISTERIAL COUNCILLORS. GERMAN SOCIETY AND 
 
 GERMAN SOCIETIES. 
 
 GERMAN influence in the East only dates from the year 
 1870; it sprang from our trouble and disaster. Turkey, 
 which feels herself impotent and threatened, has ever been 
 in search of a power in Europe upon which she might lean. 
 She had for long sought and enjoyed the friendship of 
 France, and of this I think she could have had little to 
 complain. When our ambassador spoke, all Turkey gave 
 ear to his voice. If he paid a visit to the Sultan, the 
 whole town was in a stir; the papers were filled with 
 details of the event and comment was rife concerning it. 
 Our country, it may justly be said, held a privileged 
 position in the East. 
 
 But all has changed since then. Turkish statesmen 
 thought that France after so many grievous disasters would 
 prove a less powerful protectress than heretofore. Ger- 
 many had acquired the military preponderance in Europe ;
 
 254 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 so they unhesitatingly turned their back upon former 
 alliances, and flung themselves into the arms of the con- 
 queror. It was as a consequence of this conversion that 
 the Sublime Porte began to Germanise its official world. 
 Thus, by a series of sad calamities and unpardonable errors, 
 Germany supplanted us in the administration of Ottoman 
 affairs, just as to-day England expels half the French 
 officials and instals ill-bred children in their vacant chairs ! 
 
 Turkey asked Prussia to supply her with officers; for 
 she thought that her army, if re-organised by instructors 
 with their laurels yet thick about them, would surely 
 become invincible. Perhaps, too, she naively cherished some 
 secret hope of a Turco-German alliance against the eternal 
 enemy, Russia. We have already explained what those 
 reasons were which hindered the Prussian envoys from 
 succeeding in their mission. It was the Porte itself, which 
 after soliciting their aid, did all it could to paralyse their 
 efforts. They were suffered to do nothing ; and yet to-day 
 their inactivity is made the subject of bitter reproach. 
 
 The same thing has occurred in matters civil. The Porte 
 begged Monsieur de Bismarck to send councillors (musle- 
 chars) for the different branches of administration. Their 
 duties corresponded to those of our under-secretaries of State. 
 These mustechars were appointed some to the Finance 
 Department, others to the War Office, the Public Works' 
 Department, the Agriculture, Trade, and Customs' Depart- 
 ments, etc. Their salaries varied from thirty thousand to 
 forty thousand francs. Some of these officials, by extra 
 jobs here and there, managed to raise the sum total of 
 their emoluments to the modest one of fifty and sixty 
 thousand francs. Besides that, they were literally crammed
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 255 
 
 with honours, blinded with decorations, set in brilliants, 
 stuffed with precious stones ; their wives and daughters 
 were decorated, and never knew the reason why ; in a 
 word, they were overwhelmed with dignities ; but everyone 
 took good care not to follow their advice. 
 
 This wretched German mission is like a new Cassandra, 
 nunquam exaudita Turds ! 
 
 When first entering upon their duties, these conscientious 
 Germans took their task to heart. They sought to check 
 abuses, and improve the service. They wrote report after 
 report, presented projects of reform, cut down budgets 
 and straightened accounts. For all this, they were warmly 
 thanked, but further than that they never got. They were 
 soon forced to abandon their illusions, and let their zeal 
 grow cool. They became aware that the Turks did not 
 wish to do anything. Seeing that the Sleeping Beauty in 
 the Wood absolutely declined to be awakened, they found 
 it most expedient to slumber in their turn. They threw 
 aside all their first desires for progress, and were content 
 with " the trivial round, the common task " of every day, 
 which, without yawning over-much, they managed to fulfil. 
 The Imperial Ottoman Bank pays them regularly on the 
 30th of every month ; what more can they want 1 They 
 become resigned, like tutors, to whose care a stupid, 
 obstinate child is confided. 
 
 Such mustechars as hoped to win a position of eminence 
 in their own country, abandoned their appointments in the 
 Turkish service as soon as their contract had expired. 
 One of the most able of them wrote lately that "the happiest 
 day of his life was that on which he left Constantinople ! " 
 For a man of worth, to draw a big salary is not all ; he has
 
 256 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 a task to accomplish, a duty which he desires honourably 
 to discharge ; and he chafes at being reduced to impotence, 
 and at having, as it were, to "mark time " in a marsh. 
 
 Besides these higher officials, Prussia has sent many 
 others of less importance to Turkey ; posts have mostly 
 been created just for these good gentlemen to fill, all of 
 them being paid three or four times as much as a native. 
 There is moreover this important difference, that the native 
 never gets his pay, while the German is protected by a con- 
 tract which ensures regularity. If there were any hitch, 
 any delay, Berlin would grumble ; and Stamboul would 
 hasten to make amends in double quick time. In a word, 
 Prussia has started a factory in Constantinople where 
 Turkish officials are made to order ; and she even agrees to 
 take back such employes as have ceased to be serviceable or 
 satisfactory. 
 
 This was the primary cause which brought about the 
 development of German influence in the East. The second 
 cause has been the energetic support given by the Berlin 
 Government to its trades and industries so as to allow them 
 to compete with rival nations in foreign markets. Admir- 
 ation was not wanting for the excellent organisation of the 
 German army and strategic genius of its generals in the 
 campaign of 1870 and 1871. But, as it seems to us, one 
 ought equally to admire the foresight and the strategy with 
 which Germany has carried on a commercial and economic 
 war against us for fourteen years. Praise of this sort may 
 seem surprising when given by a Frenchman ; but it seems 
 childish to me wantonly to disparage one's adversaries, or 
 to refuse to recognise their ability. 
 
 It is not by patriotic howls or rhetorical bursts of indig-
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 257 
 
 nation that we shall re-establish our lost supremacy. It is 
 by studying, every hour and every minute, those elements 
 which constituted Germany's success, and by perpetually 
 meditating upon the means to do better still. Nothing is 
 more irritating nor more grotesque than these Kermesse of 
 brawling patriots, whose programme consists of threatening 
 their enemies from afar, and of loudly swearing, when 
 liquor is within them, that they will die for their country ! 
 This sort of subscription dinner trumpeting has already 
 become ridiculous in France ; abroad, it brings us into dis- 
 credit and serves to tarnish our reputation for taste and for 
 good sense. 
 
 We would rather see societies formed in Paris and other 
 great commercial centres whose business it should be to 
 support our merchants and industrial houses against 
 German competition, and which should devise the most 
 efficacious means for developing the exportation of our 
 home products. Look at what is happening on the other 
 side of the Rhine. In Prussia, as in other countries the 
 metal trades have reached a most dangerous crisis. Mines 
 have had to stop working, while others are'at a loss how to 
 get rid of their stock on hand. Under these circumstances 
 fifty four artisans, mechanics, engineers, contractors and 
 manufacturers of agricultural and industrial implements 
 agreed to form a society to be called "The German Union." 
 The scope of this society is to discover new outlets in 
 foreign markets, and to determine the price at which the 
 Union should produce articles, so as to supplant such firms 
 as hitherto possessed the monopoly. The society is accur- 
 ately posted in all that goes on, or is discovered, in the 
 world of commerce ; it studies all proposals for concessions, 
 R
 
 258 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 and all tenders for contracts. It sends specialists to 
 countries where it seems likely that business can be 
 ferreted out. 
 
 Two or three years ago, a German engineer went through 
 the whole of Asiatic Turkey in this way, on a voyage of 
 commercial discovery, He travelled from town to town, 
 examining all produce that he saw on his route, making 
 enquiries as to its origin and market value, studying means 
 of transport, noting such articles as were wanting to the 
 inhabitants, copying the designs, forms, and colours 
 affected by the natives, etc. He then furnished the Berlin 
 Ministry of Commerce with most valuable information 
 which should help the latter to organise a German In- 
 dustrial Army, destined to conquer these vast domains. 
 
 In this way German manufacturers soon became award 
 that the Turk, who is always short of money, looks out 
 first of all for what is cheap ; the quality of the article 
 matters little to him. He is not concerned as to its 
 solidity or durability, if only the colour and the design be 
 to his taste, and if only he have not to spend too much 
 money at a time. While French manufacturers make a 
 rule only to export stuffs of fine quality that will not wear 
 out, the Germans have set about manufacturing a sort of 
 shoddy that they can sell at an incredibly low price. We 
 have seen and touched with our hands patterns of cloth for 
 trousers at thirty-six marks the dozen, thus at three shillings 
 the pair. The Berlinese, the Viennese know that the 
 Oriental only buys shoddy, so they send him extra fine 
 shoddy, the cheapness of which defies all competition. 
 They also are willing to give five and six months' credit. 
 To get possession of the market is their great aim ; they
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 2^9 
 
 copy Eastern designs, and give their stuffs that brilliant 
 colour dear to the dwellers in the land of the sun, but 
 which, alas ! will not resist the burning caresses of that 
 planet. Meanwhile the French manufacturer grows indig- 
 nant at such a prostitution of industry, and declares that 
 he will never disgrace his trade mark by turning out such 
 so-called "qualities." True, the Germans have found a 
 way to avoid compromising themselves. They stamp on 
 stuffs such as no manufacturer would dare to own as his, 
 confection de Paris ; thus they reap the profit while escap- 
 ing all the discredit. It is in this disgraceful way that we 
 have lost our trade in sugar, in candles, cloths, ironmongery, 
 etc. 
 
 " The German Union " lately made applications to the 
 Porte with a view to obtain the concession for a railway 
 from Damascus to Saint Jean d'Acre. At first there 
 would seem to be nothing in this, but the enterprise 
 really concealed a very dangerous trap laid for us. 
 Damascus is in Syria ; and Syria has for long been opened 
 to French influence. The inhabitants of the Lebanon 
 district really believe themselves to be under our protec- 
 torate. Even in the heart of the country, French is 
 spoken; and preference is given to articles of French 
 make. At a sign from France, the Arab, Christian, and 
 even the Mussulman tribes would rise as one man and 
 expel the Turks for whom they cherish strong aversion. 
 A French company built the road, some 112 kilometres in 
 length, which connects Damascus with Beyrout ; it also 
 organised a transport service that has no rival in the East, 
 and which is in all respects as serviceable as a railway. 
 Seven convoys, each comprising some thirteen or fourteen
 
 260 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 covered vans circulate daily between the two towns, while 
 two diligences take travellers along the route in ten hours, 
 thanks to the excellent management which provides 
 eleven relays of horses. A great part of the caravan traffic 
 has thus passed into the hands of the Company ; and it 
 has to-day at its disposal some eight hundred horses and 
 mules, all in excellent condition. The port of Beyrout, 
 the starting point of this line, is altogether a French town ; 
 it has sixty silk mills, all owned by Frenchmen, while many 
 of their compatriots make exquisite wine in the Lebanon 
 and anti-Lebanon districts, for which in Egypt there is 
 already a demand. This pretty city of Beyrout, which 
 sixty years ago had a population of thirty thousand, has 
 now nearly a hundred thousand. 
 
 What is it that " The German Union " proposes to do ? 
 It proposes to draw all the commerce of Damascus towards 
 Saint Jean D'Acre, into that corner of Judaea where the 
 German element is already represented by five flourishing 
 colonies. By this means, it can establish its preponderance 
 along the entire valley of the Jordan, open a route towards 
 the banks of the Euphrates, eclipse French influence in the 
 capital of Syria, ruin the transport company between 
 Damascus and Beyrout, while robbing the last named port 
 of two-thirds of its importance. Happily the Porte did not 
 accept the demand for concession, or rather happily, it laid 
 down the prohibitive condition that no European should be 
 employed either for the construction or for the working of 
 the line. Imagine a line of railway constructed by Turkish 
 engineers ! The bare idea gives one a shudder. 
 
 There you have one instance. A hundred others could 
 easily be cited that might exhibit the wary, calculating
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 261 
 
 obstinacy with which the Berlin Government aims at plant- 
 ing its influence in all points of the globe. We mentioned 
 the German colonies in Palestine ; let us say a few words 
 about these. It must be admitted that they are excel- 
 lently organised. To see them thus prosperous and 
 flourishing, \ve sadly remembered those poor Alsatian 
 villages that we had seen in Algeria ; all the inhabitants 
 had deserted them the houses were falling to ruins ; the 
 fields had become transformed to marshes ; and the fruit 
 trees in the orchard became wild again. To discover the 
 causes of such wreck would take us too far at present ; and 
 we wish to remain in Turkey. 
 
 German colonies are established at Khaifa, at the foot of 
 Mount Carmel, at Nazareth, at Sarona, at Jerusalem, and 
 at Jaffa. The Prussian Government has also applied for 
 permission to form another in the important town of 
 Horns, on the line which is to connect the Euphrates 
 Valley with the Port of Tripoli. Mr Verney Lovett 
 Cameron tells us that at this point the natural traffic 
 routes cross, that which follows the course of the Orontes 
 and the transversal route which joins the Mediterranean 
 to the Oasis of Palmyra and to the Euphrates by the 
 Valley of Xahr-el-Kebir. These colonies consist of some 
 five or six hundred persons, recruited in such fashion as to 
 represent all trades. There are carpenters, blacksmiths, 
 saddlers, and masons, who are of service, not only to the 
 colony, but to all the surrounding villages. Each family 
 has a pretty house built of stone, covered with tiles, and 
 surrounded by a charming little garden. In the centre 
 stand the church, the school-house, a meeting-hall, and a 
 hotel for travellers. The leading member of the colony
 
 262 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 lives in his own elegantly-appointed villa. There are also 
 mills, beer-houses, and store-rooms. Some of these minia 
 ture principalities have their own special mint; and coins 
 thus struck enjoy the same circulation as Turkish money. 
 
 These little villages, so inoffensive in appearance, are 
 really fortresses of a pacific sort, which Germany is busily 
 constructing in this part of the world. When the time 
 for doing so comes, they will permit her to make the 
 interests of her sons a plea for interfering in the affairs of 
 the country. By degrees, these agricultural cities encroach 
 upon their neighbours. At Mount Carmel they took 
 possession of lands belonging to the famous monastery 
 there. The monks made appeal, but the Turkish tribunals, 
 full of deference for Germany, reduced the land owned by 
 the Carmelites to a strip measuring 40 pics (or 30 metres) 
 round the convent. This may be cited as a good example 
 of judicial joking. But in Turkey, judgments of this sort 
 are pronounced daily. 
 
 The great force of the Germans lies in their solidarity, 
 and in their sense of union. It is these qualities which 
 enable them to fonn centres of Teutonism in all quarters of 
 the globe. Wherever Germans meet, they organise associa- 
 tions, or corporations, or societies. The first have mainly 
 a commercial or an industrial scope ; the second carry out 
 an idea either philosophical or patriotic ; the third are 
 chiefly choral, gymnastic, or tourist societies. Let us 
 suppose that in an Oriental town there are twenty 
 Germans. They begin by hiring some place where they 
 can meet at evening, with their families, to drink beer, 
 smoko their pipes, and read the papers. The words, with 
 their families, are significant ; for, in our opinion, it is just
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 263 
 
 this condition which gives vitality to such societies. When 
 the colony becomes more numerous, it constructs a separate 
 building, the cost of this being defrayed by subscription ; 
 it starts a musical society, organises concerts, dances, and 
 theatrical performances. 
 
 The other colonies also attempt to start clubs, and 
 libraries, but it is always the men who profit by such 
 institutions, for women consider themselves too delicate to 
 frequent halls where smoking goes on. What happens 
 then 1 While the husband is at the club, what do his wife 
 and daughter do in a strange city where the art of culti- 
 vating acquaintance is far from a desirable one 1 They 
 bore themselves to death, abuse the club, and use all their 
 diplomacy to keep papa" at home. 
 
 The Germans again find no pleasure in meeting unless 
 they can bring their families with them. Every night, at 
 the society's hall, the men chat and smoke, drink and play, 
 while the women work, and for the children there are 
 amusements as well. If there be a choral society, the 
 young men and young women have a chance of making 
 each other's acquaintance ; and such meetings, under their 
 parents' eyes, often result in happy marriages and in 
 keeping amorous Teutons out of mischief. 
 
 Why do the other colonies not succeed in organising 
 such centres of re-union 1 The reasons are various. Im- 
 primis, the German still maintains all the first ardour of 
 his enthusiasm for German unity. He is enchanted with 
 the idea of now belonging to a great people, and he supports 
 with patriotic zeal all institutions which give expression to 
 the national sentiment. Let but the hour of disillusion 
 arrive ; let but the germs of jealousy bring forth their fruit ;
 
 264 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 and all this solidarity will collapse and be as gall and 
 wormwood. 
 
 Among Germans who emigrate abroad there is little 
 rivalry, little jealousy, all being uniformly poor. They 
 understand the need there is for mutual support and for 
 having a common fund, fed by their modest resources, 
 which shall give them such amusements as they best 
 delight in, music, dancing, and dinners alfresco. At such 
 gatherings there are no expenses as regards dress, for 
 nobody wants to deceive or to dazzle his or her neighbour. 
 The expenditure is limited, and arrangements are all 
 made with a strict regard to economy. Beer, the in- 
 dispensable element at such soirees, is always to be had 
 cheap, while German cooking does not pretend to be 
 elaborate. 
 
 In the other European colonies, fortunes are less equal ; 
 there are always certain families who aspire to take the 
 lead. Some women want to set the fashion in smart dress, 
 and to make their pretty frocks a pattern for the rest to 
 copy, while others aim at bearing off the palm for coquetry. 
 If some society, say, the Pera Ladies' Curl-Paper Society, 
 tries to organise a fete, it takes the proportions of a great 
 event. New dresses are needed, and a sumptuous buffet, 
 and flowers on the staircase. To drink beer seems mean ; 
 one cannot do without champagne ; and heaven knows what 
 Pera champagne is at ten francs a bottle! Under such 
 conditions the principle of association, instead of realising 
 an economy, becomes nothing more than a supplement to 
 expenditure and luxury. The husband complains of such 
 extra expense ; but his wife has always got this ans\\er 
 ready : " I had rather not go, if I am to look ridiculous ! "
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 265 
 
 By degrees the members of the Society drop away, and it 
 slowly dies a natural death. 
 
 There are not more than five hundred or six hundred 
 Germans in Constantinople. Despite this limited number, 
 they have managed to start several associations or Verein. 
 First on the list comes the Teutonia, which has excellent 
 premises, though somewhat badly situated. The establish- 
 ment includes a large hall with a gallery that serves as 
 theatre or concert-room, a library, a card-room, a billiard- 
 room, a bowling gallery, a restaurant, etc. The Teutonia 
 is a home for musical societies, the principal of which is the 
 Choryesangverein. Here, and perhaps only here, one can 
 listen to good choral music well performed. In winter, the 
 choirs and bands execute symphonies and oratorios with 
 remarkable skill ; and it would really seem as if music, 
 usually massacred in Pera, had sought refuge in the arms 
 of the German colony. 
 
 Besides harbouring such musical societies, the Teutonia 
 forms the head-quarters of the German Turnverein or 
 Gymnastic Society, the Excursion League and others. This 
 League, on all Sundays in summer, organises excursion-trips 
 to the country. A steamer is hired and the whole colony 
 takes part in a picnic held at some charming point on the 
 banks of the Bosphorus or the Sea of Marmora. Under 
 immemorial plane trees, dancing and games go on to the 
 sound of music, which is never absent at such festivals, 
 while at evening the company return, singing as they float 
 back to Pera in the brown dusk some of those tender, 
 simple lieder, full of grave, moving harmony. Such excur- 
 sions cost little, while they do much to bind the colony 
 together by sentiments of self-respect and of good- will. In
 
 266 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 summer, too, there are special school treats, when the 
 German ambassador throws open the charming grounds of 
 his summer residence at Therapia to all the children and, 
 with his wife and daughters, presides at the revels of all 
 these rosy, flaxen-haired kinder. Such a holiday is surely 
 one of the prettiest sights of the year. 
 
 While enumerating the German societies of Constanti- 
 nople, we shall not omit to mention the Mutual Help 
 Societies, the Charitable Associations and others. Like 
 those of other nations, the colony has a fine hospital, 
 beautifully situated. In all Eastern towns we shall find 
 that the Germans possess similar institutions. At Athens, 
 there is the Philadelphia ; at Beyrout, they have a German 
 club next door to the only comfortable biergarten in the 
 town. Strange that in a city like Beyrout, wholly French, 
 there should not be a single coffee-house where one might 
 read a Paris paper ! There is a Deutscherverein at Alex- 
 andria ; at Jerusalem, a scientific society, a charitable 
 association, etc., etc. 
 
 Do not let us infer from these facts that the German 
 people stands first as a colonising nation. Far from it. 
 In character, it is too heavy, in temperament, too dense, 
 ever easily to adapt itself to its surroundings. The 
 German hewn out of one block, is not malleable ; he finds 
 it difficult to alter the habits of his youth. Under a burn- 
 ing sky, he will still wear his heavy ill-fitting clothes and 
 soft felt hat. He cannot give up his coarse, solid food, nor 
 restrain himself from imbibing a most respectable quantity 
 of beer. His mind is not of the inventive, unravelling sort, 
 like that of the Frenchman. Give a Parisian ouvrier a 
 piece of no matter what, and it will astonish you to see
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 267 
 
 what he can make out of it. The German can only do 
 what he has been taught to do ; and this work he will begin 
 every day with the same fidelity and the same care. 
 
 The difficulty of the language is also a great obstacle to 
 the expansion of German influence. Oriental peoples have 
 an unconquerable dislike to a grammar so complicated and 
 to constructions so tedious and involved, whose philosophical 
 disposition they are powerless to master. French and 
 Italian, on the other hand, with their clearness and pre- 
 cision, or English, with its simplicity, suit them better. 
 The Turkish Government used formerly to send its young 
 men to France to complete their studies in our schools. 
 But for the last four years it persists in despatching them 
 to Germany. Evidently this is a very queer notion, since 
 agriculture as practised in bleak, sandy Germany can have 
 no sort of connection with the produce of southern countries 
 and the hot climate of Asia Minor. But, above all things, 
 an act of condescension had to be performed towards M. 
 de Bismarck ! Such a piece of nonsense has, however, had 
 the reward it deserved. Young Turks have never yet been 
 able to master the German language sufficiently to allow 
 them to profit by the lessons of their professors. 
 
 On the other hand, it is amusing to notice how all the 
 Prussians, who are in the Turkish service, have had first 
 of all to make a thorough study of the French grammar, 
 and to have it literally at their fingers' ends. It is in this 
 language that they give their instructions, draw up their 
 reports, and communicate with native officials. 
 
 The Berlin Government naturally makes great efforts to 
 alter this state of things. The study of German is now 
 obligatory in all Turkish military schools. Moreover, two
 
 268 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 years ago, the Council of Ministers, in order to show its 
 willingness to comply with the desires of Prussia, was for 
 abolishing the teaching of French in second-class schools 
 throughout the Empire, and meant to substitute for this a 
 course of German. That would have been a great mis- 
 fortune for France, and the certain ruin of French 
 influence in the East ! But this measure luckily met with 
 such difficulties in its application that the Grand Vizier, 
 fervent adorer, as he is, of the Iron Chancellor, was obliged 
 to defer the exhibition of such base flattery. Such an 
 attempt is, however, none the less important as a sign of 
 the psychological state of Turkey, though no one in 
 France, as we believe, gave the incident the attention that 
 it deserved.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE FRENCH IX THE EAST. 
 
 IF French influence in Constantinople has waned since 
 1870, it is not alone to our military disasters that this is 
 due. We have also been the victims of a series of disagree- 
 able events upon which it is here useless to enlarge. 
 
 I have no mind to re-echo the complaints formulated by 
 our countrymen against recent ambassadors in Constanti- 
 nople, imagining as I do, that these ministers were in every 
 whit as able and as experienced as their predecessors. 
 How comes it then that the part played by them, has for 
 some years become such an insignificant one 1 From Paris, 
 not from Byzantium, we must look for the answer. 
 
 This want of authority is the result of the shifting, 
 incoherent state of French home policy. How many times 
 in fifteen years, has there not been a change of Ministry 1 
 which is equivalent to asking : how many times have we 
 not changed our policy 1 Whatever politician manages to 
 lay hold of a morocco portfolio deems it his bounden duty 
 to carry out a whole set of brand-new diplomatic pro-
 
 270 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 grammes. Says he : "I am not like any other Minister. 
 I bring you personal ideas as to international policy, as to 
 necessary alliances, as to the European equilibrium. Try 
 them ; taste them and see. If they don't do you any good, 
 they will only cost you a few millions which you will pay 
 without a murmur." The Minister collapses with his pro- 
 gramme. Another replaces him who is imbued with but 
 one idea, viz., to demolish all that his predecessor had 
 begun, and to burn all that he adored. Such a right-about- 
 face as this is of course perfectly logical. " My illustrious 
 predecessor," says he, with a faint smile, " submitted his 
 programme to you ; but you upset the programme and you 
 upset him. To-day the papers spue him out of their mouth, 
 and call him an ill-starred idiotic old woman. Thus, his 
 programme must have been a bad programme ; and we 
 must adopt another one. I cannot say that mine will be 
 better ; but at any rate it will not cost you less." 
 
 When, at home, all is thus in a state of chronic uncer- 
 tainty, what part can an ambassador play ? If he asserts 
 himself one day, to-morrow he may have to eat his words, 
 modify his attitude and save his false position by effecting 
 a precipitate retreat. This is diplomacy in the knitting 
 style ; drop one stitch ; pick up two, etc. 
 
 Besides this perpetual diplomatic jugglery, the unfortu- 
 nate plenipotentiary has to keep upon good terms with the 
 new Minister of the Quai d'Orsay. He must enter into 
 his policy and try to tag it on to that cut short by the out- 
 going Minister when the zeal of the Chamber shall have 
 eaten him up. Now, the only thing that impresses Orientals 
 (as well those nearer home as those in the far, far East) is 
 the expression of will, of a will energetic, firm, inflexible.
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 271 
 
 So long as the Turks believe that they see the faintest 
 chance of changing, they will avoid giving a plain, down- 
 right answer ; they will drag matters on, opposing all 
 attempts to arrive at a solution by a system of studied 
 indolence. If, on the other hand, a European Power should 
 show that its resolution were firm, and that nothing could 
 shake it, the Turk would then begin to reason sensibly, 
 seriously, and consent to the concessions needed. 
 
 What has done France most harm in international 
 debates has been the want of firm political will. Her 
 representatives are listened to in an absent sort of way, 
 because they only represent an authority that is weak and 
 unstable. Let us say in passing, that if Gambetta won so 
 considerable an influence in Europe, it was because he 
 possessed that persevering, indomitable will and that 
 personal energy which achieve the triumph of ideas. To- 
 day, in 1888, if two Germans meet, the more facetious of 
 them never fails to ask the other : 
 " Have you heard the news 1 " 
 "What news?" 
 " The great news ? " 
 " Why, what is it ? " 
 
 " Oh ! Gambetta is dead ! " Whereupon the two burst 
 into one of those loud guffaws of Teutonic laughter which 
 would seem to have been invented to scare away sparrows 
 from cherry-trees. Note that this witticism, full as it is 
 of Germanic salt, is repeated every day, for years. We 
 ourselves have heard it five hundred times ; and it always 
 obtains the same success. The elephantine joke only proves 
 with what serious fears Gambetta inspired the Teutons. 
 His death procured them a relief so great that they have
 
 272 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 not yet recovered from it ; it lingers, like the after-effect 
 of a nightmare. For the Germans knew well that Gam- 
 betta had political ideas of his own, and that he was strong 
 enough to make such ideas prevail. 
 
 Every time there is a change of Ministry in Paris, you 
 hear foreigners say to each other with a petulant air : 
 "But what on earth do those French want 1 ? Can they 
 never manage to keep quiet? Do they still want to be 
 brought to their senses'?" And then the Berlin barrel- 
 organ grinds out its old tunes about Heavenly punishment 
 and the providential mission of Uhlans. 
 
 To such petty impertinences, our parliamentary orators 
 reply with sonorous speeches that doubtless charm their 
 electors, tickle the national vanity, and double the sales of 
 the evening newspapers. But while such phenomenal 
 bursts of eloquence electrify listeners, other nations are at 
 work, steadily getting possession of the lands which we 
 abandon to them. In France, unfortunately, we always 
 take grasshoppers for ants ! Europe having abandoned us 
 in 1870, we contracted the dangerous habit of no longer 
 busying ourselves about Europe. Our short-sighted poli- 
 ticians think the universe is enclosed between the Seine 
 and the Marne ; and that the four cardinal points of the 
 Globe are Saint-Denis, Saint-Germain, Vincennes, and 
 Montrouge. This indifference to international questions is 
 not solely the result of an excess of vanity ; it also results 
 from an excess of ignorance. How many, think you, of 
 the hundred provincial lawyers who govern us have ever 
 visited foreign countries? And how many know enough 
 English or German to read the Berlin, London and Vienna 
 papers? These departmental lanterns, who serve well
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 273 
 
 enough to light up their own parish steeple, prove 
 absolutely worthless when it conies to illuminating the 
 vast theatre of European politics. 
 
 We no longer possess those generations of statesmen 
 who, from their youth up, had been trained in the 
 diplomatic world. When they came into power, they had 
 already the advantage of personal relationship with the 
 great leaders of each State. I remember that M. Albert 
 Sorel, in one of his remarkable lectures at the j&cole des 
 Sciences Politiques, told us : " The diplomatic world is a 
 world apart, which has its traditions, its exigencies, its 
 morals. The men of this world are mutually acquainted 
 with each other, and distinctions of nationality have, for 
 them, little importance. When a Congress is held, they 
 meet like old colleagues ; each knowing his neighbour's 
 strong and weak points. It is a world, both inaccessible 
 and exclusive, where newcomers, neophytes, are always 
 heard with courtesy, but rarely with attention." This 
 observation may perhaps explain why many of our most 
 gifted and distinguished men have failed pitiably in their 
 diplomatic missions. 
 
 Almost the same thing might be said as regards our 
 consular agents. They are, all of them, most friendly, 
 obliging, and courteous, but their education has been too 
 literary, too worldly a one ; and not practical enough. 
 They mainly care for the political, administrative, and 
 judicial attributes of their office ; its commercial side is 
 little to their taste. To many, indeed, the most rudimentary 
 scientific knowledge is wanting. They could neither 
 classify a mineral, a plant, nor detect the nature of a soil. 
 Economic questions, agriculture, and statistics interest 
 S
 
 274 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 them little, although in this direction serious progress has 
 been attempted during the last few years. They are 
 nattered at belonging to the diplomatic world ; and to the 
 price of oil, grease, and cotton they are indifferent. One 
 can hardly bear them a grudge for this ; it is but the 
 result of that narrow infatuation for so-called liberal 
 education, which has dominated France for centuries, and 
 has diverted the attention of the best minds from practical 
 things. What an advantage for our country it would have 
 been if our consuls, in addition to their regular course of 
 study, could have profited by the teaching at our high 
 schools of agriculture and commerce ! 
 
 The English and the Germans choose as their consuls 
 men who have had thorough training, which enables them 
 to deal with economic questions. English consuls are often 
 engaged in trade. Their superiors keep them a long while 
 in one place so that they may make a complete study of 
 their surroundings, acquire personal influence, and keep an 
 eye upon all changes which the country undergoes. A 
 consul's inopportune removal may have the most grievous 
 results ; it is quite different from replacing a deputy 
 attorney-general or a prefect. Our compatriots in Alex- 
 andria bitterly complain that their consul was removed just 
 when affairs there had reached a crisis. To what disasters 
 did not this withdrawal lead ? No Frenchman can walk 
 through this magnificent city with other than a heavy 
 heart as he sees its streets and buildings broken up into 
 heaps of ruins, the remains of the iniquitous bombardment. 
 Our abstention, at that epoch, produced a most deplorable 
 impression throughout the entire Levant, an impression not 
 yet effaced, yet which diminishes in proportion to the firm-
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST 275 
 
 ness of our attitude towards the carrot-coloured in- 
 vader. 
 
 After the consuls come the dragomans or interpreters. 
 They have a great influence in the East, and often absorb 
 the importance of their chief. The dragomans are usually 
 in their official capacity, Levantines, Armenians, or Greeks, 
 and, too often they are influenced by local or personal 
 spite. Admitting even that their sense of equity and 
 honour be irreproachable, their compatriots do not fail to 
 accuse them of partiality and call them obstructionists. 
 The choice of a dragoman is indeed a most difficult and 
 delicate one. It might be well for us to establish (as the 
 English have done at Ortakeuy) a school for student inter- 
 preters, where young Frenchmen could be prepared for 
 their official duties, and so supplant the natives who now 
 discharge them. 
 
 Frenchmen established in foreign parts often deplore 
 the habit which our Government has got of looking at 
 questions in a narrow, centralising sort of way. Every- 
 thing on earth is not limited to satisfying the Paris Muni- 
 cipal Council ; and it would be well, now and again to 
 reflect upon the consequences which certain acts might 
 have abroad. As a most striking instance, let us mention 
 the strife between the State and the Clericals. It is not 
 our intention to discuss the legitimacy of such expulsive 
 measures, nor to comment upon the political sagacity of 
 that minister who caused their adoption ; but we only 
 desire to show that from the point of view of our influence 
 in the East nothing more harmful could possibly have been 
 devised. 
 
 It must be remembered that all the French schools in
 
 276 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 the East, the asylums, hospitals aijd hospices for travellers 
 have been founded and are managed by priests or nuns. 
 The College of Saint Benoifc at Galata, the French College 
 at Cadikeui, the university and schools at Beyrout with 
 their faculty of medicine, the agricultural school at Schtora, 
 the French colleges of Smyrna, Aleppo, Aintab, Damascus, 
 Cairo and a hundred others in fact all the French estab- 
 lishments of public instruction, except the Imperial College 
 of Galata-Serai, are kept by Jesuits, Lazarists, Franciscans 
 or Brothers. French lay teaching does not exist in the 
 East. It may well be supposed that these monks do not 
 profess unbounded affection for our Government. It 
 would be a wonder if they did. At Beyrout, they say that 
 the Jesuits held a thanksgiving service when Gauibetta 
 died. What, then, may they be expected to do on the day 
 that Heaven takes back from us M. Jules Ferry ? In de- 
 claring war so noisily against clericalism, our Government 
 deprived itself at a blow of all its chief means of influence 
 in the East. 
 
 Our political dissensions have also tended to produce a 
 want of cohesion among French colonies in Eastern towns. 
 Union, accord have become impossible. On the anni- 
 versary of their Kaiser's birthday, all the German 
 residents assemble in enthusiastic fashion. Festivals and 
 banquets are organised, and not a man would be missing 
 at such a public manifestation of patriotism and loyalty. 
 But, supposing the 14th of July, a French festival, has to 
 be celebrated ! How marked is then the disunion ! The 
 Monarchists veil their faces ; the Independents and the 
 Intransigeants withdraw in a rage. Only the official 
 personages are left, together with a few tradesmen who
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 277 
 
 supply the Embassy. So disheartening has this spectacle 
 become, that it has been suppressed. All is now limited to 
 a formal visit to the Ambassador, when trite speeches are 
 delivered, and raspberry vinegar is handed round. 
 
 It is this want of cohesion which makes it impossible to 
 found musical societies, such as those which the Germans 
 have. Into everything the spirit of political antipathy 
 enters. 
 
 If four Frenchmen meet of an evening to play dominoes, 
 each one forces the other to listen to the latest views of 
 this or that Paris paper which he has just been reading, 
 and tries to override him with his opinion. And even that 
 opinion is not his own ; it costs him twenty francs post- 
 free per quarter. 
 
 The Frenchwoman, again, intelligent, spirituelle as she 
 is, loves to domineer. She has an irresistible longing for 
 precedence. It would please her well enough to organise a 
 gathering, provided she were the centre of it. If French 
 ladies wish to set about starting a charitable association, 
 you will see the same antagonism, the same rivalry as exist 
 in small French provincial towns between sous-prefete^ 
 mairesse and pre'sidente. The less important they are, the 
 less they agree ; that is why French society abroad is not 
 influential, because it cannot be influenced. 
 
 And is one to conclude from all this that the French are 
 not colonisers] They say so. But who says so? Why, 
 the English, those islanders from the extreme West, who 
 have the charming habit of attributing all defects and all 
 vices to us, the drollest thing being that we naively repeat 
 all these British impertinences. 
 
 Never believe a word of all that. The English have
 
 278 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 their reasons 'for what they do; and we know how much 
 their good faith is worth a yard. We notice, on the con- 
 trary, that wherever the French have sojourned, they have 
 left a mark not to be effaced and have won for themselves 
 lively sympathy. In proof of this, we need only point to 
 Syria, Egypt, Canada, lie de France, and elsewhere. John 
 Bull cannot say as much. Though he may have clapped 
 his heavy paw upon a hundred points of the globe, he has 
 never won hearts ; and his going would provoke neither 
 tears nor regret. 
 
 Moreover, what does the Frenchman need to make him 
 a good coloniser 1 ? He is accommodating, and takes life 
 easily anywhere. He suits himself to all sorts of climates 
 and all sorts of food. He is tolerant and never worries 
 the natives about their religious beliefs and customs. 
 Everywhere he is liked, because the people feel that he 
 does not wish to exploit or to ruin the country. The 
 Englishman, on the other hand, while allowing his colonies 
 great independence, makes a point of sapping all their 
 wealth. He sucks them like a lemon ; and then, if they 
 complain, he points gravely to the rind, showing that that 
 is intact. 
 
 When passing Cyprus, our steamer took passengers on 
 board at Limasol and Larnaca. We asked them : " What 
 is England doing in Cyprus'?" 
 
 " She is ruining us," they answered gloomily. 
 
 If you would have an idea of the British method of 
 absorption, go to Egypt and you will see how thoroughly 
 disorganised is the Government. The commerce of Cairo 
 and chiefly that of Alexandria, are in an astonishingly 
 distressful state, while agriculture is ruined by the insecurity
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 279 
 
 which has desolated the country and even the towns. 
 French and native officials have been removed to make way 
 for successors shipped straight from London. Under pre- 
 text of reorganising it, the army has been annihilated. 
 Nay, I beg pardon, English officers have taught the Egyptian 
 soldiers these three important things- 
 Firstly : They have taught them to carry a little cane 
 according to the fashion adopted by the soldiers of Her 
 Britannic Majesty. That is always a source of profit to 
 the cane shops ! 
 
 Secondly : They have rigged out all the native fifes and 
 bugles in those staring unifonns, with stripes down every 
 seam, so that they look like Episcopal servants a very 
 triumph of that decorative art so remarkable among the 
 sons of Albion ! 
 
 Finally : They hung round them that oilcloth havresack 
 fastened on to their back by countless straps and buckles 
 a most delightful addition to their dress in such a hot 
 climate. True, the ancient Egyptians swathed their ances- 
 tors in rags and cere-cloths, but this was done only after 
 death. 
 
 We may also add that the Egyptian soldier, like the 
 Turk, is remarkably sober. What will happen to him after 
 such long contact with bold British bibbers and Scotch 
 swillers, who nightly reel through the streets, and who 
 make the fortune of every " English Bar " opened in the 
 land of the Pharaohs 1 
 
 Ask the merchants and they will tell you how much 
 English rule has impoverished the country. You will hear 
 all their anathemas hurled at "the red grasshoppers." The 
 persecutors of the Irish are free, then, to say that the
 
 280 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 French are not a race of colonisers. Colonisers of the 
 English type, no, certainly not ! 
 
 The Frenchman has this characteristic quality that he 
 can draw profit from anything and everything. The 
 humblest artisan, the simplest sailor has a genius for 
 invention. When he arrives in some country he examines 
 all its products and at once discovers to what advantage 
 they may be turned. Despite all that they say, he learns 
 native languages quite as easily as the Englishman or the 
 German. If his advance in these is slower, it is because 
 everyone persists in talking French to him, and because he 
 has never any difficulty in making himself understood. 
 
 The only reproach, if reproach it be, that can be urged 
 against him is that he is too greatly attached to his native 
 country and that he always cherishes an ardent longing to 
 return there. Put him in some terrestrial paradise ; lie 
 will always think himself in exile and will sigh for the 
 moment when he may return. It is the old story of tlie 
 Parisian woman who sighs for her rivulet in the Rue du 
 Bac ! Thus there is nothing fixed and definite in a French- 
 man's establishment on foreign soil. He hires, he does 
 not buy ; if he builds, he does not plant. For him all is 
 temporary, transient, a state of things that lasts perhaps 
 thirty or forty years; but the secret hope ever exists 
 within him of seeing his native country again. 
 
 The Englishman, on the other hand, is always at home, 
 because he brings away with him, even to his very boots, a 
 bit of England. He builds himself a solid cottage with a 
 garden planted full of fine trees ; he has an English 
 governess; and he makes tea in an English teapot, drink- 
 ing it out of an English teacup, while eating plum cake
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 281 
 
 Huntley i Palmer's Wafer and other genuine English 
 biscuits. He can imagine himself to be in England. In 
 fact he is there ; and he never feels the need to return 
 thither. 
 
 English families are so numerous that the parental ties 
 are soon loosed. As soon as they reach adolescence, John 
 sails for Australia, Archibald for Ceylon, Edward for the 
 Cape, William for Canada, while Horace, the eldest, 
 remains at home. As for Mary, she marries a vice consul 
 in America, Fanny is the wife of a Hong Kong surgeon, and 
 Kate starts with a clergyman for New Zealand. Perhaps 
 they will never see one another again. Each of them will 
 become a fixture in the land whither fate has brought 
 him, and each will breed his batch of little Englishmen 
 and Englishwomen, who, following the example of papa 
 and mamma, will send to London for their teapots, their 
 braces, their mustard, their pickles, their boots. 
 
 France's colonial weakness is associated with the grave 
 question of the falling off in birth-rates, which just at 
 present claims the attentions of our economists. In our 
 families where there are only one or two children, they are 
 never allowed to expatriate themselves ; and parents 
 tremble when their son talks of going abroad to seek his 
 fortune. Rather would they have him lead a humdrum, 
 commonplace life at home. 
 
 " My son, you must go to the bar ! " 
 
 " But, father, to get called to the bar is not to get a 
 position 1 " 
 
 "Xo ; but it's a means of creating one. You will become 
 a magistrate perhaps a deputy. The barrister's gown 
 leads to the ministerial portfolio.''
 
 282 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 " But I have no turn for eloquence ! " 
 
 ' ; Then you'll get some Government post. There you will 
 vegetate on a ridiculously small salary ; but that won't pre- 
 vent your making a wealthy marriage. Fathers of families 
 with handsome dowries to bestow adore Government 
 officials." 
 
 Our youths are also less prepared to rough it in the 
 Colonies than are the English, who, from childhood, are 
 accustomed to ride, swim, shoot, and row, besides being 
 proficient at gymnastics, boxing and fencing, cricket, lawn- 
 tennis, football. Jumping and running also take up a 
 great portion of their time. If called upon to leave the 
 mother country, they are more muscular, and in better con- 
 dition than our young bacheliers, emaciated by college 
 life. Since the terrible lessons of 1870, the need of a more 
 careful physical training of our youths has been felt in 
 France; but at the same time they are expected to study 
 too many things at once. Their mind is overtaxed at the 
 cost of their body. One single point is sufficient to settle 
 the question. How many young men in France can ride 
 well 1 Now, in Asia, Africa, or Australia it is impossible 
 to live without you can ride fairly well. 
 
 Wherever we went in the East, we noticed to our deep 
 regret that the number of French residents had consider- 
 ably diminished. At Constantinople this was the case, and 
 also at Smyrna, Beyrout, Alexandria and Cairo. But by a 
 curious compensation, the use of the French language has 
 made the most astonishing progress. Formerly throughout 
 Turkey the sole language spoken was Italian. Now this is 
 only talked by harbour masters and sailors, while French 
 is spoken everywhere ; in the drawing-room, the office, the
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 283 
 
 restaurant or the shop. If two strangers meet in the 
 street, it is in French that they accost each other first. In 
 an office, either public or private, all instructions are issued 
 in French. Posters, circulars, advertisements, and the 
 names of streets are all printed in French. No Perote 
 lady is thought to have finished her education before she 
 can speak French fluently. 
 
 Our country has, then, an instrument of considerable 
 influence in its hands. Will it know how to profit by it 1 
 Will it know how to retain it 1 Language is the most 
 powerful of all propaganda, for it carries with it ideas and 
 opinions. The East is thus open to our journals, novels, 
 and plays. If France have lost some of her military and 
 commercial prestige, and if she do not stand first in all 
 branches of art, at least nothing has been able to weaken her 
 superiority in literature. All other countries debate about 
 the pi'oductions of her authors, and all the theatres in the 
 world live by her dramatic works. If other countries 
 cannot carry off our authors, they often try to copy and 
 plagiarise them for their theatres. This at least is one way 
 of acknowledging our pre-eminence in literature.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 PERA AND PEROTES. TURKS AND TOMBS. MUSIC AND 
 THEATRES. HOW THEY DANCE IN PERA. 
 
 OUR eagerness faithfully to paint the actual situation of 
 the French in the Levant, led us to make a zig-zag journey 
 across Asiatic Turkey and even through Egypt. We will 
 return to Pera and thei*e remain. 
 
 Pera consists mainly of one long artery called the Grand 1 
 Hue de Pera. The term grande only applies to a part of 
 the street, for half of it is dark and narrow, while the other 
 is broad and well laid down with pavements of the proper 
 sort. This latter part was re-constructed after the great 
 Pera fire in 1870. 
 
 It is in this street that all the life of the European part 
 of Constantinople is centred. There you must walk at 
 morning, at noon, and at night ; it is there where appoint- 
 ments are made ; it is there where everyone is fated to 
 meet. On these two hundred yards of paving-stone, 
 characters are taken away and reputations blasted ; calumny
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 285 
 
 and vice make this their market, and virtues are sold there 
 either for cash or on the credit system. 
 
 Every Sunday the young Perote mashers parade on the 
 pavement, all tremendously "got up," to see the pretty 
 women come back from church ; and in Pera there is no 
 lack of pretty women, who are all quite pleased at the 
 admiration offered to their powdered faces and multi- 
 coloured gowns. 
 
 Churches in Pera are hidden away in obscure corners or 
 behind houses in back streets. This would seem to prove 
 that the Turks were once not so tolerant as they are to- 
 day. Formerly, too, bells were forbidden, and at most 
 monasteries in the East, the faithful are still called to 
 prayer by striking long bars of wood or iron with a mallet. 
 But the Pera churches have bells which ring out peals in 
 perfect freedom. Service is over, and down the dark streets 
 all the pretty sheep scamper in flocks. Every eyeglass is 
 adjusted and trembles nervously, while a joyous sound of 
 babbling and laughter mounts to heaven. The crowd 
 thickens, for the Latin, Greek, Catholic, Armenian, and 
 Protestant churches are gradually emptying their contents. 
 Far away in some corner there is even a poor little Maronite 
 church. Only Syrians, Abyssinians and Copts are wanting 
 to make the whole council complete. But see, the march- 
 past is at an end ; bows and hand-shakes have been ex- 
 changed : and everybody goes back to lunch ; the young 
 incense-burners disperse, each conscious of having done his 
 duty. 
 
 Walking is impossible in the streets that branch off from 
 the Grand' Rue, so steep, so dirty, so ill-paven are they, full 
 of holes, where by day you may break your ankle, and at
 
 286 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 night, your neck. The great yellow dogs lie curled up and 
 half hidden in some of these gins and pitfalls, while round 
 about there are their sturdy puppies all at play. Every 
 street is full of such cavities, which, if they prove danger- 
 ous to human beings, are at least useful to the poor dogs 
 as impromptu kennels. Without a garden to grace them or 
 a shop to make them bright, these streets seem utterly 
 empty and lifeless, and this effect is heightened by the un- 
 tenanted ground-floor and dingy staircase which lead 
 visitors to the habitable portion of every house. In this 
 lower part, dirt and smells prevail. 
 
 Pera happily possesses two pretty gardens, both with 
 beautiful views. The more frequented is the Petits Champs 
 or Municipal Garden, situated in a central position over- 
 looking Stamboul and the Golden Horn. At sunset the 
 water reflects all the flaming sky against whose crimson 
 glories are arrayed the dark slender minarets, like a file 
 of giant lances. The garden has been laid out on the site 
 of an ancient Turkish burying-ground, and what strife and 
 cunning did it not cost ere the Mussulman authorities 
 would consent to the desecration by giaours of this hallowed 
 spot ! To Turks, indeed, it was well nigh sacrilege, who 
 bury their dead a few feet under the soil and are moreover 
 careful to dig a passage connecting the corpse with the 
 outer air. Such noxious exhalations are of course danger- 
 ous to public health ; but nowadays the burials in Con- 
 stantinople are performed with greater care. 
 
 The garden thus after much difficulty was laid out and 
 has grown gradually larger. The Turks willingly over- 
 looked its desecration ; and they may now often be seen at 
 the Petits Champs, drinking their glass of beer while listen-
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 287 
 
 ing to the strains of Signor Ricci's respectable orchestra. 
 The other constant visitors to the garden are the European 
 residents, the Jews, Greeks and Armenians. The demi- 
 monde is represented by a few powdered ladies of the 
 music-hall who have retired, to live upon their own 
 incomes and upon those of others. There are many damsels 
 too, of the sort that once made Mabille and Cremorne so 
 popular. In Europe they are not so bold, but keep within 
 the bounds of that modesty which suits their sex and the 
 views of the police. But in Pera they take a higher social 
 rank ; you may see them in staring dresses at the theatre 
 and the public gardens ; they even sing for a charity if they 
 can. They sit at the same tables and sip beer in company 
 with honest women ; they exchange leers with favoured 
 faithful customers, or else strut along the garden walks 
 wriggling their huge bustles, of the latest Parisian make, 
 which are warranted to render emotion at will. As 
 chaperon they have an elderly lady who puts on all the airs 
 of a dignified duenna. 
 
 Gay deceivers who come to Pera for the first time are 
 surprised to find how easily they can seduce, on the very 
 day of their arrival, the pretty girl promenaders of the 
 Petits Champs. Burning glances, radiant smiles, and 
 exchange of notes, an assignation, nothing is wanting to 
 make the romance complete. Then, when evening comes, 
 the eager tourist rushes off to the address given, and is 
 flabbergasted at finding so many ladies seated in the 
 drawing-room, and at seeing that his tender affection has 
 all been priced and tariffed by a considerate "aunt." O gay 
 Lotharios, distrust these doxies, and leave all your illusions 
 at the mouth of the Bosphorus ! All here is commercial,
 
 288 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 love included. If a little lady with tip-tilted nose talk to 
 you of her lover, never let such a euphemism mislead you. 
 Lover means principal client, a regular customer; but the 
 preference has nothing exclusive about it ; and the privi- 
 leges that are his may at this moment be yours. 
 
 The other garden, no less municipal than the first-named, 
 is that at Taxim. It is in a far more neglected, desolate 
 state, though it has a finer view, for it looks over a large 
 part of the Bosphorus with the Dolma Baghtche Palace. 
 To the right lies the Sea of Marmora, and Scutari opposite, 
 a picturesque city with all its panes that the sinking sun 
 transforms to cubes of burnished gold. Discouraged doubt- 
 less by so few visitors, the band wails in doleful fashion, 
 while the little open-air theatre, damp and decayed, is 
 dropping to pieces. 
 
 It is a matter for regret that these municipal gardens, 
 instead of being opened free to the public, are let to pro- 
 prietors who charge a piastre (or two pence) entrance. In 
 truth, there is not a single shady, pleasant corner in Pera 
 where one may sit gratis and take the air. The military 
 bands never play for the public, though occasionally they 
 are allowed to perform at some Embassy fete. But that is 
 an amusement for the stucco, stuck-up " society " of Pera, 
 not for the public. The military bands, like the army, 
 belong to the Sultan, and are kept exclusively for Imperial 
 use. 
 
 In the Levant, Mussulmans and even Christians are 
 wont to meet in graveyards, which form their favourite 
 place of promenade. The Orientals have not the same 
 superstitious feelings about burying-grounds that we have. 
 They sit down on the tombs in the shade of dark cypresses,
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 289 
 
 call for coffee and their narghile, and so spend a day in 
 stolid placidity. So the post of cafedji to a cemetery is a 
 lucrative one. The immense burying-grounds at Scutari are 
 those chiefly visited by Mussulmans; vast enclosures contain- 
 ing magnificent cypress-trees. The tombstones stand so 
 close together that it is difficult to walk past them. They 
 usually consist of a large slab with a hole in the centre, 
 which is supposed to communicate with the corpse, and at 
 the top and bottom are two marble columns which resemble 
 huge wax tapers. A commoner sort of tombstone is 
 made in the form of a marble figure rather like a Guy 
 Fawkes, each fossil man being decorated with a fez or a 
 turban, according as the tomb was set up before or after 
 the reform in Turkish head-gear, introduced at the begin- 
 ning of this century by Sultan Mahmoud. From afar, the 
 effect is that of a petrified army, that Perseus, when passing 
 with Medusa's head, might have hardened into stone. All 
 round them women sit in groups ; their purple, red, violet 
 and yellow feradjis (or loose cloaks) seem at a distance like 
 huge poppies or peonies growing here and there among the 
 graves. Their little girls in bright frocks and with wavy, 
 dishevelled hair, gambol about on the grass, while itinerant 
 vendors of food pass in and out, and do a thriving trade. 
 The whole scene is one that might tempt any painter. 
 
 This sort of dolce far niente among the meadows of 
 eternal repose savours too greatly of the charnel-house to 
 please the Perotes, little inclined as they are to philosophy. 
 And they have found out for themselves,jin the environs of 
 Pera, a place where they can "spend a happy day," or a 
 happy hour. Their choice fell upon that unspeakable 
 suburb Chichli ! Surely the idea was the oddest ever bred 
 T
 
 290 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 within Perote brain. Imagine a dusty, arid highroad, laid 
 bare on all sides to the burning sun ; not a tree, not a 
 flower, not a drop of water; only a little tawny grass on 
 one side, and a batch of ugly brick buildings on the other. 
 In the centre runs the tramway line, its rails and paving 
 stones being the sole ornament of this enchanting site. 
 The tramway ends at this point and the Company has its 
 stables here, which was doubtless an inducement to Perotes 
 to make the place their favourite rendezvous. No vegeta- 
 tion ; no flower-beds ; no fountain ; nothing to charm the 
 eye ; nothing but the white dust that powders you, and the 
 sun that laughs. What can he be laughing at? In this 
 dry, disagreeable spot, five or six sheds have been put up, 
 under which chairs and tables are arranged. There are 
 even one or two dilapidated hotels. Such a desolate plateau 
 commands indeed a rather fine view, but Perotes are care- 
 ful to turn their backs on the panorama, and sit at little 
 tables in the beer-sheds overlooking the tramway line. 
 Thus beer-drinkers on the right can spend their day in 
 placid contemplation of beer-drinkers on the left. Occasion- 
 ally a blatant band discourses music such as one might 
 expect from a herd of wounded rhinoceroses ; or blind 
 beggars with cracked guitars thrum till they get pity and 
 piastres ; but as a rule the clink of pint-pots and mastic- 
 glasses falls sweetest on the Perote ear. 
 
 All is flat and vulgar, here ; it seems a sort of sickly 
 attempt at diversion ; such sheds are the very emporium 
 of dulness, the home of the hackneyed. Only now and 
 again the landscape is varied by the sailors of some embassy 
 despatch-boat who, crimson with pleasure and exercise, 
 gallop furiously past on hired steeds. That Chichli should
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 291 
 
 be in vogue as a pleasure resort is the more strange con- 
 sidering that the environs of Constantinople are admitted 
 to be the most lovely in the world, and the Bosphorus 
 abounds in enchanting spots for recreation and refresh- 
 ment. One is dumbfoundered at such absolute want of 
 perception of the beautiful. For that matter, the Levan- 
 tine, narrow-minded money-grubber that he is, understands 
 little or nothing of the beauties of nature. With him, 
 the artistic sense is still in a rudimentary state. If he 
 builds a house, he pitches it on a point where it is most 
 readily seen, never caring for the environment of shady 
 trees or of rippling brooks. 
 
 Along the whole length of this great city of Constanti- 
 nople which stands on the borders of the Bosphorus, there 
 is not one attractive cafe which might be made a place of 
 resort on fair summer nights and whence one might watch 
 the silvery moonlight as it falls on domes and minarets 
 that flank the trembling sea. Yet what a scene is this 
 of Stamboul by night ; how moving, how memorable ! 
 Perotes, however, are not poetic ; they care for none of 
 these things ; and even if they did, they would find it hard 
 to gratify this taste for music and moonlight on the Golden 
 Horn. 
 
 We have depicted Chichli in all its barren hideousness, 
 as well as the two gardens on which the world of Pera de- 
 pends for its outdoor refreshment. Now, let us speak of 
 indoor delights. No mention need be made of those melan- 
 choly music-halls, (or shall we say hooting-halls ?) of the 
 seventh, tenth-rate order. For they are really only the 
 lobbies of low gambling hells. No respectable family can 
 ever enter such pestilent establishments, where the waiting
 
 292 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 is done by large-bosomed ladies whose splitting stays en- 
 close an insatiable stomach and a most hospitable heart. 
 It is curious to note how the institution of women- 
 waitresses has become general in the East, in Constanti- 
 nople, Smyrna and Cairo. In Pera restaurants, however, 
 the waiters are men, mostly Greeks, who do their work 
 very smartly and well. 
 
 Occasionally, in the winter season, opera and operette 
 companies try their fortunes at the two available theatres. 
 But they usually come to grief. The impresario disappears 
 one fine morning with the cash-box, leaving the members of 
 his troupe, rampant and gnashing their teeth. In summer, 
 Italian opera is performed al fresco in a garden. The 
 entrance-fee is only five piastres, or a shilling cheap 
 music this, certainly ; but often far from bad. Such a way 
 of passing one's evenings is among the pleasantest. Then 
 conjurors, gymnasts, and performing cats or monkeys put 
 in an appearance to break the monotony. Nearly all such 
 entertaining persons are at once invited to show off their 
 tricks at Yildiz, where, as it seems, the court is often hard 
 up for amusement. They get handsome fees, (a hundred 
 and two hundred Turkish pounds) besides jewelled snuff- 
 boxes and decorations. Such gala nights are of course the 
 best and surest sources of profit to the poor impresario or 
 mountebank, for the Perote public is very loth to unloose its 
 purse-strings. At times some juggler or comic singer suc- 
 ceeds in amusing His Imperial Majesty, when he is forth- 
 with attached to the palace, receives a good pension, and 
 can live at Constantinople in monied ease. 
 
 Twice or thrice in the season some courageous individual 
 will organise a concert, the tickets being sold at prices fit
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 293 
 
 to terrify an indifferent public. The ambassadresses must 
 send round the tickets, otherwise the concert proves a dead 
 failure. And if you get a ticket, you must pay up your 
 pound and look pleasant, or else run the risk of offending 
 Her Excellency. Pera "high life" attends the concert, 
 more from motives of politeness than from love of music. 
 The Russian Embassy is specially zealous in backing up any 
 ninth-rate musicians from Muscovy. Some of these voca- 
 lists and pianists have not the faintest claim to serious 
 attention ; but, just because their ambassadress gives them 
 support, they succeed financially, if not artistically. We 
 remember a Hebrew lady from Odessa, with a spiral mouth 
 .and a voice like a fog-horn. She came to Pera, she sang, 
 she conquered. 
 
 From the list of such entertainments we should certainly 
 not omit the public, charity, and fancy dress balls. They 
 are the acme of all that is ridiculous. 
 
 This is pretty much what a public ball at Pera means. 
 A crowd is got together in a small theatre, and in the 
 centre of the pit an orchestra is stationed which occasionally 
 plays a waltz or a polka, and then waits for half-an-hour or 
 so. During these interminable waits there is no other 
 amusement except walking round and round the theatre, 
 for there are no seats or chairs on which to rest, chat and 
 flirt. Each couple walks gravely along, their steps being 
 regulated by those of their predecessors ; and this gyratory 
 movement continues until dawn. In the centre of the 
 circus you may see a most respectable gentleman whirling 
 about. He wears irreproachable evening clothes, swings 
 arms and legs about like windmill-sails 011 a common, 
 and gives himself an infinity of trouble. Who is he 1
 
 294 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 Professor Trippington Pump, who has kindly undertaken 
 the duties of M.C. at this delightful ball. In other words, 
 it is he who has to shout oat : En avant deux ! Balancez 
 vos dames ! He stimulates the dancers, revives the ladies, 
 recruits the vis-a-vis and puts them all in their proper 
 place. Each quadrille needs a good half-an-hour's prepara- 
 tion ; and nothing is more ludicrous than to see the wretched 
 professor rushing from one couple to another to stop the 
 dancers from leaving their plades, and vainly trying to 
 establish a symmetry that, so soon as secured, is spoilt. 
 Nobody ventures to contest his authority, but nobody attends 
 to him ; and it is this which drives him to despair. How 
 great then, is his joy when he can at length exclaim, with 
 arms stretched wildly in the void, Traversez ! In the 
 second figure he passes down the double line of dancers and 
 touches each on the breast with his finger, giving them the 
 countersign, vous sortez, vous restez, vous sortez, vous restez, 
 etc. As for the last figure of all, it becomes a series of 
 endless, labyrinthine manoeuvres, which vary according to 
 the fertility of imagination possessed by the professor 
 aforesaid. 
 
 Be it noted that, admission to these little fetes costs the 
 modest sum of twenty-three francs or three francs more 
 than the ball at the Paris Opera. True, this is only the 
 official figure ; there are always obliging vendors who hang 
 about the entrance to the ballroom, and will sell you a 
 ticket for a medjidie", or four francs fifty cents. 
 
 In ordinary Levantine drawing-rooms, smoking goes on 
 the whole evening ; the ladies, especially the elder ones, set 
 the example. After dancing a polka you have the satisfac- 
 tion of offering your fair partner a light when taking her
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 295 
 
 back to her place. It must be allowed that some of the 
 ladies smoke in a very seductive manner, holding their 
 cigarette with the tips of their tiny fingers and dispersing 
 the blue clouds of smoke by little coquettish fan-naps. 
 But what an atmosphere after three hours' dancing in this 
 opaline mist ! Sometimes in a corner a young mother sits 
 suckling her child, smoking all the while. A partner comes 
 to claim her, so she buttons up her dress, hands over baby 
 to a friend, flings away her cigarette and dances the 
 Hchottische. 
 
 Greeks and Armenians have their national or religious 
 festivals, and on such occasions some fifteen or twenty 
 thousand persons assemble in the open air. On the 1st of 
 May they hang a wreath of flowers over the door of every 
 house a pretty custom, which makes the streets fragrant 
 with all the first perfumes of the spring. 
 
 Greek festivals abound ; almost every day they pay 
 visits to some fountain whose waters are famed for their 
 miraculous virtues. Tents are pitched there ; sheep are 
 roasted whole ; and there is much eating and drinking on 
 the sward, while to amuse the company, mountebanks and 
 bears arrive, and dancing gipsy girls, who sing quaint 
 Turkish songs as they clap their hands. Mandolines are 
 heard everywhere, as well as the cornet and the clarinet. 
 This latter is an instrument that has a great vogue in the 
 East. A negro is as inseparable from his clarinet as a 
 Spaniard from his guitar. To see the bucolic simplicity of 
 such gatherings, one might believe that this was the golden 
 age. Instead of that, it is the age of gold, which is by no 
 means the same thin".
 
 296 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 Weddings are generally occasions for ruinous expense, as 
 each family deems itself obliged to dazzle the guests by 
 truly Oriental luxuriousness. There are dances, dinners, 
 excursions, picnics, and the festivities last for several days, 
 when it is found that all the savings of bride and bride- 
 groom have gone to pay the piper. The bride buys heaps 
 of trinkets and dresses enough to last her for many years. 
 In certain provinces of Asiatic Turkey, the husband has 
 to give his bride ten dresses, ten mantles, ten bonnets, ten 
 pairs of boots, etc. a sort of decimal prodigality. Many 
 such gifts are faded and spoiled before they can be 
 used. 
 
 To resume : Pera is a little town at once pretentious and 
 tiresome. By picking and choosing, it is not impossible to 
 form rather a pleasant circle of acquaintances ; but the 
 great want in such circles is the want of intellectual con- 
 versation of conversation that braces and lifts the mind. 
 One is soon tired of the perpetual gossip and dull twaddle, 
 just as one grows sick of the rahat lo koum or other cloying 
 sweetmeats which are offered and eaten all day long. 
 People chatter too much and do not talk enough ; they go 
 to bed with weary head and empty brain. Spiteful persons, 
 of whom there are many, give a certain dash of piquancy 
 to the general dulness ; and every Perote lady loves to strew 
 the cayenne pepper of scandal. She receives her friends, 
 entertains them ; but when they are gone, reviles them. 
 Such people, therefore, as care for something pleasanter 
 than to have social sewerage filtered into their ears, remain 
 at home, and spend their evening with a few good books 
 that have just come from Europe. In the day, one can
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 297 
 
 walk or ride to some interesting site ; and these excursions, 
 with perhaps a little drawing, and a great deal of music, 
 suffice to divert and refresh the visitor. In fact, he can 
 have all sorts of amusements in Pera, if he be always care- 
 ful never to profit by the amusements which "the place 
 professes to afford.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 SWINDLING AND SWINDLERS IN PEBA. BOGUS BORDEAUX. 
 THE ART OF IMITATION. SCENT, CHEMISTS AND QUARAN- 
 TINE. IN THE BAZAARS. 
 
 THAT resigned mortal who dwells upon the banks of the 
 Bosphorus may say to himself each day as he rises : " I am 
 going to be robbed all day long." This morning meditation 
 prepares his mind for subsequent torment. He will be 
 robbed ; by his servants who have an understanding with 
 the tradesmen ; by the restaurant-waiter who will try and 
 palm off upon him money that is either false or that has 
 lost some of its value ; by the sarraf who exacts a mon- 
 strous percentage for changing his money ; by the banker 
 who cheats him on the exchange ; by officials either private 
 or public, who invariably make a slip in their calculation ; 
 by lawyers ; by the police ; by his friends ; by his parents ; 
 by his brother, if he have one. He will be robbed when 
 on foot, on horseback or in the tram-car ; when paying toll 
 at the bridge, or getting his ticket at the steamboat piers ; 
 when wrangling at the post-office or the telegraph depart-
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 299 
 
 rnent. He ought to take this great principle as a rule : 
 Every time he has to pay, he will be swindled from outside ; 
 and every time he has to be paid, he will be swindled from 
 within. Thus there is the theft exterior and the theft 
 interior ; the swindle active and the swindle passive ; the 
 swindle positive and the swindle negative. It has quite a 
 classification of its own, and one that must be firmly 
 defined. 
 
 More than once a straightforward Frenchman said to me : 
 " It is impossible to do business honestly, here. You are 
 so swindled, first by one person and then by another, that 
 you must cheat like everybody else, or you will soon be 
 ruined." And, he added, with an engaging air, "But we 
 always try, you know, to deal fairly by our friends and 
 compatriots ! " 
 
 A payment is a tremendous business. Each party counts 
 the money over three or four times, turns over the silver, 
 refuses such pieces as are worn or defaced, bites the 
 medjidies to see that they are not of lead, and makes the 
 louis d or ring on the table with imperturbable coolness. 
 If you were a famous coiner of bad money, or a notorious 
 thief, one could not take more precautions to be sure that 
 your money were sound and true. Don't be vexed ; your 
 Western susceptibilities must be put aside, for you are in a 
 centre of brigandage here that is universal and permanent. 
 Each- does his best to defend himself, nobody is bound to 
 trust you ; and, if you trust other people, then, so much the 
 worse for you ! 
 
 The natives do more than this. If they have to get 
 change for a medjidie they will not part with their 
 medjidie until they have counted and checked every
 
 3o THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 piastre and every para. Not money only, but goods also 
 are counterfeit in Turkey, where the a,rt of forgery has no 
 limits. Let us take a few examples from the wine trade. 
 
 In Pera and Galata you will find Grande Chartreuse at 
 3 francs 50 cents the litre ; Martell's Three Star Brandy 
 (Fine Champagne) at 2 francs 50 cents a bottle ; Benedic- 
 tine at 2 francs 40 cents, and liqueurs of the best brand at 
 1 franc 80 cents. Needless to say that such liquids are 
 only fairly successful imitations. The manufacturer's eye 
 might be deceived, but not his palate. The Levantine 
 tradesman, in cleverly dishonest fashion, has bottles made 
 exactly like the genuine ones, with labels and corks accur- 
 ately branded, capsules of tinfoil ; nothing is wanting. 
 The finest thing is, that he never omits to print the famous 
 warning " Every bottle not bearing our signature is counter- 
 feit," or, " Each label bears the words in red letters, 
 " Imitators will be punished by latv:' All this is on each 
 sham bottle as well as the signature and advertisement in 
 red letters. The forger is even mindful to reproduce the 
 name of the lithographer of the genuine label, which is 
 printed in tiny letters at its corner. 
 
 As to the liquids contained in such precious bottles, they 
 are imitated with some skill. But on tasting them one 
 soon perceives that they have been made with a common 
 sort of alcohol, and that their aroma is due to artificial 
 means. Germany concocts a variety of such beverages, 
 essence of tine champagne, of cura9ao, of maraschino, etc., 
 .and she even furnishes a dry powder with which to make 
 wines. In selling a litre of Grande Chartreuse at 3 francs 
 50 cents, the wholesale and retail merchant make a total 
 profit of 50 per cent, which reduces the cost price of this
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 301 
 
 imitation of P. Gamier to 1 franc 75 cents. But for the 
 Oriental, whose primary condition is that the thing be 
 cheap, such shams suffice. He looks at the label, and 
 thinks that he has got his money's worth. 
 
 The same thing with wines. Everywhere you will find 
 Chateau Latitte, Chateau la Rose and Leoville, which vary 
 from 2 francs to 4 francs 20 cents the bottle. The exterior 
 is quite correct ; the label has all its distinguishing sim- 
 plicity ; on the long cork stands the name of the fortunate 
 proprietor of these famous brands ; the seal is irreproach- 
 able ; everything down to the packing of the case is imi- 
 tated with scrupulous fidelity, if such words as " scrupulous " 
 and " fidelity " may be used in such a connection. Yet, 
 just calculate the cost price, and you cannot for an instant 
 doubt but that the whole is an impudent forgery. 
 
 You enter a restaurant and ask for Mecloc. The waiter 
 brings you a bottle which bears a glass medallion at its 
 neck, on which is printed the name of the vintage. You 
 uncork your compatriot carefully and find the wine has a 
 bouquet absolutely unknown to you. But the monstrous 
 mixture is powerful enough, as the considerate manufacturer 
 has not forgotten to add a goodly quantity of spirit dis- 
 tilled from potatoes. The colour is superb ; and to get 
 this, there has evidently been a lavish use of elder berries, 
 in which such a thriving trade is done on the banks of the 
 blue Danube. Now, would you like to know what this 
 precious wine is 1 The explanation is at once simple and 
 instructive. 
 
 Every year Constantinople is visited by Hungarian, 
 German, and Italian wine merchants, who invite restaurant- 
 keepers to give them orders. As their wines are extremely
 
 302 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 cheap, the restaurant-keepers are only too glad to give 
 them the preference. The customers, however, of such 
 restaurants prefer French wines. So what has to be done 1 
 The buyer makes it a sine qua non with the seller that 
 the wine shall be delivered in bottles exactly like Bordeaux 
 bottles in size and shape, with label, seal and capsule 
 attached, precisely similar to a model which he gives. This 
 model is that of the French wine merchant, who hitherto 
 had supplied him with the genuine article. Then, the 
 unscrupulous contractor gets the counterfeit labels made in 
 Germany or Hungary ; he dresses up the bottles in their 
 imitation French uniform, and thus the restaurant-keeper 
 can offer his customers Bordeaux that in truth does not 
 cost him dear. 
 
 This dishonest traffic produces three results. It robs the 
 Bordeaux firms of their customers ; it makes it impossible 
 for French commercial agents ever to defy such dishonest 
 competition ; and it brings our products into disrepute in 
 the East. The consumer at length discovers that there is 
 a marked deterioration in the quality of these sham wines, 
 when he will not fail to be informed that the fault lies with 
 the French wine merchants who adulterate their wines. 
 Indeed it has actually been stated (we quote the exact 
 words) that " there are no longer any wines in France 
 since the invasion of the phylloxera and all the Bordeaux 
 and Burgundy are nothing more than artificial mixtures." 
 The inference from such a charming statement is of course 
 obvious, viz., that the Hungarian and Italian wines are far 
 purer and cost much less. In such way it is that our trade 
 with the Levant dwindles and decreases. The fraud has 
 been exposed more than once ; but no serious effort has so
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 303 
 
 far been clone to put a stop to it. A French Chamber of 
 Commerce exists at Constantinople, but this institution is 
 mainly occupied in protecting the interests of French mer- 
 chants in the East, and not of French merchants in France. 
 So with Paris articles, such as candles, chocolate, perfumery, 
 etc. In this latter branch of trade we came across a 
 sample of the art of reproduction which deserves honourable 
 mention. Empty bottles of a certain famous scent which 
 have the firm's name stamped on the glass are bought 
 back or manufactured, and are then filled with scent of a 
 fourth-rate sort ; but care is taken that the cork be soaked 
 in the real perfume. When a customer comes he is made 
 to sniff the cork ; and as he cannot smell any further than 
 the tip of his nose, he has to pay three or four francs for 
 cheap alcohol highly diluted and rendered aromatic by a 
 few drops of some sort of essence. 
 
 Of late years the Germans have imitated many of our 
 products. Everybody knows that. Funnier still, other 
 Germans have now begun to counterfeit those who were 
 first in the field ; it is the imitation of imitation, as Miirger 
 said. But where will it all stop *? 
 
 Tli ere is a corporation in Constantinople to which public 
 attention ought specially to be drawn. It is the estimable 
 corporation of chemists. An apothecary in the East is a sort 
 of high-class grocer who sells his wares to customers that 
 are ill. In France, he is always a person who, either 
 thoroughly or superficially, has made certain special studies 
 and who considers himself entitled to sell at a high price 
 that which costs him very little. But as a rule he sells you 
 genuine drugs. Not so in Turkey. In Pera, doubtless 
 there are two or three good chemists who have passed
 
 304 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 examinations other than those of the Malade Imaginaire. 
 But the point lies how to discover these. Their prices at 
 all events are so high that poor people avoid their shops 
 and go to wretched third-rate places in Galata or Stamboul 
 where they buy potato starch, believing it to be sulphate 
 of quinine, granulated bread-crumbs, or sugar and water 
 coloured with hollyhocks. 
 
 You are so lucky as to have a good doctor, in whom you 
 can put faith, and him you ask to name some trustworthy 
 chemist. He replies : " Go to Z ; he is a young man, 
 just starting in business, and has his reputation to make. 
 Tell me afterwards what effect his drugs produce upon 
 you, and I will take note of this, so that I may find out 
 how far I can trust this young chemist." That is assuring, 
 is it not 1 You are turned into a machine to test the 
 purity of an apothecary's drugs, and you become a sort of 
 walking alcoometer ! This reminds me of a Paris doctor, 
 full of wit, if not of integrity, who often would say to 
 me : " Take this medicine, if you really wish to ; if it 
 does not do you any harm, it won't do you any good ! " 
 
 The poor Mussulmans have no such matters for em- 
 barrassment. They bring the patient's shirt and a cruse 
 of water to their imam, who repeats a few prayers and 
 lays his hands on the objects. The patient dons the shirt 
 and drinks the water ; nor does this hinder his recovery. 
 If he can walk, he goes to one of the chief dervishes, lies 
 down before him on the ground, while the venerable old 
 man plants both feet upon him and treads him conscien- 
 tiously underfoot. We saw this operation performed upon 
 babies of one and two years old. One would think that 
 the imam, by walking thus upon their frail little bodies,
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 305 
 
 would break their bones and crush out their life. But no ; 
 the babies seemed to suffer little pain during so perilous a 
 gymnastic feat. 
 
 Chemists make us think of epidemics ; and that leads us 
 on to mention another abuse which we took greatly to 
 heart, and which results from that delightful institution 
 quarantine. At Constantinople everybody lives in per- 
 petual fear of cholera. As soon as a case of cholera is 
 reported to have occurred anywhere in Europe, quarantine 
 is instantly declared, which from four or five days may 
 abruptly be prolonged to fifteen. Let us, however, admit 
 that, thanks to such a system or to something else, Con- 
 stantinople has been protected for several years from 
 cholera, if not from all epidemic diseases. 
 
 The traveller arriving from Europe via Varna, learns on 
 his entrance of the Bosphorus that he must remain in 
 quarantine at Kavak for eight or nine days. This is the 
 first unpleasant surprise. The second is that the Austrian 
 Lloyd Steam Navigation Company will charge him 25 
 francs extra per diem during quarantine. Twenty-five 
 francs without wine a higher price than that of the first 
 hotels in Switzerland, Paris or London ! The luckless 
 tourist will only get very second-rate food and attendance 
 for his money. Hundreds of foreigners are caught in this 
 trap every year. They utter cries of indignation and swear 
 that they will make the most awful complaints to head- 
 quarters. But once on land they trot about Stamboul and 
 forget this trifling annoyance. The quarantine nuisance 
 has been kept up for years like this, }-et no one endeavour 
 to abate or abolish it. One hapless Pasha travelling with 
 his wife and daughter was nearly left as a pledge on board 
 U
 
 306 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 the Lloyd steamer. His bill came to 750 francs for ten 
 days' quarantine ; and he had not got so much money a 
 misfortune which may happen to any Pasha. 
 
 We are not desirous to examine seriatim all the different 
 departments of trade and industry in Constantinople. Else 
 we might have to prepare a big volume entitled Dictionary 
 of Shams and Counterfeits ; and this publication could never 
 be completed. Yet let us say that if a man is willing to 
 live as the natives live, he can find things that are good in 
 quality and cheap in price. But if he cannot do without 
 certain European articles he is sure to pay a tremendously 
 high price for them, or else be content with wretched imita- 
 tions. The further he goes from Constantinople into the 
 interior of Turkey, the higher will be the price charged. 
 In Mesopotamia a pair of boots costs 62 francs; common 
 cloth, 15 francs a yard ; inferior tea, 11 francs a pound, a 
 bottle of ordinary cognac, 12 francs 50 cents ; and a bottle 
 of beer, 3 francs 50 cents. 
 
 At Constantinople even the prices are not uniform. 
 You pay more in Pera than in Galata, and more in Galata 
 than in Stamboul. For this reason a coffin-seller in the 
 European quarter wrote over his shop-entrance "Galata 
 Price " so as to decide customers who might still be hesi- 
 tating. 
 
 It is in the Bazaar of Stamboul that one may most pro- 
 fitably study the commerce of the East. This bazaar is 
 something colossal in proportion, and one can form no 
 proper idea of it without having visited it dozens of times. 
 It is this Bazaar which supplies the whole of Asiatic 
 Turkey as far as the Caspian Sea, the Persian frontier and 
 the valley of the Euphrates. All the local bazaars of
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 30? 
 
 Isrniclt, Broussa, Trebizond and Sivas, are nothing more 
 than its branch agencies. It receives annually more than 
 two hundred and fifty million francs' worth of merchandise. 
 Nothing is more fascinating than to wander thi'ough these 
 long, vaulted galleries between lofty arcades striped 
 with black and white. The sides of the cupolas are 
 covered with quaint frescoes, the massive walls having 
 little narrow windows which admit bright rays that 
 illumine the obscurity, gilding the ostrich eggs and glass 
 vessels suspended from the roof and throwing bars of 
 light upon the rich stuffs, silks, tapestries and brocade. 
 In the midst of all these vivid colours and lights a 
 dense crowd circulates, most of it attracted by curiosity. 
 Above each arcade the merchants hang out their signs, 
 which are either little boats, impaled cats, the horns of a 
 gazelle, pine-cones, or monkeys. The shops are built into 
 the walls of each gallery, like grottoes, and the seller sits 
 in front of them on a sort of raised platform encircled by 
 divans, and covered with carpets or matting. If a client 
 of importance arrives, coffee and cigarettes or a narghile 
 are at once offered to him. The sides of the grotto open as 
 in a fairy scene, and reveal bale after bale, fold upon fold 
 of gorgeous stuffs, that are speedily piled up before the 
 spectator. Then the haggling or bazarlek begins. The 
 seller uses all his wiles, and makes out his case with 
 wonderful eloquence. He is a consummate actor, with 
 irresistible bursts of dramatic frenzy. You are ruining 
 him ! You are robbing him of his last morsel of bread ! 
 He loses, through you, his entire week's earnings ! 
 
 If the buyer be a European, the scene requires a third 
 person, the interpreter. No sooner does the wretched tourist
 
 308 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 show himself at the door of the bazaar than he is treacherously 
 assaulted by a band of dragomans; Jews, most of them, or 
 fit to be Jews. They dog his steps, walk round him, press 
 close to his elbow and shoulder, croaking out meanwhile 
 -their offers of service. It is no good for the poor visitor to 
 try and shake them off; such parasites stick to him like 
 burrs and fix their claws in his great-coat. They go on 
 talking, even though he do not answer ; they track him if 
 he slips away ; and if he stop, they block his passage. 
 When the victim, losing all patience, sends them to the 
 devil, they make a bow and pretend to go there ; but, a 
 moment afterwards, they reappear. If you stop at a shop, 
 they join your debate, profiting by your ignorance of the 
 language. The merchant, though quite well able to speak 
 any language, pretends not to understand you. " Ne 
 deior?" "What does he say?" he asks the interpreter who 
 thereupon instantly takes possession of you, seeming wish- 
 ful to protect you from the merchant's rapacity. No 
 comedy was ever played to greater perfection. You end 
 by thinking that you have bought veritable treasures at 
 cost price, and in a moment of emotion, you slip a baksheesh 
 into the interpreter's hand. This is the climax. The play 
 is over, and you are once more free. The sly interpreter 
 thanks you and goes back to the merchant who allows him 
 ten per cent, on the price of the article sold. 
 
 The bazaar dragomans have really marvellous cunning 
 and presence of mind. It comes very near the art of 
 divination. According to your age, your nose, your accent, 
 your look, they can foresee what it is that you want. 
 They have winks and imperceptible smiles which are their 
 secret language with the merchant. You are still hesitat-
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 309 
 
 ing, while the price has already been fixed by the two 
 confederates. You are simply the man that pays. They 
 will recognise you directly you appear, and they recollect 
 the very article that you fancy. They remember, too, how 
 you came two years ago ; they can tell you what you 
 bought and how much you paid ; and they will instantly 
 show you the same article at a far cheaper price. Do you 
 want to pick up a necklace cheap? In a moment the 
 rumour circulates all through the bazaars, and you are 
 waylaid by forty merchants with forty necklaces all alike. 
 You should see with what lofty gestures the dragoman 
 waves them off. " No, no," says he, " let the tchelebi 
 alone. The tchelebi knows what he wants ! " Yes, the 
 gentleman knows what he wants; but the dragoman knows 
 better still, and will diplomatically make you fall in with 
 his choice. He ends by getting hold of your name and 
 address. One fine morning he walks into your room laden 
 with articles which might tempt you. Don't you like this? 
 Would you rather have something else ? He opens the 
 door and calls in a colleague, standing outside on the 
 stairs. In two minutes you are surrounded by carpets, 
 yataghans, embroidered shawls, brass bowls and plates, 
 slippers, frankincense, etc. He pulls an old manuscript 
 copy of the Goran out of his pocket, which an aged priest 
 desires to sell ; then he displays earrings, amulets, and 
 attar-of- roses. It would need a fortune to buy it all. If 
 you don't send him packing, he will come back next day 
 with a fresh assortment, and his confederates will waylay 
 you at the corners of the streets. He talks or murders 
 any and every language ; but he only understands such 
 things as are to his advantage. He constantly quotes the
 
 310 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 name of some exalted personage of your nationality who, 
 it appears, honoured him with his confidence. Your 
 consul and your ambassador are both customers of his. 
 He speculates at once upon people's vanity and impatience. 
 
 Take another scene of the same comedy. Suppose you 
 are a European knowing the languages of the country, and 
 so freed from the tyranny of an interpreter. You go to 
 the bazaars with a friend who has just arrived from Paris. 
 Never feel hurt if the merchant say to you in Turkish : 
 " Make your friend pay the price I ask, and we will split 
 the difference." And whatever you do don't be indignant 
 at such a proposal. In Turkey, such dirty tricks are played 
 by friend upon friend, by relation upon relation. The 
 voice of blood cannot silence that of so much per cent. 
 
 The bazaar is a town ; it has its mosques, its fountains, 
 its restaurants, its exchange. It is a place of meetings and 
 of promenades ; a place where amorous intrigues are begun 
 and bewrayed, for Turkish women set a watch upon their 
 lords, using their female friends as spies. Mussulman law 
 forbids veiled women to enter the shops, as it is feared that 
 in their dark recesses other trades may be carried on and 
 other bargains driven than those in printed calico and 
 flowered silk. The same law excludes boys from these shops, 
 and merchants may not keep youthful assistants to serve 
 customers. Turkish ladies of rank never enter shops in 
 Pera, but always sit in their broughams at the door, and 
 have things brought outside to them to look at. The 
 custom, however, is one that is gradually disappearing, and 
 there are many hanoums now whose sense of modesty does 
 not prevent them from sitting about in Frankish shops all 
 the afternoon.
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 311 
 
 The Bazaar is surrounded by immense Hans ; in one, 
 Persian carpets are sold, in another raw wool, in a third 
 silks, stuffs, etc. The visitor must penetrate into the 
 narrow gloomy little shops in these Hans if he would get 
 correct ideas as to what is called Oriental wealth and 
 magnificence. We have no intention here of trying to 
 speak about what Theophile Gautier has spoken with all 
 the sincerity of a passionate connoisseur, and all the consum- 
 mate art of a great man of letters. But we refer readers 
 to his pages, ablaze as they are with all the rich sunlight of 
 the East. 
 
 Such immense traffic as this in the bazaars explains the 
 great commercial importance of Constantinople. The 
 Eastern metropolis receives from Europe all her manufac- 
 tures, and distributes them throughout Asia; and this 
 privilege she owes to her incomparable position, placed as 
 she is between two continents and two seas.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE LOCAL PRESS. JOURNALISTIC TROUBLES. THE LEECHES 
 
 OF THE PRESS BUREAU. CENSORSHIP AND SENSELESS- 
 NESS. HOW BOOKS AND PLAYS ARE EDITED IN TURKEY. 
 CUSTOM HOUSE CRITICS AND THEIR LITERARY INSTINCT. 
 
 THE intellectual activity of a country is measured by the 
 number and the worth of its journals and newspapers. In 
 this respect, the Pera thermometer stands at zero. There 
 are few large cities in which the Press is so utterly 
 insignificant. 
 
 The poor newspapers themselves are not wholly respon- 
 sible for this, which is mainly a result of that servile 
 bondage in which the entire Oriental press languishes. 
 For many reasons the Ottoman Government does not love 
 the light, or at anyrate it desires to have the monopoly of 
 the lamps. What it would prefer would be that no paper 
 should ever allude to it ; but, failing that, it has reduced 
 the Press to tolerance, and this tolerance to a minimum. 
 The regime is the soothing, suave one of perpetual decrees 
 and arbitrary suspensions. It is well-nigh impossible for 
 the papers to speak of home policy, of religion, of the Sultan,
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 313 
 
 of the Government, of the array, of finance. Only art and 
 literature remain as topics free for treatment. A sorry 
 theme indeed. Art and literature in Pera ! A proper dish 
 for Lent! 
 
 Newspapers are forbidden to reproduce articles from 
 European journals which might possibly sow seeds of dis- 
 content among the Turks. Nor are they allowed to protest 
 against abuses, point out reforms or insist upon improve- 
 ments. As political dogma they have to admit that every- 
 thing in Turkey is perfection, and consequently that any 
 effort at progress is needless and chimerical. The same 
 sort of thing goes on in another capital which is called 
 Pekin, in the extreme East. Decidedly it is a case of 
 " extremes meet ! " 
 
 Not a paragraph, not a line of any newspaper may be 
 published before having been duly " revised and corrected " 
 by the representatives of the Press Censorship who every 
 morning go the round of the newspaper offices in Pera and 
 Galata. They are not men of particular training or par- 
 ticular intelligence, and often they cannot seize the subtle- 
 ties of a language whether it be French or English. But 
 such austere boobies live in perpetual fear of drawing down 
 upon their fez the lightnings of the Grand Vizier. And 
 they prefer to err on the side of precaution, doggedly 
 suppressing all passages in a leader or a paragraph which 
 they do not rightly understand. Their general rule is, 
 "If in doubt, strike it out;" and scratch ! goes their red 
 pencil through all your night's work with its high-sounding 
 adjectives, (live syllabled words delight Perotes) striking 
 metaphors and glittering .sentences. Suppose you write 
 auent Bulgaria, "the lazy pipkin seethes upon the flames
 
 3 14 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 of Europe." How mortifying to see such a graphic 
 metaphor doomed by dunderheads to the wastepaper basket ! 
 But in such tortures the luekless Pera editor writhes every- 
 day. In the East, phrases and plump lady-tourists share 
 the same fate ; the censor manipulates the former, and the 
 custom-house officer, the latter. Despite such precautions, 
 a paper is often obliged to appear with one or two blank 
 columns, as an article may be suppressed at the last 
 moment and there is nothing ready to supply its place. 
 At the head of such white patches you read an obituary 
 notice to the effect that "At the request of the Censorship, 
 such and such an article has been consigned to the editorial 
 portfolio." A newspaper is not allowed to have a special 
 service of telegrams ; they are all opened_by the authorities. 
 It can only profit by the drowsy Havas and Reuter agencies, 
 the pot-au-feu of the entire Press ; even their scraps of 
 vague information, issued in excruciating French, are re- 
 viewed by the argus-eyed Ottomans, who suppress any 
 passage that is either disagreeable or compromising. 
 
 .Let not the luckless paper attempt to bring to light the 
 details of some huge fraud or official scandal. In a moment 
 a notice of suspension would be served upon it by the Porte, 
 to bring it to its senses, and compel it to be silent. A 
 slighter measure for checking such outspoken conduct is to 
 publish an edict, saying "The newspapers are prohibited 
 from touching the Bulgarian question." And this mandate 
 will be followed next day by " The subject of Egypt may 
 not at present be treated by the local Press." So it goes on ; 
 and in this way Turkey deliberately throttles public opinion. 
 
 The facts just given are in themselves sufficient, we 
 fancy, to excuse the beggarly miserable state of the Con-
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 315 
 
 stantinople Press. Each paper is a gelding, a eunuch, and 
 every morning the shears of Mehmed and the pruning hook 
 of Aristote repeat the horrid process of castration. If the 
 poor paper rebel, not scissors are the instruments of torture 
 applied; but one fell sabre-stroke cuts off its head. Under 
 such conditions one may tolerate its note of grovelling 
 sycophancy, its bad grammar and bad taste when weaving 
 garlands of adjectives for the Sultan and his councillors. 
 On His Imperial Majesty's day of birth or of accession, the 
 newspapers illuminate their front page with a piece of truly 
 Corinthian prose, and let off their grandest literary fire- 
 works. Of course, in making such gaudy chains of superla- 
 tives, editors have an end in view other than that of tilling 
 their columns with fudge. By such verbal pyrotechnics and 
 such a noisy show of obedience and devotion, they can 
 manage to win pardon for some petty error or imprudence ; 
 such excess of servility is a means to secure for themselves 
 a few grains of independence. 
 
 This abject servility of the Press explains to our readers 
 why so many crimes can be committed in Turkey, why 
 abuses exist and why all progress is impossible. Public 
 opinion being thus gagged, the high are free to commit the 
 most flagrant acts of injustice, while the low become in- 
 different like fatalists, and even lose all sense of their rights. 
 The Government is thus able to wallow in its corruption, 
 for it has nothing to fear from the wrath of the masses. 
 Neither cries nor laments can get a hearing, Turkey being 
 one huge Tour de Nesles. 
 
 The Anglo-French and French newspapers in Pera of 
 course represent various shades of political feeling, and all 
 try to make their readers believe that they are officially
 
 316 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 inspired. Thus one print has Hellenic sympathies, another 
 is devoted to the Bulgarian cause and bolsters up Prince 
 Ferdinand through thick and thin, while a third is reputed 
 to have a heavy subvention from the Russian Embassy. A 
 Pera paper is made up pretty much as follows. First, in 
 larger type, comes the leader, a paraphrase of Havas' 
 laconic telegrams. These telegrams are the gospel of the 
 clay ; pegs on which to spin out a political sermon. If 
 Havas shabbily distribute none, then the leaders are cooked 
 up with paste, scissors, and an old copy of the Dcbats or 
 the Times. There are always copious extracts from the 
 European papers ; inoffensive bits of news but badly 
 chosen and badly assorted. The main paragraph of 
 interest among local news refers usually to some Embassy 
 fete or "diplomatic picnic," though great edification is also 
 to be got from reading the official list of promotions, 
 appointments, and decorations of Government functionaries. 
 Then come murders, thefts, fires and assaults, with a vague 
 tale or two about brigands who have roasted helpless 
 gardeners in petroleum, but whom the police have not yet 
 caught. Such stories gain in point and charm by being 
 told in Perote French and Levantine English. Add to 
 these, the dull gossip about the doings of " Pera Society," 
 whether Mrs Frumpy is in town or at Therapia ; whether 
 a delightful dinner was given by Mrs Lumpy who " received 
 her guests with her well-known grace," and there you have 
 the whole paper, which costs twopence, and is certainly 
 dear at the price. Occasionally there may be some critical 
 notice of a concert or operatic performance. It is always 
 exaggerated either over-sour or over-sweet. To such a 
 pass, then, has the Pera Press come ; and, we repeat, it
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 317 
 
 cannot be blamed for this. The unfortunate newspapers 
 do not even pretend to fill their pockets, but only try to 
 till their columns without drawing down upon themselves 
 a bastinado from the Government. The Government forbids 
 them to deal with higher subjects, so they must stop on the 
 ground-floor and interest themselves in the tittle-tattle of 
 the servants' hall. If it were not for blackmail, chantage, 
 no Perot-e journal could keep afloat. But that subject we 
 will not touch. The t\vo Anglo-French newspapers are 
 the Levant Herald and the Oriental Advertiser, while 
 among those dailies published only in French, are the 
 Stamboul the most piquant paper of all the Turquie, 
 and the Phare du Bosphore. Mr Edgar Whitaker is editor 
 and proprietor of the Levant Herald, the Oriental Advertiser 
 being carried on by Mr Bellis, a Greek. An Irishman of 
 undoubted wit and humour, Mr Baron Hanly, has the 
 management of the Stamboul; and it is to him we owe it 
 if the paper he conducts be brighter and more readable 
 than the rest. 
 
 First among Turkish papers stands the Tarik. which is 
 considered to be the official organ of the Government. Its 
 editor is a writer of merit, and a poet not without renown 
 in his own country. He is styled Excellency, a title which 
 struggling reporters in Europe, alas ! will never reach. 
 All official news regarding the Palace and the Ministry 
 appears in the Tarik, and is accurately and vividly repro- 
 duced by the Perote prints, who often take the pains of 
 summarising its leaders on the burning questions of Bulgaria, 
 or of England in Egypt. In such articles, however, there 
 is little beyond trite remarks and praise for the well-known 
 sagacity of the Ottoman Government.
 
 3*8 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 The Terdjuman Ilakikat counts as the second Turkish 
 journal, but its importance, either literary or political, is 
 nil. Among Greek papers,.the Seoloyos and the Constantin- 
 oupolis take the lead, the former being very carefully 
 edited. The Armenians have several newspapers of their 
 own, such as the Arevelk, written in Turkish but printed in 
 the Armenian character. There are also Hebrew, Arabic, 
 Spanish and Persian papers, which all command a public. 
 
 Nearly all the chief Continental journals keep a paid 
 correspondent at Constantinople. The Times, the Standard, 
 the Daily Xeivs, the Daily Chronicle, the Koelnische Zeitung, 
 the Secolo, the Debats, the Temps all have their representa- 
 tives whose work is really far from easy, as they may not 
 telegraph the truth ; and often their messages are suppressed 
 by the censorship. In moments of crisis, the situation of 
 correspondent becomes critical also. During the stirring 
 events in Bulgaria, correspondents flocked thither from 
 Russia, Germany, Hungary, England, Roumania and Italy. 
 But what was their horror to find that they could not 
 despatch telegrams to their respective papers. Every tele- 
 gram was " edited " by a barbarous censor, who lopped off 
 any word or sentence which contained news, leaving some- 
 times little more than the signature and the address ! 
 
 A plan adopted by Constantinople correspondents is to 
 send their telegrams under cover to a friend at Varna or 
 Sophia, begging him to send it on. This plan, if it succeed 
 now, failed signally during the worst period of the Bulgarian 
 embroglio ; for the Government doggedly refused to let 
 private telegrams be forwarded ; and the correspondents, 
 being unable to correspond, had dolefully to return. One of 
 these unfortunate persons had the imprudence once to send
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 319 
 
 his paper a story about the little lake which the Sultan 
 had had constructed in the park of Yildiz, and on which 
 His Majesty was wont to take pleasure-trips in a steatn- 
 launch. It seems that, in order to fill this pond, Pera had 
 been left without water for several days. The indiscreet 
 journalist was promptly invited to leave Turkey, and until 
 the day of his going he was closely watched. 
 
 The censoi'ship does not limit itself to worrying the 
 newspapers, but extends its tender mercies to the whole of 
 literature. Some author has the audacity to publish a 
 pamphlet in Turkish. He must first send his manuscript 
 to a college of ulemas who examine it with closed doors. 
 If something in the pamphlet do not please them, they 
 calmly refuse to grant the necessary authorisation to print, 
 giving no explanation for such arbitrary conduct, and never 
 pointing out which was the objectionable passage. Thus 
 the new-born book is stifled in its cradle. 
 
 The censorship of books which enter and which leave 
 Turkey is another gross imposture. Let me briefly describe 
 my own experiences with the distinguished scholars who 
 preside over this literary lazaretto. I can vouch for the 
 facts as being strictly accurate. 
 
 On my arrival in Constantinople all my books were ex- 
 amined by a representative of the censorship. They were 
 then given back to nie, and I was told that thirty-five 
 works (or about a hundred volumes) had been kept back 
 for further scrutiny. I was at a loss to imagine what 
 books they could be that had excited the suspicion or the 
 disgust of these fastidious book-tasters. And by dint of a 
 few medjidies judiciously distributed I discovered that the 
 Index Expuryatorius ran thus :
 
 320 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 Chateaubriand Les Martyrs. 
 
 Voltaire Siecle de Louis XIV. 
 
 Bouillet Atlas de GfograpJiie. 
 
 Lord Byron's Works. 
 
 Poitou Voyage en Egypt. 
 
 Hugo Les Orientales. 
 
 Voltaire Theatre, etc. 
 
 The censors had also held back provisionally : 
 
 La Vie Privee et Publique au Moyen Age et a la Renais- 
 sance, by Jacob. 
 
 Costumes Religieux et Militaires (same author, and all the 
 other volumes in this series). 
 
 Don Gue"ranger : Sainte Cecile et la Societe Romaine. 
 
 Fredol Le Monde de la Mer. 
 
 Liais UEspace Celeste, and about a dozen others. 
 
 In a word, all the handsomely-bound books with engrav- 
 ings and coloured plates had been put in quarantine. The 
 knowing censors thought from their showy outside that 
 these works were of great value and that, being very 
 anxious to recover them, I should make any sacrifice to get 
 them out of their barbarous clutches. Indeed, by degrees 
 I managed to get back a certain number of books, but only 
 by spending a certain number of medjidie's, while other 
 volumes were still retained. Most of these, after seven or 
 eight months' delay, were sent back to France addressed to 
 a friend of mine. The rest are lost, including Byron and 
 Victor Hugo. Perhaps by a little extra baksheesh I might 
 have succeeded in liberating these noble poets ; but 1 had 
 had enough of senseless censordom. Apropos of poets, 
 Dante is now shut out of Turkey, because in a part 
 of the Divine Commedia, he has put Mahommed into
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 321 
 
 Hell ! On my leaving Constantinople I was asked if 
 I had got among my luggage any translation of the 
 Goran ! Oh ! childish question ! For in Paris anyone 
 can buy a copy for twopence! The censorship of plays and 
 operas is no less ridiculous. The performance of certain 
 pieces is interdicted to-day and authorised to-morrow, then 
 once more suspended, and so on. The Ballo in Maschera 
 and Don Carlos may not be performed because there are a 
 conspiracy and a murder of a prince in them ; the same 
 objection is raised to the Huguenots, Macbeth, etc. 
 
 In the East the sole existence permitted is the vegetable 
 existence. Every facility is granted to you for that, but 
 the cabbage must only never take upon itself to think !
 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE FUTURE OF TURKEY J WHAT WILL IT BE 1 POSSIBLE RE- 
 CONSTRUCTION OF A GREEK EMPIRE. FROM MOSCOW TO 
 
 STAMBOUL. THE BANQUET OF NATIONS. THE EVIL OK 
 
 THE EAST DRIVEN FURTHER EASTWARD. 
 
 WE are neither diplomatists nor sonnambulists. We have 
 never had the honour of interviewing M. de Bismarck, 
 General Kaulbars nor any of those great persons who decide 
 the fate of empires. We have never been present, not 
 even when hidden under the table, at a meeting of the 
 three Emperoio. So that it is impossible for us to know 
 what future is really in store for Turkey, if indeed these 
 exalted personages know so much. 
 
 To wish -to foretell the march and issue of events in the 
 East would be an act of foolish presumption. With each 
 day unforeseen complications arise ; the bonds of alliances 
 are loosed and there are for ever fresh combinations, sudden 
 as those of the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope. The critical 
 period dates from the deplorable Crimean campaign which 
 cost France so dear ; the solution of the question seems 
 now near at hand. That is what everybody knows for
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 323 
 
 certain. What solution will that be 1 ? That is what 
 everybody cannot tell. 
 
 We can only report upon the actual position of rival 
 nations and weigh the value of their moral and material 
 resources. We can state what is the respective situation 
 of the Oriental peoples and what are their aspirations. 
 The law of nationality is perhaps not an absolute one in 
 political matters, but it has an undeniable influence on the 
 march of events. The examples furnished by Italy, 
 Germany and lately by Bulgaria prove this. 
 
 In examining the East one recognises a primary and 
 incontestable truth, viz : that all European Turkey, the 
 islands of the Archipelago and all the littoral of Asia 
 Minor are Greek Hellenic by blood, language, religion, 
 interests and affection. The inhabitants of these parts 
 long for the time when they shall again belong to their 
 mother country ; it is the Grecia irredenta. Surely such 
 aims are ambitious, considering the actual condition of 
 this little State, but that is not to say that such aims are 
 absolutely chimerical. 
 
 Greece, properly so-called, has only 1,700,000 inhabi- 
 tants; let us add 2,500,000 for the populations scattered 
 throughout European Turkey and 1,400,000 for Asiatic 
 Turkey and we get a total of 5,600,000. From this 
 number must be deducted such pseudo-Greeks as call them- 
 selves Hellenes because they hate the Turks ; and there 
 are others who from various causes have lost their sense of 
 patriotism, and their love of country. Let us then put the 
 total roundly at 5,000,000 Greeks. We have already 
 spoken elsewhere in this book of the race's wonderful 
 vitality, of its rapid increase, and of its singular power of
 
 324 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 assimilation. We may calculate that in fifty years there 
 will be nine millions of Greeks; and that in a century 
 their number will exceed twenty-five millions. When that 
 day comes, can Europe afford to disregard their importance 1 
 
 Let us not forget that in European Turkey the Greeks 
 are more numerous than the Turks ; they form more than 
 half of the total population (2,500,000 Greeks out of 
 4,790,000 inhabitants). At Smyrna, in Asia Minor, there 
 are 120,000 Greeks against 40,000 Turks. Add to this that 
 in these countries the Greeks have nearly all the commerce 
 and industry in their hands, besides all the lesser trades, 
 and many of the wealthy banking establishments. 
 
 They possess most of the schools, while the entire sea- 
 board is virtually theirs. We may, then, without rashness, 
 predict that the coming century will see the reconstruction 
 of a great Greek empire in the East. 
 
 So much for the future. But from now to then, what 
 will be the course of events? If we review all the pheno- 
 mena of European politics for the past century, if we 
 consult all the most competent authorities on. the Eastern 
 question, it is no longer possible to doubt that sooner or 
 later Russia will come to Constantinople. She will come 
 there, because that is her traditional aim ; because it is of 
 paramount interest to her to establish herself at the gate of 
 the two continents ; and finally because she possesses the 
 power and the resources necessary to realise so grand a 
 scheme. 
 
 The opportunity has hitherto been wanting to the 
 Emperor Alexander to sever this new Gordian knot. 
 When such severance occurs, there will be tremendous 
 strife among the European Powers, and one of them will
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 325 
 
 certainly sacrifice the Dardanelles so as to obtain the 
 valuable alliance of Russia. 
 
 The situation has already become greatly changed since 
 Russia crossed the Balkans, nor could the Adrianople forti- 
 fications nor the ramparts of Tchataldja check the Czar's 
 eagles in their flight towards San Sophia. 
 
 Russia again has got a military stronghold in Batoum 
 which she has transformed into a formidable seaport town. 
 It is a great step forward in the direction of Trebizond and 
 Erzeroum. Samsoun and luebole will later be her prize ; 
 the Black Sea will become a Russian lake ; and the eagles 
 of Muscovy will encompass Constantinople on the right 
 hand and on the left, pouncing upon their prey from the 
 European as from the Asiatic side. 
 
 Such a prospect has nothing terrifying in it for France. 
 For what, after all, does she care about the fate of the 
 Black Sea or about the nation that rules the Dardanelles 1 
 One thing alone ought to claim all our interest in the 
 East, viz., the fate of those Christians placed under our 
 moral protectorate. But never let us compromise ourselves 
 in such a piece of Quixotic chivalry as the bolstering-up of 
 Turkey, an ally at once burdensome and impotent. 
 
 How far does Russia intend to respect the rights of 
 Mussulmans who have lived on European territory for four 
 centuries 1 Does she dream of a Turco-Russian agreement 
 some kind of modus viveudi which shall yet preserve the 
 phantom of the Osmanli's might upon the Bosphorus ? 
 From Russian diplomatists, anything, everything may be 
 expected, even the sight of Holy Russia protecting Turkey 
 against her friends of yesterday, all of them more or less 
 disinterested succourers of the Sick Man.
 
 326 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 
 
 What, too, will be the respective situation of Greek and 
 Slav in these regions? The Hellenes cherish a profound 
 antipathy for the Russians; they already imagine that 
 Turkey in Europe is their property by right. How then 
 will they tolerate the new invader ? Will they be content 
 with an enlargement of territory on the side of Thessaly 
 and with a few islands of the Archipelago 1 
 
 On to all these grave questions, other lesser ones are 
 grafted, for all the European Powers have interest in the 
 East. 
 
 England already owns Cyprus, and she does not intend 
 to let it go, being a nation without any sense for restitution. 
 She will also make a point of securing either on the Adana 
 or Lattaquia side a line of route towards the Euphrates 
 valley and the Persian Gulf. Germany will plead for her 
 colonies in Palestine, and for the necessity of their proper 
 expansion. France will claim the Lebanon district, which 
 has for years been under her moral protectorate, and the 
 populations of which would hail her as an emancipator. 
 Finally Russia, already omnipotent at Jerusalem, will 
 probably desire to establish a station on the Suez Canal 
 route, reserving thus for her fleet the means of making a 
 naval attack upon India, which her armies threaten by 
 land. Austria, who was -promised Macedonia and many 
 other compensations, will complain that she has been for- 
 gotten. Crushed, strangled between the Russian colossus 
 that will block the issues of the Danube, and the Teuton 
 colossus that will talk of completing the work of German 
 unity, bitten, too, in the heel by Italy, poor harrassed 
 Austria will doubtless have to pay the expenses incurred by 
 the Triple Alliance !
 
 THE EVIL OF THE EAST. 327 
 
 And what will become of Turkey when all the Gargan- 
 tuas of Europe give rein to their monster appetites ? 
 Evidently, her position will be a most precarious one, for 
 she will find herself confronted with the most civilized 
 nations in Europe and who regard her as a semi-barbarous 
 people. For four centuries she has lost five minutes a day 
 on all her neighbours. As a consequence, the discrepancy 
 is now a formidable one, and it is difficult nowadays to look 
 upon Turkey as a European nation. 
 
 Admitting even that by some compromise more or less 
 practicable she is able to keep Constantinople, her centre 
 of action and of influence will probably be transferred to 
 Asia, to those high table-lands overlooking the Euphrates. 
 And with such removal would all trouble for her cease? 
 Alas ! we fear not, for then the fight between Turk and 
 Arab would ensue, who, though their creeds be the same 
 and their customs similar, mutually cherish seeds of anta- 
 gonism. 
 
 As will be seen the Eastern Question still exists in the 
 East. But it may drift gradually further from Europe 
 towards the Indian Ocean, like those cyclones that, having 
 devastated whole countries disappear beyond the horizon. 
 Yet distant rumblings tell us that their fury is not yet 
 appeased, but that it has burst anew upon remoter lands. 
 
 E\D.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 While this book was going through the press, we chanced to fall in 
 with a little pamphlet which has become excessively rare, the first 
 instalment of a work to be entitled "Minor Memoirs of Turkey," and 
 edited in excellent style by an Englishman. It bears the date 1886, and is 
 full of curious details and promised revelations of the most exciting sort. 
 Unfortunately, it was seized by the Egyptian Government immediately 
 after its appearance. We extract from this document the following 
 edifying list of BaksheesliS with which this unique pamphlet ends : 
 
 LIST OF BAKSHEESHS RECEIVED BY 
 DIGNITARIES OF THE OTTOMAN COCRT: 
 
 From a Railway Company 
 
 Turkish 
 Pounds. 
 
 30,000 
 
 . .. Bey, secretary 5000 
 
 ....Bey, secretary 5000 
 
 ....Bey, chamberlain 5000 
 
 ....Pasha 5000 
 
 ....Pasha 6000 
 
 ....Pasha, minister 4000 
 
 ...Pasha 5000 
 
 ....Effendi 3000 
 
 ...Various Fees 7000 
 
 Bern itted by A... Effendi 75,000 
 
 Fi-om tlie Tobacco Monopoly 
 Company 
 
 Turkish 
 Pounds. 
 50,000 
 
 ;Bey 
 
 Bey 
 
 Bey 
 
 Agha 
 
 Pasha 
 
 Pasha 
 
 Pasha 
 
 Pasha, minister 
 
 Pasha 
 
 Pasha 
 
 ...Various Fees 
 
 5000 
 5000 
 5000 
 5000 
 
 10,000 
 5000 
 5000 
 5000 
 5000 
 5000 
 
 15,000 
 
 Turkish 
 Pounds. 
 
 Remitted by J. Effeudi and 
 the Directors of a 
 Galata Bank 125,000 
 
 Remitted by Baron to 
 
 the Court Chamber- 
 lains 60,000 
 
 Agent: A... Effendi 
 Remitted to the Palace for 
 
 the Railway Company 50,000 
 
 Agent : A Galata Bank 
 Remitted to the Palace for 
 
 the... Cannon Factory 100,000 
 
 Agent: B 
 
 Remitted to the Palace for 
 the concession of the 
 Constantinople waters 40,000 
 
 Agent: T Bey 
 
 Remitted to the Palace for 
 cloth merchants' con- 
 tracts 30,000 
 
 Agent : 
 
 Remitted to the Palace for 
 the settlement of the 
 accounts of a Galata 
 Bank 100,000 
 
 Agent: The Bank Itself 
 etc., etc., etc. 
 
 "This sum forms a small total of baksheeshs amounting to 900,000 
 Turkish pounds, or 13,800,000 francs swallowed up by the Ottoman 
 Court. These few figures shew to what level the morality of Court 
 officials trusted by the Sultan, has sunk. The Ottoman Court sells 
 itself to the last and highest bidder. Further comment is superfluous." 
 (pp. 19-20 of Minor Memoirs of Turkey, Part I., by Douva-ed-Erir Bey).
 
 16, HENUIKTIA STREET, COVENT GARDEN,.. 
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 THE TRIALS OF JETTA MALAUBRET. 
 
 BY VICTOR CHERBULIEZ, OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY THE COUNTESS G. DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. 
 " The characterization and dialogue are full of piquancy and cleverness." Society. 
 
 2s. 6 d. each. 
 
 FIFTH EDITION. 
 
 THE IRONMASTER. BY GEORGES OHNET. 
 
 FROM THE 146TH FRENCH EDITION. 
 
 " This work, the greatest literary success in any language of recent times, has already 
 yielded its author upwards of 12,000." 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 NUMA ROUMESTAN. BY ALPHONSE DAUDET. 
 
 " ' Numa Roumestan ' is a masterpiece ; it is really a perfect work ; it has no fault, no weak- 
 oess. It is a compact and harmonious whole. " Mn. HENRY JAMES. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 THE CORSARS; OR, LOVE AND LUCRE. 
 
 BY JOHN HILL. 
 
 " It is indubitable that Mr. Hill has produced a strong and lively novel, full of story, cha- 
 racter, situations, murder, gold-mines, excursions, and alarms. The book is rich in promise." 
 fatwday Review. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 PRINCE SERGE PANINE. BY GEORGES OHNET. 
 
 FROM THE 110TH FRENCH EDITION. 
 
 " This excellent version is sure to meet with large success on our side of the Channel." London 
 Figaro. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 BETWEEN MIDNIGHT & DAWN. B Y i. L. CASSIUS. 
 
 " An ingenious plot, cleverly handled." Atherxtum. 
 
 "The interest begins with the first page, and is ably sustained to the conclusion." Edinburgh 
 Cawrant. 
 
 ROLAND; OR THE EXPIATION OF A SIN. 
 
 BY ARY ECILAW. 
 
 " A novel entitled 'Roland 'is creating an immense sensation in Paris. The first, second, 
 and third editions were swept away in as many days. The work is charmingly written." Tlie 
 World. 
 
 ILArvUo. BY THE AUTHOR OF "A JAUNT IN A JUNK." 
 
 " The tale is admirably told." St. Stephen's Iterietr. 
 
 IN THE CHANGE OF YEARS. BY FBLISE LOVELACE. 
 
 " The author is but too true to human nature, as Thackeray and other great artists have been 
 before her." Actulemy.
 
 VIZETELLY fr CO.'S NEW BOOKS fr NEW EDITIONS. 13 
 
 MR. E. C. GRENVILLE-MURRAY'S WORKS. 
 
 Third and Cheaper Edition, in post 8w, 434 pp., with numerous Page and other 
 Engravings, handsomely bound, price 5s. 
 
 IMPRISONED IN A SPANISH CONVENT: 
 
 AN ENGLISH GIRL'S EXPERIENCES. 
 
 " Intensely fascinating. The expose is a remarkable one, and as readable as remarkable." 
 Society. 
 
 " Excellent specimens of their author in his best and brightest mood." Athenaeum. 
 
 " Highly dramatic." Scotsman. " Strikingly interesting." Literary World. 
 
 " Instead of the meek cooing dove with nated feet and a dusty lace who had talked of dying 
 for me, I had now a bright-eyed rosy-checked companion who had cambric pocket-handkerchief* 
 with violet scent on them and smoked cigarettes ou the sly." Page 75. 
 
 New and Cheaper Edition, Two Vols. large post 8vo, attractively bound, price 15s. 
 
 UNDER THE LENS: SOCIAL PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH ABOUT 300 ENGRAVINGS BY WELL-KNOWN ARTISTS. 
 
 CONTENTS : JILTS ADVENTURERS AND ADVENTURESSES HONOURABLE 
 GENTLEMEN (M.P.s)-PUBLIC SCHOOLBOYS AND UNDERGRADUATES- SPENDTHRIFTS 
 SOME WOMEN I HAVE KNOWN ROUGHS OF HIGH AND LOW DEGREE. 
 
 " Brilliant, highly-coloured sketches. . . . containing beyond doubt some of the best writing^ 
 that has come from Mr. GrenvOle-Murray's pen." St. Jamet't Gazette. 
 " Limned audaciously, unsparingly, and with much ability." World. 
 " Distinguished by their pitiless fidelity to nature." Society.
 
 AT THE ETON AND HARROW CRICKET MATCH : from "UNDER THE LENS.*
 
 VIZETELLY &* CO.'S NEW BOOKS & NEW EDITIONS. 15 
 MR. E. C. GRENVILLE-MURRAVS WORKS continued. 
 
 Seventh Edition, in post 8vo, handsomely bound, price 7s. Qd. 
 
 SIDE-LIGHTS ON ENGLISH SOCIETY 
 
 from 2. iff, foetal anfc Satirical. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH NEARLY 300 -CHARACTERISTIC ENGRAVINGS. 
 
 CONTENTS : FLIRTS. OX HER BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S SERVICE. SEMI- 
 DETACHED WIVES. NOBLE LORDS. YOUNG WIDOWS. OUR SILVERED YOUTH, 
 OR NOBLE OLD BOYS. 
 
 " This is a startling: book. The volume is expensively and elaborately got up ; the writing is 
 bitter, unsparing, and extremely clever." Vanity Fair. 
 
 "Mr. Grenville-Murray sparkles very steadily throughout the present volume, and put* to 
 excellent use his incomparable knowledge of life and manners, of men and cities, of appearances 
 and facts. Of his several descants upon English types, I shall only remark that they are 
 brilliantly and dashingly written, curious as to their matter, and admirably readable." Trvlk. 
 
 "No one can question the brilliancy of the sketches, nor affirm that ' Side-Lights ' is aught but 
 a fascinating book ....... The book is destined to make a great noise in the world." Whitehall 
 
 Review. 
 
 Third Edition, with Frontispiece and Vignette, price 2s. 6d. 
 
 HIGH LIFE IN FRANCE UNDER THE 
 REPUBLIC : 
 
 SOCIAL AND SATIRICAL SKETCHES IN PARIS AND THE PROVINCES. 
 
 " Take this book as it stands, with the limitations imposed upon its author by circumstances, 
 
 and it will be found very enjoyable The volume is studded with shrewd observations on 
 
 French life at the present day." Spectator. 
 
 " A very clever and entertaining series of social and satirical sketches, almost French in their 
 point and vivacity." Contemporary Revteio. 
 
 "A most amusing book, and no less instructive if read with allowances and understanding." 
 World. 
 
 ' ' Full of the caustic humour and graphic character-painting so characteristic of Mr. Greuville- 
 Murray's work, and dealing trenchantly yet lightly with almost every conceivable phase of 
 social, political, official, journalistic and theatrical life." Society.
 
 1 6 V2ZETELLY &* CO.'S NEW BOOKS fr NEW EDITIONS. 
 
 MR. E. C. GRENVILLE-MURRAY'S WORKS-contfnwed. 
 
 Second Edition, in large 8vo, tastefully bound, with gilt edges, price IQs. 6cL 
 FOKMING A HANDSOME VOLUME FOR A PfiESENT. 
 
 PEOPLE I HAVE MET. 
 
 Illustrated with 54 tinted Page Engravings, from Designs by FRED. BARNARD 
 
 lI^B&sr^ .> 
 
 THE RICH WIDOW (reduced from the original engraving). 
 
 "Mr. Grenville-Murray's pages sparkle with cleverness and with a shrewd wit, caustic or 
 cynical at times, but by no means excluding a due appreciation of the softer virtues of women 
 and the sterner excellences of men. The talent of the artist (Mr. Barnard) is akin to that of the 
 author, and the result of the combination is a book that, once taken up, can hardly be laid down 
 until the last page is perused." Spectator. 
 
 " All of Mr. Grenville-Murray's portraits are clever and life-like, and some of them are not 
 unworthy of a model who was more before the author's eyes than Addison namely, Thackeray." 
 Truth. 
 
 " Mr. Grenville-Mnrray's sketches are genuine studies, and are the best things of the kind 
 th*t have been published since ' Sketches by Boz,' to which they are superior in the sense in 
 which artistically executed character portraits arc superior to caricatures." St. James's Gazette. 
 
 " No book of its class can be pointed out so admirably calculated to show another generation 
 tbe foibles and peculiarities of the men and women of our times." Morning Post. 
 
 An Edition of " PEOPLE I HAVE MET " is published in small 8vo, 
 with Frontispiece and other pag-e Engravings, price 2s. 6d. 
 
 In post 8vo, 150 engravings, cloth yilt, jrrice 5*. 
 
 JILTS AND OTHER SOCIAL PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 Uniform icith the above. 
 
 SPENDTHRIFTS AND OTHER SOCIAL PHOTOGRAPHS.
 
 VIZ E TELLY & CO.'S NEW BOOKS fr NEW EDITIONS. 17 
 MR. GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA'S WORKS. 
 
 ' It was like your imperence to come smouchin" round here, looking after de white folks' washin. 
 
 In One Volume, demy 8vo, 560 pages, price 12s., the SIXTH EDITION J 
 
 AMERICA REVISITED, 
 
 FROM THE BAY OF NEW YORK TO THE GULF OF MEXICO, & FROM LAKE MICHIGAN 
 TO THE PACIFIC, INCLUDING A SOJOURN AMONG THE MORMONS IN SALT LAKE 'CITY. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH NEARLY 400 ENGRAVINGS. 
 
 "In 'America Ri-visited ' Mr. Sala is seen at his very best; better even than in his Paris 
 book, more evenly genial and gay, a -id with a fresher subject to handle." World. 
 
 " Mr. Sala'n good stories lie thick as plums ha a pudding throughout this handsome -work." 
 I'M Mall Gazette.
 
 i8 VIZETELLY Sr* CO.'S NEW BOOKS 6- NEW EDITIONS. 
 
 MR. G. A. SALA'S WORKS continued. 
 
 In demy 8vo, handsomely printed on hand-made paper, with the Illustrations on 
 India paper mounted (only 250 copies printed), price 10s. 6d. 
 
 UNDER THE SUN: 
 
 ESSAYS MAINLY WRITTEN IN HOT COUNTRIES. 
 
 A New Edition, containing several Additional Essays, with an Etched Portrait 
 of the Author by BOCOURT, and 12 full-page Engravings. 
 
 " There are nearly four hundred pages between the covers of this volume, which means tha 
 contain plenty of excellent reading." St. J nines' g Gazette. 
 
 Uniform with the above, with Frontispiece and other Page Engravings. 
 
 DUTCH PICTURES, and PICTURES DONE 
 WITH A QUILL. 
 
 The Graphic remarks : " We have received a sumptuous new edition of Mr. G. A. gala's well- 
 known 'Dutch Pictures.' It is printed on rough paper, and is enriched with many admirable 
 illustrations." 
 
 " Mr. Sala's best work has in it something of Montaigne, a great deal of Charles Lamb made 
 deeper and broader and not a little of Lamb's model, the accomplished and quaint Sir Thomas 
 Brown. These ' Dutch Pictures ' and ' Pictures Done with a Quill ' should be placed alongside 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes's inimitable budgets of friendly gossip and Thackeray's 'Roundabout 
 Papers.' They display to perfection the quick eye, good taste, and ready hand of the born 
 essayist they are never tiresome." Daily Telegraph. 
 
 UNDER THE SUN, and DUTCH PICTURES AND PICTURES DONE 
 WITH A QUILL are also published in crown 8vo, price 2s. 6d. each. 
 
 Fourth and Cheaper Edition, in crovm Svo, price 3s. 6d. 
 
 A JOURNEY DUE SOUTH; 
 
 TRAVELS IN SEARCH OF SUNSHINE, 
 
 INCLUDING 
 
 MARSEILLES, NICE, BASTIA, AJACCIO, GENOA, PISA, BOLOGNA, 
 VENICE, ROME, NAPLES, POMPEII, &c. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH 16 FULL-PAGE ENGRAVINGS BY VARIOUS ARTISTS. 
 
 " In A Journey due South ' Mr. Sala is in his brightest and cheeriest mood, ready with quip 
 and jest and anecdote, brimful of allusion ever happy and pat." Saturday Review. 
 
 Tenth Edition, in crmcn 8ro, containing over 400 pages, attractively boimd, price 2s. 6d. 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 BY GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. 
 WITH NUMEROUS CHARACTERISTIC ILLUSTRATIONS BY FRENCH ARTISTS. 
 
 " On subjects like those in his present work, Mr. Sala is at his best." The Timei. 
 
 " This book is one of the most readable that has appeared for many a day. Few Englishmen 
 know so much of old and modern Paris as Mr. Sala." Truth. 
 
 '"Paris Herself Again' is infinitely more amusing than most novels. There is no style so 
 chatty and so unwearying aa that of which Mr. Sala is a master." The World.
 
 A BUCK OF THE REGENCY: from "DUTCH PICTURES" 
 
 ," Mr. Sala's best work has in it something of Montaigne, a great deal of Charles Lamb made 
 deeper and broader and not a little of Lamb's model, the accomplished and quaint Sir Thomas 
 Brown. These ' Dutch Pictures ' and ' Pictures Done With a Quill ' should be placed alongside 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes's inimitable budgets of friendly gossip and Thackeray's 'Roundabout 
 Papers. They display to perfection the quick eye, good taste, and ready hand of the born 
 essayist they are never tiresome." Daily Telegraph. 
 
 C
 
 20 VIZETELLY &- CO.'S NEW BOOKS fr NEW EDITIONS. 
 NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION OF 
 
 ZOLA'S POWERFUL REALISTIC NOVELS. 
 
 Translated idthout Abridgment, and Illustrated ^c^th all the Original Engravings. 
 Price 3s. 6d. per volume. 
 
 Mr. HENRY JAMES on ZOLA'S NOVELS. 
 
 "A novelist with a system, a passionate conviction, a great plan incontestable attributes of 
 M. Zola is not now to be easily found in England or the United States, where the story-teller's 
 art is almost exclusively feminine, is mainly in the hands of timid (even when very accomplished) 
 women, whose acquaintance with life is severely restricted, and who are not conspicuous for 
 general views. The novel, moreover, among ourselves, is almost always addressed to young 
 unmarried ladies, or at least always assumes them to be a large part of the novelist's public. 
 
 " This fact, to a French story-teller, appears, of course, a damnable restriction, and M. Zola 
 would probably decline to take au tfrieux any work produced under such unnatural conditions. 
 Half of life is a sealed book to young unmarried ladies, and how can a novel be worth anything 
 that deals only with half of life? These objections are perfectly valid, and it may be said that 
 our English system is a good thing for virgins and boys, and "a bad thing for the novel itself, 
 when the novel is regarded as something more than a simple jeu d'aprit, and considered aa a 
 composition that treats of life at large and helps us to know." 
 
 NAN A, From the 127th French Editivn. 
 
 THE " ASSOMMOIR." (The Prelude to -NASA,") 
 
 PIPING HOT! (POT-BOU.LLE.) 
 
 GERMINAL; OR, MASTER AND MAN. 
 THE RUSH FOR THE SPOIL. iLA OUREE.) 
 
 THE LADIES' PARADISE. (TheS eq nelto<'PHoT!'') 
 
 ABBE MOURET'S TRANSGRESSION. 
 THERESE RAQUIN. 
 
 HIS MASTERPIECE ? (LOUVRE.) With a Portrait of 
 M. EMILE ZOLA, Etched by BOCOCRT. 
 
 THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS. 
 HOW JOLLY LIFE IS! 
 A LOVE EPISODE.
 
 VIZETELLY &> CO.'S NEW BOOKS &> NEW EDITIONS. 21 
 
 ZOLA'S REALISTIC NOVELS continued. 
 
 The following Volumes, containing Frontispieces and other 
 Illustrations, are price 6s. each. 
 
 THE SOIL. (LA TERRE) 
 
 THE CONQUEST OF PLASSANS. 
 HIS EXCELLENCY EUGENE ROUGON. 
 FAT AND THIN. 
 A SOLDIER'S HONOUR. 
 MADELEINE FERAT. 
 
 In largre octavo, price 6s. per Volume. 
 
 Each Volume contains about 100 Engravings, half of which are page-size. 
 
 i. NANA. 2. THE ASSOMMOIR. 3. PIPING HOT. 
 
 DESIGNS BY BELLENGER, BERTALL, CLAIRIN", GILL, VIERGE, &c. 
 
 THE BOULEVARD NOVELS. 
 
 Pictures of French Morals and Manners. 
 
 In small 8vo, attractively bound, price 2s. 6cl. each. 
 
 NANA'S DAUGHTER. SEALED LIPS. 
 
 BY A. SIRVEX and H. LEVERDIER. 
 
 From the 35th French Edition. 
 
 THE YOUNG GUARD. 
 
 BY VAST-RICOUARD. 
 
 From the 15th French Edition. 
 
 THE WOMAN OF FIRE, 
 
 BY ADOLPHE BELOT. 
 
 From the 30th French Edition. 
 
 A LADY'S MAN. 
 
 BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT. 
 
 From the 20th French Edition. 
 
 BY F. DU BOISGOBEY. 
 
 ODETTE'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 BY ALBERT DELPIT. 
 
 From the 22nd French Edition. 
 
 THE VIRGIN WIDOW. 
 
 BY A. MATTHEY. 
 
 A MYSTERY STILL 
 
 BY F. DU BOISGOBBT. 
 
 A WOMAN'S LIFE. 
 
 BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT.
 
 22 VI 'ZE TELLY fr CO.'S NEW BOOKS & NEW EDITIONS. 
 
 VIZETELLY'S HALF-CROWN SERIES. 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. By GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. Tenth 
 
 Edition. Over 400 pages and numerous Engravings. 
 
 " On subjects like those in his present work, Mr. Sala is at his best." The Times. 
 
 " This book is one of the most readable that has appeared for many a day. Few English- 
 men know so much of old and modern Paris as Mr. Sala." Truth. 
 
 UNDER THE SUN. ESSAYS MAINLY WRITTEN IN HOT COUNTRIES. 
 
 By GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. A New Edition. Illustrated with 12 page Engravings and an 
 etched Portrait of the Author. 
 
 " There are nearly four hundred pages between the covers of this volume, which means 
 that they contain plenty of excellent reading." 67. James's Gazette. 
 
 DUTCH PICTURES and PICTURES DONE WITH A QUILL. 
 
 By GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. A New Edition. Illustrated with 8 page Engravings. 
 
 " Mr. Sala's best work has in it something of Montaigne, a great deal of Charles Lamb- 
 made deeper and broader- and not a little of Lamb's model, the accomplished and quaint Sir 
 Thomas Brown. These ' Dutch Pictures ' and ' Pictures Done with a Quill," display to per-' 
 faction the quick eye, good taste, and ready hand of the born essayist they are never tire- 
 some." Daily Telegraph. 
 
 HIGH LIFE IN FRANCE UNDER THE REPUBLIC. S OCI AL 
 
 AND SATIRICAL SKETCHES IN PARIS AND THE PROVINCES. By E. C. GRENVILLE-MCRRAY. 
 Third Edition, with a Frontispiece. 
 
 "A very clever and entertaining series of social and satirical sketches, almost French in 
 their point and vivacity." Contemporary Review. 
 
 " A most amusing book, and no less instructive if read with allowances and understand- 
 ing." World. 
 
 PEOPLE I HAVE MET. By E. C. GRENVILLE-MURRAY. A New 
 
 Edition. With 8 page Engravings from Designs by F. BARNARD. 
 
 " Mr. Grenville-Murray's pages sparkle with cleverness and with a shrewd wit, caustic or 
 cynical at times, but by no means excluding a due appreciation of the softer virtues of women 
 and the sterner excellencies of men."- Spectator. 
 
 " All of Mr. Grenville-Murray's portraits are clever and life-like, and some of them are 
 not unworthy of* a model who was moie before the author's eye than Addison namely, 
 Thackeray." Trut h. 
 
 A BOOK OF COURT SCANDAL. 
 CAROLINE BAUER AND THE COBURGS. From the German, 
 
 with two carefully engraved Portraits. Second Edition. 
 
 " Caroline Bauer's name became in a mysterious and almost tragic manner connected 
 with those of two men highly esteemed and well remembered in England Prince Leopold 
 of Coburg, and his nephew, Prince Albert's trusty friend and adviser, Baron Stockmar." 
 The Times. 
 
 THE STORY OF THE DIAMOND NECKLACE, TOLD m DETAIL 
 
 FOR THE FIRST TIME. A New Edition. By HENHY VIZETELLY. Illustrated with an authentic 
 representation of the Diamond Necklace, and a Portrait of the Countess de la Motte, engraved 
 on steel, and other Engravings. 
 
 "Had the most daring of our sensational novelists put forth the present plain 
 unvarnished statement of facts as a work of fiction, it would have been denounced as 
 so violating all probabilities as to be a positive insult to the common sense of the reader. 
 Yet strange, startling, Incomprehensible as is the narrative which the author has here 
 evolved, every word of it is true." Notes and Queries. 
 
 GUZMAN OF ALFARAQUE. A Spanish Novel, translated by 
 
 E. LOWDELL. Illustrated with highly finished steel Engravings from Designs by STAHL. 
 
 "The wit, vivacity and variety of this masterpiece cannot be over-estimated." Morning 
 P.ott.
 
 VIZETELLY <S^ CO.'S NEW BOOKS fr NEW EDITIONS. 23 
 In post 8vo t with numerous Page and other Engravings, cloth gilt, price 3s. 6d. t 
 
 NO ROSE WITHOUT A THORN, 
 
 AND OTHER TALES. 
 By F. C. BFRSTAND, H. SAVILE CLARKE, R. E. FRANCILLON, &c. 
 
 " By the aid of the chimney with the register up Mrs. Lupscombe's curiosity was, to 
 certain extent, gratified." Page 19. 
 
 In post 8vo, with numerous Page and other Engravings, cloth gilt, price 3s. 6rf. 
 
 THE DOVE'S NEST, 
 
 AND OTHER TALES. 
 By JOSEPH HATTON, RICHARD JEFFERIES, H. SAVILE CLARKE, &o. 
 
 A STORY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 In crown 8vo, with eight tinted page engravings, price 2s. 
 
 SAVED BY A SMILE. 
 
 BY JAMES SIREE. 
 
 Third Edition. In picture boards, crown 8vo, with page engravings, price 2s. 
 
 MY FIRST CRIME. 
 
 BY G. MACli, FORMER " CHEF DE LA SURETE " OF THE PARIS POLICE. 
 
 "An account by a real Lecoq of a real crime is a novelty among the mass of criminal 
 novels with which the world has bean favoured since the death of the great originator Gaboriau. 
 It Is to M. Mace", who has had to deal with realjuges d' instruction, real agents de la sHrett, and real 
 murderers, that we are indebted for this really interesting addition to a species of literature 
 which has of late begun to pall." Saturday Review.
 
 24 V1ZETELLY fr CO.'S NEW BOOKS &* NEW EDITIONS. 
 
 In crown 8co, 2s. 6d. 
 
 A CITY GIRL. A Kealistic Story. BV JOHN LAW. 
 
 " The central studies of the city girl and her lover are worked out with Zola-like fidelity." 
 St. Stephen's Rnitw. 
 
 "A little romance which is wanting neither in pathos nor in force." Athenaum. 
 
 NEW STORY BY THE AUTHOR OP "THE CHEVELEY NOVELS," 
 In crown 8to, attractively bound, price 2s. 6d. 
 
 HIS CHILD FRIEND. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF "A MODERN MINISTER," "SAUL WEIR," &c. 
 
 ' Is told tenderly and with graphic skill. Academy. 
 
 In paper covers, Is. each ; or 
 
 PATTER POEMS. 
 
 HUMOROUS AND SERIOUS, FOR READ- 
 INGS AND RECITATIONS. 
 BY WALTER PARKE. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. LE1TCH. 
 
 '"Patter Poems' include many sparklim 
 and merry lays, well adapted for recitation 
 and sure of the approval of the audience.' 
 Saturday Rtcittr. 
 
 THE 
 
 COMIC GOLDEN LEGEND. 
 
 BY WALTER PARKE. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. LEITClt. 
 
 "The stories are told in bright and luminous 
 verses in which are dexterously wrought 
 parodies of a good many present and some 
 past poets." Scotsman. 
 
 SONGS OF SINGULARITY. 
 
 BY WALTER PARKE. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH 60 ENGRAVINGS. 
 
 gilt, 2s. 
 
 In post 8ro, price 3s. 6d. 
 
 THE CHILDISHNESS AND BRUTALITY OF THE TIME: 
 
 BY HARGRAVE JENNINGS, Author of "The Rosicrucians," &c. 
 "Mr. Jennings has a knack of writing in good, racy, trenchant style."- Daily Netc. 
 
 In crown 8vo, attractively bound, price 2s. 6d. 
 
 THE RED CROSS^JU) OTHER STORIES. BY LUIGL 
 
 In crown 8vo, price 2s. 5d. 
 
 IN STRANGE COMPANY. 
 
 BY JAMES GREENWOOD (the "Amateur Casual"). 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH A PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR, ENGRAVED ON STEEL,
 
 V1ZETELLY &* CO.'S NEW BOOKS &* NEW EDITIONS. 25 
 
 CAPITAL STORIES. 
 
 In Shilling Volumes. The Earlier Volumes, shortly to be published, will include : 
 
 THE CHAPLAIN'S SECRET. BY LEON DE TINSEAU. 
 AVATAR; OR, THE DOUBLE TRANSFORMATION. BY 
 
 THEOPHILE GAUTIER. 
 
 COLONEL QUAGG'S CONVERSION; and Other Stories. 
 
 By GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. 
 
 THE MARCHIONESS'S TEAM. BY LEON DE TINSEAU. 
 
 In scarlet covers, price One Shilling each. 
 
 CELEBRATED SENSATIONAL NOVELS. 
 
 BEWITCHING IZA. BY ALEXIS BOUVIER. 
 
 LECOQ THE DETECTIVE'S DAUGHTER. BY BUSNACH AND 
 
 CHABRILLAT. 
 
 DISPATCH AND SECRECY. BY GEORGES GRISON. 
 THE MEUDON MYSTERY. BY JULES MARY. 
 
 A WILY WIDOW. BY ALEXIS BOUVIER. 
 
 Other Volumes arc in preparation. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS SHILLING BOOKS. 
 
 SAPPHO: Parisian Manners. BY ALPHONSE DAUDET. With 
 
 8 Page Engravings. 140th Thousand. 
 
 SO ENGLISH! BY THE AUTHOR OF "AN EXILE'S ROMANCE." 
 
 WRECKED IN LONDON : A Story founded on one of the Great 
 Scandals of the Day. BY WALTER FAIRLIE. 
 
 A TALE OF MADNESS: Being the Narrative of PAUL STAFFORD, 
 EDITED BY JULIAN CRAY. 
 
 IRISH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH READERS. BY WILLIAM 
 
 STEPHENSON GREGG. Second Edition. Is., or cloth, Is. 6d. 
 
 In paper cover, Is. ; or in parchment binding, gilt on side, 2s. 6d. 
 THE PASSER-BY. A Comedy in one Act, suited for Private Representa- 
 tion. BY FRANCOIS COPPEE, of the French Academy. 
 
 LUCIFER IN LONDON, and his Reflections on Life, Manners, and the 
 Prospects of Society. A SATIRICAL POEM. BY A WELL-KNOWN POET. 
 
 THE EXCELLENT MYSTERY. A MATRIMONIAL SATIRE. By 
 LORD PIMLICO. 
 
 JUVENAL IN PICCADILLY. BY OXONIENSIS.
 
 26 VIZETELLY fr CO.'S NEW BOOKS 6f NEW EDITIONS. 
 
 VIZETELLY'S SIXPENNY SERIES OF AMUSING 
 AND ENTERTAINING BOOKS. 
 
 KING SOLOMON'S WIVES: Or the Mysterious Mines. BY 
 HYDER RAGGED. With Humorous Illustrations by LANCELOT SPEED. 
 
 THE MANCHESTER MERCHANT. From the German. 
 
 TARTARIN OF TARASCON. BY ALPHONSE DAUDET. 
 
 CECILE'S FORTUNE. BY F. DU BOISGOBEY. 
 
 THE THREE-CORNERED HAT. BY p. A. DE ALARCON. 
 
 THE BLACK CROSS MYSTERY, BY H. CORKRAN. 
 
 THE STEEL NECKLACE. BY F. DU BOISGOBEY. 
 
 THE GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND. BY w. M. THACKERAY. 
 
 CAPTAIN SPITFIRE, AND THE UNLUCKY TREASURE. 
 
 BY P. A. DE ALARCON. 
 
 MATRIMONY BY ADVERTISEMENT; AND OTHER ADVENTURES 
 OF A JOURNALIST. BY C. G. PAYNE. 15 Engravings. 
 
 VOTE FOR POTTLEBECK ! THE STORY OP A POLITICIAN IN 
 LOVE. BY C. G. PAYNE. 20 Engravings. 
 
 YOUNG WIDOWS. BY E. c. GRENVILLE-MURRAY. so Engravings. 
 
 THE DETECTIVE'S EYE. BY F. DU BOISGOBEY. 
 
 THE STRANGE PHANTASY OF DR. TRINTZIUS. BY 
 
 AUGUSTE VITU. 
 
 A SHABBY GENTEEL STORY. BY w. M. THACKERAY. 
 
 THE RED LOTTERY TICKET. BY F. DU BOISGOBEY. 
 
 THE FIDDLER AMONG THE BANDITS. BY ALEX. DUMAS. 
 
 Other Volumes are in Preparation. 
 
 In One Volume, large imperial 8vo, price 3s., or single numbers price 6d. each, 
 
 THE SOCIAL ZOO; 
 
 SATIRICAL, SOCIAL, AND HUMOROUS SKETCHES BY THE BEST WRITERS. 
 
 Copiously Illustrated in many Styles by well-knou-n Artists. 
 OUR GILDED YOUTH. By E. C. GRENVILLE-MURRAY. 
 NICE GIRLS. By R. MOUNTENEY JEPHSON. 
 NOBLE LORDS. By E. C. GRENVILLE-MURRAY. 
 FLIRTS. Bj..E. C. GRENVILLE-MURRAY. 
 OUR SILVERED YOUTH. By E. C. GRENVILLE-MURRAY. 
 MILITARY MEN AS THEY WERE. By E. DYNE FENTON. 
 
 With over 30 Illustrations, price Qd. 
 
 A POPULAR LIFE OF THE RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE
 
 VIZETELLY <S^ CO.'S NEW BOOKS &> NEW EDITIONS. 27 
 
 In small 8vo Ornamental Scarlet Covers. Is. per Volume. 
 
 DU BOISGOBEY'S SENSATIONAL NOVELS. 
 
 " All, friend, how many and many a while 
 They've made the slow time fleetly flow, 
 And solaced pain and charmed exile, 
 BOISOOBEY and GABORIAU ! " 
 
 Ballade of Railway Novels in " Longman's Magazine." 
 
 Lately Published Volumes. 
 
 SAVED FROM THE HAREM. 
 
 Two Volumes. 
 
 THE FATAL LEGACY. 
 THE RED CAMELLIA. 2 Vols. 
 THE NAMELESS MAN. 
 THE CORAL PIN. 2Vols. 
 THIEVING FINGERS. 
 FERNANDE'S CHOICE. 
 THE GOLDEN TRESS. 
 HIS GREAT REVENGE. Two 
 
 Vols. 
 
 THE PHANTOM LEG. 
 A RAILWAY TRAGEDY. 
 THE STEEL NECKLACE and 
 CECILE'S FORTUNE. 
 
 WHERE'S ZENOBIA? 
 
 Two Volumes. 
 
 THE RESULTS OF A DUEL. 
 THE RED BAND. 2 Vols. 
 THE CONVICT COLONEL 
 ANGEL OF THE CHIMES. 
 THE THUMB STROKE. 
 PRETTY BABIOLE. 
 A FIGHT FOR A FORTUNE. 
 THE GOLDEN PIG. 2 Vols. 
 THE MATAPAN AFFAIR. 
 THE JAILER'S PRETTY 
 
 WIFE. 
 
 THE DETECTIVE'S EYE and 
 THE RED LOTTERY TICKET 
 
 THE OLD AGE OF LECOQ, THE DETECTIVE. Two 
 
 " The romances of Gaboriau aiid Du Boisgobey picture the marvellous Lecoq and other 
 wonders of shrewdness, who piece together the elaborate details of the most complicated 
 crimes, as Professor Owen with the smallest bone as a foundation could reconstruct the 
 most extraordinary animals." Standard. 
 
 IN THE SERPENTS' COILS. 
 
 "Its interest never flags. Its terrific excitement continues to the end." Oldham Chronicle. 
 
 THE DAY OF RECKONING. Two Vols. 
 
 " M. du Boisgobey gives us no tiresome descriptions or laboured analyses of character; 
 under his facile pen plots full of incident are quickly opened and unwound. He does 
 not stop to moralise ; all his art consists in creating intricacies which shall keep the 
 reader's curiosity on the stretch, and offer a full scope to his own really wonderful 
 ingenuity for unravelling." Times. 
 
 THE SEVERED HAND. 
 
 " The plot is a marvel of intricacy and cleverly .managed surprises." Literary World,
 
 28 VIZETELLY &* CO.'S NEW BOOKS & NEW EDITIONS. 
 
 BERTHA'S SECRET. 
 
 " ' Bertha's Secret ' is a most effective romance. We need not say how the story ends, 
 for this would spoil the reader's pleasure in a novel which depends for all ita interest on 
 the skilful weaving and unweaving of mysteries." Times. 
 
 WHO DIED LAST? OR THE RIGHTFUL HEIR. 
 
 "Travellers will find the time occupied by a long journey pass away rapidly with one 
 of Du Boisgo bey's absorbing volumes in their hand." London Figaro. 
 
 THE CRIME OF THE OPERA HOUSE. Two Vois. 
 
 " We are led breathless from the first page to the last, and close the book with a 
 thorough admiration for the vigorous romancist who has the courage to fulfil the true 
 function of the story-teller, by making reflection subordinate to action." Aberdeen 
 Journal. 
 
 GABORIAU & DU BOISGOBEY SENSATIONAL NOVELS. 
 
 In double volumes, bound in scarlet cloth, price 2. 6d. each. 
 
 1. THE MYSTERY OF ORCrVAL, AND THE GILDED CLIQUE. 
 
 2. THE LEROUGE CASE, AND OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY. 
 
 3.-LECOQ, THE DETECTIVE. 4.-THE SLAVES OF PARIS. 
 
 5.-IN PERIL OF HIS LIFE, AND INTRIGUES OF A POISONER. 
 
 6.-DOSSIER NO. 113, AND THE LITTLE OLD MAN OF BA- 
 TIGNOLLES. 7. THE COUNT'S MILLIONS. 
 
 8. THE OLD AGE OF LECOQ, THE DETECTIVE. 
 
 9. THE CATASTROPHE. 10. THE DAY OF RECKONING. 
 
 11. THE SEVERED HAND, AND IN THE SERPENTS' COILS. 
 12. BERTHA'S SECRET, AND WHO DIED LAST P 
 13. THE CRIME OF THE OPERA HOUSE. 
 
 14.-THE MATAPAN AFFAIR, AND A FIGHT FOR A FORTUNE. 
 15.-THE GOLDEN PIG. 
 
 16.-THE THUMB STROKE, AND PRETTY BABIOLE. 
 17. THE CORAL PIN. 18.-HIS GREAT REVENGE. 
 
 In small post Svo, ornamental covers, Is. each ; in cloth, Is. 6d. 
 
 VIZETELLY'S POPULAR FRENCH NOVELS. 
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE BEST FBENCH FICTION UNOBJECTIONABLE IN CHARACTEE. 
 
 " They are books that may be safely left lying about where the ladies of the family can pick them up 
 and read them." SHEFFIELD INDEPENDENT. 
 
 FROMONT THE YOUNGER & RISLER THE ELDER. By 
 
 A. DAUDET. 
 
 " The series starts well with M. Alphonse Baudot's masterpiece." Athenanim. 
 "A terrible story, powerful after a sledge-hammer fashion in some parts, and won- 
 derfully tender, touching, and pathetic in others." Illustrated London, Nev$. 
 
 SAMUEL BROHL AND PARTNER. By V. CHEBBULIKZ. 
 
 "A supremely dramatic study of a man who lived two lives at once, even within himself. 
 The reader's discovery of his double nature is one of the most cleverly managed of sur- 
 prises, and Samuel Brohl's final dissolution of partnership with himself is a remarkable 
 . stroke of almost pathetic comedy." The Graphic.
 
 VIZETELLY fr CO.'S NEW BOOKS 6- NEW EDITIONS. 29 
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE RUE DE LA PAIX. By A. BELOT. 
 
 " A decidedly interesting and thrilling narrative is told with great force and 
 passion, relieved by sprightliness and tenderness." frustrated London News. 
 
 MAUGARS JUNIOR. By A. THEURIET. 
 
 "One of the most charming novelettes we have read for a long time. "Literary World. 
 
 WAYWARD DOSIA, & THE GENEROUS DIPLOMATIST. 
 
 By HENRY GREVILLE. 
 
 "As epigrammatic as anything Lord Beaconsfield has ever written." Hampshire 
 Telegraph. 
 
 A NEW LEASE OF LIFE, & SAVING A DAUGHTER'S 
 
 DOWRY. By E. ABOUT. 
 
 "The story, as a flight of brilliant and eccentric Imagination, is unequalled in its 
 peculiar way. " The Graphic. 
 
 COLOMBA, & CARMEN. By P. MERIMEE. 
 
 "The freshness and raciness is quite cheering after the stereotyped three- volume novels 
 with which our circulating libraries are crammed." Halifax Times. 
 
 A WOMAN'S DIARY, & THE LITTLE COUNTESS. By 
 
 O. FEUILLET. 
 
 " Is wrought out with masterly skill, and although of a slightly sensational kind, cannot 
 be said to be hurtful either mentally or morally." Dumbarton Herald. 
 
 BLUE-EYED META HOLDENIS, & A STROKE OF DIPLO- 
 MACY. By V. CHERBULIEZ. 
 
 " ' Blue-eyed Meta Holdenis ' is a delightful tale." Civil Service Gazette. 
 
 " 'A Stroke of Diplomacy' is a bright vivacious story." Hampshire Advertiser. 
 
 THE GODSON OF A MARQUIS. By A. THEURIET. 
 
 " From the beginning to the close the interest of the story never flags." Lift. 
 
 THE TOWER OF PERCEMONT & MARIANNE. By GEORGE 
 
 SAND. 
 
 " George Sand has a great name, and the ' Tower of Percemont ' Is not unworthy 
 
 of it." Illustrated London News. 
 
 THE LOW-BORN LOVER'S REVENGE. By V. CHERBULIEZ. 
 
 " One of M. Cherbuliez's many exquisitely written productions. The studies of human 
 nature under various influences, especially in the cases of the unhappy heroine and her 
 low-born lover, are wonderfully effective." Illustrated London News. 
 
 THE NOTARY'S NOSE, AND OTHER AMUSING STORIES. 
 
 By E. ABOUT. 
 
 " Crisp and bright, full of movement and interest." Brighton Herald. 
 
 DOCTOR CLAUDE ; OR, LOVE RENDERED DESPERATE. 
 
 By H. MALOT. Two vols. 
 
 " We have to appeal to our very first flight of novelists to find anything so artistic in 
 English romance as these books." Dublin Evening Mail. 
 
 THE THREE RED KNIGHTS; OR, THE BROTHERS' 
 
 VENGEANCE. By P. FEVAL. 
 
 " The one thing that strikes us in these stories is the marvellous dramatic skill of th 
 writers." Sheffield Independent.
 
 30 VIZETELLY & CO.'S NEW BOOKS &* NEW EDITIONS. 
 
 Unabridged Edition : in small 8vo, ornamental scarlet covers, 
 Price 9d. per Volume. 
 
 GABORIAU'S SENSATIONAL NOVELS. 
 
 IN PERIL OF HIS LIFE. 
 
 " A story of thrilling interest, and admirably translated." Sunday Tima. 
 
 THE LEROUGE CASE. 
 
 " M. Gaboriau is a skilful and, brilliant writer, capable of so diverting the attention and 
 interest of his readers that not one word or line in his book will be skipped or read care* 
 lessly." Hampshire Advertiser. 
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY. 
 
 'The interest is kept up throughout, and the story is told graphically and with a good 
 deal of art." London Figaro. 
 
 LECOQ THE DETECTIVE. TwoVois. 
 
 "In the art cf forging a tangled chain of complicated incidents involved and inex- 
 plicable until the last link is reached and the whole made clear, Mr. Wilkie Collins is 
 equalled, if not excelled, by M. Gaboriau." Brighton Herald. 
 
 THE GILDED CLIQUE. 
 
 "Full of incident, and instinct with life and action. Altogether this is a most 
 fascinating book." Hampshire Advertiter. 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF ORCIVAL. 
 
 " The Author keeps the interest of the reader at fever heat, and by a succession of 
 unexpected turns and incidents, the drama is ultimately worked out to a very plea- 
 sant result. The ability displayed is unquestionable." Shtjfield Jndeptndent, 
 
 DOSSIER NO. 113. 
 
 " The plot is worked out with great skill, and from first to last the reader's interest is 
 never allowed to flag." Dumbarton Herald. 
 
 THE LITTLE OLD MAN OF BATIGNOLLES. 
 THE SLAVES OF PARIS. TwoVois. 
 
 "Sensational, full of interest, cleverly conceived, and wrought out with consummate 
 skill," Oxford and Cambridge Journal. 
 
 THE CATASTROPHE. TwoVois. 
 
 '"The Catastrophe' does ample credit to M. Gaboriau's reputation as a novelitt of 
 vast resource in incident and of wonderful ingenuity in constructing and unravelling 
 thrilling mysteries." Aberdetn Journal, . 
 
 THE COUNT'S MILLIONS. Two Vois. 
 
 "To those who love the mysterious and the sensational, Gal.-oriau's stories are irre- 
 sistibly fascinating. His marvellously clever pages hold the mirror up to nature with 
 absolute fidelity ; and the interest with which he contrives to invest his characters proves 
 that exaggeration is unnecessary to a master." Society. 
 
 INTRIGUES OF A POISONER, 
 
 " The wonderful Sensational Novell of Entile Gaboriau." Globe.
 
 nZETELLY S- CO.'S NEW BOOKS &- NEW EDITIONS. 31 
 
 In dtmy 4io, handsomely printed and bound, tcilh gilt edges, price 12s. 
 
 A HISTORY OF CHAMPAGNE; 
 
 WITH NOTES ON THE OTHER SPARKLING WINES OF FRANCE, 
 BY HEXRY VIZETELLY. 
 
 CHEVALIER or THE ORDER OF FRANZ-JOSEF. 
 
 WINE JTBOR FOR GREAT BRITAIN AT THE VIENNA AXD PARIS EXHIBITIONS OF 1S7S AXD 1S78. 
 
 Illustrated -with 350 Engravings, 
 
 FROM ORIGINAL SKETCHES AXD PHOTOGRAPHS, AXCIEXT MSS., EARLY PRLSTED 
 BOOKS, RARE PRINTS, CARICATURES, ETC. 
 
 " A very agreeable medley of history, anecdote, geographical description, and such like 
 matter, distinguished by an accuracy not often found in such medleys, and illustrated in the 
 most abundant and pleasingly miscellaneous fashion." Daily If act. 
 
 " Mr. Henry ViBetellyV handsome book about Champagne and other sparkling wines of 
 France is full of curious information and amusement. It should be widely read and appreciated." 
 Saturday Rerieie. 
 
 " Mr. Henry Vizetelly has written a quarto volume on the 'History of Champagne,' in 
 which he has collected a large number of facts, many of them very curious and interesting. Many 
 of the woodcuts. are excellent."' Atke*<eHm. 
 
 "It is probable that this large volume contains such an amount of information touching the 
 subject which it treats as cannot be found elsewhere. How competent the author was for the 
 fcisk lie undertook is to be inferred from the functions he has discharged, and from the excep- 
 tional opportunities he enjoyed." Illustrated I/>ndo:. 
 
 "A veritable e<Mi*n de luxt, dealing with the history of Champagne from the time of the 
 Romans to the present date. . . . An interesting book, the incidents and details of which are 
 very graphically told with a good deal of wit and humour. The engravings are exceedingly well 
 executed," Ihe H'int and ipirit Setcs.
 
 32 VIZETELLY &- CO.'S NEW BOOKS 6- NEW EDITIONS. 
 
 yff> .- - Vy-* 1 r "i, -''>. 
 
 Lf .^-r-^f J/Vi-lV? - ( - I'**'/" 
 
 . 3-a--^3^ ; ]^ T v'>t?Q 
 
 :-'-.<> -.^.\-^f.^-i^a 
 
 V . 
 
 
 MR. HENRY VIZETELLY'8 POPULAR BOOKS ON WINE. 
 
 " Mr. Viaetelly discourses brightly and discriminatingly on cms and bouquets and the 
 different European vineyards, most of which he has evidently visited." The, Time*. 
 
 " Mr. Henry Vizetelly's books about different wiues have an importance and a value far 
 greater than will be assigned them by those who look merely at the price at which they are 
 published." Sunday Times. 
 
 Price Is. 6d. ornamental cover; or 2s. 6d. in elegant cloth binding. 
 
 FACTS ABOUT PORT AND MADEIRA, 
 
 GLEANED DURING A TOUR IN THE AUTUMN OP 1877. 
 
 BY HENRY VIZETELLY, 
 
 WINE JUROR TOR GREAT BRITAIN AT THE VIENNA AND PARIS EXHIBITIONS OF 1S73 AND 1878. 
 With 100 Illustrations from Original Sketches and Photographs. 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 Price Is. 6d. ornamental cover; or 2s. 6d. in elegant cloth binding. 
 
 FACTS ABOUT CHAMPAGNE, 
 
 AND OTHER SPARKLING WINES. 
 
 COLLECTED DURING NUMEROUS VISITS TO THE CHAMPAGNE AND OTHER VITICTL.TURAL DISTRICTS 
 
 or FRANCE AND THE PRINCIPAL REMAINING WINE-PKODUCING COUNTRIES OF EUROPE. 
 
 Illustrated with 112 Engravings from Sketches and Photographs. 
 
 Price Is. ornamental cover ; or Is. 6d. cloth gilt. 
 
 FACTS ABOUT SHERRY, 
 
 CLEANED IN THE VINEYARDS AND BODEGAS OF THE JEREZ, <t OTHER DISTRICTS. 
 Illustrated with numerous Engravings from Original Sketches 
 
 Price It. in ornamental cover ; or Is. 6d. cloth gilt. 
 
 THE WINES OF THE WORLD, 
 
 Kradbury. Agnew, & Co.,] 
 
 CHARACTERIZED AND CLASSED. 
 
 [Printer^, Whitefriari.
 
 ^ 
 
 Prf .. m .hi. material t. >hr -nf hteh " 8 borrOWe< ' 
 
 JAN 1 7 2008
 
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