V THE CITY OF THE GRAND TURK
Poets, painters and other people with vivid imaginations and emotional natures have become ecstatic in describing the city of the Grand Turk, and while it has unique and exquisite attractions, it is no more beautiful than New York or San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro, Naples, Hongkong or half a dozen other cities I might name. There is none of the barbaric splendor, the gold and purple and blue and scarlet of Moscow, as seen from the Sparrow Hills; nor the fantastic pagodas and temples of Kioto or Peking. It has none of the quiet dignity of Stockholm or the soft beauty of Naples, but the colors that are lacking and the gorgeousness that is invisible is readily supplied by the imaginations of tourists, who generally see what they expect to see, no matter whether it is there or not. You find the same trouble in Holland and Spain after reading the books of D’Amicis, and at Venice after studying Ruskin. Perhaps it is the fault of the observer, who lacks sufficient sentiment, but when you begin to dissect the scene and separate the actual from the imaginary the criticism of practical minds is sustained.
The continents of Europe and Asia are separated by the Sea of Marmora, which is 110 miles long and 40 miles wide in its widest part. At the west end it is entered through the Hellespont or Dardanelles, a deep and swift stream or strait, about as wide as the Hudson River. The place where Leander swam across to visit Hero, his sweetheart, and where Lord Byron imitated his example, is only about three-quarters of a mile wide, and although to swim it was a prodigious feat in those days, it would not be more than an ordinary adventure to many members of a modern athletic club.
At its east end the Sea of Marmora is connected with the Black Sea by the Bosphorus, a channel similar to the Hellespont. These streams, which form a remarkable boundary between the continents, have always been regarded of great strategic importance, and from the time of Alexander the Great to Alexander II. of Russia have been fought for by rival nations.
Where the Bosphorus joins the Sea of Marmora there is a little bay, about half a mile wide at its mouth, growing gradually narrower and curving like a cornucopia for about three miles through the hills to a point where it receives fresh water from a little stream. This bay is called the Golden Horn. Between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmora is a tongue of land similar in size and shape to Manhattan Island, upon which New York is built, except that it is higher in the center. This ridge, or “hog’s back,” rises about five hundred feet above the water, and at intervals is broken by gullies, several of them very wide and deep,—gashes that have been cut into the soil by water. This ridge or tongue of land is occupied by the old city of Stamboul, and upon the extreme point, corresponding to Battery Park, New York, is located the Seraglio, a group of palaces occupied by the Sultans before the nineteenth century. An imposing marble gate, by which the grounds are entered, is the ancient Sublime Porte, and from it is derived the title by which the Turkish government is often referred to in history and diplomatic discussions. The modern Sublime Porte is a still more imposing marble gate which leads into an inclosure where are situated the palace of the grand vizier, the ministry of finance and other official departments of the government.
The Sublime Porte, Mosque of St. Sophia
THE SERAGLIO, CONSTANTINOPLE
Upon the opposite side of the Bosphorus, situated to Stamboul as Jersey City is to New York, is Scutari, a city of residences, schools, hospitals, military barracks, carpet factories and other manufacturing establishments, with a population of about 50,000. It is surrounded by a group of fertile hills, which in the spring and summer are covered with brilliant foliage.
Upon the opposite side of the Golden Horn a steep hill, rising directly from the water, is occupied by the city of Galata, corresponding to Brooklyn. Its houses and shops are arranged in terraces along precipitous slopes to a height of five hundred feet; and on the other side of the crest, which slopes to the Golden Horn, is the city of Pera, which means “beyond”—that is, the place beyond the hill.
This completes the group of four cities, which, combined, are called Constantinople, and from the bridge which connects Stamboul and Galata, or at any other point between, they are spread out before the spectator like an audience in an amphitheater, rising in irregular terraces and showing patches of whitewashed walls among unpainted, wood-colored houses, shingled roofs and occasionally a roof of tile. Here and there appear squatty domes like warts, queer-looking towers and slender minarets, which are peculiar to Constantinople and are its greatest attraction. The domes indicate mosques and occupy the summits of the hills. Their ugliness heightens the beauty and grace of the minarets by which they are surrounded. The minarets take the place of church steeples and the campaniles or bell-towers that are usually attached to cathedrals in southern Europe. They look very slender and very tall, rising often to the height of three hundred feet—delicate, beautiful shafts, perhaps twenty feet in diameter at the bottom and gradually tapering to a needle point at the top, upon which a golden crescent is always placed. About the center, overlooking the roofs of the houses and the adjoining streets, are balconies, sometimes only one, sometimes two, and, on the taller minarets three, protected by beautifully carved balustrades and sustained by brackets, from which the muezzin calls the Mohammedans to prayer. In Constantinople most of the minarets are of marble and other stones, as they were built by rich Sultans as monuments to their own memory, but elsewhere such structures are of brick, coated with stucco, and kept neatly whitewashed. Whatever may be said of the Moslem, his houses of worship always show evidences of careful and constant attention. You seldom see a slovenly mosque and seldom a mosque out of repair. They set an example to other religious sects in this, as in several other matters.
The view from any place of observation will comprehend nearly all of the city of Constantinople except, of course, those portions which are on the opposite side of the ridges. I do not know of any city of which so much can be viewed from a single point. Standing upon the bridge that crosses the Golden Horn, one can easily see the abodes of two-thirds of the population spread out before him. But the view is monotonous. There is a lack of variety about the architecture which is very tiresome. One house differs from another so little that the eye becomes weary and rests gratefully upon the picturesque towers and the beautiful minarets that rise here and there in striking relief. Several conspicuous buildings stand out boldly. These are the embassies of Russia, Germany and other European Powers on the Galata side and the government offices in Stamboul. The largest buildings, and those which are most conspicuous in every direction, are occupied as barracks by the Sultan’s army. There are no parks, no promenades, no amusements, no theaters except one which is insignificant, and no entertainments or diversions for the people except a few low-class vaudeville performances.
The streets are irregular, narrow and crooked and wind up in serpentine or zigzag fashion to the top of the town. It is evident that they originally followed the trails of goats, which, unlike the buffalo, are poor engineers. The straight streets are so steep that no load can be hauled up them, and many of them are actually stairways, with small shops on either side. In building the city no grading was done and no filling. The natural topography was allowed to remain unaltered, which, while it adds to the picturesqueness, is a permanent embargo on business. Horses cannot be used for transportation purposes because the streets are too narrow and too steep and the pavements are too rough.
There are a few carts and a good many donkeys with panniers upon their backs, but heavy freight, like lumber, bales of merchandise and such things are carried from one place to another by men. It is a common thing to see eight, twelve or sixteen men with long poles staggering under a load of dry goods, hardware, iron rails or timbers for the construction of houses. They can carry their cargo only a little way without stopping to rest, and as long as they are engaged, block the entire street. No carriage can pass them, and even a donkey finds it difficult to creep by. You will appreciate the difficulty of doing business with these embarrassments, and will not be surprised that the commerce and internal trade of Constantinople is less than that of the average German or French city of one-fourth its population. More business is done in New York in one day than in Constantinople during the entire 365.
There are no sidewalks except upon a few of the principal streets, and they are very narrow. The houses are high—five, six and seven stories—without elevators, and are divided into tenements, the ground floor being occupied in most cases for business purposes. The architecture is indifferent where it is not ugly. Most of the city is built of wood, unpainted, and the cheapest kind of construction; much of it being in an advanced state of dilapidation. Some of the houses in the principal residence quarter remind me of those on the West Side in Chicago, the wooden façades being covered with “ginger-bread work,” balconies, loggias and other architectural frills. In the Turkish quarter there is even less of architectural interest. Only occasionally can a Moorish design be seen or any building of the oriental type. You can follow some of the longest streets from one end to the other without finding a window or a door or a roof or a balcony that looks like what you expected to see in Turkey. When the lower sash of the window is covered with fixed lattice work you may know that it is some Turk’s harem. The houses occupied by Greeks, Armenians, Jews and Europeans have ordinary windows and no blinds, and as only about one-fourth of the population of Constantinople—the estimates are generally less—are Turks, and three-fourths are foreigners, you should not expect anything but what you see, and must swallow your disappointment.
There are other reasons, in addition to the topography, why the houses are so cheaply and indifferently built. All foreigners are in Constantinople on sufferance and the investment of money is unsafe. When a foreigner erects a house he takes great risks and naturally does not wish to spend any more upon it than is absolutely necessary. Furthermore, an evidence of prosperity would immediately attract the attention of the officials, who are all Turks, and the assessment for taxation would at once be raised. The Turkish officials receive little if any compensation from the government, and are obliged to turn into the treasury for the use of the Sultan and his court certain sums of money annually. This money and whatever they need for themselves must be raised by whatever measures they can manage, and, as they have autocratic powers, it is easy for them to make good their quota. If they see a man, particularly an Armenian or a Jew—they do not care so much about Greeks—showing signs of prosperity and wealth, they make preparations to bleed him, and the methods they adopt are usually successful. The population of Stamboul around the Seraglio is mostly Turkish, and beyond that Armenian and Jewish. The inhabitants of Galata are mostly Greeks, and those of Pera are English, French, Germans and subjects of other European Powers.
Landing at Constantinople is an exciting experience. The ships anchor out in the stream, and passengers, with their luggage, are taken ashore in rowboats. No traveler is allowed to land without a passport. If he is a resident of Turkey he must have a permit granted by the police officials of the town in which he lives. If he is a foreigner his passport must be viséd by the Turkish consul or minister at the port of his departure.
When the steamer comes to anchor the gangplank is at once surrounded by a motley crowd of boatmen, howling like a lot of demons and grabbing at the luggage of the passengers. If you have not a courier to look after you and your belongings the best thing is to give yourself up to Cook, the traveler’s friend and protector. If you have written ahead to engage apartments at any of the hotels a dragoman, or interpreter, will be sent down to meet you and help you through the custom-house, but Cook’s men always come aboard, not only at Constantinople but at all the eastern ports, and are a blessing to the inexperienced.
As each boatload passes towards the landing-place it is stopped in midstream by a policeman seated in the stern of a Turkish caique, or canoe, who counts the number of passengers and the number of pieces of baggage. What this is done for I was unable to discover, but the most reasonable theory is that it is intended as a checking system for the police, in order that no stranger shall enter the country without their knowledge.
The guidebooks, which are closely censored by the Turkish government, so that they may not contain anything offensive or treasonable to the Sultan, state very plainly that couriers and dragomans from the hotels can “arrange” with the customs officers so that the inspection of luggage will be only formal. The only thing that they are after is books. Their orders are very strict in that respect. They are positively forbidden to pass any books, newspapers, manuscripts or sealed parcels, all of which must be submitted to examination by the censor, who destroys all works pertaining to the Mussulman religion, the personality of the Sultan, the foreign relations or the internal affairs of Turkey. Guns, revolvers and that sort of thing, which are prohibited in most countries, are admitted without objection in Turkey. We were advised to conceal all our guidebooks, notebooks, manuscripts and that sort of thing in the bottom of our trunks in case of an emergency, although our dragoman, or guide, said he did not think any of them would be opened. When they were landed and carried into the dilapidated and dirty old wooden building of one story used for a custom-house, all the trunks, bags and rug rolls were arranged in a row upon a bench and the dragoman proceeded calmly to negotiate with the inspectors. How much he paid to pass them I do not know, but it was not a large sum, and we were soon sent on our way rejoicing.
The baggage of passengers leaving Constantinople is examined quite as closely as that which comes in, and the same process occurs. The customs officers often demand larger bribes from outgoing than incoming travelers, and will threaten to detain their luggage if the money is not paid.
The same corruption and the same practices exist in other branches of the custom-house, only to a greater extent. Imported merchandise is seldom inspected. Merchants doing business in Constantinople usually have a regular arrangement with the customs officials to admit their goods without examination upon the payment of certain sums, which cover both the customs duties and the bribes. These practices must be known to the higher officials, because nearly all of them have been promoted to the positions they occupy, and they require a certain amount of revenue from each inspector or appraiser every month. The latter must raise it the best way he can. There is a regular tariff, of course, and fixed rates of duty for different kinds of merchandise, but it is seldom observed, even in the case of strangers.
All travelers in Turkey must have tezkerehs, or traveling permits, which are granted upon the application of the minister or consul of the country from which they come, and are an acknowledgment on the part of the Ottoman authorities of their responsibility for the safety of the bearer. Natives have ordinary passports, but no man can land at a port or buy a steamship or railway ticket without showing a document of this kind, which not only is a protection to the traveler, but also gives the police authorities an opportunity to watch suspicious persons.
The United States diplomatic and consular officials in Turkey receive almost daily applications for certificates from Armenians who claim to be naturalized, but there has been so much fraudulent naturalization that they no longer issue them unless they are satisfied that the applicant is a bona fide citizen of the United States stopping temporarily in Turkey. Certain Armenians in New York, San Francisco and other cities for years did a fraudulent naturalization business, and for large fees obtained papers for Armenians in Turkey who had never been in the United States. It is an easy thing for a man to make application in any of the courts under any name, and again make a second or third or fourth or repeated applications under other names later without being detected. When the papers are issued they are forwarded to Turkey to the persons whose names they bear, and the latter use them whenever necessary. Not long ago such fraudulent papers were abundant in Turkey, but many of them have been taken from the holders and retained by the United States officials. When a man claiming to be a naturalized citizen of New York cannot tell the name of the street upon which he lives and does not know the location of Brooklyn or Jersey City; who never heard of Washington, Grant, McKinley or Roosevelt, and cannot give the name of the long street which runs from one end of New York to the other, it is pretty certain that he is not entitled to the protection of our government, but has abused its hospitality by obtaining naturalization papers under false pretenses.
Constantinople is the seat of the Sheik-ul-Islam, the ecclesiastical head of the Moslem faith, and also the seat of the Patriarchs of the Greek and the Armenian churches, and of the chief rabbi of the Jews. Every other religion has its representatives among the population, which is more cosmopolitan than that of any other city. It is claimed that there are in Constantinople representatives of every nation and every tribe upon the globe, and that every language is spoken. It is common to see signs written in eight or nine languages on the fronts of the retail shops. These races and religions are all more or less antagonistic. There is nothing to unite them. Each suspects the other of treachery. They have no relations, except in trade, and in their commercial dealings they are all trying to cheat each other.
Everybody lives in a state of constant apprehension, in a vague dread of danger, and there is good reason for it, because the hand of Ishmael is still against every man.
No census has ever been taken of Constantinople, and the population is unknown. Estimates range all the way from 875,000 to 1,250,000, and the latter figure is probably somewhere near the truth, judging from the dense manner in which the people are huddled together and the enormous area covered by the city. The floating population is very large. Thousands of men are constantly coming and going, spending a portion of each season in the city and the remainder of the year in the provinces of Turkey or in some neighboring state.
According to religious belief the population is supposed to be divided somewhat as follows:
| Moslems | 400,000 |
| Greeks | 175,000 |
| Armenians | 250,000 |
| Jews | 75,000 |
| Bulgarians | 6,000 |
| Greek Catholics | 1,200 |
| Roman Catholics | 7,500 |
| Protestants | 2,000 |
| Miscellaneous | 150,000 |
The city is divided into ten municipal circles or wards, which, combined, constitute a vilayet, whose affairs are directed by a prefet, assisted by a mejlis, or council, and a large staff of officials. Each municipal circle has a director and is subdivided into precincts which are governed by mudirs. The prefet, or governor, is a despot, responsible to no one but the Sultan and exercising absolute and unquestioned authority over the lives and property of his subjects. Men disappear and their property is confiscated at his orders, and no questions can be asked. He regulates the taxes, receives the funds and disposes of them without a question. The mudirs and other subordinates carry out his instructions and trust him to stand between them and the Sultan. The priests and monks of the Moslem Church must be taken into consideration always, as they are the most powerful body in Constantinople, and their influence over the people is undisputed. The Sheik-ul-Islam, the head of the church, stands next to the Sultan in power and authority and the prefet and mudirs are careful never to offend him.
The Armenians at one time were the most important part of the business community, but since the massacres in 1896, when at least 5,000 of that sect were butchered and their property looted and confiscated, they have been exceedingly cautious, and at present very few of the 250,000 Armenians in Constantinople are doing business under their own names. Some of them have gone into partnership with Turks, paying the latter a certain percentage of the profits of their business for protection and the use of their names. Many of the old shops of Armenian merchants now have Turkish signs over the doors, for which privilege, however, the owners have to pay a heavy blackmail. Since the massacres every Armenian has been discharged from the employ of the government and very generally from the employment of private Turks. Before 1896 and as far back as anyone can remember, Armenians held the most important subordinate positions under the government because of their executive ability, particularly in the financial department, where they are very strong; but now the vindictiveness of the Turk against them is so violent that the name of Armenia has been stricken off the map and that province is known as Upper Turkey. The custom-house officers will not permit the importation of maps bearing the name Armenia. If any such are found they are confiscated and burned, and every book containing the name Armenia is blotted by the censor.
The Greeks, who are next in numbers, are also business men and now have the largest share of the mercantile trade in their own quarter of the city. Although Turkey was recently at war with Greece and the rivalry between the two countries is bitter, there is no hatred or prejudice against them. The same is true of the Jews. Both races live at peace with their Turkish neighbors, and are allowed to worship God in their own way without interference, and are never compelled to endure such persecutions as have been suffered by the Armenians for centuries. The explanation of this is that Greeks and Jews never meddle in politics, while the Armenians are continually doing so. Furthermore, the province of Armenia has been in a state of discontent for many years, and its inhabitants are constantly exciting revolutions against their oppressors—usually with very bad judgment and no possible prospect of success. Palestine is just as much a Turkish province as Armenia, but its inhabitants submit to the despotism under which they are born, while the Armenians will not.
Half the Greeks and Armenians in Turkey have lost their own languages because they have been forbidden to speak them. Without practice they have forgotten their native tongues. The Jews have been more kindly treated. The Armenians are compelled to worship in secret. Greek churches can be found in every part of the Ottoman Empire as public as the Mohammedan mosques, and no Jewish synagogue is ever interfered with by Moslem mobs. It is the Armenians that they attack exclusively.
The ferry-boats which run to all parts of the Bosphorus are very much like those on the Thames in London and on the Seine in Paris. They have time-tables, which are posted in convenient places and published in the newspapers, but are seldom observed; no one knows why, except that it is the nature of the Turk. A boat which is advertised to start at nine o’clock may go ten minutes before or twenty minutes after. The guidebooks warn people not to rely upon the published announcements. The boats to Brussa, a neighboring town much frequented by tourists, the guidebook says, leave daily, “some time between 7 a.m. and 8:30 p.m., according to circumstances.” In other words, their movements depend upon the cargo, the number of passengers and the whim of the captain.
The railway management is very much the same. While I was in Constantinople, in the spring of 1902, a small section of the track between that city and Budapest was washed away. The trains going west returned to Constantinople, but the trains coming east from Budapest and Vienna were not notified of the obstruction and were allowed to start as usual and accumulated at the washout, where there were no accommodations for the passengers, no place for them to eat or sleep. When the cars were finally sent back to Adrianople, the nearest town, the passengers were compelled to pay full fare to that point. The mails for several days were allowed to accumulate at the washout and were held there for nearly three weeks, when they might have been taken back a few miles to Adrianople and sent around by another route, via Bucharest, but no one seemed to have thought of it, although such accidents and interruptions of traffic occur every year. Passengers by the Orient express, which is the most expensive train in the world, were allowed to leave Constantinople and were carried to the washout. Tickets were sold to London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna and other distant points and full sleeping-car fare was collected and all tickets are limited to one day—the date stamped upon them. The railway company would not extend them or refund the money or give rebates, and even compelled the passengers who were carried to the blockade to pay, not only the regular fare, but what is termed a “speed supplement” charged upon express trains, and also the full sleeping-car rates. Those who attempted to secure a rebate or the return of their money were calmly informed that it was not the practice of the railway company to redeem its tickets, and persons who started for London and other places by the first train after the break was repaired were compelled to buy new tickets and pay again the regular sleeping-car charge and the “speed supplement.”
A gentleman who purchased a ticket from Vienna to Constantinople was compelled to turn back at Sofia, about half way on his journey, and asked the railway officials to redeem the unused portion. They refused to do so on the ground that he had given no reason why it should be done. He replied at once that he had been met by a telegram stating illness in his family which required him to postpone his journey and return to Vienna, and asked that the money he had paid for the ticket be refunded or the time limit be extended, so that he could use it at some future date. The railway officials calmly replied that they did not consider the reason given sufficient.
