PART II.
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A
JOURNEY TO INDIA, &c.
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LETTER XXVII.
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MY DEAR FREDERICK,
So long as the route of my journey lay through European regions, little presented itself respecting human nature of such very great novelty as to excite admiration or awaken curiosity. In all the various Nations through which we have passed, a certain parity of sentiment, arising from the one great substratum, Christianity, gave the same general colouring to all the scenes, however they might differ from each other in their various shadings. Whatever dissimilitude the influence of accident, climate, or local circumstance, may, in the revolutions of ages, have introduced into their manners, customs, municipal laws, and exterior forms of worship—the great Code of Religion and Moral Sentiment remains nearly the same with all: and right and wrong, good and evil, being defined by the same principles of reason, and ascertained by the same boundaries, bring the rule of conduct of each to so close an approximation with that of the others, that, when compared with those we are now to attend to, they may really be considered as one and the same people.
In the Empire now before us, were we to leave our judgment to the guidance of general opinion of Christian Nations, we should have, on the contrary, to contemplate Man under a variety of forms and modifications, so entirely different from those to which habit has familiarised our minds, as at first to impress us with the idea of a total disruption from our nature, and induce us, as it has already the generality of our people, to divorce them from a participation of all those sympathetic feelings which serve to inforce the discharge of mutual good offices among men. Deducing all their principles, not only of moral conduct, but municipal government, from a religion radically different from, and essentially adverse to, ours; deluded by that system into a variety of opinions which liberality itself must think absurd; unaided by that enlightened philosophy which learning, and learned men, acting under the influence of comparative Freedom, and assisted by the art of Printing, have diffused through the mass of Europeans; and living under a climate the most unfavourable to intellectual or bodily exertion, they exhibit a spectacle which the philosophic and liberal mind must view with disapprobation, regret and pity—the illiberal fierce Christian with unqualified detestation and disgust: while, on their part, bigoted to their own principles and opinions, they look on us with abhorrence, and indulge as conscientious a contempt of, and antipathy to Christians, which I apprehend no lapse of time, without a great change of circumstance, will be able to eradicate. Should Mahomedanism and Christianity ever happen to merge in Deism (but not otherwise), the inhabitants of Syria and Europe will agree to consider each other even as fellow-creatures. In Spain and Portugal, Jew, Turk, and indeed Protestant, are without distinction called hogs. In Turkey, Jews and Christians are indiscriminately called dogs; each thinking the other completely excluded from the pale of humanity, and well worthy the dagger of any TRUE BELIEVER who would have the _piety_ to apply it.
You will allow, my dear FREDERICK, that it must have been rather an important contemplation to your Father, to have perhaps two thousand miles to travel through the immense and almost trackless wilds of a country inhabited by such people, without the consolation of any others to accompany him in his journey; for, unless a public dispatch was to overtake me, there was little probability of my having a single European partner of my fatigue and perils.
However, as the period was not yet arrived at which I was to go forward, or even determine my mode of travelling, I endeavoured to soothe my mind as much as I could into content, and to take advantage of my stay at Aleppo, to acquire all the knowledge possible of the place, that is to say, of that city in particular, and of the Turkish government and manners in general.
A distant view of Aleppo fills the mind with expectations of great splendour and magnificence. The mosques, the towers, the large ranges of houses with flat roofs, rising above each other, according to the sloping hills on which they stand, the whole variegated with beautiful rows of trees, form altogether a scene magnificent, gay, and delightful: but, on entering the town, all those expected beauties vanish, and leave nothing in the streets to meet the eye, but a dismal succession of high stone walls, gloomy as the recesses of a convent or state prison, and unenlivened by windows, embellished, as with us, by the human face divine. The streets themselves, not wider than some of the meanest alleys in London, overcast by the height of the prison-houses on either side, are rendered still more formidably gloomy by the solitude and silence that pervade them; while here and there a lattice towards the top, barely visible, strikes the soul with the gloomy idea of thraldom, coercion and imprisonment.
This detestable mode of building, which owes its origin to jealousy, and the scandalous restraints every man is empowered by the laws and religion of the place to impose upon the women consigned either by sale or birth to his tyranny, extends not to the inside of the houses, many of which are magnificent and handsome, and all admirably suited to the exigencies of the climate, and the domestic customs and manner of living of the inhabitants.
The city is adorned, it is true, here and there, with mosques and appendant towers, called Minarets, from which cryers call the Faithful to prayers; and in some of the streets there are arches built at certain distances from each other, so as to carry the eye directly through them, and form a vista of considerable grandeur: but all these are far from sufficient to counterbalance the general aspect of gloominess and solitude which reigns over the whole, and renders it so peculiarly disgusting, particularly at first sight, to an Englishman who has enjoyed the gaiety and contemplated the freedom of a city in Great Britain.
The mosques (Mahomedan temples) are extremely numerous in this city; indeed almost as much so as churches and convents in the popish countries of Christendom. There is nothing in their external appearance to attract the notice of the traveller, or indulge the eye of the architect; they are almost all of one form—an oblong quadrangle: and as to the inside, I never had an opportunity of seeing one; none but Mussulmen being permitted to enter them, at least at Aleppo.
The next buildings of a public kind to the mosques that deserve to be particularly mentioned, are the caravanseras—buildings which, whether we consider the spirit of beneficence and charity that first suggested them, their national importance, or their extensive utility, may rank, though not in splendour of appearance, at least in true value, with any to be found in the world.
Caravanseras were originally intended for, and are now pretty generally applied to, the accommodation of strangers and travellers, though, like every other good institution, sometimes perverted to the purposes of private emolument or public job: they are built at proper distances through the roads of the Turkish dominions, and afford the indigent or weary traveller an asylum from the inclemency of the weather; are in general very large, and built of the most solid and durable materials; have commonly one story above the ground floor, the lower of which is arched, and serves for warehouses to stow goods, for lodgings and for stables, while the upper is used merely for lodgings; besides which, they are always accommodated with a fountain, and have cooks shops and other conveniencies to supply the wants of the lodgers. In Aleppo the Caravanseras are almost exclusively occupied by merchants, to whom they are, like other houses, rented.
The suburbs of Aleppo, and the surrounding country, are very handsome, pleasant, and, to a person coming out of the gloomy city, in some respects interesting. Some tossed about into hill and valley lie under the hands of the husbandman; others are covered with handsome villas; and others again laid out in gardens, whither the people of Aleppo occasionally resort for amusement.
The roofs of all the houses are flat, and formed of a composition which resists the weather effectually. On those most of the people sleep in the very hot weather: they are separated from each other by walls; but the Franks, who live contiguous to one another, and who, from their disagreeable circumstances with regard to the Turks, are under the necessity of keeping up a friendly and harmonious intercourse together, have doors of communication, which are attended with these fortunate and pleasing advantages, that they can make a large circuit without descending into the streets, and can visit each other during the plague, without running the risk of catching the infection by going among the natives below.
There is a castle in the city which I had nearly forgotten to mention—The natives conceive it to be a place of great strength. It could not, however, withstand the shock of a few pieces of ordnance for a day. It is esteemed a favour to be permitted to see it; and there is nothing to recompense one for the trouble of obtaining permission, unless it be the prospect of the surrounding country, which from the battlements is extensive and beautiful.
Near this castle stands the Seraglio, a large old building, where the Bashaw of Aleppo resides: the whole of it seemed to me to be kept in very bad repair, considering the importance of the place. It is surrounded by a strong wall of great height: besides which, its contiguity to the castle is very convenient; as, in case of popular tumults, or intestine commotions, the Bashaw finds an asylum in the latter, which commands and overawes the city, and is never without a numerous garrison under the command of an Aga.
Such is the summary account I have been able to collect of Aleppo, the capital of Syria; which, mean though it is when compared with the capitals of European countries, is certainly the third city for splendour, magnificence, and importance, in the vast extent of the Ottoman Empire—Constantinople and Grand Cairo only excelling it in those points, and no other bearing any sort of competition with it.
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LETTER XXVIII.
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However faction may agitate, or abuse irritate the minds of men against the executive branch of their Government, the People of every Nation under Heaven are disposed to think their own Constitutional System the best; and the artful intertexture of religion with Governments confirms them in that opinion, and often consigns the understanding to unalterable error and illiberal prejudice. It would be wonderful, then, if the Turkish Constitution, founded on the Koran, was not looked upon with abhorrence by the bulk of the Christian world; and more wonderful still, if the outrageous zealots of the Christian Church, who for so many centuries engrossed all the learning of Europe to themselves, should not have handed down with exaggerated misrepresentation every circumstance belonging to the great enemies of their faith. But that, at this day of intellectual illumination, Mankind should be enveloped in such error and darkness, with regard to the government of so large a portion of the globe as Turkey, is extraordinary; and only to be accounted for by a reference, in the first place, to those religious prejudices which we suck in from our nurse, and which habit, incessant document, and every part of our education, tend to confirm in our minds; and in the next, to that indisposition the human mind feels to part with its old prejudices, and the general indolence and incapacity of men to acquire knowledge by the arduous and fatiguing paths of study.
The Turkish Government is grossly misrepresented. Were our opinions to be directed by the general belief of Europeans, we should suppose that the life and property of every being in that vast Empire were irremediably at the mercy of the Grand Seignior—and that, without laws to protect, or any intermediate power whatever to shield them, they were entirely subject to the capricious will of an inexorable tyrant, who, stimulated by cruelty, sharpened by avarice, and unrestrained by any law human or divine, did every thing to oppress his subjects, and carry destruction among Mankind. I firmly believe, that, from the combination of ideas arising from those prejudices, there are few Christians who think or hear of the Grand Turk, that do not, by an involuntary act of the mind, instantly think of blood and murder, strangling with bowstrings, and slicing off heads with cimeters.
As there is no part of your education more near my heart than the eradicating illiberal prejudices from your mind, and fortifying you against their assaults; I find it impossible to refrain from giving you my opinion of the Turkish Government, which I have been at some pains to collect, as well from oral information as from the best authors; and which, though very far from what a generous and universally philanthropic disposition would wish them to have, is very different from that which is generally attributed to them, and unquestionably far more limited in its powers than the Governments of several Christian countries I could mention.
The Constitution of that country is laid down expressly in the Koran. The Emperor of Turkey (commonly called the Grand Seignior) is a descendant of Mahomet, who pretended he had the Koran from Heaven: and he is as much bound by the institutes of that book as any subject in his realm—is liable to deposition as they to punishment for breach of them, and indeed has been more than once deposed, and the next in succession raised to the Throne. Thus far, it is obvious, his power is limited and under controul. But that is not all—It is equally certain that the Turkish Government is partly Republican; for, though the People at large have no share in the legislation, and are excluded by the Koran from it (which Koran has established and precisely ascertained their rights, privileges, and personal security), yet there is an intermediate power which, when roused to exertion, is stronger than the Emperor’s, and stands as a bulwark between the extremes of Despotism and them. This body is THE ULAMA, composed of all the members of the Church and the Law, superior to any Nobility, jealous of their rights and privileges, and partly taken from the People, not by election, but by profession and talents.—In this body are comprised the Moulahs, the hereditary and perpetual guardians of the religion and laws of the Empire: they derive their authority as much as the Emperor from the Koran, and, when necessary, act with all the firmness resulting from a conviction of that authority; which they often demonstrate by opposing his measures, not only with impunity, but success. Their persons are sacred; and they can, by means of the unbounded respect in which they are held, rouse the People to arms, and proceed to depose. But, what is much more, the Emperor cannot be deposed without their concurrence.
If, by this provision of the Constitution, the power of the Monarch is limited, and the personal security of the subject ascertained, on the one hand; the energy of the Empire in its external operations is, on the other, very frequently and fatally palsied by it. Declarations of war have been procrastinated, till an injurious and irrecoverable act of hostility has been sustained; and peace often protracted, when peace would have been advantageous. The Ulama being a numerous body, it has been found always difficult, often impossible, to unite so many different opinions; and nothing being to be done without their concurrence, the executive power finds it often impossible to take a decisive step in a crisis of advantageous opportunity. But as this code of laws and government is received as a divine revelation, binding both Prince and People, and supposed to be sealed in Heaven, the breach of it would be sufficient to consign even the Monarch to deposition and death.
As to the military force, which in the hands of all Despots has been made the instrument of the People’s slavery, that of the Turk could avail him nothing; and, whenever it does interfere, acts only to his overthrow. The very reverence they have for his person arising from obedience to their religion, they are, _à fortiori_, governed by it, not him. He holds no communication with them; and the standing force of the Janissaries is, compared with the mass of the People, only a handful. Some wild accounts, indeed, have stated it at 300,000; but the best informed fix it below 60,000, of which a great part consists of false musters and abuses—great multitudes being enrolled to obtain certain privileges annexed to the office of Janissary. The fact is, that the chief force of the Empire is a militia composed of the People; who, with respect to obedience and subordination, are so loose that they leave their duty whenever they please, without receiving any punishment. How far the People of Turkey are protected from the encroachments of power, will appear from the recital of a fact related by one of the best and most liberal of our Historians on that subject, and which is of too great notoriety to be doubted.
In the year 1755, the Porte, as it is called, or Palace of the Grand Vizir at Constantinople, was burnt down: in laying the plan for rebuilding it on the former site, the leading consideration was, how to contrive matters so as to render it secure from accidents of a like nature in future; and it was determined that the only certain means to do so was, to leave a space of clear ground all round it, for which purpose the contiguous houses should be purchased from the proprietors, and demolished. All the owners of the houses agreed to the sale, except one old woman, who pertinaciously refused: she said she was born, and had lived all her life, in that spot, and would not quit it for any one. Now, in England, for the convenience of a private canal, the Parliament would force her to sell. But what did they say in Turkey? When all the people cried out, “Why does not the Sultan use his authority, and take the house, and pay her the value?” No! answered the Magistrates and the Ulama, it is impossible! it cannot be done! it is her property. While the power of the Monarch is thus limited, and the rights of the People thus ascertained by the Koran, and in things manifest and open to view rigidly adhered to, justice between man and man is rarely administered; for, though the laws themselves are good, the corrupt administration of them disarms their effect, and distorts them from their purpose. The venality of the Judges is beyond conception flagitious and barefaced; and their connivances at false witnesses so scandalously habitual, that testimony is become an article of commerce, and can be procured with a facility and at a price that at once stamps an opprobrium on the country, and furnishes matter of wonder to the considerate mind, how, if Judges are flagitious and shameless enough to be guilty of it, the People can bear such a pernicious system so long. Hence flow all the censures on the laws and government of that country—hence most of the impediments under which its commerce and agriculture languish; while the actual written laws of the realm are, if duly administered, sufficiently adequate to the security of property, the regulation of commerce, the repression of vice, and the punishment and prevention of crimes.
In endeavouring to guard your mind against an illiberal, vulgar prejudice, I have stated to you what the Turkish Constitution is, and what the Laws; but you must not carry what I have said to an overstrained or forced interpretation. I would not have you infer that the People are well governed; I only say, that their Constitution contains within it the means of better government than is supposed. I would not have you infer that property is always secure; I barely say there are laws written to secure it. This too I wish to impress on you, that the common people are more free, and that property and life are better secured, in Turkey, than in some European countries. I will mention Spain for one. Like the country we are now contemplating, fear keeps them, as disunited individuals, under passive obedience in ordinary cases; but, unlike the Spaniards, when notoriously aggrieved—when their property or religious code is forcibly violated—when the Prince would riot in blood, and persist in an unsuccessful war—the Turks appeal to the Law; they find a Chief; the soldiery join their standard, and depose or destroy him, not on the furious pretext of popular hatred, but upon the legitimate ground of the Koran, as an infidel, and a violator of the laws of GOD and Mahomet—They always, however, place his regular successor on the Throne. Yet, notwithstanding the general venality which pollutes the fountains of Justice, and notwithstanding the great abuse of power to which I have alluded, their internal policy is, in many respects, excellent, and may be compared with advantage to that of any Nation in Europe. Highway-robbery, house-breaking, or pilfering, are little known and rarely practised among them; and at all times the roads are as secure as the houses. Ample provisions too are made against those petty secret frauds, which many who carry a fair face in England, and would bring an action of damages against one that should call them rogues, practise every day. Bakers are the most frequent victims of justice, and are not infrequently seen hanging at their own doors. They are mulcted and bastinadoed for the first and second offence, and on the third, a staple is driven up in their door-case, and they are hanged from it. Notwithstanding which, men are constantly found hardy enough to pursue the same course of practice; and this is the more extraordinary, as the police is so strictly attended to, that the Bashaw or Vizir himself goes about in disguise, in order to discover frauds and detect the connivances of the inferior officers of justice. But what wilt our great Ladies, who consume their nights, destroy their constitution, and squander their husbands’ property in gambling; who afterwards, to repair their shattered finances, have recourse to the infamous expedient of keeping gaming-houses, and endeavour to recover by degrading means what they have lost by folly, to the disgrace of themselves and family, and the shame of their sex and rank—What will they say when I tell them, that gaming is held among the Turks to be as infamous as theft, and a gamester looked upon with more detestation than a highway robber? The Turkish Ambassador and his train will, on their return to their country, have to tell a curious tale of this much-famed island, in that and other respects.
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LETTER XXIX.
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Prejudice, that canker of the human heart, has injured mankind by impeding personal intercourse, and thereby clogging the channel of intellectual improvement: it forbids that interchange of sentiment—that reciprocal communication of opinion—that generous circulation of intellectual wealth, which, while it enriches another, advances itself—it dissevers the bond of social union, and makes Man sit down the gloomy, selfish possessor of his own miserable mite, with too much hatred to give, and too much pride to receive, those benefits, which Providence, by leaving our nature so unaccommodated, has pointed out as necessary to pass between man and man: under its influence we spurn from us the good, if we dislike the hand that offers it, and will rather plunge into the mire than be guided by the light of any one whose opinion is at variance with our own.
Thus it is between the Turks and us—the little of their affairs which the prejudices of the Mahomedans have allowed themselves to communicate, or suffered others to glean among them, has been in general so misused, distorted, and misrepresented by the prejudices of the Christians, that it is not going beyond the truth to say, there exist not a people in the civilized world whose real history and genuine state are so little known as those of the Turks: and the worst of it is, that not one misrepresentation, not one single mistake has fallen on the generous, charitable side; but all, all without exception tend to represent the Turk in the most degraded and detestable point of view. As the purity of the Christian does not allow him to be guilty of a wilful, uncharitable misrepresentation, we should attribute it to unavoidable error, were it not that, till some late authors whose liberality does them honour, they all walked in the very same track, and could hardly have been so uniformly erroneous from design. We must therefore attribute it to religious zeal and mistaken piety; in which, in this instance alone, they seem to be reputable competitors with the Turks. The moroseness, the animosity, and the supercilious self-possession of the bigot, each holds in common with the other.
One striking feature in the Constitution of Turkey is, that neither blood nor splendid birth are of themselves sufficient to recommend a man to great offices. Merit and abilities alone are the pinions which can lift ambition to its height. The cottager may be exalted to the highest office in the Empire; at least there is no absolute impediment in his way; and I believe it has often happened. Compare this with France under its late Monarchy, where no merit could raise a man from the Canaille: this, I say, is one of the criterions of a free Constitution, and Turkey is so far democratic.
The very first principle ingrafted in the minds of the Mahomedan children, is a high contempt of all religions but their own; and from the minute babes are capable of distinguishing, they are taught to call Christians by the name of Ghiaour, or Infidel: this grows up in their manhood so strong in them, that they will follow a Christian through the streets, and even justle against him with contempt, crying, Ghiaour! Ghiaour! or Infidel! Infidel!—Men of dignity and rank, indeed, will treat Christians with courtesy; but as soon as they are gone out of hearing, will call them Dog! This is monstrous! But let us recollect how a Turk would be treated in Spain or Portugal, and we shall see that inhuman bigotry may be found in a greater degree among Christians than even Mahomedans. In Spain or Portugal they would treat them thus:—the common people would call them Hogs; they would justle them also in contempt; and what is more, they would stab them (it has often happened) _por amor de Dios_; and as to the people of rank, they would very conscientiously consign them to the Inquisition, where the pious Fathers of the Church would very piously consign them to the flames, and coolly go to the Altar, and pray to GOD to damn them hereafter to all eternity. So far the balance, I think, is in favour of the Turks. Need I go farther?—I will.—
The Mahomedans are divided into two Sects, as the Christians are into many. Those are the Sect of Ali, and the Sect of Omar. Now, I have never heard among them of one Sect burning the other deliberately: but the Roman Catholics, even now, burn Protestants by juridical sentence—burn their fellow Christians to death for differing from them in a mere speculative point of doctrine. Which then are the better men? I am sure it is unnecessary to say: though bad are the best.
The Turks are allowed, by those who know them best, to have some excellent qualities; and I think, that in the prodigality of our censure, which, though little acquainted with them, we are forward to bestow, it would be but fair to give them credit for many of those good qualities, which even among ourselves it requires the greatest intimacy and the warmest mutual confidence and esteem to disclose or discover in each other. That they have many vices is certain. What people are they that have not? Gaming they detest; wine they use not, or at least use only a little, and that by stealth; and as to the plurality of women, it can in them be scarcely deemed a vice, since their religion allows it. One vice, and one only, of a dark dye is laid to their charge; and that has been trumpeted forth with the grievous and horrid addition, that though contradictory to nature, it was allowed by their religion. This I have reason to believe is one of the many fabrications and artifices of Christian zealots, to render Mahomedanism more odious: for I have been informed from the most competent and respectable authority, and am therefore persuaded, that the detestable crime to which I allude, is forbidden both by the Koran and their Municipal Laws; that it is openly condemned by all, as with us; and that, though candour must allow there are many who practise it (by the bye there are too many in England who are supposed to do the same), there are none hardy or shameless enough not to endeavour to conceal it; and, in short, that it is apparently as much reprobated there as any where; which, at all events, rescues the Laws and Religion of the Country from that stigma.
Perhaps there is no part of the world where the flame of parental affection burns with more ardent and unextinguishable strength, or is more faithfully returned by reciprocal tenderness and filial obedience, than Turkey. Educated in the most unaffected deference and pious submission to their parents’ will; trained both by precept and example to the greatest veneration for the aged, and separated almost from their infancy from the women, they acquire a modesty to their superiors, and a bashfulness and respectful deportment to the weaker sex, which never cease to influence them through life. A Turk meeting a woman in the street, turns his head from her, as if looking at her were criminal; and there is nothing they detest so much, or will more sedulously shun, than an impudent, audacious woman. To get the better of a Turk therefore, there is nothing further necessary, than to let slip a Virago at him, and he instantly retreats.
Since the arrival of the Turkish Ambassador in London, I have had frequent occasion to observe, that the people of his train have been already, by the good example of our British Belles and Beaux, pretty much eased of their national modesty, and can look at the women with as broad and intrepid a stare, as the greatest puppy in the Metropolis.
Their habitual tenderness and deference for the fair sex, while it speaks much for their manly gallantry, must be allowed by candour to be carried to an excess extravagant and irrational. It is the greatest disgrace to the character of a Turk to lift his hand to a woman: this is, doubtless, right, with some limitations; but they carry it so far as to allow no provocation, be it what it may, sufficient to justify using force or strokes to a woman; the utmost they can do is, to scold and walk off. The consequence of this is, that the women often run into the most violent excesses. There have been instances where they have been guilty of the most furious outrages; where they have violated the laws in a collected body, and broke open public stores of corn laid up by the Government: the Magistrates attended, the Janissaries were called, and came running to quell the riot—but, behold they were women who committed it: they knew no way of resisting them, unless by force; and force they could not use: so the ladies were permitted quietly to do their work in defiance of Magistrates, Law, Right, and Reason.
Among the variety of errors and moral absurdities falsely ascribed to the Mahomedan Religion, the exclusion of Women from Paradise holds a very conspicuous place, as a charge equally false and absurd; on the contrary, the Women have their fasts, their ablutions, and the other religious rites deemed by Mahomedans necessary to salvation. Notwithstanding, it has been the practice of travellers to have recourse to invention, where the customs of the country precluded positive information; and to give their accounts rather from the suggestions of their own prejudiced imaginations, than from any fair inferences or conclusions drawn from the facts that came under their observation.
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LETTER XXX.
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The subject I touched upon in my last three letters, and on which this, and probably some succeeding ones, will turn, is attended with circumstances of great delicacy, and may possibly bear the aspect of at least a dubious import, as touching the great point of Religion. I will therefore, before I proceed further, explain to you (lest it should require explanation) the whole scope of my meaning.
My object throughout the whole of what I have said respecting the Turks, is to war with prejudice, not to draw comparisons:—to shew that where the Mahomedans are vicious or enslaved, it is not the fault of their Religion or their Laws:—to convince you, the Turks are not the only people in the world, who, under all the external forms of sanctity and religion, are capable of the most detestable crimes, and sometimes utterly bereft of all pretensions to charity—and that, while they have been held up as a perpetual subject of reproach and accusation, they were committing only just the same crimes that conscience might have retorted on their accusers. If allowance can be at all made for historical misrepresentation, we may perhaps be disposed to consider that of the ignorant Catholic Missionaries of the early ages, as entitled to some excuse, or at least mitigation. The intemperate zeal of those times forbade the full exercise of the rational faculties; but in this age of illumination and liberality, he that falsifies from polemical malice should meet little quarter and less belief. And it must be grievous to all men of virtue and religion to reflect, that churchmen, disciples of the Christian Church, which should be the fountain of purity and truth, have been foremost in the list of falsifiers.
The difficulty of obtaining information of any kind in Turkey, is very great; of their Religion chiefly they are extremely tenacious; and as to their Women, it is allowed by the best-informed men, who have lived there for many years, in departments of life that gave them the best means of obtaining information Europeans can have, that, at best, but a very imperfect knowledge can be had of them. Yet travellers who probably never migrated farther than “from the green bed to the brown,” have given us diffuse accounts of their religion; and adventurers who never were beyond the purlieus of Drury, have scaled Seraglio walls, and carried off the favourites of Sultans.
The truth is, my dear FREDERICK, the Turks, like all other people, have their share of vices, but are by no means countenanced in them by their Religion; and from what I have been able to collect, as well from my own inquiries and observations, as from reading the best Historians, I am persuaded that they have not, in the whole scope of Mahomedanism, one doctrine so subversive of virtue, or so encouraging to the indulgence of vice, as many that are to be found in that curious code, Popery.
The malice of our intemperate zealots against Mahomedanism has been of course extended to its founder with more than common exaggeration and additions. They have represented Mahomet to be a man of mean origin, possessing a mind unenlightened by Science or Literature, and an understanding and faculties naturally gross. All those suggestions are undoubtedly false;—he sprung from the most noble of all the Arabian Tribes—the Coraishites: at his time, poverty, so far from being a reproach among them, was a mark of every thing that was great and dignified, if supported with magnanimity and fortitude; and the two first Caliphs lived as poor as Mahomet himself, although they had immense revenues, commanded vast armies, and were lords of great provinces. As to his understanding I can only say, that perhaps he was the very last man in the world whose intellectual powers should be called in question. His genius was unbounded, his spirit enterprising, his powers of address were unequalled, he was allowed to be the greatest orator of his time; and yet, with all these qualifications, his understanding was slighted. It is a logical truth, that when people prove too much, they prove nothing at all: our Christian zealots, in this instance, have overshot the mark, and thereby rendered all their other information at least doubtful. Perhaps the consummation of all policy was Mahomet’s pretending to be an idiot, in order to make his great and wonderful effusions appear to be the immediate inspiration of Heaven—He called himself THE IDIOT PROPHET[1].
Footnote 1:
Mohammed.
The whole of Mahomedanism may be reduced simply to this one article of Faith—“There is but one GOD, and MAHOMET is his Prophet;” but upon this they have superinduced, from time to time, such a variety of absurdities as would require volumes to describe: however, in strict candour let us reflect, and ask our own hearts the question, whether sprinkling with holy water, or worshiping a bit of white wafer as GOD, can be exceeded, or are less absurd than the periodical ablutions of the Turks, or their going on a pilgrimage to Mecca?
With regard to the Women, I have said before that the best information we can obtain is very imperfect; all I have been able to collect, you shall have. They are formed in a style of the most exquisite symmetry, particularly about the chest and bosom; they have delicate skins, regular features, black hair and eyes, and are, above all other beings, cleanly and neat in their persons, bathing twice a day regularly, besides on other occasions, and not suffering even the smallest hair to remain upon their bodies. They are kept in the most rigorous confinement, and only persons of ill fame paint. Women of character are there chaste—nor is their chastity to be attributed to restraint merely, for, from their infancy they are trained to discretion and self-subjection, and the modesty natural to the sex is cherished from its first dawnings. When they grow up, they are not, like our women here, subjected to the contagion of infamous gallantry; neither are the men trained to, nor do they pride themselves, like some among us, on the arts of seduction. In fact, that practice makes no part of the accomplishments of their fine gentlemen; nay, it is held by them to be infamous. There are no such characters to be found in Turkey as your box-lobby loungers—none of your upstart cubs like those who daudle the best part of the day through Pall-Mall, St. James’s-street, and Bond-street; who, without birth, wealth, education, or parts, fancy themselves fine fellows, and powder their noses in Ladies’ head-dresses, whispering them in order to get the reputation of gallantry; who strut like Bantam cocks, and assume a fierce air to conceal their conscious want of spirit; and dressed in a suit of regimentals, bought by Papa, at Mama’s request, to exhibit sweet Master Jacky to advantage in the Park—though never to be soiled with gunpowder, or perforated with a ball in the nasty field of battle!!!—My dear FREDERICK, I have often told you that you shall make choice of your own profession. If you should choose any of the learned professions, you may fail in it without dishonour; for many of the ablest men have failed before: but, mark me! avoid the military as you would ruin, unless you have the requisites; let not the glitter of a scarlet coat, or the empty name of a soldier, tempt you to be like one of those miserable animals I have described. There may be characters more wicked—I know none so utterly contemptible.
All extremes are bad; but the exceedings of virtue, even where they run into error, are still preferable to vice. However ludicrous it may appear, we cannot absolutely despise or condemn the prudery of the Turkish women, though it runs into such extravagance, that, when feeding their poultry, they keep carefully veiled if there happens to be a cock among them, so fastidiously averse are they to the odious male creature seeing their pretty faces.
When the circumstances under which the Turkish women stand are considered, it must appear amazing, that chastity, from principle, is universal among them, as it is confessed to be: the nature of man urges him to desire, with greatest ardour, that which is most forbidden; and women who are much confined, may well be supposed to have their passions inflamed by the exaggerated workings of the imagination. Infidelity, however, to the marriage-bed, is much less frequent among the men there, than among the women here; and the tide of fashion, which in this country gives such a rapid and irresistible circulation to vice and adultery, runs there in an opposite direction; and contrary to our customs, no man is so unfashionable in Turkey as he that has interrupted the domestic peace of a family by seduction.
Among the many virtues which may with strict justice be ascribed to the Turks, hospitality holds a conspicuous place. It is not confined to common civility, it extends to personal protection. Many deem it absolutely their duty to risk their lives in defence of their guests; nor will any motive, however cogent, be allowed to justify the violation of it. Nay, to such a system is it carried up, that an engagement with a stranger is accepted as an excuse for not obeying the summons of a great man, when no other apology, not even that of indisposition, would be admitted.
While the Turks abhor and despise all other religions but their own, their Government is by no means intolerant in spiritual concerns. The exercise of all religions is free, and at Constantinople (we are told) Monks dress in their habits, and are allowed at funeral processions to elevate the Cross, which is more than the English tyranny allowed the Roman Catholics of Ireland to do, till very lately: a Turk, however, convicted of apostacy, could not by any means escape death. Meantime it must be observed, that if they keep up a decent semblance of the forms of their religion, no intrusive inquiry is made into their real faith: and though it is one of the injunctions of Mahomet to endeavour to convert Unbelievers, and they sometimes in obedience to that command solicit the conversion of Christians and others; they never fail to consider any renegado, or person who becomes a convert, with contempt, if not dislike.
I will conclude this letter with an extract from that most valuable and accurate work, Russel’s History of Aleppo, which will give you a better, because a true, notion of Turkish morals, than you are likely to receive from general opinion. “Upon the whole,” says he, “whether it be ascribed to the influence of their political Constitution, or to the absence of various temptations, which in Europe often lead to the violation of better laws; there are perhaps few great cities where many of the private and domestic virtues are in general more prevalent than at Aleppo.”
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LETTER XXXI.
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The use of periodical stated times of devotion is universally admitted, and the necessity of adopting them makes a part of the Christian Code. The Mahomedan Religion, however, exceeds it far in the rigid attention to, and frequency of, devotion. There are no less than five stated times of prayer in every twenty-four hours, fixed as indispensable, at none of which a true Believer fails; and the fervency of their praying exceeds even the frequency. I have heard it asserted, that if the house was to take fire while they are at their devotion, they would not break off; and so rigidly intent do they conceive it their duty to be during the time of prayer, that if in the midst of it they were interrupted by a fit of sneezing or coughing, they consider all already done as gone for nothing, and always begin them again.—And to tell a truth of them, if the Christians curse them, they are pretty even with them in return, never failing to pray for discord, enmity, and dissension among their enemies, as well as health and prosperity to themselves; and to the efficacy of those prayers they fondly attribute all the wars and dissensions which incessantly harass Christendom. A bell tolls as a public notice of prayer; and when a true Mahomedan hears it, let him be where he will, whether at home or abroad, in the highway or in the market, be the place dirty or clean, wet or dry, he immediately falls down and worships.
As subsidiary to prayer they have their ablutions, in which they are full as scrupulously punctual as in their prayers. One is preparatory to prayer, another after cohabitation with women, a third before eating, and another again incidental. Those they never neglect to perform, unless some insuperable obstacle lies in the way. Charity, that most glorious doctrine of any Religion, is enjoined by the Koran under the most heavy denunciation of heavenly vengeance, in case of neglect; and by it they are charged to regard no bounds in liberality to the poor. Many Mussulmen in their zeal to discharge this duty have given a fourth, many a third, and some one half of their property. Nay, the instances are not infrequent of men giving away their all, and living afterwards themselves upon alms. To do strict justice it must be said, that poverty is no where so respectfully attended to, honoured, or reverenced, as among the Mahomedans; who have a saying among them, “that the fear of want is a mark of the judgment of GOD.”
Abstinence is considered as a virtue among them, and very strictly enjoined as a religious duty. The great Fast appointed by the Koran continues for the month of Ramedan, during which time they neither eat, drink, nor converse with their wives, from sun-rise till the stars appear, or the lamps are hung out at the Mosques. Any man who breaks it is punished with death; but the worst of it is, that they will not allow even travellers, the sick or the wounded, to plead a right to exemption: some of the Turks, however, and all the Christians, have hit upon expedients to pass the month without much mortification; that is, sleeping in bed all day, and sitting up and carousing all night, to evade the restraint.
The last and greatest ordinance of their religion is the pilgrimage to Mecca, which when once accomplished is supposed to be a direct passport to Heaven; and there are few of them who do not at one time or other of their lives take that painful and hazardous journey. As this is a very interesting journey, however, to travel in the closet, as it includes the description of a caravan, and serves to shew to what extremities enthusiasm can influence men, I will give you a description of it as handed to me by a very accurate and ingenious person, on whose precise veracity I can rely; first making some remarks upon the preceding part of this letter.
You will observe from what I have already said, that, excepting the mere points of religious faith, the moral ordinances of Mahomedanism comprehend most of those parts of the Christian religion, on the practice of which the reputation of piety is founded; and that for strict obedience to those ordinances the Mahomedans are more remarkable than we are. Adultery is not frequent among them; wine is seldom or never used; theft is little known; so is murder. Then in the practical parts of devotion, there are in the first place prayers; secondly, abstinence or fasting; thirdly, charity. Those are all Christian doctrines, more zealously observed by them than by us. Their ablutions are at least no injury to the cause of morality or piety; but rather, being done as a religious exercise, serve to keep up the series of intercourse which should subsist between the Creature and his Creator: besides, I cannot help thinking with our inimitable poet Thomson, that
——-from the body’s purity, the mind Receives a secret sympathetic aid. SEASONS—Summer.
And as to the pilgrimage to Mecca, however irrational it may appear to us, it is at least recommended by sincerity and zeal, and is doubtless in the eye of an all-seeing Providence meritorious. HE, we are to suppose, will judge not by the value of the act but the purity of the motive; and will accept it as the offering of a frail, blind mortal, bending in obedience to that which he conceives to be the will of Heaven. Besides, for the life of me I cannot see why a pilgrimage to Mecca is at all more culpable than a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; not to mention the thousand other holy places to which well-meaning Christians go, for their soul’s sake, at imminent hazard of their lives, and certain mortification and hardship to their bodies.
Banish, then, my FREDERICK! banish from your heart all illiberal and uncharitable prejudices, if any have yet found their way to it. Revere and cling to your Religion as the best and most conducive to eternal and temporal happiness; and the more good because it enjoins us to be charitable even to the Jews as well as to the Gentiles: but never think that you advance the cause of that Religion, or do service to your GOD, by waging war against your fellow-creatures for opinions they can no more help entertaining than you can help having yours, or by denouncing against them that eternal sentence which rests with the Almighty alone to judge of or to pronounce.
To a benevolent mind the animosities of mankind present a most afflicting picture; and the frivolous pretexts upon which those animosities are grounded render it only the more horrible. One would think that the substantial traffic of life, and the struggle of mankind for the superfluities of it, of themselves afforded ample materials for scuffle, without resorting to the shadows of speculation for contention. Yet experience has shewn us that opinion is a much more copious source of animosity and warfare; and that for one man who has been cursed, murdered, or destroyed by his fellow-creatures in a contest for property, there are a thousand who have fallen sacrifices to the vengeance of hostile opinion:
Ταρασσει τους ανθρωπους ου τα πραγματα, αλλα τα περι των πραγματων δογματα.
Were it possible that I could obtain from the bounty of Heaven a grant of the first wish of my heart, that wish should be to see all mankind in harmony and mutual good will, ranging without distinction under the one great name of Man and Brother. As those who foment the disunion between them are the most pernicious monsters of society, so he who endeavours to bring them one step nearer to a general accommodation of sentiment, who strives to inculcate the principles of mutual toleration, and encourage the growth of reciprocal affection between men as fellow beings, may be justly ranked among the best friends of mankind, and the most faithful servants of Him who gave being to all.
Among the gross misrepresentations of which I complain, and which for the sake of mankind I lament, is that general falsehood, the infidelity of the Turkish women. The respectable author whom I have before taken the freedom of quoting, I mean Dr. Russel, declares that in twenty years residence at Aleppo, he did not remember a public instance of adultery; and that in the private walks of scandal those he heard of were among the lowest class, and did not in number exceed a dozen. “In respect to the Franks (continues he) the undertaking is attended not only with such risk to the individual, but may in its consequences so seriously involve the whole settlement, that it is either never attempted, or is concealed with a secrecy unexampled in other matters. I have reason to believe that European travellers have sometimes had a Greek courtesan imposed on them for a Sultana; and after having been heartily frightened, have been induced to pay smartly, in order to preserve a secret which the day after was known to half the sisterhood in town.” He remarks, however, that at Constantinople the state of gallantry is different.
On the subject of the Turkish moral character, I have endeavoured to be as concise as justice would allow me to be; and yet I find that I have gone to some length. I cannot however dismiss it without giving you a trait to which the most obstinate polemical prejudice, and the most inveterate hatred, must in spite of them pay the tribute of applause. Their treatment to their slaves is beyond all example among us humane, tender, and generous, and such as may well bring a blush in the faces of Christian dealers in human flesh. When young slaves, male or female, are bought by a Turk, they seem to be introduced into the family rather in the condition of an adopted child; they receive the same education, perform nearly the same offices, and are bound to no greater marks of respect than their master’s own children—and in fact feel none of the galling circumstances of a state of servility; the very worst treatment they ever receive is to be put on a footing with the menial domestics, or ordered to the same duty as a valet or a page. It often happens, on the other hand, that they are married into the family, and very frequently are promoted to high offices in the State. If they adopt the Religion of their masters, it is always spontaneously; and even to slaves taken in war, no compulsion is used to make then change their Faith.
The following is the best description I am able to give you of an Eastern Caravan. It exactly coincides with my own observations, and with the various accounts I have had from others. I owe it, as well as the account of the proceedings of the pilgrims at Mecca, to the kind offices of a friend, who took the pains to procure them for me.
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DESCRIPTION OF A CARAVAN.
_Inclosed in the preceding Letter._
A caravan, which is so often mentioned in the history and description of the East, and in all the tales and stories of those countries, is an assemblage of travellers, partly pilgrims, partly merchants, who collect together in order to consolidate a sufficient force to protect them, in travelling through the hideous wilds and burning deserts over which they are constrained to pass for commercial and other purposes; those wilds being infested with Arabs, who make a profession of pillage, and rob in most formidable bodies, some almost as large as small armies. As the collection of such a number requires time, and the embodying of them is a serious concern, it is concerted with great care and preparation, and is never attempted without the permission of the Prince in whose dominions it is to be formed, and of those also through whose dominions it is to pass, expressed in writing. The exact number of men and carriages, mules, horses, and other beasts of burthen, are specified in the license; and the merchants to whom the caravan belongs, regulate and direct every thing appertaining to its government and police during the journey, and appoint the various officers necessary for conducting it.
Each caravan has four principal officers: the first, the Caravanbachi, or head of the caravan; the second, the Captain of the march; the third, the Captain of the stop or rest; and the fourth, the Captain of the distribution. The first has the uncontroulable authority and command over all the others, and gives them his orders: the second is absolute during the march; but his authority immediately ceases on the stopping or encamping of the caravan, when the third assumes his share of the authority, and exerts it during the time of its remaining at rest: and the fourth orders the disposition of every part of the caravan, in case of an attack or battle. This last officer has also during the march the inspection and direction of the distribution of provisions, which is conducted under his management by several inferior officers, who are obliged to give security to the master of the caravan; each of them having the care of a certain number of men, elephants, dromedaries, camels, &c. &c. which they undertake to conduct and furnish with provisions at their own risque, according to an agreement stipulated between them.
A fifth officer of the caravan is the pay-master or treasurer, who has under him a great many clerks and interpreters, appointed to keep accurate journals of all the material incidents that occur upon the journey. And it is by these journals, signed by the superior officers, that the owners of the caravan judge whether they have been well or ill served or conducted.
Another kind of officers are the Mathematicians, without whom no caravan will presume to set out. There are commonly three of them attached to a caravan of large size; and they perform the offices both of quarter-masters and aides-de-camp, leading the troops when the caravan is attacked, and assigning the quarters where the caravan is appointed to encamp.
There are no less than five distinct sorts of caravans: first, the heavy caravans, which are composed of elephants, dromedaries, camels, and horses; secondly, the light caravans, which have but few elephants; thirdly, the common caravans, where there are none of those animals; fourthly, the horse caravans, where there are neither dromedaries nor camels; and lastly, sea caravans, consisting of vessels; from whence you will observe that the word caravan is not confined to the land, but extends to the water also.
The proportion observed in the heavy caravan is as follows: When there are five hundred elephants, they add a thousand dromedaries and two thousand horses at the least; and then the escort is composed of four thousand men on horseback. Two men are required for leading one elephant, five for three dromedaries, and seven for eleven camels. This multitude of servants, together with the officers and passengers, whose number is uncertain, serve to support the escort in case of a fight, and render the caravan more formidable and secure. The passengers are not absolutely obliged to fight; but according to the laws and usages of the caravans, if they refuse to do so, they are not entitled to any provisions whatever from the caravan, even though they should agree to pay an extravagant price for them.
Every elephant is mounted by what they call a Nick; that is to say, a young lad of nine or ten years old, brought up to the business, who drives the elephant, and pricks it with a pointed iron to animate it in the fight: the same lad also loads the fire-arms of the two soldiers who mount the elephant with him.
The day of the caravan setting out being once fixed, is never altered or postponed; so that no disappointment can possibly ensue to any one.
One would suppose that so enormous and powerful a body, so well armed, might be certain of moving forward without fear of being robbed; but as most of the Arabian Princes have no other means to subsist but by their robberies, they keep spies in all parts, who give them notice when the caravans set out, which they way-lay; and sometimes attack with superior force, overpower them, plunder them of all their treasure, and make slaves of the whole convoy—foreigners excepted, to whom they generally shew more mercy. If they are repulsed, they generally come to some agreement; the conditions of which are pretty well observed, especially if the assailants are native Arabians. The carrying on of robberies with such armies may appear astonishing; but when the temptation is considered, and when it is known that one caravan only is sometimes enough to enrich those Princes, much of our surprise vanishes.
They are obliged to use great precautions to prevent the caravan from introducing that dreadful distemper, the plague, into the places through which they pass, or from being themselves infected with it. When therefore they arrive near a town, the inhabitants of the town and the people of the caravan hold a solemn conference concerning the state of their health, and very sincerely communicate to each other the state of the case, candidly informing each other whether there be danger on either side.—When there is reason to suspect any contagious distemper, they amicably agree that no communication whatever shall take place between them; and if the caravan stands in need of provisions, they are conveyed to them with the utmost caution over the walls of the town.
The fatigues, hardships, and hazards, attending those caravans, are so great, that they certainly would never be undertaken, if the amazing profits did not in some measure counterbalance them.—The merchant who travels in them must be content with such provisions as he can get, must part with all his delicacies, and give up all hope of ease; he must submit to the frightful confusion of languages and nations; the fatigues of long marches over sands, and under a climate almost sufficiently hot to reduce him to a cinder: he must submit cheerfully to exorbitant duties fraudulently levied, and audacious robberies and subtle tricks practised by the herd of vagabonds who follow the caravans—for preventing which, the merchants have a variety of well contrived locks, that can only be opened by those who know the knack of them.
But in some tracks of caravans there are dangers, and horrible ones, against which no human foresight or power can provide, and beneath which whole caravans sink, and are never after heard of.
The Egyptian caravans are particularly subject to hazards in the horrid tracks they are necessarily obliged to take through sandy deserts, where, for boundless extents, nature has denied one single circumstance of favour; where a blade of grass never grew, nor a drop of water ever ran; where the scorching fire of the sun has banished the kindly influence of the other elements; where, for several days journey, no object meets the eye to guide the parched traveller in his way; and where the casual track of one caravan is closed by the moving sands, before another can come to take advantage of it. In those vast plains of burning sands, if the guide should happen to lose his way, the provision of water, so necessary to carry them to the place where they are to find more, must infallibly fail them: in such a case the mules and horses die with fatigue and thirst; and even the camels, notwithstanding their extraordinary power to subsist without water, soon perish in the same manner, together with the people of the caravan, wandering in those frightful deserts.
But more dreadful still, and still more inevitable, is the danger when a south wind happens to rise in those sandy deserts. The least mischief it occasions is, to dry up the leathern bags which contain the provision of water for the journey. This wind, to which the Arabs give the epithet of poisoned, often stifles in a moment those who have the misfortune to meet it; to prevent which, they are obliged to throw themselves immediately on the ground, putting their faces close to the burning sands which surround them on all sides, and covering their mouths with some linen cloth, lest by breathing they should swallow instantaneous death, which this wind carries with it wherever it extends.—Besides which, whole caravans are often buried under moving hills of burning sand, raised by the agitation of the winds.
All those horrors and dangers are so exquisitely described by our charming bard THOMSON, that I cannot refrain from transcribing the passage, as bringing them more immediately home to the understanding and the heart, than volumes of common description could do.
———— Breathed hot From all the boundless furnace of the sky, And the wide glittering waste of burning sand, A suffocating wind the pilgrim smites With instant death. Patient of thirst and toil, Son of the Desert! even the camel feels, Shot through his withered heart, the fiery blast. Or from the black-red ether bursting broad Sallies the sudden whirlwind. Straight the sands, Commov’d around, in gathering eddies play; Nearer and nearer still they darkening come; Till, with the general all-involving storm Swept up, the whole continuous wilds arise; And by their noon-day fount dejected thrown, Or sunk at night in sad disastrous sleep Beneath descending hills, the caravan Is buried deep. In Cairo’s crowded streets Th’ impatient Merchant wondering waits in vain, And Mecca saddens at the long delay.————
Yet, notwithstanding all those horrible circumstances of terror and danger—trade, and the desire of gain, on the one hand, induce multitudes of people to run the hazard:
Impiger extremos currit Mercator ad Indos, Per mare pauperiem fugiens, per saxa, per ignes. HORACE.
And on the other hand, enthusiasm and religious zeal send thousands to tempt their fate, and take a passage to Heaven through those horrid regions. Thus we see in what various ways delusion operates.—The Merchant might find a livelihood, and the Bigot his way to divine favour, just as well by staying within the confines of their own native home.
ACCOUNT OF THE CEREMONIES OBSERVED BY PILGRIMS ON THEIR ARRIVAL AT MECCA.
The caravans are generally so ordered as to arrive at Mecca about forty days after the Fast of Ramedan, and immediately previous to the Corban, or Great Sacrifice. Five or six days before that Festival, the three great caravans, viz. that from Europe, that from Asia Minor, and that from Arabia, unite; and all, consisting of about two hundred thousand men, and three hundred thousand beasts of burthen, encamp at some miles from Mecca. The pilgrims form themselves into small detachments, and enter the town to arrange the ceremonies preparatory to the Great Sacrifice. They are led through a street of continual ascent, till they arrive at a gate on an eminence, called the Gate of Health. From thence they see the great Mosque which incloses the House of Abraham. They salute it with the most profound respect and devotion, repeating twice, “Salam Alek Irusoul Allah!” that is to say, “Peace be with the Ambassador of God!” Thence, at some distance, they mount five steps to a large platform faced with stone, where they offer up their prayers; they then descend on the other side of it, and advance towards two arches, of the same kind of dimensions, but at some distance from each other, through which they pass with great silence and devotion. This ceremony must be performed seven times.
From hence proceeding to the great Mosque which incloses the House of Abraham, they enter the Mosque, and walk seven times round the little building contained within it, saying, “This is the House of GOD, and of his servant Abraham.” Then kissing with great veneration a black stone, said to have descended white from Heaven, they go to the famous Well called Zun Zun, which the Angel shewed to Hagar when she was distressed in the desert, and could find no water for her son Ishmael, and which the Arabs call Zem Zem. Into this Well they plunge with all their clothes, repeating “Toba Alla, Toba Alla!” that is to say, “Forgiveness, GOD! Forgiveness, GOD!” They then drink a draught of that fœtid, turbid water, and depart.
The duty of bathing and drinking they are obliged to pass through once; but those who would gain Paradise before the others, must repeat it once a day during the stay of the Caravan at Mecca.
At fifteen miles from the town of Mecca there is a hill called “Ghiabal Arafata,” or “the Mount of Forgiveness.” It is about two miles in circumference—a most delicious spot. On it ADAM and EVE met, after the LORD had, for their transgressions, separated them forty years. Here they cohabited and lived in excess of happiness, having built a house on it, called “Beith Adam,” that is to say, “the House of Adam.” On the eve of the day of Sacrifice, the three caravans, ranged in a triangular form, surround this mountain—during the whole night the people rejoice, clamour and riot—firing off cannon, muskets, pistols, and fire-works, with an incessant sound of drums and trumpets. As soon as day breaks, a profound silence succeeds—they slay their sheep and offer up their sacrifice on the mountain with every demonstration of the most profound devotion.
On a sudden a Scheik (or Head of a Temple), a kind of Prelate, rushes from amidst them, mounted on a camel—he ascends five steps, rendered practicable for the purpose, and in a studied sermon preaches thus to the people:
“Return praise and thanks for the infinite and immense benefits granted by GOD to Mahomedans, through the mediation of his most beloved friend and prophet, Mahomet: for that he has delivered them from the slavery and bondage of sin and idolatry, in which they were plunged; has given them the House of Abraham, from whence they can be heard, and their petitions granted; also the Mountain of forgiveness, by which they can implore Him, and obtain a pardon and remission of all their sins.
“For that the blessed, pious, and merciful GOD, giver of all good gifts, commanded his secretary, Abraham, to build himself a house at Mecca, whence his descendants might pray to the Almighty, and their desires be fulfilled.
“On this command all the mountains in the world ran, as it were, each ambitious to assist the Secretary of the LORD, and to furnish a stone towards erecting the holy house; all, except this poor little Mountain, which, through mere indigence, could not contribute a stone. It continued therefore thirty years grievously afflicted: at length the Eternal GOD observed its anguish, and, moved with pity at its long suffering, broke forth, saying, I can forbear no longer, my child! your bitter lamentations have reached my ears; and I now declare, that all those who go to visit the house of my friend Abraham shall not be absolved of their sins, if they do not first reverence you, and celebrate on you the holy Sacrifice, which I have enjoined my people through the mouth of my prophet Mahomet! Love GOD! Pray! Give Alms!”
After this sermon the people salute the Mountain, and depart.
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LETTER XXXII.
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In my last letters I endeavoured to give you an account of the Turkish Government, Laws, and Constitution in general, so far as I was able to collect information on the subject. I will now proceed to a description of those particular parts of that vast Empire through which I had occasion to travel.
During my stay at Aleppo, I experienced much politeness and hospitality from the European gentry resident there, and particularly from Mr. ——-, at whose house I entirely resided; and as the Franks live on a very good footing with each other, the time passed so agreeably, that were it not for “that within,” I should have been happy enough—We rode out occasionally, sometimes hunting, sometimes merely for the ride sake. Sometimes with an intelligent native whom I got to walk with me, or with some of the Franks, I walked about the town, in order to amuse away the time and see what was going forward, notwithstanding the cry of “Frangi Cucu!” or “Cuckold Frank!” which frequently followed us for the length of a street. Sometimes we went of evenings to some of the outlets, where preparation was made for our reception by servants, previously dispatched for the purpose, and there regaled with coffee, wine, fruits, &c.
The first day we went on a party of the last mentioned kind, Mrs. ——- did us the honour to accompany us: the place appointed was in a range of beautiful rural gardens that lie along the side of a river; where the well cultivated earth teeming with a vast abundance of the best esculent plants, flowers, flowering shrubs and fruit-trees, afforded a most delicious regale to the senses; and the plane, the willow, the ash, the pomegranate, and a variety of other trees, clustered together in almost impervious thickets, yielded a delightful shady retreat from the piercing rays of the Sun. It was on this occasion that I got the first specimen of Turkish illiberality, which, as I was entirely unprepared for it, confounded me, and nearly deprived me of temper and of prudence. As we walked along, I observed several Turks addressing themselves to Mrs. ——- and me, who walked arm in arm, and speaking with a loudness of voice, contortion of countenance, and violence of gesticulation, attended with a clapping of hands, which, though I did not understand their language, I could plainly perceive carried the appearance of menace or insult. I was at a loss what to think of it: Mrs. ——- blushed, and seemed much hurt: Mr. ——- and the other gentlemen were silent, and betrayed not the least mark of emotion or resentment. At length, when we got from them, I asked what it meant? and was told, that it was all aimed at Mrs. ——-, or at least occasioned by her: that, bigoted to the customs of their own country, and utterly ignorant of those of any other, they were affected with great indignation at her dress, occasional derangement of her veil, and, above all, at the shameless and unpardonably wicked circumstance of a woman walking so openly and familiarly in the company of men. Talking of this affair afterwards with Mr. ——-, the lady’s husband, he assured me, that there was not an opprobrious and infamous epithet which the vulgar ingenuity of the brightest quean in Billingsgate could think of, that they had not huddled upon us. I was beyond measure astonished at the coolness with which he bore it, and said, that if I had understood what they had said, I should most certainly have been unable to restrain myself, and would have knocked one of them down as an example to the rest. Had you done so, returned he, you would certainly have repented it: for, if you escaped being stoned, or put to death upon the spot, the legal punishment for an infidel striking a true believer, you could not escape; and probably we, and all the Franks in the city, would suffer for it: it would at all events cause a dreadful convulsion in the place, and you would yourself fall a sacrifice to it.
Not long since I was conversing on this subject with a gentleman of my acquaintance, and mentioned it with some asperity, as arising from a spirit of bigotry peculiar to Mahomedans.—“My good Sir,” said he, “let me undeceive you! the very same would be done in most parts of Spain. I was one day,” continued he, “walking in a town in Spain, in company with the wife of a gentleman who resided there, who were both well known, and bore the most unexceptionable character. Seeing me however walking with her, the populace, as we passed, held up two fingers significantly, and cried to her, What a cuckold is your husband! and concluded with ‘Todas las Inglesas son putas,’ or, ‘All English women are ——s.’” He added, “that he was even in Cadiz, where commercial intercourse renders them rather more liberal than in other parts of that country, frequently accosted by little children themselves, with ‘Crees in Dios?’ Do you believe in God? and sometimes forming a cross with the thumb of the right hand and the forefinger, ‘Crees en este? Crees en este? No! No! Ah Judio! Moro! Barbaro! Bruto! Protestante! Puerco! Voia al los Infernos!!’ In English—Do you believe in this? Do you believe in this? No! No! Ah Jew! Moor! Barbarian! Protestant! Hog! Go to Hell!!”
So much for human beneficence and charity, under the fostering auspices of religion!
The house of Mr. ——-, where I was so hospitably lodged, was a magnificent edifice, built in all the fullness of Eastern grandeur and luxury, and furnished with all the splendour and state of Turkey, united with the taste and opulence of Great Britain. It was indeed a house in which voluptuousness itself might sit down with satisfaction—The most unaffected hospitality and generous benevolence invited and spread the board, and politeness and affability presided over all. Never shall I forget it—never shall I think of it without gratitude and esteem.
A gentleman of the opulence and consequence of Mr. ——-, with a house such as I have described, and a disposition to social enjoyment, was not, you will conclude, without a resort of company and friends; in truth, he had friends even among the better sort of Turks. Parties of pleasure had no intermission while I was there; and as the ladies of Europe or of European extraction in that country are highly accomplished, speak many languages, are indefatigable in their efforts to please, and receive strangers from Europe with a joy and satisfaction not to be described, Aleppo would have been to me an Elysium, if the pleasures of the place did not from the beginning suffer diminution from my own painful sensations, which were aggravated at last by an incident that arose from my intercourse there—of which more hereafter.
While I remained at Aleppo, I walked, as I before told you, frequently about the streets; and I think I never was witness to so many broils in all my life put together, as I was in my wanderings there—Not a time I went out that I did not observe one, two, three, and sometimes half a dozen or more. They have nothing terrible in them however, and, were it not extremely disgusting to see men scold, would be very entertaining; for I will venture to say that a street battle “à la Turque” is one of the most ludicrous exhibitions in the world. The parties approach to each other, and retreat mutually, as the action of the one gives hopes to the other of victory, lifting their hands, and flourishing them in the air, as if ready to strike every moment, grinning and gnashing their teeth, while their beard and whiskers besprent with the spume of their mouths, and wagging with the quick motion of their lips and ghastly contortions of their jaws, present the most ridiculous spectacle imaginable. They reminded me at the time of a verse in an old English Ballad:—
’Tis merry in the hall, When beards wag all.
Nothing, in fact, can exceed the extravagance of their gesture: the vehement loudness of their voice, or the whimsical distortions of their countenances, in which are displayed sometimes the quickest vicissitudes of fear and fury, and sometimes the most laughable combination of both. All this time, however, not a single blow is actually struck; but they compensate for the want of bodily prowess by the exercise of the tongue, denouncing vengeance against each other, threatening instant demolition, lavishing every bitter reproach, every filthy epithet, and every horrible imprecation that they can think of, and both boasting occasionally of their patience and forbearance, which fortunately enabled them to refrain from annihilating their adversary. At last the fray gradually decays: exhausted with fatigue, and half choaked with dust and vociferation, they retreat gradually backwards to their own doors; where summing up all their malignity into a most horrid execration, they part for the time, and retire to vaunt in empty threat, and growl away their rage, in the recesses of their Haram.
Yet those people are found terrible in battle by the Christian troops that have from time to time been opposed to them: here, if proof be wanting of the effects of Religion on the human mind, is an incontrovertible one of its powerful operations. Under the influence of their faith, which tells them that they go to Paradise instantly if killed in battle with Infidels, they perform prodigies of valour fighting against Christians; while, forbidden by that faith to imbrue their hands in the blood of a true believer, their passions have been gradually brought under the dominion of their religion, till that which at first was faith at last becomes habit, and the appropriate energy and courage of the man has sunk into the degrading and emasculant efforts of the woman.
The practice of fighting, or personal conflicts between individuals of the same society, seems to have been condemned by the universal consent of all religions. The Gentoos, as well as all the other sects of the various parts of the East through which I have travelled, give vent to their passion in nearly the same manner as the Turks. The Christians too are most strictly forbidden to strike one another by the great Author of their faith: but it is their good fortune, that they not only have the best religion in the world for their guidance, but that they are the only people in the world who claim exemption from the penalties of that religion, and think themselves wronged and their personal rights infringed, if they are refused the privilege of breaking through its rules whenever those rules are at variance with their convenience.
Be it your care, my dear child! to fortify your mind with the spirit of true religion and sound morality, and let your practice in life be ever guided by their precepts.
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LETTER XXXIII.
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The avidity with which human creatures search for something to recreate the mind and keep it in exercise, is of itself a convincing proof of the natural activity of our intellectual faculties, and shews that, like the different parts of the body, they were given by Providence to be called into effort and improved by practice. As they who by the favours of opulence are exempted from the necessity of actual bodily labour, are obliged to have recourse to artificial labour called exercise; so they who have the misfortune to be precluded from the employment of the mind by business, are obliged to seek mental exercise in a variety of expedients, some of which are criminal, some foolish, and some good for nothing or indifferent. Cards, dice, and games of chance are (according to the extent to which they are carried) of the two former—tale and novel-reading of the two latter. Those however serve to occupy the vacant hours of all the idle and unemployed. And when letters deny their friendly aid, we find among ourselves the deficiency supplied from the less ample resources of the memory; and story-telling, love tales, fairy tales, and goblin and ghost adventures, are recited round the villager’s fire or the kitchen hearth in as great numbers, with as much ingenuity, and to as great effect, as they are to be found written in the innumerable volumes on the shelves of our circulating libraries.
In Turkey, where the art of printing has not yet been known, where the circulation of literary productions is chained down within the narrow compass of manuscript, and where therefore the efforts of genius are repressed by discouragement, the business of story-telling makes in itself a profession, which, as it is acquired by study and prosecuted with art, is followed with considerable profit.
One day a friend (a French gentleman) who escorted me through the town, called to draw me out with him for a walk; he said he wished to shew me some of the caravanseras, observing that he thought I should be entertained with a view of them. I agreed to go; and he brought me to two, which, after he had shewn to me and explained their principle, police, and etiquette, I could not help admiring and approving. To both these were attached eating-houses and coffee-houses, and every appendage that could render them convenient and comfortable. As we were about leaving the last, I observed my friend stop and listen attentively. “Come hither,” said he, after a minute’s pause—“come into this coffee-house, here is something going forward that may amuse you.”
We accordingly entered the coffee-house, where we saw a number of people, some seated in the Turkish fashion, some on low stools, and some standing; and in the middle a man walking to and fro, speaking in an audible voice, sometimes slowly, sometimes with rapidity, varying his tones occasionally with all the inflexions of a corresponding sense. I could not understand him, but he seemed to me to speak with “good emphasis and good discretion:” his action was easy to him, though expressive and emphatical; and his countenance exhibited strong marks of eloquent expression. I could not help staring with astonishment at a scene so new to me, and felt great approbation of the tones and manner of this extraordinary orator, though I could not understand a single word he said. He was listened to by all with great attention, and the Turks (albeit not used to the laughing mood) frequently betrayed strong symptoms of risibility: but in the height and torrent of his speech he broke suddenly off, scampered out of the door and disappeared. I set it down that he was a maniac or lunatic of an ingenious kind, and was for going away. “Stay,” says my friend, “rest where you are for a few minutes, let us hear further.”
The orator had scarcely been gone three minutes when the room was filled with the buzz of conversation, a word of which I could not understand, but which my guide listened to very attentively. At length the buzz began to grow loud, and soon increased into clamour; when a scene ensued of so very ludicrous a kind as forced me to cram my handkerchief into my mouth to suppress a laugh, or at least so to stifle it as to avoid observation. In short, they were disputing violently, and the beards were, as I once before mentioned to you, ALL WAGGING. I became more convulsed with mirth; and my friend seeing that I was likely to give offence, took me under the arm and hurried me out of the coffee-house: we retired into a porch in the caravansera, where I gave vent to my suppressed laughter till my sides were sore and my eyes ran tears.
“In the name of God, my friend!” said I, “tell me what is the meaning of all that extravagant scene to which we have just now been witness: who is that madman that spoke so much? and why did they all quarrel after he went away?”
“Come, come,” said he, “let us retire to my house, and I will there explain the whole of it to you, from beginning to ending.”
I accordingly accompanied him home, where we found a very gay circle assembled, to whom he described my astonishment; recounting my immoderate laughter, till they all laughed very nearly as immoderately as myself. “You must know,” said he, addressing himself to me, “that he whom you took to be a madman, is one of the most celebrated composers and tellers of stories in Asia, and only wants the aid of printing, to be perhaps as eminent in reputation for making CONTES, as Marmontel or Madame D’Anois. As we passed along I heard his voice, and, knowing it, resolved to let you see him, and brought you in for the purpose. He was entertaining the company with a very curious, interesting, and comical story; the subject of which was avarice; the hero a miser of the name of Cassem. His misery and avarice are represented in it as bringing him into a variety of scrapes, which waste his wealth; and his character is drawn with such strength of colouring, and marked with such grotesque lines of humour—he related it moreover with so much wit, in such admirable language, and embellished and enforced it with such appropriate action, utterance and emphasis—that it riveted, as you saw, the attention of all his auditors, and extorted laughter even from Turkish gravity.”
“But how came he to break off so suddenly?” said I.
“That,” returned my friend, “is a part of the art of his profession, without which he could not live: just as he gets to a most interesting part of the story, when he has wound the imagination of his auditors up to the highest climax of expectation, he purposely breaks off to make them eager for the rest. He is sure to have them all next day, with additional numbers who come on their report, and he makes his terms to finish the story.”
“Why then,” interrupted I, “why did they who remained behind fall disputing?”
“That I will explain to you,” said he. “Just as he broke off, Cassem the miser (who, as far as I heard, seems as well drawn as Moliere’s AVARE) having already suffered a thousand whimsical misfortunes and dilapidations of fortune, is brought before the Cadi for digging in his garden, on the presumption that he was digging for treasure. As soon as the historian was gone, they first applauded him, and then began to discuss his story—which they one and all agreed in praising highly: and when they came to talk of the probable issue of the sequel of it, there were almost as many opinions as there were men in company; each maintained his own, and they went to loggerheads as you saw about it—when the chance is a thousand to one, that not one of them was near the mark. One in particular surmised that Cassem would be married to the Cadi’s daughter; which gave great offence to some, and roused another of the company to declare, that he was well assured in his conscience that Cassem would be brought to the bastinado or the stake, or else hanged, in the sequel.”
“And is it possible,” said I, “that a group of twenty or thirty rational beings can be so far bereft of all common sense, as to dispute upon the result of a contingency, which absolutely depends on the arbitrary fancy of an acknowledged fabricator of falsehoods?”
“_C’est vrai_, Monsieur! and thereby they demonstrate the power of the poet (for poet we may well call him); and _entre nous_, I doubt whether it is not more rational, as well as more fair, to dispute what the _denouement_ ought to be before than after the inventor of the piece has disposed of it, as is the practice with us. When he has once finished his fable, you will find them all content, and the voice of criticism silent. Now in France or England, our critics lie _perdue_, in order to attack the poet, let him finish his performance how he may. But you will recollect, Monsieur, that in Turkey criticism is the honest spontaneous issue of the Heart, and with us is a trade, where sometimes lucre, sometimes vanity, but oftener than both, envy and malice direct the decision, and dispose to cavil and censure.
But we will go again to-morrow, continued he, probably he will be there to conclude or proceed further with his story; I agreed to this and we parted.
On the next day we went, and not seeing the orator in his place, lounged about the caravansera, and going to another coffee-house found him declaiming with all his might. My friend told me that the story he was now on was quite different from the former: however we watched his motions so effectually that we got the conclusion of the story of Cassem, which completely disappointed the prognostics of the two conflicting Turkish critics; for Cassem was neither bastinadoed, staked, or hanged, nor married to the Cadi’s daughter, but lived to see that extreme avarice was folly; and to be sensible that to make the proper use of the goods of this life is to enjoy them.
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LETTER XXXIV.
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My last letter has shewn you, that the conceptions of genius, though they may want the aid of the Press to bring them in full and perfect disclosure to the world, will yet burst through their bounds, and find some means of communication with mankind; for though the art of Printing be unknown in Turkey, the emanations of superior intellect and fancy find their way to the general ear through the medium of public declamation in coffee-houses. This letter will serve to shew you that malversation in office, public delinquency, and all those crimes of the great, which with us are cognizable by no tribunal but that of the public press, are not altogether so exempt from the lash and exposure of the satirist in Turkey, as the want of that great palladium of Freedom would dispose us to believe; and that, incredible as it may appear, the magistrates are held up to ridicule in public exhibition, satirised with all the extravagant vulgarity of coarse humour and unpolished wit, and exposed with all the bitter exaggerations of envenomed genius.
The French gentleman whom I mentioned to you in my last, as having procured me that pleasant repast at the coffee-house, called on me a morning or two after that, and reminded me how highly I seemed to be entertained; said, there were often to be seen, by walking about and going into public places, a variety of things, which, however worthless and unentertaining in themselves, might, from the novelty of their appearance, and their unlikeliness to any thing seen in Europe, serve either to divert by their oddity, or promote the conception of new ideas in the mind: he therefore recommended it to me, with all the zeal of a person who took an interest in my happiness, to keep on my legs and in the streets while I remained at Aleppo.
You will conclude that I readily complied, and we sallied out directly in quest of adventure. We proceeded, therefore, to one of the beforementioned coffee-houses, where, as my friend observed to me, though there were no people of great rank, there was generally something to afford contemplation or amusement; and where, if nothing else occurred, the motley appearance of the company was sufficient to excite a variety of whimsical emotions, and suggest numberless ludicrous images to the imagination of an English or French man. As there was no orator at work declaiming, I had time to indulge myself with a more accurate view than I had before taken of the group that surrounded us: and surely never was ponderous gravity more ludicrously, or in more various forms depicted by any caricaturist in the world.—Here it was to be seen, in all its shadings, from the self-important nod of serious cogitation, down to the soporific aspect of stolid stupidity. Not a muscle was moved in way of mirth, not a face disgraced with a smile, and I could not help thinking all the time, that if every nation of the earth was to take some animal for its insignia, as the British assume the lion, and the Prussian the eagle, the Turks might be divided in their choice between the appropriate claims of the owl and the ass.
Soon after we entered, a band of what they called music, struck up a concert. And here again the notion of the owl and the ass struck me with increased force, as peculiarly presiding over their music: for no other combination of sounds that I know on earth, but the screeching of the one, and the braying of the other, could form any thing to resemble this concert, with which the auditory seemed vastly pleased, though I was obliged to betake myself to flight, in order to get relief from the torture it gave me. The Turks, however, as I retreated, honoured me with a few remarks, which as I did not understand, I could not precisely feel; my friend however told me, they were to the effect that we were Frangi Dumus (Frank Hog), and had no more ear than that filthy animal for music.
Come, said my friend, don’t be discouraged!—But the music—the music! interrupted I.—Well then, said he, the music, or rather the sounds were execrable to be sure; they have at least served to establish this certainty, that there is nothing, however discordant or detestable, which habit will not reconcile us to. Doubt not, said he, that the best piece of Handel or Correlli, performed by the best band in Rome, would appear as ridiculous to them, as their concert did to us.
We visited many coffee-houses in the course of that day, in every one of which we found something to divert or disgust us; at length as we entered one, my friendly guide turning to me with satisfaction in his countenance, said “Here is something about to go forward that will please you better than the concert of music.” What is it, said I? A drama, returned he; a drama, to you most certainly of a new and extraordinary kind; and I do assure you that so zealous am I to procure you entertainment, I would rather than a couple of loui’s you could understand what is going forward: your hearty mirth and laughter, added he, are sufficient to put one in spirits. He then directed my attention to a fellow who was busily employed in erecting a stage, which he accomplished in a time incredibly short. The light of the sun was completely excluded, and a puppet shew commenced, which gave great delight to all the audience, and, ignorant as I was of the language, pleased me very much.
I was astonished when informed that one man only spoke for all the personages of the drama, for so artfully did he change his tone of voice, that I could have sworn there had been as many people to speak, as there were characters in the piece. The images were not actually puppets, commonly so called, but shadows done in the manner of Astley’s _Ombres Chinoises_. They were, however, far inferior to his in execution and management, though the dialogue and incident evidently appeared, even to me, to be executed with a degree of the _vis comica_ far superior to any I ever saw in a thing of the kind in Europe; indeed so perfect was the whole, that though I knew not a word of the language, I comprehended clearly the plan of the piece, and many of the strokes of humour contained in the dialogues.—The plan was obviously taken from a story which I have read in some of the Eastern tales, I believe the Arabian Nights Entertainments, and it is founded on the law of the country, that a man may repudiate his wife twice, and take her back again; but in the event of a third divorce, cannot retake her to his marriage-bed, unless she be previously married and divorced by another man. To obviate which, husbands who repent having divorced their wives a third time, employ a man to marry them, and restore her back again; and he who does this office is called a _Hullah_.—In the piece before us, however, the Lady and the Hullah like each other so well, that they agree not to separate; the husband brings them both before the Cadi to enforce a separation; and the scene before the Cadi was as ludicrous, and as keen a satire upon those magistrates as can well be conceived, though of the low kind.
The piece was introduced with a grand nuptial procession, in which the master displayed the powers of his voice by uttering a variety of the most opposite tones in the whole gamut of the human voice; sometimes speaking, sometimes squeaking like a hurt child, sometimes huzzaing as a man, a woman, or a child; sometimes neighing like a horse, and sometimes interspersing it with other such sounds as commonly occur in crowds, in such a manner as astonished me: while the concomitant action of the images, grotesque beyond measure, kept up the laugh; horses kicking and throwing their riders, asses biting those near them, and kicking those behind them, who retire limping in the most ridiculous manner; while their great standing character in all pieces; KARA-GHUSE (the same as our Punch), raised a general roar of obstreperous mirth even from the Turks, with his whimsical action, of which I must say that, though nonsensical, though indecent, and sometimes even disgusting, it was on the whole the most finished composition of low ribaldry and fun that I ever beheld.
When they come before the Cadi, he is seated in his divan of justice; but as soon as the complaint is opened and answered, he rises and comes forward between the contending parties: here he turns to one and demands in a terrific tone what he has to say, while the other puts cash in his hand behind, and in proportion as the cash is counted in, increases the terror of his voice; he then pockets the money, and again turns to the other, and demands what he has to offer, while in like manner he receives the bribes from his adversary and puts it in an opposite pocket: this alternate application lasts till the purses of both are exhausted, when, giving a great groan, he retires on one side to reckon the money of each from a pocket he has on either side, one called plaintiff, and the other defendant; when balancing them, he finds plaintiff better by one asper (or three-halfpence) than defendant, and pronounces his judgment accordingly. The defendant appeals to the Bashaw; they go before him: KARA-GHUSE (Punch) however, takes the defendant aside, and in a dialogue, which my friend assured me was pointed, witty, and bitterly satirical, developes to him the whole system of magistratical injustice, advises him to bribe the Bashaw, and, declaring his zeal for all young people fond of amorous enjoyment (which he is at some pains to enlarge upon to the excess of indelicacy), offers him the aid of his purse. The advice is followed; the bribe is accepted; the Cadi’s decree is reversed, and himself disgraced, and the mob at once hustle him and bear the Hullah home to his bride with clamours of joy. Here again the master shewed his extraordinary powers, giving not only, as before, distinct and opposite tones of voice, but huddling a number of different sounds with such skill and rapidity together, that it was scarcely possible to resist the persuasion that they were the issue of a large and tumultuous crowd of men and animals. With this extravagant _melange_ the curtain dropped, and the performance ended.
Returning home we conversed together on the subject of the piece, which I confess I could not get out of my head for some time. My friend explained to me, as well as he could recollect, a great part of the dialogue, and assured me, that the freedom of speech of Monsieur KARA-GHUSE had from time to time created a great deal of uneasiness, not only to private offending individuals, but to the magistracy itself—that no offender, however intrenched behind power, or enshrined in rank, could escape him—that Bashaws, Cadi’s, nay the Janissaries themselves, were often made the sport of his fury; that he was not more restrained in the effusions of obscenity which he uttered, than in his satire; that he was always well received and applauded, even venerated (as we venerate the liberty of the press) as a bold teller of truth, who with little mischief does a great deal of good, and often rouses the lethargic public mind to a sense of public dangers and injuries. He added, that in some cases the Magistrate had been obliged to interfere; and the Bashaw himself was seriously called upon at times to stop the licentious tongue of this champion of Freedom, KARA-GHUSE.
“Well then,” said I, “it appears upon the whole that Monsieur KARA-GHUSE is a very great blackguard, but a very witty, and a very honest one.”
“You have just hit it,” said he; and if Master Kara-ghuse was to take such liberties in France, Spain, Portugal, or Germany, all his wit and honesty would not save him from punishment. In England you do not want him; every man there is a KARA-GHUSE, and every newspaper a puppet-shew.
“And yet,” returned I, “we complain sadly of want of liberty!”
“That is natural,” returned my sagacious Frenchman, “perfectly natural. Liberty is like money; the more we have of it, the more covetous we grow.”
“Very true, Monsieur,” said I, pleased with his compliment to our happy Constitution, and to clinch his observation, gave a Latin quotation, which when a child I got out of Lilly’s Grammar, “Crescit amor nummi, quantum ipsa pecunia crescit;” and then changing nummus for libertas, “Crescit amor libertatis, quantum ipsa libertas crescit.”
“’Tis very well, Monsieur,” said he; “and to carry on your allusion, may we not say, that they who do not know when they have enough, are as dangerously wrong in the one case, as those who say we have too much, are in the other? The English complaining of the want of liberty, reminds me of the coffee-house orator’s story of Cassem, who, wallowing in wealth, lost it all in the wild pursuit of more.—I hope however that they never will, like him, lose their stock in vain endeavours to increase it.”
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LETTER XXXV.
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While I was, in the manner I have already mentioned, endeavouring to pass away the time as cheerfully as possible, till a caravan was formed, or Company’s dispatches were coming over land, of which I might avail myself; I found my situation in the house of Mr. ——- growing extremely critical. That gentleman, of whose good sense, and truly excellent disposition, I had too manifold proofs to call them in question, had, though fallen into the vale of years, married his Lady at a very tender age. She was then young, beautiful, full of sensibility, and gifted with such natural endowments both of mind and person, accompanied with all those accomplishments which helped to dress them to advantage, that she might well be acquitted of vanity, even though fancy suggested to her she was fit to grace and confer happiness on a younger bed; while reflection on the obvious disparity of the match (which the cool temper of satiety possibly suggested to him) might perhaps have alarmed his mind to circumstances of probable danger, that, before wedlock, were all hid behind the deceptive veil of passion. Whether these were the private sentiments that influenced both or either of them, I cannot presume to determine, though I think it probable: for I was not long in the house till I plainly perceived they were on a very bad footing with each other, and in short that disagreement was become habitual to them. At first, that is to say, for a few days after my becoming an inmate of their house, decency enforced concealment, and the ebullitions of peevishness were stifled by the dictates of prudence: but the animosities of the connubial state are those which of all others are the most impatient under controul; and as time, by producing familiarity, relaxed restraint, the pent-up passions began to force their way, and open bikering, took place in my presence.
It is but barely doing justice to myself to say, that I felt the most poignant concern at seeing a couple, each so perfectly amiable in all other respects, blasting the hours that should be given to harmony and love, in jarring, reproach, and recrimination; and I would have given all I was worth that I had never had occasion to esteem them so much, or that I could give them that peace which seemed to have flown them for ever. Fain would I cast a veil over the whole transaction; fain would I bury it, even from myself, in oblivion: but it has been made by my enemies the subject of triumphant slander; and to do justice to myself, and disclaim the extent of guilt which they would impute to me, I am reluctantly obliged to avow the share I had, and declare how the matter really stood. I must speak the truth, and hope you will not conceive that I designedly lean too heavily upon any one, to ease myself of my share of the load.
Whatever domestic uneasiness may subsist between a married pair, the man, if prudent, will endeavour to conceal it; and the woman, if truly virtuous, will take care to do so: should great disparity of age (as in the present instance) be the case, the Lady is more particularly bound to conceal any uneasiness, lest it should be attributed to that cause which people are in such cases too prone to suspect, dislike to her husband; and before young men, above all, she should be most exemplary, as she must well know that their natural vanity, combined with the leading idea of her aversion and infidelity to her husband, suggest ideas to them from whence their warm imaginations draw inferences of a nature too pleasing to be parted with, and too probable not to be put in practice, or at least attempted. Here then a woman at once lays herself fairly open to the assaults of illicit love. I think it will not be denied, that the woman who promulgates the disagreements between her and her husband, particularly if she suffers a young man to be privy to it, is either extremely ignorant, or intentionally vicious, or both.
That the Lady I allude to may in some respect be acquitted of this imputation, I must tell you, that she was only eighteen years of age; her tender, inexperienced mind had not yet arrived to that maturity which gives sound judgment; and though of good natural talents, highly cultivated (for she spoke fluently English, French, Italian, Arabic, Persian, and the Greek and Turkish languages), she yet was simple, innocent, uninformed in the ways of the world, and incapable of reasoning from causes up to consequences. But unfortunately that simplicity is attended with as much mischief, though not guilt, as the wilful misconduct of the more experienced; it has the same baleful effects with the hearers, inspires the same confidence, emboldens with the same hopes, and leads to the same pernicious practices.
I have already mentioned, and will now remind you, that I was then young. Perhaps it was owing to a congeniality pointed out by our age, perhaps to a compassionate politeness amounting to tenderness, which I always disclosed on those unhappy occasions, joined perhaps to the ardent look of youth kindled by the imaginations to which this imprudent conduct insensibly gave birth, that the Lady thought proper to take the very hazardous step of making a confidant of a young man and a soldier—and revealing to me the whole tale of her grievances, with a pathetic eloquence, that would have made an impression upon a much less susceptible heart than mine. I declare it most solemnly, that though this extraordinary mark of confidence and esteem communicated to my heart strong sensations of unjustifiable pleasure; I so far got the better of myself at first, as to receive the whole with the same appearance of tranquillity, as if I had been only a confidential female friend. I pitied, it is true;—I expressed my pity;—I advised, not treacherously but faithfully;—I said such things as occurred to me to be most likely to assuage and extinguish the flame of discord, and lead to an amicable adjustment; and I parted for that time with her to go to a self-approving pillow, where, while my fancy was inflamed and tickled by the flattering mark of regard shewn me by so all-accomplished a person, I had the soothing delightful consciousness of having, as far as I was able, done my duty, and escaped the corroding reflection of having violated the rights of hospitality.
Not an opportunity however afterwards offered, that the same unhappy point was not the subject of discussion, and unfortunately those opportunities but too frequently occurred; till at length we began to feel that they were the sweetest minutes of our lives, and were sought for with industrious avidity by both of us. No human resolution was sufficient to withstand such an unlucky concurrence of circumstances: from lamenting the grievances, we wished to remove them, from wishing we proceeded to consider the means, and when we had got that length, the flight was not far to the extreme end—the execution of it. My passions hurried me before them, my expressions grew gradually more and more unguarded, our conversation became more interesting and warm; and though I felt and struggled to be guided by the strict principles of honour, and formed a thousand resolutions not to transgress the laws of hospitality, by injuring the man who had treated me with such kindness, the struggle became too severe for me—the desire of pleasing a lovely woman, who had reposed such unbounded confidence in me, and who seemed to expect and require of me to alleviate her misery, at length bore down all the oppositions suggested by reason and principle, and I agreed to become the instrument of her removal from this unhappy situation. We fell—but not intirely. There is one length to which no earthly consideration—no allurement however dazzling could tempt me—it is now the most cordial consolation to my mind; I never suffered myself to think of trespassing on the decorum of his house, nor did we in any single instance carry our intercourse to a direct violation of his bed. Though the transports of youthful passion hurried us into conversations and reflections on the subject of her determination to be separated from her husband, yet that passion was of too delicate a kind to sink into the brutal sordid indulgence of dishonourable stolen embraces. She wished for that separation, rather as a subterfuge from incessant diurnal misery, than as a prelude to any vicious or illicit enjoyment; and we looked with pleasure to the event, but we looked no further.
It is thus that, in the down-hill path of vice, we are hurried on step by step, fondly imagining that each successive object, which bounds our sight, will stop our headlong career; while alas! every step we advance gives additional rapidity to our descent: like the centripetal force of a projectile, our pace increases with uniformly accelerated motion—till disdaining all controul, and breaking down every impediment that reason, morality, or honour throw in the way to rescue us or retard our ruin, we precipitate unexpectedly into the last gulph of vice and infamy.
Fortunately, however, an accident intervened in the present case, which arrested our progress down this hideous descent, and reserved us both I hope to conviction of our folly, and repentance of our error. And I have the consolation to reflect, that out of such a host of dangers and temptations as I was beset with, I have escaped without the actual perpetration of a deed, which would, had it happened, in all probability have embittered my life.
While we hugged ourselves in the security and secrecy of expressing our genuine sentiments, her husband discovered our wishes, and all at once took the necessary measures for preventing them. So that, overwhelmed with grief and shame, I directly formed the resolution to leave Aleppo, and proceed in the best manner I could on my destination.
Thus you see, my dear Frederick, was your father, by failing to resist the first impressions of an unlawful and dishonourable passion, insensibly led to the very brink of a precipice, the bare remembrance of which now makes him shudder with horror. The story, by means unnecessary for me to mention, took wind. The folly of some, the malice of others, and the unaccountable propensity to falsehood of more, trumpeted it about with many exaggerations to my injury, and I was held up as the deliberate seducer of innocence: but the whole transaction is exactly as I have stated it; and the disagreements previous to my arrival at Aleppo, which, in telling the story, they purposely left out, were of such public notoriety, that every European, even the Consul himself, was fully acquainted with them. This is the consequence of a deviation from the strict rule of right. Treasure it up in your mind, my child, never to be forgotten; and let it operate as a caution to you, how you entangle yourself in the snares of women: recollect that my escape was singularly fortunate, and the mere effect of accident; and flatter not yourself, that because accident served in one case, it will in another. Providence has, for the wisest of purposes, implanted in our nature a fondness for the fair sex; and so long as it is used prudently and virtuously, it constitutes the first happiness of life; but if on the contrary, it stimulates us to excess, impels to injure our fellow-creature, or break in upon the repose of a family; it is our reproach, our shame, our curse, and very frequently our utter and irremediable ruin; add to this, that there is in the general character of women, a capriciousness, a levity, and a vanity, under the influence of which they sport with men, only to display their power, and evince the force of their charms, which makes the cultivation of their good graces in any way hazardous. To adopt the idea of an old epigram—“There is no living with them, nor without them.”
As your happiness, my dear boy, is the first object of my life, my efforts shall be turned to the guiding of your greener years from any premature impressions; and when reason and matured age fit you for the cultivation and enjoyment of female society, be it mine to direct your steps away from that class, who think rank a sufficient sanction for vice, who stare in all the bronze of aristocratic assurance, under a load of obloquy, beneath which the poorest peasant’s wife would sink; who think that wealth and rank confer a right to commit excesses that would degrade the meanest of the canaille; and felicitate themselves with the reflection, that, under the protection of family or an infamous husband, they may indulge in enormities, for which the lowest of their sex are beating hemp in Bridewell.
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LETTER XXXVI.
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The discovery to which I alluded in my last letter, surprised and grieved me very much; and indeed it astonished me the more, from the manner in which it was communicated.
One day I received a polite message from the British Consul, saying, he wished to speak to me as soon as possible, upon a business of great consequence. I thought at first, that it might be some plan for my proceeding on my journey—perhaps Company’s dispatches that had arrived to go over land; and at intervals, something like apprehensions of the true motive of his sending for me flew across my mind. I however went to him, when, after some little introductory conversation, he told me, that my host Mr. ——- had been with him that morning, laying before him a complaint of a most extraordinary and serious nature, of which, as it immediately concerned me, he thought himself bound to inform me, in order that I might either contradict so gross a calumny if it were untrue, or find means to avoid the obviously necessary result if founded in fact.
He then proceeded to relate to me, that Mr. ——- had informed him of a conspiracy having been meditated against his peace and honour, between his wife and the English gentleman whom he had entertained in his house; that their plan was nothing less than an elopement, and that he did not know how soon it might be carried into execution, if not timely prevented; and finally, that he had demanded the assistance of the Consul and his interest with the Turkish magistrate to prevent it, by granting him an armed force for the protection of his house.
I was much surprised to find that conversations so very guarded as ours were discovered, and more so that the aggrieved person did not think proper to speak to myself, and charge me in person with the offence; never reflecting the while, that all my ideas were military, and his merely commercial: I was also much at a loss to conjecture how he came to make the discovery—but this I found afterwards he owed to a female servant, who had been improvidently intrusted by her mistress with the secret.
Finding, however, that by whatever means he became acquainted with the affair, it was a certain fact that he was apprised of it, I directly acknowledged the whole truth with the utmost candour to the Consul; told him the affair step by step as it arose, assuring him (which I really thought to be the case) that pity for the Lady’s deplorable situation made me listen to such a measure; and that unlawful passion had so little to do with it, that in all our private conferences we had never transgressed the limits of purity; and that her person was, at least respecting me, and I firmly believed all mankind, spotless and inviolate. I added, that great allowances were to be made for a young creature barely eighteen years of age, consigned by the wickedness of avaricious parents to the embraces of a man of sixty-five; who, amiable and worthy though he was, in social intercourse with the world (which I knew him to be), was yet in the most indispensable point of connubial felicity so utterly defective, as necessarily to create disgust and abhorrence in a youthful mind. I remarked to him, that, in the forming of laws, it as plainly appeared on their face, who made them amongst the English, as it does on the face of the Gentoo laws, that they were made by the Bramins: for, as by the latter the penalty of a few puns[2] of couries (not value a shilling) is annexed to the perpetration of a crime, for which those of another class lose their lives; so, among us, it appears that our laws are made by the aged, the decrepid, the sensual, and the rich. Else it could never happen that there were in the same code, laws to punish marriage between the young and vigorous, and enable the brutality of a parent to take its full scope, and consign, as in the present instance, youth, beauty, health, and every personal attraction, to the arms of age, infirmity, and impotence. And I concluded by saying, that all parties aiding in such an unnatural confederacy should be punished.
Footnote 2:
Couries, a kind of small shells used in India, as a circulating medium in place of coin, in value much below the smallest copper coin—a Pun is a certain number of them.
The Consul fairly acknowledged there was too much truth in what I had said; but remarked withal, that it was rather a hazardous experiment, and he was sure it would be an endless one, to correct all the abuses to which the fallibility of man, and his incompetency to form any thing perfect, necessarily left society and their laws liable—that the law was written, and it was the duty of every individual to obey it—and that in cases of adultery, the offence could be justified on no solid grounds whatever, for, independent of the feelings of the husband, which perhaps were more poignant in old age than youth, the injury to his family was not to be got over, in probably giving to him an heir no way a-kin to him. “It would be right I think,” said he, “to stop such disproportionate matches; yet, once made, they should be as religiously observed inviolate as those of love, among which we almost as frequently, as in those of compulsion, see instances of infidelity. If you doubt this,” said he, “read the records of Doctors’ Commons.”
I agreed to the justice of what he said, at the same time assured him, that my intentions went no farther than wishing the Lady to be rescued from her thraldom, which I told him was dreadful.—“I am sure,” said the Consul, “that Mr. Campbell thinks so, because I am convinced he would not otherwise say so. But may not,” said he, smiling, “may not Mr. C. have deceived himself? these are things in which the passions are strangely apt to hoodwink the understanding. However,” continued he, breaking off pleasantly, “I must give you all the comfort that truth will allow me to do: I am sure that the poor Lady is condemned to great wretchedness; partly from my own observation, partly from public report, and partly from her own mouth: for you must know she has several times complained to me of her husband’s peevishness and tyranny; and even besought me to use my influence and authority to relieve her from her misery. Mr. ————,” continued he, “is a man whom on all other accounts I esteem, and value highly. In this instance he has erred, and I cannot pity him, even though he suffers all the torments of jealousy: and as there are laws for punishing with death premature intercourse with the sex, I cannot see, any more than you, why the sacrificing youth to extreme old age should not be equally punished, for I am sure it is equally unnatural, and still more injurious to a State. These are my sentiments,” continued he; “but let not this declaration induce you to think that I the less disapprove of your intermeddling. You have allowed me the privilege of a friend, and I will not suffer it to be made an empty one. You were more culpable than many young men would be; first, because you are married, and should, upon the common principle of doing as you would be done by, have refrained; and next, because you were enjoying the sweets of hospitality in his house, and should have dashed from his lips, rather than held to them, the deepest cup of bitterness.”
“But, my dear sir,” said I, “I do not attempt to justify—I only endeavour to mitigate the matter, and you will recollect that the very circumstance which in one point of view aggravates, in another alleviates the fault: the living in his house afforded those interviews, and exposed me to those temptations under which I was near sinking—I should never have sought them: but he must be more or less than man, that could have resisted them; and though I have a high sense of Mr. Consul’s strict honour and virtue, as well as prudence, he must excuse me, though I doubt whether he could himself have resisted so long and so effectually as I did. I am sure there are many who will censure, that could not.”
The Consul smiled, and, turning the discourse from its direct line, observed, that it was absolutely necessary I should desist, else he would be obliged to use his influence and power to protect Mr. ——-.
In answer to this, I gave him my honour in the first place, that I would proceed no farther in the business; and that, on the contrary, I was determined to set out upon my journey to India directly, if means could be contrived for my conveyance; adding, that I should consider it as a great favour, in addition to those I had already received at his hands, if he would contrive some means to set me forward in my route.
To this he answered, that as the making up of a caravan would be extravagantly expensive, he knew no means that were not attended with certain hardship and eventual danger; but finding me determined at almost any danger or hazard to set off, he proposed to send for a man who knew every resource in that way, and when he came would talk farther on the business; and in the mean time, recommended great circumspection to me while I continued at Mr. ————’s house, to which I very solemnly pledged my word.
Being now constrained by every consideration, as well of prudence and decency as of inclination, to leave Aleppo immediately: I determined that no common impediments should stop me, and waited with impatience the arrival of the person on whom the Consul rested his hopes of dispatching me.
He came in the evening, and after a conference with the Consul, he introduced him to me, and acquainted me that he was a Tartar, and one of the vast number of that description who are employed by the Turkish State in carrying dispatches from Court to the various Viceroys and Bashaws, and interchangably between them again; that they were men on whose fidelity the utmost reliance could be had; and that this man, who had an excellent character, had agreed to take me to Bagdad, provided I would submit to the disguise of a Tartar.
The agreement between us I entirely submitted to the discretion of the Consul, who had the goodness to settle it thus:—The Tartar was to deliver me safe at Bagdad; to supply me and my servant, who acted as interpreter, with an ample sufficiency of provisions and horses on the road; to exchange my horse for me as often as I pleased, and to go at such rate, whether faster or slower, as I thought proper: for this he was to receive one hundred pounds; and I further promised, as an encouragement to him, that if he acted to my satisfaction, I would, on our arrival at Bagdad, add a douceur of twenty pounds.
The next day he came, and I had a distinct view of this my new fellow traveller and supposed master, for in several places I was to pass for his slave. He was one of those striking _character_ figures that a painter would like to take a sketch of—and methought Tartar was written legibly in every lineament of his countenance and person.—He was tall, muscular and bony—his figure bespoke great hardihood, strength and activity—nor could the trowsers which he wore conceal the Herculean texture of his limbs—his shoulders were expanded to an enormous breadth—he was unincumbered with flesh, or indeed rather extremely lean—his forehead, though partly concealed beneath his turban, was very high—his nose large, hooked, sharp, and prominent—a pair of small, fierce, black, penetrating eyes, barely separated by the nose, and a formidable pair of mustachios, which he carefully sleeked with pomatum into a point resembling an awl-blade, and which moved like the whiskers of a purring cat, with every word he spoke, gave a whimsical ferocity to the countenance, beyond the reach of description, and rendered him altogether as discouraging a confidential friend, as ever a Christian trusted his life to since Mahomet first set up the trade of a prophet. He surveyed me with great attention—opened his mouth two or three times like a gasping pike, as if to speak—stroaked his whiskers as often—and at last pronounced that he would undertake to conduct me; adding, in allusion to my black hair and dark complexion, that I looked more like a native, than any Frank he had ever seen. He ordered me to cut my hair quite short, to provide myself with a Tartar dress and cap, in the fashion of his own; and saying he would call on me in proper time, departed.
Thus equipped, we set out, not without great pain and regret on my part; pain at leaving a most beautiful young woman, whom I pitied and esteemed, subject to the resentment of a husband, at once jealous from nature, peevish from habit, and enraged from her open and unequivocal demonstrations of hatred; and regret at having been betrayed by situation into such a very serious dilemma.
After my departure from Aleppo, this affair was represented in a variety of unfavourable lights to the different new comers from England; and as a story is that commodity which of all others honest people do not love to steal any thing from, in its passage through their hands, it found its way in various forms (none of them however tending to soften it) to many of my friends and connections, those from whom of all others I wished to conceal it. Labouring under such calumnies, it cannot be considered as a violation of decorum, or unnecessary infraction upon delicacy, if I state the truth, in order, though I cannot acquit myself of censurable conduct, at least not silently to submit to unlimited calumny, and charges of crimes which I hope I have too much honour and integrity to commit.
I must add, that previous to my departure the Consul did every thing that it was possible for him to do, conducive to my safety and accommodation on the road, which as we were obliged to go to the city of Diarbeker, a great length out of our way, he observed would be long, dreary, fatiguing, and hazardous; he procured me from others, and gave me himself, a number of letters, and at parting desired me to comfort myself with the reflection, that when I arrived at my journey’s end, I should have to boast, that I went to India by a route never travelled by any European before.
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LETTER XXXVII.
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As I became familiarised to my Tartar guide, I found his character disclose much better traits than his first appearance bespoke, and I began insensibly to think him a very entertaining fellow: perceiving that I was very low spirited and thoughtful, he exhibited manifest marks of compassion; and taking it into his head that I was actually removed for ever from my friends and my family, he spoke in a style of regret and feeling, that did great honour to his heart: and to say the truth, he did every thing in his power to alleviate my feelings, conversing with me, either by means of the interpreter, or in broken lingua franca; supplying all my wants cheerfully and abundantly; changing horses with me as often as I pleased, and going slow or galloping forward just as best suited my inclination or humour.
The first object he seemed to have in view on our journey, was to impress me with a notion of his consequence and authority, as a messenger belonging to the Sultan. As all those men are employed by the first magistrates in the country, and are, as it were, the links of communication between them, they think themselves of great importance in the State; while the great men whose business they are employed in, make them feel the weight of authority, and treat them with the greatest contempt: hence they become habitually servile to their superiors, and by natural consequence insolent and overbearing to their inferiors, or those who being in their power they conceive to be so. As carriers of dispatches, their power and authority wherever they go is in some points undisputed; and they can compel a supply of provisions, horses, and attendants, where-ever it suits their occasions; nor dare any man resist their right to take the horse from under him to proceed on the Emperor’s business, be the owner’s occasion ever so pressing.
My feelings, which I can tell you were altogether of the most unpleasant kind, served as a stimulus to my mind, and increased my anxiety to get forward; I therefore pushed on as fast as the horses, which were in general excellent, could carry me: and as we halted at a number of stages to get fresh horses and provisions, my Tartar guide had frequent opportunities of indulging his self-importance, and displaying his great authority and power. As soon as he stopped at a caravansera, he immediately called lustily about him in the name of the Sultan, demanding with an imperious and menacing tone of voice, fresh horses, victuals, &c., on the instant. The terror of this great man operated like magic; nothing could exceed the activity of the men, the briskness of the women, and the terror of the children; for the caravanseras are continually attended by numbers of the very lowest classes of the people; but no quickness of preparation, no effort or industry could satisfy my gentleman; he would shew me his power in a still more striking point of view, and fall belabouring them with his whip, and kicking them with all his might. I must confess I was much hurt at this extravagant abuse of upstart power, and was two or three times on the point of interfering; but fortunately, recollected that it would neither be in character, nor have any good effect, and that if I presumed to speak, my guide would be obliged in my defence to give me a flogging in order to prevent suspicion.
This inconsiderate tyranny and cruelty, I had afterwards reason to believe, was by no means a part of his natural disposition; but vanity, to which so many among us in Europe fall victims, urged him to excesses, which I dare say his heart privately condemned.
It was on the fifth or sixth day (I cannot precisely say which) after our leaving Aleppo, that we got to the city of Diarbeker, the capital of the province of that name, having passed over an extent of country of between three and four hundred miles, most of it blessed with the greatest fertility, producing, in the few cultivated parts, grain, fruits of various kinds, and silk in great variety and abundance, and abounding with as rich pastures as I ever beheld, covered with numerous herds and flocks. The air was charmingly temperate in the day-time, but, to my feeling, extremely cold at night.
Yet notwithstanding the extreme fertility of this country, the bad administration of government, conspiring with the indolence of the inhabitants, leaves it unpopulous and uncultivated. Diarbeker, proper, called also Mesopotamia, from its lying between the two famous rivers Tigris and Euphrates, and by Moses called PADAN ARAM, that is to say—“The fruitful Syria;” abounds with corn, wine, oil, fruits, and all the necessaries of life. It is supposed to be the seat of the Earthly Paradise, and all Geographers agree that it was there the descendants of Noah first settled after the flood.
Insignificant as those circumstances may appear to mere calculators of profit and loss, it cannot be denied that they have a powerful and pleasing effect on the refined imagination. To be treading that ground where Abraham trod; where Nahor the father of Rebecca lived; and where Laban, to whom Jacob fled to avoid his brother Esau’s resentment, and whom he served fourteen years for the love he bore to Rachel, was to me a circumstance productive of delightful sensations. How finely has that Giant of the Pen, Johnson, justified those sensations in his Tour to the Highlands of Scotland and Western Islands;—describing his emotions on visiting the famous Island of Iona, or Colombkill, he says—“We were now treading that illustrious Island which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge, and blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion, would be impossible if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses—whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me, and from my friends, be such frigid philosophy, as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue!—that man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the Plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.”
The city of Diarbeker itself is situated in a delightful plain on the banks of the river Tigris, and nearly at its head; it is one of the richest, most trading, strong, and populous cities in Asiatic Turkey; and is adorned with many piazzas and market places in the Turkish style, and a large magnificent Mosque, formerly a Christian church; for Christianity flourished over this country so late as the sixth century. There is even now a sect, whose Patriarch still resides here: and they shew on the road near the town, a chapel where the holy man Job is said to be buried. This city is supplied amply with water by a canal cut from the Tigris, and has many caravanseras on both sides of the river.
Few countries in the world exceed that about this city for natural richness and beauty:—the bread and wine are excellent—the fruit beyond conception delicious—and my friend the Tartar took care, under pretence of supercilious _hauteur_, to tear in pieces a couple of fowls, and hand to me now a leg, now a wing, till I made the most delicious repast I ever remember to have eat in my life.
It is computed that there are resident in this city no less than twenty thousand Christian inhabitants, some of whom are of the Church of Rome;—and perhaps it is owing to that mixture, that the fair sex have more freedom, and the men more politeness and affability, than those of any other city in the empire:—the chief business there, is making that fine leather commonly called Turkey leather.
Figure to yourself, my dear FREDERICK, my Tartar guide, who was an admirable actor, sitting at a caravansera in state at his dinner, devouring excellent fowls, choice pillaws, and delicious fruit, in as great pomp as a Bashaw; and in order to keep up the semblance of authority over me, to favour my disguise, handing to me, who sat at humble distance, a part of his provisions.—You may form to yourself an idea of the scene; but all the efforts of imagination must fall short of the manner, the figure, the words, the looks, and the actions of the Tartar; sometimes affecting contemptuous pity, sometimes supercilious arrogance; sometimes brutal sternness, and sometimes the gentle blandishments of conscious superiority; and all in such a masterly style of performance, that I doubt whether Garrick himself, with all his powers of countenance, could outdo him. Critical though my situation was, and much as I was harassed with the corrosions of mental pain, the extravagant action and ludicrous pomposity of this man frequently overbore my prudence, and compelled me to laugh incontinently and loudly;—on all such occasions he would put his hands a-kimbo, draw up his eye-brows to his turban, screw down the corners of his mouth in the most rueful manner, and give a loud whew! with his eyes fixed in a stare at me, till entirely overcome with laughter, and ready to sink under it, I clapped my face between my hands, and, as well as I could, bowed in token of sorrow and submission; when threatening me vehemently, and at the same time uttering a lamentable expression of doubt that he was afraid he had had an idiot imposed on him, he would bustle about, direct the horses to be got ready, and order me to get on horseback, with many denunciations of severe treatment, and a thousand flourishes of his whip over my head.
As I have rode along musing upon the contemptible stratagems to which I was reduced, in order to get through this country, for no other reason but because I was a Christian, I could not help reflecting with sorrow on the melancholy effects of superstition, and regretting that that place, which in the times of primitive simplicity was called the Terrestrial Paradise; that place where GOD first planted Man after the Flood; where the god-like Abraham and the holy Job breathed the pure air of piety and simplicity; that place which from all those circumstances ought to be considered above all others as the universal inheritance of mankind, should now be cut off from all but a horde of senseless bigots, barbarous fanatics, and inflexible tyrants. And I could not help considering with melancholy concern, the blindness and infatuation of men, who, less earnest to accommodate themselves than injure others, shut out their fellow-creatures from that which they themselves will not use, and, while they suffer millions of the richest acres in the universe to be untilled, and spend their sweetness in the desert air, with wicked jealousy, and envy more than diabolical, begrudge to others the little spot on which they stand, and chase them as they would a ravening tiger from their country.
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LETTER XXXVIII.
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As we advanced towards the southward and eastward, in our way from Diarbeker towards Bagdad, I found the air became sensibly warmer, and observed that the disposition of the people grew more and more brutal. My guide’s conduct (for he knew them well) became proportionately artful, and my manners were of course to grow so much the humbler. I observed, however, that his authority continued the same, and that he seemed to exert it with greater rigour; not in severity or chastisement, but in exacting implicit obedience. Yet still he evidently acted with great caution and circumspection; for, in some districts, he either avoided the little villages by a circuitous route, or dashed through them at a very quick pace, while the gaping multitude considered us as on a dispatch of haste and importance—in others, he entered the towns without reserve, and left it to chance to decide whether we should be discovered or not. At some caravanseras he treated me with affected negligence, at others he made me eat with him and drink wine, of which, in some places, he himself drank copiously, and at others as scrupulously refrained from. And sometimes we lay at night out in the open air, rather than enter a town; on which occasions I found the weather as piercing cold as it was distressfully hot in the day time. Bred, as the man was, a mixture of slave and tyrant, I can suppose some parts of this conduct to arise from caprice; but as he was naturally kind, as many of those aberrations from the usual mode of travelling were attended with hardship and inconvenience to himself, and as my servant and the other Tartar were clearly of opinion he was right, I am rather disposed to believe that he, on the whole, acted from, principles of sound sense and policy.
He frequently advised me against indulging in laughter; said it was unmanly, indecorous, inconsistent with the gravity becoming a wise man, and withal dangerous.
One evening we came to a caravansera much fatigued, the day being extremely hot, and we having rode very hard—whether it was caprice or fatigue, or the suggestion of policy that moved him, I cannot say, but he certainly was more disposed to play the tyrant than I had ever before seen him. He flogged the men who took the horses, kicked every one he met, made the house ring with his enormous voice; directed supper to be got ready, ate growling, and finding fault with every thing; and under pretence of disliking the ingredients of an excellent pillaw, handed it over to me, saying, Here, Jimmel (the name he called me), here, take this filth, and cram it down thy coarse throat, it is only fit for a Frank—I took it with the best air of humility I could assume; and tearing the meat with my fingers, which I also used instead of a spoon to eat the rice, swallowed it eagerly; he watching me all the time attentively. When I had finished it, I gave him a hint in the Frank language, that I should like to wash it down with some wine; but he did not, or rather would not, understand me.
Supper done, he ordered a servant to attend him with some water, and directed him to wash his feet; while that operation was performing, he continued menacing every one about him. My servant, who sat next me and behind him, interpreted every thing he said. “Yes, ye slaves,” said he, as he lolled back upon his cushion, “yes, I will make the best of you wash my feet; for who shall refuse to wash the feet of him, who represents the Sultan of the World, the Son of Mahomet, the Messenger of the Lord?” The poor fellow proceeded in his humble office, and only interrupted him by saying, “Blessed be my Lord the Sultan, and glory be to the Lord our God, and Mahomet his Prophet.”—“Yes, yes,” continued my Tartar, “bless God and the Prophet, and pray for his servant our Sultan, and all who represent him like me, that slaves of your description are permitted to live: nay, thou shalt wash this Frank’s feet:” then, turning to me with an air of magisterial tenderness, “Jimmel,” said he, “hold forth thy feet, and let them be washed by this disciple of Ali—I say, hold forth thy feet.”
Scarcely able to refrain from laughter at this Bombardinian of the East, and his pompous manner of issuing his orders, I drew up my trowsers and took off my boots—the man brought fresh water, and fell to rubbing my feet with great good will and humility; yet evidently felt so much hurt at the humiliation, that I was sorry for it, and would rather have dispensed with the washing, though it was a luxury.
In the midst of this operation, the Tartar, who was reclining on his cushion, smoking, rose up, and stalking two or three times across the room, with the most ludicrous air of self-conceit and importance, took his tobacco pipe from his mouth, brandished it in ostentatious parade, and in the tone and manner rather of one that was raving than of a man in his sober senses, burst out with an emphatical expression of satisfaction, and said, “This it is to be protected by a great man: Mussulmen salam to him and wash his feet.”
The extravagance of this sentiment, the absurdity of its application, and the consequential solemnity of his action and countenance while he spoke, altogether rushed upon me with such impetuous force, that I could not resist it, and, in spite of every effort to restrain myself, burst into an immoderate fit of laughter.
Had I the pencil of Hogarth, the pen of Shakespeare, or the powers of a Garrick, I might attempt to give some idea of his countenance, when, turning, he beheld me convulsed with laughter. I might attempt it, I say, but I could not do it justice. Such a combination of ludicrous expression I never beheld; it was indeed an epitome of all the lower order of human passions. Fury predominated, but it was risible fury—it was fury that rather grinned than frowned; though under it were to be seen shame and mortification, sorrow and resentment, pride and degradation, silly bashfulness and decayed importance. For some time he stood transfixed to the spot, his eyes glistening like those of a rat in a trap; his pointed whiskers moving with the contortions of his lips, and his mouth every now and then opening like the beak of a wounded hawk. To utter his sensations he was unable; and he continued in this state, not only till my laughter was abated, but till I had time to reflect and be seriously concerned.
At length, without saying a sentence, he wheeled about, threw off his slippers, drew on his boots, vociferated till he brought all the people of the caravansera about him, and ordered horses to be ready instantly. As orders from such a person were not likely to be disobeyed, the horses were got ready. I saw that I must either proceed, or come to an open rupture with him; so recollecting that I was myself in fault, that a dispute might be fatal, and that at all events it was only the humour of the moment, I drew on my boots too, and was ready to go, though I was much fitter for a twelve hours’ nap than for an hour’s travelling on horseback.
We mounted immediately, and it was my good fortune to have the best horse. He set out upon the gallop, the moon shining as bright almost as day; I put forward my horse, and kept rather before him, which vexed him so, that he beat the poor animal he rode on most unmercifully. At length, after about eight or ten miles riding, he called a halt—dismounted, and said he would rest there all night. I saw it was all resentment: but knowing that it would be in vain to remonstrate, I dismounted too; and, judging that the best way to mortify him in return, was to comply with affected approbation, turned to my servant and told him (knowing that it would go from him to the Tartar) that I was delighted with the beauty of the night; remarking at the same time, that lying in the sweet salubrious air was far preferable to being confined in the sultry filth of a caravansera.
As soon as this was communicated to the Tartar, he remarked, that the open air was the fittest place for the beasts of the forest, and therefore suitable to a Frank; but for his part, he would much rather repose on a cushion, which he should have done, had it not been for my accursed risible faculties.
Here the conversation rested, and we fell asleep. In a few hours he awoke us, and we set forward: after some pause, he began in the following manner, which was interpreted to me, as he spoke, by my servant:
“Surely God made laughter for the derision and shame of mankind, and gave it to the Franks and the monkies; for the one ha, ha, ha’s, and the other he, he, he’s, and both are malicious, mischievous, and good for nothing but to fret and tantalize all that come across them.”
Here he paused, as waiting for something to be said: however, I remained silent. At length, he continued: “Not but that, with all their laughter, they have the wisdom to take special care of themselves; for half a dozen monkies will he, he, he, and empty a whole orchard of its fruit in the reckoning of a hundred; and a Frank will ha, ha, ha, and eat you up pillaws, and poultry like a wolf, and drink up wine with the same moderation that a camel drinks up water.”
I thought I should have choked with smothered laughter: I would not however interrupt him, and so contrived to keep it to myself: he proceeded to apothegmatise:
“But with all their he, he, he’s, and ha, ha, ha’s, it sometimes turns out that they are caught: the monkey is seized in a trap, and caged or knocked in the head, and the Frank is put in jail, and bastinadoed or hanged; and then the tune is changed, and it is Oh, ho, ho!” Here he began to mimic crying so admirably, and at the same time so ridiculously, that I burst out laughing again.
“Observe, Jimmel,” said he hastily, “observe! you can’t refrain! But by our holy Prophet,” said he seriously, “it may end as I said: so look to yourself, and avoid laughter in caravanseras, or we part; for there are places, and that was one of them last night, where suspicion would ruin you. And if you lost your life, what should I say for myself on my return to Aleppo? Eh, what should I say for myself? Ha, ha ha! would not do. No, no, they would not believe it, and I should lose my character.”
“Why, don’t you laugh yourself?” said I.
“Very seldom, or rather never,” returned he; “at least I would not in time of danger. No, no, none but Christians and monkies make a practice of laughing—Turks and Tartars are wiser.” I promised, him, that I would in future take more care; and, by way of appeasing him with a little flattery, said, that he played his part so admirably, it was impossible to resist the impulse. But he answered, with a grave face, that his action in that case was of too serious a nature to be made a subject of merriment—and advised me to believe it so.
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LETTER XXXIX.
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The solicitude of my guide for my safety was the earnestness of a man of business zealous to discharge with the utmost punctuality the duty he had undertaken; and I must observe to you, that the whole of his conduct evinced a precision and punctuality of dealing rarely found in our intercourse with mankind. Previous, to leaving Aleppo, he had undertaken to convey me safe—he was, as you may already perceive, indefatigable and unremitting in his endeavours to do so; he had promised to supply me with food—so he did, in the most ample manner; he promised to go as I pleased, fast or slow—so he did; he promised to change horses with me, as often as I thought proper to desire—he did so. But beyond this, he seemed to carry his care of me no farther than to any bale of goods he might have in his charge. He was bound to deliver me safe, in good order and condition, at Bagdad: so much he was determined to do, and no more did he think of. I had got letters to the Bashaws of some of the towns through which we were to pass: but as the delivery of a letter is, according to the custom of that country, always accompanied with a present, I thought it better to decline delivering them, except when necessity compelled—though the state of the country was so unsettled, that we often had occasion for a guard.
As soon as the remembrance of the laughing affair was a little decayed, the Tartar began to relax into good humour, and to talk with his usual vehemence; for he was always, according to the flow of his spirits, either sullenly silent or extravagantly loquacious. His tongue might be considered as a thermometer, by which the warmth or coldness of his temper might be calculated, and the extremes of garrulity and taciturnity were the indices. His conversation, however, was very circumscribed, and consisted chiefly of stories of himself and his horse, the amazing journeys he made, and the feats of manhood he performed. One circumstance I must in justice mention, as I think it marks strongly the habitual delicacy and modesty of this people. Although he frequently lamented my banishment from my family, and although we were for eighteen days continually conversing on a variety of occasions that might lead to the subject, he never once talked of women; never, in all his pity for my situation, glanced even remotely at the possibility of my getting a substitute in that way; never hinted that he thought of them himself. On seeing women coming to the wells, they reminded me of some of the stories in the Old Testament. I mentioned it, but it went no farther; for whenever the subject was started, he threw cold water on it.
That he conceived me to be in some respects a parcel of property, I have good reason to believe: for I observed that, at some caravanseras the people collected round me, and regarded me with strong symptoms of surprise and pity; some viewed me with commiseration, some with contempt; but not one creature, however wretched or abject, seemed to envy my situation.
I was the more confirmed in this opinion by an incident that happened between Diarbeker and Mosul. One morning I was unusually overcome with the fatigues of the preceding day: the Tartar called me, summoned me to horse; and finding that I gave no answer, nor shewed any token of awaking, he lifted me in his arms bodily from my couch (such was his strength that he did it without any difficulty), carried me out without the least ceremony, and, before I was so completely awake as to be sensible of my situation, had me fixed upon a horse ready to depart.
A transaction so very singular, you may well conclude, surprised me at the time, and would not readily be forgotten: such a crowd of strange, confused, and incongruous thoughts and sensations as occurred to me, I never before experienced: they were painful, they were surprising—but I was in such a state that I could not afterwards analyse them. The chief reflection that arose from it was, that human sentiment must be in a deplorable state of degradation indeed, when such a circumstance could occur from the notion that a man was as much an asset or piece of property, could be transferred by the same means, and moved in the same unfeeling manner, as any portion of inert matter that makes up a bale of merchandize. Of the truth of this position I had soon after a melancholy proof, in an incident which, though lamentable, was attended with such ludicrous circumstances, that even now I never think of it without smiling—smiling, as I did then, with a heart bleeding with pity.
One morning I was awakened before day-break with a bustle in the caravansera where we lodged. I conjectured that the Tartar was preparing to get forward, and rose in order to lose no time. I was so far right in my conjectures: the horses were ready, and I came out to mount, and was very much surprised to perceive several horses before me loaded with something which stood erect from their backs, and which I had barely light to discern were not men. I concluded that they were bales of merchandize packed in a particular form, and asked no questions till full day-light disclosed to me that they were human creatures tied up in sacks, and fastened astride on the horses’ backs. There was a strange union of horror and oddity in the conception, that struck me at once with a mixed emotion of indignation, pity, and mirth.—The former however got the better, and I asked my servant with some warmth what it meant.—He said that the sacks contained some young women whom the Tartar had bought.—“Good GOD!” said I, “is it possible that he can have bought wretched females to treat them with so little tenderness?” “He has bought them,” returned my servant, “in the way of traffic, not for pleasure.”
“Suppose he has,” said I, “suppose even they were men, not to mention young women, how can he imagine that they will survive this? Tied up and sweltered in a sack—fastened cross-legs on a horse, and driven at such an amazing rate (for by this time we had set forward, and another Tartar was whipping the horses up all the time, and driving them on)—how is it possible they can survive? They must be smothered—they must be shattered to pieces—they must be stripped, excoriated, and tortured to death!”
“If I might presume to advise,” said he, “I would say that you had better make no remarks upon it: it would only get them perhaps worse treated, and raise his anger against you.”
To conclude, I took his advice, and kept my mind to myself. The unfortunate women were in this manner carried fifty miles, at the end of which their tender-hearted purchaser disposed of them in some way of keeping till his return; when I suppose they were to be carried back in sacks astride upon horses, all the way to Aleppo, there to be sold to the highest bidder.
To us, my FREDERICK, who live in a country where an hour’s detention in a house against our will is punished as unlawful imprisonment, and who feel and value the rich treasure of liberty above all earthly blessings, the bare idea of slavery appears horrible; when the miseries of slavery are sharpened by cruelty, our indignation burns at the offence: but such a complicated piece of enormity as that I have mentioned, almost transcends belief, and indignation is lost in amazement. There are but few men, even in our bracing climate, whom fifty miles riding would not shake to pieces, and torture almost to death. No woman would think of it. But when to that is superadded, first the compulsion—then the sorry and at best painful equipage of the horses—the tender persons, unaccustomed to riding, of the women—the smothering heat of the sack—and above all the horrid climate, burning with an almost vertical heat (vertical at least compared with our oblique sun)—it will be allowed to be a wonder, almost approaching to a miracle, that they survived one half of their journey. The wonder-working hand of Omnipotence alone could bring them through it; and when I asked in the evening whether they were dying or dead, and was told that they were not only alive but in perfect health, I could not help repeating that most beautiful expression put into the mouth of Maria by the inimitable Sterne, “God tempers the wind to the side of the shorn lamb.”
This affair tended to prejudice me strongly against my Tartar guide, and it was for some time that I could not look upon him without horror: but at length my resentment abated; and reason, resuming her seat of cool decision, told me, that though it was a crime and a grievous one, he was not so responsible for it as those who, knowing better, authorised it by their concurrence, gave it the sanction of law, and made it familiarly practised; he only did that which he had been even from his mother’s breast instructed to do, and should therefore not be judged by those rules which a Briton would lay down for the government of such cases.
A Briton!—Hold! Have I not now been uttering a most severe satire upon the British Nation? Yes! imputing to men a virtue which they want, is the worst kind of satire—I meant it not at the time, but will not retract what I have written—Britons deserve the lash of satire! They deserve a worse lash: for the traffic in human bodies still stands a bloody brand of infamy on her great National Councils. Their brothers’ blood! the blood of millions of murdered Africans, like that of Abel, cries to Heaven against them, and will not, I fear, cry in vain.
Great God!—What a horrible thought!—what an indelible stigma! that a Legislator shall, in the cold blood of commerce, make a calculation of the probable profit upon human lives—put commercial expediency in the balance against murder—and make convenience the excuse for crime!—Why, the robber may do so!—But shall Britons, generous Britons, who boastful claim precedence of the world in freedom, humanity, and justice—shall they look on and see inferior nations spurning from them with horror the debasing traffic; and stimulated by avarice, or misled by wicked policy, retain the blot that other States have wiped away, and live at once the curse of one part, and the scorn of the rest of mankind?—Forbid it Mercy! Forbid it Heaven!—And oh! may that virtuous man, who, disdaining the malignant taunts of the base and interested, boldly steps forth the advocate of man and of his country, and session after session springs from the couch of repose which opulence presents him, to break the fetters and the scourges which improbity and avarice have forged for our fellow creatures—may he succeed and bear down all his opposers! and may the justice of his country make his triumph and his glory as certain and complete here, as the justice of that Being, under whose direction he acts, will doubtless make them hereafter!
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LETTER XL.
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From the considerations I have already pretty fully mentioned, my mind was by no means at ease. The incessant travelling for so many days, at the rate of seventy-five miles a day, to be continued I knew not how long, increased my anxiety: and the apprehensions of accident, interruption, and above all sickness, intercepting me on my way, haunted my imagination with all its terrors. I was besides approaching fast to that region where the winds strike all living things that draw them in instantly dead: and conceiving that the more expeditious I was in getting over the journey, the greater chance I had of escaping those mischiefs; I pushed heartily forward, and urged the Tartar till he at last expressed his astonishment and approbation; paid me the compliment to say, that I was almost equal to himself for enduring fatigue; and concluded with a very sagacious surmise, that in all probability I had been myself a carrier of dispatches among the Frank Governments.
One day after we had rode about four miles from a caravansera, at which we had changed our cattle, I found that a most execrably bad horse had fallen to my lot: he was stiff, feeble, and foundered; in consequence of which he stumbled very much, and I every minute expected that he would fall and roll over me. I therefore proposed to the guide to exchange with me; a favour he had hitherto never refused, and for which I was the more anxious, as the beast he rode was of the very best kind. To my utter astonishment he peremptorily refused: and as this had been a day of unusual taciturnity on his part, I attributed his refusal to peevishness and ill temper, and was resolved not to let the matter rest there. I therefore desired the interpreter to inform him, that as he had at Aleppo agreed to change horses with me as often as I pleased, I should consider our agreement infringed upon if he did not comply, and would write to the Consul at Aleppo to that effect.
As soon as this was conveyed to him, he seemed strongly agitated by anger; yet endeavoured to conceal his emotions under affected contempt and derision, which produced from him one of the most singular grins that ever yet marred the human physiognomy. At length he broke forth:
“You will write to Aleppo, will you? Foolish Frank! they will not believe you! By Mahomet, it would be well done to hear the complaint of a wandering Frank against Hassan Artaz—Hassan the faithful and the just, who for ten years and more has been the messenger of an Emperor, and the friend and confidant of Cadis, Bashaws, and Viceroys, and never yet was called so much as liar! Who, think you, poor misguided one! who, think you, would believe that I broke my promise?”
“Why do you not then,” said I, interrupting him, “why do you not perform it by changing horses, when you are convinced in your conscience (if you have any) that it was part of your agreement?”—“Once for all I tell you,” interrupted he, “I will not give up this horse. There is not,” said he gasconadingly, “there is not a Mussulman that ever wore a beard, not to talk of a wretched Frank, that should get this horse from under me; I would not yield him to the Commander of the Faithful this minute, were he in your place: I would not, I tell you, Frank—and I have my own reasons for it.”
“I dare say you have,” returned I; “love of your ease, and fear of your bones.”
At hearing this, he grew quite outrageous—called MAHOMET and ALLA to witness that he did not know what it was to fear any thing—declared that he was convinced some infernal spirit had that day got possession of me—and indeed seemed well disposed to go to logger-heads. At length observing that I looked at him with sneering contemptuous defiance, he rode up along side of me—I thought it was to strike, and prepared to defend myself. I was however mistaken; he snatched the reins out of my hand, and caught hold of them collected close at the horse’s jaw; then fell flogging my horse and spurring his own, till he got them both into full speed; nor did he stop there, but continued to belabour mine with his whip, and to spur his own, driving headlong over every impediment that came in our way, till I really thought he had run mad, or designed to kill me. Several times I was on the point of striking him with my whip, in order to knock him off his horse—but as often patience providentially came in to my assistance, and whispered to me to forbear and see it out. Mean time I considered myself as being in some danger; and yet such was the power he had over the cattle, that I found it impossible to stop him: so resigning the event to the direction of Providence, I suffered him without a further effort to proceed; I calling him every opprobrious name I could think of in lingua Franca, and he grinning, and calling me Dumus, Jihash, Burhl (i. e. hog, ass, mule), in rapid and impetuous vehemence of tone and utterance.
He continued this for a length of I dare say some miles, over an uncultivated tract, here and there intersected with channels formed by rills of water in the periodical rains; thickly set with low furze, ferns, and other dwarf bushes, and broken up and down into little hills. His horse carried him clean over all: and though mine was every minute stumbling and nearly down, yet with a dexterity inexpressible, and a vigour altogether amazing, he kept him up by the bridle, and I may say _carried_ him gallantly over every thing. I was astonished very much at all this, and towards the end as much pleased as astonished; which he perceiving, cried out frequently and triumphantly, “O, la Frangi! Heli! Heli! Frangi!” and at last drawing in the horses, stopping short, and looking me full in the face, exclaimed in lingua Franca, “Que dice, Frangi—Que dice?”
For some time I was incapable of making him any answer, but continued surveying him from head to foot as the most extraordinary savage I had ever beheld; while he stroked his whiskers with great self-complacency and composure, and nodded his head every now and then, as much as to say, Ay, ay, it is so! look at me! am not I a very capital fellow?—“A capital fellow indeed you are,” said I, “but I wish I was well out of your confounded clutches.”
We alighted of the brow of a small hill, whence was to be seen a full and uninterrupted prospect of the country all round. The interpreter coming up, he called to him and desired him to explain to me carefully the meaning of what he was about to say; which I will give you as nearly as I can in his own words, as they were translated by the Linguist:
“You see those mountains yonder,” said he, pointing to the East; “those are in the province of _Kurdestan_, inhabited by a vile race of robbers called Jesides, who pay homage to a God of their own called Jesid (Jesus), and worship the Devil from fear. They live by plunder, and often descend from those mountains, cross the Tigris which runs between them and us, and plunder and ravage this country in bands of great number and formidable strength, carrying away into slavery all they can catch, and killing all who resist them. This country therefore, for some distance round us, is very dangerous to travellers, whose only safety lies in flight. Now it was our misfortune this morning to get a very bad horse, for which, please ALLA (stroking his whiskers), some one shall receive the bastinado. Should we meet with a band of those Curds, what could we do but fly? And if you, Frangi, rode this horse, and I that, we could never escape: for I doubt you could not keep him up from falling under me, as I did under you: I should therefore come down and be taken—you would lose your guide, and miss your way, and all of us be undone. Besides,” continued he, “there are many villages here where people live, who, if they only suspected you were a Frank, would follow and sacrifice you if they could to MAHOMET, and where of course you must run for it.”
As soon as the interpreter had explained this to me, “Well,” continued the Tartar, “what does he say now to it?” Then turning to me, and tossing up his head—“Que dice, Frangi?”
“Why, I say,” returned I, “that you have spoken good sense and sound reason; and I am obliged to you.”
This, when interpreted fully, operated most pleasingly upon him; his features relaxed into a broad look of satisfaction, and he said:—“I will do every thing I can to make you easy and contented: and when I am obstinate, don’t resist—for be assured I have reason for it; and above all things avoid laughing in my presence. But we shall reach Mosul by and by, and probably then we may have no more rides.” For I expected to get down the river Tigris from Mosul to Bagdad, and had told him so, and he encouraged me with the expectation.
That night we came to a caravansera which lay at some distance from a village. Here the Tartar, pleased with himself for the conduct of the day, and pleased with me for my approbation of it, ordered a most admirable supper; and not only, as was very common with him, rejected the best dish in order to present it to me, but also selected for me the choicest bits of those upon the table. He then ordered wine, observing that the fatigue of a Government Messenger demanded indulgence; and using a salvo of my suggestion on a former occasion, viz. that the Prophet would not be offended with travellers more than with the sick for taking it as it were _medicinally_.
We accordingly had wine, and admirable it was, though by no means equal to that we drank at the city of Diarbeker. I took little however, and the Tartar was much surprised at my abstemiousness; remarking, that he never saw a Frank before that was not a downright hog when he got the cup to his lips. My taking it in small portions, while he drank it as we do table beer, particularly astonished him. Before he lay down on his couch, he gave orders for horses, threatening the people with severe castigation if they gave bad ones; holding up as an example the person that gave us the stumbling horse that day, who he declared should be bastinadoed as soon as he returned, if there was a Cadi within ten leagues of him; and I dare to say that he kept his word most religiously.
The next morning we had excellent cattle; fear produced wonders among them, and we set forward just as the sun rose. As we entered the first village, I was somewhat alarmed by perceiving my guide draw up his horse—deliberate—mutter to himself—and seem rather uneasy while he viewed a crowd that was up the street before us; some of whom I perceived to be agitated with some extraordinary motions of the body, while one man stood in the middle, rolling his body into a variety of strange contortions.—The Tartar, for a minute or two, seemed to be debating within himself whether he should proceed or turn about: at length putting me on his left hand, he set forward at full speed, leaving the crowd on his right, who, seeing the rapidity of our pace, flew on one side, and let us pass. We soon however heard shouting behind us, and could hear plainly the words “Ghiaour! Frangi Cucu!” and looking back, perceived several ragged men like savages pursuing us, lifting stones occasionally, and casting them after us with all their might. The speed of our horses at last got us out of both sight and hearing; and I plainly perceived, and was for the first time convinced, that my guide’s conduct was directed by sound sense, spirit, good faith, and integrity.
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LETTER XLI.
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The extraordinary occurrence which I mentioned in my last letter required explanation, and my Tartar friend was not backward in giving it; for he loved exceedingly to hear himself talk, and, on any subject within the compass of his knowledge, was shrewd, perspicuous, and even naturally eloquent: he had moreover on that occasion acted the part of a skilful general; and as I applauded his prudence and address, he was extremely kind and communicative, and gave me a full account of that affair, his motives, his deliberations, and the urgency of the case; and, in short, every thing that could elucidate the circumstance, or aggrandize his own importance. It would be a pity to take it out of his own words: I shall therefore relate them to you, as I had them through the medium of our Linguist, for they made an impression on my memory not easily to be erased.
“You must know,” said he, “that there are spread over the face of this great and glorious empire a number of dervises of different kinds—_holy_ men, who renounce the enjoyments and pleasures of the world, to converse with Mahomet and worship Alla. Some of those are very good men, indeed saints, and never do any thing bad; preaching and praying, without hurting any thing, even a rat or a snake; nay, they would not hurt a Christian. There are others again, of whom I have heard our Bashaws and Effendis, and even the Maazeen, declare that they are forbid by the Koran; and yet the common people (the lower sort you know have no sense) reverence and worship them—they are called _Santons_; live by themselves, sometimes under ground like rabbits, and sometimes in the thickets and woods. They go where they please, take the best seat in any man’s house, cram themselves with meat and drink, and yet none resist them; for some will not, and others dare not. Nay, they often pollute women in the open streets—and they never set their eyes on a Christian or a Frank, that they will not kill, if possible. For my part, I think that they ought to be hanged, every one of them that had a head to be hanged by—or rather staked—for no punishment is too great for them; but I dare not say so in that town—if I did, I should be stoned to death by the rabble.
“As soon as I perceived the crowd, and the rascals dancing, I knew that they were santons, and was sure that they would stop us in order to extract money from us; in which case they would most probably have discovered you—for they have the eyes of the devil. Nothing then could save your life; the crowd would join them, and your brains would have been beat out with stones. I had a mind to turn back and go round the town, but that might have caused suspicion, and got us perhaps intercepted; so I determined to push by them boldly, which I did, you can testify, like a brave man. You saw enough yourself, to convince you of the danger you have escaped, and of my wisdom and valour; let me therefore entreat you to be entirely guided by me, and above all things avoid that accursed propensity to laughter.”
Since I first formed the resolution of writing this account of my journey, I have been at some pains to dip into the best histories of that country, and I find that in every instance my Tartar guide’s information was correct. Those santons, as well as other classes of dervises and sheihs, travel about the country and levy contributions on the inhabitants: some are really what they pretend to be, and are as pure and as pious as the monks of the primitive Christian church; but the santons are monsters, who exist only by the barbarous credulity and more than savage ignorance of the lower order of the people—though reprobated, and indeed execrated, by the better sort of Turks. They affect to be dementated (which with the Mahomedans is the greatest mark of sanctity), and under cover of that madness commit every excess and enormity, not merely with impunity, but with applause. Such is the melancholy state of degradation, to which the weight of superstition’s chains bends the mind of man! It is not long since I had a very pleasing discussion of this extraordinary subject, with a gentleman of my acquaintance, for whose veracity I have great respect. Superstition and credulity very naturally led to a consideration of the Turkish religion, and I expressed my satisfaction, that the worst excrescences of the Christian schisms could not be compared with the Turkish faith in their dervises. He said, that he agreed it did not go quite the length of the santons; but he related to me a conversation between him and a Roman catholic, not more than twenty-four miles from the enlightened city of Dublin, which surprised me much.
“I was,” said he, “when a youth, very free in censuring all religions, and chiefly Popery; for, being bred among Roman catholics, I had the greater opportunity of seeing their absurdities, which I treasured up as so much gain, without ever taking into account their many virtues, of which they have their share. One day I was on a party of pleasure, at a place called ——-, and in presence of a poor country fellow ridiculed the priesthood, attributing to them many vices, and particularly fornication and adultery. The man resisted me, and declared it was impossible. Then I suppose, said I, if a priest and a woman were locked up in a room together for a year, and the woman in a week after coming forth was brought to bed of a child, you would not believe it to be the priest’s. No, said he, I would not. Then how came the child? I don’t know, replied he—any way but by him. In short, he would believe it self-impregnation, or preternatural visitation, rather than allow a priest to be capable of fornication.”
“But,” said I, “you supposed a case—if the fellow was shrewd enough to say, no such case could at all happen, he would have put you down; that was what he meant, though he knew not how to go about expressing it.”
The difficulties and hazards of the journey, which seemed to thicken upon us as we advanced, made me pant for a speedy conclusion to it; and the adventure of the last day opened more clearly to my view the dangers we had to encounter, which were still likely to increase as we got to the eastward and southward, where the fury of bigotry raged without remorse; where the greater distance from the seat of government made the populace more lawless, and the magistrate more corrupt and tyrannical; where the total seclusion from all well ordered society rendered the manners barbarous; where strangers were seldom seen, and when seen fleeced and persecuted; and where particularly, I had reason to believe, scarcely any Englishman had ever set his foot; and above all, where the very winds that blew were charged with destruction, and carried instant death upon their wings. I therefore earnestly longed to reach Mosul, where the probability was, I should get at least the more comfortable and commodious conveyance of water carriage, and where I might refresh myself completely, after the fatigues of so many days journey; and, if there was occasion, claim a guard and protection, having along with me a letter to the Bashaw, which I might withhold or deliver, just as best suited my inclination or convenience.
I could not help viewing with a sad and melancholy eye my present state; wandering, I may say alone, unaccommodated and wretched, through an inhospitable region, and more inhospitable people; where danger beset me in a thousand forms, and every step I took, I took in hazard of my life; and comparing it with those scenes of opulence and comfort which I had once experienced, where every lawful wish met with its accomplishment; where every necessity was supplied, and every difficulty obviated; where tender love and attachment anticipated every desire, and soothed every care; where the mutual endearments and reciprocal accommodations of tender relatives, wife, children, faithful friends, and kindly intimates gave a zest to life, made me feel that my existence was of interest to others as well as to myself, and communicated a conscious importance which the isolated, solitary, selfish man can never feel: I could not help looking back with grief and mortification, to think that I once possessed those blessings, and should perhaps possess them no more; but, on the contrary, might perish unknown, unheeded, and unlamented, in an unknown corner of the wilds of an unknown hostile country, without one friend to solace or to cheer me, or tell to those who loved or took share in my concerns, the place where I lay, or the particulars of my fate.
Nor in this dismal train of reflections was Aleppo forgotten. It made the great connecting link between my former happiness and present misery; it was, as it were, the door through which I passed when I took my last farewell of comfort: when it closed and shut me out, the prospect was indeed gloomy; nor did I after feel one happy sensation, unless the convulsive transports of a laugh, and the boisterous fleeting mirth arising from the regularities of my guide, which, as the surge raised by the tempest above its proper height lifts up the shattered bark only to cast it on the beach and leave it shipwrecked, elevated my spirits for the moment beyond their proper pitch, to retire quickly, and leave them in the horrors of ten times deeper melancholy.
Perceiving how much cast down I was, my friendly Tartar began to rally me: “Jimmel,” said he, “the Santons have frightened you:—but don’t be afraid—HASSAN ARTAZ is no boy: he can bring you through greater difficulties than those, should they befall us.”
“But how comes it,” said I, “Hassan, that you, who have so much power at the caravanseras, have not power to resist those rascally Santons, or the mobs of a village?”
“Why, as to the mob,” said he, “if I was by myself, or had only a true Believer with me, I would make them fly before me like the dust before the wind. As to the Santons, no one can resist them: the Great, who hate them, are obliged to shew them respect: and the Bashaw of Aleppo, nay the Commander of the Faithful himself, could not save you, if one of them called on the mob to stone you, or tear you to pieces. However, be of good cheer; for, please Alla, I will deliver you safe and sound to the Coja at Bagdad: besides, we shall very soon be at Mosul, from whence we will go down by water, which will be very pleasant: and the chief danger then will be in fair fighting, which is better than being cut off by Santons.—Should there be occasion,” said he, looking most ferociously and brandishing his whip—“should we be attacked by Curds or Robbers, you shall see—you shall see, Jimmel—Oh! holy Prophet, how I’ll fight!”
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LETTER XLII.
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It was early in the evening when the pointed turrets of the city of Mosul opened on our view, and communicated no very unpleasant sensations to my heart. I found myself on scripture ground; and could not help feeling some portion of the pride of the traveller, when I reflected that I was now within sight of Nineveh, renowned in holy writ.—The city is seated in a very barren sandy plain, on the banks of the river Tigris, embellished with the united gifts of Pomona, Ceres, and Flora. The external view of the town is much in its favour, being encompassed with stately walls of solid stone, over which the steeples or minarets of other lofty buildings are seen with increased effect. Here I first saw a large caravan encamped, halting on its march from the Gulph of Persia to Armenia; and it certainly made a most noble appearance, filling the eye with a multitude of grand objects, all uniting to form one magnificent whole.
But though the outside be so beautiful, the inside is most detestable: the heat is so intense, that in the middle of the day there is no stirring out; and even at night the walls of the houses are so heated by the day’s sun, as to produce a disagreeable heat to the body at a foot or even a yard distance from them. However, I entered it with spirits, because I considered it as the last stage of the worst part of my pilgrimage. But, alas! I was disappointed in my expectation; for the Tigris was dried up by the intensity of the heat, and an unusually long drought; and I was obliged to take the matter with a patient shrug, and accommodate my mind to a journey on horseback, which, though not so long as that I had already made, was likely to be equally dangerous, and which therefore demanded a full exertion of fortitude and resolution.—There are a thousand latent energies in every man, which only want the powerful voice of necessity to call them out: and now drawn to the top of my bent, I prepared my mind to set out in the morning, with as much cheerfulness as if the hopes of water carriage to Bagdad had never once occurred to my mind.
It was still the hot season of the year, and we were to travel through that country, over which the horrid wind I have before mentioned sweeps its consuming blasts: it is called by the Turks Samiel, is mentioned by holy Job under the name of the East Wind, and extends its ravages all the way from the extreme end of the Gulph of Cambaya up to Mosul; it carries along with it fleaks of fire, like threads of silk; instantly strikes dead those that breathe it, and consumes them inwardly to ashes; the flesh soon becoming black as a coal, and dropping off from the bones. Philosophers consider it as a kind of electric fire, proceeding from the sulphureous or nitrous exhalations which are kindled by the agitation of the winds. The only possible means of escape from its fatal effects, is to fall flat on the ground, and thereby prevent the drawing it in: to do this, however, it is necessary first to see it, which is not always practicable.
But besides this, the ordinary heat of the climate is extremely dangerous to the blood and lungs, and even to the skin, which it blisters and peels away from the flesh, affecting the eyes so much, that travellers are obliged to wear a transparent covering over them to keep the heat off.
That night, Hassan said, that as we must proceed to Bagdad on horseback, he would stay the next at Mosul to refresh us; which I objected to: he then spoke of the succeeding part of the journey as a thing of nothing: we had already come near nine hundred miles, and had not above five to go: besides, as the weather was warmer, we would travel more in the night, and lie-by in the daytime, in places with which he was well acquainted.
In short, the poor fellow seemed to take an interest in my safety, and to wish to alleviate the pains of my mind; and he always concluded with a remonstrance against laughing, which from frequently hearing, I now understood even in his own language.—“Don’t laugh, Jimmel, don’t laugh,” he would say with great solemnity.—By the bye, I observed, that when he was well disposed to me, he always called me Jimmel (a name which I presume he constructed, with my servant’s assistance, from the resemblance of sound between Campbel and Camel, Jimmel being the Turkish for that animal); and when angry, he called me Frangi, with all its gradations of Turkish abuse, Dumus, Cucu, &c.
That evening, as we sat in the caravansera, a man entered and spoke to Hassan, who seemed to pay great attention to what he was saying. He was a well made man—below the middle size—and had that kind of countenance which bespeaks shrewdness, ingenuity, and mirth. At length he retired; and soon after Hassan bid us rise and follow him: he went into a sort of public room, where a number of people were collected, sitting as is the custom in coffee-houses on low stools. Hassan pointed to me to sit down, which I did: then placing the Interpreter near us, he sat himself: and straight I perceived the little man, who had just been speaking to him, step forth from the crowd and begin to pronounce a sort of prologue, which I neither understood nor wished to understand: it appeared from his cadences to be metrical, and seemed, by the little impression it made on his auditors, to have nothing particular to recommend it. At length, however, he paused, and, hemming several times to clear his pipes, began again to hold forth. “He is going to tell a story,” said the Interpreter. The attention of all was fixed upon him, and he proceeded with a modulation of tones, a variety of action, and an energy of expression, that I think I have never heard or seen excelled: his action indeed was singularly admirable; and I could perceive that he was occasionally speaking in the tones of a man and a woman; in which latter character he gave a picture of whining ludicrous distress, that moved the risible muscles of all the company. I looked at Hassan, and he was grinning as merrily as could any monkey or Frank in Asia. The Linguist occasionally interpreted what the story-teller was saying; and I soon began to suspect that it was a story I had more than once read in the Arabian Nights, though altered, and in some measure dramatized by the speaker. I looked several times archly at Hassan, and he returned my glance, as much as to say, You see I don’t laugh at all this. At length, however, the orator came to a part where he was to mimic a poor little hunch-back (for I now discovered it to be the story of little Hunch-back) choking with a bone: he threw up his back; squeezed, till all the blood in his body seemed collected in his face, his eyes rolled in their sockets, his knees knocked, he twisted and folded his body, putting his fore-finger and thumb into his throat, and pulling with all his might, as if to pull something out: at length he grew weaker, stretched his arms down, and his fingers back, like those of a person strangling—kicked, fell, quivered, and died. It is impossible for any description to do justice to the perfection of his acting; and what rendered it the more extraordinary was, that though it was a scene of death; and well acted death, he continued to render it so ludicrous in circumstances, as to suspend the audience between a laugh and cry. They did not remain long so; for he suddenly bounced up, and began the most doleful lamentation, of a woman, and exhibited such a scene of burlesque distress as I never witnessed. All burst out in torrents of laughter, Hassan as well as the rest—I alone remained purposely serious; and the orator, according to custom, broke off in the middle of an interesting scene.
When we returned to the caravansera, I rallied the Tartar on the score of his laughter: he growled, and said, “Who could avoid it? Why did not you laugh as you were wont?”—“Because,” said I, “he did not act as comically as you.”—“No,” returned he, “but because Franks and monkies only laugh for mischief, and where they ought not. No, Jimmel, you will never see me laugh at mischief.”—“What,” said I, “not at a poor man’s being choked to death!”—“Nay,” said he, “I seldom laugh, yet I could not avoid it then.” That very hour, however, a puppet-show was exhibited in the same room, and my grave guide laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks, and his voice sunk into a whining treble. _Karaghuse_ was certainly extravagantly comical, though filthy; and frightened a Cadi with a whole troop of Janissaries, by letting fly at them a shot or two—_a parte post_——-
The next day we set out well mounted, and pushed on with renovated spirits towards Bagdad. Hassan could no more have the assurance to censure laughing; and, as I was little disposed to do it in time of danger, we were likely to agree well. In short, we began to like one another’s company; and if I brought him to be a greater laugher than he used to be, he gave himself the credit of having made me much more serious than I had been before—I profited by his instructions.
It would be an effort as idle and fruitless on my part, as unentertaining and uninteresting on yours, to attempt to give you a regular detail of our progress from Mosul to Bagdad; the same general cautions were observed, with the same occasional relaxations. Hassan still continued to treat me with a repetition of himself and his horse, his own feats and his horse’s feats; to be silent when ill-tempered, and loquacious when gay; to flog the attendants at the caravanseras; order the best horses, and eat the best victuals, and to give me the best of both; and finally, we had our fallings out and fallings in again: but I had not the mortification of seeing any more women tied in sacks on horses’ backs, and excoriated with a ride of fifty miles a day.
As we rode along we overtook several times straggling callenders, a kind of Mahomedan monks, who profess poverty and great sanctity; they were dressed all in rags, covered with filth, carried a gourd, by way of bottle, for water—I presume sometimes for wine too—and bore in their hands a long pole decorated with rags, and pieces of cloth of various colours. They are supposed by the vulgar to have supernatural powers: but Hassan, who seemed to have caught all his ideas from his betters, expressed no sort of opinion of them; he _salam’d_ to them, and gave them money, however. It was extraordinary enough, that they were all in one story—all were going on a pilgrimage to Mecca—or, as they call it, _Hadje_.
As soon as ever we got out of their sight and hearing, Hassan shook his head, and repeated “Hadje, Hadje!” several times doubtingly, and grinned, as he was accustomed to do when he was displeased, without being able to manifest anger. “Hadje!” he would cry, “Hadje, Hadje!” I asked him what he meant; and he said, that these fellows were no more going to Mecca than I was. “I have a thousand and a thousand times,” said he, “met callenders on the road, and always found them facing towards Mecca. If I am going southward, I always overtake them; if northward, I meet them; and all the time they are going wherever their business carries them. I overtook,” continued he, “one of them one day, and I gave him alms and passed him by; he was coming, he said, after me, towards Mecca: but I halted on purpose for a day, and he never passed; and a merchant arriving at the same caravansera informed me, he had met the very same fellow four leagues farther northward; who had answered him with the same story, and still had his face turned towards the south.”
Fifty years ago, no man in Turkey would have dared to hold this language; but every day’s experience evinces that the light of reason spreads its rays fast through the world—even through Turkey; and furnishes a well founded hope, that in another half century every monkish impostor (I mean real impostors), whether they be Mahomedan monks, or Christian monks, will be chased from society, and forced to apply to honest means for subsistence.
END OF PART II.
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A
JOURNEY TO INDIA, &c.
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