STANBOVL AND THE SEA.. OF GEMS...
Tim writer's previous book, "The Bridal and the Bridle," carried the newly-married pair from Fiume to Constantinople by the land
Stamboul and the Sea °Memo. By the Author of" The Bridal and the Biidle:" Published by Bentley.
route through Belgrade, Servia, Bulgaria, and-Romania, riding Tartar the greater part of the way. The present volume describes. their residence in Constantinople, a variety of excursions the neighbourhood, and:their return to Trieste by way of Smyrna and- the Ionian Isles in an Austrian steamer.
In a literary sense, Stamboul is a better book than " The BridilL7 The style is freer and mellower; the author has rubbed up his reading, and he varies his descriptions by retrospection, passing discussion, and remark. The sequel wants the freshness,..variety,. and adventure of the overland journey. There have been so many books published of late years about Constantinople, that the sub- ject, though not so hacknied as more Western capitabi, has lime some of its interest and nearly all the mystery which attaches to. difficulty. When the fez was substituted for the turban, the po- pulation ordered to be disarmed, the Janissaries abolished; and Europeans could walk the streets in peace, the romance of Byzantium vanished. The book, however, is a pibturelike and agreeable aceount of the Turkish capital, sprinkled with sensible remarks. The tourist fol. lowedhis own bent in seeing things, and he describes them as he saw them, not with the eyes of others. His sketches of Stamboul' are lively and rather brilliant in themselves, though somewhat over- detailed. In short; to those who have not made themselves-familiar with the Turkish capital, Stamboul and the Sea of Gems will ftir- nish information and entertainment. It is a series of rich and spirited- pictures for all. Like a great many other persons, especially of the army and navy, the tourist, has a very good opinion of' the Turks, but fbrms a wretched estimate of the Greeks. The Greeks he holds to be active-minded, pushing, un- scrupulous fellows, and good linguists, who can .tell Europe their own story, and make out the Turks their masters to he brutal tyrants ; while the' Turk, ignorant of every language but his mother tongue, and regardless of public opinion in Western Eu- rope, is incapable of stating his case, and has nobody to state it for him. The author describes, perhaps with some colouring, the in- trigues of the. Greek dragomans of the European ambassadors at the Porte, and accuses them of perversion and misrepresentation in their dealings with the' Turk, while the corps diplomatique are only tools in their hands. All which may be true as regards the English Embassy, but not as respects the Russian.and Austriam. Embassies, whose diplomatists are regularly educated for their business, and examined as to their skill in languages before they are appointed to a post. It is possible, too, that the writer was wroth at being cheated by a Greek valet de place.
" Next to the Turks, the Jews are decidedly the most honest race in the- Sultan's-dominions. The Jews in Turkey, descendants of the Hebrews of Granada and Malaga who were driven with the Moors from Spain byi the in-- tolerance of the bigoted sovereigns of Castile, are greatly superior_ in edu- cation and probity to their degraded compatriots in other lands. They yet retain among themselves the use of the Spanish tongue, and are prodigies of learning. compared with the ignorant barbarians who surround them. "During the first part of our stay at Constantinople, our guide and cicerone in all. excursions was a valet-de-place attached to the the a Snlyrniote Greek. Afterwards we exchanged him for a Jew in a ragged blue gown-and paltry felt cap, a great contrast to the dashing Christian dragoman in his. spruce attire and glossy white hat. But the difference was amazing when we went to make purchases at the bazaar. Amber mouthpieces, that had previously been exposed for sale at fabulous prices, fell to their regularmar- ket value ; richly embroidered scarfs and slippers sank from the 'rim quelques livres sterling,' disdainfully mentioned by the conscientious Greek, to a mere handful of. piastres ; and arubajees and caiquejees were satisfied with less than four times their fare. The Hebrew proved a greatly superior dragoman to the Hellene."
Although improvement since the peace has been marching in. the East as well as in the West, it has been of a more superficial character. The Turk has altered his costume, he drinks wine, and the educated classes are grown sceptical; but the elements of ro- mance—passion, superstition, and simplicity—are still prevalent in the masses. Witness this scene of professional practice, like the mountebank' of old in the market-place.
" One day, as we were passing through one of the most frequented gal- kaies of the great Bazaar, one of those main arteries of commerce where der- vishes and tale-tellers, Albanian dancers, and snake-charmers from Egypt, jostle the regular traffickers and porters, we observed a knot of persons form- ed around a venerable-looking man in a loose robe and lofty turban of green silk, who was engaged in trampling upon a sick man with dim eyes and sunken cheeks, stretched upon the pavement
" The first idea that suggested itself to our puzzled minds was naturally that the old man in the green calpack was triumphing over a vanquished enemy; but this supposition was refuted by the first glimpse of. the anxious and sympathizing faces of the bystanders. " The dragoman soon explained the mystery. It appeared that the old gentleman in the green turban was a celebrated magician or enchanter; and, as wizards are neither roasted nor pelted in rahommedan. countries, was equally respected for his cabalistic powers, and his being a most learned Mtissulman doctor and divine, famous as a preacher and' a controversialist, and moreover so holy-a man that it was expected he would one (ley be-graced by the honours of_ canonization. "Such was the-Emir Ahdallah-Nazir-Ed-Deen, prior-of the dervishes of Brousa, who was so busily engaged in treading upon the poor shivering in- valid, whose ailments the pressure of his sanctified and slipperless foot was tb cure.
"Many Moslems-at the brink of the grave were said to• have bear kicked back again by that wonderful foot. It may have been so. Amazing it the power of imagination. The prior of the Brousa dervishes is neither better nor worse than his brother quacks in Europe.
"Yet he was infinitely more picturesque than the sprucest doctor that ever puffed a medioinal water or a pin's-head pill ; and certainly, as he stood proudly erect with his wand grasped in his outstretched hand, his long white beard and towering turban giving a look of majesty to his massive features, and his ample robe floating about him in the breeze like a hurricane of green silk, he looked as superb a necromancer as Prospero himself. "-The bystanders looked on with awe-struck faces, reverently watching the proceedings of the magician ; the patient looked confiding and hopeful ; the solemnity of the operator's bearing defied description; but dine by stood a ragged little copper-ooloured dervish, wearing a very high white felt bat.. with a green rag wound about it, who watched the scene with scornful'un-- belief twinkling in his cunning little black eyes, and incredulity grinning from the corners of his malicious little mouth, garnished with yellow tamps and graced by a perpetual dog's smile of knowingness and crafty malignity.. That dervish was not in his proper sphere. He should have been born ha- England. What a first-rate turfite and gaining-house ' bonnet' he would' have made! As it was, he looked very like the evil geni Demurely in the pantomime of Camaralzaman and Bedoura.' "
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