Constantinople and the Scenery of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor

THE BATH

T. Allom. M. J. Starling.

It has been truly said of the Turks, that “they hold impurity of the body in greater detestation than impurity of the mind.” This feeling the precepts of the Koran have caused or increased. They make frequent ablution so essential, that “without it prayer will be of no value in the eyes of God.” There is no point, therefore, of religious discipline, for which the directions are so minute, or so often repeated. Two modes are prescribed. The goul, which requires the ablution of the whole body, and the hodû, which confines it to the head and arms as high as the elbow; and where water cannot be procured in the desert, the ceremony must be performed by sand or dust, as its symbol. These ablutions are enjoined to all at stated times, but besides there are occasional circumstances which render them essential. The law enumerates eleven occurrences after which the person must wash, some of which are exceedingly curious, but not fit for the public eye. So important is this practice deemed, that it forms an item in every marriage-contract. The husband engages to allow his wife bath-money, as we do pin-money; and if it be withheld, she has only to go before the cadi, and turn her slipper upside down. If the complaint be not then redressed, it is a ground of divorce.

The first objects which strike a stranger on entering a Turkish city are the mosques, and the next certain edifices, roofed like them with domes, contiguous to each other. These domes are perforated by a number of apertures, which are closed by hemispheres of glass, resembling the globes by which our streets were lighted, inverted on the roof. These edifices are the public hummums,⁸ or baths, and the globes the means by which the light is admitted. There is no town in the Turkish empire so obscure, or so destitute of other comforts, that is not provided with a public bath, which is open from four o’clock in the morning until eight in the evening. The bather enters a saloon, in the midst of which is a fountain, where the linen of the establishment is usually washed; round this is a divan, covered with mats or cushions, on which he sits smoking till the hummumgee, or master of the bath, directs him to undress. His clothes are carefully deposited in a shawl tied up in the corners, and remain on his seat till his return. The tellah, or bathing attendant, now approaches, with two aprons and a napkin: the first he ties round his waist, and the latter round his head. He is then led into another saloon, more heated than the first; but the heat is so regulated that he feels no difference, though divested of his clothes; and when the body is thus prepared by this gradual increase of temperature, he is led into a third, when the business of the bath commences. This, in some baths, is very fine, supported on columns, and lined with marble.

The marble flooring is so hot, that he is now obliged to mount on wooden pattens, as his bare feet could not endure to come in contact with it. A dense vapour sometimes so fills this saloon, that he sees nothing distinctly, but figures flit before him, like visions in a mist. At the sides are ornamented fountains, whence issue pipes of hot and cold water, which he mixes to his fancy, and bedews his person with it from a large copper or iron spoon provided for the purpose. Having walked or sat in this heated mist till a profuse perspiration bursts out, the tellah again approaches, and commences his operations. He lays the bather on his back or face, and pins him to the ground by kneeling heavily on him; and having thus secured him, he handles him in the rudest and most painful manner: he twists and turns the limbs, so as to seem to dislocate every joint. The sufferer feels as if the very spine was separated, and the vertebræ of the back torn asunder. It is in vain he complains of this treatment, screams out in anguish and apprehension, and struggles to extricate himself. The incubus sits grinning upon him, and torturing him till he becomes passive from very exhaustion. When this horrid operation is over, the tormentor offers to shave him; and if he make no resistance, he leaves but one small lock of hair on the crown, by which the angel of death is to draw him from his winding-sheet. It is remarkable, that while the bather is burning with heat, the flesh of this fiend, though exposed to the same temperature, is as cold and chilling as monumental marble. A second tellah now attends, and uses him more gently than the first: he envelopes his hands in gloves, or little bags of camlet, and, by a gentle and dexterous pressure of the surface, he expresses, as it were, all the deposit of insensible perspiration: it is surprising what a quantity he peels from the surface of the skin, of this inspissated fluid, resembling in colour and consistence rolls or flakes of dough.

When this substance ceases to exude, the operator rubs him with scented soap, and drenches him almost to suffocation with deluges of hot water. After this thorough ablution, he wipes him perfectly dry with soft, warm, perfumed towels, and leads him to a divan, on which he reposes some time,—still in a state of nudity, with the exception of a shawl thrown over him. Here refreshments are brought, and partaken of with an extraordinary increase of appetite; after which he rises and dresses, perfectly refreshed. Before he goes forth, a looking-glass set in mother-of-pearl is brought, to adjust his cravat, on the glass of which he deposits the price of his bath. It was originally settled at four aspers, which according to the present currency would be about one-third of a farthing, and it still continues nearly the same in the small towns and villages. In the capital, however, it is increased, in the more sumptuous baths, to fifty paras, or four pence.

Where warm-springs are found, they are immediately diverted into reservoirs, and edifices erected over them. Those of Kaplizza, near Brusa, already mentioned, are perhaps the finest in the world. In the centre saloon, under a noble dome, supported by marble pillars, is a basin of fifteen yards in circumference, also of polished marble, and five feet deep, filled with hot and limpid water. At its source, whence it first issues into day, it is at a boiling heat, and blisters the finger that incautiously feels it. In the baths, however, the heat is reduced to a tolerable temperature−in summer to 102°, and in winter to 90°. The process of bathing, substituting water for steam, is the same as that described. The salutary effects of it are highly extolled, and perhaps with reason−opening the pores, and emulging, as the hakims say, the perspiratory glands; but strangers who first submit to the rude and suffocating process, complain that it is as debilitating as it is painful, under the coarse and awkward manipulation of such an operator; and to natives who constantly use it, it is one of the enervating causes which is justly supposed to exhaust the strength and prostrate the energies of a modern Turk.

The mysteries of a female bath, it is not permitted to see, no more than those of Eleusis: all that could be known, Lady Mary Wortley Montague has told a century ago. Their bath is the great coffee-house, where they assemble, and enjoy a freedom they can nowhere else indulge. If a stranger enter this sacred place by mistake, even his mistake is punished with death. Not long since a Frank stumbled into one, supposing it to be for his own sex; he was instantly seized, and dragged before the cadi. On his way, some friendly passenger suggested to him to feign madness, as his only chance of escape: he took the hint, and did so with such success, that the cadi, instead of ordering him to execution, dismissed him with that tenderness and respect the Turks show to the foolish or insane, whom they fancy to be chosen vessels inspired by Allah with a better gift than reason. Another Frank, presuming on the impunity thus acquired, entered a female bath by design. He was seized; but not counterfeiting insanity with such success, he was suspected−and disappearing soon after, was supposed to have been strangled.

THE AURUT BAZAAR, OR SLAVE MARKET

T. Allom. P. Lightfoot.

The Aurut Bazaar, or Female Slave Market, stands in the quarter of the city near the burnt column. It consists of a quadrangular edifice, including a square area of about two hundred feet, surrounded with apartments. In the front are platforms raised four or five feet from the ground, and ascended by steps, forming a kind of colonnade, and in the rear are latticed windows. In the one, blacks and slaves of an inferior kind are kept and disposed of; in the other, those of a choicer quality, who are guarded with a more jealous vigilance, and secluded from the public eye.

All parts of the old world furnish materials for this market, but principally the shores of the Mediterranean and the eastern end of the Euxine sea. The human face is here seen in every diversity of colour, from the ebony of Nubia and Abyssinia, to the snowy whiteness of the mountains of Georgia and Mingrelia, Formerly, Franks were freely admitted into this bazaar, but they were excluded by a firman, because it was supposed they purchased slaves only for the purpose of giving them freedom; and the Turks allow no manumission unless the captives embrace Islamism, and then they become free as of right, and can be no more sold. The strictness of this exclusion, however, is now relaxed, and Franks are admitted to see, but not to purchase.

The first impression made upon a stranger is the cheerfulness and hilarity of the inmates of this prison. He enters with his mind full of the horrors of slavery: he expects to see tender females dragged from their families, the ties of nature torn asunder, and the helpless victims overwhelmed with grief−sad, and weeping, and sunk in despondency. He sees no such thing: they are singularly cheerful and gay, use every means to attract his attention, and, in their various dialects, invite him to purchase them.⁹ The circumstances of their early life, and the state into which they are about to enter, account for this. The condition of slavery in Turkey is generally to them an amelioriation. A regular traffic is carried on, and parents in Circassia and Georgia educate their most comely daughters, not less that they should profit by the sale, than that the children should profit by being sold. They impress upon their minds the splendid fortune that awaits them at Stambool; and when the annual traders arrive at Anaka, or other ports of the Euxine, for white slaves, the girl leaves without regret the home where she is taught to feel no ties of family affection, and embarks with a light heart and joyous anticipations of the happy prospect before her. Nor are her bright hopes disappointed: the state of slavery in which she is found, and the traffic by which she is bought, do not degrade her in the eye of the Turk who purchases her; she is transferred to the harem of some vizir or pasha, where she may become its mistress, invested with all the consequence and dignity of his favourite wife; the splendid destiny of those that are periodically purchased for the imperial seraglio is quite dazzling−any one of them may become the arbitress of empires, and the mother of sultans. Yet this bright prospect is clouded by dismal forebodings. When the reigning monarch dies, his whole female establishment purchased here, is removed to the eski seraï, or old palace, where five hundred of the most youthful and lovely females in the universe are condemned to a state of perpetual celibacy and seclusion. A still more terrible fate sometimes attends them. On vain pretexts they are sacrificed to the caprice or suspicion of the successor to the throne; and hundreds at once, in the prime of life and splendour of beauty, are consigned to a watery grave.

The merchants who purchase slaves are usually Jews. When a female of great beauty is not accomplished in the arts of pleasing, the Jew undertakes her instruction. She is taught, by competent masters, music, dancing, and other personal attractions−the cultivation of the mind is never thought of. When her value is thus enhanced by her acquirements, the most extravagant price is exacted and given. The usual purchase of a young white slave is 6000 piastres, or about £100: for a black, merely intended for the domestic drudgery which a Turkish woman will not submit to, 1200 piastres, or £16.

The illustration represents the act of sale. On one side are females purchasing black servants. A slight examination as to health and strength is all that is used. The girl starts up, draws her scanty coarse garments about her, and, with a merry laugh and cheerful countenance, trips away after her mistress. The severe decorum of a Turk at once changes her half-nakedness for a more suitable dress: her head and feet are no longer bare−her dark visage is dignified with a snow-white veil−—and she feels pride and gratification in her new and altered state. On the other side are white slaves, who are examined not by females, but by a master, of whose happiness they are hereafter to constitute a part. He is attended by his black eunuch, and the slave-merchant is pointing out all the personal charms of his purchase, and eulogising those which escape his observation. In the gallery above, are slave-merchants settling their various accounts, with the aid of coffee and tobacco.

THE MOSQUE OF YENI JAMI

T. Allom. P. Lightfoot.

This is called Yeni, or “new,” to distinguish it from those of more ancient structure. It is justly remarked by writers, that no people have selected such excellent sites for their religious houses as the Turks: they are generally seen crowning the summits of hills, and having every advantage of display for their architectural ornaments. This, however, is an exception. It stands near the centre of the Golden Horn, in a low part of the city, but is very conspicuous from its situation. It swells, as it were, from the water’s edge, forming a mountain of edifices. The only place where Turkish beggars are seen is the area or vicinity of a mosque, and even here very few obtrude themselves; forming a strong contrast to the multitudes that beset houses of Christian worship. Those who with us are disabled by age or sickness, are in Turkey supported by their masters, either because they are slaves, or because the charity of the Osmanli will not suffer his brother to want. The few who ask alms are idiots, a respected and privileged class; or Arabs, who bear about standards, which they affirm were the same as those under which their ancestors propagated the faith of the Prophet. In the evening, you are met by a man who proffers you a candle, an orange, or a melon, and you purchase it for double its value: so, a Turkish beggar sells, but receives no alms. In the populous region about this mosque, such persons are more usually met than elsewhere. Immediately below is a great scala, or landing-place, which is constantly crowded with caïques of all shapes and sizes, and forms an animated scene of bustle and activity. Leading to it is one of the aqueducts which convey water for the necessary ablutions of the faithful, when they attend the call of the muezzin to assemble at the hour of prayer.

BALUK HANA AND METHOD OF FISHING FOR THE RED MULLET.
AT THIS SPOT, STATE CRIMINALS ARE THROWN INTO THE BOSPHORUS FROM THE SERAGLIO

T. Allom. F. J. Havell.

This literally means the house or edifice of fish. It is one of the numerous stages erected on many parts of the Bosphorus, from the Euxine to the Propontis, to arrest the numerous shoals of fish that are migrating from sea to sea through this channel. It is formed in this manner:—posts are driven into the water at a short distance from the shore, with which they sometimes communicate by a platform; these are strengthened by cross-posts, forming a ladder by which the platform is ascended. On the summit is raised a shed, ten or twelve feet above the surface, over which is drawn a rude covering of mats. Below, is an enclosed area, marked by piles, into which the passing fish enter, and cannot again make their way out. A man continually on the watch in the shed gives notice of this to the fishermen on the shore, when the nets are drawn, and the whole shoal generally captured.

The progress of these shoals is frequently marked by flights of gulls and other aquatic birds, which, when the net is drawn, rush down among the fishermen, and fearlessly and clamorously demand their share, which is never withheld from them. These wild fowl are so tame by use and impunity, that they are sometimes seen disputing with a Turk for a particular fish; and the man almost always yields to the bird.

The fish usually taken in these nets are of various sizes, and many peculiar to this region. The largest is the xiphias, or sword-fish, sometimes attaining the length of six or eight feet in the body, and a circumference of three or four. From its snout is projected a flat horn, a yard or more in length, exactly resembling a Highland broad-sword, from whence the fish derives its name. Its flesh is red, and when exposed for sale in the market, a junk of it might be mistaken for a round of beef. The next in size is the thunny; the various kinds of scomber, down to the size of small mackerel fry; the lufer and the kephālos, called so by the Greeks, from the size of its head. Among the flatfish is a species of turbot, of excellent quality, covered with hard cartilaginous knobby scales like a bossy shield, and thence called by the Turks, kalchan, or the buckler-fish. These, and an infinite variety of others, crowd the waters in incredible quantities, for nine months in the year; and the boats engaged in taking them are so numerous, as to stretch from side to side of the strait in such a way as to bridge the current; and the eagerness to take them is so great, that all ranks indulge in it, from the sultan to the hummal. Mustapha, the brother of Mahmoud, was engaged in it when he heard of the insurrection in favour of Selim−and he left his fishing, to strangle his cousin. The present sultan is so fond of it, that one of his apartments at Beshiktash has a trap-door over the water, from whence he often angles. Nor is this amusement confined to the day: by night the waters are covered with many lights, which float in various mazes, and form picturesque objects round the islands of the Propontis. A brazier is projected from the prow, in which a glowing fire is kept up continually, and the fish, attracted by the flame, hover about like moths round a taper, and are harpooned as they approach the boat; when the water is disturbed or muddy, a small quantity of oil is cast upon the surface, which renders it transparent and every object distinct.¹⁰

The Baluk hané, represented in the illustration, is distinguished by another circumstance. It is situated on the sea of Marmora, below the walls of the seraglio, and above it are seen, towering, the dome and minarets of the mosque of Achmet. The torch in the caïque is not for the purpose of fishing, but for a very different and dismal one. When sentence of death is passed on an inmate of the seraglio, he is brought to the Capi Arasi, a space so called between the second and third gates, and there arrested “within the doors,” as it is ordered. Here the executioners reside who despatch him; and the strangled or headless man is brought down to a kiosk on the sea-wall, from whence a window opens on the water. From hence, in the dead of night, the body is consigned to a caïque in waiting, which rows to a little distance, and consigns it to its watery grave. The sullen plash is sometimes accompanied by a discharge of a gun on a wharf not far distant, and the silence of the night is broken by a solemn sound which comes booming over the water as the knell of the departed. So frequent have these executions been, that a passing boat to ships in the harbour, at this place, might always expect to see at midnight the gleam of a torch attendant on this watery funeral. There is something insuperably revolting in the proximity of the places. The fish are said to be attracted by such bait, and are thus fed and fattened on human flesh in this aquatic charnel-house.