CHAPTER IV.

I GO TO CONSTANTINOPLE AND PURSUE MY STUDIES.

The discomforts of travelling--Precautions against brigands--Village hospitality--Bad condition of inns and hotels--Broussa, the first capital of the Ottoman Empire--Constantinople--The 'parish' of the conqueror-- First impressions of the European quarter--The question of my education--Seats of learning, old and new--I am forced to choose the old--I become a sort of monk--The distinctive dress--Description of the old-fashioned colleges--The Ulema--Their position and influence.

MY residence in my uncle's home in Asia Minor did not last very long after my removal from his harem, as he decided to go to Constantinople to live there again. Of course I was to go with his family, so that I might continue my education. Everyone in my uncle's house began to pack, and my mother prepared new clothes and all kinds of eatables for me for the journey, which would take seven days. My uncle did not permit me to go to my mother's house and spend my few remaining days with her. I only went to see her during the daytime, when I found her always in deep distress at the thought of our approaching separation. She had only one son remaining, a child of two years, my elder brother having been sent to the same place to which I was going for the same purpose two years previously. In those days there was no railway line between my native town and the Asiatic coast of the Sea of Marmora, so our journey had to be made in a kind of a four-wheeled travelling carriage, which was introduced into Turkey by the emigrant Crimean Tartars, and which much resembles the big vans employed for carrying parcels in London. Travelling in these coaches is an extremely uncomfortable proceeding. To guard against the jolting caused by the lack of adequate springs the floor of the vehicle is covered with mattresses, but even then the shaking is quite insufferable. In those days it was made worse by the primitive condition of the roads, which indeed are little better now. Some fifteen years ago the Government promulgated a law ordering every able-bodied male throughout the country to work four days a year at making public roads between towns, or to pay a workman's wage for four days in default. Some well-meaning governors did their best to improve the roads, but officials nominated by the palace, who form the majority of officialdom, abused this law and pocketed the funds raised, and so a great part of the public roads were ultimately left unfinished, and no care was taken to keep in repair even the portions that were completed. Good roads, like other means of easy travelling, would facilitate the incursion of visitors and tourists into the interior of Asiatic Turkey, and nothing would be more repugnant to the Sultan than to see this; and again, nothing would be more undesirable for the Sultan and his entourage than to see parties of Englishmen and Americans wondering at the unopened, undeveloped spots of the country, coming directly into contact with his subjects, and contrasting their poverty-stricken and wretched condition with the natural beauty and richness of the land in which they live.

The appointed day at last arrived, and we started for Constantinople in the jolting van-like coaches, of which we hired twelve, seven being assigned to the ladies and their luggage, and five to the men. As is necessary for travellers of position who may carry valuables with them, we had three gendarmes put at our disposal by the local authorities. This was a precaution against brigands, who are to be met with every now and then in the thinly inhabited and mountainous regions of Asiatic Turkey. It hardly ever happens, however, that these brigands are Turks. Ever since the days of the Crusaders the ill-informed section of the European public has manifested a prejudice against the Turks, and as one result of this prejudice therefore, when reports are heard in Europe of cases of brigandage occurring in Turkey, it is unhesitatingly concluded that the brigands must be Turks. As a matter of fact, the provincial Turk is generally an honest fellow. It was not the Turkish villagers that we feared; nor did we fear the Kurds, who mostly infest the Eastern portion of Asia Minor; or the Greeks, of whom the provinces through which we had to pass were fairly clear. Our precautions were directed against any possible attack from the emigrant settlers, the majority of whom are Circassians.

According to our day's itinerary, we had to pass the first night in a small town which we expected to reach after thirteen hours' travelling. But before we had got half-way our drivers said that they did not want to over-fatigue their horses, and as the ladies expressed a wish not to journey after nightfall, we stopped at a small village. We found it difficult to get a sufficient number of rooms there, and we were too numerous to be the guests of any of the village dignitaries, who, though invariably hospitable, were not sufficiently well-off to maintain so large a party.

Hospitality is an inborn instinct in most of the Turkish villagers. They love entertaining passing strangers, and they expect nothing in return for the trouble they take on their visitors' behalf. This fact has often been mentioned by Europeans who have travelled in Asia Minor. But the inhabitants of the village where we passed our first night did not show us much sympathy. People in these parts, however, have good reason for not being very hospitable. All officials who are appointed to this province by the Sultan--and they have usually large families--claim hospitality for themselves and for their families as they travel to and fro from Constantinople, and they imagine that by so doing they force the "loyal slave-subjects" of the Sultan to perform their duty. Although my uncle was an official, he would not have dreamt of imposing any obligation upon poor villagers, for he was himself a native of Asia Minor, and naturally did not wish to inconvenience his compatriots. We induced, however, some of the villagers to spare a few rooms in their mud huts. I and three other men had to sleep in a dimly-lighted loft above a stable in which were several bullocks, calves, and donkeys. I think some English travellers have had the same experience before now in Asia Minor, and they generally complain of the unpleasantness of these lofts, and of the noise and effluvia from the animals. I did not object to these things much, as I was used to farm life; moreover, I have heard and almost believe that sleeping in stables is good for the health. Tired to death by journeying in a shaky van, I was ready to fall asleep at once, but hundreds of fleas, coming perhaps from the dusty floor of the loft or falling from the thatch above, made an assault on me, and rendered sleep impossible. I wanted to go out to our van, taking a carpet with me to lie on, but when I got out I saw three huge shepherd's dogs lying near the vans, so I did not dare to leave the stable door.

These fierce dogs are especially trained to be savage in order to guard the sheep and mohair goats against thieves and wolves. They would tear to pieces any stranger who might walk through the village at night. They are powerfully built animals, mostly light-yellow and grey in colour, with long silky coats. Mohair goat breeders always fasten round the neck of these dogs chain collars studded with sharp nails, because when wolves attack them they invariably try to seize the dogs by the neck or throat, and the studded collars act as preventive armour against the teeth of the assailant.

After passing the night in that most uncomfortable village, we started for the next town. We followed the travellers' custom in quartering at the house of one of the notables, and enjoying the national hospitality I have mentioned. In towns this sort of hospitality to travellers can only be given when host and guest are personally acquainted, or when the latter can produce letters of introduction from some friends of the host.

On the third night of our journey we had arranged to stay in a Turcoman village, but we found that the people of the village had shut up their huts, and had removed, with all their belongings, to some high pasture land in the vicinity, where there were several lovely springs. We went to this spot and spent the night there under three tents, which were woven from the hair of black goats, and which were lent to us by these quasi-nomadic people for the night. In return for this we tendered them money, but they were affronted by this offer, so we gave them 'some presents from town.'

We spent the fourth night in a large inn, for there was nothing there worthy of the name of hotel. As a matter of fact, except in a few big towns on the coasts and on the existing railway lines, there are no hotels where it is possible to be tolerably comfortable. The average houses calling themselves hotels, of which many are being built in the crowded centres, and conducted by native Christians, are in reality nothing more than taverns, where the appearance of drunkards is a continual shock to the feelings of sober Ottoman families who may need to put up at these places when travelling. If they cannot secure a letter of introduction to some dignitary of a town for the night, they would rather go to an old-fashioned khan, or inn, than to one of these modern taverns. Rooms in these inns are unfurnished, and usually filthy beyond description. All kinds of vermin may be expected, and even the visit of an occasional scorpion.

After passing two more nights on our journey, on the sixth evening we reached the town of Broussa, which is situated at the foot of the Asiatic Olympus. We stopped in Broussa several days, as the town is full of pretty mosques, shrines, and mausoleums, and large baths built over thermal springs, which are well worth seeing. Broussa is one of the largest towns in the Turkish empire. It served as capital for the first three Ottoman Sultans. It is said that when the Sultan Mohammed II. conquered Constantinople he brought nearly 50,000 Turkish families from Broussa to settle in the new capital. From Broussa we went down to the shore of Marmora, and there took boat for Constantinople.

The part of Stamboul in which my uncle took up his residence was in the neighbourhood of the great mosque of Mohammed II., the conqueror of Constantinople. This is the centre of the locality which is exclusively inhabited by Turkish families of the old-fashioned type. My cousins and I were given two weeks' holiday by my uncle in which to explore the city and see the sights. One day we were allowed to go over the Golden Horn to visit Pera, the European quarter of the capital, where we were amazed at the evident signs of the prosperity and richness of its population. While we were enviously imagining how happy these people must be, an old man, who was guiding our little party, warned us that to set our ambitions on such worldly progress was not in accordance with the ideals of contentment of the faithful, and reminded us that "This world is the heaven of infidels." This saying, which is wrongly attributed to the Prophet, is one of the principles of that fatalism, the firm belief in which is one of the chief reasons for the stationary condition and want of progress which distinguish the majority of Orientals. On coming back from Pera, however, we received quite a different impression, for we witnessed the seamy side of European life. The larger portion of the European quarter is inhabited by Greeks, Poles, Levantines, Italians and Maltese. Here may be seen dirty cut-throats with crime written large on their faces, and, above all, many an habitual drunkard, whose face tells the tale of his debauched life. Here, too, we saw disreputable houses, with half-naked and painted creatures sitting on their balconies or standing on the thresholds of their doors, and calling out invitations to all who passed by. Here we saw countless drink and dram shops, all filled with rough sailors, Greek thieves, quarrelsome Maltese, and the dregs of European society. They were all more or less drunk, most of them openly armed with daggers and revolvers. None of these ruffians would dream of obeying the law of the country and its police, for each of them enjoys his capitulation privileges, and thus is under the protection of the Embassy and Consulate of his country, whatever it may be. We were disgusted with such an exhibition of what most Moslems believe to be "Christian life." It is unfortunately a fact that all the bad points of European civilisation spread with ease and rapidity, while its good and useful points seem seldom to have any effect on life in Oriental countries.

After this excursion I was not permitted to revisit the European quarter of the capital for a considerable time. I had to resume the course of my education.

In what way my cousins and I should be educated in Constantinople was a question which had to be considered by my uncle. There are two kinds of higher education in Turkey. One of them is to receive instruction in the old-fashioned colleges or _madrasseh_, of which I have made mention before, and of which I will in this chapter give some further description. The other form of education is that now carried on in the modern schools and colleges. Of these there are many in Constantinople. They are modelled on the system of the educational institutions of some of the European countries. In these places of learning, unlike the old-fashioned _madrasseh_, all kinds of what I may call utilitarian subjects, necessitated by modern requirements, are taught In addition to the great military academy and preparatory military colleges, naval college, civil and military medical institutions, and the Imperial lycée, some of which are fifty or sixty years old, there are civil servants', law, civil-engineering, and several minor colleges of recent foundation. Two years ago an official project was in the air for creating a regular University in Constantinople. But the present Sultan is not likely to favour in earnest such a scheme, which would necessarily result in the increased popularity of European culture. Formerly those colleges of modern creation turned out men of marked ability in all branches of literature and science which existed in the country. But, unhappily, Abd-ul-Hamid's inflexible determination to suppress at any cost what are called 'young-Turkish ideas,' or liberalism, has seriously interfered with and paralysed the progress of these seminaries of culture and education.

My desire was to join one of these colleges, after having been prepared by private tuition to pass the obligatory entrance examination. But since my elder brother had already entered one of the modern colleges, my uncle urged me to affiliate myself to one of the old-fashioned _madrassehs_. As we had yet some hope of recovering our confiscated property, and as the right of holding the estates depended on the heir's following our grandfather's semi-theological profession, my uncle insisted that I should continue my studies in one of these quasi-theological _madrassehs_. Although I was most reluctant, I had to fall in with his wishes, so I prepared to go and live with a tutor who had his room in the _madrasseh_ which is attached to the mosque of little St Sophia,[3] a Byzantine building, which is as much visited by European tourists as the great St. Sophia. When one becomes a member of these old-fashioned institutions of learning, one must wear a professional turban and a long cloak, let the beard grow, if one is old enough to have one, and shave the hair off one's head. They procured for me a turban and cloak, and my uncle sent me with a manservant to a barber's shop to get my head shaved. The shaving of a thick head of hair is a most painful thing, and tears filled my eyes, partly from the pain caused by the razor on my unaccustomed head, and partly, I think, from the anticipation of the terrible monk-like existence I was about to pass in the _madrasseh_. Next day I went with my luggage to the school, but did not begin my studies until several months had passed away, as I caught cold by being shaved, and suffered in consequence from headache and ophthalmia. I shall never forget the miserable life I passed in that school. It will perhaps be of some interest if I give a description of a _madrasseh_, and the mode of life and study therein.

There are in Constantinople over a hundred of these theological colleges, or _madrassehs_. In the provinces each important town is provided with several. These seminaries of old Moslem culture are not peculiar to Turkey--they exist also in Egypt, Persia, and some other Oriental countries, and at one time they were the only places of instruction. They served not only as schools for religious teaching when they were originally founded in past days, but all branches of human knowledge known in the East were to be taught in them. In Constantinople some of them still retain their original names--'_Madrasseh_ of Medicine,' 'Madrasseh of History,' and so on. The Moslem people were formerly divided into two distinct classes--the great illiterate mass, and the learned hierarchy known as _Ulema_. Although all instruction given in the _madrasseh_ was formed on the basis of the faith of Islam, the _Ulema_ were certainly not entirely theologians. They were certainly not priests, as Islam recognises no spiritual authority. Mohammed has stated distinctly that "there is no priesthood in Islam." With the lapse of time human knowledge advanced, and the high culture which existed among Moslems in mediæval times decayed; but still the _Ulema_ continued to teach the Arabic language, with its literature and law, secular and spiritual. Ultimately countries like Turkey and Egypt felt the necessity of learning something from the progressive nations of Europe, and, in imitation of their educational institutions, began to establish schools and colleges for modern learning and science. In the Ottoman empire the _Ulema_, having nearly lost their occupations as professors and judges, now hold a peculiar position, which somewhat resembles a sort of priesthood. Of course, this class still retains its old professional titles, receives pensions, and lives on the revenues accruing from charitable endowments. Moreover, its members still have a greater influence over the ignorant masses than persons of modern education, but they are not now of much service to the State. The _madrassehs_ are, notwithstanding, still full of students who wish to become members of that body, but the more intelligent of them, instead of attending the old course of lectures in the mosques, go to some modern college in order to qualify themselves for professions which will be of practical use to them. Many of them spend their time in the _madrassehs_ idly, or simply live in them till they have passed an examination by which they are exempted from military service, and then return to their towns and villages. Again, some of these students who are really working, instead of attending one of the modern colleges, go to an institution founded for the training of the _Kadis_ or semi-religious magistrates. These students are all called _Softas_. All the affairs of the _madrassehs_ are under the control of the office of the Sheikh-ul-Islam, which, though it still forms a distinct ministry, and though the Sheikh-ul-Islam is still a member of the Cabinet of the Porte, has lost many of the important official functions it once had. The position of the Sheikh-ul-Islam, the head of the _Ulema_, at present resembles that of the ecclesiastical head of a Christian country, though, as I stated before, no ecclesiastics could be recognised as such in Islam. The number of the students in the _madrassehs_ of Constantinople is estimated to be something between five and seven thousand.

Originally the _madrassehs_ were founded on a system much resembling that of the colleges of the English Universities. They were built by the munificence of the Sultans and of private persons, and most of them were situated near mosques, to which they were attached, and were supported from the same endowments as the mosques themselves, for the charitable founders of these endowments aimed particularly at increasing the congregations that attend public worship, and devised that the students should also use the mosques as their lecture-halls. Even nowadays most lectures are given in the mosques. Each _madrasseh_ was self-governing, and the principals, or, so to say, the 'fellows,' used to look after its interests and decide its rules. All the students used to be regularly supplied with soup, bread, and, on certain days, with cooked rice, and a kind of sweet made of saffron, and also with olive oil for their lamps, from a sort of kitchen endowed for the purpose. Free 'commons' of this sort for students are supplied only occasionally and sparsely nowadays, as the revenues of the endowed estates and properties have long been put under the care and control of officialdom, and the income from charities is now abused and illegally appropriated by the corrupt and impious hands through which it passes. In consequence, members of the _madrassehs_ now can often not even raise funds to save their buildings from complete ruin. These buildings are mostly square in shape, with a courtyard in the middle, and have one and sometimes two stories. They are unhealthy, and cannot be properly ventilated. The students take their baths behind the doors of their rooms, cook their meals in the fireplace, and, as a rule, two or three sleep in one room, on the floor. The damp, fœtid smell in most of the rooms is terrible. My hard fate made me live five years in such a place, and they were the years which ought to be the best of one's youth.

The life of the students of these _madrassehs_ resembles that of monks in monasteries of the Eastern Church. They prepare their own modest food, clean their own rooms, make their own beds, and wash their own clothes. A new student not only does all this for himself, but he has also to do it for the fellow or tutor of the _madrasseh_ in whose room he is placed. Most of the students are very poor. They go every year during the _ramadan_--the month of fasting--to different provincial towns and villages to preach, to teach, and to do some writing for the illiterate villagers and provincials, and, after securing what fees, alms, and provisions they can get, they return to their respective madrassehs to resume their work.

The _Softas_ played a conspicuous part in some of the revolutions, for if once they were roused and egged on by politicians, they would assemble in the courtyards of the great mosques, bearing yataghans and heavy clubs under their long cloaks, and numberless common people would follow them. The viziers who deposed the late Sultan Aziz had to get the support of the _Softas_. Midhat Pasha had to secure their assistance when he was urging the present Sultan to sanction the scheme for the new constitution. A certain Suavi Effendi, one of the founders of the young-Turkish movement, who had himself been a _Softa_, twenty-five years ago made an armed attack on the Sultan's palace; with him fought and fell many of the _Softas_. The Sultan, whose marvellous power and success in crushing everything which might endanger his despotic personal rule is undeniable, has paralysed the collective influence of the Softas, so that they can no longer be the political tools of any power that may arise to oppose him.

During my residence in the _madrasseh_ my uncle used to give me as pocket-money twenty piastres (about 3s. 5d.) a month, and to the tutor of the _madrasseh_, in whose room I was a novice-disciple, eighty piastres, to cover the expenses of my maintenance. This was quite enough for a man who has to live as abstemiously and simply as a monk. Moreover, provisions in Constantinople are very cheap, a fact which is not known to European visitors, who are invariably cheated by the Levantine and Greek hotel-keepers and tradesmen. Secretly, however, I received further support from my affectionate mother, through an Armenian merchant who came from Angora.