CHAPTER VII--CONSTANTINOPLE--THE CITY OF DOGS.

_Human Camels--Canine Colors--The Dogs of Istamboul--Their Appearance and Moral Character--How the Turks regard them--“Inshallah”--Constantinopoli-tan Dogsologies--An Oriental Dog-fight--Sagacious Brutes--Cultivating Canine Society--“Standing Treat” among the Curs--Four-footed Campaigns--Dog-Districts--The Hostile Armies--A Brilliant Strategic Move--Charge of the Light (Dog) Brigade--Advance of the Chef de Garbage--The “Army of the West” in Retreat--The “Doubter’s” Mishap--Full Details of a Coat’s Detailing--An Israelite in whom there was Guile--No More Sandwiches for Me, Sir-r-r!_

OUR baggage is on the backs of hamals or porters, and we follow it and them like mourners at a funeral.

The first objects to attract our attention are some ill-conditioned curs of low degree, full-blooded curs, with not a particle of respectability about them except in very rare cases. They are nearly all of the nondescript sort which the ruralist designates as “yaller dog,” without reference to his color. Yellow is the prevailing hue; but there are black, brown, white, and spotted dogs among them, and one of my friends avers that he has seen green, red, blue, and pink dogs over in Stamboul. But I fear he had tarried too long in a certain _café_ there, and partaken of the cup which necessarily inebriates while it cheers.

There is a good deal of wolfishness about these dogs both in habits and appearance. They have no home, they live in the streets, and hunt for their living wherever there is a chance to find anything. You see them lying in the open street, on the pavement where men and horses are passing, or on the narrow strip of sidewalk, as if the place belonged to them. Under very favorable circumstances they crouch in doorways, but in so doing {124}they render themselves liable to be kicked soundly whenever an occupant of the premises happens along. When they lie in the street men and horses generally step over or around them; I say generally, as neither men nor horses are very particular, and you not unfrequently hear a prolonged yelp or howl from some unfortunate cur whose leg, tail, or body, has received the impress of a human or equine foot. You see dogs with frightful wounds received from horse shoes, and others with huge scars where such wounds have been healed. In the Grand Rue de Pera and other streets where carriages can circulate, the sleeping dogs are occasionally run over and either wounded or killed.

I was one day an unwilling witness of one of these occurrences. Within a yard of where I stood a carriage-wheel passed over a dog, lacerating him in such a way that he died in a few minutes. But while he lived his howling was fearful to hear, and it rang in my ears long after the poor brute had ceased to breathe.

The Turks in general care little about the sufferings of the dogs, or in fact of any living thing. Now and then, one of them shows a little kindness to the animals, allows them to sleep in his doorway, and sometimes feeds them with any refuse food he has at hand. The Christian inhabitants of the place are more amiably disposed towards the brutes, and frequently kill them in order to end their misery. {125}There have been several raids upon the dogs in the Pera quarter, but the animals are so numerous and the opposition of the Turks is so great, that the numbers are not much diminished. Though the Turks consider the dog an unclean beast and have no love for him, they have a great aversion to taking life on the principle I have before mentioned of non-interference with the will of God.

“If God wished the dogs to die,” said a Turk one day, in discussing the question, “he would sweep them off by a pestilence. Inshallah! they shall live.”

A practical reason for maintaining these dogs in Constantinople is that they are excellent scavengers. In this respect they are regarded exactly as are the buzzards that abound in some of our southern cities.

Wherever you see a fresh garbage heap in Constantinople there you will see a group of dogs. They are engaged in making a living, and they turn over all parts of the heap in search of something edible. Nothing comes amiss. A crust of bread, a bit of meat, a bone, fleshless or otherwise, is immediately seized and appropriated.

I used to watch the dogs when thus foraging, and was surprised to observe their apparent friendliness. When one found anything he ate it without being disturbed by his companions; but he never lingered long over it. Sometimes one would seize hold of a large bone and another would attach himself at the same moment to the opposite end. Then began a discussion of growls, snorts, and bites, and very often the whole party would go in and there would be a general scrimmage, in which the dogs would be in a struggling heap, doggedly clinging to the bone of contention.

One afternoon I happened to witness a fight of this sort in which half a dozen dogs were engaged. There was one little fellow in the lot, and while his big friends were quarreling at a lively rate he slipped in beneath the belly of the largest and came out in the same way, bringing the bone and making off with it.

So intent were they upon their unpleasantness that they did not observe the abstraction until little dog and big bone were out of sight around the corner. They looked around an instant with their noses in the air and then struck up another chorus of growls {126}interrupted with bites and tussles. Then they appeared content and returned to their scientific investigations in the heap of garbage, pawing, scratching, and turning it over industriously for everything capable of mastication. To my mind a whole bundle of morals was bound up in the incident, but I forbear to thrust them upon my readers.

These dogs know and remember their friends as readily as do the members of the canine race in other parts of the globe, and numberless are the anecdotes of their sagacity related by old residents at Constantinople. A stranger walking the Grand Rue de Pera will frequently be accompanied a block or so by a stray dog who will wag his tail and look pleadingly in the stranger’s face as if to say “Please give me something to eat.” These demonstrations will be liveliest in the vicinity of an open-front cook-shop, such as are so common throughout the “city of dogs,” and if you stop and buy something for the poor brute he will manifest his gratitude in the various doggish ways with which we are all familiar. He will remember you and the next time you walk that street and block, he will be on hand to welcome you.

One day a couple of dogs thus pleaded for me to stand treat and I obliged them by stopping at a cook-shop and buying a few pennies worth of the pancaky productions of which the lower class of Turks are so fond. That evening I was calling on some friends at the Hotel de France and returned rather late to my quarters in the Hotel de Byzance. Two or three hundred yards from my destination two dogs came to my side and after a few demonstrations of welcome traveled along with a dignified air and did not leave me until I entered the doorway of the hotel. {127}At that hour the cook-shops had long been closed and the manner of the brutes did not indicate that they expected to be paid for taking me home. Next day they met me again and were prompt to recognize me, and I returned their recognition by again standing treat at the cook shop. That night they were again on hand to escort me, and when a third dog approached they drove him away. In the day time they were suppliants but at night they were guardians, and I was told that if any man had ventured to attack me there was little doubt that they would have done good service with their teeth.

We kept up our acquaintance--the dogs and I--as long as I remained in Constantinople. I have always entertained great respect for the dog, and this experience increased rather than diminished it.

Have any of us ever lived, when we were boys, in a large city, and have we ever been “licked” by the boys of a neighboring street for the terrible crime of venturing out of our own territory? And furthermore have we ever joined in “licking” some other boy who had the audacity to venture from his street into ours.

Well, what boys do in American cities, the dogs do in Turkey. They divide Constantinople into districts, and they know their own districts as well as “the gal knew her dad.” Each group of dogs has its own territory and they are also on good terms with each other. But let a cur from the next dogship venture over the boundary he is in trouble at once. The whole crowd, Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart and all the other big and little dogs go for him, and give it to him tooth and nail. He is rolled over in the mud and bitten and bruised, and if he gets back to his own ground with a whole skin he may thank his dog-stars.

I have frequently seen these discussions and observed how carefully the boundary is defined, and how common cause is made against the intruder. He is driven back to and over the frontier, and there the pursuit is supposed to end. But if the pursuers in the excess of their zeal venture across the line they are attacked by the combined forces of the district they have invaded, and a grand battle is occasionally the result. The vigor with which the dogs of the district assert their common rights, the patriotic zeal of even the most insignificant and contemptible {128}curs when called upon to defend the common weal, and the aptitude which the dogs display for the discussion of diplomatic niceties and fine distinctions, call for the respectful consideration and study of the diplomats and scientists of the Western world.

One day I was sitting with a friend in front of a _café_ which was situated on a street corner. The small street intersecting the larger one happened to be the boundary of two of the dog principalities, and we observed that the four-footed inhabitants of each realm frequently came down to the street, but did not venture into it, as it was a sort of neutral zone, which neither might occupy.

Let us call the principalities East and West for convenience in telling what happened.

Both armies had been gathered at the boundary and separated only by the narrow street. They snarled and growled and made _reconnaissances_ in force, but neither ventured across.

The army of the East was the more numerous and contained larger and more healthy soldiers than that of the West; there was mischief in their eyes and mud on their feet, and they felt that they could “chaw up” the dogs of the West if they had a chance.

And how should they do it when it was contrary to their moral principles to invade a country with which they were nominally at peace?

The army of the East retired from the frontier and disappeared round the next corner where there was doubtless a camp of instruction--a sort of Chalons-sur-Marne. The army of the West also retired and moved toward its own interior; it stacked arms in the vicinity of a swill-box in front of a restaurant, and waited for somebody to overturn the box, on which their hopes and hunger were centered. Unconscious of danger, they did not preserve good order, and nearly half their forces straggled away where a baggy-breeched and dirty Turk had just deposited a basketful of kitchen garbage. With tail in air, mouth wide open, and thoughts intent upon their hurried banquet, for one fateful moment they lost sight of stratagems and only dwelt on spoils.

This was the military situation at 3.15 p.m. About 3.18 p.m. a cavalry regiment (one dog) debouched from the street leading {129}to the fortified camp of the Army of the East.

Halting a moment to observe the situation,--it had only one eye to observe with--and its tail had been detailed to service elsewhere--it gave the order to advance and--obeyed it.

With no shout of defiance, without champ of bit or clank of saber, but “all in silence deep, unbroken,” it pressed forward at the _pas de charge_ and crossed the frontier. Leaping the Rubicon--a narrow mud puddle--it was on the sacred soil of the West.

This gallant Light Brigade--noble six hundred ounces of dog-flesh--did not slacken speed for an instant, but pushed onward with head and stump of tail up, to within point blank range of the swill-box. It was not perceived by the Army of the West until it was within a couple of yards of the commissary depot; there a shot from a picket gave the alarm and the Army of the West fell into line at once.

The swill-box division made a bayonet charge at the audacious invader, who turned and with depending caudal stump legged it for his native land.

The reserve at the garbage heap advanced in double quick time and things looked rather lively for the invader.

Swift was the flight and swift the pursuit.

The pursuers halted not at the frontier, but in the impetuosity of youth and anger at the insolence of the enemy’s cavalry, they pushed straight on after the flying foe.

The cavalry sounded its trumpet as it jumped the Rubicon, and just as it reached the corner leading to the fortified camp, the whole army of the East came to its support. Wasn’t the army of the West up a tree about this time? {130}The battle was short, sharp, and decisive. The army of the West was “licked” out of its boots, and with shattered battalions and wide gaps in its ranks it came limping and howling home, leaving the ground covered with a _debris_ of ears and tails.

They made a brief halt at the frontier whither they were pursued, but only stopped long enough to intimate that they would get even sometime.

Whether they have ever done so history does not record. The despatches from our ambassador at the court of His Majesty, the Sultan, made no mention of the matter, and a similar remissness has been observed in the reports of Sir Henry Elliott to the British Government.

The dog in the Orient is considered an unclean and disreputable beast, and one of the worst epithets applicable to living things is the term “dog.” The Moslem was once accustomed to speak of “Christian dogs” whenever he had occasion to allude to people of the Occident, just as the Chinese are to this day in the habit of designating-them as “_fankwei_,” “foreign devils.” Sometimes a delicate allusion is made to the maternal descent from the canine race, where the speaker wishes to lay it on fine, and if he wants to be especially choice and emphatic, he would denounce an offending Occidental, as “Father of all dogs.”

Donkey drivers all through the Orient urge their beasts forward by shouting, “_Empchy, ya kelb_,” (go on you dog,) but the donkeys do not appear to mind it. I was repeatedly impressed with the similarity of Arab and Russian drivers, as the epithet Kelb which the former apply to their donkeys and camels, has exactly the meaning of “_sabaka_” which the Russian yemshik yells out to his horse. {131}The dogs of Constantinople are so accustomed to the sight of people in European dress, that they do not pretend to attack them, for the simple reason that they would have a larger contract on hand than they could conveniently fill. But the case is different in places less frequented by foreigners. In Damascus, when our party made the tour of the walls, the dogs annoyed us greatly by hanging around and keeping up a very loud and angry barking.

They did not bite anybody, though they came very near, and certainly manifested a strong desire for dental practice.

They were knowing brutes, those Damascus dogs; one of our party afterward called them Damas-cussed dogs; but we reproved him and threatened expulsion if he ever did so again. The joke might have been allowed in Kit Burns’ dog-pit, but was quite out of place in a respectable party making the tour of the Holy Land. When they barked and howled around us, we made threatening demonstrations with our canes and umbrellas, but the animals didn’t scare worth a cent. They were particularly fascinated with the “Doubter,” but they soon knew the range of his umbrella, and how to keep out of its reach.

But when our guide picked up a stone and let it fly they fell back. Whenever they came too near, a stone would send them back and a volley would put their ranks in disorder. Even the motion to pick up a stone would start them; the Arabs around Damascus can hurl these missiles with great violence and are good shots, and the dogs know it. Several times our guide made splendid shots, taking the dogs fairly in the sides with stones the size of a respectable fist, or a more respectable piece of chalk, {132}and sending the offenders off with a chorus of yelps that were a warning to their fellows.

One morning when we were starting out for a long forenoon’s walk, in Constantinople, the “Doubter” was sceptical about the possibility of getting anything to eat on the way, and so took the precaution to provide himself with a couple of ham sandwiches, which he stowed away in the rear pocket of his coat, and thereby hangs a tale.

In one place we passed a group of dogs that looked up inquiringly, but showed no fight or other ugliness. As we went by them the largest of the pack, a lank beast about the size of a full grown donkey, sniffed the morning air and the sandwiches in the “Doubter’s” coat-tails. With hair bristling on his back, and with tail and ears erect the Ponto of the Orient came up behind us, and I could see what he wanted. As the “Doubter” spoke nothing but English, I passed the word in French to the rest of the party to keep his attention fixed on something, while I encouraged the dog. They dropped at once to the joke, and became very busy in examining the dome of a mosque that loomed up before them.

Ponto or Ishmael, or whatever his canine name was, came bravely and hungrily forward. A ham sandwich was evidently a luxury the brute had not enjoyed for many a day, and his appetite was now fairly aroused. I pointed to the coat-tails where were enshrined the savory sandwiches, and intimated by signs {133}that it was all right, and the best dog might win. Ponto’s nose came within two inches of the prize, and took a fresh and satisfying sniff and then--

There was a ripping and tearing of broadcloth; the “Doubter” fell backwards from the effect of the shock, and then--there was more ripping.

Ponto was hungry and the Infidel Christian had brought him something to eat.

A jump, a rip, a fall, an--

As the novelists say “all this passed quicker than I can write it.” other rip, and all was over.

I was so dumb-struck with astonishment that I couldn’t interfere till Ponto had detailed the “Doubter’s” coat. As he fled I raised a shout and a terrible outcry that made him run all the faster. Away he went like a pirate-ship in a fog, and in two minutes he was hull down among the sand hills.

“Stop him! stop him!” yelled the “Doubter,” but the brute couldn’t understand English, and evidently he was not a stop-watch dog.

“There’s a coat ruined,” continued the “Doubter,”

“I’ve only had it four years, and gave twenty dollars for it. What shall I do? what shall I do?”

“Cut off the other tail and make a jacket of it. Come to-morrow with sandwiches in the other pocket and the dog will do it for you.”

“Hire an Arab to hunt up the tail.”

“Cut off the dog’s tail and sew it on instead, look any worse than it did before.” {134} “Tell the Consul about it, and have him demand satisfaction of the government.”

These and other irreverent remarks were let off in the pauses of our laughter, and I am bound to say that the “Doubter” didn’t enjoy any part of the joke. He was unhappy all day, and more unhappy when he visited next morning the clothing shop of an Israelite, in whom there was guile enough to set up a whole Tammany Ring, and have ten per cent, to spare. While he tried on a coat, and was dubious about the fit, the polite Jew declared: “Ah, mein Gott, zat coat, he fit you like ze skin on a dog; like, shoost like, ze skin on one big dog!”

And the “Doubter” again waxed wroth, and took in high dudgeon this apparently personal indignity.

When he paid his bill at the hotel he was again angry, for among the items was the following:

“Extra--two sandwiches, two francs.”

He vowed he would not pay, but we all insisted that the charge was just, and he finally paid, and was cross for a week afterward. But he never again took ham sandwiches for a lunch in Constantinople.

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