Читать книгу The Diary of a Turk - Çerkesseyhizade Halil Halit - Страница 5

Table of Contents

My Asiatic origin—My great-grandfather's religious order—His miracles—My grandfather and Sultan Mahmud II. —An ordeal by wine—My father's charitable extravagance—His death—Primitive surgery in Asia Minor—The original home of vaccination—My mother's European ancestors—Writing a forbidden accomplishment for women.

I was born in the ancient town of Angora, Asia Minor, famous not alone for its silky-haired cats and goats, but also for its historical and archæological importance, and with it my memories of early days, and therefore the pages of my desultory journal, naturally begin. Men of learning who have engaged in researches into the archæology and biblical history of Asia Minor have come to the conclusion that this town was once in the remote past the principal centre of a wandering branch of the Celtic peoples who ultimately settled in Asia Minor. Although, of course, it was conquered and held during later generations by the Eastern invaders, it is even nowadays noticeable that there is a difference, both of character and physique, between most of the inhabitants of our province and those of other provinces, more especially of Southern and Eastern Asia Minor. By remarking on this I do not wish to seem to be trying to trace my origin to a European race, though I am aware that many people in this country are unsympathetic, and even, perhaps, prejudiced, where Orientals are concerned. My paternal ancestors came across from Central Asia, and first settled in Khorassan, in Persia. But as they were devout followers of the orthodox creed of the Arabian Prophet they were subjected to the intolerant oppression of the Persian Moslems, between whom and the orthodox believers the history of Western Asia records many a sanguinary feud, the result of their doctrinal antagonism. My ancestors were compelled eventually to emigrate to Asia Minor over a hundred and fifty years ago, and there they found a more hospitable reception. My great-grandfather was the sheikh or head of a religious order called Halvati, or, to give the name an English equivalent, "those who worship in seclusion." The name arises from one of the strict rules of the order, that its rites must not be displayed to the outside public, doubtless a measure for the prevention of hypocrisy. Historical research has traced the foundation of the order to Ali, the son-in-law of Mohammed. Shortly after settling in Asia Minor the disciples of the great sheikh increased to a number approaching eighty thousand, and pilgrims came to his monastic dwelling from all the neighbouring provinces. It was not only in Anatolia and Syria that his name was honoured; he is mentioned with reverence in the books written in Egypt at that time. It must not be imagined that he was a kind of Mahdi, a name which is familiar in England on account of its having been assumed by the late pretender in the Soudan. In the days gone by many such Mahdis, or "redeemers," appeared in Western Asia and the Northern half of Africa, disguising under this apostolic name their ambition of attaining temporal power and worldly glory.

In spite of his having so great a number of disciples, my great-grandfather lived, together with his immediate devotees, in complete retirement. The Ottoman Sovereign of the time heard of him and sent a messenger informing him that he wished to grant certain pious endowments to his monastic institution in the little town of Tcherkesh, which is situated half-way between Angora and the Black Sea coast. My great-grandfather declined to receive such unnecessary worldly assistance, and, according to one of the traditions concerning his miraculous doings which used to be related in our family circle, he struck his staff against the wall in the presence of the envoy of the sovereign, and thereupon a stream of precious metal began to flow down. He said to the envoy (who became a devoted disciple later on) that he needed not such worldly things. There is another anecdote of him which was told in my younger days. There was in our house a large deerskin upon which my father used to prostrate himself during his prayers. I often heard it said that this was the skin of the deer upon which my great-grandfather, the holy hermit, was accustomed to ride every Friday, the Sabbath day of our people, from his home in Asia Minor to Mecca, in Arabia, to attend the Friday service in the sacred sepulchre of the Prophet (on whose shrine be blessing!). Of course, I quite believed these legends in my childhood. I can make no comment on them now. "The responsibility of vouching for the fact lies with the narrator," is an Arab saying often quoted by our Oriental historians in relating extraordinary events. I must follow their example. It has, however, always been a great grief to me that along with the deerskin we did not inherit that useful staff.

My grandfather, whose views in his early days on the religious orders did not coincide with those of his father, did not become a disciple of the great hermit-sheikh, so the latter had to point out to him that the rules of the order forbade his remaining any longer in the monastic institution. He left the place accordingly, and joined a small caravan which was starting off to the town of Angora, where he eventually settled. It was a distance of four days' journey on camel-back. This town was the centre of learning at that time, and there is there a well-known shrine of a saint, whose name is Haji Beiram. Many thousands of pilgrims visit his mausoleum every year. My grandfather did not know anyone in the town, and had no means of supporting himself. He went to the shrine, and after making a prayer at the graveside of the saint, he became absorbed in contemplation and eventually slumbered. In his dream he saw the saint, who asked him his name, and also whether he could read. The answer to the second question was unsatisfactory, and thereupon the saint gave him a lesson. On waking up my grandfather went out and saw several students entering the adjacent madrasseh or theological school. He followed them, and in the madrasseh he entered into conversation with one of the newly-made lecturers. In these old-fashioned centres of learning the reputation of a lecturer depends in great measure on the number of students who attend his lectures. The lecturer took my grandfather, who was then little more than a boy, into his class, and settled him in a room along with his few other pupils. He studied in this madrasseh very many years, and ultimately became himself a professor of theology, philosophy, and the temporal law of the Moslems. He made his fame largely by delivering addresses in different mosques on the commentaries of the Koran, which attracted large audiences. Many learned men, engaged in kindred studies throughout Asiatic Turkey, used to apply to him for the solution of difficult points. The representative of the sovereign in this town used to pay him visits of respect, but he himself never in his life crossed the threshold of a government office.

During the reign of Sultan Mahmud II., who ruled from 1808 till 1839, there took place an imperial wedding at Constantinople to which persons of distinction in all classes of society throughout the country were invited. The chief physician of the Sultan (whose grandson is at present attached as councillor to the Ottoman Embassy in London), who had been a pupil of my grandfather's, noticed that his name was not on the list, and strongly recommended his sovereign to invite him. A courier set out for Asia Minor at once, and brought my grandfather to the capital. A great banquet was given in the palace in honour of the event to all the religious dignitaries and principal Ulema, that is to say, the learned hierarchy of the realm. Mahmud II. devised a curious plan for testing the fortitude and strength of character of these pious people. During the banquet servants brought in bottles filled with a red-coloured liquid. Several guards with drawn swords in their hands followed the attendants, and stood in the entrance. The bewildered guests naturally did not know what to make of it, and awaited events in anxious silence. Then, to their consternation, it was solemnly announced that the liquid in the bottles was wine. Wine! an abominable intoxicant, of which it is strictly forbidden to the faithful to touch even a single drop! The pernicious fluid, which has received from the Prophet himself the name of the "mother of evils"! (I must explain, by the way, that Mahmud wished to remodel his empire. After getting rid of those formidable opponents, the Janissaries, he adopted not only some of the European methods of administration, but also some of the Western customs and modes of life, and among other things he ordered his officials and army to wear costumes and uniforms made after the European style. This policy had already occasioned disquietude and suspicion in the pious heads under turbans in Asia.) When the wine was brought before that religiously sober assembly, an announcement was made that "as the Sultan ruled on European soil he wished to bring his country more into harmony with the Franks (all the people of Western Europe are so called), and any unwillingness on the part of his subjects would possibly hasten the decay of his empire. It was, moreover, the desire of the sovereign that narrow-minded superstition and the dislike of new things, even though they were borrowed from the Franks, should disappear." The announcement was concluded by the warning that those guests who should refuse to drink wine would be regarded as rebellious against the will of their sovereign. Face to face with this somewhat startling alternative, the guests became pale of countenance and mute of tongue, for, be it remembered, he who gave this order was a real autocrat, who had even exterminated the awe-inspiring Janissaries. However, my grandfather sprang up from his seat and said, "could not our sovereign find any other virtues among the Franks worth imitating?" He pointed out, moreover, that the law against drinking wine, the ordinance of the faith, was given to them by an authority superior even to that of his Majesty. He then started to go out, and while he was forcing his way through the servants and guards, Sultan Mahmud, who was watching this comedy literally from behind the scenes, suddenly stepped in smiling, and, in order to dispel the fear of the white-bearded, green-turbaned gentlemen, he said he simply meant to test the fortitude and character of the people who were to guide his subjects in the paths of religion and rectitude.

The Sultan later granted an audience to my grandfather, and asked him to give lessons in the Arabic language to the imperial princes (among whom was Abdul Mejid, who was Sultan during the Crimean campaign), and urged him to settle in Constantinople, promising that he would eventually make him Sheikh-ul-Islam, that is, the head of the religious magistrates and learned hierarchy. But my grandfather prayed the sovereign to pardon him for not accepting this honour, saying that it was his earnest desire to pass his remaining days of life in retirement and study. He only requested one boon—that he might be granted the vacant headship of the madrasseh or college in which he had studied for so many years, and with this, the enjoyment of the lands devised to it by the Crown.

When my grandfather had returned to his own town, Sultan Mahmud, who understood and appreciated his quiet contentment, wrote out with his own hand a saying of the Prophet, had it illuminated, and sent it to him as a present Roughly translated it runs as follows:—"The Lord loveth the man of learning who is pious, contented, modest and retiring." Subsequently, too, he granted my grandfather's request, and, as an additional clause to the endowment, he made a provision that these lands should be inherited as real estate by his posterity, provided that they should, after attaining the age of twenty years, qualify themselves by an examination before the proper authorities on those subjects in which he was himself so well versed. The royal firmans, with the imperial signature on them, beautifully written on the finest vellum, are still in the possession of our family. These lands came down to me and to my brothers, but, in spite of all provisions to the contrary, they were confiscated during the reign of the present Sultan, a reign which has been so conspicuous for the suppression of the civil rights and the oppression of the person of the individual.

We sued the Government to get our property back, and spent all our money in different courts over lawsuits which lasted fifteen years, but we could not have expected to succeed, for, as a Turkish poet has written—

When the judge is the defendant and the witnesses are bought,

How can you look for justice from the interested court?

When my grandfather died at the age of eighty-two my own father inherited the endowed estate; he was not so learned and able as his father. His only brother, having entered into the Government service, forfeited his share. My father suffered from an excess of charity, and in helping others he expended the greater portion of the revenue of his own estate as well as a part of my mother's private income. His charitable extravagance became at length so inordinate that he could not even dine without inviting every day many guests, no matter whether their position was humble or the reverse. When he died, killed by the murderous attack of a drunken Government official, he left us practically nothing but the endowed lands, which he could not have sold, and these lands, as I pointed out before, were taken over by the Government of the present Sultan. We were relieved from want by the fact that the bulk of my mother's property remained intact Fortunately my father had not been able to squander it.

I was nine years old when the drunken official attacked him, and so caused his death, which happened thus:—One evening a few women visitors came to call on my mother. As it is our custom in the East to keep our women strictly secluded, my father had to retire before these veiled visitors entered. He asked me to come out with him to spend the evening with some neighbouring friends, and there we saw the intoxicated man. My father had a very great abhorrence of drunkenness and drunkards, and he could not bear to be in the same room with the man, who was violently drunk and shouting and singing. A quarrel arose between them. The man attacked my father, and caught him by his long white beard. My father pushed the assailant back, and in doing so accidentally put his thumb into the drunkard's mouth, with the result that he was badly bitten. Although Asia Minor was the cradle of some of the ancient civilisations, it has not profited from the facilities afforded to mankind by modern discoveries. There was no surgeon in our town properly qualified by scientific training, and so my father's thumb lacked proper treatment.

The only medical men were, as a rule, barbers, who added to their proper profession that of letting blood for their customers when it was considered necessary. Bleeding of course used to be in favour in Europe generally, and it is still largely practised in the East. There are a great many people in my native country who think that a periodical loss of blood purifies the system, and have themselves bled accordingly. The early part of the summer is a favourite time for the operation, before the season for eating fresh fruit arrives. Blood is let either by a lancet, or else by means of leeches which are applied to the arms and legs. The men who were charged with my father's treatment were an old barber and a professional blood-letter. They used all their choicest ointments, making my father's thumb worse every day. They used to criticise each other's skill in surgery. The professional blood-letter told us that he was once an army surgeon, and it was his boast that during the Crimean War he had cut off the arms and legs of dozens of wounded soldiers. He doubtless facilitated the departure of these unfortunates to the place whither he ultimately sent my father. In spite of his experiences, however, he did not amputate my parent's arm, which might have prevented the gangrene which proved fatal. My mother's efforts to obtain the condemnation of the drunken official, as the murderer of her husband, failed. He was only sentenced to a few months of imprisonment, and to pay us an indemnity of about five hundred pounds.

Perhaps I shall be pardoned for a slight digression here. I laid some emphasis on the backward condition of the art of surgery in my native town, but I do not mean thereby that Turkey has been altogether behindhand in the art of medicine. In some particulars she has even led the way. For instance, she may claim the discovery of inoculation as a defence against smallpox, and it is worth while recalling the fact that Lady Mary Wortley Montagu introduced the treatment into England from Turkey many years before Jenner made his first experiment. As Lady Mary saw it, inoculation was performed with lymph taken from human beings, but according to the Tarikhi Jevdet (vol. ii., p. 341, press mark Turk. 9, British Museum Library), inoculation was also performed in a manner suggestive of calf-lymph. A Turkoman of the pastoral tribes in Asia Minor was paying a visit to Constantinople, and he saw the children being inoculated with other children's lymph. He said that in his own country the lymph was taken from the fingers of those who milked the cows. The book, moreover, states that Lady Mary heard of the Turkoman's statement, though she does not mention this in her letter.[1]

The Circassians and some of the tribes of Caucasus are said to have been acquainted with the uses of inoculation in olden days. They were chiefly slave-dealers, and they had to take great care of their young girl-captives, more especially as regarded any sort of disfigurement which would destroy their good looks, and consequently their value. Of the early history of the sickness little is known, but it is a well-established fact that the symptoms were first clearly diagnosed by the ancient Arab physician, Rhazes, whose name is well known to Orientalists and students of medical history. His book is entitled Kitab-ul-Jederee Vel-Hassabeh, the translation of which is Treatise of Smallpox and Measles. This work was translated into English from a Latin version by T. Stark early in the eighteenth century.

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The business-like European manner of investing money is not known among our people. Those who do not know what to do with their spare money, and who fear it may be stolen, or kindly taken charge of by the officials of the paternal Sultan, hide their cash by burying it in corners of their houses or fields. But we did not hide the five hundred pounds belonging to my mother. Someone suggested to us that we should buy mohair goats, of which the hair, cut every spring, would yield us an annual income. This was a little after the Russo-Turkish War, and in the consequent depression of trade even the silky-haired, valuable Angora goat was to be cheaply bought We purchased three hundred of these animals. But misfortunes never come alone. In a year's time a disease broke out among the greater part of the animals in our province, and almost all our goats died. My mother, in her simple faith, attributed this to kismet, and consoled herself and us accordingly.

My mother is a woman of tact and great natural intelligence, but owing to the backward condition of women in the East, due to their surroundings, her intelligence has not had the benefit of culture. She is, of course, a fatalist, and she believes all she is told by her religious teachers, who are not very learned themselves. She is not ignorant; on the contrary, she was in her time the most well-read woman of our town. Indeed, so far was she in advance of the other ladies, that they used to visit her for the purpose of hearing her read aloud from the books of sacred legends and hymns which are their principal literature. She cannot write at all. This perhaps requires some explanation. Formerly girls in Turkey were not allowed to learn the mystery of caligraphy. We have had some excellent poetesses in days gone by, but none of them could write—they dictated their inspirations. The common explanation given of this traditional prohibition—for it is a custom rather than a rule—was that if girls once learned writing they might have indulged in talismanic pastimes, and eventually have become witches. As a matter of fact, the real reason was quite different There was a fear, perhaps not ill-founded, that having once learned to write they might hasten to make use of the accomplishment by composing love-letters to young men with whom they could not otherwise communicate, for the strict seclusion of females cuts off all intercourse between young people of opposite sexes almost as soon as they have ceased to be infants. This absurd, in fact harmful, prohibition has of late, and for some time past, been losing its force. But it was still strictly observed in my mother's younger days, and so she was not allowed to learn to write. In spite, however, of her incomplete education, she kept us happy, and by her inborn tact preserved the appearance of our social standing. All members of my mother's family have a practical business-like instinct, a quality which is so conspicuously lacking in those Turks who have no strain of foreign blood. I am convinced that there is some European blood in the veins of my mother's ancestors. She belongs to a family of soldiers who for generations were charged by the Ottoman Sultans with the defence of the provinces and the frontiers of Bosnia and Herzegovina In those days the Turks used to make slaves of their captives in war, just as their enemies used to carry Turks into permanent captivity when invading their territory. The antecedents of the people so enslaved can be traced even now in Hungary and Austria by their Turkish names. But the captives of the Turks, as a rule, had to adopt Turkish names, and so the presence of European blood can only be determined in Turkey by the personal appearance and characteristics of the descendants of the captives. My mother's soldier-ancestors doubtless intermarried with European captives. I before disclaimed all pretensions or desire to pass myself off as a descendant of a European race when I was describing the Asiatic origin of my forefathers. I am not, nevertheless, contradicting myself here; for when the pedigree of a person is being considered with us, it is only his ancestry on the father's side that counts.

My mother passes a most retired life in her town and summer houses. In town there is a market-place situated a few minutes' distance from our house, which she has never seen in her whole life. She went, however, to Mecca on a pilgrimage some five years ago.