^^■, 



A PORTER, OR HAMAL : CONSTANTINOPLE; 



Photo by H. G. Dwight 



"Each kind of work ... is done chiefly by men from a certain 'country.' So it is 

 that the men who sell ice-cream in the streets are Albanians, Christian and Mohammedan, 

 from the region of Uskub ; that the layers of the pavements are Mohammedan Albanians 

 of the south; that railroad navvies — or those of the Roumelian Railroad — are Christian 

 Albanians from the same region; that bath men are Turks from Sivas ; that street porters 

 are Kurds or Asia Minor Turks, according to the kind of load they carry; that most boat- 

 men are from the Black Sea coast, and so on indefinitely." 



the; lighte;rme;n's guild 



During the unpleasantness with Aus- 

 tria which followed the annexation of 

 Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that with 

 Greece which preceded the Balkan war, 

 they declared a boycott of Austrian and 

 of Greek commerce, which no mere 

 money inducement could persuade them 

 to break. In this case the government 

 was undoubtedly behind them, as it often 

 is, for the commerce of Constantinople 

 is almost entirely in non-Turkish hands ; 

 but the government itself finds them 

 tough customers to tackle, and has al- 

 ways hesitated seriously to do so. The 

 lightermen are all Laz, inhabitants of 



the ancient Colchis, in whose veins still 

 seems to run the blood of Medea. As 

 for the custom-house porters, they be- 

 long to the redoubtable tribe of Kiirds. 

 The lightermen are the last of a great 

 race to hold their heads high, and you 

 might spend a lifetime in Constantinople 

 without coming into contact with them ; 

 but you could hardly escape coming into 

 contact with the porters — the hamcils, as 

 they are called. Whether you arrive 

 from abroad, or buy goods, or build a 

 house, or move from one to another, or 

 lay in fuel for the winter, or otherwise 

 require to transport property, it is with 

 hamdls that you deal ; for they perform, 

 on their own broad backs or by means 



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