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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



nothing will be touched, and members of 

 the guild patrol the streets of their quar- 

 ter at night, beating the hour on the 

 pavement with their clubs. Since the 

 new regime some attempt has been made 

 to curb their ardor in this respect ; but 

 they still give warning of any fire that 

 may take place. If the smallest blaze be 

 reported from the most distant suburb, 

 every bekji in Constantinople goes 

 through his beat bawling at the top of 

 his voice : "There is a fire !" going on to 

 announce where it is. The sound is 

 eery enough to hear in the dead of night, 

 as one starts from a sound sleep. 



THE RIGHT TO CHOP WOOD 



Another customary right of hamdls is 

 to chop up whatever fire-wood may be 

 bought in their quarter. The saw is an 

 instrument unknown to them. In the 

 villages of the Bosporus they also main- 

 tain a barge called a pazdr ka'ik, in which 

 they stand to the heavy oars, falling with 

 them on the stroke. Every day except 

 Friday this stately looking craft, with its 

 fine incurving bow, makes a journey to 

 town, and the hamdls afterward distrib- 

 ute its return freight on their backs. To 

 this end they wear a sort of hump of 

 sole leather, suspended from their shoul- 

 ders by two arm holes. The strength of 

 these men is something prodigious. They 

 make nothing of carrying two good-sized 

 trunks for a mile or two. I have even 

 known of one man carrying on his back 

 an ordinary piano. 



The: men who move; you 



It is reall}^ another sort of man, how- 

 ever, who enjoys the privilege of carry- 

 ing pianos. You will receive new light 

 on the complicated subject of porters if 

 during your sojourn in Constantinople 

 you have occasion to move. No experi- 

 ence of that calamity that you have 

 gained in other countries will be of the 

 slightest service to you here. Do not 

 imagine that you can get any one to do it 

 for you, packing your furniture into 

 padded vans and setting it up in your 

 new house ready for use. Still less im- 

 agine that you can do it yourself, even 

 though you have carts and porters of 

 your own. 



If your own men start to take your 

 own furniture out of your own door to 

 your own cart they will be stopped — by 

 the firemen of the quarter, if you please. 

 These are a race of beings well-nigh as 

 formidable as the custom-house hamdls 

 and the lightermen. They do not hap- 

 pen to be of any one race. Some of 

 them are Turks, some of them are 

 Greeks, some of them are even Arme- 

 nians or Jews. It depends on the dis- 

 trict they come from. I suppose they 

 have gained a common character from 

 the fact that they are young and not too 

 fastidious members of society, whose 

 true element is tumult and disaster. 



Just what firemen have to do with 

 moving may seem highly problematical 

 to the householder anxious to transfer 

 his lares and penates. He will find to 

 his cost, however, that they have a good 

 deal to do with it. They- move furniture 

 when there is a fire. Since, therefore, 

 there are unhappily not fires enough to 

 give them constant employment, they 

 claim the right 'to move furniture when- 

 ever furniture is to be moved; and they 

 obtain the right. 



But mark that each company does it 

 only in his own quarter. If you move 

 into a district ruled by a second set of 

 firemen they insist on unloading your 

 furniture and carrying it into your new 

 house — while, perhaps, your own men 

 stand by with folded hands. If they use 

 their hands at all it becomes a question 

 of fists ; and the police have no redress 

 to offer you. The matter, you see, is one 

 into which custom enters — that adet 

 which is all powerful in Turkey. 



the; city's pump-me;n 



For a long time Constantinople had no 

 other firemen than these touloumbajis, 

 as they are called — pump-men. Now 

 there is' a military fire brigade, but it is 

 far too small and its cumbersome engines 

 fare ill in the steep and narrow streets. 

 The irregulars still flourish, accordingly, 

 and contribute not a little to the local 

 color of the place as they hoot half naked 

 to a fire. 



Unlike most firemen, they go bare- 

 headed and barefooted, led by a man 

 swinging, in the daytime, a brass wand. 



