LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE 



545 



ers may be surprised to hear that all of 

 them are Turkish. The trouble with 

 them is that they are largely independent 

 of each other and contain very little ex- 

 cept for the Orientalist. They were all 

 formed and endowed at a time when 

 learning for a Turk consisted in the 

 Koran, its commentaries, the chronicles 

 of the Empire, and the Turkish and Per- 

 sian poets. Of classic or foreign litera- 

 ture, or of works of reference and re- 

 search, they contain practically nothing, 

 while to very few of them has a book 

 been added since the day they were 

 opened. Even these little libraries are 

 lacking among the non-Moslem peoples 

 of the city. The}^, like the Europeans, 

 have access to no other libraries than the 

 very inadequate ones of a few institu- 

 tions, and then not too easily. 



Mr. Carnegie is doubtless too busy 

 planning new philanthropies to read mag- 

 azines ; but if any one who knows him 

 should happen to see this page, let him 

 suggest to the Father of Libraries that 

 no library he ever gave was so badly 

 needed as is a modern public library in 

 Constantinople today, fairly complete at 

 least in French, German, Greek, and 

 Turkish literature of all classes. But it 

 should be fully endowed, in order to do 

 its best work of serving as a model and 

 school of its kind. 



NOT give;n to sports 



As for sport, there is a little more to 

 be said. The one real Turkish sport is 

 wrestling. The wrestlers wear loose 

 leather breeches ; they oil themselves 

 from top to toe, and they permit any 

 kind of hold that will bring a man down. 

 Gentlemen, accordingly, do not indulge 

 in so ungentlemanly a pastime ! 



Unfortunately for their own stock, 

 they are not greatly inclined to indulge 

 in any other, though the Young Turks 

 are attempting to arouse interest in races 

 and games. It will be some time before 

 such novelties really become acclimated 



among men who love above all things to 

 sit under a tree and roll cigarettes. But 

 this is a matter in which people are able 

 to please themselves without much or- 

 ganization or outlay, and Europeans find 

 Constantinople an excellent theater for 

 riding, hunting, games, and water sports. 

 In the lack of other diversions, walking, 

 exploring of various kinds, even mild 

 archeologizing, become serious forms of 

 distraction. 



The city itself, with all its historic and 

 human interest and the infinite variety 

 of its surroundings, is after all the great 

 resource. People usually imagine Con- 

 stantinople to possess that vague advan- 

 tage known as a Mediterranean climate. 



NOT A PIvEASANT CLIMATlJ 



They forget that it has the Black Sea 

 at its back, and behind that the steppes 

 of Russia. Winter in Constantinople is 

 long and disagreeable, not because of its 

 cold, which is rarely severe, but because 

 of its darkness and penetrating damp- 

 ness. There may be a late Indian sum- 

 mer and there may be spring days in 

 February; but you cannot count on the 

 sun between October and April. Those 

 six months are really a rainy season, 

 only less rainy than in tropical countries. 



And summer is correspondinglv dry, 

 when showers are rarities and hillsides 

 scorch brown. The summers are not hot, 

 however, in our American sense; the 

 Black Sea looks to that. A Constanti- 

 nople summer is cooler than a Delaware, 

 a New Jersey, a Long Island, or, I fancy, 

 than a Massachusetts summer. The 

 Bosporus is never so cold in July and 

 August as the Atlantic can be north of 

 Cape Cod; but, on the other hand, I 

 have never seen the temperature of the 

 shores of the Bosporus so high as I have 

 seen it on the north shore or even on 

 the coast of Maine. Altogether, Con- 

 stantinople has the makings of a mag- 

 nificent summer resort — though I am not 

 sure, I hope the world will find it out. 



