EUROPEAN TURKE\ 



715 



ttbank tricks, which they practise adroitly. The Turks have a great respect for all things 

 connected with Mahomet, and their reverence for the Koran is extreme. They will pick 

 up a piece of paper in the street, to see if it be not a fragment of the Koran. The sacred 

 camel, that leads the pilgrimage to Mecca, is a descendant of Mahomet's camel, and the 

 great standard of the empire, seldom unfurled, and a sight of which is considered equal to a 

 pilgrimage, is no less a thing than the prophet's breeches. 



The Koran prescribes the attitudes of prayer, and the time which the ]\Iuezzin calls from 

 the minaret of the mosque, for there are no bells. "Come to prayer," cries he in the morn- 

 ing, " there is no God but God. Come to prayers ; prayer is better than sleep." At noon 

 he adds, " prayer is better than food." The JMussulmans, when they pray, turn towards 

 Mecca ; and they are much absorbed in their prayers, praying with great fervor and awe. The 

 fasts are strictly kept, and in that of Ramazan, it is not lawful to taste so much as a drop of 

 water during the day, from one new moon to another. During this fast, it is no time to solicit 

 a favor from the devout. After the fast, comes the feast of Bairain, which is carried to great 

 excess. The mosques are generally supported by bequests of money given for religions pur- 

 poses, and this is one of the few safe dispositions of it in Turkey. Wells, fountains, inns, 

 hospitals, &c. are founded in the same way. The Turks are strict in rendering alms, which 

 are annually about 2| per cent on their property. 



Marriages in Turkey are mere contracts, made chiefly by the parents and friends of the 

 parties. Two children are betrothed at a tender age, sometimes at 3 or 4, and when the en- 

 gagement is completed, at mature years, the bride is carried in a procession to the husband's 

 house. Divorces are had almost at the will of the husband ; for, though he have no cause, he 

 can find witnesses at every coffee-house ; as no crime is more frequent, or more lightly pun- 

 ished in Turkey, than perjury. The wife's portion is retained by herself, after divorce. 

 The usual allowance, called in this country pin-money, is known in Turkey as slipper-money. 

 After divorce, however, it is not permitted to the parties to come together again, till the wife 

 has lived with another man. Courtship is much curtailed in Turkey. The sexes never meet 

 in society, and to salute a lady in the street, is the height of rudeness. Politeness prescribes, 

 that a gentleman should look the other way. A flower dropped in a lady's path, is an intima- 

 tion of affection ; and the female pedler, or other emissary, mny carry the swain in return, an 

 embroidered handkerchief ; but there is no correspondence, no billets-doux but those of 

 flowers. Flowers have an amatory and poetical meaning, sufficient to express the usual senti- 

 ments of love and hope, suspense and favor. It is not, however, because it is poetical, that 

 this language of flowers is in Turkey that of love, for to Turkish ladies a written billet would 

 be an unfathomable mystery ; to read and write is no part of their education ; poetry and 

 romance they have none except in feeling. 



" No bustling Botherbys have they, to show 'em 

 That charming passage in the last new poem." 



The Turks bury their dead naked, and place them with their faces towards Mecca. The 

 burying grounds are shaded with cypress trees, and neatly kept ; it is common to see females 

 in them placing flowers around the graves. A turban, rudely carved on a stone, is placed 

 over the grave of a male, and a vase over that of a female. On the tombs of unmarried 

 females, instead of the vase is a rose. 



18. Government. The form of government is a pure, unmixed despotism, and there is 

 nothing to stay the authority of the Sultan but public opinion, a feeble interposition in Turkey. 

 The monarchy is hereditary, though the sultans are sometimes deposed. They are not 

 crowned, but girded with the sword of Mahomet ; and it is to their capacity of successors to 

 the prophet, that they owe the most of their power. It is considered martyrdom to die by the 

 Sultan's command, and utterly disgraceful to fly from the mandate of death. On such occa- 

 sions a subject's very wives have often turned against him. The sultans have ever had in a 

 great degree the Turkish prodigality of life ; it is an established principle in public opinion, that 

 they may take fourteen lives daily. The males, who are by collateral birth near the throne, 

 are either murdered or imprisoned. The sultana valide, or mother of the Sultan, has gene- 

 rally much influence in the state. The Sultan is called by his subjects, in the way of rebuke, 

 the " son of a slave " ; and his education gives him a slave's vices, before he attains to a mas- 

 ter's power. His palace is, at the same time, a prison and a shambles ; and no place in this 

 upper world has been stained with more violence and iniustlce than the seraglio ; there is al- 

 ways some plot here to supplant a favorite, and the denouement of every plot is blood ; for in 



