Part 3 (2/2)
They reside chiefly in Salonica, and are very fanatical, and were the ringleaders of a riot against the Christians in 1870. On the other hand, several have distinguished themselves recently by joining the Reform Party in Turkey, known as Young Turks, who overthrew Sultan Hamid, and introduced the Const.i.tution.
Perhaps they are the only cla.s.s of Jews who are seamen, and it is interesting to watch their flotilla of small boats board the steamers that arrive in Salonica. From their screams and shouts, you would think yourself in pandemonium. The originator of the sect was a certain Sabbatai Levy, who proclaimed himself the Messiah in 1648, but afterwards accepted Mahomedanism to save his life. His adherents believe in his return, and it is stated that one of their number always awaits the arrival of the railway-train in Salonica to offer him a welcome.
Jews in Turkey are not relegated to ghettos, as in several European cities, but all the same they live in separate quarters, as, indeed, do all the other nationalities. Their quarters may be recognized by their malodorous smells, their filth, and the numerous families residing in the houses, and also from the babel of tongues, and the shrill, discordant voices of women or children shouting to each other or quarrelling.
Jews in the East engage princ.i.p.ally in commerce, banking, money-changing, p.a.w.nbrokerage, dealings on the Stock Exchange, watchmaking, and shopkeeping.
A feature among them is the early age at which boys commence earning their daily bread. As young as six or seven you may see them going about with trays containing cigarette-papers, pins, matches, and similar cheap articles. Boys in this country will marvel at the ease and rapidity with which mere tots can work calculations mentally in the course of their business.
When they grow up to manhood many engage in window-cleaning, an occupation which has come to be a Jewish speciality, and which an Eastern servant will resent if called upon to undertake. Others go about riveting or cementing broken china, or, with a small charcoal brazier and soldering irons, as tinkers; others sell a special kind of sand for cleaning pots and pans, which they hawk about under its Latin name of _arena_. Some make a speciality of buying, was.h.i.+ng, and sorting empty bottles, which they afterwards re-sell with profit; others, of course, buy up old clothes, or, with a capacious wooden box slung over their back, go about selling all those little articles which are indispensable to ladies. When called to a house they spread out all their paraphernalia, and the bargaining, which Easterns take such a delight in, begins--buyer and seller trying to outwit and deceive each other--the housewife feeling happy and virtuous all day if she has beaten down the Jew to one-third of his demands, and the Jew unhappy because he had not charged more.
Hebrew marriages in the East occur at an early period of life, fifteen with girls and eighteen with boys, and even earlier in Palestine. The result is large families and much dest.i.tution, but with all that one seldom sees any Jewish beggars, their system for relief of poverty being so admirable. They are frugal in their habits, living largely on bread, salt-fish, leeks, and onions, and, during the season, on fruits. The produce sold in their shambles is, moreover, of the cheapest and most inferior quality, yet, notwithstanding all this, the Jews are the longest lived and healthiest of the Eastern races.
The dress of those in Constantinople consists of two or three long gowns, open below the knees; the sleeves are long. Their head-dress is the Turkish fez. In winter they wear long furs over their gowns. Married women cover their hair with a sort of bag-like embroidered kerchief, called _yemeni_, which is painted with flowers and ornamented with lace and seed-pearls.
Within recent years much has been done, both by the Jewish Alliance and the Scottish and English Mission Schools, to educate boys and girls, and there is certainly a great improvement.
Jews are fatalists, and are convinced that the decrees of fate are unalterable, yet they imagine that Providence may be cheated and thus deterred from its purposes. Accordingly, if Joseph happens to fall ill, and there is a likelihood of his dying, they forthwith change his name into, we will say, Benjamin, and they expect that when the Angel of Death arrives to fulfil his mission he will think he has made a mistake, and gone to the wrong house. So everyone in the room keeps addressing the invalid as Benjamin, and, should he recover, they all congratulate themselves on their masterly deception.
Another expedient, but princ.i.p.ally connected with children's ailments, is to trap the malevolent demon who has induced the sickness, and this they profess to do by laying a trail of sugar from the child's sick-bed to a well. The greedy demon follows the track, and gets drowned!
Dread of the evil-eye is as prevalent with the Jews as with the other races in Turkey. They believe that there are certain malignant spirits in existence who are envious of men's happiness and do all they can to destroy it, especially when any self-praise or praise by others has been expressed by the lips. This power, it is further believed, is not restricted to demons, but is also shared by individuals, especially those possessing blue eyes. Quite an elaborate series of antidotes or prophylactics are adopted as a preservative against such influence, the most potent of which is to prefix to each commendation the magic spell-word _Mashalla_--_i.e._, ”In the name of G.o.d.” To this may be added the power of the blue bead, the evil spirit having a great predilection for that colour. Hence, if you praise a child for its beauty, and it happens to wear blue beads, the spirit's attention will be so absorbed with the bead that it will not hear your remarks. Another preservative is garlic, which has a repellent effect on the evil spirit.
As a consequence, everything in Turkey that has to be protected from the evil-eye is decorated either with the one or the other, and you seldom see a horse, a draught ox, or even a donkey, that has not a string of blue beads about its neck. Children wear these charms on their caps; and the prows of boats, the roofs of houses, cages of birds, and even hovels have a bunch of garlic suspended with strings. It is even stated that bouquets of flowers formed of spices, and in the centre of which garlic is nestled, are sent as a present to the mother of a new-born infant, as a safeguard both to herself and the child.
Suspended along with the garlic on the gables of Turkish houses framed texts from the Koran are often to be seen, and on the doorposts of Hebrew houses a small tablet with the word _Shadai_ (the Almighty).
Jewish houses have also imprinted on the walls the impress of a man's hand, with the five fingers outstretched. In Christian houses the prophylactic takes the form of a cross, which frequently is nailed on the eaves during the process of building.
CHAPTER VII
GIPSIES--SUPERSt.i.tIONS
A people resembling the Jews in that, like them, they are ”found scattered toward all the four winds of heaven, and there is no nation whither these outcasts have not come,” are the gipsies. They are to be met with in every part of the Sultan's dominions, and in physical appearance, manners, and character they are very similar to those in our country.
Moslems and Christians vie with each other in holding them in execration, and they are branded by the former as the _Kitabsis_, or ”bookless” nation, because of the unwritten form of their beliefs and wors.h.i.+p. Yet the presence of gipsy-girls at weddings and other ceremonies is much in demand, in order to amuse the guests with their dancing and singing, to the accompaniment of the tambourine or the flute.
The men are frequently blacksmiths, or they rear horses and donkeys (besides stealing them), and frequently earn something by the sale of a.s.ses' milk, which is considered beneficial for chest complaints. The she-a.s.s is led early in the morning to the patient's door, and the newly-drawn milk taken while quite warm and frothy.
The children, of course, beg and steal, but the most fruitful occupation of the women is that of fortune-telling, the usual methods employed being the reading of the palm of the hand and cards. A little mirror placed in the bottom of a small box is also consulted.
But divination and fortune-telling is not limited to gipsies; tall negro-women, with great rolling eyes, may be seen seated on the ground in public squares, with groups of inquirers of both s.e.xes around them.
They divine by means of beans or black pebbles (see ill.u.s.tration facing Chapter VII.).
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