Part 4 (2/2)

The Bedouins live also on bread, which they bake in thin flat cakes, and on milk, specially in its fermented condition, which they call _leben_.

Their b.u.t.ter they have to keep in summer in jars, as, owing to the heat, it is then as liquid as oil.

The great province of Mesopotamia, where formerly stood Babylon and Nineveh, forms the south-eastern limit of the Turkish Empire. Watered by the Euphrates and the Tigris, it was once a magnificent agricultural district, but the incompetency of its rulers has allowed the network of ca.n.a.ls, which distributed the waters of these rivers, to dry up, and the country is now largely a wilderness.

Its population, the remnant of the Chaldeans, has also decreased, and is poor. The houses are made with sun-dried bricks, cemented with bitumen.

The roofs are flat, and the lower rooms are underground, and are used during the summer months as bedrooms, owing to the excessive heat.

The navigation of the upper reaches of the Euphrates is by means of rafts, underneath which are inflated skins of oxen. On this raft the traveller's tent is pitched, and he drifts leisurely down the river, while the boatmen help it along with long poles.

CHAPTER IX

TURKS

Having summarized the customs of some of the people under Ottoman rule, I must say something of the Turks themselves.

When a Turkish baby comes to this world no dainty embroidered linen and warm bath await it, but it is dressed in a plain cotton s.h.i.+rt and a cotton, quilted dressing-gown. Its limbs are then tightly wrapped in a long shroud, so that it cannot move them. Frequently a cus.h.i.+on is put between its legs before shrouding, and this probably accounts for so many children being bandy-legged. The child is then rolled into a quilted blanket, which is strapped up into a shapeless bundle, from which a little head appears, wearing a red cap, copiously studded with blue beads and seed pearls, as a protection from the evil-eye. The baby is then laid in a wooden rocking-cradle, which has a bar connecting its two raised ends, by means of which the cradle is lifted. Some of these cradles are very beautiful, and are inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl, and they bear appropriate inscriptions, carved in Arabic characters on the woodwork, such as ”Under the Shadow of the Almighty,” etc.

Among poorer people a canvas hammock takes the place of the cradle, and in it the baby is carried out of doors, and the hammock swung between two trees, while the mother attends to her duties.

On the third day after birth it is washed and presented to its father, who shouts thrice in its ear the name by which it is to be known.

A festive reception is then held by the mother in her room, and streams of women-visitors come to compliment her and peep at the infant. But the poor little thing does not receive the baby-wors.h.i.+p and adulation bestowed in this country. On the contrary, it is addressed in insulting language, and called ugly, and a wretch, and a monster, and is deliberately spat upon--and all this in order to ward off the influence of the evil-eye.

It is quite exceptional for a babe to be brought up in the East on the bottle; should its mother be unable to nurse it a wet-nurse is procured.

Both mothers and nurses are singularly ignorant in the question of upbringing, and many an infant dies through injudicious feeding after it is weaned.

The love of Turkish parents for their children is excessive to a fault.

A characteristic story is related of a Turk who was so distressed at the indisposition of his grandchild that he would neglect his business and hasten constantly to the patient's room to inquire as to his condition; and when the doctor ordered strict diet for a fortnight the anxious grandfather compelled his whole household, including himself, to submit to the same fare, for fear that the patient might be disappointed in not sharing the food of the family.

To such extent do Turks carry their love for children that they will adopt those of others, and bring them up with the same tenderness as their own, and will provide for them in after-life.

Children, on the other hand, are exemplary in their respect for their parents, and kiss their hands, and will not sit down, unless invited, in their presence. Even when they have reached mature age their mother is consulted, confided in, and listened to with respect. ”My wives die,”

says the Osmanlee, ”and I replace them; my children perish, and others are born to me; but who shall restore to me the mother who has pa.s.sed away?”

Nor is this regard limited to the humbler cla.s.ses; it is conspicuous in the case of the Sultan, who, on his accession to the throne, elevates his mother to the rank of Valide Sultana, or Queen-Mother, and requires all persons belonging to his harem to swear allegiance to her. Her rule is absolute, and even the Sultan's wives cannot leave their apartments, or go out for drives, or shopping, without her permission.

The early childhood of both boys and girls among Turks is spent in the harem--that is, the section of the house reserved for the women--but until the age of twelve, girls are not subject to the restraints of grown-up women, nor required to wear the veil, and they often accompany their fathers in excursions or join the boys in their play. They even attend the same elementary school, and, sitting cross-legged with them on a mat, repeat the alphabet, or recite texts from the Koran given out to them by the _imam_, or priest, of the mosque with which the school is connected. These recitations are carried on in a monotonous drawling tone, and the body is swung forwards and backwards, the _imam_ himself setting the time by his own rhythmical nodding.

On their return home they frequently join their mothers and other inmates of the harem in an afternoon's stroll. The Turks are great lovers of Nature, and have a keen appreciation of the beautiful, but prefer sitting down to walking, and generally spend their afternoons resting under the shade of a great tree, or near the water's edge, making _kef_, or, in other words, doing nothing.

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