# The Real Turk

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Stanwood Cobb, The Real Turk, Boston: The Pilgrim Press, 1914, bahai-library.com.
> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
> 
> ;
> VOOD COBB
> UTHOR.
> THE REAL TURK
> 
> by
> 
> STANWOOD COBB
> 
> THE PILGRIM PRESS
> BOSTON    NEW YORK   CHICAGO
> C/
> 
> Copyright 1914
> 
> By    STANWOOD COBB
> 
> THE PILGRIM PRESS
> BOSTON
> DEDICATED
> TO MY MOTHER
> Fidelis in Litteris
> 
> 331087
> FOREWORD
> At    present   troubled
> Turkey is attracting
> more and more attention from those who follow
> world affairs. The question in every mind is,
> "How will things turn out?" In order, how-
> ever, to   form any adequate conception of the
> future of a race, one must have studied the race
> at first hand, and must be acquainted with "the
> 
> soul of the people."      The time has gone by when
> every race not white is assigned to a predestined
> barbarism.     We are beginning to believe that the
> future     may   belong    to     the   Chinese,   to   the
> 
> Japanese, to the Hindu, as well as to the Anglo-
> Saxon. Will it belong also to the Turk, or must
> he be condemned to a helpless inferiority?
> It was my good fortune to spend three event-
> ful years in  Turkey during a period which saw
> the rise of the Young Turk Party and the down-
> fall   of Abdul Hamid; and I had excellent op-
> 
> portunities for studying the possibilities of the
> Turk and comparing him with the races amidst
> [vii]
> THE REAL TURK
> which he lives     the Greek, the Jewish, the Ar-
> menian and the Bulgarian.
> In the course of these years I grew to love the
> Turk, as do all Americans who live among them.
> I tried to understand his character, his temper-
> ament and his way of looking at life.        I was
> 
> constantly analyzing the Oriental customs, in
> order to distinguish the factors of race, climate,
> environment and religion which make the Turk
> what he is.     The conclusions which I reached I
> present to the reader, feeling sure that he will
> find here a true portrait of the Turk,      and one
> that does him what justice is in my power.
> What will be the future of Turkey? In spite
> of the many misfortunes, discouragements and
> evilsthrough which the Land of Allah and the
> Crescent is passing, I have never given up my
> faith in the ultimate salvation of this brave and
> 
> admirable people.      There are still true patriots
> in    Turkey    men whom I know and love        and
> if   the reins of government can but fall into
> their hands, true progress will ensue.
> 
> Some may accuse me of giving too favorable
> an impression of the Turk and of his religion.
> That there are many evils to deplore in the in-
> THE REAL TURK
> stitutions,   government and religion of Turkey,
> I would be the last to deny; but so much has
> been written of these more unfavorable aspects
> that I prefer to present the    good side of the
> Turk, believing that the best way of helping a
> people, as is the case with an individual,       is   by
> seeing their good qualities rather than their bad.
> I hope this book will bring to the reader a new
> 
> point of view, depicting the life of the Turk and
> his character in   such a way as to give a better
> 
> understanding of that much-maligned race.
> Several chapters of it were written for mag-
> azine publication.Chapters I and IX and a
> part of chapter XIII have been published in
> The Boston Transcript; parts of Chapters VIII
> and XI in The Open Court; and Chapter V
> in The New England Magazine.
> 
> I take pleasure here in thanking the friends
> who have helped in the making of the book             my
> dear Oriental brother, Halousi Hussein, Pro-
> fessor of Turkish at    Robert College, for much
> of the material that has gone into the book Miss
> ;
> 
> Hester D. Jenkins, formerly Professor of His-
> tory at the American College for Girls, and Dr.
> George Washburn, twenty years President of
> [ix]
> THE REAL TURK
> Robert College, for reviewing the manuscript;
> and my brother, Percival B. Cobb, for a final
> reading of the manuscript, for the revision of
> the proof sheets, and for constructive criticism.
> 
> STANWOOD COBB.
> Newton Upper Falls
> June 16, 1914.
> CONTENTS
> CHAPTER
> I     Character and Climate       ....
> Climate an Important Factor in History The
> PAGE
> 
> American's Contempt for Turkish Indolence Yet
> He Succumbs to It Himself Enervating Effects of
> the Turkish Climate Customs of the Country-
> Peculiar Effects of Climate on Mentality "Never
> Do Today What You Can Put Off till Tomorrow"
> Delightful Dreaminess of the Orient The Fascina-
> tion of the East
> 
> II    The Turk Still a Medieval         ...
> The Turks a Kindly People Yet Still Barbarous
> 
> The Oriental and the Occidental Cruelties of the
> Turks The Explanation A Change for the Better
> The Turk a Medieval in Religion Also in Educa-
> tion
> 
> III    The Turk as a Citizen        ....
> Loyal to His Sultan and His Religion Soldier and
> 
> Citizen Peculiar Oriental Methods of Government
> The Novelty of Citizenship The First Taste of
> Liberty A Visit to the Turkish Parliament Recep-
> tion of Delegates on Their Return to Native
> Countries
> 
> IV      The Turk in Business        ....
> Turks not Naturally Traders Very Honest as
> 
> Merchants and as Servants Have Little Ambition
> Do not Solicit Business^ Methods of Industry and
> Business Medieval The Turkish Merchant Has a
> Sense of Leisure, and Is not a Slave to the Dollar
> 
> V     The Eternal Feminine         ....
> Oriental Attitude towards the Gentler Sex Mo-
> 
> hammedanism not Solely Responsible The Usual
> Life of a Turkish Lady Evils of Polygamy
> 
> [xi]
> THE REAL TURK
> CHAPTER                                                                PAGE
> 
> Polygamy and the West The Mohammedan's De-
> fence of Polygamy Turks Treat Women Better
> than Do Other Oriental Races The Sentiment
> Against Polygamy Character of Turkish Women
> The Revolution and the New Freedom Halliday
> Hanum Changing Conditions Love and Marriage
> The Oriental Dream
> 
> VI      At Home                                                       83
> The "Simple Life" in the Orient Domestic Habits
> of the Turk Common Sense in Clothes Headgear
> and Footwear Need of Tolerance for Other
> People's Customs Turkish Diet Favorite Dishes-
> Delicious      Fruit   and   Vegetables   of     the   Orient
> Pilaff   A Persian Dinner
> VII       A Great Ottoman Patriot and Teacher                     .    105
> and Character Tewfik Fikret Bey His
> Sacrifice
> Youth Becomes Teacher and Editor His Influence
> for  Good Persecuted by Abdul Hamid The
> Tragedy of Helplessness         Means of Diversion Pro-
> fessor at Robert College        His Charming Wife The
> Revolution New Opportunities for Service Fik-
> ret'sVision of the Perfect School Fikret a Poet
> His Lofty Character
> 
> VIII      Turkish Schools                                              127
> Turkish Education in a Process of Transition
> The Mosque Schools No Higher Education for
> Women Secondary Schools for Boys The Galata
> Serai A Progressive Turkish Educator The Otto-
> man University Turkish Theological Schools A
> Visit to the University of Cairo Intellectual Stag-
> nation
> 
> IX       American Influence on Turkish Education                 .    143
> American Schools Had Nothing to               Do with the
> Turkish Revolution Influence of Missionary Schools
> Confined Largely to Christian Population of Tur-
> key Missionary and Mohammedan Great Scholars
> Among the Turkish Missionaries            A
> Movement to
> Reorganize and Endow the Mission Schools of
> Turkey      Robert College     Its   Influence    The Syrian
> 
> [xii]
> THE REAL TURK
> CHAPTER                                                        PAGE
> 
> Protestant College at Beirut    Career of Dr. Post
> The American College for Girls    Amateur Theatri-
> cals in the Orient  Different Events of the College
> Year     Commencement Future of the Girl Gradu-
> ates    A Splendid Testimony
> X      The Education of Oriental Boys at Robert
> College                                          167
> Their Eagerness for Study Their Thoughtfulness
> The Ancient Sources of Education in the Near
> East Modern Languages and Oriental Learning
> The Enthusiasm of the Students Early Maturity of
> Thought The Marvelous Greek Mind The Suicide
> Club Problems of Oriental Boys Student Anar-
> chistsTeacher and Pupil The Joy of Teaching
> 
> XI      Islam                                                 185
> The Religion of Mohammed Cannot Be Despised
> Its  Civilizing Influence in Arabia Its Rapid
> Spread What Europe Owes to the Arabian Civiliza-
> tionThe Spell of Islam     Its Simplicity   Devotions
> and Observances Influence of Islam Waning Among
> Educated Moslems The Mosque Service on Friday
> The Pilgrimage to Mecca Tolerant Attitude of
> Islam toward Christianity Points of Agreement
> and Difference Islam and the Revolution Mistaken
> Missionary Methods The Cultured Turk an Eclectic
> 
> XII     Islam and the Inner Life       ....
> Sunnis and Shiites Sufi Mysticism The Dervish
> 
> Orders   Bektashis   Bahaism    Its History, Baba
> Ullah and His Teachings Is the East more Spir-
> itual than the West? "Inshallah" Fatalism The
> Oriental Calm Attitude toward Death The Mos-
> lem Lives His Religion His Devotions Total Ab-
> stinenceThe Oriental not Worldly His Mind
> Dwells on Eternity and not on Material Things Ori-
> ental and Occidental Attitudes
> 
> XIII    Peculiar Rites and Beliefs of Islam        .    .      241
> The Night of Power at St. Sophia Its Impressive-
> ness The Power of Fanaticism Howling Der-
> 
> [xiii]
> THE REAL TURK
> CHAPTER                                                          PAGE
> 
> vishes    Phenomena   for   Abnormal Psychologist
> the
> to Study Strange Immunity from Pain and In-
> jury Incredulity and the Unexplained Religious
> Parallels The Dancing Dervishes The Bektashis
> General Observations on the Dervishes The Ghastly
> Persian Festival The Month of Ramazan Night
> Scenes    Bayram
> 
> XIV       Faith Healing in the Orient           .      .   .     269
> Faith Healing among the Howling Dervishes
> Sacred Springs Holy Men Forms of Magic
> Professional Healers Peculiar Religious Survivals
> Mohammedan      Superstitions   The       Mohammedan
> View     of Death   Mohammedan      Cemeteries
> 
> XV     Brotherhood of East and West            ...
> Contact through Education The Ideal of World
> 
> Peace The East and the West Emerson the Great
> Interpreter of the East to the West Oriental Re-
> ligions Broad The Broadening Effect of Education
> The Awakening of the East An Ideal Civiliza-
> tion Would Result from the Mingling of the Oriental
> and Occidental Elements       America's Opportunity
> The Brotherhood of Man
> 
> [xiv]
> LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
> Author                                            Frontispiece
> FACING PAGE
> The Sweet Waters of Asia                                    18
> An Original Turk                                            24
> A Typical Untamed Turk                                      80
> Typical Turkish Citizens                                    49
> A Typical Turkish House                                     68
> Gypsy Women
> A Vender of Liquorice Water
> An Old Style Turk
> ....                      68
> A Training Class of Turkish Girls         .   .      .     146
> A Group from American College for Girls       .      .     164
> A Turkish Mullah
> Turks travelling Deck Passage
> Some Queer Deck Passengers
> ....
> .       .   .      .
> St.   Sophia                                              245
> A Turkish Coffee Shop                                     264
> The Ancient Hippodrome of Constantinople      .      .     276
> The Buffalo Ox-Team
> A Turkish Family from Bokhara
> Walls and Tower built by Mohammed
> .....,297
> .       .      .
> Cover
> 
> [XT]
> CHARACTER AND CLIMATE
> CHAPTER I
> CHARACTER AND CLIMATE
> One of the greatest difficulties which a truly
> progressive    Turkey will always have to face is
> the enervating nature of her climate.       There is
> a close connection between character and climate.
> 
> Changes     in the Persian climate,     for example,
> since ancient times are claimed       by some to be
> largely responsible for the degeneration of the
> inhabitants,   especially    in   regard to honesty.
> The ancient Persians were renowned for their
> honesty; the Persians of today are renowned for
> the opposite. The sexual degeneracy of South-
> ern races, the vigor of Northern peoples, the
> 
> phlegmatic temperament of the English, the
> nervousness of the American, the pessimism of
> the Hindu, the laziness and politeness of people
> in    warm climes, the      psychic nature of those
> dwelling in high altitudes, all these differences
> may be traced with some reason to climate.
> When an American first comes to Turkey he
> [3]
> THE REAL TURK
> brings with him all the vigor and energy which
> is the peculiar gift of the   American climate.   He
> looks with disdain upon the slow-moving Orien-
> tals   and ridicules their shiftless and easy-going
> ways. To a typical Chicagoan, the lazy Turk
> is a being who has hardly any right to existence    ;
> 
> and he loves to picture the benefit the East would
> gain if it could be peopled with a lot of hustling
> Americans like himself.
> For the first year or so he rushes around in
> the American way, and accomplishes twice as
> much work as would be adapted to Oriental
> standards.     He feels that he has conferred a
> blessing on the Orientals by showing them how
> to work.
> But what do the       Orientals think about     it?
> 
> They look on and smile, for they know that when
> the momentum is worn out these busy Americans
> must moderate their pace, or go to pieces.        At
> this point the laugh is       on the American, and,
> rebel as he will against the inevitable, he has
> 
> finally to adapt himself to the Orient; and in
> time he becomes a very good Oriental, or is worn
> out and goes back to America.
> 
> Kipling has expressed this so inimitably that
> [4]
> THE REAL TURK
> I cannot do better than quote his poem written
> from his own experience in India.
> 
> For it is not right
> For the Christian white
> To hustle the Aryan brown;
> For the Christian riles
> And the Aryan smiles
> And he weareth the Christian down.
> 
> And the end of that fight
> Is a tombstone white
> With the name of the late deceased;
> And an epitaph drear
> "
> A fool lies here
> Who tried to hustle the East."
> 
> It is a hard lesson for the American to learn,
> but the fact is finally forced upon him that the
> climate ofTurkey is enervating, and that he
> cannot do much more than half the work he
> could do in America.                 One lives there always
> under low vitality, and the least trouble will take
> away that little vitality and tend to prostrate
> one.
> This is made clear by the ease with which one
> falls   ill    there.      It is the usual thing in Robert
> 
> College for every teacher in the institution to
> have at least one week's illness during the year,
> and there will always be several who are laid up
> [5]
> THE REAL TURK
> for months.      The hospital is always full of stu-
> dents,    who take their turns, too, at being in-
> valids.    Illness there seems to be the result of
> 
> exhaustion.      It may take the form of a cold, a
> stomach trouble, or nervous debilitation, but
> it
> simply means low vitality, and medicine is not
> so much needed as rest and food to build up the
> 
> system.     When such an attack comes it cannot
> be fought off, as in the bracing climate of Amer-
> ica,   but must be yielded to: postponement only
> means worse illness in the end.
> Another thing which is peculiar is the ease
> with which one takes cold.            The slightest draft
> is   sufficient for this.   It is generally true that if
> 
> you feel cold, you will catch cold.         This is doubt-
> less the   reason why the Orientals bundle them-
> Even in summer they wear heavy
> selves up so.
> 
> woolens and overcoats, when not in the sun.
> This is one of the first customs to be noticed and
> ridiculed by the Americans        :   but there is a reason
> for it in the lowness of vitality and the dampness
> of the climate.      Even in warm weather it is not
> safe to lie on the ground in the shade if there is
> much of a breeze.
> One American teacher, a football hero and
> [6]
> THE REAL TURK
> athlete in his own college, who had hardly known
> a sick day in         his   life,   contracted   bronchitis
> 
> during his first month by going to sleep under
> an open window and much to his surprise and
> disgust he was in bed a month.            Had he yielded
> to his cold immediately, a week would probably
> have sufficed to restore his health, but by trying
> to fight it off, and continuing to stay on his feet,
> he merely increased his period of illness.
> It     by such experiences one learns that
> is
> 
> in the Orient the Anglo-Saxon method of stand-
> 
> ing up to a foe and braving him is not always the
> wisest. Just as it is best to succumb to illness, so
> 
> it is often best to   succumb to other things, and I
> have no doubt the climate of the East has some-
> 
> thing to do with the indirect methods pursued
> there.  As Kipling has said, you cannot drive
> the East.  They are not used to such methods,
> and their whole mode of life is based, not on
> fight    incessant struggle          but on finding the
> line of least resistance.
> 
> In this enervating climate one can take, and
> indeed needs, more stimulants than in a more
> 
> vigorous climate. I found that, although of a
> nervous temperament, I could drink tea and
> [7]
> THE REAL TURK
> coffeeand smoke cigarettes without noticing
> any of the bad effects which they would have
> upon me in America.      The Turks smoke all day
> long without becoming nervous. I found also
> that I could not skip a meal, as I had been in the
> habit of doing when in a hurry.     In America, if
> one is pressed for time he makes a lunch of an
> egg-shake or a piece of chocolate, and goes on
> with his work till the evening meal. But this is
> 
> impossible in Turkey.      If you eat but little at
> 
> noon, by four or five o'clock you feel completely
> tired out, having that sensation of being "all
> gone"    "gevshek" as the Turks call it which
> makes you depressed and incapable of doing
> much. It is wonderful what effect a little food
> will have upon you at this juncture: quickly your
> 
> spirits rise,   and you are able to go about your
> work again or to continue your shopping.
> It is the universal custom among Americans
> and Europeans living in Constantinople to have
> afternoon tea at four or five o'clock.    The old
> inhabitants could no more do without that than
> without their dinner.     The new-coming Amer-
> icans laugh at this custom, for afternoon teas are
> 
> generally a subject of ridicule with American
> in
> THE REAL TURK
> men; but in time they fall in with it and a de-
> lightful custom it is, apart from its dietetic
> 
> necessity.      As    a   social   function,   it    fills   a
> place    in   life   which no American         institution
> 
> supplies.
> As the climate of England is somewhat sim-
> ilar to that     of Constantinople, I imagine the
> 
> large amount of food eaten by the English and
> their afternoon teas are natural results of cli-
> 
> mate.     In fact the diet of every nation is natur-
> ally adapted to its climate.       Americans who live
> in London come to feel the need of tea; Kipling
> 
> said recently to one of them: "The difference be-
> tween America and England is this.                  Our cli-
> mate is so depressing that we have to stimulate
> ourselves all the time with food          and drink,
> while yours is so bracing that you can run across
> a Carpet and then light the gas from the electric-
> 
> ity in your fingers."
> Orientals take a nap after the midday meal;
> and although Constantinople is by no means
> a tropical city, being on the same latitude as New
> York, yet Americans who live there any length
> of time find this nap a necessity.      Generally very
> little   work is done in the afternoon.              A nap
> [9]
> THE REAL TURK
> after dinner, then a short spell of work, then
> afternoon tea, and a stroll before supper, is the
> 
> ordinary program.       After dinner at noon you
> begin to feel more and more sleepy; your eyes
> become so prickly that you can hardly see; and
> there is no greater bliss than to yield to this de-
> 
> lightful sensation    and float off to slumberland.
> One awakens refreshed and happy, in good con-
> dition for the rest of the day.
> I stopped once for a week with a group of
> Persian friends.    After lunch they would all
> roll up in their yorgans on the Oriental couches,
> 
> and in a few minutes every one would be asleep.
> At about three o'clock they would begin to stir,
> and one after another would awake and sit up.
> When all were awake, tea would be prepared,
> and the intervening time spent in conversation.
> Then a stroll at sunset would bring the day to
> a delightful close.
> The morning is reserved for work, the after-
> noon for rest and recreation, and the evening
> given partly to work and partly to social pleas-
> ures.  The longer you stay in the Orient the
> harder it is to study or work in the evening after
> a heavy dinner.    The Orientals themselves go to
> [10]
> THE REAL TURK
> bed with the sun like the birds, and rise with it.
> In the summer they put in many hours of work
> before the European is awake.
> I have spoken of the enervating effects of
> this climate upon the body. It has similar ef-
> fects upon the mind.          This delicate organ, which
> 
> responds so sensitively to conditions of the body,
> seems to lose its vivacity and clearness. One
> finds   it    difficult   to think incisively.        Dreamy,
> speculative thinking          is   delightful,   but mathe-
> matical thinking a burden.               This
> probably     is
> 
> why Orientals are so poor in mathematics and
> exact sciences.
> 
> Forgetfulness becomes a habit. You cannot
> carry anything in your mind. Errands, duties,
> appointments, are all likely to be forgotten, un-
> less careful note is made. If you want anything
> 
> done by another person, you have to remind him
> several times before he remembers to do it.              This
> is   true even of men in administrative positions,
> 
> where,       if   anywhere, you would expect to find
> exactness.         The climate exercises its effect upon
> all,from room-servant to college president.
> Even troubles do not stay on your mind if they
> are of the future           you forget to worry!         Thus
> THE REAL TURK
> the natural state of the Oriental mind is one of
> 
> dreamy meditation, which is delightful.
> When, however, you have to give a lecture or
> write an article, this condition interferes, for you
> find it hard then to collect the thoughts, to think
> 
> clearly,   and to retain the subject as a whole.
> Lack of vitality makes lectures lack vigor and
> takes the fire out of one's style.       You never hear
> a piece     of    oratory    or  impassioned delivery.
> Strangely enough,       it   becomes almost impossible
> to write.    Style demands energy, vitality, and
> you haven't it to give.           Finally the time conies
> when you can hardly compose at all. Yet let one
> go to the invigorating climate of Switzerland,
> among the eternal snows for a few weeks, and
> composition again becomes easy.
> It has been said that the motto of the East is,
> "Never do today what you can put off till to-
> morrow."         One might think this a caricature of
> the Oriental, but it is absolutely true.         And in
> fact, why should you do today what you can put
> off till tomorrow?      Are we any happier with the
> opposite rule of conduct?             In our sanitariums
> and hospitals are many people who are broken-
> down, miserable and unfit for work, because they
> [12]
> THE REAL TURK
> tried to do everything today, and left nothing for
> 
> the morrow but nervous prostration and the rest-
> cure.  The Orientals take their rest as they go
> along, and sanitariums are unknown among
> them.
> The result of such a maxim is a tendency to
> let all things go.   If one has a piece of business
> to attend to, he puts       it   off as   long as possible
> and spends little time worrying about it.               Re-
> pairs are delayed until they become absolutely
> necessary, and often they are postponed beyond
> the point where they will do any good.               When
> the Turks, by some miracle, do construct a good
> 
> road, they leave     it   after   its   completion in the
> hands of God; such a thing as keeping it in re-
> pair is beyond their comprehension.             Each suc-
> cessive rainy season washes a bit from the road,
> 
> until finally not only the surfacing            is   carried
> 
> away, but the foundation is ruined in many
> places; and when the road becomes impassable,
> the teams turn out into the fields and form cart-
> 
> paths there, so that it is not uncommon to run
> across paved roads which, once highways but
> now unused, are paralleled by roads struck out
> through the original soil.
> [13]
> THE REAL TURK
> Similarly, Turkish bridges are always out of
> repair.     If a route in the interior crosses many
> 
> bridges, you may be sure it will be impracticable
> to follow it, for some of the bridges will be in
> 
> ruins; so    you would better take a route that
> crosses the streams by fords, which never need
> 
> mending.
> One of the saddest sights in Turkey is a de-
> serted palace gradually falling into ruins. The
> 
> damp climate of the Bosphorus hastens decay,
> and the stucco and plaster peel from the walls.
> Many palaces which once cost immense sums are
> left to the mercy of the elements.
> 
> Until the Turks change their nature it would
> be ludicrous to expect them to adopt agricultural
> machines.     At the first disaster to the machine
> they would leave it standing in the fields, putting
> off repairs until rain and rust would have ren-
> 
> dered it worthless.
> It   is   true that under the   new regime    the
> Turks are waking up somewhat.        That they can
> exercise care and system is evidenced by the dis-
> 
> cipline in their army.  The Young Turks took
> hold of the navy, too, which Abdul Hamid had
> left to rot in the    Golden Horn, and they have
> [14]
> THE REAL TURK
> developed it to a good degree of efficiency. The
> Turks are not incapable of using the mechanism
> of modern civilization, in spite of the drawbacks
> of climate.     Yet it is significant that the leaders
> in the revolution had been living for years, not in
> 
> Constantinople, but in Europe, to which they
> had been exiled. When the crisis came they
> acted with a dash and energy which was due
> 
> largely to their European environment and cli-
> mate.   Ali Risa, the first President of the Senate
> and political leader of the Young Turks, had
> been for years in Paris and Chevket Pasha, once
> ;
> 
> the most able personality in all Turkey, and its
> 
> practical dictator, who conducted the capture of
> Constantinople so ably as to call forth the praise
> of Europe's best strategists, had been trained
> for twelve years in  Germany, And so with
> many other military and political leaders.
> I really doubt that the revolution could have
> been carried out so successfully had           it   not
> 
> profited   by   this vigor    brought from Europe.
> The climate of the Bosphorus is too depressing,
> too conducive to inactivity and inertia, to make
> 
> possible a bold and well-organized movement.
> I have been showing some of the unpleasant
> [16]
> THE REAL TURK
> features of Turkish climate.                        Let me now de-
> scribe its joys.                There are few places           in the
> world where one could be happier, provided he
> had no         responsibilities.                The very absence of
> worry, the inability to think long on bothersome
> things, is conducive to peace and joy. The mind
> is   at rest.     It can lose itself in dreams                 and vi-
> sions, care-free, oblivious of time.                     In addition
> to     charm of scenery unsurpassed in the
> the
> world and the bright blue, intoxicating sky,
> there    is    a certain feeling due peculiarly to the
> climate which amounts to   an ecstasy a joy
> which I have never felt elsewhere than in the
> East.         Travellers remark on it; you will find it
> described in books on the East.                      And the Turks
> have a name for it                       they call it "kef."
> There are two words in Turkish in which the
> newcomer can see little difference                      "rdhat" and
> 
> "kef;" "rahat" means "rest," "cessation of ac-
> tivity," and this idea is common to all countries
> we all of us at times, when we are tired, sit down
> ef         3
> to rest        but        kef       is   something quite different,
> something unique:                   it    is cessation not only of
> 
> physical activity, but also of mental                      a kind of
> intoxicated dream-state, a trance due to the at-
> [16]
> THE REAL TURK
> mosphere.     In spring the Turks will sit on the
> hillsides and smoke and dream this way for min-
> 
> utes at a time    sometimes for hours.        They call
> it"making kef." When you have a Turkish stu-
> dent who "makes kef in class, he is hopeless.
> No part of the lesson sinks into his mind. He
> smiles   when you call on him, and tries to an-
> swer your questions, but        his    thoughts are far
> away.
> I have stood leaning against our terrace wall,
> in the beauty of spring, and gazed for long min-
> 
> utes at certain shrubs     and flowers which were
> bright with sunshine, until my thoughts seemed
> to soar away beyond the confines of space and of
> time.    It is as easy to be a mystic in the East as
> 
> it is to be practical in the   West.
> Have we ever stopped, I wonder, to consider
> that our extreme activity in America is the result
> of climate?    One can even see differences in this
> respect in the different latitudes and sections of
> our country. The New England people and
> New Yorkers hustle much more than the people
> of Washington; and if you go still further south,
> 
> you will find men sitting on their shady veran-
> das, smoking and sipping mint juleps and
> [17]
> THE REAL TURK
> dreaming in quite good Turkish style: they are
> really "making kef!"
> How changed is the feeling in Constantinople
> from that in New York! Whenever I am in the
> latter city, I feel uneasy at the thought of even
> 
> half an hour's going to waste.                "Isn't there
> 
> something I can do to fill in the time profita-
> bly?"    I think.   But in Constantinople, after a
> certain amount is done, one says, "Well, that's
> 
> enough let's sit down and rest awhile." Then
> come Turkish coffee and cigarettes and "kef"
> and in half an hour you are ready to begin over
> again.  The difference between the West and the
> East, in a word, is this: here we do not like to
> sit down; there we do not like to
> get up. Here
> leisure is a sin ; there it is a virtue   !
> 
> Our American habit of crowding every mo-
> ment and of seeking recreation in violent and ex-
> citing forms is the result of our air.         Such a life,
> feverish in its activity, does not make one really
> 
> happy, and is bound to lead at last to a break-
> down. In the East, one does not have to plan
> theater parties, games or crowded excursions in
> order to be happy, since one is happy merely to
> exist.   Pleasant repose is as natural to Orientals
> [18]
> frl
> as    ?
> !<
> I          ,
> *
> -O
> Si*   &i
> S-S-*
> ny
> O ^ ^             4
> 
> '$        -S
> 
> Jl
> THE REAL TURK
> as activity is to us.       Even the laborer enjoys his
> work and the farmer becomes a poet.
> ;
> 
> I have often thought that the East may in
> time become our great sanitarium. Just as the
> Orientals who come to our country learn to work
> and to hustle, so Americans who go to the East
> learn repose.          A few years there will change
> restless, nervous habits into           calmness and poise.
> 
> Worry ceases.           Desire, which is the chief source
> of anxieties, disappears.           If you can't do a thing
> 
> you have planned, you say, "Never mind, it
> was not important;" if there is something you
> need but cannot get, you say, "Well, I can do
> without it;" if there is a play you want to see, a
> 
> trip you want to make, a friend you want to visit,
> and things stand in the way, you say, "Some
> other time."          Thus the East creeps in upon you
> with        its   feeling of resignation     and you grow
> fat and healthy and forget that you have nerves.
> 
> In concluding this chapter I cannot do better
> than to repeat a passage which was written while
> I was still in Constantinople, in the midst of its
> wonderful charms.
> 
> What a fascination the East exerts how tranquil life
> is   here, and how peaceful  When one thinks of departing,
> !
> 
> [19]
> THE REAL TURK
> itseems like leaving a comfortable fireside where one has
> been sitting dreaming, to go into the cold world outside;
> yet America is the world, and this only a dream, a ravish-
> ing dream.
> One cannot work here        nobody does that   but one can
> merely live and feel happy. One does not crave excite-
> ment. Life itself is joyous, and the goal of each day is to
> get through the day's work.
> This is not thoroughly satisfactory to a New England
> conscience bred in the American atmosphere of constantly-
> increasing accomplishment.      One's work should be the
> greatest source of one's pleasure. Here it is not no one
> goes  about his work  with zest.
> But how sweet are the leisure hours, when you curl up
> on your couch with a book in your lap no responsibility
> nothing to do but to read and dream. Oh, the dreams that
> come to one here the utter sense of the joy of living
> the mystical anticipation of unknown joys awaiting you.
> This is the greatest joy the East has to offer the joy of
> irresponsibility.
> How responsibility weighs on one, how one dreads work,
> how dull duties seem!    We never do today what we can
> easily put off till tomorrow.   Why should we spoil the
> present moment, mar the perfect beauty of today by any-
> thing which has to be done ? Let us do anything but that.
> Let us read books which do not have to be read, write let-
> ters that do not have to be written; but the obligatory
> duties       how cruel, how uselessly tiring!
> But when one has described the joys of life indoors, he
> has shown but a hundredth part of the enchantment of
> the East.  Her glory lies in her spring. How the sun-
> shine pours over everything; how limpid is the air how
> heavy with perfume!      How magic the charm of it
> all.
> *   *    *
> Reader,     if   you want to know what Paradise is on this
> earth, visit Constantinople       and the Bosphorus in the month
> of May.                            20
> THE TURK STILL A MEDIEVAL
> CHAPTER II
> THE TURK STILL A MEDIEVAL
> IN CHARACTER, MENTALITY
> AND RELIGION
> No people in the world are more likable than
> the Turks.     They are kindly, honest, and gen-
> erous-hearted; and they are gentle in their or-
> dinary life. I remember one old man who sold
> beads in an open-air bazaar in Constantinople:
> there he sat cross-legged all day long, his white
> beard sweeping his breast     a grand figure.   An-
> other beautiful face was that of an old gardener
> in a medrese   which we visited; he was a model
> for an artist to paint, with a strong, robust figure
> clad in Oriental garb and a face full of simplicity
> and power; he seemed to exhale the same radi-
> ant, harmonious life as his flowers.
> 
> Many Americans will find it hard to reconcile
> this view of the Turk with the stories they have
> 
> heard of his cruel and bloodthirsty nature. "How
> can the Turks be kind and gentle," they ask,
> "when they commit such barbaric deeds?"
> [23]
> THE REAL TURK
> It is just at this point that the Turk is hard
> to understand.        He is kind and gentle and of
> winning personality yet he is capable of the
> utmost cruelty. When his religious fanaticism
> is   aroused or when he is putting down a rebel-
> lion, he slays in cold blood women,    and children
> at the breast; he burns      down homes and shoots
> the inhabitants as they come forth; he violates
> women before their own husbands and carries
> the best into captivity.    A town which he ravages
> leaves    little   resemblance to a human dwelling-
> place.
> There are Bulgarians and Armenians living
> today who have gone through scenes of untold
> horror.     Naturally they do not love the Turks.
> Yet the English and Americans who live among
> the Turks do like them and come to feel a real
> affection for them.
> You may meet a Pasha who will captivate
> you today by his kindness and winning personal-
> ity; and the next day he may have a prisoner
> tortured to death with perfect unfeeling.
> Whence these contradictions in his nature ? The
> assumption that he is a hypocrite that his kind-
> ness is merely put on is not an explanation, for
> [24]
> rriHE original Turk fresh from Turki-
> 1       stan,showing strongly the Mongolian
> type.     The Turks in Constantinople have a
> large admixture of Aryan blood.
> THE REAL TURK
> it is not true.   The explanation lies in this    that
> the    Turk is still in the Middle Ages.         He is
> only half way up from savagery. Like all Ori-
> entals, he holds life and suffering as of little im-
> 
> portance.    Indifference to physical pain is char-
> acteristic of the East.
> 
> The Oriental does not differ in nature from
> the Occidental. We who inherit and receive
> from our environment an exquisite sensitiveness
> to the sufferings of others, leading us to establish
> 
> hospitals, to care for the suffering      and to do
> away with all forms of cruelty, must not be too
> harsh in our judgment of our Eastern brothers.
> It is only a few centuries ago that we, too, held
> life   and suffering in little value.   We hanged
> men for stealing, we quartered them for differ-
> ing from us in political opinions, we burned
> them at the stake in order to save their souls.
> An offense to a prince meant more than ostra-
> cism from his society       it   meant a sudden re-
> moval from this world.           A grim age   an age
> of bloodshed and horrors, of cruelty and torture
> has but recently gone, never to return to us,
> for we have risen above it:       from the Dark Age
> of Europe to the enlightenment of the twentieth
> 
> century.
> [25]
> THE REAL TURK
> Within two or three centuries we could have
> found in England the prototype of the modern
> Turk      the    cultured     gentlemen, the
> English
> kindly, dignified merchant, who could witness
> with calmness torture, execution and burning
> at the stake.       That it is not Christianity alone
> which has produced this twentieth century gen-
> tleness the religious tortures of the Middle Ages
> bear witness.       In a cruel age, Christianity was
> also cruel.     In the name of Christ people under-
> went tortures of every conceivable form, and
> perished at the stake. Refinement of feeling is
> a natural result of a peaceful, segregated life.
> Our nerves are too sensitive to witness the shed-
> ding of blood.*      We
> are not cruel physically, but
> our age is none the less cruel.            We
> can let hun-
> dreds be maimed and killed in order to increase
> our stocks and bonds.              We can be coldly in-
> different to suffering caused              by us if it goes
> on at a distance.
> Yet this much has been gained: physical gen-
> tleness and kindness hold sway in the twentieth
> * I
> would suggest also the thought that much of our sympathy
> for human suffering is a direct result of what medical science has
> done in the last century in eliminating unnecessary causes of sick-
> ness and death. The constant view of unpreventable physical suf-
> fering causes indifference to it such as we now see in the East.
> 
> [26]
> THE REAL TURK
> century, and we do not have to fear the rack, the
> sword, or the stake.    A difference of opinion
> does not necessarily   mean death, or even im-
> prisonment.    Our feudal lords may exact reve-
> nue from us in the price of oil, beef, wool, and
> other commodities of life, but they have no di-
> rect power over our persons.       The highest gen-
> tleman in the land may not wilfully strike the
> meanest servant.
> The Orientals are still in the Dark Age: they
> have not yet cultivated a sensitiveness to suffer-
> 
> ing.   Numerous forms of torture still exist with
> them, delightful in their simplicity.     In Samar-
> kand it has been the custom to throw criminals
> from a high tower in the center of the city; an-
> other form of execution was dragging them over
> 
> roughly-paved streets behind swift horses; a
> still more interesting death awaited
> political of-
> fenders in the shape of a deep pit full of loath-
> some vermin, where the victim is gradually eaten
> up.
> In Teheran a few years ago three men suc-
> ceeded in affecting a corner in wheat      Orientals
> who had admirably caught           the   financiering
> spirit of the twentieth century.    As the price of
> [27]
> THE REAL TURK
> wheat went up suffering was naturally caused
> among the poor.             Not being able to view the
> subject in a scientific way, these unfortunate
> people laid the blame for their hardships upon
> the three financiers, and seizing hold of their per-
> 
> sons, crucified         them upside down in the public
> square.        This is said to be a very painful death,
> as all the blood descends into the head, bringing
> enormous pressure upon the brain.                    Thus do the
> Persians        rebel    against     the   enlightenment of
> twentieth century financiering.
> One of the worst governors in Persia, just be-
> fore the Revolution, appropriated the estate of
> a subject.        This man had the hardihood to ap-
> 
> pear before him and demand his land back again.
> The governor said, "Why, you have a lot of gall
> to come to me and ask for your land.                    I should
> be interested to see just how large your gall
> bladder is." With that he had two of his serv-
> ants cut the man open and take his gall bladder
> out.  He looked at it and said: "Yes, it is quite
> large. Now I will give you your land. I hope
> 
> you     will    enjoy      it."     In     a   few    hours   the
> unfortunate        man was           dead.  That governor
> is   living     today     in      Paris, and if you were
> [28]
> THE REAL TURK
> to    meet him, you would be charmed by                his
> 
> manners.
> Terrible massacres took place in Persia on ac-
> count of religious fanaticism against the Babis.
> They were butchered in many horrible ways
> gashes were cut in the flesh and burning candles
> inserted pitch was burnt on top of men's heads
> ;                                           ;
> 
> babies were dashed against walls.
> The same barbarous treatment was accorded
> to Armenians by Abdul Hamid. Whole villages
> were cut to piecesmen, women and children.
> The wounded were piled on brush-wood soaked
> in kerosene and burned alive.             Women were cut
> open before their husbands' eyes. While the
> Turks were responsible for these massacres, they
> did    not       actively   participate   in   them.   The
> bloody work was done by the Kurds, a tribe
> much more savage and uncivilized than the
> Turks.  Some of the Turks even sheltered their
> Armenian neighbors. The responsibility rests
> upon the shoulders of Abdul Hamid and his ad-
> visors.      This cruel tyrant had many ways of tor-
> 
> turing    Young Turks suspected of liberalism.
> Boiling eggs were placed under their armpits
> a torture which soon drives the victim insane; the
> [29]
> THE REAL TURK
> skin was flayed   from a person's back, mustard
> poultices laid next to the raw flesh, and the skin
> sewed up again; red-hot irons were run up the
> body.   People were burned to death with kero-
> sene, and many a fine young man of progressive
> ideas found his bed upon the bottom of the Bos-
> 
> phorus.
> These are only a few of the deeds of horror
> that could be told.    In the face of them, can it
> still be believed that the   Turk is kind and gentle?
> Yes, for it is true.   The solution of the problem
> rests with psychology.        As it is said, "Scratch
> a Russian and you will find a Tartar," so it is
> true that beneath the gentle manners and kind
> heart of every Turk lie volcanic possibilities of
> 
> religious fanaticism and of brutal cruelty.       He
> has not yet got control of the brute in him,
> 
> though he is progressing.
> Beneath the culture and civilized exterior of
> every one of us lie submerged depths of ferocity
> and blood-thirstiness waiting for outlet. The
> Southern gentleman with the most charming
> manners and the kindest heart may with his own
> hands kindle the flames that are to burn alive the
> negro who has violated his daughter.        Our pas-
> [80]
> TYPICAL untamed Turk at his hay-
> ing.   In war he would be capable of
> any cruelty.
> THE REAL TURK
> sions are like dogs held in leash: people           who
> come to us by the front gate receive our kind
> hospitality, but those who approach by forbidden
> 
> paths, if they step within reach of our ferocity,
> may feel its bite.
> So it is with the Turk.        In ordinary life he is
> affable  and dignifiedly courteous; kind to his
> children, to animals and to strangers.  He sel-
> dom loses his temper but when he does, beware
> ;                         !
> 
> He does not encourage street-fighting; yet, if he
> bears resentment, he may kill.
> One of the greatest signs of the awakening of
> the Orientals is their growing sense of shame at
> atrocities.      The influence of Western civilization,
> even at a distance, is strong upon them.         They
> respect    its    ideals   of physical refinement   and
> sensibility to suffering.        They quail before its
> abhorrence of cruelty.          They already feel that
> inhuman deeds do not become the twentieth
> century.
> With the establishing of constitutions and the
> consequent check of despotism, great changes
> are taking place, and it will not be long before
> barbaric actions will be things of the past.        Al-
> ready there has been a great refining process in
> [81]
> THE REAL TURK
> the Near East, during the last half century; and
> within the present century we may see the East
> 
> purged of its cruelty and physical roughness,
> ready to join in a great world culture, whose
> ideals of gentleness shall not permit of needless
> 
> suffering.
> 
> In other directions it is interesting to trace
> the medieval character of the Turkish civiliza-
> tion.    In religion it is distinctly medieval.   Is-
> lam is still a religion of authority.   The voice of
> the priest is all-powerful; he rules his ignorant
> followers through their ignorance.       The Koran
> is   written in old Arabic and cannot be under-
> stood even by those who know how to read mod-
> ern Arabic, and when it is read in the mosques,
> it is read in the
> Things are in the same
> original.
> state as when Tyndall and Wycliff suffered
> per-
> secution in their efforts to bring the Bible to the
> level of the   English people.    The clergy, alone
> possessing the key to the Scriptures, have un-
> limited power to interpret them as they wish, and
> the complaint of educated Mohammedans is that
> the clergy have distorted the teachings of the
> 
> Prophet.
> [32]
> THE REAL TURK
> Already there is a movement on foot to get
> back through the mass of priestly interpreta-
> tions to the      Koran itself.     A Protestant wave
> is                       Quietly and cautiously
> sweeping over Islam.
> a translation of the Koran into modern Turkish
> is    being prepared.*       The grip of the clergy is
> waning in proportion as the people are becoming
> educated.
> It must be said in justice to Islam, however,
> that it has never been as fanatical and intolerant
> of heresy as the Christian Church.              There has
> never been any Inquisition in Islam              and per-
> secutions for religious differences have been far
> rarer than in Christianity.          The Turks are the
> broadest and most tolerant of             all   Mohamme-
> dans.
> 
> In education, also, Turkey is still in the Mid-
> dle Ages.  Its system is scholastic.   The whole
> trend of studies is religious.        The Koran is the
> basis      from
> elementary school to university.
> More stress is laid on memorizing than on origi-
> nal thinking.       Why should you do any thinking
> *   A translation made about 40 years ago was quickly sup-
> pressed.
> 
> [33]
> THE REAL TURK
> for yourself when Mohammed gave the solution
> to all the problems of life?
> The result is that the Oriental mind is unsci-
> entific; it is marked by absence of critical ability.
> 
> Things are learned by rote from the teacher.
> Obedience is given to intellectual and spiritual
> leaders who hand down the learning of the past.
> This attitude of the Turk is quite different from
> that of the Greek, who possesses a natural scien-
> tific mind,     and always questions.
> If an Oriental accepts a man as his spiritual
> teacher or master he follows him with unquestion-
> 
> ing loyalty, and absorbs his system without crit-
> icizing   it.    The dialectic method of the Greek
> mind, matching statement with question and
> question with statement, is unknown to the Ori-
> ental.    If he asks questions it is not for the pur-
> 
> pose of criticism, but merely to draw out the
> teacher and elicit further information.     Usually
> he sits at his master's feet and listens in reverent
> silence to his discourse, which he treasures up in
> 
> his mind and heart.
> 
> A Westerner trying to question an Oriental
> thinker will quickly find that he cannot pin him
> 
> down, or pursue his own questions to any logical
> [34]
> THE REAL TURK
> end.     After the first few questions the teacher
> takes the conversation in his own hands and pro-
> ceeds to give a discourse which it would be im-
> 
> polite to interrupt.
> Our modern methods of criticism are foreign
> to the East.     It is our liberation   from dogma-
> tism, our freedom to criticize, to disagree, to find
> fault,   which has produced the wonderful fruits
> of     European civilization.     Investigation must
> always precede scientific discovery, and the East
> never investigates. It has no understanding of
> the relation between cause and effect.
> A scholar who was collecting economic data
> once wrote to a Mohammedan merchant in an in-
> terior Turkish town, asking him for information
> 
> as to the population of the town, the number of
> 
> caravans entering it, etc. The Mohammedan
> wrote back in indignation, saying that it was
> blasphemous to inquire into such things. If
> Allah had wanted these facts to be known he
> would have informed his people.
> Modern   education,    however,   is   rapidly de-
> stroying this naive state of mind.          The Young
> Turk is thoroughly up to date. His contact with
> European civilization has opened his mind to the
> [35]
> THE REAL TURK
> Even the Turk
> necessity of scientific methods.
> or Persian who has studied medicine in his own
> 
> country has been forced to think along the lines
> of modern science.
> A few generations of this culture will make a
> great change in the Orient.    Turkey and Persia
> are both eager for Western education        in both
> 
> countries there are leaders who have received a
> 
> European training and are thoroughly in sym-
> pathy with its ideas, and their influence is radiat-
> ing through the country. In the end it must
> pervade the masses.
> The despotism of the East is over.      No more
> can its rulers consign to death at their whim.
> The Dark Age is dissolving before the light of
> the Modern Age. Yet the poise and peace of
> Medievalism in the Orient have a charm which
> we would not wish lost. Will the East be able
> to retain this charm?
> 
> [36]
> THE TURK AS A CITIZEN
> CHAPTER III
> THE TURK AS A CITIZEN
> Two things characterize the Turk as a citizen
> loyalty to his Padishah          and the Dynasty of
> Ottoman, and loyalty to his religion. In the
> East religion and government are inextricably
> mixed.   The empire founded by Mohammed was
> a theocratic one, ruled over by the caliphs, who
> centered in one person the spiritual and tem-
> 
> poral succession. The Turkish sultans obtained
> the caliphate by the conquest of Arabia at the
> 
> beginning of the sixteenth century. Therefore
> the padishah of Turkey is not only the temporal
> ruler of his people, with the divine right of a
> 
> king,    but   also   the   spiritual   head   of   some
> 200,000,000 Mohammedans.
> Loyalty has ever been a leading quality of the
> Turk. His unquestioning obedience to his su-
> periors and military leaders was the chief cause
> of the victories of the Turkish armies and the
> marvelous rise to power of that vigorous race.
> Whatever changes have taken place in the gov-
> [39]
> THE REAL TURK
> ernment of Turkey, the rulers have always been
> drawn from the House of Ottoman, the founder
> of the Turkish Empire. Even at the time when
> the Janissaries had such power that they could
> 
> appoint and dethrone sultans at will they never
> dreamed of setting up any but descendants of
> this dynasty, which has held a longer continuous
> 
> rule than any dynasty of Europe          a rule of over
> 800 years.
> This quality of the Turk is still a factor to be
> reckoned with, and, combined with his splendid
> 
> physique, gives promise of a rising rather than a
> declining race. Of the Turk as soldier we hear
> much, but of the Turk as citizen very little, for
> the reason that as a citizen he has hardly begun
> to exist until the present moment.         His service
> to his country in the past has consisted chiefly in
> 
> serving in her armies, furnishing the material for
> her conquests, and paying his taxes in unrebel-
> lious loyalty.      Now, with a freer government,
> come new duties; and if Turkey is to take its
> place    among     the   enlightened   nations   of   the
> 
> earth,   it   must develop capacities of citizenship
> among its subjects, for the difference between
> the abject subject of an Oriental despotism and
> 
> [40]
> THE REAL TURK
> the thinking, responsible citizen of a free coun-
> 
> try is vast.
> A   little incident will illustrate the change which
> 
> the new regime has brought about.            One day a
> Turkish friend of mine decided at the last mo-
> ment to join a party which was leaving at 11:30
> A.   M. for Roumania.       He did not reach the city
> until 11 o'clock, but between then and 11:30 he
> 
> managed to drive to the passport bureau, get his
> passport and catch his steamer, and was quite
> proud of the achievement.           Well he might be.
> To one who has lived among the Turks and seen
> their habits, it was little short of a miracle. Under
> 
> the old regime he could not have had his passport
> made out in less than two hours at the least, and
> perhaps a day would have been required. An-
> other friend was told by the new official who took
> 
> charge of a passport bureau that the man whom
> he had displaced could hardly read or write, and
> had made the entries in his books under wrong
> headings.  All the papers were found in a
> wretched state. It would have taken this for-
> mer official a long time to gather his wits to-
> gether and go through the laborious process of
> copying down the data and making out your
> [41]
> THE REAL TURK
> passport, and if you had tried to hurry him he
> would have grown angry and stopped             alto-
> 
> gether.
> Government in the East is a very antiquated
> affair.   It has hardly changed since the most an-
> cient times.    It has always been one of des-
> 
> potism at the center, with little despots in the
> provinces more or less amenable to the great des-
> pot who ruled the whole country. Under the
> heads of provinces were lesser rulers, all despots,
> down to the local despots in towns and cities.
> All of these   officials   were responsible to those
> above them for results, but not for methods. So
> long as they paid the required taxes and no com-
> plaints reached their superiors, they were safe;
> and it was difficult for a subject to get a com-
> plaint past his   own ruler to the ruler higher
> up, as can well be imagined.        And if the com-
> plaint did arrive, justice might or might not be
> done.
> In the matter of taxes the method was to
> squeeze as hard as possible. If a lemon which
> has the reputation of being juicy does not yield
> 
> enough juice, it must be squeezed harder. There
> were various ways of squeezing, more or less
> [42]
> THE REAL TURK
> brutal,    from moral pressure down to physical
> pressure.     Hence the thing for the individual
> taxpayer to do was to keep inconspicuous and
> give no appearance of prosperity.              Prominent
> heads were the     first    to be cut off.      That this
> system is a deadening and stagnating one, all
> history has borne testimony.  Ambition and
> prosperity are rewarded with extortion, perhaps
> death.     A premium       is   put upon commonplace-
> ness.
> 
> When you wanted anything done, you bribed
> the official nearest you;        if   he did not respond,
> 
> you went one step higher and gave a larger bribe
> to the next higher official, and so on up the
> scale     until, if your enterprise was      a large one,
> 
> you might lay a gift upon the altar of the sultan
> himself. Sometimes you might save trouble by
> 
> sizing up your men, and might settle the matter
> 
> immediately by bribing the right man with the
> right amount the very first time.
> Under this system no salaries were ever paid.
> The officials reimbursed themselves from their
> positions. If they took too much it was likely to
> 
> get to the ears of the sultan and they were in
> danger.     Thus a certain limit was set, depending
> [43]
> THE REAL TURK
> upon the governor's pull with the chief execu-
> tive.  All the government administration, all
> transaction of business, and even the administra-
> tion of justice, were carried on in this way.           It
> has been the method of governing in the East
> from time immemorial           and exists today all over
> Turkey, Persia, India and China. Graft in the
> Western world is but a faint survival of this
> primitive idea, that the government           is   for the
> sake of the governors.
> How have the Young Turks faced this prob-
> lem?         Have they been able to make a radical
> change, and overturn the system of government
> which has been in vogue in the East ever since
> history began?         We could hardly expect them to
> do this.       There are not enough honest men to
> fill the positions,    in the first place ; and the hand-
> 
> ful of progressives at the head of the government
> have a stubborn mass of common people to deal
> with,    who     are   tooignorant to desire better
> things   ;   and at the same time they are obliged to
> defend        themselves     from the hungry wolves
> among the Old Turks, who have been deprived
> of their spoils.       This class of men, able rascals,
> if   we may so designate them, who have no sym-
> [44]
> THE REAL TURK
> pathy with modern ideas of government, consti-
> tute the greatest internal danger which reformed
> 
> Turkey has to face.   Old Turk officials may still
> be found in various parts of the country in suf-
> ficient numbers to prevent speedy reform.     It is
> 
> a matter of education.    The people have got to
> be educated up to the ideal of an efficient govern-
> ment, and that will take time.   It seems that the
> 
> Turks are sincere in their efforts to better their
> country. Among them are many noble and pro-
> gressive men; but it will take years to bring solid
> improvements to pass and meanwhile Turkey
> deserves our patient sympathy.
> One of the primal necessities of a free citizen-
> ship is freedom of speech and of the press.     So
> great was the oppression under Abdul       Hamid
> that not only all public and journalistic criticism
> of the government was suppressed, but owing to
> the spy system the expression of private opinion
> was extremely dangerous.     In public places the
> discussion of politics was absolutely impossible,
> and even in one's own home servants and wives
> might be in the employment of the sultan.
> Hence one can understand the statement of a
> prominent Turkish woman, that she had never
> [45]
> THE REAL TURK
> seen     the    word   "liberty"    in   print   until    the
> Revolution.
> But all this has been changed.         The Turkish
> people have tasted of liberty, and it is the sweet-
> est drink they have known.     To be able to dis-
> cuss freely matters of government, to criticize
> if   necessary, to suggest         improvements      is   the
> 
> birthright of every citizen in this age of               dem-
> ocracy.        When the Turks stepped into the pos-
> session of this birthright, they took the                most
> important step of years            of centuries, perhaps.
> It is interesting to see the new citizenship of
> 
> Turkey actually working out in its representa-
> tive Parliament.       True, there are certain unob-
> trusive restrictions which greatly limit the free
> 
> powers of the body; but, withal, the Turks are
> learning how to discuss, weigh, and govern. It
> is   an inspiring sight to visit this Parliament and
> watch     its   proceedings.   Such a heterogeneous
> array it would be hard to find in any legislative
> body!      Turks, Arabs, Syrians, Albanians, Bul-
> garians,    Armenians and Jews sit side by side,
> peaceful or wrangling, as the occasion may re-
> quire.     The guttural remonstrances and criti-
> cisms from different parts of the floor in a
> [46]
> THE REAL TURK
> strange language (all the people speaking at
> once in moments of excitement) made me think
> of nothing more than of a frog pond in which
> 
> huge frogs raise up a chorus of rough bass voices.
> Yet there is something stupendously impressive
> in the thought of these delegates          from all over
> the Empire coming together for the first time in
> free   assembly, deliberating and weighing the
> problems of their nation.         In America the pre-
> ponderance of representation          is   given to the
> legal profession, while in Turkey it is the clergy
> who secure this advantage, as is shown by the
> sprinkling of white turbans all over the assembly.
> It was my good fortune to travel to Syria in
> the summer of 1910 in the steamer which was
> taking home the Syrian delegates after the clos-
> ing of the first year of Parliament. Everywhere
> they were greeted with popular acclaim. At
> Constantinople they were ushered to the quay
> amid soldiers, brass bands, and speeches by local
> celebrities.     With      welcome they were
> similar
> 
> greeted at Beyreut, where tents and decorations
> had been put up, and cheers rent the air upon
> their arrival.    They could not have been more
> heartily received   had they been football heroes
> [47]
> THE REAL TURK
> instead of mere legislators   !   I took the first train
> for Damascus, thinking I had left delegates and
> 
> reception committee behind         but lo and behold!
> 
> upon the platform was a local committee, a brass
> band and a crowd of soldiers to receive the dele-
> gates who were on the same train, travelling to
> the interior.    When I arrived in Haifa by rail
> two mornings later, there in the public square
> were more soldiers, more brass bands, more local
> speakers.     Fortunately my modesty and the ex-
> periences of the preceding days prevented           me
> from imagining that all this was in my honor.
> As I surmised, they were waiting for the arrival
> of more delegates, who had come less quickly by
> steamer than I had by rail.        In this celebration
> there was one thing of peculiar interest        a green
> cushion borne by a mullah,, on which reposed a
> 
> single hair     from the head of Mohammed.           To
> touch this cushion would bring a great blessing,
> and crowds surged around it and a sea of hands
> uplifted    strove   to   reach the   sacred   emblem.
> Thus were modern progress and Oriental re-
> ligious enthusiasm strangely mingled.
> What does all this acclaiming of the delegates
> signify?    It signifies that the people have tasted
> 
> [48]
> rriWO Turkish citizens of the best type
> J.  showing admirably the contrast   be-
> tween the old and modern costume.
> THE REAL TURK
> of liberty and appreciate it.    The seeds of free-
> dom are now firmly planted in their hearts and
> minds.   It means that Turkey cannot go back to
> absolutism for any length of time. Even the
> most pessimistic of Turkey's wellwishers do not
> apprehend any overthrow of the popular govern-
> ment which would be more than temporary.
> Great changes come and we wonder at them for
> a time and then forget about them.        Persia and
> 
> Turkey, with their revolutions, parliaments and
> popular governments, have already passed a lit-
> tle below the horizon of public notice.     At pres-
> ent China   is   attracting   more   attention.   Yet
> the situation is larger than any one country and
> should be viewed as a whole.     With Persia, Tur-
> key and China entering upon the stage of popu-
> lar government, there     not now (with the ex-
> is
> 
> ception of a few obscure states) a single Oriental
> despotism left. This fact means a change in the
> whole face of Eastern civilization.
> THE TURK IN BUSINESS
> CHAPTER IV
> THE TURK IN BUSINESS
> Turks are not naturally traders.    Coming into
> history eight centuries ago from a nomadic life
> in the steppes of Turkestan, they      adopted as
> their chief professions in their present home agri-
> 
> culture, warfare, and beaurocracy.    There is no
> middle class among them       from humble work-
> man or servant one may rise to nobleman. The
> upper classes get their living from the govern-
> ment by holding official positions which are more
> or less sinecures.
> Business is left to the Greeks, Armenians and
> Jews in the Empire, and to foreigners who settle
> in the chief cities for the purpose of commerce.
> 
> In Constantinople and the other seaports all the
> business is in the hands of Jews and Christians
> 
> except for small eating-houses and bazaars of
> Oriental goods.   Among Mohammedans the
> Persians and Arabs are much keener business
> men than the Turks. The Persians are good at
> trading; they maintain in Constantinople a large
> [53]
> THE REAL TURK
> Persian Bazaar, as well as many shops in the
> 
> Buyak Bazaar.
> In business the Turks are the most honorable
> of   all Orientals.     In all my shopping I have
> found a great difference between them and other
> races.    To the tourist who spends a few days at
> Smyrna or Constantinople all the traders seem
> alike,   a crowd of robbers; but, as a matter of
> fact,he probably cannot distinguish Greeks
> from Armenians nor Jews from Turks, since
> they all look alike to him in their red fezes and
> since all charge enormous prices for things       the
> chief impression which he carries away from the
> bazaars.    After one has lived in Turkey awhile,
> however, and has learned to distinguish the
> Turks from traders of other races, he begins to
> notice that the Turkish shopkeeper is less exor-
> bitant   and   less   inclined to haggle over small
> 
> amounts; that he will come more quickly to a
> reasonable price than the others; that he knows
> what the true price of his goods is, and that if he
> realizes thatyou know it, too, he will quickly
> cease to bargain and will be willing to sell the
> 
> thing for what it is worth.      I think it is safe to
> 
> say that the Turk would prefer to adopt fixed
> [54]
> THE REAL TURK
> prices.    In the interior, where the population is
> pure Turkish, the fixed price holds sway, and
> there is no bargaining at all. In fact, the Turk
> is   not so cunningly endowed for business as are
> his neighbors, the Persians, Armenians, Greeks,
> 
> Jews and Syrians.
> I have often noticed that if I go into a Turk-
> ish mahalabiji (restaurant) for something to
> eat I always get the right change when I give a
> 
> large coin in payment; while in a Greek restau-
> rant the owner almost always cheats me, giving
> back less change than is due and claiming double
> the prices for his foods.   One who is used to the
> ways of Greek shopkeepers very seldom gives
> them any money to change, but pays them in
> small coins the current price of the food he has
> eaten and walks out heedless of the expostula-
> tions of the shopkeeper, who almost always asks
> more.
> Turks are not only more honest as shopkeep-
> ers,   but they make the most reliable servants.
> The Turkish servant who comes from the in-
> terior,   unspoiled by contact with civilization, is
> absolutely honest, faithful and veracious.     You
> can trust him alone in the house without fear of
> [55]
> THE REAL TURK
> articles   disappearing    which cannot be said of
> men of the other races of the Ottoman Empire.
> If sent on an errand, he brings back a true re-
> 
> port of what he has done. If commissioned to
> buy something he can be trusted to deliver the
> right change. Perhaps he is honest because he is
> too slow-witted to be otherwise, and cannot
> 
> dodge about the truth so nimbly as his more
> subtle-minded brothers of the Orient but what-
> ;
> 
> ever the cause, he deserves credit for the posses-
> sion of this virtue.
> The simple honesty of the Turks is not the
> only drawback in their business careers.     Their
> inactive   temperament and their religious fatal-
> ism also cut short their profits.    They are not
> bending all their energies to the accumulation of
> wealth and the acquisition of fame: they are
> content with little    there are hardly any people
> in the world that are content with less.   If they
> can earn enough money in a day to buy their
> very simple food and allow them a few hours at
> a coffee-shop, which will cost the trifling sum of
> two or three cents, they are satisfied.    I have
> often seen an itinerant fruit- or candy-vender
> 
> smoking peacefully in some coffee-shop and en-
> [56]
> THE REAL TURK
> joying rahat (a dreamy condition of rest) to-
> tally unconcerned that a customer was standing
> 
> by his wares outside, waiting to buy. In fact,
> he had to be called before he would take notice
> of his customer; and then he seemed indignant
> at being disturbed   from his rahat for the few
> pennies that the sale brought him.
> It   was interesting to compare the service in
> two grocery stores standing side by side in
> Rumeli Hissar, one run by Turks, the other by
> Greeks.
> The latter were ambitious to do business, did
> up bundles rapidly and solicited further trade.
> The former, on the other hand, appeared very
> nonchalant they waited on you with supreme in-
> ;
> 
> difference, and spent twice the time in wrapping
> 
> up packages that the active Greeks consumed.
> There is no hurrying the Turk a dozen people
> may be waiting to purchase, but he weighs out
> his wares and does them up with the same exas-
> 
> perating slowness and unhurried calm. If you
> are in haste you buy of the Greek; but if you
> have time you buy of the Turk, because of his
> greater honesty and the friendly smile with which
> he greets his old customers. He is ready to do
> [57]
> THE REAL TURK
> you any little favor, for which he would indig-
> nantly refuse a tip.
> In methods of industry and business the Medie-
> val form holds sway.        Hand work is the rule.
> Industrialism has not yet struck the Orient        to
> which fact we owe the beautiful hand-made ar-
> ticles   which characterize the East.      You may
> stroll through the bazaars of Constantinople and
> 
> see   men in   little   booths cutting out various
> 
> shapes of    wood     with hand lathes, working at
> baskets,    shaping     and painting coarse    china.
> 
> They work slowly but deftly.         Their hours are
> long, but their labor dignifies instead of degrad-
> ing them.    Now and then they stop, light a cig-
> arette, and dream       there is a chance for a bit of
> meditation and a broadening of the vision of life.
> 
> Compare the feverish activity of our modern
> industrial system, with its soul-racking machines
> and dehumanizing servitude         to work.    While
> visiting a chair factory in America, I saw a man
> 
> tending a machine lathe with both hands, adjust-
> ing the new piece of wood with one, and remov-
> ing the finished product with the other. His
> labor was incessant and so quick and nervous
> that it left little room for the soul in him to peep
> [58]
> THE REAL TURK
> forth during his eight or nine hours at tHe ma-
> 
> chine; he was working at a tension which must
> 
> inevitably tell on his nervous system and health
> some day.     "What is his reward for this?"         I
> asked the owner of the factory.         "Eleven fifty a
> week."   On that he could live no more happily
> than the hand laborer of the Orient, who enjoys
> his   work   in   a               and
> dignified way.
> leisurely
> 
> "Why then is this man working so fast, if his
> pay is so small?" "He has to," the proprietor
> answered, "or I would kick him out and find an-
> other man."   To whom was this laborer a slave?
> to his owner, or to the system? At any rate, he
> was a    slave to his work, while our Oriental
> brother was the master of his.
> Poor East!      Little does it dream, in its silent,
> meditative happiness, that it will one day have to
> face the industrial system, the age of machinery
> and iron, which already is creeping in upon it;
> for factories are being established,       and labor is
> being chained to the loom.
> When it comes to selling his products, the Ori-
> ental is again the master of his business       sitting
> 
> cross-legged in his little shop waiting patiently
> for a customer. He is never anxious to sell. If
> [59]
> THE REAL TURK
> you wish to exchange your money for his goods,
> he is ready to serve you. Strange as it may
> seem, to bargain with one of these venerable old
> Turks for a chain of prayer beads and finally
> make a purchase is like going away with a beni-
> son upon you.    You feel an affection, a love, for
> the old man.    He is happy to sell his beads, you
> are happy to buy them       and the whole transac-
> tion has been conducted on the highest level of
> 
> honor, courtesy and brotherly feeling.
> The Turk has no idea of enlarging his busi-
> ness, of buying up the shops around him and
> erecting a department store. The booth which
> served his father serves him; he makes a living,
> he is happy, he lives near to Allah    what more
> could he want?    Ah, the possibilities of automo-
> biles, of steam yachts, and of palaces in town and
> 
> mountain have not yet appeared to him.       Will
> you go and awake him from his lethargy and
> dream, American financier? Will you under-
> take to show him the possibilities of combination,
> of fierce competition, of ostentatious wealth?
> Will you take away his soul and give him a few
> millions in return?
> 
> Pray do not.        Leave us some corner of the
> [60]
> THE REAL TURK
> earth where we can flee when the shadows of in-
> dustrialism oppress us; when the soullessness of
> human    faces   arousesour despair; when the
> clutch of the dollar begins to seize upon us and
> to draw us into the mad vortex of haste for false
> 
> pleasure and showy rivalry.    The East is as yet
> a land free from nervous desire, a land where
> one can rest, can seek the eternal solitudes of the
> spirit   can find something more valuable for hu-
> manity than materialistic comforts.
> 
> [61]
> THE ETERNAL FEMININE
> CHAPTER V
> THE ETERNAL FEMININE
> The East is in many ways the antipodes of
> the West,    and   especially in   its   treatment of
> women.   Here women have every right there
> none. Here men make love to their wives there
> wives make love to their husbands. Here men
> wait upon the women        there women wait upon
> the men.     The male in the East is petted and
> spoiled from birth.     An Oriental boy is a little
> autocrat, learning    from childhood to dominate
> the women.
> On a certain social occasion in this country a
> young man of the Orient asked for something
> from an American lady in such a peremptory
> way as to make the request almost an order. No-
> ticing her          and indignation, he apol-
> surprise
> ogized, saying, "Why, at home my mother and
> sisters fly around to do things for me."
> 
> Yet the time seems to be coming when "mere
> man," even in far-away Turkey, is to fall from
> [65]
> THE REAL TURK
> his   regal position    the   "New Woman" is in-
> vading the East!
> In all seriousness, the position of the Oriental
> woman up to this time has indeed been pitiful
> one of isolation, contempt, ignorance and degra-
> dation.  Nor is this attitude toward woman con-
> fined to Mohammedan countries: it is the gen-
> eral attitude of the East, from the Bosphorus to
> 
> the Pacific Ocean.     It was inherited from classic
> 
> times.    Paul seems to have been influenced in his
> ideas concerning the fair sex by Greek philoso-
> 
> phy and culture; the Mohammedans took their
> custom of secluding and veiling women from the
> Greek civilization then prevalent in the East.
> In India polygamy prevails, with its conse-
> quent subjection of woman.      In China and
> Japan the contempt for the female child is great.
> It must not be supposed that Mohammedan-
> ism lowered the position of the Arab woman.
> Before    this   religion prevailed,   it   had been a
> common custom among the Arabs to bury su-
> perfluous female children alive in the sand. Mo-
> hammed restricted his followers to four wives,
> a great advance over the promiscuous intercourse
> which had preceded; and other worse things, un-
> [66]
> THE REAL TURK
> namable here, were done away by the Prophet.
> Degradation of women was inherited from the
> environment, since it has been a racial charac-
> teristic of the     With just as little reason
> East.
> 
> might the freedom of the Occidental woman be
> ascribed wholly to Christianity.
> The average Mohammedan female does in-
> deed hold an unenviable position.         She cannot
> feel herself essential to her husband, save in the
> 
> satisfaction of his sex needs; she cannot in     any
> way be said to share his life; she lives in a little
> world of her own, a feminine world, into which
> her husband may enter as he will, but no other
> man, save her nearest male relations.      Her quar-
> ters,   called the harem, are entirely separated
> from the men's quarters.         She does not see her
> husband's guests.     The whole world might come
> and go, and she be never the wiser.         A licen-
> tious husband, if he be so inclined, may entertain
> 
> courtesans within his      own rooms and his wife
> never know it, save through tale-bearing serv-
> ants  and she would be unable to prevent it,
> even if she did know it.
> What can the wife do, then, to amuse herself?
> Her greatest source of enjoyment is in visiting
> [67]
> THE REAL TURK
> or    receiving        visits   from other Mohammedan
> women.       During these visits, tongues rattle and
> local gossip      is    exchanged.      At other times, the
> Turkish      woman amuses              herself   by smoking,
> dreaming, playing backgammon, or sleeping.
> Life in the harem is very boresome. Ennui is
> the fatal disease of the Oriental woman.                 She
> does not, as a rule, know how to read; her head
> is   empty of ideas, and her language is vile.          The
> talk of the harem, in which wives, servants and
> little   children join, is pornographic to a degree.
> The Constantinople women seek amusement
> in shopping, which furnishes an opportunity for
> 
> delightful flirtations; in driving through pleas-
> ure resorts, where they raise their veils on oc-
> casions; or in boating on the Sweet Waters,
> where they display their charms more freely
> than elsewhere. But the Mohammedan women of
> the interior of Turkey, of Persia, and of India,
> have none of these liberties.              They never dare
> to unveil in public, and they must drive in closed
> 
> carriages.     In travelling by boat or train they
> have special quarters reserved for them, and do
> not appear where the men are.
> These are not the worst things Mohammedan
> [68]
> A   TYPICAL    Turkish   house,   Turkish
> women boating on the Bosphorus.
> 
> G    YPSY women at the Sweet Waters.
> THE REAL TURK
> wives have to put up with.  Perhaps the greatest
> evil of polygamy is its destruction of the home.
> 
> What ambition would a woman have to save and
> scrimp and make a home for her husband, and
> then, as she grows old and ugly, see him take a
> second wife, young and beautiful?           As a result
> of this danger, they take       little   thought of the
> home.      Their one aim is to have a good time, and
> to get their husbands to spend as much money as
> 
> possible    upon them.    In Persia, the word for
> "woman" is used to describe any evil thing.
> Not only does the Oriental wife run the dan-
> ger of competition from a second wife, but she
> is liable at any time to be divorced. The slight-
> est quarrel, or   even dissatisfaction, on the part
> of the husband may result in a divorce and no
> 
> legal proceedings are necessary: all the husband
> has to do is to say before a witness, "I divorce
> 
> you," and the deed is done. If he says it only
> once he can take her back when his anger cools;
> if he says it three times, it is irrevocable,   and he
> cannot take her back again till she has been mar-
> ried to another man and divorced.         For this pur-
> pose, therefore, there exists a special profession
> in the Orient: men make a business of marrying
> 
> [69]
> THE REAL TURK
> divorced    women for one night, in order that
> their fond and forgiving husbands of yore may
> 
> take them back again.
> 
> Ambiguous and flowery language         is   often
> used in the East to soften hard facts.      The hus-
> band may say, "I think you had better visit your
> mother, my dear," and he is perfectly understood
> by his discerning wife it is not necessary for
> him to add, "Do not come back again!"
> The frequency of divorce varies in different
> countries   and   localities,   and according to the
> wealth and position of the men.       It is very com-
> mon among the Egyptians, where some women
> at  twenty have been divorced ten or twelve
> times. In fact, divorce in Mohammedan coun-
> 
> tries is a great evil, because through its facility a
> 
> woman is practically at the mercy of her hus-
> band.     She must manoeuvre day and night to
> keep in his good pleasure. She lives always in
> anxiety. Should she, however, desire to divorce
> her husband, she would have to go through a
> 
> complicated legal procedure, which makes it dif-
> ficult for her to get free the freedom is all on
> the other side.
> Another degrading effect of polygamy and
> [70]
> THE REAL TURK
> harem life on the Oriental woman is the necessity
> she is under of suing for her husband's favor in
> 
> competition with his other wives. She must al-
> ways be making love to him, and counts herself
> lucky if he deigns to notice her.  The terrible
> jealousies and intrigues of the harem make life
> a hell in many cases.
> The wife who first bears her lord a male child
> is   in great favor,   and she holds a position su-
> perior to the other wives: as mother of a man
> child she reaches the highest state woman can at-
> 
> tain in the Orient.    As a girl she is neglected, as
> a wife degraded, but as a mother she is respected
> and cared for. Through her influence upon her
> son she may exert a good deal of power. When
> he marries she becomes the ruler of his house-
> hold     and a tyrant she often is, too.     For this
> reason it is the one desire of the Oriental woman
> to have a son.     This is her dream       and this is
> what her rivals most fear.       Therefore they some-
> times attempt, through bribing the midwife, to
> maim her so she can never bear children again.
> To what depths .will jealousy not go! In Persia,
> besides plurality of wives, and possibility of di-
> 
> vorce, the Mohammedan man can also have con-
> [71]
> THE REAL TURK
> cubines or keep women for stated periods.      The
> position of these women is legalized by religious
> law, so that they are not held in dishonor.   They
> may fill such a capacity while young and later
> marry respectably.
> The poor generally have but one wife         and
> they live as happily together as any other peas-
> ant peoples.    The lower-class women are not
> bound up in the fol-de-rol of veil and secluded
> quarters.   Their life is so much in the open that
> the veil would be often in the way.
> They wear it,
> but when they work in the fields they put it up
> over their head. So they are much freer than
> their wealthy sisters. For the harem is dis-
> tinctly an adjunct of the plutocrats.   And it is
> a question whether a legal provision for such
> men's appetites is any worse morally than the
> covert licentiousness of Western peoples. Let
> that country which is without evil be the first to
> throw stones.   Some of our rich men are also po-
> lygamists, and in the practice of their pleasures
> they often ruin young girls, whose course may
> then continue downward until it ends in the
> 
> gutter.   The Oriental women are at least assured
> of a home, a position in society, and a certain
> 
> [72]
> THE REAL TURK
> amount of happiness.         Let us not think that
> monogamy has stamped out the desires of men,
> nor that American gentlemen of wealth are al-
> ways more virtuous than their wealthy Moham-
> medan brothers in this respect.
> Mohammedans seek to defend polygamy by
> arguing that it avoids prostitution; and another
> defence is that it is necessary in a country where
> women have no independent means of support
> (there are few old maids inTurkey marriage
> means assurance of support and protection).
> Polygamy may be a social evil, but whether or
> not it is a moral evil (in some stages of civiliza-
> 
> tion)   is   open to question.   It is rather inconsis-
> tent of Christians to hold        up   their   hands in
> horror at the polygamy of Islamic countries
> now, while they read with perfect equanimity
> the lives of Abraham, Jacob, and the other pa-
> triarchs of the Bible, who were also polygamists.
> 
> The Turks treat their wives more liberally
> than many other Mohammedans, and there is
> more real love and domestic happiness among
> them than in Persia or India.       Along the shores
> of the Bosphorus, on pleasant summer days, can
> be seen many a Turkish family          father, mother
> [78]
> THE REAL TURK
> and children      strolling along together enjoying
> the fresh air in company          a thing unheard of in
> stricter  Mohammedan countries.
> However, polygamy is now a waning custom
> in Islam.      The influence of European culture
> has been steadily creating a sentiment against
> it   among progressives, and the Young Turk al-
> most universally restricts himself to one wife.
> It   is   only in the passing generation that the
> harem exists.  The Young Turk aspires to the
> happiness of a real union a home built up by
> the love and devotion of two people, one for the
> other a partnership between man and wife.
> And he knows this is impossible if he has more
> than one wife.      He also desires his wife to be
> educated, so that she can be his intellectual and
> spiritual     companion.      The     young    Turkish
> woman of the present day has often a culture
> that      would eclipse that of many an educated
> American woman.         She reads French fluently,
> and usually English, also.         She devours French
> novels, and even reads works of philosophy.        She
> is a   woman of force and of character        no longer
> the doll-like creature of the harem.
> Turkish women, like Turkish men, are admir-
> [74]
> THE REAL TURK
> able in character and personality.         They have a
> charm which attracts.        In personal appearance
> they are often very beautiful, with clear delicate
> complexion, wonderful eyes, and a grace which
> is the heritage of the Orient. Their voices are
> melodious, and their manners kindly yet digni-
> fied.  The veil, half revealing, half concealing
> their charms, renders them still more attractive;
> 
> and when pushed wholly up on the head, fur-
> nishes a head-dress which        is   always becoming,
> framing the rich oval face and bringing out its
> delicate contour.
> 
> A wonderful change has come over the women
> of    Turkey   since   the   Revolution.       Rebellion
> against their oppressed position, long smoulder-
> ing, broke out in demands for more liberty at a
> time when liberty was in the air.          The women
> began to appear        in the streets    and   in public
> 
> places unveiled.       Groups    of   them would meet
> you bare-faced, with brazen effrontery.
> A significant sight was that witnessed by the
> writer just after the Revolution, when at a fete
> on the shore of the Bosphorus, given to raise
> money for the exiled Turkish pariots, some two
> hundred Turkish women sat in the audience, un-
> [75]
> THE REAL TURK
> veiled.   This was a miracle indeed for Islam
> a breaking away from old ties          a sign of new
> conditions and a new world-culture.          Prominent
> Young Turks made speeches one word of which
> would have caused their death before the consti-
> tution was declared   ;   and one speaker turned and
> addressed the women, assuring them that they
> would share, too, in this glorious liberty, and that
> they must prepare themselves to be mothers of a
> worthy race.
> We were even waited on by beautiful Turkish
> maidens, unveiled, who served us ice cream and
> handed us change.         One must have lived in the
> Old Turkey properly to appreciate this.
> One of the boldest and most talented among
> the Young Turkish women is Halliday Hanum,
> the daughter of a government official of high
> rank under Abdul Hamid.             This   officer sacri-
> 
> ficed promotion and       advancement and even en-
> dangered his life by refusing to take her out of
> the American College for Girls at Constantino-
> 
> ple before her graduation.        Abdul Hamid would
> never permit any Turkish           man or woman to
> graduate from the American schools if he could
> prevent it by threats and pressure.
> [76]
> THE REAL TURK
> Halliday Hanum, up to the time of the Revo-
> lution, was the first and only Turkish graduate
> of the American Cqllege for Women.          She had
> married a cultured Young Turk, later made a
> member of the Board of Education, with whom
> she continued the training of her mind, reading
> and discussing French novels, philosophy and
> history. When the Revolution broke out and
> freedom was declared, she was one of the best
> fitted of all Turkish women to represent her sex
> 
> and her country. She developed into a brilliant
> writer,   and the leading Turkish journals were
> eager for her work.      She was made a member of
> the Constantinople press club        the only female
> member      and she mingled freely with men of all
> nationalities except her own.
> 
> Another           precedent was established
> historic
> 
> when she gave a lecture at her Alma Mater, be-
> fore an audience of men         and women, unveiled.
> Such boldness had not been known since the days
> when Kurat-el-Eyn, the Babist, of Persia, ap-
> peared before her fellow disciples unveiled;
> which shocked them so that one went and com-
> mitted suicide, no longer caring to see the light
> of day after witnessing such shameless effront-
> 
> [77]
> THE REAL TURK
> ery.   It was as great a sacrilege against propri-
> 
> ety as for a woman here to appear nude in public.
> Such is the force of custom.
> For her boldness in violating the sacred cus-
> toms of Islam, Halliday Hanum came near be-
> ing torn to pieces during the fanatical uprising
> of April, 1909. Once more the Old Turks were
> in power,     and they sought eagerly for all who
> had offended them. Halliday was safely hidden,
> but if she had been found she would have been
> torn limb from limb.
> 
> Aggressive suffragism has set an example
> which the Turkish women were not slow in fol-
> lowing.   They demanded with such persistence
> the right to attend the sessions of Parliament
> that it was finally accorded them.
> The boldness of the women in throwing off the
> old restraints was modified somewhat after the
> first flush   of liberty had died down.   The pres-
> sure of public opinion on the part of the fanatical
> Old Turks, who still numbered nine-tenths of
> the Turkish population, was too great.     Women
> were mobbed in the streets for appearing un-
> veiled.   Finally theYoung Turk Committee
> issued an appeal to the Turkish women to be
> 
> [78]
> THE REAL TURK
> more moderate in their emancipation and to wait
> patiently for the day when public opinion would
> be with them.    As this advice was for their own
> good and the good of the cause, it was followed,
> and the women were more careful about throw-
> ing up their veils when among fanatics.
> Yet the movement of emancipation, of uplift,
> and of education, is going rapidly on. The
> American College for Girls has been besieged
> by Turkish applicants, and it is devoting all its
> energy to preparing the young Turkish woman
> for her place in the new Empire by the side of
> the young Turkish man.         Other foreign schools
> are     now
> educating Turkish women, and the
> government has established schools of its own,
> so that at last the doors of opportunity are
> 
> opened and the new woman, enlightened, able,
> and patriotic, will arise in the East.
> It    very interesting to meet and converse
> is
> 
> with these young women, not only Turkish, but
> Greek, Bulgarian and Armenian, who are being
> educated up to the standards of modern civiliza-
> tion.    They are like undiscovered lands.   If it is
> 
> fascinating for man to study the psychology of
> the opposite sex in his own country, how much
> [79]
> THE REAL TURK
> more so to study the women of other races, just
> blossoming out into the fullness of their intellec-
> tual powers. For centuries they have been mere
> dolls.   Men asked from them nothing but beauty.
> Now their minds are developing, and they show
> great    abilities.   Imagine a blushing Turkish
> beauty discussing the political problems of the
> day or a Bulgarian girl reviewing her sociology
> for your benefit.      They are still rather shy in
> the presence of men.
> An account of the women of the Orient would
> not be complete without a description of the
> 
> ways of love and courtship there.        Love is in-
> evitable.    It has inspired great poems, one of
> 
> which, "Leila and Majnoon" by Nazami, is the
> classic of Persian literature, and one of the most
> 
> beautiful love poems in the world.       Majnoon is
> so intoxicated with his love that he becomes
> crazed by it.    That is the way love strikes one in
> the Orient      that land of nightingales and roses.
> Love in the cold north is pale compared to love
> where spicy breezes blow.       And it is always love
> at first sight, since there are no opportunities for
> 
> courting.    One sees a beautiful face, becomes in-
> toxicated   by it, dreams over it,    feels that life
> 
> [80]
> THE REAL TURK
> holds no interest for him unless he can possess it     ;
> 
> he speaks to the parents, financial matters are ar-
> 
> ranged      and she is his!    It is for her to fall in
> love with him at her leisure; but since she never
> has a chance to become familiar with anyone else
> and has no basis upon which to make compari-
> sons, she is usually satisfied.
> It is contrary to strict Mohammedan custom
> for the man to see his bride except by accident
> before the day of the marriage.        After the cere-
> mony has been performed the men being en-
> tertained in their own quarters, and the women
> 
> separately in the harem         the bridegroom is led
> into his bride's chamber and left there with her.
> He goes up to her, raises her veil, and for the
> first   times sees her face.    If he does not like it,
> he can get a divorce the next day.         Nowadays,
> however, a chance is given the prospective pair
> to see each other,    and some liberty of choice is
> left with them.     A kind father would not force
> a girl to marry a man to whom she felt an aver-
> sion.
> 
> The two sexes are isolated so much from each
> other that love, when it does break out, is very
> 
> powerful, for this is the land of romance     !   In the
> [81]
> THE REAL TURK
> spring, with the scent of blossoms in the air, the
> moonlight lying upon the Bosphorus, and the
> nightingale breathing its passion forth in liquid
> notes, every woman is a Houri, invested with
> celestial charms.       It is the place for dreams, for
> 
> ecstacies,   for joys untold        a land where love
> holds sway as the most potent force in the lives
> of its subjects.
> In the words of Hafiz        :
> 
> When thus I sit with roses on my breast,
> Wine in my hand, and the Beloved kind;
> I   ask no more    the world can take the rest.
> Even the Sultan's self is to my mind,
> On such a planetary night as this,
> Compared with me a veritable slave.
> 
> [82]
> AT HOME
> CHAPTER VI
> AT HOME
> If Charles Wagner had lived and died in the
> Orient he would never have written his "Simple
> Life/' because there it is lived so habitually that
> it is taken as a matter of course.   In the Occident
> there are movements of different kinds on foot
> for the encouragement of this "simple life," but
> in the East it needs no encouragement.
> 
> To an American trained in the etiquette of the
> West life in Turkey seems like camping out and ;
> 
> one falls into their way of living with as much de-
> light as here one leaves the stiff and formal ways
> of the city for a week or a month of tent life by
> mountain or seashore.          All the unnecessary
> things are stripped away, and only those things
> which make for comfort and real ease of living
> are to be found.     The Turk has been a nomad
> for so long that he still carries the traces of the
> wanderer about him and his home is more or less
> an enlarged and glorified tent.
> What would you think of a home in which
> [85]
> THE REAL TURK
> there were no chairs and no beds, no bathroom,
> no pictures upon the walls?       Yet such a home
> may be comfortable and artistic.    Beautiful rugs
> 
> upon the walls take the place of pictures and in-
> ;
> 
> stead of chairs, the Orientals have long divans
> 
> running all around the room, which are wider
> than our couches, serving both as chairs and as
> beds.  The Turks sit upon them cross-legged, in
> the attitude so well known through pictures, and
> read or write in that position.   They never write
> at a desk or table, but use the left hand to sup-
> 
> port the paper, and with the little inkwell upon
> the divan or on the ground in front of them will
> write all day.
> In the University of Cairo, one of the largest
> in the world,    I saw neither desks nor black-
> boards.   In the various open-air courts the stu-
> dents were seated cross-legged on the ground
> around their hodja, or teacher, listening to a lec-
> ture or taking notes on small pieces of paper
> which they held in their hands.
> But to return to the divans. When you come
> to an Oriental house in which     you are to stop,
> you are shown into a room such as has been de-
> scribed and take up your abode upon a section
> 
> [86]
> THE REAL TURK
> of the divan.      Anywhere from one to ten per-
> sons can be accommodated in one room.                 By
> day you recline there and chat a favorite Ori-
> ental occupation or read; and when night
> comes blankets are brought and the same divans
> serve as beds.      The people roll themselves up,
> head to head and foot to foot, candles are extin-
> guished, and soon all are asleep.
> When the Oriental is in his own home he wears
> only his underclothes to bed. Upon getting up
> in the morning he puts on a long dressing-gown
> 
> and cases his bare feet in slippers         a costume
> more comfortable than any other on earth.           Why
> shouldn't men enjoy the luxury of such gowns
> as well as women? Collars are unknown. If
> they wear shirts made to hold collars they leave
> off the collars.
> 
> When dressing for the street they slip on a
> pair of light, loose trousers, possibly a jacket if
> the weather   is   cool,   and over all the long silk
> gown which comes up to the chin when buttoned
> and conceals a multitude of sins        if sin it   be to
> have dirty linen.
> With his large, easy shoes, his light, flowing
> robe, and a sunshade over his head,       an Oriental
> [87]
> THE REAL TURK
> is   as comfortable in   warm weather as costume
> will permit.    Notice this     their costume is built
> 
> for comfort.    Those of us who know what it is
> to hit camp in the Maine woods after a long, hot
> 
> journey from the city and strip off all the bar-
> baric trappings of civilization, and then loaf
> around in the luxury of camp clothes, can realize
> how comfortable life is in the Orient      as regards
> 
> clothes, at least.
> On account of the seclusion of women and
> their absence   from social and business life, the
> men of the Orient become rather lax about their
> personal appearance. They seldom shave more
> than once a week, or twice a week at most. If
> you meet a government official, an editor, a pro-
> fessor, a   statesman    the highest people of the
> 
> Empire      you may      find   them with a    hirsute
> 
> growth upon their faces which the social life of
> the Occident taboos.  Where the Turk comes
> into frequent contact with Europeans, this          is
> 
> changed, however, and he adopts their standards.
> It was laughable yet pathetic to see one little
> 
> change made by the Revolution in the matter of
> street dress. Many of the old-style Turks had
> been in the habit of appearing on the street in
> [88]
> THE REAL TURK
> their   comfortable, kimona-like         home costume.
> Under the new regime this was considered a little
> behind the times, especially as the European la-
> dies protested to the government against this un-
> 
> tidiness;   a       law   was   passed   by   Parliament
> prohibiting these poor old men from appearing
> upon the street in decollete, and they had to
> dress up thereafter.
> I do not wish to be understood, however, as
> 
> branding the Turk with slovenliness.           He is by
> far the neatest and cleanest of all the Orientals.
> His person he keeps scrupulously clean, washing
> his face, neck, hands and feet with religious
> reg-
> ularity (ablutions are one of the requirements of
> his religion)   .    If he fails to wash the rest of his
> 
> body it is because total immersion is not one of
> the ideals of the East.         An Oriental can live for
> a long time without a complete bath, and be as
> 
> happy as an Englishman would be miserable
> under the same circumstances. His clothes he
> invariably keeps clean, and even the laborers al-
> ways look neat.           A costume which contains so
> many patches that the original cloth is hard to
> discover will yet be clean and well-kept.
> 
> They are neat, too, in their habits.        A Turkish
> [89]
> THE REAL TURK
> food shop is much neater than a Greek or Ar-
> menian one.            I have travelled several thousand
> miles on ship with the peasants of           all   races in
> the Orient,       and have discovered that, of all of
> these, the Turks are the neatest.
> When they come in contact with European
> civilization and adopt its costume and habits they
> 
> are great dandies, exquisite in their dress and ap-
> 
> pearance.        The Turk is one of the handsomest,
> most graceful, and most charming of men, and
> no one could fail to be attracted by a gentleman
> of this race who puts himself out to please.
> In one respect the East stands at a point to
> which we may hope to progress after a few cen-
> turies of effort and struggle for common sense in
> 
> clothes   :   it has   no change of styles   that tyranny
> of the tailors which devours so large a portion of
> our attention, time, patience and money.               The
> Oriental buys a silk robe and it is good for life.
> It may even pass            down to the next generation
> and still be in style.        He has no collars, neckties,
> silk hosiery, to change from season to season,           no
> 
> spring styles and winter styles, no change in the
> form of his shoes and his red fez is good all the
> year round, and every year.
> [90]
> THE REAL TURK
> The fez is as democratic a hat as the derby.
> It lasts for years,    and costs at the most only a
> medjedie, or eighty cents. Rich and poor, high
> and low, wear the fez. It is the national head-
> dress of the Ottoman Empire, and to wear any-
> 
> thing else would be unpatriotic.      If a Turk in the
> 
> interior,   where Mohammedan customs are still
> rigidly observed, should appear in a felt hat or a
> straw hat he would undoubtedly be mobbed
> 
> just as much as if he insulted his country's flag.
> After the Revolution the New Turks tried to
> discard the fez by gradually modifying its shape
> and appearance, but the opposition was too great
> and the matter was dropped for the time.          One
> of my Turkish friends, when he went on any ex-
> cursion with me, would take a cap in his pocket
> and upon leaving the outskirts of the town sub-
> stitute it for his fez, which is not an ideal head-
> 
> dress for a hot      sunny day.   I   wonder that the
> Turks have so long let this religious custom of
> the fez stand against their comfort. In winter
> it is all right,   but in the bright sun of summer it
> heats the head and affords no protection for the
> 
> eyes and neck.   Usually the peasants attach a
> handkerchief to the back of the fez and drape it
> [91]
> THE REAL TURK
> over the neck to prevent sunstroke.        At every
> street corner in the city are little shops for cleans-
> 
> ing and reshaping the fez usually run by Jews
> or Armenians. This work is done for one cent,
> and makes your fez as good as new.
> The Turk reverses our customs in this    :   in en-
> 
> tering a house he keeps his hat on; and he bows
> gallantly to ladies, but never lifts his hat.      The
> Turkish custom of taking the shoes off upon en-
> tering a house is one which, far from being ridic-
> ulous, as many Americans think, is both comfort-
> able and hygienic.   None of the dirt of the street
> is   tracked into the houses   and in the East the
> streets are pretty dirty.   Our housekeepers here
> who lose so much good-temper over the careless
> way the men folk have of tracking mud and dirt
> across a newly-cleaned floor can realize the ad-
> 
> vantage of taking off one's shoes at the door.
> The old-time Turk wears thick socks and low
> shoes without any leather at the back, walking
> with a peculiar motion which is necessary to keep
> such shoes on and developing tremendous ankles.
> 
> Upon reaching home he slips out of his shoes
> without needing to use his hands in the process,
> and walks across the threshold in his stocking-
> [92]
> THE REAL TURK
> feet. Then he curls up on a divan, as comfort-
> able as a dog by the fire. The washing of the
> feet is a religious duty and since it is performed
> 
> from one to five times a day there is no offensive
> odor.
> The New Turk, however, who has become
> affected with European footwear, puts      on over
> his shoes   a kind of leather overshoe something
> like a low rubber, and takes this off upon enter-
> 
> ing a house, keeping his shoes on.
> You Americans who are suffering from afflic-
> tions which require the services of a chiropodist
> 
> what would you not give if you could shuffle
> off your tight shoes whenever you entered a
> house and sit as the Turk does, in your stocking-
> feet?    What a comfort! And yet I will guaran-
> tee that  you have considered the Turk a most
> eccentric and unnatural man because his custom
> 
> as regards the covering of head      and foot are
> diametrically opposite to yours.
> Such little things as this, even, may teach us
> tolerance for other races, whose customs seem so
> different from ours.   Let us remember that there
> is a reason for every such custom and that
> often this custom may be intrinsically better than
> [93]
> THE REAL TURK
> our own.      I think a great opportunity is lost in
> our schools by not presenting the customs of
> foreign peoples in such a way as to develop tol-
> erance and breadth in the pupils.                 Our geogra-
> phies have aimed too much at arousing interest
> by sBowing the         peculiarities of foreign races.
> Just as sure as a child comes to think any race
> peculiar, he will despise it.        He should be shown
> the deep underlying sameness                of     human      na-
> ture,which expresses itself in different cus-
> toms under different environments and needs.
> On      the   surface     men        seem        different;    at
> 
> the     bottom they are one         seeking the same
> things in     life,   moved    by the same needs and
> passions.
> To a stranger, a Turk in his red fez, peculiar
> garb, and swarthy complexion,               is   something to
> wonder at and even ridicule, as the old joke in
> "
> "Punch"       illustrates:         'Arry,    'ere     comes     a
> 
> stranger 'Eave 'alf a brick at 'im."         most     We
> of us have bricks up our sleeves for the stranger               ;
> 
> and what the world needs is to realize that no
> men are strangers.         When you have associated
> with the Turk for a while he will become as a
> brother to you, and the differences will seem
> [94]
> THE REAL TURK
> to drop away.      It is no honor to be provincial in
> one's attitude toward others.
> In matters of diet the Turk again displays his
> simplicity and common sense.        One of our most
> noted dietitians, whom I met in Constantinople,
> declares that the Turks have the finest physique
> of any race in the world, and lays this fact to
> their simple diet and abstinence from liquor.
> 
> Although a man of wealth or a gentleman in
> official life   may surround himself with a luxury
> of diet befitting his rank, it is the exception those
> ;
> 
> in ordinary walks of life eat very simply.          For
> Breakfast they take only the small cup of Turk-
> ish coffee, and possibly a roll.    At noon they eat
> a very simple lunch perhaps only a bowl of
> sour milk (yaourt) and bread. At night comes
> the main meal of the day, but this is not elab-
> orate.   It consists of meat and rice (pilaff), sev-
> eral   dishes    of vegetables,   salad,   and pastry,
> ending with the delicious coffee. In the summer
> the Turks are almost vegetarians, consuming
> 
> very little meat, but eating fresh salads, good
> vegetables and fruit.
> The diet of the workman or the peasant is
> simpler still.     He lunches on a piece of bread
> [95]
> THE REAL TURK
> and an onion         or any fruit in     its   season.   A
> quarter of a loaf of bread costs him one cent, a
> melon, a bunch of grapes, or a piece of cheese
> costs another cent,     and for two cents his lunch
> is   complete.    At night he has a stew with cheap
> vegetables and a bit of meat in           it    the whole
> 
> thing costing four or five cents.
> Yet the strength of the Turkish workman with
> such a slim diet       is   amazing.    The hamals or
> porters can carry loads of from two hundred to
> eight    hundred pounds         the    most astounding
> burden-bearers in the world.           It is nothing for
> one of them to carry a piano on his back.           I have
> counted twenty-four chairs upon one hamal.
> Perhaps it is because of their simple diet as
> well as because of the soothing effect of their cli-
> mate and the absence of excitement and worry,
> that the Orientals do not need exercise as much
> as we do.        They never suffer from indigestion,
> although they will remain sedentary from morn-
> ing to night. The idea of walks or games or
> horseback rides for the sake of exercise seems
> 
> preposterous to them.
> It might be of interest to know some of the
> Turkish dishes.       Food made from milk they are
> [96]
> ENDER of liquorice water.
> THE REAL TURK
> very fond of             a relic of their pastoral life, per-
> haps.     The most famous dish of this kind is
> yaourt, a form of cultured milk, which has the
> consistency of thick sour milk, and can even be
> carried in a handkerchief. It is made from the
> milk of the cow and also from goat's milk and
> from that of the buffalo-cow, which is rich in
> cream.      No more delicious food than this has
> ever been invented for hot weather.
> Sutlach       is   a rice-milk of the consistency of
> 
> gruel, very delicate and easy to eat when the ap-
> petite flags.           Then there is mdhaldbi, something
> like cornstarch              pudding, eaten with sugar and
> rose water     ;   and taouk-gok-sud, or chicken-breast
> milk,    made           of    grated     chicken-breasts.     All
> of    these        dishes      are     appetizing   and     easily
> digested.
> The Orientals are fond also of sweet pastries,
> of which they make many delicious kinds.
> 
> Ekmek-ka-daif is a sort of bread soaked in
> honey and eaten with the kaimak or thick cream
> of the buffalo-cow,             made up in the consistency
> of cottage-cheese.              Or if you prefer, there is
> paklava made of thin layers of pastry with
> honey and ground English walnuts between the
> [97]
> THE REAL TURK
> layers.    Tel-ka-dcdf is made of strings of pastry
> soaked in honey.
> These dishes are almost cloying in their sweet-
> ness      there is nothing weak about them!    Half
> a portion would fill most people with dulcitude
> 
> enough to last for days.
> In vegetables and fruits the Orient is rich.
> Many of our fruits originated in the East and
> were brought to Europe by the Arabian con-
> quests and commerce.       In Constantinople one
> can get fresh fruits almost all the year 'round.
> Strawberries commence in May to call to the
> hillsides of the   Bosphorus the pickers, who fill
> the marketplaces with baskets of the luscious
> fruit.     Cherries appear in June and last for a
> month or more       for two centsyou can get all
> you can eat, and they are delicious on hot, dusty
> tramps in the country. Just as the cherries go
> the melons begin to come in. There are many
> varieties of them and they last into the autumn.
> 
> Then the figs and grapes appear.       It is   worth
> while visiting Constantinople    only to buy a
> if
> 
> bunch of those magnificent grapes from a street
> vender      large and beautiful clusters that will
> carry you back to Sunday school days and the
> [98]
> THE REAL TURK
> picture-cardsportraying the spies of Moses
> bringing back from the brook Eshcol a huge
> bunch of grapes upon a pole between their
> shoulders.  Perhaps then you had periods of
> doubt and scepticism, as I did, but come to Con-
> stantinople,   and for two cents you can get a
> bunch large enough to dispel your doubts.
> Pears and apples last into the winter, and in
> January there begin to appear the splendid Jaffa
> oranges and tangerines from Egypt, and the
> cycle is complete.
> Fresh vegetables also can be obtained almost
> through the year.   Tomatoes, peas, and beans
> begin to come from Egypt in February. Lettuce
> and cabbages can be picked fresh from the gar-
> dens about Constantinople as late as January.
> The egg-plant is a favorite vegetable, as is the
> okra.
> Meats are poor in Turkey, all except chicken
> and mutton.     The beef comes from Russia, Bul-
> garia, and South America and is poor.   Chickens
> are cheap, but one tires of them. The mutton is
> good, but is cut in peculiar ways. The meat of
> the hog is of course not to be had in   Moham-
> medan countries except from Christian butchers.
> [99]
> THE REAL TURK
> The Turks have a favorite dish which consists of
> egg-plant stuffed with chopped onions and rice,
> and cooked in oil delicious but hearty. They
> also stuff marrows with chopped meat and rice.
> 
> Another dish is rice wrapped in grape-leaves and
> steamed.
> Last, but not least, is the great staple food of
> the Orient, pilaff, which is as necessary to their
> existence as the potato is to the Irish.           Pilaff is
> rice cooked in a certain way so as to preserve each
> 
> grain distinct and firm.           It   is   made from un-
> polished rice, the little white powder about each
> grain forming a gelatinous coat in cooking.                   It
> is   boiled in    mutton    fat    and has a       delicious
> flavor.    There is a chemical difference in the rice
> thus cooked, owing to this little coat of gelatine
> about each grain, which makes it easier to digest
> than our rice.    Often I sigh for pilaff as the He-
> brews did for the fleshpots of Egypt.               It   is   a
> unique        and a much more satisfying and
> dish,
> healthful staple than potatoes. There are dif-
> ferent forms of pilaff:       it   is   sometimes cooked
> with small currants and pinenuts, and sometimes
> mixed with bits of roast mutton, when it is called
> kebab-pilaff.     The most delicate pilaff is that
> [100]
> THE REAL TURK"
> made by the Persians and flavored with orange
> peel.      A plate full of the pilaff with the
> freshly-cooked     mutton   sliced     and   scattered
> 
> through it, followed by a bowl of yaourt, a cup
> of Turkish coffee and a cigarette, puts you in a
> condition of contentment where you do not envy
> even kings.
> Before I leave the subject of food I must men-
> tion a Persian dinner to which I was once invited
> in Ramleh, a suburb of Alexandria.        It was nine
> o'clock before we reached the house. I was very
> 
> hungry, as I had been travelling all day, and was
> ready to sit right down and eat. But we chatted
> away in the guest room with no hint of food until
> I began to wonder if the cook had absconded or
> had had his head chopped off for flirting with my
> friend's wife.   It was ten o'clock.    Still the talk
> 
> went on, my host entertaining me in execrable
> French and I answering in worse.        I don't know
> which of us was the more bored, but I hope he
> did not feel any worse than I did.
> At last the signal for dinner came, just in time
> to save me from an acute attack of nervous pros-
> tration.    It was eleven o'clock.     If I had only
> known that it was the Persian custom to do the
> [101]
> THE REAL TURK
> after-dinner talking before dinner, to dine late
> at night, and to fall asleep immediately after, I
> should have fortified myself with a supper at six
> o'clock and been spared this agony.
> The meal progressed through           the   various
> 
> stages of salad, meat and pilaff, and vegetables,
> until    it   came   to fricasseed partridge.     I was
> 
> mildly surprised to see my host pick up several
> choice bits of this delicacy with his fingers and
> 
> put them on my plate. That is a great cour-
> tesy in the East. I was not able to eat all the
> meat he gave me, and at the end a perfectly
> good wing was still left on my plate. As my Per-
> sian friend passed       my plate to the servant he
> took off this wing with his fingers and put it
> back on the platter.        We
> have only to go four
> hundred years back to find similar customs
> prevalent in the best society of England.
> Often the Orientals eat without individual
> plates        the peasants always do.   A bowl of soup
> is   put down on the table and all attack it with
> big wooden spoons until it is annihilated.            Then
> meat may come on in little rolls, and these they
> eat with their fingers.      A bowl of yaourt    is   next
> 
> placed in front of them and that is scooped out
> [102]
> THE REAL TURK1
> with pieces of bread.    When the meal is finished
> the only utensils to be washed are the    wooden
> spoons and a few bowls and platters. This is
> what one might call simplified housekeeping.
> 
> [103]
> A GREAT OTTOMAN PATRIOT AND
> TEACHER
> CHAPTER VII
> A GREAT OTTOMAN PATRIOT AND
> TEACHER
> The movement                 Ottoman
> instituted    in    the
> 
> Empire by the so-called New Turk party was
> one of the most remarkable events in history
> unique in the closeness and secrecy of its organi-
> zation, unique in its greatness of accomplishment
> with so little expenditure of force, and, above
> 
> unique in the change it wrought in Turkey
> all,
> 
> from the grossest absolutism to the highest
> kind of idealism.        Perhaps no country in the
> world was controlled by a foody of men so ideal
> in their policies, so truly patriotic, so utterly de-
> 
> voted     to   the    welfare   of   their   native        land,
> as     those    who    governed      Turkey        after    the
> Revolution.
> The explanation of this is easy to give. Every
> movement from the Old to the New calls out
> idealism,      devotion and self-sacrifice.          Such a
> movement can only be brought to pass by those
> who are ready to suffer for it to give their lives
> [107]
> THE REAL TURK
> for it, if necessary.      And who brought about the
> renovation of Turkey?          It is just such men as
> these   ;   men who had already dearly paid for their
> patriotism by prison and exile, by confiscation
> of property, by long years of waiting. The more
> we sacrifice for a cause, the more we are ready
> to sacrifice further for it; and those who give
> most not those who get are the ones who love
> most. Therefore it happened that the men who
> came back to Turkey from exile, from imprison-
> ment, from expatriation, came back with charac-
> ters purged as by fire, came back with ideals of
> 
> service of a height reached only in the great
> 
> epochs of a nation's history.          They   are the
> 
> George Washingtons, the Adamses, the Jeffer-
> sons of Turkey.         Among these idealists there is
> none of loftier devotion, of purer motives, of
> wider vision, than Tewfik Fikret Bey. Although
> he has never been in exile, his life is typical of
> true Turkish patriotism, and gives us a glimpse
> of the oppression under the old regime.
> Fikret Bey was born and brought up in Stam-
> boul,       the   Turkish quarter of Constantinople.
> When he was a young man his father received
> one of those appointments which the Sultan so
> [108]
> THE REAL TURK
> generously gave to all suspected radicals in this
> ;
> 
> case it was the governorship of Acca, a penal
> town on the coast of Syria, of very unhealthful
> climate and unsanitary conditions.   In this exile
> his parents spent the rest of their lives,   and his
> father died there without Fikret's being allowed
> to go to see him.   The reason for his exile was a
> peculiar one.   He was a very generous man, and
> used to give in large quantities to the poor, who
> 
> frequented his house in considerable numbers.
> This gave his enemies ground for telling His
> 
> Majesty that he was trying to make himself
> popular with the people and that he was a dan-
> gerous man.  As the Sultan did not wish any-
> one to be popular in Constantinople except
> himself, he sent the man to Acca, where he could
> 
> practice his charity without danger.    In conse-
> quence of this experience, Fikret Bey, who is as
> generous as his father was, has been obliged to
> be very cautious and circumspect in his charities,
> never giving openly.
> Meanwhile Fikret had been sent to the Galata
> Serai for his education.   This college, although
> a government institution, was founded and op-
> erated under French influence; and no doubt
> [109]
> THE REAL TURK
> Fikret imbibed many liberal ideas there.      The
> French language opened up to him the store-
> house of Western knowledge and thought, and
> he read deeply along these lines.
> After graduating he was appointed teacher
> there, a position in which he was very successful
> and popular with his students.        He is a born
> teacher.     While he was at the Galata Serai, one
> of the most interesting episodes of his life took
> 
> place.     A new Turkish weekly was started called
> the Serveti Funnoun or "Treasures of Science,"
> and he was appointed editor-in-chief.      In this
> position he had a splendid outlet for his abilities
> as a writer and a leader.       The paper had some
> measure of freedom at first, and Fikret exercised
> an influence over the young men of his time in a
> direct and personal way even more than in what
> he wrote.     This young man, possessed of a most
> charming personality, a writer and thinker, and
> of broader learning than most of his contemp-
> 
> began to be the leader and idol of the
> oraries,
> 
> youth of Constantinople; and the office of the
> Serveti  Funnoun became the rendezvous of a
> coterie of liberal young men who gathered there
> 
> from week to week to discuss modern and radical
> [110]
> THE REAL TURK
> subjects.   Fikret Bey was one of those men
> cheerful, sympathetic, intuitive     who know how
> to appreciate and draw out ability in others ; and
> he inspired many young geniuses to think and to
> write. His influence at this time was great.
> But such a state of affairs could not go on for
> long.    Any man who was popular and any home
> to which visitors gathered in too great numbers
> became objects of suspicion.       It was inevitable
> that    some envious person should report these
> meetings at the office of the Serveti Funnoun to
> the Sultan, and take advantage of his despotic
> nature to arouse suspicion against this brilliant
> 
> young editor who was so popular with the youths
> of Constantinople.  The homes of the editors
> were searched and      all their   books confiscated.
> Several members of the staff, including Fikret
> 
> Bey, were imprisoned and brought to trial at the
> palace.  Nothing of serious nature could be
> proved against them, and after a few days they
> were set free. But, although liberated from the
> material prison, Fikret Bey walked forth an ob-
> 
> ject of suspicion     a mental and moral prisoner
> for ten long years.     For a year or more he re-
> mained in close retirement, not daring to assume
> [in]
> THE REAL TURK
> any duties of a public character. It was at the
> end of this period that he commenced his work
> as Professor of Turkish at Robert College, with
> which he was connected until the Revolution
> broke out, nine years in all. This was the darkest
> 
> period of his life.    Very few people came to see
> him.   He was forced to exercise the greatest cau-
> tion in regard to his actions,     and none of his
> powers of leadership and thought could find ex-
> pression.  He was obliged to see his country,
> which he loved with such a passionate love,
> robbed and oppressed by the Padishah, and in no
> way could he serve it.      His genius and his pa-
> triotism smouldered within       him and turned to
> pessimism.    He became melancholy, even sad;
> yet throughout it all he maintained his kindness,
> his unselfishness     and his charm of personality,
> which nothing could subdue.
> It is hard to realize in America what the op-
> 
> pression under the old regime was.       It was not
> 
> only that things could not be written in the
> papers, or spoken in public, but it was hardly
> possible even for people to converse together on
> political or liberal subjects.   Meetings were for-
> bidden, and the mere dining together of sus-
> [112]
> THE REAL TURK
> pected people would be dangerous. Spies were
> everywhere. The officials at the steamboat land-
> ings were obliged to make reports on the pas-
> sengers,    and sentinel-boxes were stationed      at
> 
> convenient places so that watch might be kept on
> 
> suspected houses. At Therapia, along the quay
> in front of the different embassies, there were al-
> 
> ways men       fishing;   weather never    interfered
> with their sport, because they were paid by the
> Sultan to spy on the embassies and see who went
> in   and out of them.     On all the boats and cars
> and in public places where men might gather and
> talk, spies were placed in great numbers, so that
> no one dared to talk on serious subjects.      Even
> Europeans were obliged to be cautious in their
> conversation in public places, and as for the
> Turks, only such subjects as are proper at an
> afternoon tea were open to them.
> Such limitation was not only very irksome but
> tragic to a man like Fikret Bey.      He saw himself
> powerless to help his country.        He could have
> held office under the old regime, had he wished it
> in fact, he   had been appointed at an earlier
> date to a position in the Sublime Porte, in con-
> nection with the Foreign Office but after a short
> ;
> 
> [113]
> THE REAL TURK
> service in that capacity, seeing how rotten were
> the conditions there, he resigned.    His resigna-
> tion was not accepted by the government, and
> for years his name was down on the books for
> that position and he could have drawn a salary
> all   that time without doing a stroke of work.
> This experience showed him that even to hold a
> 
> public office would not give him the slightest op-
> portunity for real service. The system was too
> strong.
> During his long period of helplessness, he
> turned to various things for amusement and for
> an outlet to his energies.     One thing which ab-
> sorbed his attention for some time was the de-
> 
> signing and superintending of his new residence
> near the college grounds, on a hill overlooking
> the Bosphorus.    He was the sole architect of this
> house, which is unique in its way, full of delight-
> ful angles   and viewpoints.      On the top is a
> cupola commanding a magnificent view of the
> Bosphorus, in which he spent much of his time.
> A model which he had made in cardboard he
> used to show with childlike pleasure to his vis-
> itors : it was made with great neatness and skill,
> 
> an exact replica of the house and grounds with
> [114]
> THE REAL TURK
> the paths winding in and out among tiny bushes
> of green tissue paper.    He took much delight in
> working in the garden himself, planting trees,
> weeding the flowers      forgetting his troubles in
> communion with Nature.
> Another thing which served in some way as a
> means of expression for his artistic nature was
> painting, of which he  was very fond, and in
> which he had attained a great deal of skill and
> feeling in   an amateur way      for he   was   self-
> 
> taught.    He rigged up a studio for himself in
> his study,   and decorated the walls of his home
> with the productions of his own brush.
> While professor at Robert College, he of
> course came into relation with Europeans and
> 
> Americans, and had some social life in common
> with them; but not much, because for his own
> sake foreigners did not dare to call upon him too
> often.    His beautiful wife has been a true help-
> mate and consolation to him.       She is of course
> also liberal in her ideas, and on several occasions
> 
> went to social functions given by the Americans
> and mingled freely with them without a veil; but
> as her    husband was threatened with imprison-
> ment if he continued to permit this, she had to
> [115]
> THE REAL TURK
> remain veiled, as far as Americans and other
> foreigners were concerned.     She is a woman who
> would be an attraction in any social gathering.
> At the time when I first met Fikret Bey he
> was under   this   cloud sad and without hope
> for himself or for his country. How could he
> know that so soon the clouds were to pass, the
> bonds were to be broken, and he was to be free
> to dedicate his genius to the service of Turkey!
> It was in June that I      saw him thus depressed.
> On the 24th of July the Revolution burst out
> like lightning   from a clear sky, and from that
> day on Fikret Bey was in the full exercise
> of his powers, and overdriven with work.
> As soon as the Constitution was declared and
> the restrictions were removed from public speech
> and from the press, many Turkish newspapers
> and journals came into existence.     Of one such
> paper,   The Tanine, Fikret was urged by his
> friends to become editor-in-chief,   and under his
> management it made an excellent reputation.
> Thorough and conscientious in everything that
> he undertakes, he devoted himself with great
> earnestness to the work, going over very care-
> 
> fully everything published in the paper, even to
> [116]
> THE REAL TURK
> the advertisements, revising articles which were
> 
> faulty or poor in style, and often almost re-
> writing certain parts. Here again, as when edi-
> tor of the Serveti Funnoun, he did Jiis best to
> 
> encourage rising genius.     It was very hard for
> him to refuse articles.   "Let us give a chance,"
> he would say, "to these young men who have
> never had as yet an opportunity to write for the
> 
> public."
> While connected with The Tanine, Fikret Bey
> received two offers which he declined: one was to
> be Minister of Education, and the other was to
> be President of Galata Serai.    His friends could
> not make out why he refused these opportunities
> for service, the first of which was especially de-
> 
> sirable and suited to his acquirements and learn-
> 
> ing. The reason he gave was that he wished to
> found a school of his own when the time came
> and that he could not be satisfied with either of
> these positions.   He was also offered a professor-
> ship of Turkish Literature in the Turkish Uni-
> versity at Constantinople, but he refused that,
> saying that he was not capable of filling it. Sev-
> eral different men had to be engaged to take the
> 
> place, which he alone could easily have filled.
> [117]
> THE REAL TURK
> Meanwhile his work on the paper was becom-
> ing very arduous and confining. On account of
> his high ideal of what a newspaper ought to be,
> 
> he gave so much time to revision that he had no
> 
> opportunity of writing anything himself, or of
> doing any other original work. He was con-
> stantly urged to give up a position which allowed
> such little opportunity for an expression of his
> real genius ; and in the winter an illness brought
> on from overwork inclined him to listen to this
> advice.   At about this time many of the alumni of
> the Galata Serai who had been students of his
> when he was professor there persuaded him to
> accept the presidency of the College, assuring
> him that it would go to ruin if he did not. So
> he became President of the Galata Serai.
> 
> During his administration there he made many
> changes. The school was really in a bad condi-
> tion when he began his work        disorganized,
> badly disciplined and more or less corrupt in its
> management. He improved it wherever possi-
> ble.   It was unfortunately under certain limita-
> tions of a political character which rendered   it
> 
> impossible to make a clean sweep. Again he was
> hampered by politics, and was forced to resign
> [118]
> THE REAL TURK
> from the Galata        Serai.    He was immediately
> welcomed back to Robert College as the head of
> the Turkish Department, where he has since re-
> mained.
> The idol of his heart and the goal of his am-
> bitions was to found a school of his own in which
> 
> he could be absolutely free to carry out his own
> ideas of education.       He would model it some-
> what after Des Moulin's school          with a great
> deal of freedom in the government of the stu-
> 
> dents,    small groups in individual houses and
> close    relations   between teacher and student.
> This plan of a school to fit young men for mold-
> 
> ing the future of Turkey came to his mind im-
> mediately after the founding of the Constitution.
> This ideal school would train the students to
> 
> appreciate their personal dignity, their duties
> and their social and political rights. All the
> latest ideas of teaching and pedagogy would be
> 
> realized here.       The instruction would be more
> than merely scholastic.          Attention would be
> given to physical culture and manual labor. The
> students would learn how to use the hammer and
> saw, how to take care of gardens, etc.       in fact,
> 
> they would be trained in all the requirements of
> [119]
> THE REAL TURK
> actual life.    The attention and observation of the
> students would be cultivated by experimental in-
> struction.     The system of instruction would have
> for   itspurpose to develop supple and able in-
> tellects and not merely to cram the mind with
> 
> knowledge.
> The course of study in this school would be de-
> signed to cover eight years and to turn the stu-
> dent out at the end of that time not only
> 
> equipped with a general education, but also pre-
> pared to take up and practice the special profes-
> sion he might have chosen.    Thus the students
> would be able to earn their own living immedi-
> ately upon graduating, and would complete their
> professional knowledge in the practice of their
> profession.     This would necessitate the omission
> of a good deal of mere book knowledge.          The
> aim of the system would be,        in the   words of
> Fikret Bey, to "develop a logical reason and to
> trace a     framework of general ideas, luminous
> and precise.     Education is a means, and not an
> end."
> The shortening of the course to eight years
> would be imperative on account of the imme-
> diate need of Turkey for young men trained, not
> 
> [120]
> THE REAL TURK
> in the old bureaucracy, but in the highest social
> 
> and civic ideals.        In the last years of the course,
> civic instruction would be made the pivot around
> 
> which everything else would center.              Lectures
> would be frequently given on the great national
> and social problems.          The school would try to
> efface all race hatred        and intolerance.    Excur-
> sions   would be made at home and abroad for
> social, historical and economic study.
> 
> Care would be taken to prepare the student
> for social life, and to overcome such idiosyncra-
> cies    as   timidity,    egotism,   and emotionalism.
> They would be taught how to speak and act in
> society. Numerous sports would form part of
> the training, such as hunting, fishing, riding on
> 
> horseback,  canoeing and swimming the pur-
> pose of these being not only to perfect the body
> but to cultivate sangfroid and precision            mens
> sana in corpore sano.
> At present the young Turk has no career open
> to him except in the bureaucracy.          Fikret would
> not only fit his students for other professions,
> such as agriculture and business, but would en-
> deavor to overcome that prejudice which exists
> in the minds of the Turks for any but a govern-
> 
> [121]
> THE REAL, TURK
> ment position. If the constitutional government
> in Turkey has come to stay, and if the country
> is   to progress with rapid strides in the develop-
> ment of its resources and institutions, what a
> great need there is for just such a school as this,
> which would send out young men filled with the
> highest ideals and equipped with the knowledge
> necessary to serve their country! It is because
> of a dearth of such men now that the Young
> Turk party can accomplish so little of immediate
> reform. The people must be educated up to it.
> It may be, also, that such a school, if it could
> be successfully initiated, would give instruction
> to the West in the matter of education.      Can we
> pretend that our system of higher education is a
> model one? Is it fitted to the times? Does it
> turn out men of character?        Has it got rid of
> book-knowledge," as Fikret calls it?
> all "sterile
> 
> The great need of Turkey, by the law of neces-
> sity,   may call forth a better system of education
> than our modern Occident contains.
> 
> Fikret Bey is the second greatest, if not the
> 
> greatest, poet of the Ottoman Empire.       The lau-
> reateship of Turkey, if such a thing existed, he
> [122]
> THE REAL TURK
> would have to share with Abdul Hak Hamid,
> the poet and dramatist, for Fikret is a purely
> 
> lyric poet   and his work is limited in quantity.
> In the year 1899-1900, at about the time he
> came to Robert College, he brought out a small
> edition of his poetry with the consent of the Min-
> ister   of Public Instruction.            The edition was.
> quickly    exhausted      and has          never    been   re-
> 
> published.     Since then he has written a few
> 
> poems of patriotic nature, one of which became
> immediately famous all over Constantinople, al-
> though it was never printed, but had to be passed
> on orally on account of the strictness of censor-
> ship under the old regime.             It is known as The
> Mists, and is a lamentation over Constantinople,
> the Queen of the East, mistress of so many peo-
> 
> ples,   gradually    sinking into          obscurity.      The
> poem is in part as follows:
> A cloud holds thy horizon in clinging embrace;
> An obscurity white slowly grows o'er thy face,
> Blotting out and absorbing; the mist's heavy net
> Veils the scene, as with dust, to a faint silhouette
> A majestic dust veil, what lies   '
> neath this robe
> By its folds is concealed  our regard cannot probe.
> But thee, oh how fitly do sad veils conceal,
> Arena of horrors, fit nought should reveal.
> Arena of horrors, yea, majesty's stage;
> O glorious setting for tragedy's rage!
> [128]
> THE REAL TURK
> Thou of greatness and pomp at once cradle and grave;
> Queen eternally luring, the Orient thy slave.
> What bloody amours with no shuddered protest
> Have been held to thy generous harlot breast.
> Oh within the deep Marmara's azure embrace,
> As one dead sleepest thou, whilst her waves thee enlace.
> Old Byzance, still thou keepest immune to all harm,
> After husbands a thousand, thy fresh virgin charm;
> Thy beauty the magic of youth still retains,
> The trembling of eyes seeing thee yet remains.
> To the eye of the stranger how lookest thou dame,
> With thy languorous sapphire-blue eyes, oh how tame     !
> 
> But the tameness is that of the woman of shame,
> Without dole for the tears shed o'er thee, o'er thy fame.
> As though sapping thy very foundations in gloom,
> A traitor hand added the poison of doom,
> O'er each particle spreadeth hypocrisy's stain;
> Not one spot of purity there doth remain;
> All stain: of hypocrisy, jealousy, greed,
> Naught else and no hope of aught else hence proceed.
> Of the millions of foreheads protected by thee,
> How few, shining clearly, and pure may one see?
> Thou Debauched of the Ages, sleep on till mists fail.
> Veil thyself, O thou Tragedy, O city, veil.*
> 
> This poem reveals in its sad strains utter hope-
> lessness and pessimism.         Soon after the revolu-
> tion of last July, however, which wrought such a
> 
> great change in Turkey, Fikret wrote a sequel
> to   The Mists, taking for his theme The New
> Constantinople.
> *From translation by Miss   Hester D. Jenkins.   The Open
> Court, 1909.
> 
> [124]
> THE REAL TURK
> His poetry marks an advance in spontaneity
> and freedom of form over that which has here-
> tofore represented Turkey            for Turkish poetry
> in the past has been of very rigid meter, with
> much rhyme and little flexibility. He has tried
> new forms of meter, more European in character,
> and    his   lyrics   are full of feeling and music.
> 
> Many of them are written in praise of nature and
> contain that beautiful imagery which            is   pecu-
> liarly the gift of the Oriental.
> The character of Tewfik Fikret Bey is lofty,
> as his personality is charming. The best people
> 
> among the Turks seem to possess a "New Eng-
> land conscience,"       if   one may use that term       a
> conscience and an ideal which put them at once
> above all temptation of power, influence, or lux-
> ury.    One cannot imagine Fikret Bey commit-
> ting the slightest act of selfishness, greed, or
> narrow partisanship.          It was with difficulty that
> he could be persuaded to accept money for pri-
> vate lessons which he gave while connected with
> Robert College. The poor he has had always in
> mind, and his charity toward them, exercised in
> numerous hidden ways, was all the more praise-
> worthy, because under the old regime such things
> [125]
> THE REAL TURK
> were difficult and likely to arouse suspicion. His
> kindness and generosity are so great as to attach
> all his friends to   him with an ardent devotion.
> At the same time he possesses a natural dignity
> and a passionate nature which make him the last
> man in the world to trifle with.     It is this com-
> bination of qualities which made him such an ex-
> cellent teacher and administrator.    His personal
> courage is great.     During the late reaction his
> name was upon the list of those who were to be
> killed. He was urged to go into hiding, but he
> replied: "If it is my destiny to be killed, I shall
> be killed; if it is not, I shall live," and he abso-
> 
> lutely refused to hide.       was evidently his
> It
> 
> destiny to live, for Constantinople was rescued
> before any harm could come to him.        His coun-
> try needed such a man, whose ideals are of the
> purest and loftiest kind, whose patriotism is as
> far-seeing as it is ardent, and whose character
> is unimpeachable. It is because Turkey can
> 
> produce such men as this that her future looks
> hopeful.
> 
> [183]
> TURKISH SCHOOLS
> CHAPTER VIII
> TURKISH SCHOOLS
> Education in Turkey is at present in an inter-
> esting state of transition; it has been and still is,
> to a large extent, purely scholastic.       Could we
> transport ourselves to the Europe of the Middle
> Ages, we should see just the kind of education
> which has held sway in Mohammedan countries
> since theday of Mohammed. The chief pur-
> pose of the schools has been to educate the
> clergy; the basis of education has been the Koran
> with its commentaries, and the Sunna or Book of
> Traditions about Mohammed, just as in Medi-
> eval   Europe religious speculation formed the
> chief interest of scholars.
> 
> The Koran, however, holds even greater sway
> in the higher Islamic education, for the reason
> 
> that it furnishes the chief basis for both civil and
> 
> religious law.   Hence it is the text-book, not
> only of theologians, but also of jurists.    Science
> in the modern sense has never played a large part
> 
> in such   an educational system.     Extreme reli-
> [129]
> THE REAL TURK
> gious faith opposes free inquiry and criticism as
> blasphemous.
> However, this naivete of mind cannot endure
> in the face of Western progress and Western
> 
> triumphs, because of the application of modern
> science to the needs of life. Modern schools are
> 
> slowly being established throughout the Orient,
> and the higher education consists of more than
> theology    and jurisprudence.     The introduction
> of    modern medical schools, both Turkish and
> Christian, has done much to hasten this progress.
> 
> Constantinople possesses an excellent school of
> this kind, and there are today many Turkish
> 
> physicians of good training and professional
> equipment.
> But let us begin at the beginning, which in
> any educational system is the primary schools.
> In the East these are called "mosque schools" and
> are under the domain of the clergy, as they still
> are in the Catholic countries of Europe.        The
> teachers are usually mullahs or softas.         The
> Koran     takes   its   preeminence from the   start:
> 
> every day verses are learned from this sacred
> text and recited viva voce by the class in unison.
> The louder they shout the better, and the hodja
> [130]
> N old style Turk    rather impervious
> to  things modern, but full of native
> dignity and character.
> THE REAL TURK
> or teacher leads the chorus, joining with his own
> loud voice when the recitation flags, or beating
> time peremptorily with his bamboo wand.                         It
> 
> makes no         difference that these verses               are in
> Arabic and are not understood by the children.
> At other times when a single pupil is reciting,
> the others pay no attention but go on studying
> 
> aloud, so that the school room is always noisy,
> and to Western senses, disorderly.                     The elemen-
> tary   subjects,        such     as   reading, writing         and
> arithmetic,       are     more        or        less   successfully
> taught,     as    are    also   geography and
> bits      of
> 
> history,    strongly colored by patriotism and
> religion.
> Girls     and boys attend these schools together
> and are intellectual companions until the age of
> puberty, which comes much earlier in Eastern
> countries than in the West. Such schools exist,
> in the imagination of the               Turkish Minister of
> Education, in every town and village of the Em-
> pire; but in reality they exist only where local
> effort keeps them going, which is chiefly in cities,
> 
> large towns and suburbs.                They are very poorly
> equipped (the pupils have no chairs or desks but
> sit on mattresses upon the floor), sadly lacking
> 
> [181]
> THE REAL TURK
> in         and provided with teachers whose
> funds,
> 
> learning and efficiency would not come up to
> even the poorest European standards.                  Educa-
> tion   not compulsory, and the lower classes
> is
> 
> seldom send their children to school. Thus the
> illiteracy of   Mohammedan countries is enormous.
> Mature persons can hardly count in simple num-
> bers.    An old Turkish woman who sold her own
> needlework in a street of Constantinople asked
> me to count up my few purchases and tell her
> what they amounted to            a testimony both to the
> 
> ignorance and to the simple, honest trust of the
> average Mohammedan mind among the lower
> classes.
> 
> With the primary schools the girls' public edu-
> cation stops.        There is no higher education for
> women as yet in Mohammedan countries,* al-
> though movements are already on foot to                     es-
> 
> tablish schools for such a purpose.              If the girl
> 
> belongs to a family of the upper classes, she may
> receive further education at home. Many Turk-
> 
> *
> Exceptions to this are the Sultan Ahmed School, the oldest
> in Constantinople,  where girls can study grammar, arithmetic,
> Persian, Turkish, history and embroidery; and the Dar-ul-malu-
> mat, also in Constantinople, a normal school for the training of
> women teachers. There are also a few orphan schools where girls
> learn sewing and embroidery.
> 
> [182]
> THE REAL TURK
> ish    women of the aristocracy have a thorough
> training in French and sometimes in English,
> and spend their idle hours, of which they possess
> a great abundance, in reading. The Moham-
> medan has never considered it necessary for
> women to have trained minds, any more than he
> would think of cultivating the intellect of his
> donkey or ox.        That attitude is rapidly chang-
> ing, however, thanks to the invasion of the          New
> Woman movement even into the heart of the
> Orient.        The progressive Turks are beginning
> to prefer to have progressive wives, of mental
> 
> ability equal to their          own     true helpmates and
> intellectual companions.
> Meanwhile the boys, more fortunate than their
> sisters, go on acquiring knowledge in the second-
> 
> ary schools, which are modeled somewhat upon
> the French Lycee.           These schools are planned
> for each large center of population, but their ex-
> istence   is   sporadic and precarious.         Again we
> find poor       equipment       no libraries or laborato-
> ries    and unsanitary buildings, lack of funds,
> and too great a preponderance of the clergy in
> the teaching force.    The leading secondary school
> of the Empire, however, the Galata Serai in
> [   133 ]
> THE REAL TURK
> Constantinople, is an exception. Lately this
> school has been housed in a magnificent new
> 
> building on the height of Pera, and it is the pride
> of the Turkish heart.   I had the pleasure of
> 
> visiting Fikret Bey, at the time when he was
> director, in his magnificently appointed office ; he
> is very fond of this school,   from which he himself
> graduated, and in which he served years ago as
> teacher.  The courses of instruction here are
> thoroughly modern, with fine lecture rooms, lab-
> oratories,   and dormitories for the resident stu-
> dents,   and the young men who graduate are at
> the point in education reached by our juniors at
> 
> college.
> There are several secondary schools or mekya-
> tub idadie of this nature in Constantinople.      I
> 
> frequently visited one of these in Cabatash,
> where a Turkish friend of mine was sub-master
> a man of real, unselfish devotion to his work
> and to the school, the growth of which he watched
> with great delight.     After the Revolution the
> Ministry of Education made extensive plans for
> the improvement of the schools which they were
> never able completely to carry out through lack
> of funds, but this particular institution was for-
> [134]
> THE REAL TURK
> tunate enough to receive money for repairs and
> 
> equipment.      Part of it was rebuilt, and new lec-
> ture halls and laboratories put in.    It was touch-
> 
> ing     to see the delight with which    my friend
> showed the physical laboratory with its up to
> date equipment, proudly turning on faucets and
> 
> moving the various pieces of apparatus.      A
> per-
> fectly-equipped laboratory was  to him  a sort of
> 
> miracle, a sign of the   New Turkey.
> After looking around the school we would go
> to visit the principal in his cozy office, where we
> were always entertained in Turkish fashion with
> coffee    and cigarettes.   The walls of the office
> were decorated with oil paintings, some of which,
> quite charming works of art, were painted by the
> principal himself.    He was a perfect gentleman
> a man of power and yet of extreme kindness,
> for     whom one cannot help forming an affec-
> tion.  His smile, lighting up his strong Turkish
> face, put me immediately at ease and made me
> feel the   warmth of his friendship. These two
> men      he and my friend worked together in
> 
> perfect accord to improve        and build up    their
> 
> school, and they tried hard to secure more funds
> in order to carry out their work and make it per-
> [135]
> THE REAL TURK
> feet in its every detail.     (I fear the    army has
> since absorbed the     money which should have
> fallen to the share of education.)
> 
> I was shown here a map of Europe, used in
> the geography classes, upon which Greece,
> Egypt and the Balkan states were colored as be-
> longing to Turkey.        The Orientals do not like
> to face facts.    In the teaching of history, prior
> to the Revolution, all reference to historic revolu-
> tions was tabooed.    Sociology was not taught at
> all.
> 
> There exists in Constantinople an Ottoman
> University    the highest expression of education
> in Turkey.    It has departments of Letters, Sa-
> cred Law, and Theology.           Its work is much lim-
> ited   by scholasticism, and it cannot be said to
> turn out real scholars.    It forms a basis, however,
> 
> upon which a real university may some day be
> erected. It is well equipped with seats and
> 
> desks, but there are no libraries to study from,
> and no laboratories for the direct study of the
> physical sciences.    The chief means of instruc-
> tion is by lectures, as in the medieval universities
> of Europe.       Even the text-books are ancient.
> Until a few years ago physics was taught from
> [136]
> THE REAL TURK
> an Arabic text-book over a thousand years old
> dating from the Cordova period.
> There are theological schools or medreses, con-
> nected with the leading mosques, whose students,
> called softas, are given free tuition and lodging,
> and in addition a small sum, about five dollars a
> month, which is sufficient to feed them in the sim-
> ple Oriental way.   Strange that divinity schools
> in the East, as well as in the West, have to offer
> 
> more inducements than secular schools do!      The
> medrese adjoins the mosque, with which it is of-
> ficially   connected.   The students live in very
> simple rooms or booths opening into the central
> court.   They sleep on matting, and cook their
> own food on charcoal braziers. The sums doled
> out to the students, enough to keep them fed and
> clothed,   tempt many Turks to become theolo-
> gians. Indeed, the popularity of this comfortable
> cloistered existence has been so great as to form
> 
> a scandal.     Examinations were merely nominal,
> and thousands of students continued to         live
> 
> on to old age in the eager ( ?) acquisition of re-
> ligious knowledge.      At the time when the Young
> Turks came into power there were some twenty
> thousand softas in Constantinople alone.       The
> [137]
> THE REAL TURK
> Young Turks instituted a reform, established
> more rigorous examinations, and turned away
> many of these spiritual attaches. There are still
> large numbers of them, however, and if you pass
> by one of the larger medreses at the close of the
> day you will meet hundreds of them pouring out
> of the court of the mosque and filling the streets
> with their white turbans and scowling faces
> for their theology does not seem to have mel-
> lowed their characters.         They are among the
> most fanatical and haughty of all Moslems.
> The chief Mohammedan educational institu-
> tion of the Near East is the great University of
> 
> Cairo, said to be one of the largest in the world,
> with its enrollment of over eight thousand stu-
> dents.    This university is a relic of the days when
> Islam led the world in education, and Christians
> from     all   over   Europe attended its great uni-
> Cairo and Cordova, bringing back
> versities at
> 
> with them ideals which led to the founding of
> universities at       Bologna and Paris, and the es-
> tablishment of higher education in Medieval
> 
> Europe.
> Christians are not welcomed at this university,
> even as visitors.       In order to see its interior I
> [138]
> THE REAL TURK
> went there with an Arab friend in the disguise of
> a Turk         a simple transformation for which only
> a fez is required.          We passed from the exterior,
> where we took off our shoes, into the great court.
> There we saw different groups of students seated
> cross-legged        upon the tiled floor around their
> professors, taking notes, or listening to exposi-
> tions.        The Orientals in writing hold a piece of
> paper on the         left   palm and write with queer
> wooden pens. Other lectures were given in inner
> courts and classrooms, but nowhere did I see any
> modern equipment of blackboards, desks or sci-
> entific apparatus. The university is noted
> chiefly for its courses in Arabic, in        which it is
> one of the leading authorities.           The education
> offered    mostly scholastic, including also in-
> is
> 
> struction in Turkish and Persian, the study of
> the Koran, the Sunna, and commentaries upon
> 
> both, and training in religious dialectics.
> It     is   interesting to see the order in disorder
> which characterizes such a school.            With ap-
> parently no system, and with distractions which
> would upset American classes, all goes smoothly
> and quietly in the true Oriental way.         The great
> respect for the teacher or hodja and the simple
> [139]
> THE REAL TURK
> earnestness and lack of initiative of the Oriental,
> serve   as    checks    to
> any possible disturbance.
> While classes are going on in some parts of the
> large court, in other parts students are cooking
> their midday meal over charcoal braziers, and
> eating together. There is none of the bustle and
> appearance of administration which characterize
> an American university.
> This university at Cairo is a hotbed of political
> discontent      the cradle of the    Young Egyptian
> movement;       its   students are always engaging in
> strikes,     processions     and protests against the
> government.
> With all these institutions of learning, an Ori-
> ental can scarcely acquire an up to date educa-
> tion unless he goes to a European university.
> Paris and Geneva have contributed more to the
> 
> enlightenment of the Turks than all their own
> schools, or the schools of the missionaries in Tur-
> 
> key, which the Turks have never attended in
> large numbers.
> Education in Moslem countries admirably
> illustrates the need of constant progress and im-
> 
> provement in our changing world.    The Moham-
> medan schools, once the best in the world (if we
> [140]
> THE REAL TURK
> except those of China and India), furnishing
> in the Middle Ages inspiration and guidance not
> 
> only to the adherents of their own religion, but
> also to Christian Europe, preserved and spread
> abroad the treasures of the Greek learning
> geometry,  science,  philosophy and    added
> thereto their own contributions in the realms of
> mathematics and chemistry; but since then the
> Western World has grown in knowledge and
> wisdom, while the East has remained stationary.
> It seems unkind to Islam to say that Islam is the
> cause of this stagnation yet such is the case.
> The only reason that there is hope for a progres-
> sive educational system in Turkey is that religion
> 
> is   waning, and that the hold of the Koran upon
> the most modern Turks is very slight.
> As has been previously said, excellent plans
> have been made for a broad and thorough educa-
> tional system in Turkey, but they cannot be car-
> ried out at present for lack of funds.        The
> budget is made up with particular attention to
> the army and navy; and certainly the aspect of
> the political horizon at present does not encour-
> 
> age the Turks to divert their funds from these
> channels of defence.
> 
> [141]
> AMERICAN INFLUENCE ON
> TURKISH EDUCATION
> CHAPTER IX
> AMERICAN INFLUENCE ON                   .
> 
> TURKISH EDUCATION
> American educational institutions have played
> a large part in the uplifting of Turkey.   Unfor-
> tunately, however, they have never had an op-
> portunity of directly influencing the      Young
> Turk    mind, as they have influenced    mind and
> character in China   and Japan, for the reason
> that   Turks have seldom been enrolled in these
> schools, owing to the mandates of the ex-sultan.
> 
> Up to the time of the Turkish Revolution there
> were in Constantinople only one Turkish man
> and one Turkish woman who had graduated
> from an American college. It can easily be seen,
> therefore, that   American    schools played   little
> 
> part in the political liberation of Turkey from
> the tyranny of Abdul Hamid, the claims of mis-
> 
> sionary writers on the Near East notwithstand-
> ing.    This   Revolutionwas purely Turkish,
> planned and carried out by men who had never
> seen the inside of an American school.
> [145]
> THE REAL TURK
> When, however,    the    constitutional    govern-
> ment was established in a new, free Turkey, the
> excellent work of the American educational in-
> stitutions   was recognized by the Young Turks
> themselves,   who were glad to copy ideas and
> methods, and to cooperate with them in every
> Hvay possible. The government set aside a fund
> with which to educate five young men each year
> at    Robert College, and the same number of
> young women at The American College for
> Girls. Thus the opportunities for direct Amer-
> 
> ican influence on Turkish education are just be-
> 
> ginning.
> When the first missionaries started work in
> Constantinople and Smyrna, some fifty years
> ago, efforts were made to convert Moham-
> medans.      The   success   was not   large.    I en-
> 
> quired of one missionary who had just finished a
> service of fifty years in Constantinople how
> 
> many Mohammedans had been converted there
> Within his memory.      He thought of one.         This
> one later turned out to be a rascal, and the mis-
> sionaries were therefore not inclined to boast of
> 
> him.    When Abdul Hamid came to the throne, in
> 1878, he pledged the missionaries not to attempt
> [U6J
> c
> 
> iS   8
> THE REAL TURK
> to proselyte  among the Mohammedan popula-
> tion of his Empire so since that time their work
> ;
> 
> has been confined to the Christian sects                 Ar-
> menian, Bulgarian and Greek.                The    pictures
> shown by missionaries of their students in the
> native     schools,    sitting    cross-legged    with   red
> fezzes on, might lead one to think them Turks;
> but they are not Turks, in spite of the fez,
> which all subjects of the Turkish Empire may
> wear.
> This same condition is true in other Moham-
> medan countries: that mission work is largely
> confined to the native Christian population.             In
> Persia, the missionaries work mainly among the
> Nestorian and the Armenian Christians.               Very
> little   proselyting    among      the   Mohammedans is
> attempted, although medical aid is given them.
> Such a thing as a Mohammedan's becoming con-
> verted is very rare.         In Syria the work is among
> the Syrian Christians.           They need education and
> social uplift.    In Egypt, it is the Coptic Chris-
> tians    who receive the attention of the mission-
> aries;    although this country has been under
> French and English rule for some time, and pro-
> tection has been given the missionaries, very little
> 
> [147]
> THE REAL TURK
> success has been attained     among the Moham-
> medans.
> I was speaking with one of the older mis-
> sionaries who has been in Egypt for fifty years.
> 
> "How many converts from Mohammedanism
> have been made in Egypt during these         fifty
> 
> years?" I asked.
> "About one hundred and fifty," he answered.
> "In all Egypt?"
> "Yes, and even then you are not sure."
> "What do you mean?" I said.         "They be-
> come Christians for interested motives?"
> "Yes," he answered.    "Some do it in order to
> get aid, or Christian patronage for business."   (I
> had been told by native Egyptians that such was
> the case,   and that the Mohammedans who be-
> came converted to Christianity were men of no
> character.)
> "Do you think, then," I asked, "that there is
> any hope of the Mohammedans ever becoming
> converts to Christianity?"
> 
> "No," he said, "I am afraid not."
> This is the verdict of a man who has worked
> for fifty years among Mohammedans under the
> most favorable conditions.    Such opinions, how-
> [148]
> THE REAL TURK
> ever, do not as a rule reach the churches of this
> 
> country.
> I asked the same question of a missionary who
> was born and brought up in Turkey, and whose
> fatherwas a missionary before him both of
> them men of learning and authority in the mis-
> sionary world.
> "Do you believe the Mohammedans will ever
> be converted to Christianity?"    I asked.
> "No, and there is no need of it."
> "You think the Mohammedans have a good
> religion of their own?"
> "Certainly."
> "You would limit the mission work to trying
> to correct the faults of Mohammedanism?"
> "Yes. And even then, have we not faults of
> our own? Can Christians afford to throw stones?
> I believe the Mohammedans will reform their
> own religion, as we did ours."
> Here is one of the broadest missionaries one
> could meet.      If all were like him, there would
> be more chance of the Mohammedans being, if
> not converted, at least influenced by Christianity.
> We see, then, not only that little success has
> been met with in the Mohammedan world, and
> [149]
> THE REAL TURK
> that the     work   there    is   mainly among native
> Christians, but also that the             more progressive
> missionaries have given up the idea of conversion
> 
> altogether.     They do not believe in it.          In the
> first   place they feel it is too difficult, and in the
> second place they believe that more can be done
> 
> by influencing Mohammedanism itself                 letting
> the progressive followers of that religion bring
> about a reform from within, adopting anything
> in the Christian religion which appeals to them.
> In fact, the missionaries who have lived among
> Mohammedans are usually broader and more
> tolerant than their lay supporters at home.
> The influence of American missionaries, never-
> upon the native Christian population
> theless,
> of Turkey, to whom their work was largely
> 
> confined, has already been immense.              It might
> almost be said that whatever the Bulgarians, Ar-
> menians> Copts and Syrians have of modern edu-
> cation and national culture is due to the foreign
> 
> missionary      schools    in     their
> midst, foremost
> 
> among   which stand  the American   schools. It
> was the missionary educators who, together with
> the native priests,       first   aroused these subject
> races    from the lethargy of ignorance and de-
> [150]
> THE REAL TURK
> spair into which they had fallen under the rule of
> the Turk, who had done his best to suppress their
> racial consciousness, culture,       and even written
> languages.     The missionaries, by awakening the
> intellectual interest of the Bulgarians       and Ar-
> menians, did a great deal toward the revival of
> their native literatures.     Some of the first gram-
> mars and      dictionaries   of the     Armenian and
> Bulgarian languages were compiled by these
> indefatigable scholars, whose linguistic ability
> and scholarship were so great that Bulgaria to-
> day, in attempting the translation of the Bible
> into modern Bulgarian, is obliged to draw largely
> from the translations made by the American mis-
> sionaries of a generation ago.        The same thing is
> true of the modern Armenian Bible.           All honor
> to the men who gave their splendid intellects and
> noble   characters    to   the     awakening of these
> subject     peoples    Dwight, Riggs, Schauffler,
> Goodell,     Hamlin and      Herrick names that
> must rank high        in the history of the world's
> 
> progress.
> I know of no loftier service than that of carry-
> 
> ing learning to countries which either through
> misfortune or apathy have been deprived of it.
> [151]
> THE REAL TURK
> There is an immense joy in such work, because
> of the pathetic eagerness with which the natives
> of these backward countries reach out for en-
> 
> lightenment and education.       One does not have
> to devise means for urging them to study       nor
> are the professors hard put to make their courses
> vie in popularity with the pigskin football    and
> the   little   spheroid which have so obsessed the
> minds of American students.
> There is a movement on foot to reorganize and
> unite the mission schools of Turkey, and to back
> them with a large endowment fund of several
> millions.      This would free them from the neces-
> 
> sity of begging for funds bit by bit, and from too
> 
> great dependence upon the lay minds of Amer-
> ica, who do not understand the problems of edu-
> 
> cation in the Orient.      A commission has been
> appointed, with a well-known educator and mis-
> sion worker of broad liberal views at its head,
> to visit the field and draw up plans for the appli-
> cation    of the    endowment already mentioned.
> This is the most important event in the growth
> of the missionary schools of the Near East since
> their inception, and must result in great good to
> 
> the schools themselves     and to Turkey.   It will
> 
> [152]
> THE REAL TURK
> put missionary education on a broad progressive
> basis.
> 
> Among the American schools established in
> Turkey the foremost in influence has undoubt-
> edly been Robert College.*         Its   situation   is
> 
> unique      many travellers have called it unsur-
> passed in the world.    On a high eminence on the
> Bosphorus, half way between the Black Sea and
> the Golden Horn, it commands a view of that
> 
> magnificent strait which is the constant delight
> of those whose good fortune it is to spend several
> 
> years there as pupils or as teachers.      From the
> college terrace one can look down upon the blue,
> dancing waters of the Bosphorus and watch the
> passing of steamers and sailboats. When the
> moon at its full floods these waters with its sil-
> very light, and the evening air is full of the
> breath of spring, there is no place in the world
> where I would rather be than on the terrace of
> Robert College.
> The history of this institution is unique.      It
> has the honor of being the first school, so far as
> I know, to be established in a       Mohammedan
> country, or any other non-Christian country,
> *
> See Chapter X.
> 
> [153]
> THE REAL TURK
> with the sole purpose of giving a broad and up
> to date education, without any attempt or under-
> motive at proselyting.     Robert College was
> never a missionary institution, and it has never
> 
> sought to change the religion of         its   pupils.
> Greeks, Armenians, Bulgarians, Jews and Turks
> come here without having to fear any attempt at
> modifying their own religious beliefs. Yet while
> the college has never attempted to proselyte or
> 
> convert,   it   has always aimed at influencing for
> 
> good the character and morals of its students.
> That it succeeds in this, the abundant testimony
> of those who come in contact with Robert Col-
> 
> lege graduates in business or travel bears wit-
> ness.
> 
> Three names are inseparably connected with
> the college      that of   Mr. Robert, its generous
> founder; that of Cyrus Hamlin, its first presi-
> dent, whose unique personality is well-known to
> the American public through his book, "My
> Life and Times;" and that of Dr. Washburn, its
> second president, who built it up to the proud
> 
> position which it holds today.     The interesting
> story has been many times told how Mr. Robert
> :
> 
> first conceived the idea of carrying Western edu-
> 
> [154]
> THE REAL TURK
> cation to the East;       how he fell in with Cyrus
> Hamlin, then a missionary in Constantinople,
> and selected him for the difficult task of starting
> an American college on Turkish soil; and how
> Dr. Hamlin worked against great odds until he
> finally secured the present magnificent site with
> 
> permission to build. The remaining history of
> the college is one of gradual growth. At present
> it   numbers some 500 students, and has an endow-
> ment of about two millions (larger than that of
> many a famous American college) thanks to the
> ,
> 
> generosity of the late Mr. Kennedy, who had
> been for ten years on its board of trustees.       With
> this ample endowment Robert College has a
> magnificent future ahead of it.
> A    school   of   civil
> engineering is being
> added to the College proper, and other branches,
> such as medical and commercial schools, that
> are      much needed     in     the   East, will soon be
> founded.  School organization in the Orient
> 
> presents many difficulties which do not exist
> in this country.    One cannot employ al-
> together Anglo-Saxon methods nor carry out
> Anglo-Saxon ideals in such a school. To an
> American teacher who comes new to the institu-
> [155]
> THE REAL TURK
> tion, its whole method seems Oriental         yet there
> isenough American spirit in it to influence tre-
> mendously the lives and thoughts of its pupils.
> They enjoy here a liberty such as they would
> never know in their native schools. Their char-
> acter   and   self-reliance   are developed, so that
> when they leave the college they have a solid
> foundation upon which to build their life work,
> whatever that is to be.
> Teachers and pupils      live   in close intimacy.
> 
> Dormitory and table bring them together daily.
> These boys of the Orient are eager to know about
> the West,     and love to discuss the problems of
> twentieth century life which the unfolding edu-
> cation brings to their notice.        Hence many ties
> are formed, both with teachers and with fellow-
> 
> students, which are broadening and ennobling.
> The complex nature of the student body, con-
> sisting as it does of five or six nationalities, sev-
> eral of whom on their native heaths are deadly
> 
> enemies of each other, presents many difficulties       ;
> 
> but it is a profound source of tolerance and cos-
> mopolitanism when used to advantage.              As the
> students      approach   graduation,      after    living
> closely together for five or six years, they have
> [156]
> THE REAL TURK
> become much more tolerant of each other's racial
> peculiarities   and religion than they were at the
> beginning.      They have learned to respect, if not
> to like, one another; and they even learn to en-
> dure their American teachers, who, it must be
> confessed, carry over a good deal of blatant jin-
> 
> goism and pride to that ancient seat of empire,
> Constantinople.
> The Orientals naturally resent the assumption
> of superiority which every American holds for
> his country yet at the bottom of their hearts
> they admire America profoundly, and look to
> her as the leader in the struggle for individual
> 
> liberty   and   culture.Many upon graduation
> enter   American universities for further study.
> Others go to the universities of England, Ger-
> 
> many and France.           These, when they return at
> last to their native country, are progressive and
> 
> cosmopolitan to a degree true citizens of the
> world who are able to judge impartially of the
> merits and faults of every country and who strive
> to develop their      own country to      the highest
> 
> efficiency.
> The direct influence of Robert College upon
> the peoples she has worked among is greatest in
> [157]
> THE REAL TURK
> the case of the Bulgarians, who in the early days
> of the college composed the majority of its stu-
> dents.     Before a free Bulgaria ever existed, Bul-
> garians were imbibing learning and freedom at
> Robert College; and after the freeing of that
> doughty little country (and this was due largely
> to the interest and sympathy for that race which
> one of the Robert College professors, Dr. Long,
> was able to arouse in Europe and particularly in
> England) many of Bulgaria's leading statesmen,
> including her greatest prime minister, were
> found to be graduates of Robert College.         At
> that time these graduates were the only educated
> men   in     Bulgaria;   now Bulgarians have    fine
> 
> schools of their own,      and the influence of the
> American college on the Bosphorus is not so
> strong but every patriotic Bulgarian looks
> back with gratitude to the part that Robert Col-
> lege played in the development of his country.
> Among the Turks Robert College has had as
> yet little direct influence, because she has never
> graduated but one of their race (Abdul Hamid
> would not let them come to such a hotbed of
> liberty) .    Now there is a large influx of Turkish
> students, since the government is quite friendly
> [158]
> THE REAL TURK
> to the College, which has tremendous opportuni-
> tiesof service in the development of the New
> 
> Turkey. America has a right to be proud of
> this college on the hill which overlooks the tower
> 
> of Mohammed the Conqueror,            now almost five
> centuries old     a symbol, one hopes, of the dur-
> 
> ability and strength of this progressive Christian
> institution.
> 
> Another college which has done a great work
> in the Orient is the Syrian Protestant College at
> 
> Beirut.  Here, as at Robert College, the Ameri-
> cans have secured the finest site in the neighbor-
> hood      a piece of high ground out from the city,
> on the seacoast, which overlooks the blue waters
> of the Mediterranean to the distant mountains of
> Lebanon        a charming scene.     This college is the
> 
> largest American institution in the         Near East,
> containing some thousand students, a large
> corps of American professors, and many depart-
> ments of learning.       It   is   famous   all   over the
> East for its medical school        the best in that part
> of the world      which Dr. Post, one of the
> in
> 
> greatest surgeons not only in Syria, but in the
> whole world, gave a long life of service.
> Dr. Post's career suggests one point in regard
> [159]
> THE REAL TURK
> to missionaries which needs discussion        the ques-
> tion of material rewards.The world has looked
> upon the missionary too much as a person who
> should do without all earthly rewards and com-
> 
> pensations.     In a period when the chief work
> of the missionary was to teach Christianity and
> to proselyte, a type of men were drawn into the
> field whose religious enthusiasm was so great
> that they were willing to sacrifice everything to
> their work. But now the scope and direction of
> missionary work is somewhat changing.     The
> majority of missionaries go into the           field   as
> 
> trained teachers, doctors, nurses       secondarily as
> proselyters of Christianity.  Necessarily this im-
> plies a more professional training, and a need of
> 
> specialization.     Is not a teacher, or doctor, or
> nurse who goes abroad to practice his profession
> 
> just as deserving of material compensation as
> those who stay at home? In fact, the most able
> services   can be had only by paying adequate
> wages.     Those mission schools whose professors
> are     primarily   sectarian    Christians   and with
> whom teaching is a side issue cannot build up in-
> stitutions of real scholarship. If one may take
> the word of Bishop Brent, who has studied close
> [160]
> THE REAL TURK
> at hand the mission work in the Philippines, the
> 
> young men and women who are at present going
> out as missionaries are not by any means above
> the average in intelligence, breadth and ability.
> Dr. Post was of another type       a genius in his
> 
> profession    and he earned the wages of a genius.
> His medical practice among the rich Syrians and
> Arabs was very lucrative, and before he died he
> had amassed a considerable fortune, and built a
> summer home among the Lebanons which is the
> most magnificent in the whole district.
> The student body of the Protestant Syrian
> College is composed of Greeks, Syrians, Arabs,
> Egyptians, and a few Turks and other nation-
> alities.   It vies with Robert College in prestige
> and influence, and is doing a splendid work in
> education and technical service.
> A third institution, the American College for
> Girls in Constantinople, is perhaps the most in-
> 
> teresting of all the    American   schools   in   the
> 
> Orient, because of its wonderful work in bring-
> 
> ing higher education to Oriental women. It is
> unique in its kind in no other institution in all
> Turkey or in the whole East can women go so
> far in education as here. It has recently become
> 
> [161]
> THE REAL TURK
> famous through the career of its first Turkish
> graduate,*     who played a leading part in the
> journalism which sprang up after the Revolu-
> tion.    Several years ago this college severed it-
> self    from The American Board of Missions, in
> order to have the complete freedom and inde-
> 
> pendence of an endowed college. Since then it
> has received numerous gifts, including that of a
> new site on the European side of the Bosphorus,
> just a mile below Robert College      a huge estate
> of fifty acres, with beautiful hillsides, gardens
> and terraces, where it is erecting a noble group of
> buildings for its future home.
> I shall never forget the performance of "As
> You Like It" which was given out of doors on
> these new grounds by the students of the College.
> The Orientals are wonderful actors by tempera-
> ment, and they had received a splendid training
> for this play.     The part of Rosalind was taken
> by a graceful young Greek girl with reddish
> golden hair. Her acting was entrancing so
> fresh,    so   natural   and exuberant!   One   felt
> 
> throughout the play all the romance of the East
> and the ardor of the Oriental girls, who lived
> Halliday Hanum.
> 
> [162]
> THE REAL TURK
> their parts.     It has spoiled the play for me ever
> 
> after, for I cannot bear now to see paid actresses
> of middle age play the part of the youthful
> Rosalind.
> The college is splendidly organized and con-
> ducted by its able President, Dr. Patrick.       Its
> 
> corps of American women professors are all
> graduates of American colleges, some with sev-
> eral degrees to their names.      A high standard of
> scholarship is maintained, higher than that of its
> brother college at Roumeli Hissar, I am ashamed
> to say.   Its students excel especially in modern
> 
> languages, history, and sociology.      Imagine the
> inspiration of directing research      work among
> these young women, whose native towns and vil-
> 
> lages in Turkey, Bulgaria        and Greece are full
> of most interesting material which has never been
> written up   !
> 
> There is always something of moment going
> on at the College: a lecture by some prominent
> traveller who is enticed that way; a fine concert;
> 
> a recital or chorus by the girls themselves; a
> dramatic performance something to keep the
> students interested and thoughtful and happy.
> One of the most important of such occasions was
> [163]
> THE REAL TURK
> the         on Turkish Literature given by
> lecture
> 
> Halliday Hanum after the Revolution, which
> was most scholarly and charming. Afterwards
> I had the pleasure of meeting her at tea, and
> found her modest and sweet in spite of her fame
> in two continents      one of the most womanly of
> women, a credit to any race and any country, and
> a promise of what Turkey may yet become.
> The great event of the year at the college is of
> course Commencement. There is always some
> noted speaker; and the American ambassador
> gives out the diplomas to the "sweet girl grad-
> uates," with a few words of fatherly advice.      Very
> able papers are read by the graduates themselves,
> and it is interesting to see what is the attitude of
> these girls toward      life,   as   shown by these ad-
> dresses girls of varied environment and heredity
> :
> 
> here one from Greece, there a Bulgarian, a
> Turk or an Armenian.            After the speeches, all
> adjourn to an out-of-doors tea where one is priv-
> ileged to meet the new graduates and congratu-
> late them upon their entrance into the life of the
> 
> world.       But many of them, I imagine, feel more
> sorrow than joy at leaving this institution which
> has been an intellectual and spiritual         home to
> [164]
> THE REAL TURK
> them, such as they may never find again in the
> isolation of their own native towns.
> 
> "What will be the future of these women
> going out into      life?"   one wonders.       Many of
> them will "just marry," as one of their teachers
> told me in disgust; but even married they may
> have careers before them, for they are picked
> women, and are sought as wives by the leading
> young men of Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey.
> Some of them marry professors, some become
> wives of diplomats, and some give their hands to
> merchants whose wealth affords them assurance
> of wide social influence.      Most of those who do
> not marry become teachers, and as such carry to
> others the influences they have received               from
> their   Alma Mater.        A splendid set of women
> this college is training and sending out each year
> 
> to    exert   a   quiet   influence    for   culture   and
> breadth of thought and modernism in the back-
> ward East. I know of nothing in the Near East
> so interesting     and so    full of    promise as     this
> 
> American College for Girls at Arnaoutkeuy.
> Halliday Hanum, in her first article to the
> Turkish press after the Revolution, wrote the
> following beautiful tribute to her Alma Mater:
> [165]
> THE REAL TURK
> "With the finest subtleties and the broadest real-
> ities   of civilization and humanity, you extended
> 
> knowledge to the darkest horizon of Turkey, O
> Institution. And you, honored women, yea, you
> 
> teachers, who left your own land to elevate and
> 
> enlighten the dark corner of this freedomless,
> portionless land you have struggled to bring
> light to Ottoman soil, to Ottoman civilization,
> 
> fighting for learning      and culture.   The large
> ideas from which Turkey was shut out, the great
> 
> feelings which    were opened up to me in your
> classrooms, the ideas to which I was lead in your
> libraries, showing    me that there was no difference
> in men for race, class, sect or religion, these ideas
> 
> that make me live like a civilized person, a hu-
> 
> manity-loving person, that enabled        me to live
> larger    thoughts,   generous thoughts, thoughts
> such as you were living; these ideas I owe you,
> O women, and to each and all of you I essay to
> express my gratitude and to live according to the
> principles which I owe to your teaching alone."
> 
> [166]
> THE EDUCATION OF ORIENTAL
> BOYS AT ROBERT COLLEGE
> CHAPTER X
> THE EDUCATION OF ORIENTAL
> BOYS AT ROBERT COLLEGE
> The     indifference with which our      American
> boys meet their opportunities for education is a
> cause of much distress and perplexity to our
> teachers.     From the age of adolescence to that
> of legal manhood, they treat the acquisition of
> 
> knowledge and of culture as a thing of slight
> importance. Their whole energies are centered
> on athletic contests, either as participants or as
> spectators.      In many schools women wear them-
> selves out trying to       cram Latin, French, Eng-
> lish, and geometry down the boys' throats while
> ;
> 
> parents bewail at home the low marks or the fail-
> ures to pass which show the sidetracking of the
> 
> youthful energy from paths of learning.
> In the East the exact contrary is true.         The
> boys would injure themselves with overstudy if
> allowed to, and have to be driven to the gym-
> nasium and athletic field.      This results from two
> causes:     first,   the scarcity of education in the
> [169]
> THE REAL TURK
> Orient, making it a thing of much demand; and
> 
> secondly,    the more thoughtful nature of the
> Oriental,    which makes him grapple with the
> serious problems of life at      an age when our
> boys are chiefly     interested in ball games and
> 
> girls.
> The Oriental peoples live much more deeply
> in the world of thought than we do. In fact, of
> 
> all   countries upon the globe, the United States
> is   one of the most superficial in intellectual mat-
> ters, the most easily satisfied to pass through life
> 
> without delving into its philosophy.
> The Americans are too busy getting a living
> to sit down and think. Their energies are so
> taken up with meeting practical and material
> problems that when they get through the day's
> work they could not think deeply if they wanted
> to.    Hence the light magazines and the musical
> comedies.
> Take the Greeks, on the other hand, of whom
> we have a large number in Robert College.
> Their inheritance from time immemorial has been
> one of deep metaphysical speculation, and the
> world of thought has been immeasurably en-
> riched by their contributions to it (we are not in-
> [170]
> THE REAL TURK
> terested here in its evils) ; and the Greeks today
> are the same as in the time of Pericles     eager for
> discussion, lovers of the beautiful, quickly sus-
> 
> ceptible to every aesthetic impression.
> The same thing is more or less true of the Jew,
> who has done our religious thinking for us, of the
> Persian, who possesses a great genius for specu-
> lation,   and in greater or less degree of the Ar-
> menian, Bulgarian and Turk,        all   of whom are
> 
> represented in the College.
> In regard to the first cause of the Oriental
> youth's intense desire for study     the scarcity of
> education in the East      easy to see why the
> it is
> 
> Robert College boys study with such eagerness.
> They realize the value of their opportunity, just
> as in this country the boys who go to academies
> or colleges from the farm, or who are working
> their own way through, are not likely to waste
> 
> their time education means better equipment for
> ;
> 
> life,   and it is too valuable to be thrown away for
> mere amusements and good times. There is,
> however, an additional reason which makes the
> education we offer the Oriental boys appear of
> 
> tremendously inspiring value in their eyes      their
> wonder and overwhelming joy upon realizing
> [171]
> THE REAL TURK
> that the whole world's learning        is   put within
> their grasp.
> 
> This fact will be made more clear to the Ameri-
> can reader when it is understood, as has been said
> in a previous chapter, that the races of the Near
> 
> East are still in the past as regards their intellec-
> tual and religious life     that is, their training in
> these lines   wholly scholastic and traditional.
> is
> 
> Science and history can come to them in their na-
> 
> only through the lens of religion.
> tive schools
> 
> The elementary education begins with the read-
> ing and memorizing of the Koran; history            is
> 
> taught from the Mohammedan point of view;
> law in Turkey is derived mostly from the legal
> code of the Koran; the higher education in the
> universities   is   mainly theological; dogma and
> religious authority still hold sway there, as they
> did five hundred years ago over all Europe.
> 
> Among the Greeks the same thing is true to
> some extent.        The Iliad and The Odyssey still
> furnish the chief mental food in the elementary
> 
> schools,   and "the glory that was Greece" some
> two thousand years ago still furnishes the chief
> food for thought in the minds of the students in
> the higher schools.     They know Plato and Aris-
> [172]
> THE REAL TURK
> totle and the Greek dramatists, but they are not
> 
> familiar with modern schools of thought.     They
> know   ancient    history   and the glorious part
> Greece played in it, but they do not realize the
> problems which confront the world today. They
> dream that they are still marching under the ban-
> ners of a conquering Alexander.
> The Armenians are still worse off, for up to
> within fifty years ago they had little education
> 
> worthy of the name at all. The Armenian lan-
> guage and culture of ancient times was almost
> forgotten      and it is the missionaries who have
> revived them, against the opposition of Turkey,
> which had good reason for wishing things to re-
> main as they were.
> The Bulgarians, only, from among our stu-
> dents, come to us with anything like a twentieth
> 
> century trend of thought. They have been mak-
> ing rapid strides in education since their freedom
> from Turkey in 1878, and have absolutely wiped
> out the ascendency of the Church.   They are a
> very enterprising and up to date people Yan-
> kees of the Near East, as they have sometimes
> been called.
> It would be difficult for one brought up in the
> 
> [173]
> THE REAL TURK
> midst of our modern civilization to realize the
> paucity of real knowledge at the disposal of the
> Orientals from books in their own languages.
> The whole scientific literature of Turkey con-
> sists mostly of books drawn from the Arab learn-
> 
> ing of the period when Mohammedanism was at
> its height, while in the native Armenian lan-
> 
> guage there exist hardly any books of scientific
> value; and only a few epoch-making scientific
> works of Europe and America have yet been
> translated into Bulgarian or Greek.
> 
> Only by learning one or more of the languages
> of cultured Europe English or French or Ger-
> man       does the Oriental gain access to the knowl-
> 
> edge of the present day. It is indeed a Revival
> of Learning a Renaissance for them, and
> 
> they feel the same excitement, the same intellec-
> tual stimulus that the Italians felt at the discov-
> 
> ery of the Greek Learning and the resulting
> freedom from the thrall of the Church. Now, as
> then, the    New Learning means escape from the
> Dark Ages in which these Orientals have been
> living.
> You can hardly keep them from books. They
> devour the English authors, the German philos-
> [174]
> THE REAL TURK
> ophers, the French religious writers, trying in a
> few years to absorb the intellectual progress of
> the past century.
> In their studies, too, they show the same ea-
> gerness, especially being attracted to sociology,
> economics, history and psychology. When we
> remember that within fifty years or less have
> arisen all the social sciences which are proving so
> 
> important in our modern life; that the study of
> biology, psychology and religion have been al-
> most re-created by the theory of evolution intro-
> duced into the world within this same fifty years   ;
> 
> that movements which threaten to disrupt both
> state and church and family     such as socialism,
> anarchism, new thought, mental healing, investi-
> gation of the occult, the growing theorizing
> about marriage have arisen even later than
> fifty years   ago; and that none or few of the
> works on these subjects    exist in the Turkish,
> 
> Greejk, Armenian or Bulgarian language        then
> we can realize the extraordinary expansion of
> thought wrought in the minds of students, who,
> by acquiring the English language, suddenly fall
> heirs to modern learning and are brought face to
> 
> face with its attendant problems.
> 
> [175]
> THE REAL TURK
> How eagerly my students, of all nationalities,
> used to discuss problems of socialism and of
> 
> religion! How excited they were at their first
> discovery of the psychic world which has almost
> imperceptibly invaded our modern life That no
> !
> 
> reasonable man, no matter how matter-of-fact
> he may be, can deny the phenomena of hypno-
> tism, of telepathy, of healing by suggestion, and
> that further psychic powers are crowding for
> admission into our daily, recognized life are
> 
> extremely interesting facts to the Oriental boy.
> It is a new world to him.
> *
> 
> A second cause of earnest intellectual work
> among the students already spoken of is their
> early maturity of thought.
> No race, perhaps, preserves its youth so long
> as the Anglo-Saxon, and the slow ripening of its
> 
> powers gives a vigor and solidity to the mature
> man which is one of the causes of the Anglo-
> Saxon supremacy.     Yet to a teacher, the child-
> ishness of thought   on the part of his pupils is
> often wearisome, and so it is refreshing and in-
> 
> spiring to deal with pupils such as those at
> Robert College, who begin to think deeply at
> [176]
> THE REAL TURK
> fourteen and are capable of the most intricate
> 
> philosophical discussions from the age of sixteen
> on.
> The acuteness and logical clarity of the Greek
> mind is amazing. Mere boys can discuss matters
> of religion and philosophy with an insight and
> 
> perception which would put to shame            many a
> mature American.    They are very fond of such
> discussions, and enjoy nothing more than visit-
> 
> ing the teachers and talking over questions of
> art, of philosophy, of religion, and of life in gen-
> 
> eral.   I could have filled in all my time outside of
> class in this way, if I had had the leisure and the
> 
> energy.
> Even in walks which I took with the students,
> serious topics of discussion    would arise, and I
> enjoyed walking up and down the shady ter-
> race of our College, with that unequaled and
> 
> magnificent view of the Bosphorus spread out
> below me, conversing with some thoughtful and
> congenial student.    We used to call   it   in fun the
> 
> Peripatetic School of Philosophy.       Plato must
> have had a delightful time!
> I remember one student, a Greek, who came
> 
> shyly to my room, and, after a desultory chat,
> [177]
> THE REAL TURK
> began asking me questions about religion. I was
> amazed at the depth and penetration of his ques-
> tions, for he was only sixteen.       It seems he had
> 
> been reading some French works on religion, and
> was full of ideas.   I have seldom known a more
> 
> clearly logical mind than his,      and it was a de-
> light to talk with him as he sat there, with his
> face, of a most graceful Grecian type, lit up with
> the enthusiasm of high thought.
> It was interesting to discover what currents of
> 
> thought were strongest among the boys. There
> were various trends, differing, peculiarly enough,
> according to the nationality of the student.      The
> Armenians are inclined by temperament and his-
> tory towards pessimism, but they can hardly be
> blamed for this, as their place in the world for
> the past two thousand years has been one of sub-
> 
> jection and suffering.       They like to read Scho-
> penhauer, and come to the conclusion that life is
> not worth whilel
> For a time, suicide gained great popularity
> among our senior class not in practice, fortu-
> nately, but in theory. For some months the dis-
> cussion went on at table and in dormitory as to
> the value of existence   ;   and the intellectual lead-
> [178]
> THE REAL TURK
> ershaving decided that existence was a curse,
> most of the class accepted this doctrine and went
> about with such woebegone faces that the teach-
> ers, and students of the other classes had to laugh
> 
> at them!
> 
> Yet if you could listen to the life history of
> some of the Armenians whose families had
> passed through the massacres, you would not be
> inclined to ridicule them.
> The Bulgarians are more hopeful, for their
> race   is    free   and is rapidly progressing.    They
> show a strong tendency toward a study of spirit-
> ualism and hypnotism.     They seem to be psy-
> chically sensitive, and the phenomena of these
> 
> subjects have a great fascination for them. The
> Greeks also are interested in these branches, as
> well as in art, to which they are very sensitive.
> The students are great devotees of Tolstoy,
> which would make one inclined to take exception
> to Roosevelt's opinion, as stated in published ar-
> 
> ticles,     that his influence is very small.   In East-
> ern Europe, at least, Tolstoy's readers look upon
> him with almost worship, and in any talk to our
> boys, a reference to him was sure to call forth
> a quick response.
> [179]
> THE REAL TURK
> It is difficult for one in America, who enjoys
> the sheltered life of the twentieth century civili-
> 
> zation, to realize the problems which these Orien-
> tal    boys have to face.    Life in the East is far
> from being sheltered.       Many a boy in the school
> had some near relative, perhaps even a parent,
> who was killed in a political feud.      No wonder
> that they think deeply at an early age, or ques-
> tion the meaning of things!
> One of the students, on going home for the
> Easter vacation, was met at the station by his
> father and ten friends all       armed to the teeth.
> It seems that the life of his father       had been
> threatened by a political band, and for two
> weeks he had not dared to leave his house, or
> even his chamber, while armed men, his rela-
> tives,   guarded the house day and night.          A
> life    fraught with such dangers brings        early
> maturity.
> Another boy told me the story of his life,
> which might form a plot for an ^Bschylus. It was
> a veritable drama in itself.    At the age of sixteen
> he was confronted with the realization of sin
> within his family, which he felt himself called
> 
> upon, as the oldest son, to avenge.         The evil
> [180]
> THE REAL TURK
> weighed upon his mind. One night he took a
> long knife and crept into his father's room but
> his father awakened too soon,         and he crept out.
> He could not bring himself to this pitch again,
> and so his father continued to live and to sin, and
> the boy continued to bear the burden of this sin
> 
> upon his mind and heart.
> We had some anarchists among our students,
> who caused us difficulty in discipline at times.
> Like the Irish, they made it their principle to be
> "agin the government" and they felt it wrong
> to have to obey rules.         But anarchy, like every-
> thing else, must be judged with relation to its
> causes and environment. I think if I lived in
> Russia I should be an anarchist, too.
> The American teachers who come to the col-
> lege with ideas of what discipline ought to be are
> surprised and mortified         by the failures of the
> students to obey.     The East is very different
> from the West       in    this    respect.     Strangely
> enough, there where government has always been
> an absolute despotism, students do not know
> what it is to obey, while in America, where free-
> dom   has   reached      its    extreme      development,
> school-teachers are autocrats, ruling with an ab-
> [181]
> THE REAL TURK
> solute power which it is almost impossible to ef-
> fect in the East.
> 
> Among the races of the Orient, voluntary or-
> ganization for the accomplishment of any end,
> necessitating absolute loyalty and unquestioning
> obedience to the person who is put at the head
> of the enterprise, is unknown.      The Oriental at-
> titude of mind is one of constant insubordination.
> This is the greatest fault of the Greek and the
> Armenian.   They do not know how to obey.
> They do not know how to trust a leader and fol-
> low him implicitly.
> Our students place no confidence in their pro-
> fessors.  It is almost impossible to command
> them to do anything.        Instead of obeying they
> will stop to argue about it.     Even in the plan of
> study they interfere and refuse at times to take
> up certain portions of the work. The teachers,
> they say, are paid by them and are in their serv-
> ice.   One class marched out from an examina-
> tion, refusing to   take it.    In fact, one finds he
> must adopt other methods of teaching than those
> current in America.
> Someone has      said,   "You cannot     drive the
> 
> East, but you can lead it."      This is true.   Orien-
> [182]
> THE REAL TURK
> tals resent    offhand treatment, which Americans
> will put up with in their superiors if they have
> 
> confidence in them.       Politeness and diplomacy
> are ingrained in the Orientals.       They do nothing
> abruptly.      Therefore it is necessary to use round-
> about methods in dealing with them.          After the
> Turkish Revolution a feeling of insubordina-
> tion made the rounds of all the schools in Turkey,
> both missionary and national.         The Galata Serai
> became entirely demoralized.         In the missionary
> schools the students went on strikes, and in many
> cases   won their point.        It was the infection of
> 
> liberty which was in the air.
> Another drawback         our teaching was the
> in
> 
> superficial character of the work. The program
> is so heavy,   due to the necessity of five or six lan-
> guages being learned, that there is very little
> time for the preparation of any one lesson. Three
> 
> quarters of an hour is the average time of prep-
> aration, and a lesson which would take the stu-
> dents one and one-half hours to prepare would
> call forth cries of protest.        They do not know
> what it is to undertake a hard mental task and
> push it through regardless of time. The curric-
> ulum and the climate are against them.
> [183]
> THE REAL TURK
> Yet when our students enter foreign univer-
> sities they do excellent work, and adapt them-
> selves to the new conditions with a facility that is
> 
> surprising.
> In spite of drawbacks, teaching in the East is
> very inspiring.    The enthusiasm of the students     ;
> 
> the feeling that one is able to bring to them the
> 
> gift of knowledge,     which they prize above     all
> 
> other gifts the opportunities quietly to influence
> ;
> 
> the thought and character of the students these
> 
> things constitute an incentive and reward to the
> teacher greater than any mere money can bring.
> The      friendship and loyalty of these Oriental
> boys, who are so quick to resent, yet so ready to
> forgive     full of distrust   and yet of affection
> is   worth all the hardships it costs to win them.
> In bestowing an education I gained one. I count
> my years at Robert College as the most delight-
> ful and most instructive period of my life.
> 
> [184]
> ISLAM
> CHAPTER XI
> ISLAM
> The time has passed when Islam can be
> treated with contempt, or             Mohammed looked
> upon as a charlatan.         A
> religion which controls
> the lives of nearly two hundred million people
> and is rapidly spreading commands the attention
> if not the respect of the civilized world ; and in the
> 
> closer relations        economic, social, and political
> which are bound to come between the East and
> the West, it will be worth while to have an ap-
> 
> preciative understanding of this world religion.
> Carlyle was one of the          first   to treat    Mo-
> hammed      with the        respect   he      deserves.   No
> charlatan could have influenced his times and
> 
> posterity as this prophet of the desert did, and the
> theory that he was a trickster is untenable. He
> had a great message to deliver, even though the
> preaching of       it   meant    derison,     ostracism and
> 
> finally persecution.        In his own day Mohammed
> met the charge of impostor, and branded it as a
> lie   by his spiritual power and the fruits of his
> [187]
> THE REAL TURK
> life.    He lived in utter simplicity, and at the
> time of his death hardly had even sufficient cloth-
> 
> ing to wear. His teaching lifted Arabia from
> a state of wild and gross barbarism to a high civ-
> ilization.    Those who criticise Islam for its de-
> fects should examine the conditions under which
> 
> it   arose.   Its legalizing of polygamy was a great
> 
> advance over the incestuous sex relations of the
> Arabs of his day.      In every direction his religion
> established law     and order superior to any that
> had before existed and cemented the wild, hostile
> tribes into a powerful nation.
> 
> The history of Islam is an impressive one.
> Within one century from the death of its founder
> it   had spread from the Indian Ocean to the At-
> lantic, including in its sweep all the Asiatic races
> outside of China and India, and had established
> itself in Europe, where it threatened the very ex-
> 
> istence of Christendom.
> 
> Throughout all this vast Islamic Empire the
> sense of religious brotherhood was so strong that
> 
> peace prevailed where there had been only con-
> stant warfare.   Merchants could travel from
> India to Spain without fear.      To fight a brother
> Moslem was a sacrilege.
> [188]
> TURKISH        Mullah or priest as
> kindly a face as one would see in any
> country.
> THE REAL TURK
> In this conglomeration of mixed races made
> homogeneous by a common religion, civilization
> became possible. The arts and sciences flour-
> ished,   and centers of learning were established;
> the Greek learning was revived, and passed on to
> 
> Europe by the Arabs.
> The magnitude of the astounding debt which
> European civilization owes to the Arabs is well
> described in these words, which we quote directly
> from Seignobos:
> "Let one compare the two civilizations which
> in the    Eleventh Century divided the Ancient
> World: in the West miserable little cities, peas-
> ants' huts   and great    fortresses   a country   al-
> 
> ways troubled by war, where one could not travel
> ten leagues without running the risk of being
> robbed; and the Orient, Constantinople, Cairo,
> Damascus, Bagdad, all the cities of the 'Arabian
> Nights', with their marble palaces, their work-
> shops, their schools, their bazaars, their gardens
> which extended over several leagues       a country
> well-watered and covered with villages and with
> the incessant movement of merchants, who trav-
> elled in peace from Spain to Persia.     There is no
> doubt that the Mussulman and Byzantine worlds
> [189]
> THE REAL TURK
> were richer, better policed, better lighted than
> the Western World.          In the Eleventh Century
> these two worlds began to become acquainted;
> the barbarous Christians came in contact with
> the civilized Mussulmans in two ways               by war
> and by commerce.
> "By contact with the Orientals the Occidentals
> became civilized.     It is often very difficult to tell
> 
> precisely by what route an invention of the
> Orient has penetrated to us whether it has come
> to us through the Crusaders, through the Italian
> 
> merchants, through the Saracens of Sicily or the
> Moors of Spain. But we can draw up a list of
> what we owe the Arabs, and that list is a long
> one.
> "1st. From the Arabs came buckwheat, aspar-
> 
> agus,    hemp,     linen,   mulberries,   saffron,    rice,
> 
> dates, lemons, oranges; even coffee, cotton,          and
> cane sugar, which have become the principle
> 
> crops of America.
> "2nd.     Most    of our luxuries       damask     cloth,
> morocco leather, silk and gold stuffs embroidered
> with silver and gold, muslin, gauze, taffeta, vel-
> vets    (perfected later in Italy)        glass,    paper,
> sugar, sweetmeats and syrups.
> [190]
> THE REAL TURK
> "3rd. The beginning of most of our sciences
> 
> algebra, trigonometry, chemistry,               Arabian nu-
> merals which the Arabs had borrowed from the
> Hindus and which have rendered the most diffi-
> cult calculations easy.
> 
> "The Arabs had collected and condensed all
> the inventions and all the knowledge of the an-
> cient    worlds        of   the   Orient     Greece,   Persia,
> India,        even     China:     it   is   they    who    have
> transmitted them to us.Through them the
> western world which had become barbarous
> entered again into civilization.                If our ideas
> and our         arts    are   connected      with   antiquity,
> all     the    inventions         which     make    life   easy
> and agreeable have come to us through the
> Arabs."*
> In the face of such a debt, all that we can do
> in spreading education              and Western progress
> among the Mohammedan peoples is but a just
> return for their service in the past.               Once they
> were the enlightened race and we were in dark-
> ness.     Now we have far outstripped them, by
> the aid of modern science, and they are striving
> to acquire the Western civilization.               There is no
> * Ch.
> Seignobos: Histoire de la Civilization   au Moyen-Age   6t
> dans leg Temps Modernes.
> [191]
> THE REAL TURK
> reason to suppose they cannot succeed in this,
> and finally take their place in the world as our
> peers.
> 
> What was the spell which Islam cast over the
> East, to make it captive?         In its very simplicity
> lay its power   :   One God, Mohammed his prophet,
> the    Koran descending from on high           like   the
> Mosaic decalogue, the brotherhood of man, sub-
> mission to God (Islam means "submission") and
> a few definite practices such as prayer, pilgrim-
> 
> age,     almsgiving,    which could appeal to the
> concrete,     childlike   mind;      no   metaphysical
> speculations, no mysteries of incarnation and
> transubstantiation, no subtleties of flic Greek
> mind such as had dominated Christianity.           That
> explainswhy Islam spread where Christianity
> had never succeeded and why it is spreading
> today in Africa in the face of Christianity.
> Just as the characteristic note of Buddhism is
> the absence of desire, and of Christianity love of
> God and of man, so the characteristic note of
> Islam is submission to God a submission which
> goes to the extreme of fatalism.          The average
> Mohammedan believes that all his life is written
> [192]
> THE REAL TURK
> down beforehand in his book of destiny in heaven
> hence he is powerless to change his       life   one
> iota.
> 
> In   this   lies   at once   the weakness and the
> 
> strength of the East.         Lethargy and inertia hold
> it   back from progress; yet the sublime faith in
> Allah smooths the path of life, meeting all dis-
> appointments or calamities with a calm folding
> of the hands and complete submission.
> The forms of Islam are simple, and yet rigor-
> ous.      There are five duties which are obligatory
> prayer, fasting, almsgiving, pilgrimage and
> ablutions.       Prayer is supposed to be said five
> times a day        at dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, sun-
> 
> set,   and during the night         and consists of the
> repetition of formulas, with a certain number of
> 
> kneelings and prostrations.           If possible every
> Mohammedan goes for one of these prayers,
> preferably that at noon, to a mosque, where he
> performs the ceremony in concert with other
> worshippers.
> Ablution of the hands, face, and feet must be
> observed before each prayer, if possible, and for
> this   purpose there are faucets of running water
> at every mosque, either in front or in the court,
> 
> [193]
> THE REAL TURK
> where "the faithful" may bathe.  Mohammedans
> never wash in still water in a basin, as we do,
> but always in running water.
> For the purpose     of calling the faithful to
> 
> prayers the muezzins climb to the top of the
> mosque-minarets five times a day and cry out
> toward each point of the compass the call to
> prayer. They have wonderfully trained voices,
> which reach over an entire village.   It is a beau-
> tiful   thing to hear at sunset the liquid notes
> floating   down from above, and to realize that
> everywhere at this hour muezzins are calling and
> faithful Mohammedans are kneeling in prayer.
> For a while we had in Bebek the favorite muezzin
> of the Khedive of Egypt, who had a tenor voice
> of marvelous quality, and we often strolled by the
> 
> mosque at sunset to hear his call.
> As all over the world the external observances
> of religion are waning, so in Islam.    Wherever
> European civilization has come in contact with
> Mohammedans, it has weakened their faith. In
> Constantinople very few make their prayers in
> public   only once in a while have I seen soldiers
> or priests praying on the boats; and sometimes
> the Turkish merchants close their shops at noon,
> [194]
> THE REAL TURK
> but this is rare.The average cultured Moham-
> medan cares very little now about the externals
> of his religion. A friend told me how he had
> 
> begun at adolescence to doubt and to lose in-
> terest in these duties of Islam: the public prayer
> 
> and fast of Ramazan he failed to observe, but he
> kept his heresy from his parents, who were strict
> Mohammedans.         The same wave of irreligion
> which is emptying our churches is decimating the
> ranks of "the faithful." Yet I do not believe that
> a Mohammedan, no matter how neglectful of re-
> 
> ligion he becomes,        is   ever crassly materialistic.
> The Oriental seldom goes to the extreme of a
> positive atheism.
> On Friday      the    Mohammedan Sabbath           a
> service is held in the mosque at noon, consisting
> 
> of  prayers followed by a sermon from the
> mullah, or priest. I had the good fortune to
> witness one of these services          (it would have been
> 
> impossible before the Revolution, and would be
> impossible today in any Mohammedan city other
> than Constantinople). At twelve o'clock the
> mullahs began to intone the Koran antiphonally
> from different parts of the mosque, and for half
> an hour this was continued, while "the faithful"
> [196]
> THE REAL TURK
> came into the mosque one by one, removing their
> shoes at the door, and squatting on the floor in
> Oriental fashion.      At   12:30   all    arose,     faced
> Mecca and went through their prayers, but not in
> unison. Then they sat down, and there was more
> 
> antiphonal chanting.  Finally the imam, or head
> priest, appeared in a green robe and mounted
> the pulpit, while the chanting rose to a louder
> 
> pitch.   When he had taken his position he too
> began to chant, the mullahs sometimes replying,
> and continued for half an hour; then he came
> down and led prayers, which were repeated by
> the congregation twice in unison. At the end,
> 
> just before going out, each man turned his head
> once to the right and once to the left         to salute
> his two guardian angels, who protect him on each
> 
> side.
> 
> The service was very impressive to me, and
> also to my friend, who was in a mosque for the
> 
> first time.    We felt the earnestness of    it all    the
> zeal which made each participant oblivious of all
> that was going on around him.             The voices of
> the mullahs resound beautifully through the
> mosque, whose bare walls enhance the purity of
> their tones.    The music of their intoning under
> [196]
> THE REAL TURK
> such circumstances is more appealing than our
> church music.       The most dominant note of such
> a service is its simplicity and democracy.        Each
> one feels himself a part of his great religion       a
> child of God and a brother to his fellow Moham-
> 
> medan.      Rich and poor kneel together       patched
> breeches by the side of fur coat        hamal and mer-
> chant one before God.
> Sometimes the imam preaches a sermon dur-
> ing the Friday service.     The ordinary Turk gets
> his ideas of his religion partly through this and
> 
> partly from a Mohammedan catechism which he
> istaught in his boyhood, for he cannot read the
> Koran himself nor understand it when intoned
> by the mullahs from the Arabic hence the power
> :
> 
> of the Mohammedan clergy.
> Women do not have to go to mosque on
> Friday, or observe the other forms of their re-
> ligion.    There is no statement anywhere in the
> Koran that women have no souls, but they are
> treated as    if   they had none.       They could not
> profit    by these forms; they are not important
> enough to God to be considered in these matters.
> It is enough if they accept the faith  God and
> their    husbands will see that they get safely to
> [197]
> THE REAL TURK
> Paradise.    If they wish to attend mosque they
> must go into the galleries, or occupy the sides,
> which are screened in by wooden lattices.         The
> mosque is for men Islam is a masculine religion
> ;
> 
> (perhaps that accounts for its steady earnestness
> and power).     It offers a strong contrast to our
> 
> church, with its growing effeminacy.
> The pilgrimage to Mecca is one of the reli-
> gious duties which        is   considered most sacred.
> Those who cannot afford this journey make pil-
> grimages to other sacred places or to tombs of
> local saints, but it is the dream of every Mussul-
> 
> man to visit Mecca before he dies, since, if he can
> accomplish it, he returns to his community a
> noted man wears a white turban around his
> fez, and has the title of "Hadji"
> 
> I have often seen pilgrims on the boats going
> to Mecca, and I have travelled with them.         They
> live   very simply.       Everything   in the   way of
> bedding, food,  and cooking utensils they take
> with them.    When they get on the ship they se-
> cure a clear place on the deck, spread their
> 
> baggage about so as to fence this space in, cover
> the bare boards with textiles and rugs, and are
> soon as cozy as if in their        own homes.    They
> [198]
> GROUP of Turks travelling deck
> passage on a pilgrimage to Mecca.
> The one on the right has an extremely typi-
> cal Turkish face.
> 
> queer   deck   passengers,   Turks
> from Turkistan    travelling by deck on
> their pilgrimage to   Mecca.
> THE REAL TURK
> cook their meals over spirit lamps or charcoal
> stoves.       Overhead is spread an awning, which
> shades them by day and keeps off the                dew at
> night.       It is delightful if the weather is good and
> one is well supplied with food and bedding.             The
> price of deck passage            is   about one-fifth of the
> second class fare.         Thousands travel this way
> yearly,coming from the farthest confines of
> Turkestan by way of Bartoum and the Black
> Sea            Constantinople to Palestine,
> through
> whence they proceed by caravan to Mecca.
> Other thousands go overland.
> Islam is by its theology more or less tolerant.
> Mohammed did not claim to be divine, to be an
> Incarnation or the unique Son of God.               He says
> over and over in the Koran                "I am not divine,
> I am a man, as you are."                His only claim was
> to be the prophet of God.               He urges tolerance
> upon his followers, and in one verse tells them
> to help the Christians if they are building a
> church and need aid.
> Islam looks with more or less favor upon what
> it   calls    the   "religions    with a book"      that   is,
> 
> Christianity        and Judaism          which possess the
> Old Testament jointly with Islam.                  Of poly-
> [199]
> THE REAL TURK
> theism and idolatry it is not tolerant       to them it
> 
> can,     by its theology, make no concessions           for
> 
> the chief burden of Mohammedan's teaching was
> 
> against idolatry.       Peculiarly enough,    it   is   this
> 
> very point which has estranged Islam from Chris-
> tianity. The crude Trinitarianism of the Eastern
> Christian churches (Greek, Armenian, Coptic,
> Nestorian) appeared to Mohammed as a form of
> polytheism       three gods instead of one       and the
> image worship and extreme formalism of their
> ritual looked like idolatry.       Indeed, there is very
> little    difference    between the    kissing     of   the
> 
> Virgin's eichon by Christians and the worship of
> images by polytheists.       If there is one thing that
> Moslem theology is strict about, it is the idea of
> the One God, and among orthodox Mohamme-
> dans a very pure form of monotheism prevails.
> Mohammedans have necessarily formed their
> idea of Christianity from the sects they have been
> 
> acquainted with in the East, and are surprised
> to find there are Christians who are not Trini-
> tarians.     There is really a very small barrier be-
> tween a             Mohammedan and a liberal
> liberal
> 
> Christian.     The Mohammedans all accept Christ
> as a divine teacher, a prophet sent by God, and
> 
> [200]
> THE REAL TURK
> his title in   Mohammedan writings is "The Spirit
> of God."       The prophets of the Old Testament
> they of course share with Christianity, since their
> religion is founded on that book quite as much as
> Christianity      is.   On    the     other    hand,   liberal
> 
> Christians are ready to accept Mohammed as a
> 
> prophet.       There are even books of worship com-
> piled   from the writings of Christ, Mohammed,
> Buddha, and Confucius which are used by Chris-
> tian clergy.
> A sympathetic and fraternal relation between
> progressive Christian, Jewish and Mohammedan
> thinkers is not far away.       There are many things
> which would shut out an orthodox Mohammedan
> from such a brotherhood             his practice of polyg-
> 
> amy, for example, and                his   belief   (how far
> wrong?) that much of our New Testament, be-
> ing falsified by St. Paul, does not represent the
> teachings of Christ. His belief that Mohamme-
> danism is the final religion, destined to supplant
> Christianity, would cause a good orthodox Chris-
> tian and a good orthodox Mohammedan to argue
> for hours and never make a dent in each other's
> 
> superb faith in the finality of his own religion.
> Mohammedans are becoming progressive, just
> [201]
> THE REAL TURK
> as Christians and Jews are.     The cultured Mo-
> hammedan of today no longer practices or ad-
> mires polygamy.      He is not dogmatic. He is
> ready and willing to study the Christian's Bible
> and he admires the words of Christ in our New
> Testament.    He cannot accept the unique divin-
> ity of Christ,   but neither can many Christians.
> It must not be thought, however, that he is open
> to conversion.    He is no more likely to become
> a Christian because he is a progressive Moham-
> medan than a Christian is likely to be converted
> to Mohammedanism. In other words, he is loyal
> to the religion of his fathers, although open to
> truth from whatever source.
> The missionaries have mistakenly thought that
> the Revolution    would open the Turks to con-
> version.   It has not done so and will not   loyalty
> and patriotism are     factors which will always
> stand in the way.    The New Turkey has meant
> rather a reform of Islam; and the result of the
> 
> awakening of Turkey, Persia, and Mohamme-
> dan India is a Pan-Islamic movement which can
> offer no encouragement to Christian proselyting.
> 
> The Revolution, however, did open the way
> for a closer and kinder feeling between Christian
> [202]
> THE REAL TURK
> and Moslem, and awakened, or made apparent,
> a great desire on the part of educated Moslems
> to know about the Christian religion.      The stu-
> dents in the University of Constantinople pe-
> titioned to have comparative religion included in
> the curriculum.     Several mission centers opened
> 
> meetings for Mohammedans in which talks were
> given in Turkish on the teachings of Christ, and
> one mission, which was Quaker and very broad,
> had great success in this line.    Talks on Chris-
> tianity were attended by scores of Mohammedan
> 
> divinity students, who betrayed great interest in
> discussing the Christian theology.      One of the
> leaders of the Salvation      Army gave a speech
> which won admiration, and he himself carried
> away a great respect for the Turks and for their
> religion.
> A movement     is   on foot to   establish   the
> Y. M. C. A. among the Turks, as it has been
> spread in China and Japan, but it can have little
> success if attended with a narrow dogmatism.
> The name "Christian" will be somewhat against
> it,   just as   we should rebel against a "Young
> Men's Mohammedan Association" which should
> invite membership among the young men in this
> 
> [203]
> THE REAL TURK
> country.    Yet the aim is good, since it is for fra-
> ternity and service, and if its leaders have broad
> enough ideals, and use wise and tolerant methods
> in their work,   it   will surely be of great service.
> 
> The Turks are more tolerant in religious matters
> than the Arabs or the Persians.
> I have a Turkish friend who is as good a Chris-
> tian as any I know        yet he is also a good Mo-
> hammedan, loyal to his religion, and angered by
> foolish attempts to detach him from his own
> 
> faith.   I quote from a letter of his a little episode
> which occurred between him and an earnest
> Christian young man who caught him one day
> and began a religious discussion.      "To start with
> he told me that he never believed in attacking
> other peoples' religions.     He said he had a great
> respect for the great religions of the world.
> Then little by little he tried to tell me and con-
> To
> vince me that Christianity was far superior.
> sum up the whole conversation, he told me a
> story:'A Christian (Chinese) fell into a well.
> He wept and prayed for deliverance. Confucius
> appeared at the mouth of the well and said "If
> you had followed my teachings you would not
> have fallen into the well"        and left.   After a
> [204]
> THE REAL TURK
> while Buddha appeared.           He looked down and
> said     "Do not cry and weep        lose yourself in
> 
> blissful Nirvana and you will be saved."         I was
> 
> getting nervous.     I said to myself 'Now Mo-
> hammed      will come and take a big stone and
> 
> crush the head of the poor Chinaman.'         But for
> some reason or other he did not appear.          'Last
> of all Christ appeared.     He came down the well
> and put his arm round this dying Chinaman and
> pulled him out.'      Of course I asked for a bap-
> tism immediately!      And he had said he never at-
> tacked other religions.
> "They think now that the country has a con-
> stitutional government    therefore more liberty
> 
> they can come over here and convert people
> right and left. I was invited to attend a meeting
> at   X       's.   We were to discuss the question
> 'How to help the Students of the Ottoman Uni-
> versity.'    They never thought       that the   name
> under which they were working          is   enough to
> prejudice the  Mohammedans over here 'Stu-
> dents' Christian Federation.' Of course I did
> not go.     Strange, very strange, they do not seem
> to understand the world."
> This same man was present once at a service
> [205]
> THE REAL TURK
> in which a travelling missionary spent his whole
> time and energy vilifying Mohammedanism.             At
> the end of the service he was introduced to my
> 
> friend,    and he turned upon him savagely and
> said,     "Don't you know that Mohammedanism
> is an invention of the devil,     and that your soul is
> in danger?"      What kind of impression would
> such a method produce upon cultured Moham-
> medans, men with trained minds and world- wide
> in their outlook?      Fortunately     this   missionary
> is not   at all representative.
> 
> The cultured Turk, like the cultured Chris-
> tian, is really an eclectic.      He gleans truth from
> whatever source he may            and while in loyalty
> he calls himself a Mohammedan, he is not a be-
> liever in infallibility and does not accept all that
> 
> Mohammed taught, nor think his religion is
> above reform.      He is a gentleman of the world,
> taking his sanctions for conduct from his social
> environment rather than from the tenets of
> Islam.     In other words, he has outgrown his past
> religion    and will some day be ready for a more
> universal truth.
> 
> [206]
> ISLAM AND THE INNER LIFE
> CHAPTER XII
> ISLAM AND THE INNER LIFE
> The Mohammedan world is divided into two
> sects as different in theory and as antagonistic in
> 
> practice as the Catholic and Protestant divisions
> of Christianity: Sunni and Shiah.       The Sunnis
> are the orthodox   Mohammedans and comprise
> the Turks, Egyptians and the Arabs.      They rec-
> ognize the caliphate succession, of which the sul-
> tan of Turkey is the representative, and look to
> the Sheik-ul-Islam in Constantinople as their
> 
> spiritual head.   Their name is taken from the
> Sunna, a compilation of traditions about Mo-
> hammed which they accept as next in authority
> to the Koran.
> The Shiites, however, reject the Sunna, and
> will   acknowledge neither the caliphate nor the
> Sheik-ul-Islam.    They claim    that   Abu Bekr,
> Omar, and Othman, the first three caliphs of the
> Sunnis, were impostors, and that Ali, who was
> murdered after holding the caliphate five years,
> was a martyr and the true successor of Mo-
> [209]
> THE REAL TURK
> hammed. This succession has been handed down
> through twelve imams, the last of
> spiritually
> whom was the Imam Mohammed, whose second
> coming will inaugurate the millenium.       They
> look to their leading priests, or mujtahids, for
> the interpretation of the Koran, rather than to
> the traditions of the Sunna.
> It is a very interesting religious phenomenon
> to note that this sect has succeeded in turning
> Mohammedanism into a religion of personal de-
> votion   similar to the evangelical attitude of
> 
> Christianity toward Christ, and the Bhakti wor-
> ship of Khrisna in India.   No religion could give
> lessground for worship of human personality
> than Islam, which is as pure a form of mono-
> theism as Judaism, yet the Shiah followers have
> succeeded in deifying not only Mohammed but
> also Ali his son-in-law and Ali's two sons, Hus-
> 
> sein and Hassan, all three of whom were killed
> 
> in battle and are looked upon as martyrs.
> 
> Mohammed has become almost too lofty a
> personality for intimate worship. It is Ali who
> is the popular idol. To him the Shiites turn with
> an intensity of devotion which is paralleled only
> in the Christian mystics' devotion to Christ.   The
> [210]
> THE REAL TURK
> celebration in           mourning of the death of All,
> Hussein,        and     Hassan, which occurs yearly
> throughout          all  Shiah communities, I shall
> describe later.
> The Shiah sect arose in Persia after that coun-
> try had fallen under Arab conquest and turned
> Mohammedan. If the Arabs could compel their
> Persian        subjects     to    adopt Mohammedanism,
> they could not limit the Persian ingenuity from
> working upon this religion until it took a very
> different form from that Mohammed intended
> it   to have.       The Persians are Aryans and per-
> haps the most subtle-minded of all the Eastern
> peoples except the Hindus. They have a great
> genius for speculation and intellectual creation.
> It    is   no wonder that they could not rest until
> they had transformed Islam, which is essentially
> a simple faith, into a metaphysical religion suited
> to their mental habits.
> Out of this tendency arose a sect which holds
> the        flower   of    Mohammedan        mysticism   the
> Sufi philosophers.           Their teachings show strong
> Hindu and Greek influence                Persia having been
> the melting-pot of the Eastern               and Western
> philosophies for the many centuries succeeding
> [211]
> THE REAL TURK
> the conquests      of Alexander.      More     directly,
> Sufiism may be called the working of neo-Plato-
> nism upon Islam.       Its basic teaching is the at-
> 
> tainment to union with the Divine by means of
> love, the entire loss of self in a love for God so
> 
> great as to cause    absorption into his unity.
> With this idea leading, Sufi teachers have some-
> times announced that they were God.           This does
> not appear blasphemous when we understand
> what was meant: they considered themselves so
> at one with the Divine that they no longer had
> 
> any   will              but were completely
> of their own,
> 
> swayed by the divine will. This assertion is
> similar to the ideas and teachings of the Perfec-
> 
> tionists,    and of the followers of Molinos, who
> claimed they were sinless.
> The beauty of the Sufi writings lies in the
> fact that human love is accepted as a necessary
> 
> step leading to the divine love       and this figure
> runs through      all their literature,   spiritualizing
> the earthly love, and bringing the divine love
> within reach of human hearts.       No more beauti-
> ful love poems exist in any language than those
> of Hafiz, Jalal-u-din, and Jami.          Their expres-
> sion of human love always carries a hint of the
> 
> [212]
> THE REAL TURK
> higher love and the higher love so illumines the
> longings of the erring mortal heart as to make
> its   utterances sublime.   In no other philosophy
> God so beautiful "God, the True
> is the path to
> 
> Beloved, from whom all that is beautiful borrows
> its    beauty."
> Prof. E. G.   Brown of Oxford University,
> one of the leading Orientalists, writes as follows
> of the Sufi teaching:
> "The great practical aim of Sufiism is to es-
> cape from self, and until this lesson is learnt no
> further advance can be made. Worship, love,
> devotion to any one or anything are therefore
> 
> good in so far as they conduce to self-renuncia-
> tion and self-forgetfulness. What, then, is the
> pain which man suffers, and how can he escape
> therefrom? For only by finding the cause of
> this    pain can he hope to cure it.   That pain is
> love of self       remedy for it is to renounce
> the
> 
> self, and the escape is into God. So long as man
> is held captive
> by the illusion of self he inevitably
> suffers from unsatisfied desire and unquenchable
> 
> craving.     Let him learn the truth and look up-
> ward to the One, not around at the many, and
> least of all downward at that dark shadow of un-
> 
> [213]
> THE REAL TURK
> reality which he takes for himself.                    What does
> he then behold? The Light and nothing but the
> Light;      Good and nothing but the Good; God
> and nothing but God.              This is the supreme hap-
> 
> piness, the ultimate goal, the beatific vision : this,
> in a word, is 'Annihilation in God.'                   The drop is
> merged into the Ocean; the pilgrim has reached
> the Shrine; the lover is united to the Beloved.
> 'He has ceased to exist?' you ask. No, he is one
> with Being.         'Has he lost the friends that he
> loved on earth?'        No, for what he loved in them
> was the reflection of that wherewith he is now
> at one.     All that he ever was he is               and far more
> than that;       all   that he ever had he has, and
> 
> infinitely more."
> The following poem from Hafiz illustrates the
> sublimity of the Sufi ideal:
> I died from the mineral and became a plant;
> I died from the plant and re-appeared in an animal;
> I died from the animal and became a man;
> 
> Wherefore, then, should I fear? When did I grow less
> by dying?
> Next time I shall die from the man
> That I may grow the wings of the angels.
> From the angels, too, I must seek advance;
> "
> All things shall perish save His Face." *
> *                               NOTE
> Quotation from the Koran.          :   It is easy to trace in this
> poem the influence of Hindu philosophy.
> [214]
> ft
> THE REAL TURK
> Once more shall I wing my way above the angels,
> I shall become that which entereth not the
> imagination.
> Then let me become naught, naught; for the harpstring
> "
> Crieth unto me       Verily unto Him do we return.'*
> 
> In Sufiism must be found the origin of the
> many dervish orders which exist, not only in
> Persia, but throughout Islam.            Thus while Sufi-
> ism is essentially an outgrowth of Shiism, it has
> sent its tentacles out to Sunni countries such as
> 
> Turkey in the form of dervish orders.            The most
> prominent of these in Turkey are the Mevlevis,
> or "Dancing Dervishes ;" the Rufais, or "Howl-
> 
> ing Dervishes," whose peculiar ceremonies I
> shall describe in a later chapter; and the Bek-
> 
> tasliis, orders which trace their beginning to some
> 
> Sufi saint or teacher.        They have both active and
> lay members.      Unlike Christian monastic orders,
> they do not enforce celibacy the active members
> :
> 
> live in a sort of monastery with their wives and
> 
> children, if they have any; the lay members may
> hold their connection with the order secret, but
> their lives and beliefs are profoundly influenced
> 
> by it.
> The general attitude of the dervish orders to-
> ward the forms of their religion is antinomian.
> They are mystics, and, as such, are lifted above
> [215]
> THE REAL TURK
> the necessity of obedience to forms.        Hence they
> go through prayers only when publicity obliges
> them to. They do not observe the fast of
> Ramazan, nor abstain from spirituous liquors.
> They are far from being dogmatic Mohamme-
> dans and are very tolerant of any religion or
> faith which points the way to God.
> 
> The Bektashis       are the most      numerous and
> powerful sect of dervishes in Turkey; they owe
> their origin to Hadji Bektashi, a saint of Konia,
> 
> Turkey. This order is especially strong in Al-
> bania, where it has thousands of followers. It
> was so powerful around Constantinople that one
> of the late sultans felt obliged to persecute          it,
> 
> and it fell from favor.     Even today the ceremony
> of The Girding of the Sword, which corresponds
> to the coronation in other monarchies, can be
> 
> performed only by the Chelibi or head of the
> Bektashi Dervishes, who comes on from Konia
> for this purpose.
> There is a strong tie of brotherhood between
> Bektashis, and the different families composing
> one chapter unite in worship, men and women
> together,   with    all   the   brotherly   and   sisterly
> zeal   of   a   Methodist       prayer-meeting.    These
> [216]
> THE REAL TURK
> Mohammedans          are   so   progressive    as   to   dis-
> 
> regard the    veil    before    members   of    their own
> 
> order.
> The Bektashis        are entirely tolerant toward
> 
> any religion which is sincere, and believe in the
> validity of other faiths,       welcoming all men as
> brothers.    They represent         the broadest views
> that the    Turks have yet taken in matters reli-
> gious.
> The broadest movement in all Islam today,
> one which also had its inception in Sufiism, is
> Bahaism, sometimes called Babism from Ali Mo-
> hammed, "the Bab," its founder.               This young
> man, in 1844, in the heart of Persia, felt himself
> called to proclaim a new religion of peace and
> 
> justice and universal brotherhood.        He had med-
> itated over his      own religion, Mohammedanism,
> and began to be impressed with                its   failings.
> 
> Finally, after a pilgrimage to Kerbala, the cen-
> tral   shrine of the         Mohammedans, like
> Shiite
> Luther after his visit to Rome, he felt deeply the
> hollowness of the religion in which he had been
> 
> brought up.     He returned to Shiraz and began
> to proclaim himself the herald of a reformed
> Islam.     "He denounced the worldliness and im-
> [217]
> THE REAL TURK
> morality of the mullahs, or Mohammedan clergy,
> and spoke with a conviction which compelled be-
> lief     in    the   era     of     justice    and       happiness
> now       at   hand,    and thetriumph of certain
> the new truth which he was commissioned to
> 
> proclaim."*
> Ali Mohammed was possessed of a beautiful
> and striking personality, which, upon being fired
> with the zeal of religion, proved invincible to the
> mullahs        whom he was
> denouncing, and who
> sought in every way to humiliate him. He met
> them in public debate and put them to shame.
> So great was the charm of his speech that he won
> converts by the hundred.                  Several of his most
> zealous        followers     also    went about teaching,
> among them             a young       woman          of   wonderful
> beauty and intellectual power, Kurat-el-Eyn,
> the Joan-of-Arc of Persia.
> The cause of the inspired youth grew so fast
> that at last the government was persuaded to put
> it   down       and persecutions too horrible to de-
> scribe decimated the ranks of the Babis.                   As with
> the early Christians, the property of rich Babis
> was confiscated, their homes ravaged and burned,
> Prof. E. G. Browne.
> 
> [218]
> THE REAL TURK
> and whole families destroyed with the utmost
> barbarity.  There are Persians living today
> whose parents thus lost their property and their
> lives, and   who have been reduced from wealth to
> poverty.     In 1852, as a last resort against the re-
> growth of Babism, it was determined to
> sistless
> 
> put Ali Mohammed, "the Bab," to death. Ac-
> cordingly he was carried to a public square in
> Shiraz and shot in the presence of many of his
> followers.
> 
> The martyrdom of the Bab did not by any
> means end the power of Babism. It continued
> to grow, and in 1864 Baha Ullah, who had been
> one of the disciples of the Bab, and who had
> been obliged to live in exile, first in Bagdad, and
> then in Adrianople, demanded the allegiance of
> the Babis.     The Bab (the name means "gate" or
> "door") had constantly asserted that one would
> follow him who should complete the religion
> which he was only privileged to begin.      Baha Ul-
> lah now claimed to be that one, and by his blame-
> less life and spiritual power succeeded in demon-
> 
> strating his fitness for leadership and in winning
> the Babis to follow him.         At his death in 1892
> there were few Babis left who had not accepted
> [219]
> THE REAL TURK
> him as the one whom the Bab had predicted
> would take the leadership of his cause. Baha Ul-
> lah assumed the authority to complete the teach-
> 
> ings of the Bab, and to abrogate whatever was
> necessary.    The changes that he wrought in Bab-
> ism were so great that it deserves at present to be
> called Bahaism after him, as indeed all his fol-
> lowers call it.
> What were the changes that he made? Under
> Ali Mohammed Babism was hardly more than a
> reformed Islam; it was left for Baha Ullah to
> give it a world-wide meaning.          He transformed
> it into a universal religion,     whose platform is ex-
> tremely broad.
> Bahaism teaches the validity of all religions,
> claiming that truth is essentially one, and that,
> as there is only one God, the worship of that God
> is   the same, no matter under what         name he is
> called.   The differences in religion are due to the
> differences in race and times, but these may be
> overlooked in the light of the underlying unity
> of all spiritual truth.
> Such a platform furnishes an excellent basis
> for proselyting, since the Bahai missionary never
> seeks to confute the beliefs of the peoples among
> [220]
> THE REAL TURK
> whom he may be teaching.            Whether he dis-
> cusses with Buddhist, Confucian,         Hindu, Zoro-
> astrian,    Mohammedan, Jew         or   Christian,   he
> accepts their religion as valid to begin with, and
> seeks to demonstrate the value of Bahaism from
> their   own sacred books.     The Bahai missionary
> always makes himself familiar with the sacred
> books of those he would convert, and argues with
> the Jew from his Old Testament, with the Hindu
> from the Vedas, the Mohammed from the Koran,
> the Christian from the Bible, etc.
> Not only did Baha Ullah proclaim a universal
> religion which should unite men in one vast spir-
> itual    brotherhood,   obliterating     all    religious
> hatred and rancour, but he taught, as early as
> 1870, the necessity for world peace.           War must
> cease, nations must mingle in friendship, justice
> must become      universal,   all   men must      be as
> brothers. He censured that form of patriotism
> which says, "My country, right or wrong."
> "Pride not thyself in that thou lovest thy coun-
> try,    "he said, "but rather that thou lovest the
> whole world."    The stand that he made for uni-
> versal peace is remarkable when it is remembered
> that it antedated by several decades the rise of
> [221]
> THE REAL TURK
> peace sentiment in Europe, and that he sent out
> his teachings from the cruel and benighted East.
> 
> In pursuance of his teachings of peace, Baha
> Ullah forbade his followers to kill, even in self-
> defence an injunction which had never been
> put upon them under the Bab, when they had
> been obliged to take up arms and fight with all
> the vigor of a zeal-inspired people. But under
> Baha Ullah the fierce followers of the Bab be-
> came gentle. The employment of force is hate-
> ful to God, he said.   "If ye be slain it is better
> for you than that ye should slay."     Love was to
> take the place of hatred, and peace to be substi-
> tuted for violence.    "Close your eyes to racial
> differences   and welcome   all   with the light of
> Oneness."
> As a further need for the establishment of that
> brotherhood of nations which was the vision of
> Baha Ullah, he advised the study of languages,
> and the choice, in time, of one universal language,
> either an existing one or a new one, which should
> 
> unite the minds of the peoples as his universal
> 
> religion was to unite their hearts.
> Education received great stress.      "The diffu-
> sion of knowledge is a most laudable thing," he
> 
> [222]
> i
> THE REAL TURK
> said. For a father to let his children grow up in
> ignorance was a sin against God and if he
> could not afford to educate both his sons and
> 
> daughters, he must educate his daughters first,
> as they were to be the mothers of the future race.
> A most radical teaching,      this,   to proceed    from
> the Orient.
> As Prof. Browne points out "Bahaism, in
> spite of the mystic enthusiasm which pervades
> it,   differs from Sufiism in the essentially practi-
> 
> The future life
> cal objects which it has in view.
> 
> must not divert our thoughts from the work of
> regenerating this world."
> Not so much stress is laid on the salvation of
> the individual soul for the sake of a future para-
> dise as for the sake of a        reformed life in this
> world.  The Kingdom of God, to which the Ba-
> hais look forward with vivid faith, cannot come
> to earth, they say, until the individual       is   pre-
> pared for it.  Hence they do not aim at chang-
> ing the external forms of life so much as working
> on the heart, and improving the character of men
> by means of their religion.
> Religion is worth nothing, Baha Ullah said,
> unless it is lived out in the daily life.     "In this
> [228]
> THE REAL TURK
> day, all must serve God with purity and virtue
> Some are content with words, but the truth of
> words is tested by deeds and dependent upon
> life.   Deeds reveal the station of the man."
> Work is commended to all men. Idleness is a
> sin.    "It is necessary for you to engage in arts
> and business.    Fruitless trees have been and will
> be only fit for fire.   The lowest of men are those
> who bear no fruit upon the earth." There is no
> room in his system for the idle rich. And while
> he does not seek to overturn the social ranks and
> classes, or   put the servant on a level with his
> master, yet he teaches the essential dignity of the
> individualand the honorableness of work, no
> matter how menial. One of the happiest and
> most spiritual men I have ever met was a Bahai
> who had been a cook in the service of Baha
> Ullah, and had become glorified by his labor.
> "Man is not worthy in the eyes of God/' says
> Baha Ullah, "because of wealth and adornment,
> learning and refinement.         He is not worthy of
> the name man until he be imbued with the attri-
> butes of the Merciful       One     faithfulness,   wis-
> 
> dom, chastity, intelligence and deeds."
> The rapid spread of this religion has forced
> [224]
> THE REAL TURK
> itupon the attention of scholars. Bahaism now
> numbers among its adherents about a third of
> the population of Persia           besides many persons
> in India, Turkestan, and Egypt; and it even has
> 
> followers in France,          Germany, England, and
> America.       In     country there are Bahai
> this
> 
> centers in every large city, with a total of some
> 
> 3,000 members.         Bahai teachers are working in
> many      different    countries     to   spread their re-
> ligion. In fact, every Bahai constitutes himself
> a missionary; you cannot be with one an hour
> but what he enters upon a discussion of religion.
> It is one of the religious duties of a           Bahai to
> gain new adherents to his cause.
> Bahaism in the East has produced wonderful
> results in the lives of its followers.         One of the
> most striking of these is the tolerance and sym-
> pathy for other religions and races which is al-
> ways characteristic of Bahais, even though they
> may be wild shepherds upon the mountainsides
> of Persia.     They are the soul of kindness and
> devotion to one another, and they are com-
> manded by their religion to be kind to all,
> whether Bahais or not.
> Bahaism has proved a great solvent of racial
> [225]
> THE REAL TURK
> and religious hatred in Persia.    It has many con-
> verts among the Jews    and Zoroastrians of that
> country as well as among Mohammedans, and
> they all meet together in perfect unity and love,
> where before there existed only hatred and con-
> tempt. It is no uncommon thing to see men of
> five or six races and as many religions sit down
> 
> at table together, bound by the ties of a common
> 
> religion, members of a universal brotherhood.
> The opium habit, which is a great evil in
> Persia, was denounced by Baha Ullah, and is
> never indulged in by his          faithful   followers.
> 
> Smoking is also discouraged. Honesty in word
> and deed is enjoined upon all, and the Persians,
> who are naturally some of the worst liars in the
> world, show a great change for the better when
> they become Bahais, and then are found much
> more trustworthy as servants, and more honor-
> able in business.
> Bahaism gives to the Oriental ideals of sex
> purity which were never held before.           It con-
> demns polygamy altogether, and puts its fol-
> lowers upon a basis of monogamy.             Travellers
> in Persia testify that the home life of Bahais is
> 
> far above that of their   Mohammedan brothers.
> [226]
> THE REAL TURK
> Chastity    is   commanded      a   new   ideal    to   the
> Orient.
> The Bahai women see           opportunities which
> their Mohammedan sisters never dream of, since
> 
> education was opened to them through Baha
> Ullah. They have been eagerly waiting for a
> chance to acquire the learning of the twentieth
> century and to take their place by the side of
> men in the regeneration of their country and of
> the world.
> There is reason to believe that in time Baha-
> ism will become the religion of all Persia, and its
> growth     in other countries       shows no signs of
> weakening; it is a movement to be watched, for
> it is in
> complete sympathy with the most pro-
> gressive tendencies of the day.
> It may be interesting to compare at this point
> the inner life of the East and of the West.              Is
> the East more spiritual than the West?            There is
> no doubt that it is.  The effect of education and
> scientific progress in the West has seemed to be
> 
> scepticism, and,    what is worse, indifference to-
> ward religion.     Many of our churches are grow-
> ing empty, ministers are at their wits' ends, and
> men of affairs too often become content to get
> [227]
> THE REAL TURK
> along without any definite religion.         One man, a
> scientist,   remarked to me that science had pro-
> duced more benefit to the world in the last hun-
> dred years than religion had in all the centuries
> preceding.        It is not hard to see where the in-
> terest of the West lies        practical things absorb
> its attention.      In so far as religion is practical it
> appeals; otherwise, it does not.
> The East has not yet awakened to pure intel-
> lectualism, and is bound to superstition. Even in
> business the fear of       God is stronger than the
> dollar.   Two merchants are bargaining together.
> The seller wants a larger price     ;
> the buyer replies,
> "I will give it       but may Allah turn it bad for
> you." This curse, pronounced not on the seller,
> but on the extra money which he demands, is
> usually enough to give him pause and make him
> content with the smaller sum.           The Greek mer-
> chant, however, takes a thrifty advantage of
> this way of bargaining with the Turk, for he
> 
> does not fear the curse and is quite willing to ac-
> 
> cept the tainted money.
> No plans are made for the future without the
> ff
> provisionInshallah""God willing." There
> was a woman who was very pious, and never
> [228]
> THE REAL TURK
> made a promise without the humble "Inshallah."
> Her husband, becoming tired of this, ordered her
> to stop it, or he would beat her.      One morning
> as he was leaving for business he asked her what
> time they would have supper.     "At seven o'clock
> God willing." At this word, which had slipped
> out in spite of his threat, the man took a stick and
> 
> gave her a good beating, saying, "Nonsense,
> woman, we will have supper at seven, whether
> God wills or not," and then went on his way. At
> nightfall as he was returning to his home, some
> robbers      upon him and beat him so that he
> fell
> 
> lay there insensible for most of the night. In
> the early hours of the morning he managed to
> crawl home         a regenerated man   and told his
> wife to say "Inshallah" all she wanted.
> 
> Stronger than any other idea in the Mussul-
> man's mind is his belief in destiny, and his every
> act   is   in accordance with this fatalism.   The
> candy vender enters a coffee shop and smokes,
> regardless whether he misses a customer or not;
> the Turkish boatmen or hackmen do not com-
> 
> pete for a customer with the fury of other
> nationalities, because they know if it is their des-
> 
> tiny to get one, he will come anyway; nor does
> [229]
> THE REAL TURK
> the Turkish merchant force his goods upon you
> nor race out into the street after you, like the Jew
> and the Armenian.        The hustling American
> traveller wonders how the Turk can make a liv-
> 
> ing. As a matter of fact, he does not make so
> 
> good a living as his Jewish, Greek and Armenian
> competitors,  but the peace and contentment
> which is written on his face are worth the cost he
> pays for it.     There is no strain in his business
> life.   He is as calm and placid as if he were an
> anchorite meditating     upon the goodness of his
> Creator.
> The absence of ambition in the average Turk
> ispartly an outcome of this same fatalism; he is
> content with whatever Allah sends, having few
> desires; in times of business stress his faith in
> God is superb.       In these ways, religion enters
> into the daily life of the Turk to sweeten it and
> make it peaceful.     Misfortune is met with com-
> plete resignation.    Worry never dwells upon the
> brow of the Turk.
> Life's end is met with this same calm fortitude.
> The Angel of Death never comes save at God's
> command, and       at the destined time      so   why
> murmur or repine?        Why fruitlessly endeavor
> [230]
> THE REAL TURK
> to escape one's fate?  The prime minister of a
> certain sultan once came in fright to his master
> and asked leave to withdraw for the rest of his
> life   to Tunis, because the Angel of Death was
> 
> following him with calm steps. The Sultan
> granted the request; and as the prime minister
> walked gladly from the room, thinking he had
> saved his life for a few years more, the sultan saw
> a grim smile upon the face of Death, who stood
> near.    "Why do you smile?" he said.     Death re-
> plied: "Your majesty, Allah sent me to fetch
> this man, but I was commanded to take him at
> 
> Tunis, I wondered how I could get him to go
> there, but now you have solved the difficulty for
> me."
> Such fatalism has its evil side     a folding of
> the hands without effort to struggle against un-
> favorable conditions     but it relieves life of much
> of its terror.   It is said that experienced soldiers
> in any country become fatalists, influenced by fre-
> 
> quent exposure to death to accept fatalistic ideas
> as a protection against fear. The calmness with
> which they face the whistling bullet is induced
> by a belief that they will not be shot until their
> time comes. Napoleon was a confirmed fatalist.
> [231]
> THE REAL TURK
> His faith in his own destiny was so strong that
> by it he inspired all his followers, and the spirit
> with which they fought was but a reflection of
> his own fiery assurance.
> 
> In the East, in addition to the spirit of fatal-
> ism, there is the promise of immediate Paradise to
> 
> every Mohammedan who falls in a religious war-
> fare, and this gives not only calm acceptance of
> death but a welcoming of it and lends a fury to
> Mohammedan warfare which has more than once
> made Europe quail.
> The Mohammedans in general carry their re-
> it is not a matter
> ligion into their everyday life
> of    mere seventh-day observance.      Their hospi-
> 
> tality is renowned.     Never do they let the stran-
> ger go hungry. They have few organized chari-
> ties, but each Mohammedan is at the service of his
> 
> brother.     A poor man can get bread at the
> kitchens of the rich.     No one need starve. The
> feeling of brotherhood is very strong in Islam
> stronger than in Christianity.      It is a powerful
> 
> religious democracy.      He who asks in the name
> of Allah is seldom refused.
> I have already spoken of the reverence with
> which the Mohammedan goes through the forms
> [232]
> THE REAL TURK
> of his religion.    The mosque service cannot fail
> to inspire any visitor with its feeling of hushed
> 
> worship and devotion. The Mohammedan at
> prayer has no attention for anything else.
> Nothing can distract him.    The fear of God is
> always in the heart of the Mohammedan. He is
> simple-minded childlike, if you will for he
> lives near to God. His speech is permeated with
> 
> pious phrases.
> The hold of religion upon pious Mohammed-
> ans is best seen in their faithful observance of
> the long fast of   Ramazan, necessitating a real
> sacrifice of personal comfort and efficiency; and
> 
> in abstinence from liquor, a habit which Christian
> 
> countries have not been able to acquire.        Here
> is   a vigorous race full of red blood that is pure
> and strong.     The Turks are neither degenerate
> nor effete.
> The things of which I have so far been speak-
> ing are the externals of religion, rather than the
> indications of a true spirituality; but there are
> 
> many ways in which the Oriental shows himself
> to be more spiritually-minded than his Western
> brother.    His thoughts are more constantly upon
> the divine.    It   is   not without significance that
> [233]
> THE REAL TURK
> every one of the great world religions has arisen
> in the East and had its conception in the mind of
> 
> an Oriental.     There   is   something in the East
> which seems to induce meditation.      The climate
> invites mysticism     just as our American climate
> forces life into feverish activity. One falls under
> "the spell of the East" insensibly; it is there       a
> real thing     as vital in the lives of its peoples as
> our machinery and productivity are to us.          How
> little   time our business men have for meditation
> on the nature of existence!       How seldom when
> they are together does their conversation turn on
> spiritual themes: the nature of the Ultimate
> man's position in the universe          his relation to
> 
> the Divine.  The typical American has no cos-
> mic view; his mind does not scan the universe,
> nor find for him any relation to the mysterious
> All of which the world where he breathes and
> lives is  but an infinitesimal part.       He bothers
> little with such idle speculations  !
> 
> To the Oriental, however, this is the one ab-
> sorbing theme. He is ever pondering upon the
> nature of existence as a whole. Other things,
> the practical things of everyday         life,   are but
> 
> passing shows from which he is glad to withdraw
> [234]
> THE REAL TURK
> whenever possible in order to be face to face with
> the Divine        to feel that mystic sense of union
> with the Whole which is peculiarly Oriental.        If
> two or three business men get together,         their
> 
> talk is sure to run into religion, which is the fa-
> vorite subject of discussion.       From the time he
> enters this world till the time he leaves it, the Ori-
> ental is surrounded with the feeling of awe and
> reverence for the Unseen, and a reaching out for
> a closer relation to it.
> It is from the East that there have come the
> ideas of renunciation and submission to God, and
> the absence of all desire save His will, without
> which essentials no individual can become truly
> spiritual.
> A Mussulman         is   "one who submits to God."
> The patience with which he bears suffering and
> misfortune is wonderful. His calm and majestic
> attitude toward the buffets of the world, render-
> 
> ing him superior to suffering, places him, even
> in misfortune, above the plane of material fluc-
> 
> tuations     an accomplishment which         only    a
> 
> strong religion can bring to pass.
> What is the goal of every individual's desire,
> save to be beyond the power of misfortune           to
> [235]
> THE REAL TURK
> be assured of constant peace and happiness?
> There is one way of striving for this: piling up
> investments, perfecting the external conditions
> of   life,   surrounding oneself with friends        and
> then shaking one's fist in the face of Destiny and
> 
> defying it; but the very defiance shows a fear,
> and no stronghold           is   proof against calamity.
> And even if all other obstacles to happiness were
> removed, death alone were sufficient to disturb
> the materialist's peace of mind.
> It was an Oriental who said, "Lay not up for
> 
> yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and
> rust    doth     corrupt    and where     thieves   break
> through and steal;" and having perhaps a vision
> of the bravado of our modern materialist, this
> same Oriental told the story of a man who piled
> up wealth        in his    barns and then invited his
> friends to carouse, defying Destiny to do            him
> harm         fool that he was!       His grain was safe,
> but he was not, for his soul was required of him
> that very night.
> Emerson's      poem         "Hamatreya"   admirably
> illustrates this principle of material possession.
> 
> Bulkeley, Hunt, Willard, Hosmer, Meriam, Flint,
> Possessed the land which rendered to their toil
> 
> [236]
> THE REAL TURK
> Hay, corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool and wood.
> Each of these landlords walked amidst his farm,
> "
> Saying,   'Tis mine, my children's and my name's.
> How sweet the west wind sounds in my own trees       !
> 
> How graceful climb those shadows on my hill      !
> 
> I fancy these pure waters and the flags
> Know me, as does my dog: we sympathize;
> And, I affirm, my actions smack of the soil."
> Where are these men?     Asleep beneath their grounds
> And strangers, fond as they, their furrows plough.
> Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys
> Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs,
> Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet
> Clear of the grave.
> They added ridge to valley, brook to pond,
> And sighed for all that bounded their domain;
> '
> This suits me for a pasture that's my park
> ;             ;
> 
> We must have clay, lime, gravel, granite-ledge,
> And misty lowlands, where to go for peat.
> The land is well,    lies fairly to the south.
> 'Tis good, when you have crossed the sea and back,
> To find the sitfast acres where you left them."
> Ah! the hot owner sees not Death, who adds
> Him to his land, a lump of mould the more.
> Hear what the Earth says:
> EARTH-SONG
> "
> Mine and yours      ;
> 
> Mine, not yours.
> Earth endures;
> Stars abide
> Shine down in the old sea ;
> Old are the shores;
> But where are old men?
> I who have seen much,
> Such have I never seen.
> [237]
> THE REAL TURK
> "The lawyer's deed
> Ran sure,
> In tail,
> To them, and to their heirs
> Who shall succeed,
> Without fail,
> Forevermore.
> 
> "Here is the land,
> Shaggy with wood,
> With its old valley,
> Mound and flood.
> But the heritors?
> Fled like the flood's foam.
> The lawyer, and the laws,
> And the kingdom,
> Clean swept herefrom.
> 
> "They called me theirs,
> Who so controlled me      ;
> 
> Yet every one
> Wished to stay, and is gone,
> How am I theirs,
> If they cannot hold me,
> But I hold them?"
> 
> When I heard the Earth-song,
> I was no longer brave;
> 
> My avarice cooled
> Like lust in the chill of the grave.
> 
> To the Occidental, a material possession seems
> the most solid thing in this universe; but to the
> 
> Oriental,   who has always the eternal values in
> mind, the things of this earth appear very fluc-
> [238 ]
> THE REAL TURK
> tuating and unstable, while death is the only sure
> and universal adjunct of life.
> The best way of insuring peace in the midst
> of one's possessions is by being detached from
> them.     Only he who is without desire is safe from
> misfortune.        As Laotze says, "By not making
> any claims of ownership, the sage is superior to
> loss." Of course he is, for how can a man lose
> what he does not possess? The man who is free
> from desire and submissive to God's will looks
> upon his possessions as loaned to him, and is
> ready at any time to see them go without com-
> plaint or whining.
> The Oriental can do without the things which
> the Westerner considers as necessities.        He can
> be happy under almost any circumstances. Thus
> he lives perpetually in a realm of peace, above
> the jar and turmoil of the world.        In occasional
> solitudes he meditates upon God          and his life is
> lived in spiritual spaces.
> 
> I do not say that the East has all.        The prac-
> tical achievements of the West are also
> necessary.
> The      perfect   civilization   would be that which
> would combine these two elements: masterful
> wrestling with Nature for the utilization of her
> [239]
> THE REAL TURK
> resources and the prevention of waste, whether
> 
> economic, social, or physiological; and the calm
> submission to the will of the Almighty which in-
> sures happiness.      Either without the other is but
> half of perfection.
> 
> [240]
> PECULIAR RITES AND BELIEFS OF
> ISLAM
> CHAPTER XIII
> PECULIAR RITES AND BELIEFS OF
> ISLAM
> One of the greatest occasions in the Moham-
> medan year is The Night of Power, which comes
> at the end of the month of fasting. It was on
> 
> this night that the Koran is believed to have de-
> 
> scended from heaven, letter perfect. On this
> most holy anniversary angels descend from
> heaven to take men's prayers up to Allah, and
> the act of worship is of tenfold merit.
> At Constantinople prayers are always held on
> The Night      of   Power   in the   Mosque   of   St.
> 
> Sophia, which is closely packed with "the faith-
> ful," to the number of seven or ten thousand.       A
> limited number of tourists and foreign residents
> are admitted into the gallery as spectators         a
> 
> privilege which is as desirable as it is hard to
> secure.    In the autumn of 1909, I had the good
> fortune to see this wonderful ceremony, and after
> it   to mingle in disguise with the Mohammedans
> on the floor of the mosque.
> [243]
> THE REAL TURK
> A small party of Americans went under the
> auspices    of   American Embassy.
> the                     (Each
> embassy is allowed to take a certain number of
> people.)     Upon arriving we found the gallery
> already filled with other parties French, Ger-
> man, English who had come with their kavas-
> ses.    We found our way to the edge of the
> balcony and looked down. There, through the
> midst of the floating lights hundreds of little
> oil    cups burning in chandeliers        we discerned
> the throng of worshippers, all wearing red fezes.
> The service consisted of the usual prayers, led
> by the imam from his tall pulpit. The impres-
> sive thing about it was the immense number of
> 
> worshippers, and the absolute unity with which
> they went through the different movements of
> the prayers.     To see some ten thousand men pros-
> trating themselves in the direction of Mecca,
> touching their foreheads to the floor and rising
> again, as one man, is a sight I shall never forget    ;
> 
> nor shall I forget the sound of ten thousand
> voices raising to the        dome a united chant     in
> 
> praise of     God.     The   sightseers   whom I was
> among took this        awe-inspiring spectacle as a
> mere      diversion,   and   chattered    and   laughed
> [244]
> THE REAL TURK
> through it all. I stole away to the end of the
> corridor, where I could be all alone and give my-
> selfup to the emotions aroused by this great
> ceremony.  There was the same compelling
> power which is felt in a great revival meeting
> the audience had become as one man, each indi-
> vidual having merged his soul into the soul of
> the whole.  They were so closely packed together
> in rows that each one had just room to make his
> 
> prostrations,     and they did not look to right or
> left,   but devoted themselves to the worship with
> absolute zeal for upwards of an hour.
> As I watched them, several impressions came
> to me.    One was of the wonderful unity of Islam,
> expressed here so strikingly in the perfect unison
> with which these thousands performed their
> 
> prayers   ;   and there was also the feeling of power
> of great potentiality.      What might not this
> zeal accomplish?       Here in Constantinople, one
> of the        most Europeanized of Moslem cities,
> under the progressive rule of the Young Turks,
> we were witnesses of the same blind religious
> fanaticism which had so often made Christendom
> tremble. A few words from the imam in incita-
> tion against the Christians, and the ten thousand
> 
> [245]
> THE REAL TURK
> worshippers         would     have    become    a   howling
> mob, hurling         itself   murderously against the
> unbelievers.
> Yet their fanaticism appealed to me.           After
> all,   it   was zeal, real devotion to Allah, which
> brought them together and welded them into
> one spirit of adoration before the throne of their
> Creator.       Was this a thing to laugh at? They
> were worshipping God, and I felt that his all-
> hearing ear was open to their supplications, and
> that he accepted their worship in proportion to
> its    sincerity.   I felt a tie which united        me to
> these children of the same Father,             and thereby
> in spirit I     was one of the vast brotherhood of
> Islam.
> At length the service ended, the imam came
> down from his pulpit, and the audience broke up
> into little groups about different mullahs who ex-
> 
> pounded the Koran to them, or gave them hom-
> ilies on this life and the next.  With an Ameri-
> can friend I put on a fez I had brought in my
> pocket, went down to the entrance and slipped
> in, walking around       among the Turks and visiting
> the groups of listeners.        We coulo!, not follow the
> sermons, from lack of proficiency in Turkish, but
> [246]
> THE REAL TURK
> could gather from the fierce looks of several
> 
> speakers, and the ejaculations of their listeners,
> that the     Mohammedan fanaticism was            at   its
> 
> height, and we felt somewhat like lambs among
> wolves.     We had been listening for some time in
> one group when my friend whispered to me that
> we were being watched.           It seems our actions
> in   some way aroused suspicion.        The Moham-
> medans had a queer gesture by which they gave
> approval to the words of the speaker a raising
> of the palms toward the ears which we tried to
> 
> imitate, but evidently with       poor success.        We
> did not dare linger now that we were being fol-
> 
> lowed, for the discovery of Christians among
> them on this most sacred night might have pro-
> duced serious results.    Had anyone accosted us
> we must have shown by our ignorance of Turk-
> ish that we were foreigners.    So we sidled for
> the door, crab-like, and made a hasty exit, and
> 
> crossing the court to a little coffee-shop we sat
> and smoked and sipped coffee, conversing about
> our interesting experience.
> The   peculiar performance of the      Howling
> Dervishes takes place on Thursdays in a teke, or
> 
> monastery, at Scutari.     On that day a string of
> [247]
> THE REAL TURK
> carriages    may be seen ascending the hill from
> the boat-landing at Scutari,         and by half past
> two, when the performance begins, the visitors'
> gallery and part of the floor of the teke is filled
> with     travellers   of   all   nationalities   German
> French, Swiss, English and American.              Let us
> secure a seat on the floor next to the railing which
> 
> separates us from the actors.
> Close by us stands the line of Howling Derv-
> ishes, ready to begin work.     Their sheik,, or
> leader, steps forward facing them and begins the
> 
> prayers, which they go through once as in a reg-
> ular mosque.      Then they begin chanting the at-
> tributes or qualities of God in Arabic, especially
> 
> confining themselves to the rapid repetition of
> 3'
> the words     "La Ilaha ill Allah           "There is no
> God but Allah"        which is the most sacred group
> of words in the       Moslem theology.       Faster and
> faster they chant, with the purpose of working
> themselves up to a religious frenzy or ecstasy.
> As they chant they sway back and forth, nodding
> their heads in religious abandon.            At first the
> movements are volitional, but one by one the
> dervishes assume a state of religious enthusiasm
> in which their actions are largely subconscious.
> 
> [248]
> THE REAL TURK
> Standing near enough to them to study their
> faces, we easily distinguish the adepts, whose
> emotional systems have long ago been trained
> to easy entrance into the blissful state of lialet,
> or "oneness with God."     They quiver and droop
> in all their bodies,   and their faces take on an
> empty expression which is a sign of their having
> almost left the plane of the conscious.
> But things are not lively enough to suit the
> master dervish who is leading them. He steps
> nearer, increases the volume of his tone, fastens
> his black,  magnetic eyes on the swaying line of
> zealots,   and as he repeats the "La Ilaha ill
> Allah" in sharp staccato-like tones, he taps his
> foot fiercely upon the ground with an impelling
> 
> rhythm.   The dervishes respond to the hypnotic
> stimulus, and the work grows warmer.       The
> outer garments are cast off, sweat pours down
> the faces of the chanters, and they grow more
> and more excited. Suddenly an old graybeard
> of seventy jumps out of the line, and yelling at
> the top of his voice leaps twice high into the air
> and comes down on his knees upon the bare floor,
> with violence enough to break a sane man's knee-
> 
> cap.   They pick him up and lead him to the
> [249]
> THE REAL TURK
> sheik,   who smooths his forehead to calm him.
> Then the performance goes on with redoubled
> vigor.
> The finest part of the show is yet to come. A
> large negro soldier who is the prize exhibit of
> the teke is just getting warmed up. Presently
> he begins to froth at the mouth, and running, he
> dashes his head violently against the pillar which
> 
> supports the roof.       Not satisfied with that he
> leaps up and strikes his head against the stone
> floor.   Now the spectators are getting a fair re-
> turn for the franc they paid to see the perform-
> ance.    After the negro has been led away the
> sheik allows the enthusiasm to die down.       Soon
> the chanting stops, and the healing of the lame
> and sick who have gathered there takes place.
> Percival Lowell in his "Esoteric Japan," de-
> scribes phenomena similar to those noticed among
> 
> the dervishes of Turkey.      He tells of conditions
> in which the body,       when its indwelling soul is
> worked up into a frenzy of religious faith, seems
> capable of enduring scalding heat without pain
> and without harmful results.
> Even among the natives of the Pacific Islands
> this art is practised.    After working themselves
> [260]
> THE REAL TURK
> intoa religious frenzy they walk barefooted
> upon red-hot stones without injury. To pass
> such phenomena off with the single word "fake"
> is   no longer possible, because of the attestations
> of scientific observers to their reality.
> 
> Hanging upon     the   walls   of   the   teke   are
> 
> strange implements which speak of more dread-
> ful practises than we had been allowed to see.
> It was formerly the custom here, and still is in
> less   public centers, for the dervishes to torture
> themselves in their final ecstacy with sharp in-
> struments which pierce the flesh, with red-hot
> irons which they handle, and with live coals which
> are placed  upon the tongue. These gruesome
> rites Abdul Hamid had prohibited the one hu-
> mane act of his reign.
> Another custom in Islam similar in its develop-
> ment of the same indifference to pain is that of
> the so-called Persian       Festival,    or celebration
> of the martyrdom of Hussein and Hassan, in
> which the Persians, more fanatical even than the
> Turks, gash themselves upon the head and breast
> until blood flows in streams; yet after the per-
> formance they put on a salve, and the wounds are
> said to heal up quickly.
> 
> [251]
> THE REAL TURK
> We seldom will admit any fact which we are
> not able to understand.      Were a savage to go
> back to his tribe and tell his friends that he had
> visited a great city and ridden in carriages with-
> 
> out horses, and had sailed through the air 'way
> above the tops of trees with a man-bird, he would
> very probably meet with sublime incredulity.
> So with the average man of cultured America:
> tell him of an event the causes of which he cannot
> 
> understand, and in nine cases out of ten he will
> refuse to believe it occurred.   This illogical shut-
> 
> ting of the eyes to actual occurrences is not at
> all   confined to laymen, but even penetrates the
> ranks of would-be scientists, many of whom are
> far  more bigoted and blind to the everyday
> events about them than is the average man. It
> is only since   hypnotism has revealed strange psy-
> chic occurrences that such religious     phenomena
> as I have been describing have received any se-
> rious investigation.
> 
> I suppose that the tourists left the teke with a
> 
> feeling of thankfulness that they belonged to
> an enlightened religion which contains no such
> rites.   Yet it is not difficult to find parallels in
> Christianity where, too, the heart of the devotee
> [252]
> THE REAL TURK
> seeks to lose itself in the One by similar perform-
> ances.     Davenport, in his "Primitive Traits of
> Religious Revivals," describes features of fa-
> mous revival meetings which are just as abnor-
> mal: people were seized with "the shakes," or
> were hurled violently to the ground by some un-
> known force, and lay frothing at the mouth in a
> state of trance which corresponds exactly to the
> 
> ecstasy into which these dervishes sought to work
> themselves. The use of music and of magnetic
> 
> speakers in the great revival meetings corres-
> ponds to the repetition of the "La Ilaha ill
> Allah" and the hypnotic influence of the black-
> eyed sheik.     It is a matter of arousing the emo-
> tions    and holding them at white heat until the
> audience passes into a subconscious state in which
> it is   peculiarly open to suggestion.
> Such performances, however, are no more
> characteristic of Islam, whose regular mosque
> 
> service is essentially dignified and sane, than the
> 
> exuberance of the Holy Jumpers is characteris-
> tic of Christianity.   Mankind possesses a strange
> faculty for seeing the abnormal and peculiar at
> a distance, without being able to perceive it
> nearer home. Self-analysis is good, not only for
> [253]
> THE REAL TURK
> the individual, but for the state,    and even for
> religion itself.   It helps us to prune   away the
> excrescences which are not vital and which do
> not bear good fruit.    For this reason the study
> of comparative religion is imperative.    It should
> form a part of every curriculum and be taught in
> our Sunday schools, but, alasl the majority of
> religious people prefer to safeguard their con-
> victions by refraining from facing facts.
> There is another sect of dervishes whose cere-
> monies   are   more pleasing    the   Mevlevis   or
> 
> Dancing Dervishes, who hold a public service in
> their teke in Pera every Friday. Among these
> 
> the ecstasy or state of halet is sought by whirl-
> 
> ing around in a circular dance which symbolizes
> the movement of the planets about the sun.
> Twelve dervishes, clad in flowing robes, with tall
> brown hats, enter the hall and commence their
> slow, graceful dance about the central figure,
> their sheik.   There is nothing violent about this
> ceremony, which ends, as it begins, with each
> dervish's bowing low before his leader; the
> 
> dancing step is so smooth and practised that the
> dervishes seem to float around the room; little
> lead balls are fastened to the skirts of their
> [254]
> THE REAL TURK
> gowns, which float out in charming billowy waves
> as they dance. Their hands are held in the air,
> the palm of one turned up, and the palm of the
> other turned down.
> Sweet music preludes the dance, breaking out
> at intervals again and again during the perform-
> ance.      It comes      from an Oriental reed instru-
> ment whose tones are somewhat like those of a
> clarionet, but infinitely more sweet       and mourn-
> ful.     The silvery notes bubble out like the song
> from the breast of a nightingale.         The Eastern
> music is      less intellectual   and more primitively
> natural than ours; it pierces the senses in an al-
> 
> together       peculiar  producing a dreamy
> way,
> ecstasy of mind and soul in which all beautiful
> things seem possible, and troubles far away.
> The Mevlevis are a more philosophical and
> cultured sect than the Rufais or Howling Derv-
> ishes.     Among the lay members of the Mevlevis
> are    many of the finest minds in Turkey; the
> ceremony of their dance is only an outward form,
> which gives no indication to the careless onlooker
> of their deep metaphysical concepts.
> The Bektashis* are very liberal in their   theol-
> *
> See Chapter XII.
> 
> [355]
> THE REAL TURK
> ogy, and welcome fraternal relations with other
> faiths. Their initiates are taught to restrain the
> senses    and to aspire toward spiritual progress,
> yet celibacy is not practised as among Christian
> Monks.   They marry and live together in their
> tekes with their Sheik. The ceremony which
> with them corresponds to the howling of the
> Ruf ais and the dancing of the Mevlevis is a meet-
> ing of men and women together in spiritual wor-
> ship     the only religious ceremony in Islam to
> 
> my knowledge in which the two sexes unite. The
> unveiling of their    women amidst the members
> of their    own sect makes possible a friendship
> betweenman and woman which is generally
> unknown in Mohammedan countries. This of
> itself   would be sufficient foundation for the ac-
> cusation brought against them by other Moham-
> medans of immoral and antinomian practises;
> but whether there is any real foundation for this
> report is hard to tell. The character, earnestness
> and breadth of mind of certain Bektashis I have
> known is a testimony to the good religious train-
> ing they received.
> The dervishes, as has already been surmised by
> the reader, correspond to the monastic orders of
> [256]
> THE REAL TURK
> Christendom, with the exception that they per-
> mit matrimony.     The word "dervish" means lit-
> erally "sill of a door," or "those who beg from
> door to door."     They are related to the different
> orders of religious beggars of India     the Yogis,
> 
> Sunyasin, etc.     In all of the dervish orders the
> aim is the same: to reach a state of ecstasy in
> which the individual consciousness      is   lost   and
> merged into the Universal Soul        a mystic state
> induced not only by the ceremonies heretofore
> described but also    by drugs, fasts, and periods
> of meditation.     Like all mystics, the dervishes
> hold themselves superior to the laws of their re-
> 
> ligion, which, they say, are intended to guide the
> uninitiated.    Hence they do not observe the rules
> of Islam, such as prayers, fasting, and abstinence
> from liquor, except on occasions when it is polite
> to do so.   They recognize no spiritual authority
> but Allah himself speaking directly to their
> souls, and take as their motto the Sufi phrase:
> "The paths leading to God are as many as the
> breaths of his creatures."      They live in monas-
> teries   which are richly endowed with land and
> money.      Astudy of their tenets would give one
> an entirely different idea of Islam from that held
> [257]
> THE REAL TURK
> by the average Westerner. The formal, hide-
> bound laws of this religion have very little hold
> upon those thoughtful minds of the East whose
> influence is bound to liberalize and reform Islam
> at no distant date.
> 
> A strange rite         is    celebrated    by all    Shiah
> Moslems on the tenth day of the Mohammedan
> month Muharrem, in memory of the martyrdom
> of Al-Hussein. Although its ceremonies have
> become much moderated in Constantinople, they
> are still quite terrible enough to make many of
> the spectators        even men        faint; in the interior
> the rite is conducted yearly with unabated fury.
> The fanaticism and ecstasy of the Persians when
> fully aroused    is    so great that even the          Turks
> think it necessary to protect the spectators by a
> cordon of soldiers armed with rifles.            One must
> understand   that       the     Shiah    sect   look   upon
> Hussein not only as a great saint and martyr,
> but almost as a divinity.
> In Constantinople, the ceremonies take place
> yearly in the old Persian Hahn in Stamboul.
> At sunset (or Turkish noon) we arrived at the
> Hahn, with a Kavasse to insure us admittance,
> just in time to see the ghastly procession enter
> [258]
> THE REAL TURK
> from the street where it had been parading. The
> Hahn is a square court open to the sky, sur-
> rounded by the low bazaars and buildings of the
> Persians, and around it the procession filed three
> times.
> As it was passing us we heard behind the
> marchers a thud, thud like the sound of chains
> against human flesh, and behold there came into
> !
> 
> sight a group of men who were striking their
> bare backs and shoulders with flails made of iron
> chains.    At each stroke they jumped with a
> dancing motion into the air, turning partly
> around as they leaped. Their dark-tanned backs
> were blue and raw from the flagellations.
> Next came the wildest and most disgusting
> part of the procession. Sixty-two men in white,
> representing the sixty-two Relations, or Mar-
> tyrs, who died with Hussein in the battle, stag-
> 
> gered along carrying in their hands long knives,
> which they wielded about their heads and
> brought down every       now and then upon the
> scalp,    apparently   inflicting   a       severe   wound.
> The tops of their heads were shaved, and were
> dripping with blood.
> Fortunately for our own comfort we had been
> [269]
> THE REAL TURK
> informed beforehand that most of the blood was
> sheep's blood, smeared on before the procession
> began, and that only a few of the men were so
> fanatical as to cut themselves,     many of them
> being hired for the occasion.
> The procession withdrew, and after a short
> pause it returned with a new set of men and re-
> peated the performance.  This continued for
> several hours. As each procession came in it
> was met by an imam who chanted verses in
> praise of Hassan and Hussein, to which the per-
> formers responded.
> This ghastly rite is observed yearly in every
> Persian city and town, not only in Persia, but in
> Turkestan and India, and although it serves to
> refresh in the    mind of the Persian his bitter
> hatred of the Sunni Moslems, who were respon-
> sible for the   death of Hussein, the Turks, who
> 
> belong to the latter sect, allow and witness, much
> to their credit, the performance of this rite, the
> whole spirit of which is antagonistic to them.
> 
> During the month of Ramazan the followers
> of Mohammed are expected to observe a strict
> fast   from dawn    until sunset.   Owing to the
> [260]
> THE REAL TURK
> Turkish year's being lunar, this month comes at
> a different time each year; and when it occurs
> 
> during the summer months the fast is a great
> hardship.
> Among earnest Mohammadans the wealthy
> and educated can hardly be reckoned, for their
> contact with the West has taken away their taste
> for the rigorous duties of Islam.      The lower
> obey the rules of their religion,
> classes, however,
> no matter how irksome they may be. There is
> something admirable about the sight of the zeal-
> ous worshippers going through their prayers,
> even on a crowded boat of the Bosphorus
> 
> kneeling down and touching the head to the
> floor a certain number of times, then rising and
> 
> facing the east and then prostrating themselves
> again   as they repeat their    formulas and the
> ninety-nine names of God.      Think of the Turk-
> ish workmen laboring all day in the hot sun with-
> 
> out food or drink!     These very men upon whom
> the conditions imposed by Ramazan fall the
> hardest observe them the most strictly. The
> hamal who    carries   your baggage through the
> streets on his back, loaded down at times with a
> 
> weight which four ordinary      men could hardly
> [261]
> THE REAL TURK
> lift   from the ground    the kayikji who rows you
> 
> against the strenuous current of the Bosphorus
> the ishji who works on the streets and build-
> 
> ings     all go through the day's work handicapped
> 
> not only by lack of food and drink but by lack
> of sleep the night before, for it is in the night
> that they have to take their meals.
> One afternoon I hired a boat at about five
> o'clock to take a   row on the Bosphorus.      (In
> these boats you never have the privilege of going
> out rowing alone     you must take a kayikji with
> you and let him sit in the stern, smoking a cig-
> arette and smiling inwardly at your clumsy at-
> 
> tempts to manipulate the long, weighted oars
> which always slip off their thole pins just at the
> wrong moment.)       After I had been rowing for
> half an hour, the kayikji asked       me by signs
> helped out with a little Turkish and broken
> French where I wished to land. I shook my
> head, intimating that I did not wish to land at
> all    the Bosphorus was growing more and more
> beautiful under the sunset light, and I was be-
> 
> ginning to enjoy the rowing. In a little while
> he inquired again very vigorously whether I
> wanted to land.     I shook my head again; five
> [262]
> THE REAL TURK
> minutes later and the operation was repeated.
> I was beginning to get angry why should the
> 
> boatman, who was making his money by the hour,
> be so eager to land?     Then suddenly it flashed
> across   my mind that the sunset gun had sounded
> some half hour before, and that the poor fellow
> was inwardly groaning at my stupidity in keep-
> ing him from his long-anticipated meal. I let
> him turn in toward shore, and when we got
> there, all the other   boatmen had disappeared
> gone to the eating house to make up for lost
> time!
> 
> Although Ramazan is a fast in one sense, in
> another it is not, because during the period be-
> tween sunset and sunrise "the faithful" get three
> square meals.   In order to make sure of awaken-
> ing for their second and third meals, which are
> taken at midnight and just before sunrise, they
> have a drum beaten        outside   their   windows.
> Many a night I have been awakened by the
> .
> 
> drumming in the distance, perhaps with a horn
> of classic style thrown in.
> One would imagine that after being up half
> the night and going without food in the daytime
> for a few weeks a Turk would become irritable
> 
> [263]
> THE REAL TURK
> and cross; but there seemed to be just the same
> genial good nature on most of the faces, and the
> same gentleness of behavior.  Only one street
> fight did I see during Ramazan, and that was
> 
> stopped by a Turkish policeman before one of
> the hamals could succeed in his attempts to pull
> out the beard of the other, or the latter could
> 
> manage to choke the first.
> During Ramazan the city of Constantinople
> is alive at night. Usually the Turk regulates his
> day by the sun, and at sunset, his noon, retires
> from active life to the bosom of his family. It is
> only during this one month that he turns night
> into day, and then he does it in a way which is
> 
> interesting enough.
> All night long the few streets around which
> center the native amusements are thronged with
> fezzes.  In every coffee-shop (some are little
> larger than a huge dry-goods box) are crowds
> drinking coffee, smoking nargliilees, and playing
> backgammon. Perched on a shelf in one corner,
> half   way up from the floor, is the orchestra,
> discoursing   sweet (?)    Turkish melodies.   The
> men drink in silence.      There is no brawling, no
> confusion     for their beverage does not deprive
> 
> [264]
> THE REAL TURK
> them of their self-control, but rather increases
> their     stolid           and      comfortable        enjoyment   of
> life.
> 
> Let us enter one of the larger and better-class
> shops, not because we are                        ashamed to associate
> with the Turkish soldiers, hamals and workmen
> in the tiny places,                  but because    we want the
> proper privacy for                       our experiment we are
> 
> going to try a narghilee.                        A servant brings us
> one of these water-pipes filled with tobacco, and
> in a few minutes he appears with live coals, which
> 
> he places on top of the tobacco.                        It requires a
> 
> huge amount of puffing and breathing to get the
> thing started, for you cannot smoke a narghilee
> with the lips but must inhale it, and violently at
> first,   if   you do not want the coals to go out.
> Once you have got the narghilee fairly lighted,
> it   becomes more pleasant   you can recline com-
> fortably in the cushions and take a puff whenever
> you feel inclined, sipping the coffee meanwhile,
> and listening to the musical click, click of the
> backgammon games going on around.                           A subtle
> feeling       of    and content creeps over
> laziness
> 
> you, and you are in a fair way to become an
> Oriental.
> .-i
> [   265 ]
> THE REAL TURK
> The gaieties of evening life are for the Mo-
> hammedan all concentrated in the one month. It
> is   then that he goes to the theatre and            strolls
> 
> along the brilliantly-lighted        streets    in   search
> of amusement.        One of the most interesting of
> Turkish amusements is the Carageuse              a sort of
> Punch and Judy show which is centuries old, the
> primitive theatre of the Turks.    The other
> theatres in      Stamboul are cheap melodramas, in
> which the parts are usually taken by Armenians,
> as the Turkish custom would of course prohibit
> 
> Mohammedan women from appearing on the
> stage.    On these nights, all the theatres are doing
> business in full force, being crowded to the doors
> with Turkish laborers and soldiers.
> Even here, in the midst of Mohammedan life,
> is   found the European invasion in the shape of
> cinemetographs, penny-in-the-slot machines, and
> shooting galleries, at which the soldiers delight
> to linger.       The little eating-shops are open, if
> one      wants    refreshments      sutlatch,   mahalabi,
> ekmekadaif, etc.
> But at last the streets that have been brilliantly
> lighted for four weeks are plunged into darkness
> for another year.      Bayram begins at the end of
> [ 266 ]
> THE REAL TURK
> Ramazan, and every decent Mohammedan
> stays at home feasting; and theatres, shooting
> galleries and all are deserted and closed up.
> On the evening of the first day in which the
> new moon is seen, Bayram is announced by a dis-
> charge of    artillery.   Sometimes, however, the
> moon is kept back a few days at the sultan's re-
> quest   for it is the sultan's custom at Bayram to
> 
> give presents of money to his higher officials, and
> sometimes it happens that the treasury is empty,
> and several days are required for raising the
> necessary sums.      During such negotiations the
> poor moon is obliged to stay in hiding; but as
> soon as the money is raised, it is immediately dis-
> covered,   and everybody joyfully hails the com-
> mencement of Bayram.
> So Ramazan ends with great feasting and
> jollification, and the pious follower of Islam once
> more returns         normal habits of eating.
> to his
> 
> Unnecessary as such a fast may be, there is an
> example of religious devotion and unselfishness
> in its faithful observance which should command
> 
> the respect of the world.
> 
> [267]
> *
> 
> FAITH HEALING IN THE ORIENT
> CHAPTER XIV
> FAITH HEALING IN THE ORIENT
> Doctors look askance at all forms of healing
> that are not based upon the study of materia
> medica.  The good old orthodox method of
> drugs and the surgeon's knife appears to them
> the divinely-appointed    way of curing disease.
> Yet thousands of cures wrought in this very
> country by means of suggestion under one form
> or another have called the attention of the civil-
> ized world to the practise of faith healing, which
> has been in vogue among primitive peoples ever
> since the    dawn of history.   Even the medical
> profession goes so far as to grant that nervous
> affections may be cured in this    way   and who
> shall say just where the limit of possibility lies?
> 
> At any rate, faith healing has become legitima-
> tized sufficiently to arouse a real interest, under
> whatever form and in whatever country         it   is
> 
> practiced.
> In primitive countries like Turkey, the peas-
> ants, in the absence of real medical aid, resort to
> [271]
> THE REAL TURK
> herbs, magic, and faith healing.     One of the most
> common forms of the latter (already mentioned)
> is   that practised at the monasteries of the Howl-
> 
> ing Dervishes, where cures are wrought by the
> laying on of hands at the close of the weekly re-
> ligious     ceremony.     Numerous   sick   people    sit
> 
> about the floor as spectators, waiting for the mo-
> ment of healing.        Doubtless the extremely emo-
> tional performance serves to increase their faith
> 
> or suggestibility, so that they are in a proper
> frame of mind to be healed when, at the end of
> the prayers, the sheik, or holy man of the order,
> 
> steps forward and lays his hands upon each in-
> valid in turn, stroking the affected parts           and
> looking fixedly into the patient's eyes. As in
> healing shrines of the Catholic Church, numerous
> crutches hung about the walls of the teke bear
> witness to previous cures.      After the adults have
> been treated, infants are brought forward and
> laid in a row upon the floor, face upward.           The
> sheik starts at one end and steps tenderly with
> 
> stockinged feet upon the body of each child,
> walking across the row of human stepping-stones
> until the last infant has received this peculiar
> 
> blessing.     Strangely enough, the children do not
> [272]
> THE REAL TURK
> seem to be at all injured by such a performance,
> which is considered an excellent remedy for in-
> fant ills.
> 
> Many bring bottles of water for the sheik to
> bless, and carry them home to other invalids who
> are too sick to be brought out.         This use of holy
> water as a magic remedy is very ancient.           There
> is the   well-known story in Acts of the man healed
> by Peter at the pool of Bethsaida a pool which
> was frequented by invalids because of its healing
> qualities.      One finds similar sacred springs today
> all over the Orient.        Originating in the religious
> beliefs    of    the    ancient   Syrians,   they became
> grafted upon Judaism, Christianity and              Mo-
> hammedanism, so that today you may find ad-
> herents of all three of these religions worshipping
> at the same holy well or spring.         The Greeks es-
> pecially cherish these sacred waters with venera-
> tion; and many a shrine the wayfarer passes
> which has its pictures of the saints and its candles
> burning by the holy stream.            Usually a spring
> is dedicated to        some particular saint or hermit of
> former centuries who passed his life in its vicinity
> and drank from it           so that the magical virtue of
> a spring is due to the holiness of the saint who
> [273]
> THE REAL TURK
> presides over it.    The Mohammedans are not at
> all loath to avail themselves    of the sanctity of a
> Christian spring for healing, and vice versa, and
> the Greeks will sometimes say their prayers at
> a Mohammedan shrine         an exchange of courte-
> sies pleasing in its naivete.
> 
> Frequently bits of rags are seen tied to the
> grating or to a tree near a sacred tomb to which
> Mohammedans have come to pray for healing, or
> wealth, or happiness in affairs of the heart.       They
> leave the rags so that the holy man will not forget
> them and their petitions        a good plan, for the
> Oriental climate, as we have seen, makes one very
> 
> forgetful,   and then, too, the saint is burdened
> with   many applications for his favor.         If the
> 
> suppliants' prayers are answered, they burn a
> candle at the tomb, or give an offering of olive oil
> to the mosque for the little lamps;      if rich,   they
> sacrifice a sheep.
> 
> In the minds of the Orientals healing is associ-
> ated with holiness; hence many sheiks can heal
> 
> by prayer or by touching and blowing. The con-
> nection between spiritual life and power to cure
> is exemplified in the records of the cures   wrought
> by Christ, which were accepted as proof of his
> [274]
> THE REAL TURK
> spirituality.Once his fame became established,
> hundreds flocked to him as he passed from village
> to village.     The Orientals are strong in the qual-
> ity of faith, having developed little ability or in-
> terest in the process of analysis.
> 
> Charms and amulets are supposed to ward off
> disease,   which to the Oriental is a kind of evil
> charm that can be kept away or disrupted by
> the proper formulas, and imams and professional
> healers are often visited for the procuring of
> remedies.       A girl who had suffered from the
> withering of the muscles of her arm, so that it
> had become useless, went to an imam for help.
> He gave her some syrup-water and sugar and
> told her to pour some of it early every morning,
> not on her arm, as one might suppose, but upon
> the grave of her father, and to come away with-
> out looking back.       Another woman, of the in-
> telligent class,   was told to take dust from her
> room and throw it out of the window; she also
> read a verse of the Koran over a glass of water
> which she took out of doors in the dark and
> threw upon the ground with the words: "Take
> my disease and give me back my health!"
> These forms of magic are as old as the hills.
> [275]
> THE REAL TURK
> Water is most frequently used as a remedy, for
> because of its fluent nature it easily lends itself
> to the idea of carrying        away disease and sin
> hence the origin of ablutions and ceremonies
> with water in all religions.    An animal, also, may
> be made the repository of the undesirable and
> evil tenant    as the scapegoats of ancient Israel,
> and the swine into which the evil spirits from the
> madman entered at the command of Christ.
> Professional healers mulct the people of large
> 
> sums; in Constantinople they have many shops,
> which the wealthier women frequent, paying sev-
> eral pounds     sometimes as much as fifty dollars
> to buy attar of roses as a gift to the healing
> 
> spirit.    The magic doctor knows how to play
> upon the gullibility of his patients, and keeps
> drawing money from them under one pretext or
> another until often they have to borrow in the
> vain pursuit of health by means of incense and
> 
> prayers.     The government is trying to stop this
> kind of medical graft.
> Once in a while a man not a priest will get a
> reputation for healing by prayers and magnetic
> touch.     There was lately in Stamboul a custom-
> house official whose mere touch sufficed to heal,
> [276]
> i
> II
> 8.3
> 
> .2   -at
> ^ A
> S O
> THE REAL TURK
> and people flocked by dozens to him.            At first he
> used to pray over each one, but later he had time
> only to ask the trouble and touch the affected
> part.    Many of his patients recovered.
> Chaldean magic has maintained its hold upon
> the peoples of the Levant, whatever their race or
> 
> religion, for thousands of years ; amulets, charms
> and     love   philters   are    used   today    by   Mo-
> hammedans, Jews and Christians just as they
> were used by the ancient Babylonians, and other
> customs have survived as religious under-strata.
> In addition to the springs already mentioned,
> certain hills and groves are held sacred by Jews,
> Christians and Mohammedans alike                a survival
> from the religion of the ancient Syrians, who
> worshipped hills, groves, and springs.
> There is a high hill at the northern end of the
> Bosphorus which commands a magnificent view
> of the surrounding country one of the few hills
> from which one can see both the Marmora and
> the Black Sea.  The Mohammedans call it the
> "Mountain of Joshua," and believe that the He-
> brew conqueror, after he had gained possession
> of the Promised Land,            was granted the priv-
> ilege of living, dying,         and being buried here;
> [277]
> THE REAL TURK
> they point to a peculiar mound some forty feet
> in length which they say is his grave. The same
> mountain was sacred to the ancient Greeks, who
> called it the Bed of Hercules, and doubtless was
> sacred to the Phoenicians in even earlier days.
> Thus a locality may preserve its legendary
> holiness through successive conquests and various
> 
> religions.
> At Bardazag, near ancient Nicea, I was shown
> a hillside with a sacred grove upon it, where the
> Armenian Christians still offer living sacrifices
> if they meet with special good fortune a dove
> or a chicken is used by the poor, fat sheep by the
> rich.    This, too, is a relic of the religion of the
> 
> Syrians.
> In the mountains not far away is another
> sacred grove from which a spring bubbles forth,
> 
> making the place doubly sacred. It seems that
> two men less superstitious than their neighbors
> cast longing eyes upon these trees, and decided
> to cut some of them  down for firewood, which
> was very scarce upon the mountain. The neigh-
> bors did their best to dissuade them from this
> 
> sacrilege,   but without avail.   They had already
> chopped down one grand old tree, and had an-
> [278]
> THE REAL TURK
> other chopped nearly through and just ready to
> 
> fall,   when a sudden burst of wind caught and
> felled it, whirling it around in such a way that
> 
> both of the men were struck before they had time
> to escape and crushed into lifeless masses.     The
> event, which actually happened a few years ago,
> is toldby the natives, who never fail to point the
> spot out to passers-by; the story will be handed
> down to their children and children's children,
> and all the wisdom of the ages could not persuade
> one of those mountaineers to gather firewood in
> that sacred grove.
> 
> The Mohammedans are naturally very super-
> stitious.   Their daily life is surrounded with a
> thousand beliefs and practices which have their
> origin in ignorance and fear.     The most potent
> superstition   among them is belief in the "Evil
> Eye:" if any misfortune occurs, they think it is
> because someone has cast an "evil eye" on the
> victim.   Blue-eyed people they consider espe-
> cially dangerous, and hence European travellers
> are feared above all other people, if, in addition to
> 
> having blue eyes, they persist in gazing admir-
> ingly at a pretty Turkish child and praising its
> beauty      a most dangerous thing in the eyes of
> [279]
> THE REAL TURK
> the Turk,  who has the same dread of praising
> his possessions that we have of boasting of our
> 
> health or good fortune without knocking on
> wood.   If anything belonging to a Turk is in-
> 
> advertently praised, he wards off ill effect by say-
> ing "Mashallah" (The praise be to God). The
> Turkish woman, if she wishes to admire a child,
> says not "How pretty," but simply "Mashallah!
> Mashallah !" in sympathetic tones.               Here   at
> least she shows common sense!
> 
> The Turk adopts various means to avert the
> "evil eye."   Blue beads, bits of coral, and cloves
> of garlic sewed in silk are tied to the caps or hung
> around the necks of children; blue glass bracelets
> are frequently worn, and when they get broken,
> it is believed that   some "evil eye" has been luckily
> warded off from the wearer        ;   strings of blue beads
> are hung around the necks of all horses, cows and
> 
> donkeys belonging to Turks, for even animals
> are subject to the "evil eye."
> Great confidence is placed in the efficacy of
> talismans, in which every letter of the alphabet
> has a numerical value.        In accordance with the
> cabalistic lore, words are changed into their nu-
> 
> merical value for the purpose of divination; and
> [280]
> THE REAL TURK
> these values are multiplied and divided, squared
> and cubed, added and subtracted, by regular
> rules and the result, if odd, is lucky; if even, un-
> 
> lucky.  Certain magic phrases have a special
> 
> power because of the numerical value of the let-
> ters comprising them.     Such phrases, written out
> by magicians under proper astrological condi-
> tions, are worn about the body as charms.
> 
> In spite of all these superstitious fears, when
> Death himself approaches he       finds the   Turk
> completely resigned to the will of Allah, cringing
> not from the final act of Destiny, but meeting
> his   fate with the divine   calm of the Moslem
> spirit. The thought of death and of the life be-
> yond enters much more into the Orientals' minds
> than it does into our own: to them this earthly
> existence   is   but a shadow of reality    a brief
> 
> camping out        and when the summons comes,
> they are quite ready for the soul to strike its tent
> and start its journey to its permanent home.
> Death is called by poetic names, such as the
> "Cupbearer of the Sphere."
> The Mohammedans believe vividly in the joys
> of Paradise, which are promised to every true be-
> liever: eighty houris,   pure and charming as the
> [281]
> THE REAL TURK
> spring flower, shall wait upon him, and he shall
> eat and drink without satiety. Hence excessive
> sorrow for the dead is considered sinful.      The
> Turk does not wear mourning nor change his
> mode of life at the death of a relative. For his
> departed parents he will invoke the blessings of
> Allah, and for the forgiveness of their sins he
> will pray daily.    Like the Catholics, the Moham-
> medans consider alms and prayers to be most
> beneficial to the souls of the departed.
> 
> Turkish cemeteries are much more charming
> and picturesque than our own, owing to the selec-
> tion of hillsides for the sites, and to the planting
> of Cyprus trees by each grave to protect the soul
> from evil influences.   These beautiful trees, with
> their dark green pyramids of color, contrast ex-
> 
> quisitely with the tender blue of the Oriental sky.
> The Turks love to come and sit in the ceme-
> teries,   and they allow the village sheep to graze
> in them.     Here one does not feel the sadness or
> somberness of death, but only its beautiful peace.
> The tombstones are painted in bright colors
> blue,  or green, or black, or red, with raised
> letters in gilt, and are surmounted by turbans in
> 
> stone.    The tombs of saints are often surrounded
> [282]
> THE REAL TURK
> by a gilt cage-like structure, to which the people
> tie bits of rags in the hope of obtaining some
> 
> blessing   from the departed spirit.   One of the
> largest cemeteries in the world is in Scutari, the
> Asiatic suburb of Constantinople; and one of
> the most charming is on the heights of Roumeli
> 
> Hissar, just above Robert College, where one
> can sit and dream as he looks up the fair waters
> of the Bosphorus and across to the hills of Asia.
> The same simplicity and peace which rules the
> life of the Turk reigns over the
> sanctuary to
> which Death calls him.
> 
> [283]
> BROTHERHOOD OF EAST AND WEST
> CHAPTER XV
> BROTHERHOOD OF EAST AND WEST
> Since it does not seem that there is much pos-
> 
> sibility of converting Islam to Christianity, what
> is   to be the attitude of Americans toward Mo-
> hammedanism and the Turk?           One of hostility
> or of brotherhood?
> While the Turk does not care to adopt our
> religion   and our civilization in its entirety, he
> welcomes the friendship of Christians, is always
> willing to look into the tenets of Christianity,
> and admires Western education above all other
> systems      of   learning.   Throughout    Turkey
> American      schools   are   graduating men and
> women of trained minds.          And through educa-
> tion and helpfulness, more ideal than mere prose-
> 
> lyting,    America comes into closer contact with
> Turkey than does any other country.
> Ideals of world peace and the brotherhood of
> man are rapidly growing in this age of inter-
> nationalism. As scientific and industrial prog-
> ress was the keynote, of the nineteenth century,
> 
> [287]
> THE REAL TURK
> so internationalism bids fair to be the dominant
> note of the twentieth century.     Many look for-
> ward to the time when the energies of man, no
> longer taken up with national rivalries and wars,
> can be turned to the improvement of the human
> race and the building up of a world culture which
> will never after be destroyed     by hand of man.
> This will be the glorious heritage of the human
> race     the Golden Age of man, which every re-
> 
> ligion    anticipates,   and of which every      social
> 
> reformer has dreamed.
> But this Age can never come until the ends of
> the world have touched, and the East and the
> West have embraced as brothers.          The civiliza-
> tion ofEurope and America is identical, and
> when we dream of a world unity, we stop short
> with that.     We do not take the East into con-
> sideration, for it is far away and outside the pale
> of our knowledge and familiarity   ;
> its civilization,
> 
> furthermore, is so different from our own that
> we see no possibility of union with it save by con-
> quest and absorption on our part.            In other
> words, the ordinary Western attitude toward the
> Orient is one of contempt.
> That there can never be any permanent peace
> [288]
> THE REAL TURK
> nor hearty union on such a one-sided basis must
> be apparent, however, to any person who has
> studied the Eastern question. England is already
> full of anxiety over her Indian possessions,           and
> Egypt is clamoring for liberty.       China is awak-
> ening, a vast nation of 400,000,000 people, and
> refuses to be divided up or owned by Europe.
> 
> Turkey and Persia, though weak compared to
> European nations, would never tamely submit
> to absorption   by them.Japan has established
> herself on a par with Western nations, thus
> 
> demonstrating that the East is not effete, and
> that it cannot be swallowed up by Europe.
> 
> The wonderful victories of the Japanese over a
> great world power of the West won a new re-
> spect for the East; their perfect organization and
> unselfish devotion to their country        proved that
> Buddhism could produce           virtues   as   well    as
> 
> Christianity.
> One little realizes what a vast deal the Con-
> cord Sage accomplished towards bringing Orien-
> tal   religion near to   American thought.         His
> philosophy of transcendentalism is but a reflec-
> tiori of Eastern wisdom. He was a deep student
> of the Hindu sacred texts and the Persian Sufi
> 
> [289]
> THE REAL TURK
> poets.   He possessed the second translation of
> the Bhagavad-Gita that was introduced into this
> 
> country and his poem "The Brahn" is a para-
> phrase of a passage from the Upanishads. The
> Concord school, consisting of Emerson, Thoreau
> and Alcott, were all interested in these Hindu
> writings   nay, more than interested   they were
> influenced by them.   One who is thoroughly fa-
> miliar with the Hindu teachings and the teach-
> 
> ings of Emerson can trace the parallelism.
> The result has been that Emerson has helped
> make the West familiar with the doctrines of
> renunciation and of pantheism     of the pervad-
> 
> ing Diety, impersonal and ever-creative. From
> his writings there has spread a wide influence
> 
> over the cultured thought of America, until the
> Eastern wisdom no longer seems peculiar or
> paganistic. The intellects which are brought in
> contact with Oriental religions are ready to ad-
> mit their beauties.
> It must be borne in mind that the same prep-
> aration for tolerance is not needed in the Orient,
> for Oriental religions by their very composition
> are tolerant of truth under other forms than their
> own.     The East is quite ready to admit the
> [290]
> THE REAL TURK
> beauties of Christianity and to welcome it as a
> fraternal religion, though not as a conquering
> one.     If Christianity contains all the truth, as its
> 
> loyal followers believe,       why will they not have
> faith that in such     a fraternal relation, seeking
> not absorption but only friendly unity, the truth
> will prevail in its   own time and bring all to its
> level?
> 
> In the way of custom and habits of living the
> East of course differs fundamentally from the
> West; but here it is willing to learn, and           is
> 
> quickly becoming convinced that our standard
> of living is the best. The chief thing that pre-
> vents Oriental nations at present from adopting
> at once the     Western improvements is religious
> prejudice.  Customs in every land tend to be-
> come crystallized and to wear the stamp of re-
> ligion    upon them, making a change seem not
> only disloyal but sacrilegious as well.
> This prejudice must in time break down, how-
> ever,    and it is already fast disappearing under
> The East is forced
> the influence of education.
> to acknowledge that the Western education is
> the better in     many ways.       Physics, chemistry,
> applied mechanics        all   such exact sciences do
> [291]
> THE REAL TURK
> more than ages of argument to sweep away mis-
> understandings and racial conservatism. It is
> remarkable how much a common education will
> do to break down barriers of race and religion.
> Greeks,     Turks,
> Bulgarians, Persians,  and
> Egyptians who have received a European uni-
> versity education approach each other in their
> mental attitudes, and think in much the same
> ways. Dress them all in the same clothes and
> converse with them, and you will not realize that
> 
> they represent several very different races, be-
> cause they have really left the confines of race
> and entered into a world culture which is above
> race.   Yet the uneducated of these races are as
> different and as antagonistic as ever.
> In the same way a Buddhist, a Confucian, a
> Mohammedan, a Jew and a Christian, when they
> have completed the higher education, no longer
> quarrel over differences of religion.    As a matter
> of fact, they have but few, although out of loy-
> 
> alty they may still call themselves Buddhist,
> Confucian, Mohammedan, Jew and Christian
> for names and other outward forms are the last
> to disappear, lingering long after essential dif-
> ferences have vanished.    They are really mem-
> [292]
> THE REAL TURK
> bers of a common brotherhood fellow alumni
> of the Alma Mater of the Twentieth Century
> and each one is an active agent, a little center in
> himself, for spreading world culture in his own
> 
> country.
> Let Young China, Young Japan, Young
> Persia and Young Turkey partake of modern
> education, and they will no longer be opposed to
> the admission of  Western ideas and improve-
> ments into their country.    They will welcome
> progress and recognize truth, in whatever form
> it   may masquerade. Each one of them will be a
> link in   an endless chain, which will grow until
> it
> finally encircles the whole world.
> The time has been when the East has scorned
> the Western progress as much as the West has
> scorned the Eastern lack of progress             and has
> shut its doors against all innovations; but this at-
> titude is rapidly changing to one of respect and
> desire    for   Western       institutions.   Japan has
> tried them out and proved their values.          The ex-
> ample is not lost upon the other Oriental na-
> tions. China has seen the vision and is striving
> for improvement.       Edward Ross, who has re-
> cently travelled there, says "Within this genera-
> :
> 
> [   293]
> THE REAL TURK
> tion   we shall see the full awakening of China,
> and the adoption of all our Western improve-
> ments     telephones,   telegraphs,   railroads,    and
> even the New Woman."
> The change in Turkey since the Constitution
> and the dethronement of Abdul Hamid is
> greater than would appear from the actual im-
> provements accomplished. Those who are the
> rulers of Turkey today are thoroughly in sym-
> 
> pathy with Western ideas and methods.              They
> want to introduce improvements as rapidly as
> possible, but the ignorance and fanaticism of the
> masses and the obstacles put in their way by
> selfish European diplomacy act as hindrances.
> 
> The same awakening is taking place in Persia,
> which has been, until now, the most backward
> and uncivilized of the world nations.     A country
> without a mile of railroad in it is badly handi-
> 
> capped, not only in economic but in administra-
> tive ways.   A railroad running from the Caspian
> to the Persian    Gulf and connecting the main
> cities of Persia would work a wonderful change
> 
> in that most Oriental of countries.       At present
> its chief and indeed only industry is rug-making.
> 
> There is very little money in the country and that
> [294]
> THE REAL TURK
> little is badly managed.          A great step was taken
> by Persia in the engagement of Mr. Sinister and
> his assistants to reorganize the finances of the
> 
> country and administer them.           What a pity that
> the splendidly efficient work he was doing there
> had to cease, owing to international selfishness
> and aggression.          Persia is eager now for indus-
> tries,   and her business men are corresponding
> with this country for information which will help
> them improve their own.
> A movement which           is   bound to produce great
> results within the next generation is the educat-
> 
> ing of Oriental youths in European and Ameri-
> can universities. Hundreds of Chinese students,
> thanks to the indemnity fund, are seeking educa-
> tion in this country, and imbibing Western ideas.
> India has had the benefit of modern education for
> 
> many years.        One of the first steps of the Young
> Turks      after   the    Revolution was to send to
> Europe for advanced education a hundred young
> men, all of whom are pledged to return and de-
> vote     their   newly-acquired      knowledge to the
> building up of Turkey.             At the same time im-
> provements were made in the educational institu-
> tions at home throughout the Ottoman Empire.
> 
> [295]
> THE REAL TURK
> Persia, too, has    awakened to her educational
> needs, and her students may be found through-
> out the universities of Europe and America.
> 
> Only recently some children of the nobility, in-
> cluding a prince of royal blood, were sent to this
> country to be trained in Western ways.
> When these Oriental countries can command
> their own talent for public enterprises, for scien-
> 
> tific   and industrial progress, and for advanced
> education, as Japan is already doing, they will
> be on the highroad to civilization.    The impor-
> tant thing is.that they now realize their weakness,
> and see that the strength of European nations is
> due to their utilization of scientific discoveries:
> this is a complete change of heart, so to speak.
> 
> Here lies the great opportunity of the West.
> If it gives what it has in the spirit of brother-
> hood, instead of in contempt and in selfish de-
> signs upon the integrity of Eastern nations, we
> shall see a genuine friendship established within
> 
> a few generations between these two parts of the
> same world      a friendship which can be mutual,
> for the East has as much to give as we have, but
> of a different kind.
> From the mingling of these two civilizations,
> [296]
> FTJHE buffalo ox-team, characteristic of
> J.   Turkey and the whole Orient. They
> move so slowly that they seem to stand still,
> but the Turk is never in a hurry.
> 
> TURKISH family from Bokhara, the
> interior of Turkistan, migrating to
> Constantinople.   The    Turkish  peasant,
> though absolutely uneducated, has a charm
> and dignity of manner.
> THE REAL TURK
> so different, yet each so rich in treasures, would
> come a wonderful age.     We can help the people
> of the East to reach a higher standard of living
> and to enjoy comforts which advanced civiliza-
> tion has brought to us.        They can teach us the
> secret of happiness:    true simplicity of heart;
> 
> spirituality   which is not quenched by material
> things;   and the vision of infinitude which has
> grown into their minds and souls.
> We have much, and yet are not contented;
> they have little, and are satisfied. Somewhere
> between our restless discontent, which leads to
> progress,   and their lethargic satisfaction, which
> leads to stagnation,    lies    the golden   mean     a
> calm activity, and a striving for the best which
> has in it no bitterness, no feverish intensity nor
> 
> disappointment, because upheld by a large faith
> in the universe.
> 
> Of all Western countries America has              the
> widest opportunities for promoting the cause of
> brotherhood with the East.         Its mission in the
> world's history is to prove a noble one.     It has al-
> 
> ready upheld the torch of liberty to the world;
> and now it must take the lead in the movement
> for the brotherhood of nations.       It is trusted in
> 
> [297]
> THE REAL TURK
> the Orient because alone of all the great powers
> it is   not looking for territorial aggrandizement.
> All nations are selfish and designing, but Amer-
> ica is probably the least so.      Americans may be
> rough and uncultured in their ways, but they are
> full of a ready sympathy for the unfortunate of
> 
> whatever race.      They have already taken the
> lead in spreading education in the East and in
> 
> lending a helping hand. One Oriental told me,
> not in idle compliment, I know, that he had
> found the Americans the most kindly and disin-
> terested of all races.
> If we but realize  how eagerly the Orientals
> look to us for help, how largely America looms
> in their dreams, and how willing they are to give
> 
> their confidence and friendship to us, we should
> 
> be inspired to increased effort.     Orientals do not
> 
> merely like or dislike they either love or hate.
> Their affections are strong. It is a wonderful
> 
> thing to win the confidence and affection of such
> people. I call to mind many Turks from whom,
> after only a brief time of friendly association, I
> have parted as a brother.        They are ready to do
> their share toward meeting us on a friendly basis,
> 
> on a basis of world unity, but they need our help.
> [298]
> THE REAL TURK
> There is a great need of American teachers in all
> the Oriental countries.           The Chinese say, "We
> need Americans."           Persia feels the same need,
> and so does Turkey.
> As is often said, the world cannot truly prog-
> ress save as each member in it progresses                 and it
> is theduty of the most advanced to help the lag-
> ging. No part of the world needs our assistance
> more today, or is more desirous of it, than the
> Orient.  Here, then, is our opportunity to help
> in bringing to pass the brotherhood of man.
> 
> In the past every civilization, after it reached
> itsprime, was wiped out by a barbarous race
> which destroyed its art and literature, thus re-
> ducing the culture of the world to a low level.
> The last time this was done the offenders were
> people of our            own   race     the    Teutonic     who
> poured into the           Roman Empire and nearly
> effaced     its   vast    culture,     the    accumulation of
> centuries.
> 
> The most marvelous fact in connection with
> our present civilization is that there seems to be
> no possibility of its extinction by human means.
> There        no lower race at present that is
> exists
> 
> powerful enough to destroy the West. The yel-
> [299]
> THE REAL TURK
> low race is dangerously large, but by the time it
> gets its full power it will have no desire to de-
> stroy.    The brown race is in many ways less ad-
> vanced than the yellow, but it is now striving for
> culture   ;   and it has made much progress since the
> days when Genghis Khan poured his hordes into
> Southern and Western Asia and wiped out
> civilization        wherever he crossed   path; we
> its
> 
> have therefore, little to fear from it, but it would
> be best for the world that it become educated and
> 
> organized upon an efficient and enlightened basis
> as quickly as possible.    The black race how
> large    nobody exactly knows          is
> certainly po-
> tentially powerful, but has small chance of sweep-
> 
> ing over the world; it, too, must become civilized
> ere long.
> There     every probability, then, that the
> is
> 
> world will advance at an even pace from now on,
> adding        discovery   to   discovery,   accumulating
> knowledge and wisdom, perfecting the arts of
> life,   until it reaches a stage of culture of which
> we cannot even dream today; of which we can
> hardly conceive with our present limited experi-
> ence. So much has been accomplished in the last
> hundred years that it is safe to say much more
> [800]
> THE REAL TURK
> will be accomplished in the next hundred years;
> 
> and in the next ten hundred years        but the mind
> is   staggered at the possibilities therein, and the
> pen refuses to write.
> Suffice it to say there is a glorious civilization
> 
> ahead for each one of us to work for        a brother-
> hood of men banded together by common ties and
> constantly progressing toward better and higher
> living.    Here is an ideal great enough to quicken
> the dullest imagination and to inspire even the
> most sluggish individual to increased activity for
> the common good.
> 
> [801]
>
> — *The Real Turk (Used by permission of the curator)*