MRS. EDMUND HORNBY'S STAMBOUL.'
Ma. HORNBY was one of the Commissioners of the Turkish loan, and in the autumn of 1855, Mrs. Hornby accompanied him to Constantinople, remaining there for upwards of a twelvemonth. Of her outward voyage and the incidents and observations of her residence she wrote full accounts to her friends at home, in a graceful, glowing, half-poetical style, full of family feeling, but sometimes too brilliant with excess of colour and brightness. Of these apparently unpruned letters, the volumes before us consist. Notwithstanding the elegant animation of the writer, In and Around Stamboul would have had slender interest but for her long sojourn. The beauties of Constantinople have been a stock sub- ject with travellers from the time of Lady Wortley Montagu. Since steam brought the Bosphorus within range of the grand tour, every charm that attracted the eye, or every Eastern singu- larity, especially of an annoying nature, that forced itself upon the excursionist's attention, has become stale by repeated descrip- tion. The changes wrought by the war, which socially were at their height during Mrs. Hornby's residence, might give a fresh and striking character to Stamboul ; but these peculiarities had been described by various pens, including those of " our own cor- respondent." These changes by crowding the hotel at Pera with guests, and Pere itself with very indifferent specimens of western Christianity and civilization, luckily induced Mrs. Hornby to take a kiosk, or as we should say a cottage, at Orta-kioy, a village in the neighbourhood of the capital. It was her residence here, and in the summer of 1856, at one of Prince's Islands, that gives novelty and interest to her letters ; for she was thus in'a degree in- troduced to the people and the real life of Turkey. She of course became acquainted with the family of her landlady, an Armenian widow lady, one of whose sons understood Italian ; she knew by sight the inhabitants of the village, though she was hardly on " speaking terms" with any one, for the sufficient reason that neither party had what Jack would call the "lingo." Domestic details formed the most curious part of her novel experience. The troubles she had with her Greek and Armenian servants, the difficulties in getting the place cleaned and made habitable, the discomforts when weather was bad, the pleasures when it was fine, her different pets, and the various traits of village life and native manners that fell under observation, form a curious picture of life in Turkey—for there were too many foreign elements to call it Turkish life. Here is some pleasant gossip about domestic troubles from servants to provisions and prices. " The village women here seem to be perfectly uneducated, and there was no such thing as a workwoman at Orta-kioy. Perhaps, after waiting for weeks, we might have secured the services of a French upholsterer from Pere, at a great expense ; but you at once see that the only plan is to help yourself in every way as much as possible, unless you have a complete staff of your own, which all large families, whether Turkish, Greek, Armenian, or European, have. It is difficult to get good servants here. The edueated ones are very clever, and ask high wages, especially during the war. The mass, as I have said, are perfectly ignorant, and almost useless to civilized people. However, their lives and ways are so utterly different from ours, that it always seems rather absurd to rue to hear the English complain of them. Give them their pilauf, their old divan, a little sunshine under a ragged vine in summer, and a brass pan full of charcoal in winter, and voila tout. All articles of clothing. are bought ready-made, and made by men, in the bazaars ; the national shut, of Broussa gauze, admits of and requires but little washing ; consequently workwomen and washerwomen are not indigenous to the soil, although no doubt the inereasing taste for dressing in the European fashion, among the higher class of Greeks and Armenians, will soon make them so. The people of the villages seem very hopeless and helpless, and care to do nothing. Certainly their wants arc but few, but how they live is a marvel, for you see them silently sitting in a mouldy shop, in which there is nothing to sell. •
" Meat is now about eight piastres fa piastre is about twopence] the
oke,' i. e. two pounds and a half English weight; tea, as in England ; coffee, very cheap. The Turkish bread is made of leaven, and to my taste extremely nasty. It is made up into various shapes ; sometimes into huge loaves, or fiat, like pancakes,. or in wreaths, and scattered over with a kind of caraway-seed, when it is called semeet. "We have heard of an American missionary baker at the village of Bebec, near here, and some day I shall take a calque and go in search of him ; especially as Bebec is one of the most picturesque villages on the Bos- phorus. Vegetables and fruit are very cheap, and, even in this miserable Tillage, the stalls in the narrow and filthy ' street' are prettily laid out in a morning. Here too, in large baskets, one sees the fish of the Bosphorus in singular variety; red mullet, sword-fish, turbot, soles, beautiful little mackerel, and the shining many-coloured enchanted fish,' of which I have told you before, besides several others. Snails, of a light brown colour, are very much eaten here by the Greeks, and huge baskets of them are sold every morning. Sometimes one sees an unfortunate tortoise carried along by a wisp of straw or grass. He is to be made soup of on a Greek fast-day, and has been found fast asleep in a vineyard. The melon-stalls are usually the most crowded, and immense piles of every shape and colour are quickly sold. Brown bread, melons, and grapes, seem to be the principal food of the poor ; coffee, yahoort, (a kind of sour milk,) lemonade, and sherbet, are sold in every corner of the street for them. The buying everything pre- pard in public no doubt makes the eastern women so helpless and so little domestic. One sees even the calquejees and hamals eating their pilauf, and sipping their coffee at the eafanees, or smoking on comfortable divans in- side, or on benches by the door. In fact, it is quite club life' for the men, and a neglected, idle, and useless one for the poor women—at least according to our notions."
In addition to her own means of observation, Mrs. Hornby was, owing to the position of her husband, brought into connexion with a good many Europeans and some natives. She thus heard many opinions touching the management of the war, which are little
• Is and Aroma Stassiota.. By Mrs. Edmund Hornby. In two volumes. Pub- lished by Bentley.
more than echoes of what we have heard already. She has formed the usual opinion of the corruption, profligacy, and total want of
common honesty among the ruling or rather official people in Turkey, and a very high one of the poorer elasties. She writes " one thing which strikes you here is the vast superiority of the poor over the rich. The poor are really the aristocracy of the country both physically and morally. For his dignified bearing. and manners a poor man might be an emperor : he is honest, laborious, and most abstemious." From other remarks it would seem that the poor Turk is respectable, because he has neither means nor op- portunity of being vicious. Give him but a chance, and he will soon become as bad as the richest. Mrs. Hornby visited one or two harems of the highest class where the furniture, attendance, dresses, and jewels, were of a richer kind than we have heard of in lately described visits. Mrs. Hornby speaks well of the Turk- ish women of the upper classes she has seen, for their gentleness, simplicity, and kindness of manner; exceedingly well of the Turkish little girls. Whether the merits of the high ladies go beyond manners may be questioned. Some of the middle class seem forward enough. The wife of a Turk professing. enlighten- ment, whom Mrs. Hornby had visited, returned the visit. After examining everything in a " free and easy " way, the lady wanted to see Mr. Hornby and a male friend then stopping with him ; but they had gone to Constantinople. Looking out at window, she saw another gentleman in the garden, and nothing would satisfy her but his introduction. To this proposal, however disagreeable, Mrs. Hornby was positively forced to consent, on the condition of Mr. Rumball standing outside the half open door, and the lady with her attendants remaining veiled. A story of apprehension told by the daughter of her Armenian landlady exhibits the Turkish ladies of rank in the aspect of the old comedy of intrigue. The reduced circumstances of the landlady's family arose from the au- thorities having fleeced them on their father's death ; for he had died comparatively rich. "Talking still quietly of their fallen fortunes, as we listened with inte- rest, poor Dhudu went on to relate a new trouble. It seems that her younger brother, who is remarkably good-looking, and showed a great talent for music, was sent to Vienna in their prosperous days for his education. His pianoforte-playing is thought much of here; and being so poor, and the Sul- tan having set the fashion of Turkish ladies learning music, lie now gives lessons to the wives and daughters of several Pashas on the Bosphorus. He is married, greatly attached to his wife, and has two pretty children ; added to this, he is a grave, shy young man. Well, Dhudu's trouble for her brother is this. He goes quietly in the morning to give his lesson. Per- haps there are two or three veiled ladies in the room into which he is usherel by the attendants. Sometimes the Pasha himself is there, but very seldom; there are always two or three black attendants. The lesson begins,' says Dhudu, in a melancholy voice, and they are generally rather stupid. The men who guard them soon grow tired of looking on, and stroll away to their pipes. They are hardly outside the door, when down goes the yashmak of one of the ladies. She is very pretty, but very tiresome : my brother is afraid to look at her. What should he do if the Pasha were suddenly to return, or one of the slaves to enter and report this to him ? So he turns his head away, and tries to induce her to go ou with her lesson. Would you believe it,' says Dhudu, still more indignantly, 'the other day, she took hold of his chin, and turned his face to hers, and said, laughing, ' Why don't you look at me, you pig ? ' What can my brother do? The Pasha would never believe that it is not his fault. Sometimes one of them will creep under the pianoforte, and putting her finger into his shoe tickle his foot. Yesterday they slipped two peaches into his pocket, tied up in muslin with blue ribands, clapping their hands and laughing when he found it out. You know what those peaches mean ? They mean kisses,' said Dhudu, colouring ; and it made my brother so nervous, for the men were in the outer room, and might have heard all about it. He would be sorry to bare them punished ; yet they make his life miserable. That pretty one is the worst of all, she is so daring. I visit at that Harem. and went with my brother one morning. Knowing them so well, I took him in at the garden entrance, the way I always go myself. We heard somebody laugh, a loud, merry laugh, and—oh, what a fright I was in !—there she was, up in a peach-tree. My brother turned his head away, and walked on very fast; she pelted peaches at him, then got out of the tree, and would have run after him if I had not stopped her.' And here poor Dhudu fairly cried. What can my brother do ? ' "
Mrs. Hornby went to various parties and saw various ce- lebrities. The most striking of the whole was undoubtedly Lord Stratford's great fancy ball at which the Sultan was present, and which was splendid and successful in a high degree. We take only the appearance of the Grand Seignior.
" We were noticini, and admiring all this, and had shaken hands with N. de Thouvenel ancr spoken to the few of the crowd whom we knew, when it was whispered that the Sultan was coming. Every one of course made way, and Abdul Medjid quietly walked up the ball-room with Lord and Lady Stratford, their daughters, and a gorgeous array of Pashas in the rear. He paused with evident delight and pleasure at the really beautiful scene before him, bowing on both sides, and smiling as he went. A velvet and gold chair, raised a few steps, had been placed for him in the middle of one side of the ball-room ; but on being conducted to it he seemed too much pleased to sit down, and continued standing, looking about him with the undisguised pleasure and simplicity of a child. He was dressed in a plain dark blue frock-coat, the cuffs and collar crimson, and covered with bril- liants. The hilt of his re.vord was entirely covered also with brilliants. Of course he wore the everlasting fez. There is something extremely interest- in,g in his appearance. He looks languid and careworn, but when spoken to his fine dark eyes brighten up, and he smiles the most frank and winning of smiles. " I am quite charmed with the Sultan, so different to most of the Pashas by whom he is surrounded, so touchingly kind, and simple, and sorrowful! he Pashas behaved very badly, forcing themselves violently in a double row on the Sultan's right-hand, and pushing every one right and left, like policemen when the Queen is dining in the City ; just as if they thought that the ladies were going to carry off the Sultan at once. We were close to the throne, and got a terrible squeezing. My lace mantilla was caught in a Pasha's sword, and I thought that nothing could save its being torn to pieces : however, Lord Dunkellin very kindly rescued me, and, thanks to his strong arm, I was able to keep my place and see Miss Mary Canning and the Ministers' wives presented to the Sultan. A quadrille was formed, as well as the crowd would allow, which the Sultan watched with great in- serest, and then a waltz. After that his Majesty walked through the room; took an ice, and then departed."
As a contrast to the monarch, the Greek maid in attendance on Mrs. Hornby may be exhibited—not the only Oriental on whom the scene had made a profound impression.
" Edmund and Herbert Siborne left me at the foot of the staircase. A few steps up was perched Mistress Espinu. She was in the highest state of delight ; had seen the Sultan both arrive and depart ; thought the English soldiers a thousand times bone' ; never believed that there were such dresses and diamonds in the world as she had seen, or dreamed of such music, or of such a large house. The housekeeper had asked her to go down and eat, (one of the housemaids was Greek,) but the house was so large that she was possessed with the idea of never finding use again if she once let go the balustrades, or let out of her mind the way to my room. So there she had been all night, but was neither cold nor hungry. She told use that an officer with white hair and a ' star on his heart' had come up the stairs about midnight. He spoke in English, and asked who she was, she supposed ; so she said, 6 Inglis Hornby,' and he nodded and passed on. This was Lord Stratford, who retired early. I made this out, partly from poor Espinu when I got to my room, shocked at her state of starvation, and partly when Vassili arrived the next morning with the white horses and Mich to take us back to Orta-kioy. She herself was highly delighted. The sight of the Sultan and the English officers seemed to have warmed and fed her even on a cold stone staircase; and she will no doubt talk of the Sultan's first ball to the day of her death."
Mrs. Hornby paid a flying visit to the Crimea after the peace ; but she has nothing new to impart, unless it be the impression the scene made on the feminine mind.
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