Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

their patron, and not upon their own character. Thus the author ess tells us, "that when Christian slaves become renegadoes, they -often hold the highest offices in Turkey and Barbary."

One inevitable consequence of tyranny, is the frequent impunity of the greatest crimes in privileged persons, while punishment is inflicted capriciously upon others, often without proof of guilt, and generally without any just proportion to its magnitude. There are frightful instances of these evils recorded in the volume before us. The sovereign puts his victims to death without inquiry; masters practise the same arbitrary measure upon their dependents: the princes are evidently above all law, and rely not so much on the protection of the monarch, as on the number and fidelity of their own retainers; and such is the influence upon public opinion produced by the constant recurrence of these irregularities, that a son of the bashaw, who without provocation assassinates his own brother in the presence of his mother, to whose apartment he had come under pretence of seeking a reconciliation with him, and also murders a principal officer of state or his return from the fatal spot, merely because he finds him in his way, is not only called to no account by his father, but is enabled to establish himself at the head of a powerful retinue after that atrocious act, and ultimately to obtain peaceable possession of a throne, from which his father and another elder brother are excluded. We give the follow. ing extracts illustrative of these subjects.

"The Venetian consul, who resided some years with the Venetian ambassador at Constantinople, says, that among the remarkable circumstances which happened during his residence there, he saw a procession of the Grand Vizier and his officers, which was beyond description terrible, from the sensation it caused in the people. When it happened, an ague fit seemed at once to seize the whole populace; each indivi

CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 187.

dual as they passed along turned pale, hardly able to support himself, and appeared deprived of speech and motion, considering himself in the hands of death, whilst his ears resounded with the dreadful sentence of being immediately hung up at his own door, without any canse assigned or question asked. This happened, without any warning, to numbers during this procession, either on the account of their false weights, their tardiness in paying tribute, or any thing else the Vizier might, in his own mind, deem them guilty of; which charges the wretched culprit had scarcely time to hear, before he paid the debt

of nature for them. This most horrible procession is always made at a moment the people least expect it.

"Those who suffer on this occasion, as well as criminals condemned by the laws, are left hanging in any part of the town, where they often remain long enough to be offensive, even to ambassadors' houses; and it is totally impossible to get them removed by any applications, if the Turks do not think fit themselves to take them away." pp. 124, 125.

"The head of a house, whether father, brother, or husband, having the power of life and death relative to the female part of his family, has only to get a teskerar of the Bashaw, which is a small bit of paper with his signature, giving leave to the person who requires it to put to death the object of his anger; and this fatal paper is procured with the greatest facility.

"This ambassador, a few years since, possessed a favourite Circassian slave, who lived at a garden a little distance from the family residence. He thought her conduct reprehensible, and after having often threatened and as often pardoned her, she at length fell a victim to the rage of a Mameluke belonging to her lord.

"This wretch was an enemy to his master, and an unsuccessful admirer of the fair Circassian. Hearing that his master was engaged at an entertainment given by the Christians, he came to him late in the evening, and worked on his imagina tion, till the fatal teskerar was obtained. The Mameluke immediately rode off full speed to the garden where she resid ed, and had departed on the wretched errand but a few moments, when the visible alteration and the agony in the countenance of ace of the ambassador, led his friends soon

30

supposition of the

cruel orders he had issued, and he was easily persuaded to countermand them. He sent horsemen with every inducement given them to overtake the sanguinary Mameluke, and arrest his hand from the murder he was so eager to perpetrate. They reached the garden a few seconds after him; but he knowing of a breach in the garden wall, had, assassin-like, entered that way to prevent alarm, and found the fair Circassian walking solitarily in the garden at that late hour. At the sight of him, she fled, having long considered him as her destined murderer. She, in her terror, climbed up the garden walls, and ran round the top of them. Those who were sent to save her saw her run in vain. They forced the gates and entered them; in the mean while, twice they heard a pistol fired, and soon after the dying groans of the unfortunate female, whom the Mameluke, to prevent explanations, had stabbed to death, after having discharged two pistols at her." pp. 43, 44. The feeling of insecurity, which is consequent upon this defective administration, in which there is scarcely any such thing as public law, is diffused through all parts of the community; and some striking instances of the effects of it are thus pourtrayed by our authoress.

"When the Turkish Bashaw returned to Constantinople, be left a standing army for the security of the place, or rather to collect the revenues for the

Grand Signior. During this period, Hamet-Bey, applying to the Porte, was made Bashaw. He soon found means of making a total alteration in the government; and the sudden manner in which he effected this change was truly singular. He contrived, without any disturbance, to clear Tripoli, in the space of twenty-four hours, of all the Turkish soldiers, amounting to several hundreds of disciplined troops. At his palace, not far from the town, he gave a superb entertainment, and invited all the chiefs of the Turks to partake of it. Three hundred of these unfortunate victims were strangled, one by one, as they entered the skiffar, or hall. This skiffar is very long, with small dark rooms or deep recesses on each side, in which a hidden guard was placed. These guards assassinated the Turks as they passed, quickly conveying the bodies into those recesses out of sight, so that the next Turk saw nothing extraordinary

going on when he entered the fatal skiffar, but, quitting his horse and servants, met his fate unsuspectingly.

"Next day, the Turks who remained in this city, were (no doubt by order) found murdered in all parts, and little or no inquiries were made after those who had perpetrated such horrid deeds. Only a few straggling Turks remained to tell the dreadful tale. Great presents were sent by the Bashaw to Constantinople to appease the Grand Signior, and in a day or two no one dared to talk of the Turkish garrison which, in a few hours, had been totally annihilated. Having in this dreadful manner freed himself and his family from the Turkish yoke, and having succeeded in keeping the Grand Signior in humour, he caused Tripoli to remain entirely under a Moorish government, for which the Moors still call his reign glorious." pp. 34, 35.

[ocr errors]

Every body seems afraid of offending these Arabs at present. A number of them crowded round the Rais of the marine to-day, and one of them offered to take a pistol ont of his sash, which he the Arab if he meant to steal his pistols, was quick enough to prevent, and asked when another Arab replied, "No; he only wanted to look at them." But had the man ran off with the pistol the Rais must have let him go, as the government is too much in awe of these thieves, to offer to punish one of them,” p. 332.

There is yet one department of society unnoticed, which once existed in every community, but is now driven out of Christian Europe and Christian Asia, though it still unhappily exists within the limits of Christendom. Every authentic account of the manner in which a slave who cannot speak for himself is treated in any part of the world, ought to be interesting to those who are privileged with freedom; and our readers will find in the work before us, a number of anecdotes relating to the subject.

We have already intimated, that the superstitions of the Moors, resulting from the pernicious doctrines of their false prophet, form a chief cause of the evils of their government and habits, and the greatest obstacle to their improvement.

Of these superstitions, we will first bestow a few thoughts on the doctrine of Fatalism, which some persons have honoured by comparing it with a very different doctrine held by many Christians. The fatalism of the Mohammedans seems to be a settled persuasion, that particular events are absolutely

decreed, while at the same time the means are left uncertain, and may be successfully evaded for a season, or be defeated by skill and contrivance, although the opposition will prove in the end to have been to no purpose, and cannot be carried on without folly as well as impiety; since Fate will be sure to discover other means for the execution of its

designs. So also the fate of the ancients appears to have been properly a decree or sentence of Jupiter, or some of his predecessors, of which the three Destinies, or Parcæ, were to be the execution ers; although, when once pronounced, it became binding on the sovereign Deity himself as well as on his inferior ministers, and was strictly irrevocable, which seems very well to agree with the idea of fate entertained by Mohammed and his followers. Let the two doctrines stand side by side.

Durum, sed levius fit patientia
Quicquid corrigere est nefas.
Hor. i. xxiv. 19, 20.

Si figit adamantinos
Summis verticibus dira necessitas

Clavos, non animum metu,
Non mortis laqueis expedies caput.
Hor. iii. xxiv. 5-8.

Manent immota tuorum

Fati tibi. Virg. Æn. i. 261, 262. Hic (tibi fabor enim, quando hæc te cura remordet, Longius et volvens fatorum arcana, movebo)

Bellum ingens geret Italia.

Virg. Æn. i. 265-267. Desine fata Deum flecti sperare pre. cando. Virg. Æn. vi. 376. Contra fata Deûm perverso numine poscunt. Virg. Æn. vii. 584. Quo fata vocas? aut quid petis istis ?

Fata viam invenient.

Virg. Æn. ix, 94. Virg. Æn. x. 113.

Now for the counterpart:

[ocr errors]

"The circumstances which have occurred to a Moor who was taken ill of the plague, will add great strength to Mahomet's doctrine, which says, Fate is irrevocable, and to oppose destiny is sacrilege.' This man, who was some months ago one of the richest merchants distance on the coast, taking all his prohere, to escape the plague fled to a great

left the coast, and went to a rock far off perty with him. For further safety he in the sea. Here the poor man thought himself out of danger, but without any extraordinary share of penetration, he might have anticipated what happened to him. In the first place, he became criminal in the eyes of all his countrymen, for having, as they term it, flown in the face of his prophet, by attempting his fate, which the Moors call Mughta. to run away from the plague and avoid. be; the Arabs, therefore, with impunity, pursued this man to rob him, a few nights after he was settled on the rock. While the merchant was in his tent, he heard boats rowing towards his solitary island, and by the light of the moon he saw they were manned with Arabs, and soon discovered his perilous situation. He left all to their mercy, and by the greatest good fortune escaped being murdered. After their departure, he returned to Tripoli, where he now faces all the danger of the plague without the least precaution, to expiate the sin he had committed in flying from his fate (mughtube). The Moors, thus struck with horror, seem sure he cannot re

cover.

"The consolation and peace of mind the Moor procures himself, by thus placing his whole belief in predestination, is certainly inconceivable. In the heaviest hour of trial, they sooth themselves with the idea, that it is mughtube (decreed), and with that single word they pass from opulence to misery without a murmur. On their death-bed, nothing changes their security: the expiring Moor only calls out to have his face turned towards Mecca, and thus comforted he dies in peace." p. 110.

“The prime minister Mustapha Serivan's house is at present as much in a state of quarantine as he can put it, consistent with the ideas of the Moors; yet he will not admit to any one, nor to the Bashaw, the necessity of taking precautions at the castle, where, he alleges sovereignty is the greatest shield, and

whence he says it is necessary to give the Moors an example, not to try to resist the hand of fate." p. 85.

Notwithstanding this notion of irresistible fate, the false prophet inculcated a belief in the efficacy of charms, which is equally mischievous, and in some degree at variance with the other.

"The Christians were invited to be present yesterday at the launching of one of the Bey's cruisers; when there was little to notice except one or two singular circumstances.

"Just at the moment of its quitting the stocks, a black slave of the Bey's was led forward and fastened at the prow of the vessel to influence a happy reception of it in the ocean. Some embar. rassment happened at the time of its going off, and Mustaphar (the first minister) not having seen the black attached, said it was no wonder the vessel did not go easily off the stocks, for they had neglected to bind a black on board and send off with it. A beautiful lamb fitted for the purpose, washed white as snow, and decorated with flowers and ribbands, stood on the deck, and at the instant the vessel plunged into the water received the fatal knife, being devoutly offered as a sacrifice to Mahomet for the future prosperity of the cruiser." pp. 74, 75.

"The evening before they went away, they performed for Uducia (Hadgi Abderrahman's eldest daughter) one of their extraordinary ceremonies, to protect her, in her removal to her father's house, from the effect of any ill-disposed persons looking on her with an unfriendly eye, which they call being taken with bad-eyes,' and which might cause a disorder to prove fatal, that would otherwise not be so. This charm consisted in having a writing from one of their Imans, which being burnt was mixed in wine and drank by Uducia, who was perfumed with musk and in cense by her friends, they walking round her, repeating prayers for her while she drank it. When we heard how ill she was at the time she was obliged to go through this ceremony, we could not but consider her exertions, and her swallowing the sooty draft, in such a state, a dangerous expedient." pp. 119,

120.

"The period fixed for a widow's mourning is four months and ten days.

At the expiration of that time, Lilla Amnani goes again to the sea side, The same gold comb she had used before is carried with her, and four fresh eggs; the eggs she gives to the first person she meets, who is obliged to receive them, were it even the Bashaw himself. With the eggs, it is imagined, she gives away all her misfortunes, consequently no person likes to receive them; but this custom is so established, that not any one thinks of re fusing them." p. 313.

The mischief, which the marabuts or pretended prophets are able to effect through the sacredness attached to their character, is another evil consequence of their creed.

"We met one of the noted Moorish saints, or holy men. I have already described these people to you; but this man, contrary to the general appearance of these marabuts, was tolerably covered, with a long wide blue shirt reaching to the ground, and white trowsers underneath. He wore nothing on his head, which was shaved close, except a long lock of hair descending from the back part of it. The whole dress of many of these marabuts consists of a bit of crimson cloth, about four inches square, dexterously placed on the crown of their head. The marabut we met in the castle was returning from the Bashaw, with whom he had a long private audience. His appearance, from the furious and strange gestures he made, with an immense large living snake round his shoulders, was truly terrific, though we were all aware of the unfortunate reptile having been rendered harmless by the wearer's extracting its teeth, before he attempted to impose on the credulous, in making them believe he alone was exempt from death by the reptile's touch. The Moors regarded him with great reve rence." p. 140.

"Before Sidy Useph appeared in sight, his famous Marabut Fataisi came into town with some of his holy followers: They were admitted to the sovereign, and Fataisi told the Bashaw that Sidy Useph was on his way to town with twenty people only, and without arms, and implored him by the prophet to send the Bey out to meet him, and make terms with him for the peace of his family and of his people. The Bashaw

instantly agreed to it; and had the prince gone he would certainly have been murdered. But the Bey having received certain information, that Sidy Useph was near the town with several hundred people, he seized the Marabut, though in the Bashaw's presence, and, holding his sabre over him, he told him, that had he not been a Marabut he would have laid him dead at the Bashaw's feet for his treachery; and then informed the Bashaw, that his brother had with him upwards of four hundred men under arms. The Bey turned the Marabut out of his presence, and the officers presented their arms at him, but the Bey ordered them not to fire. He desired they would see the Marabut out of the gates of the town, and gave orders that, on pain of death, no one should suffer him on any account to enter it again." pp. 270, 271.

The long fasts, unaccompanied by any religious service of a spiritual kind, and the distant pilgrimages, imposed evidently as a meritorious duty, may fitly be regarded as inventions of the great enemy of mankind to obstruct the avenues to repentance, and supersede all those emotions which, under Divine influence and illumination, might lead to contrition and humi lity.

"With one of these caravans the ambassador (Hadgi Abderrahman) and his family went hence to Mecca. They set out for Grand Cairo, where they joined the caravan of Egypt; but were detained for three or four weeks, notwithstanding the finest weather imaginable, on account of unlucky days and frightful omens, which were said to have happened from time to time. These delays are sometimes very serious to those pilgrims who go expressly to visit the holy places, as the Beit-Alla, at Mecca, which is the principal object of their worship, is only open two days in every six weeks, one for the women and another for the men; consequently such delays often occasion the Mahomedans to be three months longer on their pilgrimage.

"The road from Cairo to Suez, though not sixty miles, is among the worst parts of the journey from Tripoli to Mecca, not excepting the deserts to Alexandria. Many of the pilgrims are then obliged to continue their route by the Red Sea,

not being able to carry with them the provisions wanted for the rest of their pilgrimage to Mecca; for Suez, surrounded with sands and destitute of a drop of water for its own consumption, can furnish nothing to travellers. The inhabitants of Suez are obliged to travel six or seven hours for all the water they use: they go for it to the Arabian shores, and get it from Nuba, on the borders of the Red Sea; and this, which is the nearest water they can procure, is so bitter that no European can drink it, without being mixed with spirit. It was, therefore, indispensably necessary for Hadgi Abderrahman to provide himself with pulse, meat, wood, and water, for the rest of his long journey, near seven hundred miles, the greatest part through the deserts of Arabia; and this circumstance, while it increased the numerous animals of burden in the caravan, obliged the poorer pilgrims, who had no beasts of burden, to proceed by sea.

"A pilgrimage by a man of distinction is made at a very heavy expense, as those persons he permits to join his suite almost wholly depend on him for their subsistence." pp. 191, 192.

"It is known that from ancient times the curiosity of visiting holy places brought Christians from all parts of the world to Jerusalem. For a long time the Popes made it an act necessary to salvation, and the fervour with which this agitated all Europe produced the crusades. Since that epoch, which occasioned so much bloodshed, the number of pilgrims has considerably diminished. They are reduced now to some monks from Italy, Spain, and Germany. But it is different with the Orientals: they continue to regard the voyage to Jerusalem as one of the most meritorious acts. They even consider themselves scandalized by those Franks or Christians who come to the East, and do not follow their example, and stigmatize them with the name of heretics or infidels, for not fulfilling this part of their religion. To those who do, the Turks will not give the insulting epithet of Kielb, or dog, so commonly applied to Christians by them.

"The Greeks more than other nations believe this pilgrimage to be productive of the greatest indulgencies; they suppose it absolves them not only for the past, but for the future, for not observing feasts or fasts, and, indeed, for every crime. From these ideas, a

« AnteriorContinuar »