No doubt such articles can be obtained in Oriental countries if you know where to look for them, but our friends do not know, and they are not to be found in the stock of the woman-pedlar. Here is an opening for the lady-trader.
I GO TO CONSTANTINOPLE AND PURSUE MY STUDIES.
The discomforts of travelling--Precautions against brigands--Village hospitality--Bad condition of inns and hotels--Broussa, the first capital of the Ottoman Empire--Constantinople--The 'parish' of the conqueror-- First impressions of the European quarter--The question of my education--Seats of learning, old and new--I am forced to choose the old--I become a sort of monk--The distinctive dress--Description of the old-fashioned colleges--The Ulema--Their position and influence.
MY residence in my uncle's home in Asia Minor did not last very long after my removal from his harem, as he decided to go to Constantinople to live there again. Of course I was to go with his family, so that I might continue my education. Everyone in my uncle's house began to pack, and my mother prepared new clothes and all kinds of eatables for me for the journey, which would take seven days. My uncle did not permit me to go to my mother's house and spend my few remaining days with her. I only went to see her during the daytime, when I found her always in deep distress at the thought of our approaching separation. She had only one son remaining, a child of two years, my elder brother having been sent to the same place to which I was going for the same purpose two years previously. In those days there was no railway line between my native town and the Asiatic coast of the Sea of Marmora, so our journey had to be made in a kind of a four-wheeled travelling carriage, which was introduced into Turkey by the emigrant Crimean Tartars, and which much resembles the big vans employed for carrying parcels in London. Travelling in these coaches is an extremely uncomfortable proceeding. To guard against the jolting caused by the lack of adequate springs the floor of the vehicle is covered with mattresses, but even then the shaking is quite insufferable. In those days it was made worse by the primitive condition of the roads, which indeed are little better now. Some fifteen years ago the Government promulgated a law ordering every able-bodied male throughout the country to work four days a year at making public roads between towns, or to pay a workman's wage for four days in default. Some well-meaning governors did their best to improve the roads, but officials nominated by the palace, who form the majority of officialdom, abused this law and pocketed the funds raised, and so a great part of the public roads were ultimately left unfinished, and no care was taken to keep in repair even the portions that were completed. Good roads, like other means of easy travelling, would facilitate the incursion of visitors and tourists into the interior of Asiatic Turkey, and nothing would be more repugnant to the Sultan than to see this; and again, nothing would be more undesirable for the Sultan and his entourage than to see parties of Englishmen and Americans wondering at the unopened, undeveloped spots of the country, coming directly into contact with his subjects, and contrasting their poverty-stricken and wretched condition with the natural beauty and richness of the land in which they live.