During the days which immediately precede the season of abstinence, they do not alter their former mode of life, or allow themselves any extra indulgence in the way of food and drink. Nay rather, on the contrary, by diminishing their usual allowance they prepare themselves for the fast, for fear they should not be able to bear the sudden change. Their fast recurs every twelve months; and, as twelve lunar months do not make up a year, it annually comes some fifteen days earlier. Hence it follows that, if the fast is at the beginning of Spring, six years later it will be kept at the commencement of Summer. The Turks limit their fast to the period of one lunar month, and the most severe fasts are those which fall in summer, on account of the length of the days. Inasmuch as they keep it so strictly as to touch nothing, not even water—nay, they hold it unlawful even to wash out the mouth—till the stars appear at even, it follows of course that a fast which occurs when the days are longest, hottest, and most dusty, is extremely trying, especially to those who are obliged to earn their livelihood by manual labour. However, they are allowed to eat what they please before sunrise, or to speak accurately, before the stars are dimmed by the light of that luminary, the idea being that the Sun ought to see no one eating during the whole of the fast. On this account the fast, when it falls in winter, is not so hard to bear.
On a cloudy day of course some mistake might be made about sunset. To meet this difficulty the priests, who act as sacristans, put lighted paper lanterns on the pinnacles of the minarets. (It is from these minarets that they utter the loud cry which summons the people to prayer, and they therefore answer to our belfries.[217]) These lights are intended to remove all doubt as to the time being come when food may be taken. Then at last, after first entering a mosque and reciting their customary prayers, they return to supper. On summer days I remember seeing them making in crowds from the mosque to a tavern, opposite our abode, where snow was kept for sale (of which, by the way, there is an unfailing supply from Mount Olympus, in Asia), and asking for iced water, which they drank, sitting cross-legged, for the Turks have a scruple about eating or drinking standing, if they can help it. But as the evening was too far gone for me to be able to see what they were squatting down for, I got some of my acquaintance, who understood Turkish customs, to enlighten me, and found that each took a great draught of cold water to open a passage for their food, which otherwise would stick in their throats, parched as they were by heat and fasting, and also that their appetite was stimulated by the cold drink. No special kinds of food are appointed to be eaten during the fast; nor does their religion prescribe abstinence during that season from anything which they are allowed to eat at other times. Should they happen to have any illness which prevents their observing the fast, they may disregard it, on condition, however, of making up, when they get well, the number of fasting days which their health has compelled them to miss. Likewise, when they are in an enemy’s country and an engagement is apprehended, they are ordered to postpone their fast to some other time, lest they should be hungry and faint on the day of battle. If they hesitate to do so, the Sultan himself takes food publicly at midday before the eyes of the army, that all may be encouraged by his example to do the same. But as at other times of the year they are forbidden, by their religion, to drink wine, and cannot taste it without committing a sin, so they are most scrupulous in observing this rule all the days of the fast, and even the most careless and profligate people not only abstain from wine, but shun the very smell of it.