After a delightful row from Galata, we landed at the celebrated pier of Eyoub; and, accompanied by a personal friend of Mustapha Effendi, proceeded to the manufactory, which we entered by the women’s door. As we passed the threshold a most curious scene presented itself. About five hundred females were collected together in a vast hall, awaiting the delivery of the wool which they were to knit; and a more extraordinary group could not perhaps be found in the world.
There was the Turkess with her yashmac folded closely over her face, and her dark feridjhe falling to the pavement: the Greek woman, with her large turban, and braided hair, covered loosely with a scarf of white muslin, her gay-coloured dress, and large shawl: the Armenian, with her dark bright eyes flashing from under the jealous screen of her carefully-arranged veil, and her red slipper peeping out under the long wrapping cloak: the Jewess, muffled in a coarse linen cloth, and standing a little apart, as though she feared to offend by more immediate contact; and among the crowd some of the loveliest girls imaginable.
At the moment of our arrival, Mustapha Effendi was at prayers; and we accordingly seated ourselves to await him in an inner apartment, well-carpeted, and occupied by half a dozen clerks, who were busily employed in recording the quantity of wool delivered to each applicant: their seats were divided from the women’s hall by a partition about breast-high; and I remarked that the prettiest girls were always those whose accounts were the most tedious.
On the other side of this spacious office was a wool-store, where a score of individuals were busily employed in weighing and delivering out the wool; and all were so active, and so earnest in their occupation, that the most sceptical European would have been compelled to admit, when looking on them, that the Turk is no longer the supine and spiritless individual which he has been so long considered.
Immediately that his prayer was completed, Mustapha Effendi invited us to pass into his private room; a pleasant apartment opening to the water, and most luxuriously cushioned. Here coffee and chibouks were served; after which a couple of the knitters were introduced, in order that we might see the different qualities of wool, necessary to the manufacture of the various kinds of fèz.