INTERIOR OF A TURKISH CAFFINET.T. Allom.W. H. Capone.
Many circumstances strike a stranger on entering Constantinople, and many objects different from those to which he has been accustomed in European Christian cities. Here are no straight spacious avenues, thronged with foot-passengers on the wide flags, and with carriages on the level centre; no names to the streets, to direct his way; no advertisements on walls; no women behind counters; no public places, for walking or amusement; no monuments displaying taste, or recording great men or actions; no libraries or news-rooms; no club-houses; no theatres, or public exhibitions; no hackney-coaches, cabs, omnibuses, sedan-chairs, or equipages of any kind, either public or private; no clocks on steeples or public buildings, indicating the hour of the day, nor bells announcing festivals or public rejoicings; no lamps to illume the city by night; no shops blazing with the glare of gas; no companies flocking to or from balls; or parties or public assemblies, of any kind, thronging the streets after night-fall, and making them as popular as at noon-day. On the contrary, he gets entangled in crooked, narrow, steep lanes, where the pavement is so imperfect that he is every minute in danger of breaking his leg between the loose angular stones. During the sunlight, the busy throng is nowhere to be seen but in the bazaars, or the avenues leading to them; and every other place seems totally deserted, except by dogs, who howl when he appears, and attack him in whole packs. The only equipage he sees is the sultan’s, going to some mosque on Friday, when the people congregate in the street through which he passes. The only carriages are women’s arrhubas, or kotches, which, generally speaking, cannot climb the steep and narrow streets. When they do appear, they are conveying, closely shut up, the harem of the sultan or some pasha, and then they are accompanied by black eunuchs with drawn sabres. Their approach is announced by the dead silence that suddenly pervades the busy din of a crowded thoroughfare: the moving mass of the people is suddenly arrested, and every man stands closely wrapped up in his beniche, with his arms folded on his breast, and his head cast down and turned away. The unfortunate person who neglects this, is liable to be cut down, and forfeit his life upon the spot for his negligence. At sunsetall the shops are shut up, and their owners hurry to their respective residences; and when the evening closes in, the streets are as dark and as silent as the grave. If a Frank, following the usages of his country, remain at the house of a friend beyond the limited hour, he is liable to be arrested by the Coolah guard, unless he be attended by some lights. He often lights himself. He goes into a Baccùe, or huckster’s shop, while it is open, and purchases for a few paras a circular fold of paper. This is a lantern compressed into a flat surface, which may be elongated to the extent of half a yard. He draws it out, places a light outside, attaches it to the end of his long chibouk, and smoking in this way, with the light thrust out before him, is protected, on returning home through the streets, at any hour of the night.
The only places of public resort that seem in any way to remind him of the social habits of a European city, are the taverns and coffee-houses. Even these are distinguished by customs peculiarly Oriental. The tavern is an open shop, where cooks are employed in preparing different kinds of refreshment over small counters filled with red-hot charcoal. Having passed these, he is shown into a dark room behind, or above, through a narrow staircase. Here he sits down on a tattered straw mat, and a joint stool is placed before him, on which is laid a clumsy metal tray; presently an attendant comes with two dishes, of coarse brown earthenware, one containing a mess of thick, heavy, greasy pancake, made of flour, and the other a skewer of kabobs. Kabobs are small pieces of mutton, about the size of penny pieces, which they much resemble in shape and colour, roasted on an iron needle, which is served up with them. There is no napkin, no knife, fork, or spoon, no wine, beer, or spirits. The entertainment concludes in about ten minutes with a glass of plain water, or, in extreme cases, a cup of sherbet.
The caffinet, or coffee-house, is something more splendid, and the Turk expends all his notions of finery and elegance on this, his favourite place of indulgence. The edifice is generally decorated in a very gorgeous manner, supported on pillars, and open in front. It is surrounded on the inside by a raised platform, covered with mats or cushions, on which the Turks sit cross-legged. On one side are musicians, generally Greeks, with mandolins and tambourines, accompanying singers, whose melody consists in vociferation; and the loud and obstreperous concert forms a strong contrast to the stillness and taciturnity of Turkish meetings. On the opposite side are men, generally of a respectable class, some of whom are found here every day, and all day long, dozing under the double influence of coffee and tobacco. The coffee is served in very small cups, not larger than egg-cups, grounds and all, without cream or sugar, and so black, thick, and bitter, that it has been aptly compared to “stewed soot.” Besides the ordinary chibouk for tobacco, there is another implement, called narghillai, used for smoking in a caffinet, of a more elaborate construction. It consists of a glass vase, filled with water, and often scented with distilled rose or other flowers. This is surmounted with a silver or brazen head, from which issues a long flexible tube; a pipe-bowl is placed on the top, and so constructed that the smoke is drawn, and comes bubbling up through the water, cool and fragrant to the mouth. A peculiar kind of tobacco, grown at Shiraz in Persia, and resembling small pieces of cut leather, is used with this instrument.The pipe is lighted either by a fragment of ignited charcoal, or amadhoo; this last is an inflammable spark prepared from decayed wood, or a particular kind of fungus, and a Turk never goes without a portion of it, with a flint and steel, in his tobacco-bag. In the centre of the room is generally an artificial fountain, bubbling and playing in summer, and round it vases of flowers, with piles of the sweet-scented melons of Cassaba, to keep them cool, and add, by their odour, to the fragrance of the flowers.
A frequent addition to the enjoyments of the caffinet, is the medac, or story-teller. There are several of these public characters at Constantinople, who, at festival seasons, are engaged by the caffinet-ghees to entertain their guests. On these occasions, to accommodate the increased company, stools are placed in semicircles in the streets before the caffinet, and refreshment sent from the house. A small platform is laid on the open window, so that the audience within and without may hear and see. On this the story-teller mounts, and continues his narrative sometimes till midnight. The excellence of some of these men in their department, is surprising, and altogether out of keeping with the dull and phlegmatic character of a Turk. In humour and detail, they are equal to the best European actors; and sustain singly, and without any aid, a whole drama of various characters. Their tact is equally clever. When the attention of their audience is excited to the highest degree at the approach of some interesting catastrophe, the medac suddenly steps down from his platform, and going round with a coffee-cup in his hand, the audience soon fill it with paras, to induce him to resume his place; and then, and not till then, does he mount, and go on with his story. One of these medacs, called Kiz Achmet, or “Achmet the Maid,” was particularly famous. He has been engaged during the Bairam at a salary of eight hundred piastres; and the sultan often sent for him, to entertain the ladies of the harem, though his stories on ordinary occasions were of a very coarse and indelicate character.