Travels in Syria and the Holy Land Part 49

The Turkman ladies dress in the common style of Syrian women; their bonnet is adorned with strings of Venetian zequins, or other gold pieces. The dress of the men is that of the Turks of Anatolia. The hors.e.m.e.n wear wide riding pantaloons, or Sherwalls, of cloth; their head-dress consists of a red cap round which they twist a turban of cotton or silk stuff; the wealthy wear turbans of flowered stuffs, or even Persian shawls. Twenty years ago the national head-dress was a tall and narrow cap of white wool, in the shape of a sugar-loaf, since that time the Ryhanlu have left off wearing it, but I remember to have seen a headdress of this kind during my stay with the Turkmans near Tarsus. The Turkman women are very laborious; besides the care of housekeeping, they work the tent coverings of goats hair, and the woollen carpets, which are inferior only to those of Persian manufacture. Their looms are of primitive simplicity; they do not make use of the shuttle, but pa.s.s the woof with their hands. They seem to have made great progress in the art of dyeing; their colours [p.640] are beauitful. Indigo and cochineal, which they purchase at Aleppo, give them their blue, and red dyes, but the ingredients of all the others, especially of a brilliant green, are herbs which they gather in the mountains of Armenia; the dyeing process is kept by them as a national secret. The wool of their carpets, is of the ordinary kind; the carpets are about seven feet long and three broad, and sell from fifteen to one hundred piastres a piece. While the females are employed in these labours the men pa.s.s their whole time in indolence; except at sunset, when they feed their horses and camels, they lounge about the whole day, without any useful employment, and without even refres.h.i.+ng their leisure by some trifling occupation. To smoke their pipes and drink coffee is to them the most agreeable pastime; they frequently visit each other, and collecting round the fire-place, they keep very late hours. I was told that there are some men amongst them, who play the tamboura, a sort of guitar, but I never heard any of them perform. If the young men would condescend to a.s.sist in agriculture, the wealth of the families would rapidly increase, and the whole of the plains of Antioch might in time be cultivated: at present, as far as I could observe, there are few families growing rich; most of them spend their whole income.

A Turkman never leaves his tent to take a ride in the neighbourhood without being armed with his gun, pistols, and sabre. I was astonished to see that they do not take the smallest care of their fire arms: a great number of them were shewn to me, to know whether they were of English manufacture; I found them covered with rust, and they complained of their often missing fire. They have no gunsmiths amongst them; nor any artizans at all, except some farriers, and a few makers of bridles and of horse accoutrements[.]

There are no lawyers or Ulemas among the Ryhanlu. Some families of consequence carry with them a Faqui or travelling Imam, to teach their children to read and to pray, and who in case of need performs likewise the duties of a menial servant, much like the young German baron?s governor. These Faqui are for the greater part natives of Albostan, educated there in mosques: they follow the Turkmans to partic.i.p.ate in the pious alms which the Koran prescribes. They are generally ignorant, even of the Turkish law: they are often consulted however by the chiefs, and their sentence is generally confirmed by the chief whenever there is no precedent or customary law in point to the contrary.

I did not see any books amongst the Turkmans, and I am certain that out of fifty hardly one knows how to read or write. Even few of them know the text of their prayers (which are throughout the Mohammedan countries in the sacred language, the Arabic), and therefore perform the prescribed prostrations silently and without the usual e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns. The married people, men as well as women, are tolerably exact in the performance of their devotions, but the young men never trouble themselves about them.

I did not stay long enough among the Turkmans to be able to judge correctly of their character, especially as I was ignorant of their language. I saw enough, however, to convince me that they possess most of the vices of nomade nations, without their good qualities. The Turkmans are, like the Arabs and Kurds, a people of robbers, that is to say, [p.641] every thing which they can lay hold of in the open country is their lawful prize, provided it does not belong to their acknowledged friends. The Arabs make amends in some measure for their robberies by the hospitality and liberality with which they receive friends and strangers. In this respect I soon found that I had been led to form a very erroneous opinion of the Turkman character. I was introduced at Aleppo to Mohammed Ali Aga, a man of considerable influence amongst the Ryhanlu, as a physician who was travelling in search of herbs, and I succeeded in supporting my a.s.sumed character during near a fortnight?s stay under his tent. Before my departure from Aleppo, I made him a present of coffee and sweetmeats, to the amount of sixty piastres, and I promised him another present, when he should have brought me back in safety to Aleppo. Notwithstanding these precautions, my reception in his tent was rather cool, and I soon found that I was among men who had no other idea than that of getting as much out of me as they could. They were not under the least restraint, but calculated in my presence how much my visit was worth to them, as I sufficiently understood, from their animated tone and gestures, added to the few Turkish words, which I learnt. To spare my dinner my host took me out a visiting almost every day, just before the dinner hour; and that he might know how far it would be prudent to incur expence on my account, he permitted one of his friends to search my pockets, and was cruelly disappointed when he found that my purse did not contain more than four or five piastres. My horse, for the maintenance of which I had agreed with my host, was fed with straw, until I told them that I should take care of it myself, when they were obliged to deliver its daily portion of barley into my own hands.

Such was the liberality which I experienced in return for the medical advice and medicines which they received without hesitation from me upon demanding them. Their minds seemed intent only upon money, except among the lovers there was no other subject of conversation, and instead of the Arab virtues, of honour, frankness, and hospitality, there appeared to be no other motive of action among them than the pursuit of gain. The person of a Frank may be safe among them, but his baggage will be exposed to close search, and whatever strikes the fancy of a powerful man, will be asked of him in such a manner, that it is adviseable to give up the object at once. I had fortunately hidden my compa.s.s in my girdle, but a thermometer which they found in my pocket, attracted general notice; if I had explained to them the use I meant to make of it, it would have confirmed the suspicion already hinted to me by one of them, that I intended to poison their springs. I pretended that the thermometer was a surgical instrument, which being put into the blood of an open wound served to shew whether the wound was dangerous or not. It is not more from the behaviour of the Turkmans towards myself, that I formed my opinion of their character, than from their conduct towards each other. They are constantly upon their guard against robbers and thieves of their own tribe; they cheat each other in the most trifling affairs, and like most of the Aleppo merchants, make use of the most awful oaths and imprecations to conceal their falsehood. If they have one good quality it is their tolerance in religious matters, which proves, on the other hand, how little they care about them.

[p.642] The men marry at fourteen or fifteen, the girls at thirteen.

Excepting Hayder Aga, and some of his brothers, there are very few who have more than one wife. They celebrate their marriage feasts with great pomp. The young men play upon those occasions at a running game much resembling the ?jeu de barre,? known on the continent of Europe. Their music then consists in drums and trumpets, only, for the Turkmans, are not so fond of music as the Aleppines and the Arabs, nor did I ever meet among them with any of the story-tellers, who are so frequent amongst the Arabs of the desert. Whenever a son reaches the marriageable age, his father gives him, even before his marriage, a couple of camels and a horse to defray, by the profits of trade, his private expenses. At the death of the father, his property is divided amongst the family according to the Turkish law. The Ryhanlu bury their dead in the burying places which are found scattered among the ruins of deserted villages.

My observations were confined to the Ryhanlu. But they will probably in great measure apply to all the large Turkman tribes which inhabit the western parts of Asia Minor, and concerning which I obtained a few particulars.

In the level country between Badjazze and Adena lives a tribe which is tributary to the governors of these two places. They are called Jerid, and are more numerous than the Ryhanlu; they likewise leave their plains towards the approach of summer, and winter in the Armenian mountains, in the neighbourhood of the Ryhanlu. Like the latter they have one head, and several minor chiefs, and they are divided into six tribes: viz.

Jerid (chief Shahen Beg), Tegir (chief Oglu Kiaya), Karegialar (chief Rustam Beg), Bozdagan (chief Kerem Oglu), Aoutshar (chief Ha.s.san Beg), Leck (chief Agri Bayouk). The Lecks speak, besides the Turkish, a language of their own, which has no resemblance either to the Arabic, Turkish, Persian or Kurdine; ?it sounds like the whistling of birds,?

said the Turkman from whom I obtained this information, and the same remark was confirmed by others. The name of the Leck, renders the supposition probable that they are descendants of the Lazi, a people inhabiting the coast of the Black sea, and who in the time of the great Justinian opposed his forces with some success. Chardin mentions having met descendants of the Lazi near Trebizond, whom he describes as a rude sea-faring people, with a peculiar language.

The Pehluvanlu are the most numerous tribe of the whole nation of Turkmans. They are governed by a chief, (Mahmoud Beg), who is tributary to Tshapan Oglu. A part of them have for a long period been cultivators, others are shepherds. They inhabit the country from Bosurk to near Constantinople, and pa.s.s the summer months at one day?s journey distance from the Ryhanlu. They are in possession of a very profitable transport trade, and their camels form almost exclusively the caravans of Smyrna and of the interior of Anatolia. They drive their sheep for sale as far as Constantinople.

The Rishwans are more numerous than the Ryhanlu, but their tribe is not held in esteem among the Turkmans. They were formerly tributary to Rishwan Oglu, governor of Besna, which lies at one day?s journey from Aintab; and they used then to winter in the neighbourhood [p.643] of Djeboul, on the borders of a small salt lake, five hours to the S. E. of Aleppo. They are at present dependent on Tshapan Oglu, and winter in the plains near Haimani in Anatolia; they pa.s.s their summer months in the neighbourhood of the Ryhanlu. Their princ.i.p.al tribes are Deleyanli (chief Ali Beg Oglu), Omar Anli (chief Omar Beg), Mandolli (Omar Aga), Gelikanli (Ha.s.san Beg Mor Oglu). The Rishwans are noted, even among robbers, for their want of faith.

The great tribes of the Turkmans are often at war with each other, as well as with the Kurds, with whom they are in contact in many places.

These wars seldom cause the death of more than three or four individuals, after which peace is concluded. In a late war between the Ryhanlu and the Kurds, which lasted five or six months, and brought on several battles, the whole list of deaths was only six Kurds and four Turkmans. In the mountains, the Turkmans are accompanied in their military expeditions by foot soldiers, armed with muskets; these are men of the tribe who cannot afford to keep a horse. Neither the lance, nor the bow is used among them. Some tribes of Kurds, on the contrary, have never abandoned the use of the bow.

The Tar, or blood-revenge, is observed among the Turkman nations, as well among themselves, as with respect to foreigners. They have a particular species of Tar which I have never heard of among the Arabs.

It attaches to their goods; the following incident will best explain it: a caravan of Turkman camels laden with wood was seized last winter, just before the gates of Aleppo, by a detachment of Karashukly (a mixt tribe of Turkmans and Arabs, who inhabit the banks of the Euphrates, in the vicinity of Bir). One of the Turkmans was wounded, the loads were thrown down, and fifty camels driven away, worth about five hundred piastres apiece. The Turkmans immediately dispatched an old Arab woman as amba.s.sadress to their enemies, to treat for the restoration of their camels, and she succeeded in recovering them at the rate of one hundred and sixty piastres apiece, or eight thousand piastres, for the whole.

?Thus,? I was told by a Turkman chief, ?the Tar between us will not be for the whole sum of twenty-five thousand piastres, the real value of the camels, but only for the sum of eight thousand piastres, for which we shall, on the first opportunity take our revenge.?

There are no Sherif families, or families claiming a descent from the prophet, amongst the Ryhanlu. But family pride is not unknown among them. Descendants from ancient and renowned chiefs claim, though poor, some deference from wealthy upstarts. In one of their late battles with the Kurds, a young man of n.o.ble extraction, but poor, and without authority, was crying out in the heat of action: ?Comrades, let us attack them on the left flank.? Hayder Aga, who heard it, exclaimed: ?Who are you? hold your tongue.? After the victory the young man, was seen thoughtful and melancholy in the midst of the rejoicings of his brethren; Hayder Aga, as proud a man as ever sat upon a throne, to whom it was reported, sent for the young man, and when he entered the tent rose, and kissed his beard, begging [p.644] him to forget whatever lie might have said in the heat of action, when he was not always master of himself.

Their ideas of decency appear singular, when compared with our own. A Turkman will talk before his wife, daughter, or sister upon subjects which are banished from our discourse; at the same time that he would be much offended if any friend should in the presence of his females speak in raptures or poetical terms of the charms of a beloved mistress.

Remains of Antiquity.

One of the princ.i.p.al motives of my visit to the Turkmans was my desire to visit some ruins near their encampments, particularly those of Deir Samaan, which at Aleppo I had heard compared to the temples at Baalbec.

I therefore made it a condition with my Turkman host, that he should take me to Deir Samaan as well as to several other ruins whose names I had collected from different Aleppines. The day after my arrival under his tent, he set out with me towards the Deir, and we reached it after a ride of four hours over the rocky hills which encircle the mountain of St. Simon, called Djebel Samaan, or Sheikh Barekat. The Deir Samaan consists of the ruins of a church, monastery, or episcopal palace, built upon the top of an insulated hill, bearing from the top of the mountain of St. Simon, N. 20 E., about eight miles distant. It is now inhabited by several families of Kurds, who have their black goat hair tents pitched in the middle of the ruins. They received us with much hospitality; a sheep was immediately killed, and all the delicacies of the season were served up to us. After dinner and coffee, Tshay[FN#1]

was served round, which the Aleppines and all Syrians esteem as one of the greatest dainties: it is a heating drink, made of ginger, cloves, rosewater, sugar and similar ingredients, boiled together to a thick syrup. Mursa Aga, the chief, a handsome young man, then took up his Tamboura or guitar, and the rest of the evening pa.s.sed in music and singing.

The whole summit of the hill, which is six hundred paces in length and one hundred and seventy in breadth, was once covered with stately buildings. A thick wall of square hewn stones, is traceable all round.

The princ.i.p.al ruins consist of two separate buildings, a palace, and a church, or monastery, which were separated from each other by a court- yard one hundred and ten paces in length. The palace, or perhaps the high priest?s habitation, is not remarkable either for its size or elegance. I could not enter it because it was occupied by the Harem of Mursa Aga. A colonnade led from the palace to the church gate; the broken fragments only of the columns remain. Of the church most of the side walls are still standing, ornamented with pillars and arches worked in the walls; it is divided into two circular apartments [p.645] of which the inner may have been the sanctuary. On the eastern side of the church is a dark vaulted room, which receives the daylight only from the door, and which appears to have been a sepulchre. A number of niches (if I recollect right, nine), not perpendicular like the Egyptian sepulchral niches, but horizontal, have been built around the wall. Into this chamber opens a subterraneous pa.s.sage, which is said by the Kurds, to continue a long way under ground, in the direction of Antakia. I could not persuade any body to enter it with me. Adjacent to this sepulchre is another vaulted, open hall, which has been changed by its present proprietors into stables, and an apartment for receiving strangers in the heat of summer. The softness of the calcareous stone from the adjacent hills, with which the buildings are constructed, has caused all the ornaments of the arches and columns and even the shafts themselves to decay; enough remains however, of their clumsy and overcharged ornaments, to shew that the edifices are of an advanced period of the Greek empire. The columns are very small in proportion to the arches which they support, and I did not see any above eighteen or twenty feet high. The perishable nature of the stone has not left a single inscription visible, if there ever were any, with the exception of some names of Frenchmen from Aleppo, who visited the place eighty years ago.

The sign of the cross is visible in several places. If these buildings were constructed in pious commemoration of the devout sufferings of St.

Simon Stylites, who pa.s.sed thirty-five years of his life upon a column, they are probably of the sixth century. St. Simon died towards the end of the fifth century, and in the seventh century Syria was conquered and converted to Islamism by the successors of Mohammed. The structures are certainly not of the date of the Crusades. On the eastern side of the building are the remains of an aqueduct, the continuation of which is again met with on the opposite hill. The Kurdine inhabitants of these ruins collect at present the rain water in cisterns.

Descending from the top of the hill on the western side, the remains of a broad paved causeway lead to an arch, which stands about ten minutes walk from the castle, and faces the ruins of a city, built at the foot of the hill, of which a number of buildings are still extant. These ruins, called Bokatur, are uninhabited, their circ.u.mference may be estimated at about one mile and a half. Amongst the many private houses a palace may be distinguished, surrounded by a low portico, at which terminates the causeway leading from the arch. At half an hour?s distance to the S.W. of Bokatur, are ruins resembling the former in extent and structure. I saw several houses of which the front was supported by columns, of a smaller size than those of the palace at Bokatur. This place is now called Immature, at three quarters of an hour to the W. of it, are other similar ruins of a town called Filtire, which I did not see. The two latter places are now inhabited by some poor Kurdine families. The style of building which I observed in the houses of these ruined cities approaches more to the European than the Asiatic taste. The roofs are somewhat inclined, and the windows numerous, and large, instead of being few and small, as in Turkish houses. The walls, most of which are still remaining, are for the greatest part without ornament, [p.646] from one foot to about one foot and a half thick, and built of calcareous squared stones, like Deir Samaan. The pillars which are still to be seen in some of the ruined buildings are none of them more than fifteen feet high. Their capitals, like those of the columns in the Deir Samaan, are rude and unfinished; if any order is discernible it is a corrupted Corinthian. The neighbourbood of these towns, at least for five miles round, presents nothing but an uneven plain, thickly covered with barren rocks, which rise to the height of two or three feet above the surface. A few herbs grow in the fissures of the rocks, which are scarcely sufficient to keep from starving half a dozen horses, the property of the present miserable inhabitants. There are several wells of good water in the neighbourhood of the ruins. To the S.S.E. of the Deir, at an hour and a half?s distance, stands a single pillar about thirty-five feet high, the base and capital of which are like those of the Deir. No inscriptions are visible. At a few yards from the column is the entrance to a s.p.a.cious subterraneous cavern. I pa.s.sed this spot on my way to the Deir, and purposed to examine the contents of the cave on our return; I returned however by another route.

We left our friendly Kurds on the following day at noon. At taking my leave I told the chief that I should be happy to make him some acknowledgments for the hospitality shewn to me, whenever he should visit Aleppo. He excused himself for not having been able to treat us according to his wishes, and begged me to send him from Aleppo a few strings for his guitar; which I gladly promised. These Kurds have been for some time past at war with the Janissaries at Aleppo, which prevents them from going there.

On our road back to Mohammed Ali?s tents, through Bokatur and Immature, we met halfway a poor gypsy, or as they are called here, Kurpadh; these Kurpadh are spread over the whole of Anatolia and Syria.

The Kurds have spread themselves over some parts of the plain which the Afrin waters, as well as some of the neighbouring mountains. They live in tents and in villages, are stationary, and are all occupied in agriculture and the rearing of cattle. They form four tribes, of which the Shum, who live in the plain, are the most considerable. The Kurds seem to be of a more lively disposition than the Turkmans; the Aleppines say that their word is less to be depended upon than that of the Turkmans. My hosts at Deir Samaan asked me many questions relative to European politics. I found the opinion prevalent among them which Buonaparte has taken such pains to impress upon the winds of the continental nations, that Great Britain is and ought to be merely a maritime power. This belief, however, proves very advantageous to English travellers in these countries. A Frenchman will every where be taken for a spy, as long as the French invasion of Egypt and Syria is in the memory of man, but it seems never to enter into the suspicions of these people that the English can have any wish to possess the countries of the Levant. I was astonished to find that all the Kurds spoke Arabic fluently, besides the Turkish and their own language, which latter is a corrupted mixture of Persian, Armenian, and Turkish. On the other hand, I only met three or four Turkmans who knew how to express themselves [p.647] in Arabic, though both nations are alike in almost continual intercourse with Arab peasants and Aleppines.

Besides the ruins just described, there are many others dispersed over the Turkman territories; which, to judge from the prevailing architecture, are of the same date as those already mentioned. Tisin, Sulfa, Kalaa el [B]ent, Jub Abiad, and Mayshat, all of them at two or three hours distance from the tent of Mohammed Ali, are heaps of ruined buildings, with a few remains of houses. Kalaa el Bent and Jub Abiad contain each of them a square tower about sixty feet high. They have only one small projecting window near the top; the roof is flat.

Tradition says that Kalaa el Bent or in Turkish Kislar Kala.s.si, (the castle of girls), was formerly a convent; probably of nuns. At Mayshat, a Turkman encampment on the top of a hill, at the foot of which is a large deep well, with a solid wall, I was shewn a subterraneous chamber, about twenty feet long and fifteen in breadth, hewn out of the rock, at the entrance to which are two columns; there are two excavations in the bottom of it, like the sepulchral niches which I saw in the Deir Samaan.

I have been told that near Telekberoun, a village situated at the foot of the hills which encircle the plain of Khalaka, there are remains of an ancient causeway elevated two or three feet from the ground, about fifteen feet broad, running in the direction from Aleppo to Antioch; it may be traced for the length of a quarter of an hour. In the plain of the Afrin, about three miles from Mursal Oglu?s residence, and half an hour from the Afrin, stands an insulated hillock in the plain with the ruins of a Saracen castle, called Daoud Pasha; four miles to the N.E. of it is situated another similar hillock, with ruins of a castle, called Tshyie. The sight of these numerous ruins fills the minds of the Turkmans and Kurds with ideas of hidden treasures, and they relate a variety of traditionary tales of Moggrebyn Sheikhs, who have been once on the point of getting out the treasure, when they have been interrupted by the shrieks of a woman, &c. &c. Having provided myself at Aleppo with a small hammer to break off spesimens of rocks, the Turkmans could not be pursuaded that this instrument was not for the purpose of searching for gold. Several Turkmans pressed me to do them the favour of working for a day in their behalf. I endeavoured to persuade them that the hammer was to a.s.sist me in procuring medicinal herbs.

[FN#1] Tshay is the Chinese word for tea; and our word is corrupted from it. The word Tshay is used all over Tartary and Turkey, where the dried herb, which is brought over land from China, is also well known. In Syria and Egypt, where the word is better known than the herb, real tea is generally distinguished by the name of Tshay Hindy (tea of India).

Ed.

APPENDIX. No. II.

On the Political Division of Syria, and the recent Changes in the Government of Aleppo.

THE political division of Syria has not undergone any changes, since the time of Volney.

The Pashaliks are five in number. To the pashalik of Aleppo belongs the government of Aintab, Badjazze, Alexandretta, and Antakia. Damascus comprehends Hebron, Jerusalem, Nablous, Bostra, Hums, and Hama. The Pashalik of Tripoli extends along the seacoast from Djebail to Latikia; that of Seide or Akka, from Djebail nearly to Jaffa, including the mountains inhabited by the Druses. The Pasha of Gaza governs in Jaffa and Gaza, and in the adjacent plains. The present Pasha of Damascus is at the same time Pasha of Tripoli, and therefore in possession of the greater half of Syria. The Pashalik of Gaza is at present annexed to that of Akka.

Such is the nominal division of Syria. But the power of the Porte in this country has been so much upon the decline, particularly since the time of Djezzar Pasha of Akka, that a number of petty independent chiefs have sprung up, who defy their sovereign. Badjazze, Alexandretta, and Antakia have each an independent Aga. Aintab, to the north of Aleppo, Edlip and Shogre, on the way from Aleppo to Latikia, have their own chiefs, and it was but last year that the Pasha of Damascus succeeded in subduing Berber, a formidable rebel, who had fixed his seat at Tripoli, and had maintained himself there for the last six years. The Pashas themselves follow the same practice; it is true that neither the Pasha of Damascus nor that of Akka has yet dared openly to erect the standard of rebellion; they enjoy all the benefits of the protection of the supreme government, but depend much more upon their own strength, than on the caprice of the Sultan, or on their intrigues in the seraglio for the continuance of their power. The policy of the Porte is to flatter and load with honours those whom she cannot ruin, and to wait for some lucky accident by which she may regain her power; but, above all, to avoid a formal rupture, which would only serve to expose her own weakness and to familiarize the Pashas and their subjects with the ideas of rebellion. The Pashas of Damascus and of Akka continue to be dutiful subjects of the Grand Signior in appearance; and they even send considerable sums of money to Constantinople, to ensure the yearly renewal of their offices. (The Pashaliks all over the Turkish dominions are given for the term of one year only, and at the beginning of the Mohammedan year, the Pashas receive [p.649] their confirmation or dismissal) The Agas of Aintab, Antakia, Alexandretta, Edlip, and Shogre, pay also for the renewal of their offices. There are a few chiefs who have completely thrown off the mask of subjection; Kutshuk Ali, the Lord of Badjazze openly declares his contempt of all orders from the Porte, plunders and insults the Sultan?s officers, as well as all strangers pa.s.sing through his mountains, and with a force of less than two hundred men, and a territory confined to the half ruined town of Badjazze, in the gulf of Alexandretta, and a few miles of the surrounding mountains, his father and himself have for the last thirty years defied all the attempts of the neighbouring Pashas to subdue them.

The inhabitants of Aleppo have been for several years past divided into two parties; the Sherifs (the real or pretended descendants of the Prophet), and the Janissaries. The former distinguish themselves by twisting a green turban round a small red cap, the latter wear high Barbary caps, with a turban of shawl, or white muslin, and a Khandjar, or long crooked knife in their girdles. There are few Turks in the city who have been able to keep aloof from both parties.

The Sherifs first showed their strength about forty years ago, during a tumult excited by their chiefs in consequence of a supposed insult received by Mr. Clarke, the then British Consul. Aleppo was governed by them in a disorderly manner for several years without a Pasha, until the Bey of Alexandretta, being appointed to the Pashalik, surprised the town and ordered all the chief Sherifs to be strangled[.] The Pasha however, found his authority greatly limited by the influence which Tshelebi Effendi, an independent Aleppine grandee, had gained over his countrymen. The immense property of Tshelebi?s family added to his personal qualities, rendered his influence and power so great that during twenty years he obliged several Pashas who would not yield to his counsels and designs to quit the town.He never would accept of the repeated offers made by the Porte to raise him to the Pashalik. His interests were in some measure supported by the corps of Janissaries; who in Aleppo, as in other Turkish towns, const.i.tute the regular military force of the Porte; but until that period their chiefs had been without the smallest weight in the management of public affairs. One of Tshelebi?s household officers, Ibrahim Beg, had meanwhile been promoted, through the friends of his patron at Constantinople, to the first dignities in the town. He was made Mutsellim (vice governor), and Moha.s.sel (chief custom house officer), and after the death of Tshelebi, his power devolved upon Ibrahim. This was in 1786.

Kussa Pasha, a man of probity and talents, was sent at that time as Pasha to Aleppo. Being naturally jealous of Ibrahim Beg?s influence, he endeavoured to get possession of his person, by ordering him to be detained during a visit, made by Ibrahim to compliment the Pasha [p.650]

upon his arrival, for a debt which Ibrahim owed to a foreign merchant, who had preferred his complaints to the Pasha?s tribunal. Ibrahim paid the debt, and was no sooner out of the Pasha?s immediate reach, than he engaged Ahmed Aga (one of the present Janissary chiefs), to enter with him into a formal league against Kussa. The Janissaries, together with Ibrahim?s party, attacked the Pasha?s troops; who after several days fighting, were driven out of the town, and Ibrahim was soon afterwards named Pasha of three tails, and for the first time Pasha of Aleppo. From that period (1788-89) may be dated the power of the Janissaries. Ibrahim had been the cause of their rising into consideration, but he soon found that their party was acquiring too much strength; he therefore deemed it necessary to countenance the Sherifs, and being a man of great talents, he governed and plundered the town, by artfully opposing the two parties to each other. In the year 1789, Ibrahim was nominated to the Pashalik of Damascus. Sherif Pasha, a man of ordinary capacity, being sent to Aleppo, the Janissaries soon usurped the powers of government.

At the time of the French invasion of Egypt, the intrigues of Djezzar Pasha of Akka drove Ibrahim from his post at Damascus, and he was obliged to follow the Grand Vizir?s army into Egypt. When after the campaign of Egypt the Grand Vizir with the remains of his army, was approaching Aleppo upon his return to Constantinople, Ibrahim conceived hopes of regaining his lost seat at Aleppo. Through the means of his son Mohammed Beg, then Moba.s.sei, the Janissaries were persuaded that the Vizir had evil intentions against them, forged letters were produced to that effect, and the whole body of Janissaries left the town before the Vizir?s arrival in its neighbourhood. Their flight gave Ibrahim the sought for opportunity to represent the fugitives to the Vizir as rebels afraid to meet their master?s presence; they were shortly afterwards, by a Firmahn from the Porte, formally proscribed as rebels, and the killing of any of them who should enter the territory of Aleppo was declared lawful. They had retired to Damascus, Latikia, Tripoli, and the mountains of the Druses, and they spared no money to get the edict of their exile rescinded. After a tedious bargain for the price of their pardon, they succeeded at last in obtaining it, on condition of paying one hundred thousand piastres into the Sultan?s treasury. Ibrahim Pasha, who had in the meanwhile regained the Pashalik of Aleppo, was to receive that sum from them, and he had so well played his game, that the Janissaries still thought him their secret friend. The princ.i.p.al chiefs, trusting to Ibrahim?s a.s.surances, came to the town for the purpose of paying down the money; they were a few days afterwards arrested, and it was generally believed that Ibrahim would order them the same night to be strangled. In Turkey however, there are always hopes as long as the purse is not exhausted. The prisoners engaged Mohammed, Ibrahim?s beloved son, to intercede in their favour; they paid him for that service one thousand zequins in advance, and promised as much more: and he effectually extorted from his father a promise not to kill any of them. It is said that Ibrahim foretold his son that the time would come when he would repent of his intercession. A short time afterwards Ibrahim was nominated a second time to the Pashalik of Damascus, which [p.651] became vacant by Djezzar?s death, in 1804. His prisoners were obliged to follow him to Damascus; from whence they found means to open a correspondence with the Emir Bes.h.i.+r, the chief of the Druses, and to prevail upon him to use all his interest with Ibrahim to effect their deliverance. Ibrahim stood at that time in need of the Emir?s friends.h.i.+p; he had received orders from the Porte to seize upon Djezzar?s treasures at Akka, and to effect this the co-operation of the Druse chief was absolutely necessary. Upon the Emir?s reiterated applications, the prisoners were at last liberated.

When Ibrahim Pasha removed to Damascus, he procured the Pashalik of Aleppo for his son Mohammed Pasha, a man who possesses in a high degree the qualification so necessary in a delegate of the Porte, of understanding how to plunder his subjects. The chief of a Sherif family, Ibn Ha.s.san Aga Khalas (who has since entered into the corps of the Janissaries, and is now one of their princ.i.p.al men), was the first who resolved to oppose open force to his measures; he engaged at first only seven or eight other families to join him, and it was with this feeble force that the rebellion broke out which put an end to the Pasha?s government. The confederates began by knocking down the Pasha?s men in the streets wherever they met them, Janissaries soon a.s.sembled from all quarters to join Ha.s.san?s party; and between two or three hundred Deli Bas.h.i.+ or regular troops of the Pasha were ma.s.sacred in the night in their own habitations, to which the rebels found access from the neighbouring terraces or flat roofs. Still the Pasha?s troops would have subdued the insurgents had it not been for the desperate bravery of Ha.s.san Aga. After several months daily fighting in the streets, in which the Pasha?s troops had thrown up entrenchments, want of food began to be sensibly felt in the part of the city which his adherents occupied near the Serai, a very s.p.a.cious building now in ruins. He came therefore to the resolution of abandoning the city. At Mohammed?s request a Tartar was sent, from Constantinople, with orders enjoining him to march against Berber, governor of Tripoli, who had been declared a rebel.

Having thus covered the disgrace of his defeat, he marched out of Aleppo in the end of 1804, but instead of proceeding to Tripoli, he established his head quarters at Sheikh Abou Beker, a monastery of Derwishes situated upon an elevation only at one mile?s distance from Aleppo, where he recruited his troops and prepared himself to besiege the town.

His affairs, however, took a more favourable turn upon the arrival of a Kapidgi Bas.h.i.+ or officer of the Porte from Constantinople, who carried with him the most positive orders that Mohammed Pasha should remain governor of Aleppo, and be acknowledged as such by the inhabitants, The Kapidgi?s persuasions, as well as the Sultan?s commands, which the Janissaries did not dare openly to disobey, brought on a compromise, in consequence of which the Pasha re-entered the city. So far he had gained his point, but he soon found himself in his palace without friends or influence; the Janissaries were heard to declare that every body who should visit him would be looked upon as a spy; on Fridays alone, the great people paid him their visit in a body. The place meanwhile was governed by the chiefs of the Janissaries and the Sherifs. At length the Pasha succeeded, by a secret nightly correspondence, to detach the latter from the Janissaries, who were gaining the ascendancy. The Sherifs are the natural supporters [p.652] of government in this country; most of the villages round Aleppo were then in their possession, they command the landed interests, all the Aleppo grandees of ancient families, and all the Ulemas and Effendis belong to their body, and the generality of them have received some education, while out of one hundred Janissaries, there are scarcely five who know how to read or to write their own names. The civil war now broke out afresh, and Mohammed had again the worst of it. After remaining three months in the town, he returned to his former encampment at Sheikh Abou Beker, from whence he a.s.sisted his party in the town who had taken possession of the castle and several mosques. This warfare lasted nearly two years without any considerable losses on either side. The Sherifs were driven out of the mosques, but defended themselves in the castle.

Generally, the people of Aleppo, Janissaries as well as Sherifs, are a cowardly race. The former never ventured to meet the Pasha?s troops on the outside of their walls, the latter did not once sally forth from the castle, but contented themselves with firing into the town, and princ.i.p.ally against Bankousa, a quarter exclusively inhabited by Janissaries. The Pasha on his side would have ordered his Arnaouts to take the town by a.s.sault, had not his own party been jealous of his military power, and apprehensive of the fury of an a.s.saulting army, for which reason they constantly endeavoured to prevent any vigorous attack, promising that they would alone bring the enemy to terms. After nearly two years fighting, during which time a considerable part of the town was laid in ruins, the Pasha with the Sherifs were on the point of succeeding, and compelling the Janissaries to surrender. The chiefs of the Janissaries had applied to the European Consuls for their mediation between them and the Pasha, the conditions of their surrender were already drawn up, and in a few days more their power in Aleppo would probably have been for ever annihilated by a treacherous infraction of the capitulation, when, by a fortunate mistake, a Tartar, sent from Constantinople to Mohammed, entered the town, instead of taking his packet to Sheikh Abou Beker; the Janissaries opened the dispatches, and found them to contain a Firmahn, by which Mohammed Pasha was recalled from his Pashalik of Aleppo. This put an end to the war; Mohammed dismissed the greater part of his troops and retired: the Janissaries came to a compromise with the Sherifs in the castle, and have since that time been absolute masters of the city.

I cannot omit mentioning that during the whole of the civil war, the persons and property of the Franks were rigidly respected. It sometimes happened that parties of Sherifs and Janissaries skirmis.h.i.+ng in the Bazars, left off firing by common consent, when a Frank was seen pa.s.sing, and that the firing from the Minarets ceased, when Franks pa.s.sed over their flat roofs from one house to another. The Janissaries have this virtue in the eyes of the Franks, that they are not in the smallest degree fanatical; the character of a Sherif is quite the contrary, and whenever religious disputes happen, they are always excited and supported by some greenhead.

Since the removal of Mohammed Pasha the Porte has continued to nominate his successors; but the name of Pasha of Aleppo is now nothing more than a vain t.i.tle. His first successor was Alla eddin Pasha, a near relation of Sultan Selim: then Waledin Pasha, Othman [p.653] Pasha Darukly, Ibrahim Pasha, a third time, and the present governor Seruri Mohammed Pasha. Except the last, who is now in the Grand Vizir?s camp near Constantinople they have all resided at Aleppo, but they occupied the Serai more like state prisoners than governors. They never were able to carry the most trifling orders into effect, without feeing in some way or other the chiefs of the Ja[n]issaries to grant their consent.

The corps of Janissaries, or the Odjak of Aleppo, was formerly divided, as in other Turkish towns, into companies or Ortas, but since the time of their getting into power, they have ceased to submit to any regular discipline: they form a disorderly body of from three to four thousand men, and daily increase their strength and number by recruits from the Sherifs. Those who possess the greatest riches, and whose family and friends are the most numerous, are looked upon as their chiefs, though they are unable to exercise any kind of discipline. Of these chiefs there are at present six princ.i.p.al ones, who have succeeded in sharing the most lucrative branches of the revenue, and what seems almost incredible, they have for the last six years preserved harmony amongst themselves; Hadji Ibrahim Ibn Herbely is at this moment the richest and most potent of them all.

The legal forms of Government have not been changed, and the Janissaries outwardly profess to be the dutiful subjects of the Porte. The civil administration is nominally in the hands of the Mutsellim, who is named by the Pasha and confirmed by the Porte. the Kadhi presides in the court of justice, and the Moha.s.sel or chief custom house officer is [a]llowed to perform his functions in the name of his master, but the Mutsellim dares not enforce any orders from the Porte nor the Kadhi decide any law suit of importance, without being previously sure of the consent of some of the chief Janissaries. The revenue which the grand Signior receives at this moment from Aleppo is limited to the Miri, or general landtax, which the Janissaries themselves pay, the Kharatsh or tribute of the Christians and Jews, and the income of the custom house, which is now rented at the yearly rate of eighty thousand piastres. Besides these there are several civil appointments in the town, which are sold every year at Constantinople to the highest bidder: the Janissaries are in the possession of the most lucrative of them, and remit regularly to the Porte the purchase money. The outward decorum which the Janissaries have never ceased to observe towards the Porte is owing to their fear of offending public opinion, so as to endanger their own security. The Porte, on the other hand, has not the means of subduing these rebels, established as their power now is, without calling forth all her resources and ordering an army to march against them, from Constantinople. The expense of such an enterprize would hardly be counterbalanced by the profits of its success; for the Janissaries, pushed to extremities, would leave the town and find a secure retreat for themselves and their treasures in the mountains of the Druses: both parties therefore endeavour to avoid an open rupture; it is well known that the chief Janissaries send considerable presents to Constantinople to appease their master?s anger, and provided the latter draws supplies for his pressing wants, no matter how or from whence, the insults offered to his supreme authority are easily overlooked.

The Janissaries chiefly exercise their power with a view to the filling of their purses. [p.654] Every inhabitant of Aleppo, whether Turk or Christian, provided he be not himself a Janissary, is obliged to have a protector among them to whom he applies in case of need, to arrange his litigations, to enforce payment from his creditors, and to protect him from the vexations and exactions of other Janissaries. Each protector receives from his client a sum proportionate to the circ.u.mstances of the client?s affairs. It varies from twenty to two thousand piastres a year, besides which, whenever the protector terminates an important business to the client?s wishes, he expects some extraordinary reward. If two protectors happen to be opposed to each other on account of their clients, the more powerful of the two sometimes carries the point, or if they are equal in influence, they endeavour to settle the business by compromise, in such a way as to give to justice only half its due. Those Janissaries, who have the greatest number of clients are of course the richest, and command the greatest influence. But these are not the only means which the Janissaries employ to extort money. They monopolize the trade of most of the articles of consumption, (which have risen in consequence, to nearly double the price which they bore six years ago), as well as of several of the manufactures of Aleppo; upon others they levy heavy taxes; in short their power is despotic and oppressive; yet they have hitherto abstained from making, like the Pashas, avanies upon individuals by open force, and it is for that reason that the greater part of the Aleppines do not wish for the return of a Pasha. Though the Janissaries extort from the public, by direct and indirect means, more than the Pashas ever did by their avanies, each individual discharges the burthen imposed upon him more readily, because he is confident that it insures the remainder of his fortune; in the Pasha?s time, living was cheaper, and regular taxes not oppressive; but the Pasha would upon the most frivolous pretexts order a man of property to be thrown into prison and demand the sacrifice of one fourth of his fortune to grant him his deliverance. Notwithstanding the immense income of the chief Janissaries, they live poorly, without indulging themselves in the usual luxuries of Turks-women and horses. Their gains are h.o.a.rded in gold coin, and it is easy to calculate, such is the publicity with which all sort of business is conducted, that the yearly income of several of them cannot amount to less than thirty or forty thousand pounds sterling.

It is necessary to have lived for some time among the Turks, and to have experienced the mildness and peacefulness of their character, and the sobriety and regularity of their habits, to conceive it possible that the inhabitants of a town like Aleppo, should continue to live for years without any legal master, or administration of justice, protected only by a miserable guard of police, and yet that the town should be a safe and quiet residence. No disorders, or nightly tumults occur; and instances of murder and robbery are extremely rare. If serious quarrels sometimes happen, it is chiefly among the young Janissaries heated with brandy and amorous pa.s.sion, who after sunset fight their rivals at the door of some prost.i.tute. This precarious security is however enjoyed only within the walls of the city; the whole neighbourhood of Aleppo is infested by obscure tribes of Arab and Kurdine robbers, who through the negligence of the Janissaries, acquire every day more insolence and more confidence in the [p.655] success of their enterprises. Caravans of forty or fifty camels have in the course of last winter been several times attacked and plundered at five hundred yards from the city gate, not a week pa.s.ses without somebody being ill-treated and stripped in the gardens near the town; and the robbers have even sometimes taken their night?s rest in one of the suburbs of the city, and there sold their cheaply acquired booty. In the time of Ibrahim Pasha, the neighbourhood of Aleppo to the distance of four or five hours, was kept in perfect security from all hostile inroads of the Arabs, by the Pasha?s cavalry guard of Deli Bas.h.i.+. But the Janissaries are very averse from exposing themselves to danger; there is moreover no head among them to command, no common purse to pay the necessary expences, nor any individual to whose hands the public money might be trusted.