| Transcript |
WITH THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA MINOR. 71
of deciding causes, distributing money, and running for pilaff, is ostentatiously displayed
before them, in order to dazzle, astonish, and impress on those stranger-infidels a high
opinion of Turkish superiority. They are allowed to enter the Divan seemingly as
spectators, and are left standing in the crowd without notice or respect. On rare
occasions, the tired ambassador, if he be from a favoured nation, is allowed a joint-stool to
sit on; but such an indulgence is not permitted to the rest: secretaries of legation,
dragomans, consuls, &c. are kept standing for several hours, till the whole of the
exhibition is displayed. It is then notified to the Sultan, that some giaours are in the
Divan, and, on inquiring into their business, that they humbly crave to be admitted into his
sublime presence, to prostrate themselves before him. It is now that orders are given to
feed, wash, and clothe them, and it is notified that when they are fit to be seen, they will be
admitted ; and this is done accordingly. Joint-stools are brought in, on which are placed
metal trays, without cloth, knife, or fork; and every one helps himself with his fingers,
including the ambassador. After this scrambling and tumultuous refreshment, water is
poured on the smeared and greasy persons who partake of it. They are then led forth to
a large tree in the court, where a heap of pellises of various qualities lie on the pavement,
shaken out of bags in which they were brought. From this, every person to be admitted to
the presence takes one, and, having wrapped himself in it, he is seized by the collar, and
dragged into the presence of the Sultan, as we have elsewhere noticed. Such were the
unseemly ceremonies used on these occasions only a few years ago; but, like other
Turkish barbarisms, they are daily disappearing, and the introduction of the representative of one sovereign to the audience of another, is approaching to the decorum of
European usages.
Our illustration presents the gate Capi Arasi, leading from the first to the second court
of the seraglio, where the Divan is held, and so it is the entrance to it. It is also the place
where delinquents are led for punishment, and thus originated the Turkish expression
of a man deserving to be sent "between gates," which the name Capi Arasi signifies.
Here it is that the executioners sit, and the implements of their trade hang on the walls
round about them, forming a horrid combination. Yet it was here, and in this company,
that foreign ambassadors were obliged to wait till orders were issued to admit them into
the court of the Divan. Crowds of hateful dogs are usually seen here. As they are
called "the consummators of Turkish justice," by lacerating and devouring the bodies of
criminals exposed in the streets after decapitation, so, as it were by instinct, they seem
fond of congregating with their fellow-executioners.
THE MEDAK, OR EASTERN STORY-TELLER.
The Turks have no theatres where various persons habited in appropriate costume
represent the manners, usages, and feelings of real life, among artificial scenery, which
imitates objects of nature and art; they have no resemblance of woods, or gardens, or |
