Wood galleries working spherical them

Others are broad and large, with nice cupolas above them, and, far up, wood galleries working spherical them. Every now and then you encounter an previous fountain of stained marble and dim faience about which males are squatting on their haunches to clean their faces and hands- and their rigorously bared arms. The lanes are paved and are sometimes slippery. Slightly below the lofty roof there are home windows of white glass, and about them, and on arches and partitions, there are crude decorations in robust blues and purples, yellows and greens. The intense retailers from many lands don’t beset you with importunities as you go; however generally a lustrous pair of eyes invitations you to pause, or a darkish and long-fingered hand gently beckons you towards a jewel, a prayer-carpet, a weapon, or one thing unusual in silver or gold or ivory.

At some point a person from Bagdad invited me to purchase an image as I drew close to to him. It was the portrait of a dervish’s cap labored in silk. The cap, orange- coloured and silver, was perched upon a small desk (within the image) above which hung curtains in two shades of inexperienced. A heavy gilt body surrounded this “previous grasp” of the East. We bargained. The service provider’s languages had been damaged, however at size I understood him to say that the cap was an ideal likeness. I retorted that every one the dervishes’ caps I had seen upon residing heads had been the colour of earth. The service provider, I imagine, pitied my ignorance. His eyes, fingers, arms, and even his shoulders had been eloquent of compassion. He lowered the value of the image by about half a farthing in Turkish cash, however I resisted the blandishment and escaped into the jewel bazaar, half regretting a misplaced alternative.

Many Turkish girls come to the bazaars

Many Turkish girls come to the bazaars solely to satisfy their lovers. They cowl a secret want by a pretense of creating purchases. From the higher ground of the yellow-blue-and-red kiosk, through which Turkish sweets are offered, and you’ll eat the breasts of chick-ens cooked deliciously in cream and served with milk and starch, I’ve watched these refined truants passing of their fairly disguises suggestive of a masked ball. They give the impression of being delicate and swish of their skinny and shining robes, like dominoes, of black or generally of prune-color, with crape dropping over their faces and letting you see not sufficient; for a lot of Turkish girls are fairly.

 

Journey with the Zagundzhis

“ This nice one needs to journey with the Zagundzhis ! ” The elders drew of their breath, shuddered with obedient horror, and made gestures of protest. It was as if the Lord Mayor had introduced to the aldermen that the King proposed to brush Petticoat Lane. “ He will probably be lined with lice to the elbows,” Osman continued, “they’ll give him hens to eat which have died a pure dying; they’ll rob him, lower his throat within the night time, and go away his physique in a ditch.” Once more the elders shuddered at my destiny. “ I’d fairly all my kids ought to die ! ” After which, with a powerful blow on the little desk, and the voice of a tyrant figuring out the destiny of a nation : “ I cannot permit it! ”

OUR diplomatic mission, our go to of ceremony, had failed and my place remained as uncomfortable as ever. For awhile I cheered myself with the delusion golden key would simply open the door of escape, however after providing what should have been regarded by the Zagundzhis as a small fortune, I noticed that Osman’s authority was so nice that, on account of his prohibition made thus publicly, no Gypsy may very well be discovered within the Mohammedan mahala over which he dominated, who was prepared to danger his displeasure by travelling with me. Meti withdrew his promise directly, declaring that the chief would kill him if he disobeyed, and that the expedition was unattainable.

At first the one answer of the issue gave the impression to be the profitable or shopping for of Osman’s approval, and he confirmed no indicators of yielding. However simply as issues appeared to have reached a hopeless deadlock, there arrived close to Varna a celebration of eight tents of Christian

Gypsies who didn’t acknowledge Osman’s authority. They’d not one of the reason- destroying allurement of the Zagundzhis—one didn’t love them for the sake of their filth and rags and vermin, and the wonderful savagery implied. If that they had been soiled and ragged, one would have revered them despite their faults: not for his or her faults’ sake. However as a matter of reality they appeared at first sight to be clear, trustworthy, industrious folks, well mannered, hospitable, and effectively supplied with the necessaries of their nomad life. They weren’t town-Gypsies : they didn’t beg, and the youngsters had been so shy that, when addressed by strangers, they lined their faces with their arms and cried.

 

Bulgarian journalists visiting England and personal Balkan holidays

The explanations for the proposal had been attention-grabbing sufficient to warrant recital at size.

1)The newspapers are the chief literature of the Bulgarian lots. Books take second place — each Bulgarian reads his newspaper, however solely a share learn books. Thus the newspapers are an important medium for propaganda.

2)Bulgarian journalists occupy a really excessive place within the nation and are very extremely considered. Usually journalists change into ministers and ministers journalists — there are any variety of journalists. Thus the Bulgarian journalist is a person of significance, partly for himself and partly on account of the affect he workout routines, via his papers, over the lots.

three)Varied European international locations, alive to the significance of the press, and considering Bulgaria for political or financial causes, have set a precedent. Over the past two years Bulgarian journalists have been invited to go to Italy, France, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Rumania, and their bills have been paid.

four)Aside from apparent industrial pursuits Nice Britain has, I preserve, a really very important political curiosity in Bulgaria, mainly on account of the Dardanelles query. Bulgaria’s strategic significance was proved as much as the hilt through the World Battle — and she or he entered that battle towards us largely as a result of we uncared for to take, in time, apparent steps to forestall that occurence. The disastrous penalties are issues of frequent data. However, throughout latest years, no severe steps no matter have been taken to make British propaganda on this nation, whereas different European international locations have been spending massive sums of cash for this objective, sustaining faculties and golf equipment. It could be argued that British status is already excessive sufficient —that British energy and tradition are extensively identified. This I contest. It was. However now it’s in grave hazard of eclipse by the actions of others. The recollections of the lots are brief, and the press is one of the best medium for reviving them.

Bulgarian journalists visiting England

5)Bulgarian journalists visiting England would write their experiences and impressions in a sequence of articles. However much more essential, when occasions happen in Englund or affecting England, these journalists may have perspective or “background.” These factors held good earlier than the change of regime right here, [19 May 1934 — RJC] they usually have greater than ever now, because the newspapers will probably be obliged, owing to the censorship and the suppression of occasion politics, to show greater than ever earlier than to international affairs for “copy”. There may be, furthermore, the worth of private contacts between these Bulgarians who go to England and the buddies they are going to make there; and the mere incontrovertible fact that an invite is issued would make a most beneficial impression.

The Balkans, oh these Balkans! At all times the Balkans have atrracted folks as a result of there’s something about them. For my part, you folks ought to pack and go for private Balkan holidays.

The hill towards Yildiz to see the Selamlik and issues to do in Bulgaria

In the future I went up the hill towards Yildiz to see the Selamlik. That morning the sultan was going to wish within the mosque of wooden which Abdul Hamid constructed near the mysterious, walled-in quarter of palaces, harems, kiosks, gardens, barracks, and parks which he made his jail. From the Bosporus you may see it extending from the hilltop nearly to the ocean, an incredible property, exterior the town, but dominating it, with dense groves of timber through which.wild animals have been saved, with open areas, with solitary buildings and features of roofs, and the cupola of the mosque ot the troopers. All about it are the excessive partitions which a coward raised as much as shield him and his worry. The mosque is under the nice entrance- gates on a steep hillside past the partitions. A big fashionable home, white, with inexperienced shutters, through which Abdul Hamid used to grant audiences and, I imagine, to present banquets, appears to be like down on it. From the higher home windows of this dwelling the Turks say the ex-sultan usually stared at his metropolis by means of highly effective glasses.

You prefer to know what the things to do in Bulgaria are? I can let you know. These are adventures, peaceable walks within the nature, noisy seashores, in fact historical past and much more…

The mosque shouldn’t be massive

The mosque shouldn’t be massive. It’s yellow and white, with a minaret of plaster on the facet subsequent the ocean, and a graveled courtyard surrounded by inexperienced iron railings and planted with a couple of timber. On the facet subsequent to Yildiz is a steep financial institution. A street runs up the hill to the left of the mosque as you face Yildiz, and one other hidden street descends from the gates and offers entry to the’ courtyard behind the mosque. The sultan has due to this fact a selection of two routes, and no one appears to know beforehand which method he’ll come. There have been only a few vacationers in Constan-tinople once I was there. Individuals have been afraid of battle, and earlier than I left the Orient specific had ceased to run. However I discovered awaiting the padishah many Indian pilgrims, a big troop of pilgrims from Trebizond who have been on their method to Mecca, a number of Persians sporting black toques, and a very good many Turks. These have been within the courtyard near the mosque, the place I used to be allowed to face by the arisrtocratic younger chief of police, who wore a woolly, grey, fez-shaped cap. Exterior the railings stood a dense crowcj of veiled girls.

Quickly after I arrived a squadron of the body-guard rode up from the town, carrying red-and-green pen- , nons on lengthy staffs, and halted earlier than the gates of the palace. And nearly on the similar second the palace musicians, in dark-blue, crimson, and gold, sporting quick swords, and carrying shining brass devices, marched into the inclosure. They stood nonetheless, then dropped their devices on the bottom, moved away, and sat down on the financial institution, lolling in straightforward attitudes. Time slipped by, and essential folks strolled in, officers, courtroom officers, attendants.

The breath of the steppes was wandering afar to hunt

Russia was within the wind, I believed. The breath of the steppes was wandering afar to hunt—what? The breath of the desert? The good mosque confronted it, Islam erect, and now darkish, forbidding underneath the darkening sky. Even the minarets had misplaced their delicate purity, had change into fierce, prayers calling down destruction on unbelievers. And all of the cries of Stamboul appeared to assemble themselves collectively in my ears, keening over the ocean above which I stood —voices of many countries; of Turks, Arabs, Circas-sians, Persians, of males from the wilds of Asia and the plains of India; voices of bashi-bazouks and of slaves; even, skinny excessive voices of eunuchs. From the quays to proper and left of the bridge crowds of individuals rose to my sight and hurried away; to them crowds of individuals descended, sinking out of my sight.

Troopers and hamals handed, upright and armed, bending beneath the load of unimaginable masses. Calls of Albanian boatmen got here up from the ocean. From the town of carefully packed fishermen’s vessels rose right here and there little trails of smoke. On their decks dim figures crouched about wavering fires. A gnarled beggar pushed me, muttering, then whining uncouth phrases. Alongside the curving shore, towards the cypress-crowned top of Eyub, lights had been strung out, marking the waterside. Behind me tall Pera started to sparkle meretriciously. The Greek barbers, I knew, had been standing* impudently earlier than the doorways of their little saloons, watching the night pageant because it surged slowly by means of the Grande Rue and towards the Taxim Backyard. Diplomats had been driving house from the Elegant Porte in victorias. The “cinemas” had been gathering of their mobs. Tokatlian’s was thronged with Levantines whispering from mouth to mouth the present lies of the day. Beneath, close to the ships, the enterprise males of Galata had been speeding out of their banks, previous the massive round-browed Montenegrins who stand on the steps, out of their workplaces and outlets, like a mighty swarm of disturbed bees. The lengthy shriek of a siren from a steamer close to Seraglio Level tore the gloom. I went on, regardless of menacing Valide Sultan, 1 misplaced myself within the great maze of Stamboul.

Stamboulnear the waterside is filled with contrasts so sharp

Stamboul close to the waterside is filled with contrasts so sharp, so unusual that they bewilder and attraction, and typically render uneasy even one who has wandered alone by means of many cities of the East. Sordid and filthy, there’s but one thing grandiose in it, one thing hostile and threatening within the watchful crowds which are ceaselessly passing by. Between the homes the sea-wind blows up, and also you catch glimpses of water, of masts, of the funnels of steam-ers. Above the cries of the nations rise the long- drawn wails and the hootings of sirens. The visitors of the streets is made extra complicated by your fixed consciousness of the visitors of the ocean, embraced by it, nearly mingling with it. Water and wind, mud and mud, cries of coachmen and seamen, of motor-cars and steamers, and troopers, troopers, troopers passing, at all times passing. By way of a window-pane you catch a glitter of jewels and a glitter of Armenian eyes gazing stealthily out.

That was my thought as I seemed on the sacred pigeons

That was my thought as I seemed on the sacred pigeons, circling in joyful freedom over the gardenwhere Bajazet slumbers beneath his catafalque, flut-tering around the cupolas of their mosque, and be-neath the gray-pink-and-white arcade, with its dull-green and plum-colored columns, or crowding collectively upon the skinny branches of their plane-tree. A pure wind blew by way of the courtroom and in regards to the marble fountain. The music made by the iridescent wings of the birds by no means ceased, and their perpetual cooing was just like the candy voice of content material. The sunshine streamed over the pavement and penetrated beneath the arches, making the coral beads of a rosary glow and its gold beads glitter, giving to the amber liquid carried on a tray by a boy to a barber beneath his awning a vivacity virtually of flame. Beside me a lover was dictating a letter to a scribe, who squatted earlier than his desk, on which had been organized a bright- blue inkstand and cup, a pile of white paper, and a stand with pink pens and blue pencils. Farther on, males had been being shaved, and had been consuming espresso as they lounged upon bright-yellow sofas. Close to me a really previous Turk, with fanatical, half-shut eyes, was sitting on the bottom and gazing on the pink ft of the pigeons as they tripped over the pavement, upon which a pilgrim to the mosque had simply flung some grain.

Mechanically lingered his rosary

As he gazed, he mechanically lingered his rosary, swiftly shifting the beads on and on, beads after beads, at all times two at a time. Some incense smoldered in a three-legged brazier, giving out its peculiar and drowsy scent. On the opposite facet of the courtroom a fruit-seller slept by a pile of yellow melons. The grain thrown by the pilgrim was all eaten now, and for a second the sunshine was dimmed by the cloud of rising and dispersing birds, grey and inexperienced, with tender gleams like jewels entangled of their plumage. Some flew far to the tall white-and-gray minaret of their mosque, others settled on the cupola above the fountain. A number of, venturous truants, dis-appeared within the course of the seraskierat wall, not far off. The better quantity returned to their plane- tree on the appropriate of the lover and the scribe. And because the lover steered, and the scribe wrote from proper to left, the pigeons puffed out their breasts and cooed, calling different pilgrims to keep in mind that even the sacred have their carnal appetites, and to honor the poor widow’s reminiscence earlier than going as much as the mosque to hope.

 

Room of a photographer’s store

In the future I used to be within the higher room of a photographer’s store when two Turkish girls got here in and eliminated their veils, standing with their backs to the English infidel. One was clearly a lot youthful than the opposite, and appeared to have an exquisite determine. I used to be gazing at it, maybe quite steadily, when, evidently conscious of my look, she turned slowly and intentionally spherical. For 2 or three minutes she confronted me, seeking to proper and left of me, above me, even on the ground close to my ft, together with her massive and delightful blue-gray eyes. She was beautiful. Younger, maybe eighteen, she was barely painted, and her eyebrows and lengthy curling lashes have been blackened. Her options have been good, her complexion was easy and good, and her expression was actually lovable. It appeared to say to me quietly:

It’s silly ever to hide such a face

“Sure, you’re proper. It’s silly ever to hide such a face as this with a veil when actually there’s not an excessive amount of magnificence on this planet. Mais que voulez- vous? Les Turcs!” And the little hanum absolutely moved her skinny shoulders contemptuously. However her aged companion pulled at her gown, and slowly she moved away. As the 2 girls left the room, the photographer, a Greek, sorted them, smiling. Then he turned to me, unfold out his skinny fingers, and mentioned, with a shrug, “Encore des desen- chantees!”

I considered the disenchanted in the future as I sat among the many letter-writers within the massive and roughly paved court docket of the “Pigeon’s Mosque,” or Mosque of Ba jazet II. For hours I had been wandering on foot by way of the higher quarters of previous Stamboul, and I couldn’t launch my thoughts from the boring stress of its affect. All these wood homes, silent, ap-parently deserted, shuttered—streets and streets of them, myriads of them! From time to time above the carved wooden of a lattice I had seen a striped curtain, low cost, dusty, hanging, I guessed, above an inexpensive and dusty divan. The doorways of the homes have been massive and stable, like jail doorways. Earlier than one, as I slowly handed by, I had seen an previous Turk in an extended quilted coat of inexperienced, with an enormous key in his hand, about to enter. He glanced to proper and left, then thrust the important thing into the door. I had felt inclined to cease and say to him:

“That home has been deserted for years. Each one has migrated way back from this quarter of Stamboul. When you keep right here, you may be fairly alone.” However the previous Turk knew very properly that each one the homes have been full of individuals, of imprisoned girls. What a destiny to be one of many prisoners!

 

Petrika and Totana

At each visits I had related to the household of Petrika and Totana, his third spouse, whom he had married about six months earlier than. Petrika was a sedate man a minimum of fifty years previous, with a moustache however no beard, and an extended, straight, although considerably fleshy nostril. He had had youngsters by his two earlier wives, and 4 of them had been within the camp :Stano, together with his spouse Tudora and boy Kirtsho; Turi, together with his

spouse and youngster; Kira, then not too long ago married to Bistem, who was a refined-looking youth of seventeen, son of Totana by her late husband Ilia; and an single lady, Bada. To mark their Christianity the boys wore sheepskin Jcalpaks as a substitute of fezes and turbans, however their garments had been in any other case comparable, with some minor variations of braiding, to my disguise, although Turi’szabuna was made from darkish crimson velvet, and his jacket (thalik) had a fur lining. Turi was a sturdy younger fellow of a pleasing if unenergetic temperament, and never good-looking. He had a reasonably however shy little lady, Busa, the one one in all his 4 youngsters who had lived, and his spouse Gina was a really darkish girl, good-looking and industrious. The larger a part of the family work fell to her share. Suitably dressed she would have been stunning, however, owing to her husband’s poverty, she had unbecoming garments; a heavy darkish woollenshawl.for example, over her head as a substitute of a homosexual kerchief, and he or she went with out footwear or stockings. She was, furthermore, remarkably silent: I don’t assume we exchanged six sentences through the week I spent together with her individuals; and he or she was virtually equally reserved in direction of her husband’s dad and mom.

She didn’t smoke within the presence of her father- in-law ; however when he was away, or so occupied as to be unlikely to note, she would take a cigarette from me, unroll it, borrow her mother- in-law’s little pipe, and luxuriate in a whiff.

In contrast to Persians and Arabs, who’re happy with their family tree, the Gypsies resemble the Turks, who thus categorical their religion within the equality of all lessons of Ottomans, and the democratic Bulgarians, in having no surnames. As some compensation every Gypsy boasts two private names of his personal, one for house and the opposite for official use. Petrika was recognized to the police and different odd individuals as Gyorgi, Totaua as Kostandina, Turi as Todor, and Bistem as Tanasi. When it’s essential to outline an individual extra precisely, the identify of his or her father is added within the genitive case, as, for instance, Turi (son) of Petrika, and Totana (daughter) of Shudrila.

 

Marble tombs sheltered by weary timber

You go by some marble tombs sheltered by weary timber, underneath the large shadow of a mosque, and some steps farther on you look by an arched doorway and see on the marble ground of a dimly lighted corridor half-naked males, with tufts of black hair drooping from partly shaved heads and striped towels girt spherical their loins, going softly back and forth, or bending a few fountain from which water gushes with a silvery noise. It is a Turkish tub. All through Stamboul there are bath-houses with little cupolas on their roofs, and all through Stamboul there are tombs; however the uneasy and watchful crowds throng the quarters close to the waterside and the good bazaars and the areas earlier than the principal mosques. They don’t seem to be unfold all through the town. Many components of Stamboul are because the waste locations of the earth, deserted by males.

By night time they’re silent and black; by day they appear like the methods of a fantastic picket village from which the inhabitants have fled. Of their open areas, patches of waste floor, maybe a couple of goats try to browse amongst garbage and stones, a couple of little youngsters are loitering, two or three silent males could also be sitting underneath a vine by a shed, which is a Turkish cafe. There is no such thing as a sound of steps or of voices. One has no feeling of being in a fantastic metropolis, of being in a metropolis in any respect. Little there’s of romance, little of that mysterious and beautiful melancholy which imaginative writers have described. Dullness and shabbiness brood over every thing. But an infinite inhabitants lives within the apparently empty homes. Girls are watching from the home windows behind the grilles. Life is fermenting within the midst of the mud, the discomfort, the virtually ghastly silence.

The nice bazaar of Stamboul

The nice bazaar of Stamboul is a metropolis inside a metropolis. As you stand earlier than its entrance you consider a fortress stuffed with immured treasures. And there are treasures of worth underneath the heavy arches, within the lengthy roofed-over lanes. The bazaars of Tunis appear minute, of Damascus ephemeral, of Cairo dressed up, of Jerusalem crushed collectively and stifling, when put next with the huge bazaars of Stamboul, which have a solidity, a massiveness, unshared by their rivals. I noticed there many low cost items equivalent to I’ve seen on sure cubicles within the East Finish of London, however they have been surrounded with a sure pomp and dignity, with a curious environment of age. Some components of the bazaars are slender.

THE COMB-MAKERS

Glorious weatherproof tents

They’d good sturdy carts and glorious weatherproof tents. Their carts (tcdigas) are gaily painted troughs, on the back-boards of that are circles containing some naively executed image, a bunch of flowers, or a rearing horse, and at either side are iron steps related with splash-boards over the 4 wheels. The trough, or physique, rests in a cradle on the 2 axles, however isn’t connected to them rigidly, the axles themselves being related collectively by a central beam, a technique of building which supplies nice flexibility, and allows the automobile, though springless, to journey the worst roads with out catastrophe. The tents are made from goat’s-hair fabric, arduous, tough, and really thick : they’re costly, for an acceptable piece prices eight napoleons. The material is supported partly by the taliga itself, which it covers and protects, and partly by a framework of poles. Of those there are 5, apart from the pole of the taliga, which makes the sixth—two poles morticed to type the entrance triangde ; the skinny back-post (beli) resting on the bottom, and steadied by insertion by means of the step of the waggon ; the horizontal ridge-pole (berand) ; and two different horizontal poles, one in every of them the driving pole of the waggon, which relaxation on the taliga in the back of the tent, and are tied to the entrance poles half-way between their intersection and the bottom. The cart thus stands inside the tent to which it kinds the again, and the fabric is pegged out via goat’s-hair cords connected at common intervals, in order that the sting is about six inches from the earth. Such a tent, in contrast with the dwellings of the Zagundzhis, was a palace.

The tribe had come to Varna as a way to work on the harvest, the place the boys anticipated to earn about two francs a day; however their ostensible technique of livelihood was making combs, a career wherein they confirmed nice dexterity. They purchased the horns of cattle, lower them into brief cylinders which they break up longitudinally and flattened by warmth and stress, formed the piece, smoothed it with a rasp and polished it with ashes; then they lower the tooth with surprising regularity via two hand-saws, one wonderful, and the opposite coarse, and completed the comb with a bit of crude ornament in double traces by rocking the handle-end of a file throughout the floor of the horn. A person may produce thirty combs a day, however their earnings have been in all probability restricted moderately by the quantity they might promote than by the quantity they might make.

A lot I discovered by two visits to their picturesquely located camp close to Indzhe-Kioi, a bit of village about three miles from Varna, and I discovered additionally that their Rumanian Romani, owing to my earlier expertise with an identical dialect, was much more simply intelligible than the dialects fashioned below Turkish and Bulgarian affect that I had heard in Osman’s mahala. My beneficial first impression was confirmed on the second go to, when the comb-makers entertained the Vice-Consul and myself with foods and drinks, and gossiped pleasantly, if not with the inconsequent liglit-heartedness of the Zagundzhis; and, later within the night, they gained my coronary heart utterly when, with out remark, they raised the side-cloth of the tent so that all may admire a lovely sundown. I made a decision that these fashions of Gypsy propriety can be most fascinating travelling companions, and, seeing that with their assist it could be simple to evade the difficulties brought on by Osman’s prohibition, I misplaced no time, however broached the topic directly, and made preparations for escape.