The very geography of the place offers a
wide outlook. As a part of his everyday experience, a resident of
Constantinople lives within sight of Europe and Asia. Every day of his life, he
sees the waterway that runs between the two great continents thronged with
vessels of every nation, hurrying to and fro to bring the ends of the earth
together. Then, how much human power has been enthroned here the dominion of
Byzantium for one thousand years; the rule of Constantine and his successors for
eleven centuries; the sway of the Ottoman Sultans through four hundred and
fifty years. If what we see ought to do with what we are, here is a mound in
which to fashion a large life. But Europe and Asia are present in more than
their physical aspects, or in long periods of their history. Their
civilizations also meet here.
On every side there is the pressure of a
dominant Oriental society and polity, with its theocratic government,
autocracy, the creed of Islam, polygamy, slavery, eunuchs, secluded and veiled
womanhood, men in long robes and turbans, sluggishness, repose, the speech of
Central Asia softened by the accents of Persia and Arabia, minarets, domes
surmounted by the Crescent, graceful but strange salutations, festivals which
celebrate events in a course of history not your own, and express joys which
have never gladdened your soul And mingling, but not blended, with this world
of Asiatic thought and sentiment and manner, is a European world, partly
native, partly foreign, with ideas of freedom, science, education, bustle,
various languages, railroads, tramways, ladies in the latest Parisian fashions,
church bells, the banner of the Cross, newspapers and periodicals from every
European and American capital, knitting scattered children to the life of their
fatherland.
Foreign communities in Istanbul
The members of the foreign communities in the
City of the Sultan do not forget the lands of their birth, or of their race and
allegiance. Though circumstances have carried them far from their native shores
and skies, physical separation does not sever them from the spirit of their
peoples. Nay, as if to make patriotic sentiment easier, foreigners are placed
under the peculiar arrangements embodied in what are termed the Capitulations,
whereby, in virtue of old treaties, they enjoy the privilege of living to a
great extent under the laws of their respective countries, with little
interference on the part of the Ottoman Government.
When your house is your castle, in the
sense that no Turkish policeman dares enter it without the authorization of
your Consulate or Embassy, when legal differences between yourself and your
fellow-countrymen are submitted to judges, and argued by barristers, bred in
the law which rules in your own land, when your church and school can be what
they are at home, and when you can forward your letters, not only to foreign
countries but even to some parts of the Turkish Empire, with a stamp bearing
the badge of your own Government, it is natural that European residents in
Constantinople should be able to preserve their special character, both after
living here for many years, and also from generation to generation.
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