Turkish womanhood has exchanged the brightness of summer

But this feast of colour has ended, and the world of Turkish womanhood has exchanged the brightness of summer for the sober tints of autumn. The yashmak is now universally discarded, except by the ladies of the imperial household who are still required to wear it, as well as a black feredjd; the only bit of bright colour permitted being in the matter of the headkerchief of tulle they wear under the yashmak.

In the costume of the mass of Turkish women, the feredjd has been replaced by the charshaf, a mantle worn over the head and about the body down to the feet, drawn in slightly at the waist. The material and the colour of the garment differ according to the means and taste of the wearer, but the colour is always quiet and subdued. To the portion of the charshaf above the eyes a dark veil is attached, and this can be worn over the face, or thrown back over the head, as the wearer pleases. When thrown back, a Turkish lady’s face is seen as plainly as that of her European sister.

Defy artistic arrangement and effect

The charshaf may also be made of two pieces of cloth in order to secure a better fit, and although the garb might seem to defy artistic arrangement and effect, it is often very becoming and graceful It would appear that the charshaf was the original dress of Turkish women, with the important difference from the present fashion that the veil could not be thrown back, and was furnished with two holes for the eyes, as among Moslem women to-day in Persia and India. The yashmak, it is said, came into vogue at the time of the Conquest, being an adaptation of the veil worn then by women of the Christian peoples of the land. Its abandonment for the sake of a style which permits greater freedom is a sign of progress. But the change, which was made some thirty years ago, roused considerable opposition. Merchants in the bazaars objected to it, because a charshaf required less material to be made up than a feredj£, and consequently injured trade.

Three Years in Constantinople

A fresh eye is quick to detect distinctions and peculiarities. On the other hand, “ an old resident,” on the same principle, is more deeply impressed by the changes which have been wrought in the life and aspect of the city of his abode, since the days of his early recollections. To the visitor the old is new, and the new is old; while to the resident the old is familiar, and the new is strange.

If the former observer has the advantage of seeing things from a more striking and picturesque point of view, the latter is closer to fact and truth. Colonel White, writing in 1844, in his interesting book, Three Years in Constantinople, which such a competent authority as Sir Henry Layard pronounced to be the best work on Turkish life, said, that if a certain policy were pursued, “fifty years cannot elapse ere travellers will flock to Constantinople in search for relics of Moslem institutions with as much eagerness as they now seek for vestiges of Christian or Pagan antiquities. ” It would be an exaggeration to say that this prophecy has been literally fulfilled.

But events have verified its forecast to such an extent, that one is tempted to assume the prophet’s mantle, and predict that Colonel White’s words will come to pass in the next half-century. At any rate, if the world here has moved slowly, it has moved very far. The descriptions of Constantinople in such works as Miss Pardoe’s City of the Sultan, and Colonel White’s Three Years in Constantinople, seem to-day descriptions of another city.

Christian populations

In the political situation, in the matter of education both among the Turks and the Christian populations, the changes are simply enormous. This is, however, not the place to expatiate upon these serious topics, although it is only by their consideration that the greatness and far-reaching consequences of the new state of things can be properly appreciated. But look at the change in the matter of dress. Where is now the variety of costume, where the brightness of colour that made the movement of the population at all times a procession in gala dress? So far as her garb is concerned, a Turkish woman to-day is a sere and withered leaf.

Constantinopolis Christiana

It is very natural, when thoughtful men tread the road which skirts these ancient fortifications, that the mind should be profoundly impressed by the vanity of earthly might and greatness. On the one hand, the way is strewn with the wreck and ruin of ramparts once deemed impregnable:

O’er each mouldering tower,

Dim with the mist of years, grey flits the shade of power.

On the other hand, stretch great silent cemeteries, beneath whose dark cypresses lies the dust of a dead multitude more than can be numbered. As one has expressed the feeling awakened by this spectacle of wreckage and mortality, “ It is walking through the valley of the Shadow of Death.” And yet, seeing there must be an end to all things, is it not wiser and more just to dwell rather upon the glory that crowns these bulwarks for their long defence of the civilised life of the world?

For a full account of the Turkish Conquest, see E. Pears’ Tht Destruction of the Greek Empire.

AMONG THE CHURCHES OF THE CITY

Constantinople was a city of churches. Clavijo, the Spanish envoy, who visited the city in 1408, was assured that it was hallowed by the presence of no less than 8000 sanctuaries, counting large and smalL This was obviously an exaggeration, intended to impress the stranger s mind with a due sense of the city’s grandeur and sacredness.

Ducange in his great work, Constantinopolis Christiana, gives the names of some 400 churches mentioned by the Byzantine authors whose works he had examined. But a wider acquaintance with Byzantine literature since the time of that great student of the antiquities of Constantinople has discovered the names of many churches not upon his list It is therefore impossible to reach exact figures here, and we must be content with the vague statement that the number was so large as to form a striking feature of the city’s aspect This was only what might be expected in a city where the number of churches would be determined not only by the ordinary religious needs of a devout population, but also by the demands of the many monasteries which sought security from violence behind the bulwarks of the capital, notwithstanding the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, encountered there.