ing its equilibrium, shall fall, and astonish the world with another instance of mighty ruin** * Considérations sur la guerre actuelle des Turcs. CHAPTER VII. RELIGION, MORALS, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS Physical constitutions and general habits.-Moral and religious education.-Popular belief and practice.-Priests.-Dervishes.—Emirs.—Pilgrimage to Mecca.- Predestination.— Invocation of saints.-Belief in the efficacy of amulets, relics, and enchantments.-Faith in omens and dreams. Prejudice against pictures.-Punishment of apostacy.-Morality.— Proselytism.-Modes of proposing the faith to unbelievers.— Public charities.-Hospitality and alms.-Tenderness towards brute animals.—Character of the Turks ;—their austerity,―irritability of temper,-intemperance in the use of wine and opium,covetousness, ambition, hypocrisy,behaviour to strangers.-Virtues of the middle class.-Clothing of the Turks.-The warm bath.-Turkish luxuries and amusements;-conversation,-story-telling,-ombres chinoises, -dancers and gladiators,-athletic exercises.--General health. The plague.-Mourning.—Interments and funeral monuments. constitu general THE Turks are of a grave and saturnine Physical cast; they are in general well made and ro- tions and bust, patient of hunger and privations, capa- habits. ble of enduring the hardships of war, but not much inclined to habits of industry. The early hours and the regular lives of their mothers, their own habitual temperance and general freedom from violent passions, contribute to the preservation of their health, and the regularity of their features. Their way of living is simple and domestic: they prefer apathy and indolence to active enjoyments; but when moved by a powerful stimulus they sometimes indulge in pleasures to excess*. * "Pauci exercendo agro vel aliis artibus tolerare vitam. Non enim arare terram aut expectare annum tam facile persuaseris, quam vocare hostes, et vulnera mereri. Pigrum et iners omnino videtur sudore acquirere quod possit sanguine parari." (Montalban. ap. Elzevir. p. 24.) Denon, in his review of the different physiognomies of the inhabitants of Egypt, says, "Les Turcs ont des beautés plus graves avec des formes plus molles; leurs paupières épaisses laissent peu d'expression à leurs yeux : le nez gras, de belles bouches bien bordées, et de longues barbes touffues, un teint moins basané, un cou nourri, toute l'habitude du corps grave et lourde.—A parler en artiste on ne peut faire de leur beauté que la beauté d'un Turc." (Voyage, &c. t. i, p. 140.) De Tott, in his preliminary discourse, supposes, that their fibres are relaxed and their bodies enfeebled by the heat of the climate. Can the climate of Thrace, the country which produced the gigantic Maximin, whose extraordinary strength and courage procured to him from the Roman armies the names of Ajax and Hercules, and even the imperial dignity, be supposed to relax the fibres of its inhabitants? What more convincing proof can be given of the natural strength of their constitution, than the instance, which De Tott relates, of a Turk drinking off two bottles of lavender water without intoxication or injury to him self? (See Memoirs, v. i, p. 3.) religious The moral character is fundamentally formed Moral and in infancy and childhood, not by precept, education. so much as by the absence of evil; for the Turks receive their early education under the care of their mothers and their female attendants, who are secluded from the promiscuous society of men, and removed from the contagion of vicious example. Their religion, which is simple, is taught them by their parents in the harem. The minds of the children, as in other countries, are moulded into the dogmas of a particular system; they are inflated with the idea of their own religious superiority; and they are taught to cherish the delusion, till they regard the religionists of other denominations with feelings of contempt or even of abhorrence. belief and The revelations of heaven, and the precepts Popular of the prophet equally inculcate on the minds practice. of Mussulmans this exalted idea of themselves, and this sentiment of disdain and aversion for those who are strangers to their faith. "The prayers of the infidel are not prayers, but wanderings," says the koran. "I withdraw my foot, and turn away my face," says Mahomet, "from a society in which the faithful are mixed with the ungodly." Nor is the uncharitableness of the sentiment extinguish ed, nor even weakened, by the death of its object. "Pray not for those whose death is eternal," is a precept of the Mahometan church," and defile not thy feet by passing over the graves of men, the enemies of God and his prophet*." These commandments are precise and positive: they regulate the principles and the conduct of all classes of Mussulmans. It is vain to suppose their pernicious and uncharitable tendency counteracted by passages of scripture which breathe a milder spirit, or by the example of the prophet, who is known to have frequented the society of unbelievers. The Mahometan, who has risen above the prevailing prejudices of his religion and country, will alone appeal to these more tolerant precepts, in order to justify his conduct to his own heart, or to sanction it in the eyes of the public: but the vulgar mind, the great majority of the na "It is not allowed unto the prophet, nor unto those who are true believers, that they pray for idolaters, although they be of kin, after it is become known unto them, that they are inhabitants of hell. Neither did Abraham ask forgiveness for his father, otherwise than in pursuance of a promise which he had promised unto him: but when it became known unto him, that he was an enemy unto God, he desisted from praying for him. Verily Abraham was pitiful and compassionate." Koran, chap. ix, ver. 115, 116. Sale's translation, v. i, p. 263. Maracci, p. 317. |