ection>Miss Pardoe
The City of the Sultan
The City Life and Domestic Manners of the Turks, in 1836 (Vol. 1&2) Complete Edition
e-artnow, 2020
Contact: [email protected]
EAN 4064066399696
Table of Contents
Volume 1
Table of Contents
PREFACE.
In publishing the present work I feel that I should be deficient in self-justice, did I not state a few facts relatively to the numerous difficulties with which I have had to contend during its compilation.
The language of Turkey, in itself a serious impediment from its total dissimilarity to every European tongue, naturally raises a barrier between the native and the stranger, which is to the last only partially removed by the intervention of a third person; who, acting as an Interpreter, too frequently fritters away the soul of the conversation, even where he does not wilfully pervert its sense. But this drawback to a full and free intercourse with the natives, irritating and annoying as it is, sinks into insignificance, when compared with the myriad snares laid for the stranger, (and, above all, for the literary stranger) by party-spirit and political prejudice. The liberal-minded and high-hearted politician of Europe, even while he is straining every nerve, and exerting every energy, to support and strengthen the interests of his country, disdains to carry with him into private life the hatreds, the jealousies, and the suspicions, which, like rust on metal, mar the brightness of the spirit that harbours them. He does not reject a friend because his political tenets may be at variance with his own; nor overlook the amiable traits of his character, to dwell only upon his opposing prejudices and interests.
The height to which party-spirit is carried in Constantinople; or I should rather say, in the Frank quarter of Constantinople, would be laughable were it not mischievous. Even females are not free from the malaria which hovers like an atmosphere about the streets and “palaces” of Pera; and a traveller has not been domesticated a week among its inhabitants, ere he almost begins to believe that the destinies of the whole Eastern Empire hang upon the breath of a dozen individuals. With one party, Russia is the common sewer into
