Travels and Discoveries in the Levant/Volume 1/Letter VI
VI.
Mytilene, June 20, 1852.
The Turks have just got through their great annual
fast the Ramazan; not, however, without one of the
breaches of the peace which usually occur in this
period, when the Mussulman, out of humour from
his long and painful abstinence from food and tobacco, has his sufferings aggravated by seeing the
Giaour in the daily enjoyment of these luxuries.
Hence a desire on the part of the Turk to break
the Giaonr's head, which is not unfrequently put in
execution; and there is an annual renewal of these
feuds, as in the faction-fights of an Irish fair. A
case of this kind has just come before me, in which
an Ionian, having been beat and maltreated by some
Turks, I had to apply to the Pasha for redress, by
whom the matter was referred to the Mejlis, or local
tribunal. This is a mixed court, composed of Mussulmans and Christian subjects of the Porte. The Pasha of Mytilene presides; the Cadi, or representative of Mahommedan law, sits by him; the Greek Archbishop is also a member. In islands like Mytilene, where the Greeks are rich and powerful, the Christian members of the Mejhs have considerable influence, and make it impossible for the Pasha to commit the arbitrary acts which were formerly so common.
The Mejlis takes cognizance of a variety of cases, civil as well as criminal. There is also another court, called the Mekkemé, which deals only with real property. Sales of land are ratified in this court, in the presence of the Cadi. A commercial tribunal, the Tijaret Mejlis, has been recently intro- duced in many places.
All matters of dispute between Ottoman subjects and subjects of European powers resident in Turkey are referred to the Mejlis; and in every such case, whether civil or criminal, the foreigner is represented in court by his Consul, who acts for him as his counsel.
According to the treaties made between the Porte and the principal European nations, no foreigner can be arrested and tried without the knowledo-e of his Consul; and in criminal proceedings an English Consul always claims a voice in the ultimate decision of the court.
His presence at a trial is always a check upon great injustice, because he is a witness to the proceedings not to be intimidated or silenced; and if his protest is not attended to, he can always appeal to his Ambassador,—an appeal which, in the case of the English embassy, is seldom made in vain.
In ordinary cases the Consul is represented at the Mejlis by his dragoman; when a matter of any importance demands his intervention, he goes himself.
It was on Monday last that I made my first appearance at the Mejlis of Mytilene. Knowing as yet no Turkish, and very little Greek, and being quite ignorant of the form of procedure in the court, I felt nearly as nervous when I walked in, as if I was going to be tried myself; but a little experience soon gave me confidence.
The place of meeting is a large square room, two sides of which, as is the fashion in Turkish houses, are composed entirely of windows. In the post of honour—in the right-hand corner, and facing the entrance-door—sits the Pasha, on a large divan, which runs along the side of the room opposite the door. On his left is the Cadi, with a book of Turkish law before him. On the right of the Pasha I found a vacant place for me. Then, all down the room, in nice gradation of dignity, were, first, the subordinate Turkish members of the Mejlis; then the Greek members; then the dragomans and other retainers, who were allowed chairs, but not seats on the divan.
The proceedings open, like all affairs in Turkey, with the bringing in of the chibouques, a distinction not extended beyond the precincts of the divan. The tobacco of a Pasha is very pleasant and aromatic, and there is none of that disagreeable thick vapour in the room which arises from the ashes of the European cigar. Opposite the divan stand the accuser, the accused, and the witnesses, who are brought in and out as they are wanted by a cavass, or policeman, in a rich dress, with three or four pistols and knives stuck sideways into his belt.
The proceedings open in a very slow and formal sort of way, with the reading Turkish documents by the Cadi; then the witnesses are called. If the case makes in favour of the Mahommedan accused or accuser, or other party to the suit, the Cadi lets it alone; if he sees that it is going against the Turk, he turns it in his favour by quoting some ready- made precedent, or by some other legal quibble. All that the Consrd can do, in such cases, is to protest, bully, threaten, and finally, if he can get no justice, report the whole story to Constantinople, where his Ambassador takes it up, and after a good deal of bullying and threatening on a greater scale, extracts from the reluctant Government a vizirial letter ordering the Mejhs to revise their decision. This vizirial letter would be practically a dead letter if the Consul did not make it his business to have it enforced; and after a good deal of active and passive resistance on the part of the local authorities, he generally succeeds in carrying his point. In the present case the decision of the Mejlis was so unjust that appeal to the Embassy will be unavoidable.
The advantages of British protection in a Turkish court are so obvious, that the Ionians are the object of general envy among the Christian subjects of the Porte. The desire to possess a British passport is so strong that every sort of ingenious device is practised in order to obtain one. The dragomans and other persons in the service of a Consiil are exempted by the Porte from certain taxes, and in all matters where their civil rights are concerned are generally allowed by the local authority the same advantages as Ionian subjects.
A Consul has consequently no difficulty in finding any number of Greek dragomans ready to serve him for nothing, or even to pay him for the privilege of being his employés.
Hence some of the unpaid Consular agents in the Levant have a tail of six or seven of these retainers, whose functions are of course purely nominal; but as there is a limit to this abuse, protection is obtained by other devices; sometimes a Rayah makes a voyage to the Ionian islands and comes back with a British passport, obtained by some mystification of the local authorities there; sometimes the same result is obtained by bribing the Consular clerk at home. Sometimes an Ionian from a distant village presents himself before his Consul, accompanied by a young man, whom he introduces as his son, just about to start on a journey to Constantinople and therefore in want of a passport, which he claims by virtue of his birthright. In proof of his nationality, a baptismal certificate duly signed by the priest of his village is produced, and the Consul issues the passport; unconsciously depriving the Porte of a subject who has been converted into an Ionian by means of a false certificate.
Some check to this practice might be given if the Consul were always to insist that the signature of the priest attached to the baptismal certificate should be legalized by the Archbishop; but that would only prevent the forgery of the signature. As for the fraud itself, it would be regarded by the Greeks not only as justifiable, but as a commendable exploit; for to deprive the Porte of a subject is in their eyes only robbing the common enemy.
It is probable, that the most vigilant and upright Consuls in the Levant are now and then induced by such stratagems to give passports to persons having no right to them: but how it is with those Consular agents scattered over the Levant, to whom our Govern- ment gives the official seal and title with no other emolument than they can derive from fees? Is it at all likely that their virtue can resist the constant offer of bribes? Mr. Werry's predecessor at Mytilene was one of these unpaid Consular agents, an Ionian by birth.
He was naturally anxious to release as many of the Hellenic race as possible from the thraldom of Turkish oppression, and with this view he created at Mytilene about 200 pseudo-Ionians. Local tradition still records how this venerable old man used to sit in the public cafe after dinner, with his Consular seal all ready in his pocket. After a certain number of glasses of rakee had been imbibed, a passport was always to be had for a reasonable consideration.
Our small society has been enlivened by the visit of a French gentleman, M. L——, who resides at Maltepe, on the opposite coast, the ancient promontory of Cane, where he has bought a large estate for the cultivation of olives. He lives there with a large retinue of native servants, but cut off from all European society. His house is a pyrgo, with one large room on the first floor; the ground- floor being devoted to cattle and farming stock. The other day this gentleman had a visit from twenty- five pirates, who landed on a little island off the coast, where M. L—— has a quantity of sheep. He told his shepherd not to grudge them anything they might want, and they had the modesty to be content with thirty-five sheep! M. L—— looked on the whole affair with great complacency, regarding the loss as a species of black mail, such as the Scotch Highlanders used to levy on the rich Lowlanders.
M. L—— gave me some information as to the different systems of holding land in his part of Asia Minor. Much of the land there is held as a species of métairie; that is to say, the proprietor, at the end of the year, when the land requires ploughing, takes into his employ one or more peasants according to the amount of land requiring cultivation. The peasant proceeds to plough the land under the following conditions:—
He finds the plough and oxen, the landlord finds seed, and pays him in advance a sum of money sufficient for his maintenance during the period between seed-time and harvest. When the crop is gathered in, a division of the produce takes place. First is set apart the tithe claimed by the State; then the seed for nest year, always considered sacred, like the treasury of an Oriental monarch; then the landlord takes as much corn as will repay him for the advance he has made to the labourer during the year. Whatever remains after these three subtractions is equally divided between land-lord and labourer.
If the landlord has no ready money, the sum advanced by him to the labourer has to be raised on the security of the ensuing harvest; if the harvest fails, he has to borrow again on the next harvest. Without such expedients business could not be carried on in a country in which there is so limited a circulation of specie, and in which Banks and Bills of Exchange are unknown. If the means of transport were improved, and the roads more safe from robbers, the landlord would of course be able to convert his crops into ready money at a distant market, instead of pawning them in advance.
M. L—— has planted a large number of olives on his property, which he hopes to cultivate accord- ing to the system adopted in the South of France. I learnt from him and other Greek merchants here, the following particulars respecting the cultivation of the olive-tree in Mytilene.
It appears that the natives are so ignorant and indolent that they take little pains to improve what nature has bestowed so abundantly, for the olive-tree grows wild all over the island. The cultivated tree is usually grafted on a young vigorous wild stock. Olives like a rich clay; they flourish on the sides of hills and in valleys formed by the alluvial deposit from mountains; but there should always be a free circulation of air. On the sides of the hills the soil is cleared, or défriché, for the plantation in the following manner:—It is cut into terraces, which are supported by walls, to prevent the earth from being carried away from the roots. These plantations run up the sides of the hills as high as there is sufficient depth of soil, above which the wild olive grows among the rocks nearly to the summits of the hills; thus all through the summer the surface of the island is covered with evergreen foliage. The olive requires the earth in which it grows to be ploughed or dug not less than three times a year; but the proprietors in Mytilene generally grudge this necessary labour. The first ploughing ought to be in January the last in May. Manure produced by the sheep, goats, and other cattle on the hills, is ploughed in to nourish the soil. This manure is very light and friable, and no straw is mixed with it. The allowance is a mule-load to a full-grown tree, and half a mule-load to a smaller tree. The price of a day's ploughing is ten piastres (about 1s. 8d.), including the hire of a yoke of oxen. A day's digging costs five piastres.
The tree requires to be pruned from time to time, in order that the air may circulate freely through its branches.
The constant breezes of Mytilene, and the abundant supply of fresh water, are two causes which have probably much aided the cultivation of the olive here. The roots of the olive-trees absorb most of the riches of the soil, leaving little nourishment for other plants. Sometimes olive-trees remain barren for two or three years; and this barrenness may extend over a whole district. This is very much the case in Mytilene at this time.
The quantity and quality of the oil depend on a variety of conditions: firstly, the kind of tree and mode of cultivation; secondly, the time chosen for gathering, whether in October, before the fruit is ripe, or in the two following months; thirdly, the manner of gathering.
In Mytilene, and generally in the Levant, the olives are beaten from the tree with staves. The objection to this is that the operation is generally performed violently and clumsily, and the young shoots of the olive which contain the germ of the next year's crop, and which are put forth in the autumn, are broken off in the course of the beating. The nature of the olive-tree is to renew these shoots annually in the autumn; consequently, if they are then broken off, the tree has no germs for the crop of the ensuing year; and this is said to be one chief reason why the olive-trees of Mytilene only produce fruit every two years. In the south of France ladders are employed to reach the branches.
Fourthly, the quality of the oil depends on the time that elapses between the gathering of the crop and its grinding. In Europe they send it to the mill immediately after gathering it; but in Turkey this cannot be done till the tithe of the gathered crop has been taken. The delay of collecting this tithe detains the olives from the mill till about February. The olive kept in store during the interval of two or three months between the gathering and grinding loses something of its freshness, and cannot be preserved except by salting,—an additional expense. Next the mode of grinding has to be considered. Where the oil is carefully made, as in Italy, the olives are ground first with stones set wide apart, so as not to crush the kernels ; by a second grinding the kernels are crushed, and a rank, inferior oil is produced. These two oils are kept separate. In Mytilene the kernels are always ground in the first grinding ; and the object being the quan- tity, not the quahty of the oil, one inferior kind is produced instead of the two separate products. Lastly has to be mentioned, the mode of pressing the olives when ground or reduced to pulp. In Mytilene the pulp is pressed in hair bags with warm water; in Italy the bags are made of rushes, and cold water only is employed. The Italian bags have been tried in Mytilene, but the old process is pre- ferred. In Mytilene the same pulp is pressed several times through the same bags, each time producing a coarser kind of oil. The produce of these succes- sive squeezings is all mixed together. In Italy, the pulp, after one pressure, is thrown out into large tanks, so as to produce what is called huile larée.
For the pressure of the pulp in Italy, an hydraidic press has been introduced; in Mytilene the primitive hand-press is still employed. Steam-power has been tried, but does not seem to be approved. In Italy the greatest care is observed in washing the mill and press after use, in Mytilene none.
The oil produced in Mytilene is partly consumed in the island, in the manufacture of soap and for lamps, the remainder is exported to Europe for oiling machinery. Formerly the quantity of oil exported ranged from 200,000 to 220,000 quintals, or 10,800 to 11,900 tons. The severe winter of 1849 destroyed about 25 per cent, of the olive-trees, since which time the exportation has not exceeded 40,000 quintals, or 2,160 tons.