A little farther along, a thousand people are packed in a large garden by the roadside, smoking narguilehs or sipping coffee and iced sherbets while listening to a chorus of Armenian singers established on a band-stand in the centre. These men sing love songs in unison and always fortissimo, accompanying themselves on violin, guitar and mandolin. The cost of the evening’s amusement is ridiculously small. A man chooses the place where he will enjoy himself, sits in that place until he has enjoyed himself, if it takes hours, and when he pays the bill for his entertainment it will be six or eight cents. The quiet good-nature of every one in the crowd is most noteworthy. There is no liquor visible, and there is no fighting. Or if there is liquor and fighting it is kept out of sight in places to which people who like such things go apart from the crowd and consume their own smoke, as it were. The police circulate, but it is not to protect men against each other, but to see that no one dares to criticise the Government administration.
To undress for dinner
As to entertainments at home, the Turk frankly and openly makes his table a place to eat—not a place to talk. He makes up for the absence of women from the table where he entertains his guests by the lavishness of its other gratifications. For what are good things made, if not to be enjoyed? As you enter the house you are welcomed by the host, who, if he has not had previous dealings with foreigners, will probably invite you “ to undress for dinner.” Without removing the coat, vest, and trousers of exterior and official life, no Turk can be at ease. He supposes that the European escapes from the closely fitting garments of the outer world as eagerly as himself. One is expected to remove, besides these outer garments, collar and cuffs, and shoes and stockings. A servant stands near with a robe of the feast, made out of coloured chintz, or possibly of curtain cretonne. It is a loose open gown that falls from the neck straight away to the feet. It has no buttons, but is caught together at the waist by a decorative girdle. Thus enveloped you are equipped for the efforts of the table; merely thrusting your bare feet into slippers as you leave the room to go downstairs. The table is a copper tray set on a low stool. Around this table the guests take position on the floor, which has been cushioned for the rite. The round form of the table prevents disagreeable questions of precedence and position, and all present are on an equality; the equality of desire for palate-tickling viands guided istanbul tours.
In the centre of the table are fifteen or twenty small dishes containing various delicacies, such as preserved rose leaves, caviar, dried mutton- chips, cherry jam, cheese, grape jelly, sardines, and the like. Around the edge of the table are fragments of spiced rusk which each guest dips into any dish that suits his fancy. And if with his thumb he picks out a plum, so much the better for him. A slight skirmish with these appetizers prepares the way for the real business of the hour. The soup is a thick puree which defies analysis of its contents save for its liberal sur-face dressing of olive oil. Aside from that single dish, the menu is not distasteful in any of its parts. It is thirteen courses long. As a whole it might be criticised, since it has intensely sweet dishes and meats and vegetables in regular alternation, while each course is served in a single dish in which all may dip their sop of bread or their prehensile finger tips.
At the beginning of the dinner each member of the party is supplied with a pewter fork and a highly ornamented horn spoon, much as the steerage people on an Atlantic liner are supplied at the beginning of the voyage with the table ware which is to last them through all the emergencies of the trip. These implements the diner-out uses as taste or fancy may dictate; and if a case arises beyond the scope of fork or spoon alone, the fingers are expected to come into action to secure control of any savoury but refractory morsel which the central dish offers to the competition of the party.
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