SPEAKING OF THE TURKS SPEAKING OF THE TURKS BY MUFTY-ZADE K. ZIA Bey LONDON STANLEY PAUL & CO. 31, Essex Street, Strand, W. C. 2. All rights reserved Printed in U. S. A. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. HOMECOMING 3 II. SUMMER MONTHS 16 III. ERENKEUY 29 IV. MODERN TURKISH WOMEN 47 V. LIFE ON THE BOSPHORUS 67 VI. STAMBOUL 87 VII. BUSINESS IN CONSTANTINOPLE 107 VIII. A STAMBOUL NIGHT 127 IX. A NIGHT IN PERA 145 X. CONSTANTINOPLE, 1922 161 XI. ROBERT COLLEGE 183 XII. EDUCATION AND ART 204 VXIII. A GLIMPSE OF ISLAM 224 XIV. A VOICE FROM ANATOLIA 245 Speaking of The Turks I HOMECOMING We were arriving at Constantinople, my native city, from which I had been absent nearly ten years. I had been in America all this time. At first my business interests and later the general war had prevented my coming back to my own country even on a visit. I was of military age and Turkey was under blockade. When I had left Constantinople a few years after the Turkish revolution, the whole country was exhilarated, filled with joy, with ambition and with hope. Freedom and emancipation from an autocratic domination had been obtained. Nothing was to prevent the normal advance of Turkey and the Turks along the road to progress. We were at last to obtain full recognition as a civilized nation. We were at last to receive equal treatment from the other European nations. But, alas, during the following years the gods decided otherwise. Long, interminable wars either waged or fomented by neighbouring enemies had hampered the progress of Turkey. First in Tripolitania, then in Arabia and Albania, then again in the Balkans and finally during the general war the Turkish nation had been nearly bled to death and now I was returning to my country, and my native city was groaning under a domination a thousand times worse even than autocracy: the domination of victorious foreign countries Yet I was elated; homecoming is always exciting and the entrance to Constantinople by boat is always intoxicating. Besides, I was newly married. My young bride--an American girl from New Orleans--was with me and I was anxious to show her my country so maligned by the international press.