Peeps at Many Lands: Turkey — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Peeps at Many Lands: Turkey
John Stuart Mill · en
To shoot one of these dogs is at the peril of your life, for the
Albanian law of vendetta seems to extend to avenging their dogs. There
is a strong suspicion that an Englishman, who made the ascent of Olympus
some twenty years ago, was murdered by these shepherds for shooting one
of these creatures in self-defence. On another occasion the captain of
one of our ironclads, while shooting in that neighbourhood, had occasion
to kill a dog which attacked him, whereupon he was himself felled to the
ground by the axe of the shepherd.
Turkish shepherd-dogs, though savage and powerful, have none of the
finer instincts of our collies; they will not bring round the sheep in
accordance with the shepherd's directions; they are only fighters, and
often turn and rend their masters.
It is interesting to watch, as I have done, the yearly migrations of the
Albanian shepherds to and from Olympus. My home lay at the foot of the
mountain, and one summer's night, when the moon was full, I was waked by
the sound of sonorous voices, and the barking of dogs, and bleating of
rams. Gradually the sounds became louder, and I could hear the tinkling
of bells and finally the tramp of thousands of little feet pattering
past my door. To the bleating of the rams was added the shriller cry of
the ewes and the feebler notes of the lambs, and, rushing to the window,
I could see the whole procession--sheep and shepherd--winding its way
upwards. It was a weird sight, those shepherds in their heavy capotes of
sheepskin, and their shadows reflected on the mountain, and gave one the
impression of so many spectres gliding in the moonlight. The procession
passed along, the bleating, the tinkling, the barking, the shouting
became fainter, and finally the mountain returned to its silence
primeval, and when I awoke in the morning I could not help wondering if
it had not all been a dream.
[Illustration: A SIMITDJI.]
Bordering on Albania and Epirus, and east of them, you will find a
district marked on the map as Macedonia. It is inhabited principally by
Tartars, Bulgarians, and Greeks, with a large sprinkling of Jews in its
seaport towns, specially in Salonica, the Thessalonica of Scripture. The
Bulgarians belong to the Slav family, and are mostly Christians. Some,
however, have turned Moslems, and are generally known under the name of
Pomaks. The Pomaks have intermarried and fused with Tartars, who
migrated to Macedonia, as well as to other parts of Turkey, in large
numbers when their native lands--the Crimea, Bessarabia, Roumania, and
Bulgaria--passed under the sovereignty of Christian rulers. They have
high cheekbones, broad flat faces, globular noses, and sunken eyes. They
are fanatical, ignorant, and naturally embittered against Christians,
and many, as the authors of the so-called Bulgarian atrocities, have
fled to escape the punishment they deserved.