The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-11-25

Homestead on Cape Cod that Might as
Well Be in Constantinople.


New York Star.
One house in America lies under the shadow
of the horsetails that is it is more Turkish than
Anglo-Saxon. This is the homestead of George
Washburn, the president of Robert College, of
ConstaEtnople. That college certainly deserves
the praises that have been lavished on it by the
English press, and merits even greater praise
from our own, for it has carried the fame of our
country into regions where the name of America
was unknown.
The college was founded by Dr. Cyrus Ham
lin, the father-in-law of George Washburn, in
1869, after years of effort to gain the Sultan's
permission. This. strangely enough, was OBJ
tanned through mistake. When Admiral Far
ragut visited Constantinople with his fleet, the
Sultan thought he had been sent to exert gen
tie pressure to induce him to yield to DR.. Ham
Inns request, and he at once gave him an i'm
perlal trade, or royal patent securing the col
lege in the possession of the land it had bought
by the highest tenure.
George Washburn's homestead is situated in
Plymouth county, in the town of marlborough,
Mass, a town famous for it's piety. its herrngs
and its dwarfs Almost every one in this house
has spent no small portion of his time in Tur-
key, and 1T needs little imagination for visitor
to fancy himself the shore of the Golden
Horn You are awakened in the morning by
the barking of a dog, imported, for
aught anybody knows, from that para
disc OF dogs-Stamboul. Before breakfast
you take glass of salep if you wish--a warm
which is to the Turk what the hoecake is to the
negro, oats to the Scotchman, or the ancestral
oean to the Yankee forms the backbone of your
breakfast. Nothing can be more palatable than
tnis compound OF rice, chopped mutton and
spices After breakfast you light a cigarette
ana listen to your hosts criticisms of the absurd
tiles published by such lightning travellers as
sunset Cox and his competitors in ignorance.
photographs of that most lovely
region of the earth, the great garden
on either side the Bosporus. You see the huge
round tower on the point where the strait was
bridged by the Persian boats and the old Seraglio
whose beauty, mystery and horror for centuries
drew toward it the eyes of the Christian and
pagan worlds. You the muezzin on the
minaret calling the faithful to prayer you see
beautiful palaces nesting among the trees by the
waterslde, with caiques moored to the wharf,
pictures breathing so sweet music that it seems
as though the very bowstring had become chord
of an 9ollan harp.
AS you turn from photograph to painting you
wonder at the rich and gorgeous colors that light
up mart and port. Every nationality and
every dress, from the inverted octaroon of the
Nile cataracts to the Fifth-avenue belle are
gathered IN one spot Perhaps the three quaint
est characters the zeibeck, the basn-
bazouk and the Circassian. The last looks like
the combination of a Methodist or Epis-
copaan clergyman and the Springfield
Arsenal-from under his long. back coat pro-
trude handles of pistols and daggers, and on its
p1ouS-cut lapels sewed honeycombs of cart
ridges. The bashi bazook irregular troops) will
any of them murder man for $40, unless the
murderee raises the bid to SIS, in which case the
impartial BAH will murder you or, rather, he
is so far governed by sense of honor that he
will give his employer the preference of allow
ing him to make the last bid. The zebek is
very bashi of the bashi: with sword in his
mouth knives and pistols hanging from him in
clusters and gun in his hand he is so fero-
ciors an object that if he saw himself in the
glass he would certainly be frightened to death
The Sultan, after the last war, when the zeibeks
had grown FESTIVE with starvation, resorted to a
device to tame them He ordered them to re-
move their thick Wristbands Over half of
them died in consequence showing that the
stomach is still soldiers most important feat
ure
But the dinner bell interrupts you, and for a
few minutes Cape Cod bests the crescent by
token of large Goldfish. This dispatched, you
return to your mutton, and eat freely of rehab
"a dish that would appear to the vulgar as moth
ing more than hashed lamb, highly spiced
spread thick over pieces of toast. However
for desert you have some mohalabee
(banc mango cakes made of rice four and ap-
pie dolmas-apples cored and stuffed with dried
fruits and spices-that are really delicious. They
are eclipsed. however, by the rahat-lo-coom-a
mouthful of delight-a confection which one eats
with the muddy but agreeable black Turkish
coffee.
After dinner you enjoy another of 'the four
elements of the world of pleasure" or ''the four
cushions of the sofa of enjoyment" Your host
prepares your nargileh, fills its bowl with Per-
sian tobacco, which has just been washed; on
top of it places live coal, and says that it
should be smoked slowly. nargileh, to be
properly enjoy ed. allows no haste.
1.-The Turkish women are not such effeminate
playthings as one might suppose, he says, when
he sees you are comfortable. when Dr. Ham
lin was in the hands of an Armenian mob some
Turkish women cried out: The giaours are
mobbing Hamlin effendi because he doesn't wor-
shi, images; they'll mob us next With that
each seized bean pole or stick, and charging
broke the mob into pieces"