Handy hints for travelling in Turkey 1850s style

How to get here, when to come, what to bring, how to travel around, where to stay, where and what to eat, what to see, things to do (and things not to do!), it's all grist to my writer's mill. But although it's part of my job never to underestimate the potential difficulties for today's independent traveler, I think it's safe to say that Turkey is a pretty easy country to get around and enjoy.

Despite the vast (by the standards of most European countries at least) geographical area it covers, the mountainous nature of much of the terrain and the extremes of climate, there are few sizeable places that cannot be reached by a comfortable air-conditioned coach or rental car, and many cities have their own airports served by value-for-money domestic carriers. Some of its hotels are ranked amongst the best in the world, and virtually every town of any intrinsic tourist interest will have a tolerable place to stay -- and quite possibly an exquisite boutique hotel or two.

The crime rate is fairly low, and though pickpockets are not unknown in the big cities, notably İstanbul, incidents of mugging and bag snatching are still, fortunately, quite rare. Many critics regard the Turkish kitchen as one of the world's finest, up there with the French and Chinese, and there are usually a range of decent places to eat in even the meanest Anatolian town. Add to this already enticing mix the country's incredible history and the renowned hospitality of its people and it's easy to see why Turkey attracts some 25 million visitors annually.

Back in 1854

But how was it for travellers back in 1854, when İstanbul was still Constantinople (or, in its Turkicized form, Kostantiniyye), Ankara Angora and Trabzon Trebizond? When the modern Turkish Republic was 69 years in the future and what is now a republic was then the heartland of the vast Ottoman Empire, a multi-ethnic, multi-faith polity? When most of the male Moslem populous wore turbans and flowing robes, their womenfolk went heavily veiled, and millions of Christian Greeks, Armenians, Syrian Orthodox and Nestorians worshipped in churches across the land? When no railways crossed Anatolia, and there were few surfaced roads? When goods and people were carried by camel caravans rather than by cars, buses and planes, and travelers put up in caravanserais and hans rather than pensions and hotels?

So what advice, had I been engaged in the same trade a century and a half ago, would I have given travellers heading east from Europe or North America in search of the mystical East? To find out I turned to the classic guidebook “A handbook for travellers in Turkey: describing Constantinople, European Turkey, Asia Minor, Armenia and Mesopotamia,” published in 1854 by John Murray's of Albemarle Street, London. Originals are prohibitively expensive for all but the most ardent collector, but the book is viewable online in digitalized form from an original copy through Harvard University at: (www.archive.org/details/ahandbookfortra22firgoog).

In a section entitled “Hints on Reaching Constantinople” Murray's advises that “those that would go by the quickest and cheapest route should go through France, and time their arrival at Marseilles so as to catch one of the direct steamers plying between that port and Constantinople.” The total journey time from London to Constantinople Murray's estimates as 10 days, two by rail to Marseille, eight for the sea journey -- a rather more leisured journey than the three-and-a-half-hour flight between London and İstanbul today. The old guide goes on in rather more alarming fashion to say, “Those that mean to confine their excursions to Stamboul and its vicinity want no weapons, but those that mean to go inland had better provide themselves with some portable efficacious arms such as the smaller sort of Colt's revolvers. There are too many bashi-bazuks (irregular soldiers, sometimes little more than bandits) about to advise anyone to leave the vicinity of Constantinople unarmed.” Sound advice for 1854 perhaps, but unlikely to go down a storm with Heathrow security officials if you were to try it today.

The historic Üsküdar fountain with the Mihrimah Sultan Mosque in the background.

Once in Constantinople the traveller was faced with the problem of getting from the steamer to Pera (present day Beyoğlu), then the European quarter of the Ottoman Empire's capital city. Murray's advice to the traveller is to find a caique, the “safest sort of boat,” to take him to the customs post at Tophane. And when I say “him,” I mean “him,” as the guide goes on to say, “I make no mention of ladies, for they have no business here, and would only be miserable.” Fortunately, a few doughty and intrepid women such as Isabella Bird ignored Murray's advice. The guide, however, was clearly aimed at the only sort of person for whom traveling for pleasure was both affordable and socially acceptable -- the wealthy, upper-crust “gentleman traveller.” Rather than hoisting a backpack or trundling along a wheeled suitcase, Murray's advice for getting to Pera from Tophane was to hire a porter (hamal), and “if more than one hamal seizes the luggage, they should be left to fight it out amongst themselves.”

Murray's is even more uncomplimentary about the mainly Greek owners of Pera's boarding houses than it is about the quarrelsome porters, stating, “Greedy and grasping as the Greeks are, the women are far more greedy and grasping [than their husbands] and decide their bargains with an unblushing hardness.” The Christians of Pera are further damned as useless when it comes to giving information about their neighborhood, “though they may have lived here for years, they do not know or understand anything, for they do not see why they should … they treat the town as an encampment, a sort of halting-place on a vagabondising tour.” Murray's, just like a modern travel guidebook, gives information on the prices of hotels and furnished lodgings, and like any good backpacking “bible” suggests ways of cutting costs -- in the case of 1850s Pera this meant eating at a hotel rather than in the furnished lodgings of some avaricious Greek proprietor.

Travelering on horseback

Under the next section, titled “General Hints for Travelling in Turkey,” Murray's extols the virtues of horseback riding to explore both European and “Asiatic” Turkey -- which is just as well since there was no alternative other than walking -- and what gentlemen would walk? For a traveller on horseback: “Every circumstance of scenery and climate becomes of interest, the minutest incident of country or local habits cannot escape observation. A burning sun may sometime exhaust, or a summer storm may drench you, but what can be more exhilarating than the sight of the lengthened troop of variegated and gay costumes dashing at full speed along to the crack of the Tatar whip.” According to the handbook the average rate of travel by horse would be “20 to 25 miles a day,” rather slower than an Ulusoy coach or SunExpress plane, but for the gentlemen traveller time was of little concern.

Whether wedded to a backpack or a suitcase, the traveller receives little or no advice from modern guides about what to bring to Turkey -- in our globalised world few places hold many secrets that aren't a few clicks away on our computer screens. Plus anything we forget, lose or break can easily be replaced -- what's available in London, New York or Sydney is just as likely to be found in İstanbul, Ankara or Antalya (some Antipodean wanderers, addicted since birth to their Vegemite, may disagree). But what advice does Murray's have for the “gentleman traveller” about to set foot outside of Europe for the first time, armed only with knowledge gleaned from a rather sparse collection of accounts by earlier travellers and a head full of images based on black and white photographs? “A tent is the first requisite, the old cities and places of the greatest interest being frequently distant from the modern towns or khans; and a good tent makes the traveller quite independent of the state of health of the town.” This was sound advice when infectious, often fatal, diseases such as cholera were a major cause of concern for the traveller in Anatolia, and health care rudimentary at best. Malaria too, was a major scourge, and Murray's explains at length how to rig-up an all purpose muslin mosquito, fly and gnat net.

More prosaic suggestions included tea, chocolate, coffee, loaf sugar, wine, brandy (according to Murray's “the Turks have less scruples about drinking spirits than wine, and frequently ask for some”), biscuits, macaroni, cheese, mustard, pepper, hams and dried tongues. To carry all these items, and the many other essentials listed by Murray's, a couple of portmanteau (large leather suitcases) are recommended “of moderate size and equal weight, so as to balance each other on a pack saddle.” Some guides today recommend carrying pens or postcards of your home town to give as souvenirs to village kids. In 1854 Murray's gift suggestions were most definitely for the grownups. “The best articles to provide for presents are English pistols ... English gunpowder is very acceptable to all classes, from the pasha to the peasant.”

As for when to come, Murray's suggests using June and the early part of July to visit “the Seven Churches of Asia and the Plain of Troy.” From mid-July to the end of August the traveller should “remain quietly in Constantinople, or the villages of the Bosphorus,” i.e., doing exactly the opposite of many of today's better-off İstanbullu, who in this period decamp en masse for the Aegean resorts. For Anatolia, the recommendation is to “tour the southern parts of Asia Minor ... in the spring, moving northward as the season becomes warmer.” The Yörük pastoralists of the Toros Mountains have been doing this for centuries -- Turkey's Mediterranean coast is almost unbearable in summer unless you've nothing better to do than flit between an air-conditioned hotel and the pool/sea -- and Murray's advice is as sensible today as it was then. For those interested in exploring what is still off-the-beaten track country by most visitors standards, the Anatolian interior, Murray' writes, “For the highest parts of Asia Minor -- about Erzeroom and in Kurdistan -- the summer months are the best.”

There are plenty more handy hints in Murray's classic guide about travelling in mid-19th century Turkey, from how to obtain the requisite passport (seven shillings and sixpence in 1854) to the best source of reliable “travelling servants” -- but more on those fascinating snippets of information later. Let's conclude with a final quote from the indispensible Murray's. “To travel in the East with comfort or advantage, it is necessary to do so according to the rule and custom of the country.” Sound advice indeed -- respecting the way of life of the people they journey amongst is as important for today's traveller as it was for Murray's Victorian gentlemen.