Читать книгу Around the Black Sea. Asia Minor, Armenia, Caucasus, Circassia, Daghestan, the Crimea, Roumania онлайн

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And we learned afterward that there were two hundred murderers serving sentences of from fifteen years to life in the prison that day. We saw several of the short-sentence men at the windows as we passed the prison, and somebody was standing on a tomb in the cemetery under the windows talking to them in a loud tone. The people on the street did not appear to pay any attention to him, although he was very much in earnest.

Near by was a more interesting crowd. Our steamer brought the mail from Constantinople and fifty or sixty citizens of Rizeh were gathered in a compact body around the steps of the post-office, while some gentleman read the news aloud to them. We were told it was a regular practice every time a mail came in. Most of the population are illiterate, but they are intensely patriotic and partisan, and keep close tab on political events at Constantinople and elsewhere.

They must be very superstitious, also, judging by the precautions they adopt to protect their houses and fields from the evil eye and other uncanny influences. The skull of a goat or a sheep, with a bunch of red peppers attached to it, was hanging from the corner of the eaves of almost every dwelling. We saw similar amulets in the gardens, orchards, and fields to protect the fruit and the crops. An old shoe and a bunch of garlic are equally efficacious, we are told, if you haven’t the skull of a sheep. The peasants in the country believe in miraculous cures, in witchcraft, and all such things, and often sacrifice animals at the shrines of saints to fulfil vows they have made in times of danger or distress. On a certain day in summer they splash water over each other; in the spring every woman releases a pigeon she has kept during the winter, and in some places the women go out to welcome the storks which fly in here at a certain time of the year. A new baby is always passed over a flame and young girls leap through fire to insure good husbands.