This lingua Franca is a corrupted dialect of the Greek language, interlarded with French and Italian; and in writing the Roman characters are substituted for the Hellenic, as being more distingués. Even family names have been modified so as to ignore any traces of parentage--such as Sazan Oghlou into Salsani, and Zipgy Oghlou into Zipcy, etc.
When the foreign ambassadors first became residents of Pera, as long ago as the days of Suleyman, they found this mixed people apparently a connecting link between the East and the West; and being themselves then ignorant of Oriental peculiarities, and the languages of Stamboul, they were glad to receive these Perotes as employés, dragomans, etc.
Thus, by degrees, they became a sort of necessary evil to the foreign diplomatists.
Greater familiarity with the country, and still more, a just appreciation of these aspirants to aristocratic honors and functions, has, however, of late years, opened the eyes of the foreign representatives; and each embassy is now furnished with employés from the home government--consequently, the Perotes are now decidedly below par.
Adventurers, who, in their own lands, would never be heard of, in Pera become the guests of ambassadors and statesmen, and aping the airs and manners of their distinguished patrons, manage to pass current. Women at every other word murdering their mother tongues, are transformed into ladies of quality in the palaces of the representatives of their respective sovereigns.
But these are trifling matters. The outcasts of European society here find a safe retreat, and are even protected in their outrages, while the various protégés of the different Legations, natives and foreigners, constitute a privileged community.
Russia has endeavored to increase her own power by inducing the rayas to adopt her protection, in order to secure any claims whatever against either Turks or Christians.
"The most desperate ruffians of Southern Europe are in Turkey under British, Austrian, French, or Greek protection. The English give impunity to Ionians and Maltese; Austria has her Croats; French passports screen a crowd of Levantines, whose professed attachment to Catholicism is allowed to be the cloak to any knavery; while Greece and Naples send a contingent whose character may be easily imagined. While the worst of them have protection for delinquencies, the whole enjoy immunities of the most unjust kind.