The contemporary critics were inclined to think that the observations of ordinary travellers, as people like the civil engineer were called, were superficial and confused:
So with the ordinary traveller; he is for the most part occupied with some scheme of improvement after a Western pattern, or intent upon some commercial enterprise; and, in the light of his own occupations, he forms a rapid surface judgement of a people of whose temperament he remains ignorant to the end. (Craik, 257.)
But exactly because Barkley dwelled for a long time amongst the nations of European Turkey, his judgement was formed slowly and accurately. He speaks not as an occasional traveller who simply visited the Bulgarian territories but as a person with an intimate knowledge of the Ottoman Empire. The civil engineer gained his information especially with the help of his public position. This had one big advantage –as he had obtained his mission from the Sultan, Barkley was received openly by the Oriental society. As a true Englishman, he avoided unnecessary contact with the natives as much as possible. Still, because of the particularities of his profession he had to get involved in Turkish life and thus acquired first-hand information about its internal side. The construction of the railway line itself also gave Barkley a good possibility of studying the character traits of the natives.
The inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire revealed themselves to be nothing like the English. In contrast to his industriousness, straightforwardness and honesty, they seemed to be lazy, cunning and unreliable. These features created (or were created by, for Barkley could not make up his mind) an unfavourable attitude to labour. That is why the civil engineer considered the mental constitution of the Orientals to be inseparable from their work ethic. For this reason I will also discuss them interdependently.
Faced with the practical task of coping with all the work idiosyncrasies of his subordinates, Barkley had to find out which factors contributed to their negative approach to labour. He sees two main reasons which in his opinion interact and thus intensify each other: Ottoman institutions, on the one hand, and on the other, the character traits of the natives and their mental constitution. In Barkley's opinion, one more special factor particularly responsible for the negative features of the Padishah' s subjects: the morals and the upbringing methods of Oriental women. This last fact I discuss in the next chapter.
Craik, Henry, "The People of Turkey: Twenty Years' Residence among Bulgarians,
Greek, Turks, and Armenians", Art. IX, in: Quarterly Review 146
(1878), pp. 256-88.
Last modified 2001