Monday, Feb. 24, 1930

Duck Catastrophe

So excellent were Turkish aqueducts, Turkish wells, Turkish baths, in the Middle Ages, that complacent Turkish conservatives have not dreamed of improving them for the past 500 years. Young Turks campaigning for modern waterworks for Turkey's larger cities seized on the "Duck Catastrophe" at Ihlamour last week, argued emotionally in the Turkish press.

In Ihlamour, suburb of Constantinople on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus, source of drinking water for generations has been a single deep narrow well in the market place. Housewives and porters gathered there every morning to draw water for their daily needs. There one Yusuf Hanoum, leather worker, sat down to rest last week, while his pet duck, name unknown, hopped up on the well curb :to keep him company. A stray dog frightened him. With an agitated squawk Yusuf's duck fell into Ihlamour's well. Unable to extricate his pet, Leather Worker Hanoum dropped half a loaf of bread and a large piece of goat's milk cheese down the narrow 50-ft. well to keep his duck from starving, went to warn the authorities.

For several days, the best minds of Ihlamour bent to the task of extracting Yusuf's duck. Scheme A was to lower a large shallow bucket down the well in the hope that the duck would swim into it. Several times the duck did so, but always flopped out before the bucket could be hauled to the surface. Scheme B was to tie fish lines to hard indigestible crusts of bread in the hope that Yusuf's duck would swallow line and crust, allow himself to be hauled to the surface. Yusuf's duck did not. Scheme C : a reward was offered to any citizen of Ihlamour who would allow himself to be lowered 50 feet down the well to grab Yusuf's duck with his bare hands. The first volunteer jammed ignominiously when the well bore unexpectedly narrowed 30 feet below the surface. The rope broke, he was rescued only with difficulty.

Disgusted at these futile attempts, the commandant of the nearest garrison ordered a squad of soldiers to the Ihlamour wellhead. An officer barked commands. The soldiers fired ten rounds rapidly down the well. When the smoke cleared away Yusuf's duck was heard quacking irritably from the abyss. Superstitious Mussulmans fled from the neighborhood, claimed that the duck was bewitched. City authorities posted the well as unfit for drinking purposes. While Ihlamour city fathers concentrated on the problem of duck extraction, Ihlamour householders were forced to go nearly two miles to the nearest unpolluted well.

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