We left Constantinople without regret and steamed up into the Black
Sea, making a circle in it, and then returned down into the Sea of
Marmora, so as to get a good view of both the Asiatic and European
sides of the city; then out, through the Dardanelles and on to Smyrna.
This passage was all over classic ground, and every mile of it has made
history for thousands of years.
Smyrna has 225,000 people, and is the cleanest and most respectable
city the Turks own. In ancient times Croesus lived here after he had
made his pile, and at the present day great numbers of wealthy men make
it their home, and there is a good deal of luxury seen in the suburbs.
It has the trade from Asia Minor. Homer was born here, and wrote and
sang his immortal poetry along its rocky shores. It was conquered by
Alexander the Great, and after he had destroyed it he ordered it
rebuilt a few miles farther off so as not to forget it, and it became
very prosperous. The Knights of Malta and the Arabs fought the Turks
for many years for its possession, but the Turks have held it against
all comers up to date. It was shaken down to ruins by an earthquake in
180 A.D., and this was followed by disastrous shocks in 1688, 1788, and
1880.
Its great trade is in figs, dates, sponges, silks, and rugs; but the
greatest of these is the rug. These stuffs come in loaded on long
trains of camels. I may say that no one has any idea of what this
animal is like if he has only seen it in a zoo or in a circus parade.
I watched the trains by the hour with absorbing interest. The
professional, business camel is a big, fine, intelligent animal, who
carries himself with the utmost dignity and strides along looking
neither to the right nor the left, refusing to take notice of any noise
or disturbance that would--and often does--upset his owners, whom he
follows with implicit confidence. He is willing to make an honest and
prompt return for his food and the care that is given him. I could not
help thinking that if a man from Mars came down and did not know the
conditions here, he would think the camel was master, and not the noisy
crowd that surrounded him.
St. Polycarp, the second Bishop of Smyrna, was executed here because he
would not recant his faith; he was a disciple of the Apostle John, and
this incident shows the antiquity of the place.
The trade of Smyrna exceeds that of Constantinople: five thousand
people are engaged in making rugs, but the best ones are brought in on
camel back from seven hundred miles away. They have a curious way of
selling the rugs that arrive from the interior: the dealer must buy the
unopened bales with no opportunity to examine the rugs, so it is really
a lottery and feeds the desire for gambling that prevails in business
dealings in the Orient.
Smyrna is a beautiful, oriental city; it produces nothing, but
exchanges everything and gets a shave for doing it: it is the home of
Eastern luxury and of the finest women in Asia. Much more could be
written about this city with a guide-book as a basis of information,
but it would not be interesting produced in this way.
We heard a native "ragtime" band, playing tom-tomic strains--the lyric
style of dinner-gong music that tears holes in the air. The leader was
an imitator of Sousa and had his gymnastic eccentricities down to a
fine point. He executed a fantasia on his horn of plenty that brought
a shower of silver on the stage. We were told that the members of the
orchestra were called the "Flowers of Music from Stamboul," and were
working their passage to the "halls" of the European capitals. May the
hat never be returned empty nor the charm of their work grow less!