No commercial arithmetic called a certain Ludovico di Varthema to
adventure. Like Dante’s Ulysses, “nothing could quench his inward
burning to have full witness of the world.” “Ungifted,” so he tells
us, “with that far-casting wit for which the earth in not enough, and
which ranges through the loftiest regions of the firmament with careful
watch and survey; but possessed of slender parts merely,” he fixed his
mind on beholding with his own eyes some unknown part of the world and
on marking “where places are, what is curious in their peoples, their
different animals, and what fruit-bearing and scented trees grow there
... keeping before me that the thing which a single eye-witness may set
forth shall outweigh what ten may declare on hearsay.” It is as if a
cavalier of Boiardo or Ariosto had forsaken fairy land and sought novel
adventure in the kingdom of knowledge. Varthema set out to see and
know; and, although obviously a man of no great fortune, he would seem
to have neglected remarkable opportunities of trading and growing rich.
That he was a Bolognese, we learn from the title-page of his
volume—the _Itinerario_. As a citizen of Bologna, the Pope was his
overlord; and we find him calling himself, by a pardonable license,
a Roman. Whether eager curiosity was the only motive which impelled
him to travel, we know not. He lets drop in the middle of his volume
that he left a wife and children at home. Marriage in Italy was a
matter of family arrangement, with a view to the increase of family
wealth and power; and children could readily be left under the care
of kinsmen. “The Italians make little difference between children
and nephews or near kinsfolk,” wrote Bacon, “but, so they be of the
lump, they care not, though they pass not through their own body.”
And the family council has parental force in Italy, even to-day. The
unsettled condition of every Italian State in the days of that “Most
holy Lord the Pope Alexander Borgia,” his crafty, treacherous son,
and hardly less crafty and treacherous native statesmen and foreign
invaders, often made swift change of residence highly desirable. Of
that affectation of the men of the Renaissance—excessive and trumpeted
desire of fame, which was a mere imitation of the classics,—there
is not a trace in Varthema: he cared as little for bubbles as for
baubles. Whatever other motives may have incited him, lust of travel
was his predominant passion. What his occupation had been is unknown.
On an occasion when it was helpful to him to pose as a physician he
did so; and his close observation of the structure and habits of
animals and the qualities of plants, suggests the kind of educative
discipline which a physician would receive. But since he confesses to
having ordered a cold astringent preparation when a warm laxative was
required, his knowledge of physic was limited or readily forgotten.
Again, since, on one occasion, he takes military service as a Mameluke;
professes himself, on another occasion, to be an adept in the
manufacture of mortars; and we find him fighting with the intrepidity
and skill of a proved warrior against Arabs in India, he may very well
have been a soldier before setting out on his travels. In that age
of confusion, when the successes of the French in Lombardy broke the
balance of power among the Italian States, there was ample opportunity
of martial employment. There is not a trace of the accomplished
haunter of courts, no love of literature or of art apparent in the
_Itinerario_. Varthema’s birth, upbringing, and “the fate of his bones”
are secrets which lie securely hidden in the ruins of time. But his
narrative endures—an imperishable monument. It reveals him as a true
man of his period. His skill in dissembling, and his insensitiveness
at the call of expediency to any obligation of truth or gratitude,
contrast with his scrupulous pursuit of truth for its own sake and the
accuracy of his observation. His record of travel is one which displays
the coolness of his courage no less than its intrepid dash; it reveals
a man constant of purpose, and endowed with ingenuity, resourcefulness,
self-restraint, prudence, sagacity, and a sense of humour. Here indeed
is a rare man!
In the year 1502 there was peace in the Levant. Lucrative trade
between Venice and Egypt went on, unmolested by Turkish fleets. At
the close of that year, Varthema took sail for Alexandria; the wind
was favourable, and he reached the great port on one of the early
days of 1503. Alexandria was the chief mart for the interchange of
the wares of East and West, and therefore well known to Europeans;
“Wherefore,” says Varthema, “yearning after new things as a thirsty
man doth for fresh water, I entered the Nile and arrived at Cairo.”
“Babylon,” as Europeans called Cairo, was reputed to be one of the most
marvellous of cities; but our traveller was disappointed to find it
far smaller than he had thought. He declines to discuss the government
established there, or the arrogance of its Mameluke rulers; “for my
fellow-countrymen well wot of such matters.” Close upon two centuries
had passed since a Circassian slave clothed the Imam with a royal
robe, usurped his mundane powers, reduced him to a nonentity, founded
a dynasty, and ruled by military force from the Taurus and Euphrates
to the Nile. This dynasty delegated authority to Emirs and Sheiks. It
ruled by means of a soldiery, like itself, of slave origin, cruel,
insolent and unbending. Children of Christian descent, brought mainly
from the region which lies to the south of Caucasus, were instructed in
the faith of the Moslem and trained to physical endurance, boldness,
skill in warfare, and contempt of all men save their masters and
themselves. These Mamelukes, as they were called, received liberal
payment; they were allowed to keep a harem and to rear a family. The
land lay crushed and impotent beneath this military caste. Military
slaves, they exhibited the vices of slaves in office. As in the time
of Ibn Batûta, the Sultan of Cairo ruled; but now ruled over delegates
who were frequently rebellious to his authority; yet he and they and
all, even to the terrible ottoman Turk at Constantinople, who now held
Eastern Europe in bondage from the Danube to Cape Matapan, acknowledged
the headship of the Imam at Cairo as legitimate Caliph of the great
Abbaside line.
Leaving Cairo, Varthema took ship for Beyrout. Here, he saw nothing
noteworthy, save the ruins of an ancient palace, “which, _so they
say_,” was once the residence of the princess whom St. George rescued
from the dragon. We find a novel scepticism in this man of the new age.
“So they say,” is a phrase of frequent recurrence in the _Itinerario_.
The sceptic’s ears are as open as his brain is active; he repeats all
the information given to him, however extravagant and however healthy
his doubt; but he is careful to let the reader know that it is mere
hearsay; he gives a hint of his own disbelief, and leaves the matter
open to sane judgment: the piping times of a merchant in marvels have
passed away. When Varthema has his own ends to serve, we shall find
him telling a lie with as little scruple as any diplomatist of his
generation; but he records faithfully and exactly what he went out
to see and the incidents which befell him. We have the testimony of
the precise Burton that “all things well considered, Ludovico[15]
Bartema, for correctness of observation and readiness of wit, stands
in the foremost rank of oriental travellers”; and that great authority
writes thus although he only quotes from Richard Eden’s imperfect and
interpolated translation of a Latin deformation of the _Itinerario_;
and probably knew of no other copy.
Occasionally Varthema falls into a not uncommon blunder: he exaggerates
numbers; but he is always hard-headed, incredulous of tradition, and
not at all given to romancing.
A short voyage of two days brought our Italian from Beyrout to
Tripoli, whence he took the caravan-route to Hamath, a large city on
the Orontes, once an outpost of Judah, retaken by Israel in the wars
between the two kingdoms. At Menin, a land of luscious fruits and the
serviceable cotton-plant, he found a population of Christian-subjects
of the Emir of Damascus and two beautiful churches, “said to have been
built by Helena, mother of Constantine.” He went on to Aleppo, and
thence eight days of easy travel brought him to a city so ancient that
its foundation is lost in unfathomed time. He writes of Damascus that
“to set it forth is beyond my power.” Here he remained some months, in
order to learn Arabic—a task quite indispensable for farther travel in
Mohammedan lands. He tells us of the fortress, built by a Florentine
renegade, a man skilled in physic, who cured a Sultan suffering
from the effects of poison, and is venerated as a holy man. This
transformation of the physician into the saint may have suggested some
serviceable play-acting in India, of which we shall become spectators
later on.
The military Empire of Cairo was in decay, and had become very corrupt.
A vivid picture is set before us of delegated despotism and its
concomitants; greed, graft, outrage and squeeze. Whenever a new Sultan
succeeded to power, very large sums would be offered him for the rule
of such a wealthy city as Damascus. Of course the gold would have to
be wrung out of the resident merchants. If a good instalment of the
promised “present” were not speedily forthcoming, the Sultan would
find means to remove the dilatory Emir at the sword’s point, “or in
some other way; but, let him make the present aforesaid, and he shall
retain his rule.” “The traders of the city are not dealt with justly.
The rulers vie with each other in oppressing them, by robbery or by
dealing death.... The Moors are subject to the Mamelukes after the
fashion of the lamb to the wolf.... The Sultan will send two missives
to the governor of the citadel, one of which will command him to call
together there such lords or traders as he may choose. And when they
are gathered together in the citadel, the second letter is read to
them, whereof that which is its purpose, is gotten without delay.
Thus doth the lord aforesaid set about getting money.” We are told
of the curious way in which strict guard is enforced at the citadel:
throughout the night at intervals each sentinel signals to his next
neighbour by beating a drum; he who fails to pass on a responsive
rat-tat has to spend a twelvemonth in prison.
Varthema found the houses dirty outside—(they are still built of a
sort of cob), but the interiors splendid, with fountains and mosaics
and carvings and columns of marble and porphyry. He visited the Great
Mosque “where, so it is said,” the head of St. Zechariah is kept; and
was shown the exact spot where, “so it is given out,” Saul, breathing
out threatenings and slaughter, saw a great light and heard the voice
of Jesus; also the house “where (so they say) Cain slew Abel, his
brother.”
“But let us now return to the liberty which the Mamelukes aforesaid
enjoy in Damascus.... They go about in twos and threes, since it is
counted for dishonour to go alone. And, should they chance to meet two
or three ladies, license is granted to them, or they take it. They lie
in wait for these ladies in certain great hostelries, which are called
Khans; and, as ladies pass by the doorway each Mameluke will lay hold
of the hand of one of them, draw her inside, and abuse her. The lady
resists having her face seen; for women go about with face covered in
such wise that while they know us, we do not know who they are.... And
sometimes it chances that the Mamelukes, thinking to take some lord’s
daughter, take their own wives; a thing which happened whilst I was
there.... When Moor meeteth Mameluke, he must make obeisance and give
place, or he is bastinadoed, even should he be the chief merchant of
the city.”
We are told that rich Christian traders in every kind of merchandise
dwelt in Damascus, but were “ill-treated.” Long-eared goats were
brought up three flights of stairs to be milked for your meal. A
detailed description is given of the productions of the city and the
dress and customs of its people.