A Noble Grecian Lady.--Beauty of Scio.--An Original.--Foggi.--A
Turkish Coffee-house.--Mussulman at Prayers.--Easter Sunday.--A
Greek Priest.--A Tartar Guide.--Turkish Ladies.--Camel
Scenes.--Sight of a Harem.--Disappointed Hopes.--A rare
Concert.--Arrival at Smyrna.
(_Continuation of the Letter._)
WE returned to the house, and seeking out a room less ruined than
the rest, partook of a slight collation, and set out on a visit to a
relative of my Sciote friend.
On our way my companion pointed out a convent on the side of a hill,
where six thousand Greeks, who had been prevailed upon to come down
from the mountains to ransom themselves, were treacherously murdered
to a man; their unburied bones still whiten the ground within the
walls of the convent. Arriving at the house of his relative, we
entered through a large gateway into a handsome courtyard, with
reservoir, garden, &c., ruinous, though in better condition than
those we had seen before. This relative was a widow, of the noble
house of Mavrocordato, one of the first families in Greece, and
perhaps the most distinguished name in the Greek revolution. She had
availed herself of the sultan's amnesty to return; had repaired two
or three rooms, and sat down to end her days among the scenes of her
childhood, among the ruins of her father's house. She was now not
more than thirty; her countenance was remarkably pensive, and she
had seen enough to drive a smile for ever from her face. The meeting
between her and my friend was exceedingly affecting, particularly on
her part. She wept bitterly, though, with the elasticity peculiar to
the Greek character, the smile soon chased away the tear. She
invited us to spend the night there, pointing to the divan, and
promising us cushions and coverlets. We accepted her invitation, and
again set forth to ramble among the ruins.
I had heard that an American missionary had lately come into the
island, and was living somewhere in the neighbourhood. I found out
his abode, and went to see him. He was a young man from Virginia, by
the name of ****; had married a lady from Connecticut, who was
unfortunately sick in bed. He was living in one room in the corner
of a ruined building, but was then engaged in repairing a house into
which he expected to remove soon. As an American, the first whom
they had seen in that distant island, they invited me into the
sickroom. In a strange land, and among a people whose language they
did not understand, they seemed to be all in all to each other; and
I left them, probably for ever, in the earnest hope that the wife
might soon be restored to health, that hand in hand they might
sustain each other in the rough path before them.
Toward evening we returned to the house of my friend's relative. We
found there a nephew, a young man about twenty-two, and a cousin, a
man about thirty-five, both accidentally on a visit to the island.
As I looked at the little party before me, sitting around a brazier
of charcoal, and talking earnestly in Greek, I could hardly persuade
myself that what I had seen and heard that day was real. All that I
had ever read in history of the ferocity of the Turkish character;
all the wild stories of corsairs, of murdering, capturing, and
carrying into captivity, that I had ever read in romances, crowded
upon me, and I saw living witnesses that the bloodiest records of
history and the wildest creations of romance were not overcharged.
They could all testify in their own persons that these things were
true. They had all been stripped of their property, and had their
houses burned over their heads; had all narrowly escaped being
murdered; and had all suffered in their nearest and dearest
connexions. The nephew, then a boy nine years old, had been saved by
a maidservant, his father had been murdered; a brother, a sister,
and many of his cousins, were at that moment, and had been for
years, in slavery among the Turks; my friend, with his sister, had
found refuge in the house of the Austrian consul, and from thence
had escaped into Italy; the cousin was the son of one of the forty
hostages who were hung, and was the only member of his father's
family that escaped death; while our pensive and amiable hostess, a
bride of seventeen, had seen her young husband murdered before her
eyes; had herself been sold into slavery, and, after two years'
servitude, redeemed by her friends.
In the morning I rose early and walked out upon the terrace. Nature
had put on a different garb. The wind had fallen, and the sun was
shining warmly upon a scene of softness and luxuriance surpassing
all that I had ever heard or dreamed of the beauty of the islands of
Greece. Away with all that I said about Syra; skip the page. The
terrace overlooked the garden filled with orange, lemon, almond, and
fig trees; with plants, roses, and flowers of every description,
growing in luxuriant wildness. But the view was not confined to the
garden. Looking back to the harbour of Scio, was a bold range of
rugged mountains bounding the view on that side; on the right was
the sea, then calm as a lake; on both the other sides were ranges of
mountains, irregular and picturesque in their appearance, verdant
and blooming to their very summits; and within these limits, for an
extent of perhaps five miles, were continued gardens like that at
my feet, filled with the choicest fruit-trees, with roses and the
greatest variety of rare plants and flowers that ever unfolded their
beauties before the eyes of man; above all, the orange-trees, the
peculiar favourite of the island, then almost in full bloom, covered
with blossoms, from my elevated position on the terrace made the
whole valley appear an immense bed of flowers. All, too, felt the
freshening influence of the rain; and a gentle breeze brought to me
from this wilderness of sweets the most delicious perfume that ever
greeted the senses. Do not think me extravagant when I say that, in
your wildest dreams, you could never fancy so rich and beautiful a
scene. Even among ruins, that almost made the heart break, I could
hardly tear my eyes from it. It is one of the loveliest spots on
earth. It is emphatically a Paradise lost, for the hand of the Turks
is upon it; a hand that withers all that it touches. In vain does
the sultan invite the survivers, and the children made orphans by
his bloody massacre, to return; in vain do the fruits and the
flowers, the sun and the soil, invite them to return; their wounds
are still bleeding; they cannot forget that the wild beast's paw
might again be upon them, and that their own blood might one day
moisten the flowers which grow over the graves of their fathers. But
I must leave this place. I could hardly tear myself away then, and I
love to linger about it now. While I was enjoying the luxury of the
terrace a messenger came from the captain to call us on board. With
a feeling of the deepest interest I bade farewell, probably for
ever, to my sorrowing hostess and to the beautiful gardens of Scio.
We mounted our mules, and in an hour were at the port. My feelings
were so wrought upon that I felt my blood boil at the first Turk I
met in the streets. I felt that I should like to sacrifice him to
the shades of the murdered Greeks. I wondered that the Greeks did
not kill every one on the island. I wondered that they could endure
the sight of the turban. We found that the captain had hurried us
away unnecessarily. We could not get out of the harbour, and were
obliged to lounge about the town all day. We again made a circuit
among the ruins; examined particularly those of the library, where
we found an old woman who had once been an attendant there, living
in a little room in the cellar, completely buried under the stones
of the fallen building; and returning, sat down with a chibouk
before the door of an old Turkish coffee-house fronting the harbour.
Here I met an original in the person of the Dutch consul. He was an
old Italian, and had been in America during the revolutionary war as
_dragoman_, as he called it, to the Count de Grasse, though, from
his afterward incidentally speaking of the count as "my master," I
am inclined to think that the word dragoman, which here means a
person of great character and trust, may be interpreted as "valet de
chambre." The old consul was in Scio during the whole of the
massacre, and gave me many interesting particulars respecting it. He
hates the Greeks, and spoke with great indignation about the manner
in which their dead bodies lay strewed about the streets for months
after the massacre. "D--n them," he said, "he could not go anywhere
without stumbling over them." As I began to have some apprehensions
about being obliged to stay here another night, I thought I could
not employ my time better than in trying to work out of the consul
an invitation to spend it with him. But the old fellow was too much
for me. When I began to talk about the unpleasantness of being
obliged to spend the night on board, and the impossibility of
spending it on shore, _having no acquaintance_ there, he began to
talk poverty in the most up and down terms. I was a little
discouraged, but I looked at his military coat, his cocked hat and
cane, and considering his talk merely a sort of apology for the
inferior style of housekeeping I would find, was ingeniously working
things to a point, when he sent me to the right about by enumerating
the little instances of kindness he had received from strangers who
happened to visit the island; among others, from one--he had his
name in his pocketbook; he should never forget him; perhaps I had
heard of him--who, at parting, shook him affectionately by the hand,
and gave him a doubloon and a Spanish dollar. I hauled off from the
representative of the majesty of Holland, and perhaps, before this,
have been served up to some new visitor as the "mean, stingy
American."
In the evening we again got under weigh; before morning the wind was
again blowing dead ahead; and about midday we put into the harbour
of Foggi, a port in Asia Minor, and came to anchor under the walls
of the castle, under the blood-red Mussulman flag. We immediately
got into the boat to go ashore. This was my first port in Turkey. A
huge ugly African, marked with the smallpox, with two pistols and a
yataghan in his belt, stood on a little dock, waited till we were in
the act of landing, and then rushed forward, ferocious as a tiger
from his native sands, throwing up both his hands, and roaring out
"Quarantino." This was a new thing in Turkey. Heretofore the Turks,
with their fatalist notions, had never taken any precautions against
the plague; but they had become frightened by the terrible ravages
the disease was then making in Egypt, and imposed a quarantine upon
vessels coming from thence. We were, however, suffered to land, and
our first movement was to the coffee-house directly in front of the
dock. The coffee-house was a low wooden building, covering
considerable ground, with a large piazza, or, rather, projecting
roof all around it. Inside and out there was a raised platform
against the wall. This platform was one step from the floor, and on
this step every one left his shoes before taking his seat on the
matting. There were, perhaps, fifty Turks inside and out; sitting
cross-legged, smoking the chibouk, and drinking coffee out of cups
not larger than the shell of a Madeira-nut.
We kicked our shoes off on the steps, seated ourselves on a mat
outside, and took our chibouk and coffee with an air of savoir faire
that would not have disgraced the worthiest Moslem of them all.
Verily, said I, as I looked at the dozing, smoking, coffee-sipping
congregation around me, there are some good points about the Turks,
after all. They never think--that hurts digestion; and they love
chibouks and coffee--that shows taste and feeling. I fell into their
humour, and for a while exchanged nods with my neighbours all
around. Suddenly the bitterness of thought came upon me; I found
that my pipe was exhausted. I replenished it, and took a sip of
coffee. Verily, said I, there are few better things in this world
than chibouks and coffee; they even make men forget there is blood
upon their hands. The thought started me; I shrank from contact with
my neighbours, cut my way through the volumes of smoke, and got out
into the open air.
My companion joined me. We entered the walls and made a circuit of
the town. It was a dirty little place, having one principal street
lined with shops or bazars; every third shop, almost, being a
cafteria, where a parcel of huge turbaned fellows were at their
daily labours of smoking pipes and drinking coffee. The first thing
I remarked as being strikingly different from a European city was
the total absence of women. The streets were thronged with men, and
not a woman was to be seen, except occasionally I caught a glimpse
of a white veil or a pair of black eyes sparkling through the
latticed bars of a window. Afterward, however, in walking outside
the walls into the country, we met a large party of women. When we
first saw them they had their faces uncovered; but, as soon as they
saw us coming toward them, they stopped and arranged their long
white shawls, winding them around their faces so as to leave barely
space enough uncovered to allow them to see and breathe, but so that
it was utterly impossible for us to distinguish a single one of
their features.
Going on in the direction from which they came, and attracted by the
mourning cypress, we came to a large burying-ground. It is situated
on the side of a hill almost washed by the waves, and shaded by a
thick grove of the funereal tree. There is, indeed, something
peculiarly touching in the appearance of this tree; it seems to be
endowed with feelings, and to mourn over the dead it shades. The
monuments were generally a single upright slab of marble, with a
turban on the top. There were many, too, in form like one of our
oblong tombstones; and, instead of a slab of marble over the top,
the interior was filled with earth, and the surface overrun with
roses, evergreens, and flowers. The burying-grounds in the East are
always favourite places for walking in; and it is a favourite
occupation of the Turkish women to watch and water the flowers
growing over the graves of their friends.
Toward evening we returned to the harbour. I withdrew from my
companion, and, leaning against one of the gates of the city, fixed
my eyes upon the door of a minaret, watching till the muezzin should
appear, and, for the last time before the setting of the sun, call
all good Mussulmans to prayer. The door opens toward Mecca, and a
little before dark the muezzin came out, and, leaning over the
railing with his face toward the tomb of the Prophet, in a voice,
every tone of which fell distinctly upon my ear, made that solemn
call which, from the time of Mohammed, has been addressed five times
a day from the tops of the minarets to the sons of the faithful.
"Allah! Allah! God is God, and Mohammed is his prophet. To prayer!
to prayer!" Immediately an old Turk by my side fell upon his knees,
with his face to the tomb of the Prophet; ten times, in quick
succession, he bowed his forehead till it touched the earth; then
clasped his hands and prayed. I never saw more rapt devotion than in
this pious old Mussulman. I have often marked in Italy the severe
observance of religious ceremonies; I have seen, for instance, at
Rome, fifty penitents at a time mounting on their knees, and
kissing, as they mounted, the steps of the Scala Santa, or holy
staircase, by which, as the priests tell them, our Saviour ascended
into the presence of Pontius Pilate. I have seen the Greek prostrate
himself before a picture until he was physically exhausted; and I
have seen the humble and pious Christian at his prayers, beneath the
simple fanes and before the peaceful altars of my own land; but I
never saw that perfect abandonment with which a Turk gives himself
up to his God in prayer. He is perfectly abstracted from the things
of this world; he does not regard time or place; in his closet or in
the street, alone or in a crowd, he sees nothing, he hears nothing;
the world is a blank; his God is everything. He is lost in the
intensity of his devotion. It is a spectacle almost sublime, and for
the moment you forget the polluted fountain of his religion, and the
thousand crimes it sanctions, in your admiration of his sincerity
and faith.
Not being able to find any place where we could sleep ashore, except
on one of the mats of the coffee-house, head and heels with a dozen
Turks, we went on board, and toward morning again got under weigh.
We beat up to the mouth of the Gulf of Smyrna, but, with the sirocco
blowing directly in our teeth, it was impossible to go farther. We
made two or three attempts to enter, but in tacking the last time
our old brig, which had hardly ballast enough to keep her keel under
water, received such a rough shaking that we got her away before the
wind, and at three o'clock P.M. were again anchored in the harbour
of Foggi. I now began to think that there was a spell upon my
movements, and that Smyrna, which was becoming to me a sort of land
of promise, would never greet my longing eyes.
I was somewhat comforted, however, by remembering that I had never
yet reached any port in the Mediterranean for which I had sailed,
without touching at one or two intermediate ports; and that, so far,
I had always worked right at last. I was still farther comforted by
our having the good fortune to be able to procure lodging ashore, at
the house of a Greek, the son of a priest. It was the Saturday
before Easter Sunday, and the resurrection of our Saviour was to be
celebrated at midnight, or, rather, the beginning of the next day,
according to the rites and ceremonies of the Greek church. It was
also the last of the forty days' fasting, and the next day commenced
feasting. Supper was prepared for us, at which meat was put on the
table for me only; my Greek friend being supposed not to eat meat
during the days of fasting. He had been, however, two years out of
Greece; and though he did not like to offend the prejudices of his
countrymen, he did not like fasting. I felt for my fellow-traveller;
and, cutting up some meat in small parcels, kept my eye upon the
door while he whipped them into his mouth. After supper we lay down
upon the divan, with large quilts over us, my friend having promised
to rise at twelve o'clock and accompany me to the Greek church.
At midnight we were roused by the chant of the Greeks in the
streets, on their way to the church. We turned out, and fell into a
procession of five hundred people, making the streets as light as
day with their torches. At the door of the church we found our host,
sitting at a table with a parcel of wax tapers on one side and a box
to receive money on the other. We each bought a taper and went in.
After remaining there at least two hours, listening to a monotonous
and unintelligible routine of prayers and chants, the priests came
out of the holy doors, bearing aloft an image of our Saviour on the
cross, ornamented with gold leaf, tassels, and festoons of
artificial flowers; passed through the church, and out of the
opposite door. The Greeks lighted their tapers and formed into a
procession behind them, and we did the same. Immediately outside the
door, up the staircase, and on each side of the corridor, allowing
merely room enough for the procession to pass, were arranged the
women, dressed in white, with long white veils, thrown back from
their faces however, laid smooth over the tops of their heads, and
hanging down to their feet. Nearly every woman, old or young, had a
child in her arms. In fact, there seemed to be as great a mustering
of children as of men and women, and, for aught that I could see, as
much to the edification of the former as the latter. A continued
chant was kept up during the movements of the procession, and
perhaps for half an hour after the arrival of the priests at the
courtyard, when it rose to a tremendous burst. The torches were
waved in the air; a wild, unmeaning, and discordant scream or yell
rang through the hollow cloisters, and half a dozen pistols, two or
three muskets, and twenty or thirty crackers were fired. This was
intended as a feu-de-joie, and was supposed to mark the precise
moment of our Saviour's resurrection. In a few moments the phrensy
seemed to pass away; the noise fell from a wild clamour to a slow
chant, and the procession returned to the church. The scene was
striking, particularly the part outside the church; the dead of
night; the waving of torches; the women with their long white
dresses, and the children in their arms, &c.; but, from beginning to
end, there was nothing solemn in it.
Returned to the church, a priest came round with a picture of the
Saviour risen; and, as far as I could make it out, holding in his
hand the Greek flag, followed by another priest with a plate to
receive contributions. He held out the picture to be kissed, then
turned his hand to receive the same act of devotion, keeping his eye
all the time upon the plate which followed to receive the offerings
of the pious, as a sort of payment for the privilege of the kiss.
His manner reminded me of the Dutch parson, who, immediately after
pronouncing a couple man and wife, touching the bridegroom with his
elbow, said, "And now where ish mine dollar?" I kissed the picture,
dodged his knuckles, paid my money, and left the church. I had been
there four hours, during which time, perhaps, more than a thousand
persons had been completely absorbed in their religious ceremonies;
and though beginning in the middle of the night, I have seen more
yawning at the theatre or at an Italian opera than I saw there. They
now began to disperse, though I remember I left a crowd of regular
amateurs, at the head of whom were our sailors, still hanging round
the desk of an exhorting priest, with an earnestness that showed a
still craving appetite.
I do not wonder that the Turks look with contempt upon Christians,
for they have constantly under their eyes the disgusting mummeries
of the Greek church, and see nothing of the pure and sublime
principles our religion inculcates. Still, however, there was
something striking and interesting in the manner in which the Greeks
in this Turkish town had kept themselves, as it were, a peculiar
people, and, in spite of the brands of "dog" and "infidel," held
fast to the religion they received from their fathers. There was
nothing interesting about them as Greeks; they had taken no part
with their countrymen in their glorious struggle for liberty; they
were engaged in petty business, and bartered the precious chance of
freedom once before them for base profits and ignoble ease; and even
now were content to live in chains, and kiss the rod that smote
them.
We returned to the house where we had slept; and, after coffee, in
company with our host and his father, the priest, sat down to a
meal, in which, for the first time in forty days, they ate meat. I
had often remarked the religious observance of fast days among the
common people in Greece. In travelling there I had more than once
offered an egg to my guide on a fast day, but never could get one
to accept anything that came so near to animal food, though, by a
strange confusion of the principles of religious obligation, perhaps
the same man would not have hesitated to commit murder if he had any
inducement to do so. Mrs. Hill, at Athens, told me that, upon one
occasion, a little girl in her school refused to eat a piece of cake
because it was made with eggs.
At daylight I was lying on the floor looking through a crevice of
the window-shutter at the door of the minaret, waiting for the
muezzin's morning cry to prayer. At six o'clock I went out, and
finding the wind still in the same quarter, without any apparent
prospect of change, determined, at all hazards, to leave the vessel
and go on by land. My friend and fellow-passenger was also very
anxious to get to Smyrna, but would not accompany me, from an
indefinite apprehension of plague, robbers, &c. I had heard so many
of these rumours, all of which had proved to be unfounded, that I
put no faith in any of them. I found a Turk who engaged to take me
through in fourteen hours; and at seven o'clock I was in my saddle,
charged with a dozen letters from captains, supercargoes, and
passengers, whom I left behind waiting for a change of wind.
My Tartar was a big swarthy fellow, with an extent of beard and
mustaches unusual even among his bearded countrymen. He was armed
with a pair of enormous pistols and a yataghan, and was, altogether,
a formidable fellow to look upon. But there was a something about
him that I liked. There was a doggedness, a downright stubbornness
that seemed honest. I knew nothing about him. I picked him up in the
street, and took him in preference to others who offered, because he
would not be beaten down in his price. When he saw me seated on my
horse he stood by my side a little distance off, and looking at me
without opening his lips, drew his belt tight around him, and
adjusted his pistols and yataghan. His manner seemed to say that he
took charge of me as a bale of goods, to be paid for on safe
delivery, and that he would carry me through with fire and sword, if
necessary. And now, said I, "Let fate do her worst;" I have a good
horse under me, and in fourteen hours I shall be in Smyrna. "Blow
winds and crack your cheeks;" I defy you.
My Tartar led off at a brisk trot, never opening his lips nor
turning his head except occasionally to see how I followed him
across a stream. At about ten o'clock he turned off from the
horse-path into a piece of fine pasture, and, slipping the bridle
off his horse, turned him loose to feed. He then did the same with
mine, and, spreading my cloak on the ground for me to sit upon, sat
down by my side and opened his wallet. His manner seemed to intimate
a disposition to throw provisions into a common stock, no doubt
expecting the gain to be on his side; but as I could only contribute
a couple of rolls of bread which I bought as we rode through the
town, I am inclined to think that he considered me rather a sponge.
While we were sitting there a travelling party came up, consisting
of five Turks and three women. The women were on horseback, riding
crosswise, though there were so many quilts, cushions, &c., piled on
the backs of their horses that they sat rather on seats than on
saddles. After a few words of parley with my Tartar, the men lifted
the women from the horses, taking them in their arms, and, as it
were, hauling them off, not very gracefully, but very kindly; and,
spreading their quilts on the ground a short distance from us,
turned their horses loose to feed, and sat down to make their
morning meal. An unusual and happy thing for me the women had their
faces uncovered nearly all the time, though they could not well have
carried on the process of eating with them muffled up in the usual
style. One of the women was old, the other two were exceedingly
young; neither of them more than sixteen; each had a child in her
arms, and, without any allowance for time and place, both were
exceedingly beautiful. I do not say so under the influence of the
particular circumstances of our meeting, nor with the view of making
an incident of it, but I would have singled them out as such if I
had met them in a ballroom at home. I was particularly struck with
their delicacy of figure and complexion. Notwithstanding their
laughing faces, their mirth, and the kind treatment of the men, I
could not divest myself of the idea that they were caged birds
longing to be free. I could not believe that a woman belonging to a
Turk could be otherwise than unhappy. Unfortunately, I could not
understand a word of their language; and as they looked from their
turbaned lords to my stiff hat and frockcoat, they seemed to regard
me as something the Tartar had just caught and was taking up to
Constantinople as a present to the sultan. I endeavoured to show,
however, that I was not the wild thing they took me to be; that I
had an eye to admire their beauty, and a heart to feel for their
servitude. I tried to procure from them some signal of distress; I
did all that I could to get some sign to come to their rescue, and
to make myself generally agreeable. I looked sentimentally. This
they did not seem to understand at all. I smiled; this seemed to
please them better; and there is no knowing to what a point I might
have arrived, but my Tartar hurried me away; and I parted on the
wild plains of Turkey with two young and beautiful women, leading
almost a savage life, whose personal graces would have made them
ornaments in polished and refined society. Verily, said I, the Turks
are not so bad, after all; they have handsome wives, and a handsome
wife comes next after chibouks and coffee.
I was now reminded at every step of my being in an oriental country
by the caravans I was constantly meeting. Caravans and camels are
more or less associated with all the fairy scenes and glowing
pictures of the East. They have always presented themselves to my
mind with a sort of poetical imagery, and they certainly have a fine
effect in a description or in a picture; but, after all, they are
ugly-looking things to meet on the road. I would rather see the two
young Turk-_esses_ again than all the caravans in the East. The
caravan is conducted by a guide on a donkey, with a halter attached
to the first camel, and so on from camel to camel through the whole
caravan. The camel is an exceedingly ugly animal in his proportions,
and there is a dead uniformity in his movement; with a dead, vacant
expression in his face, that is really distressing. If a man were
dying of thirst in the desert, it would be enough to drive him to
distraction to look in the cool, unconcerned, and imperturbable face
of his camel. But their value is inestimable in a country like this,
where there are no carriage roads, and where deserts and drought
present themselves in every direction.
One of the camel scenes, the encampment, is very picturesque, the
camels arranged around on their knees in a circle, with their heads
to the centre, and the camel-drivers with their bales piled up
within; and I was struck with another scene; we came to the borders
of a stream, which it was necessary to cross in a boat. The boat
was then on the other side, and the boatman and camel driver were
trying to get on board some camels. When we came up they had got
three on board, down on their knees in the bottom of the boat, and
were then in the act of coercing the fourth. The poor brute was
frightened terribly; resisted with all his might, and put forth most
piteous cries; I do not know a more distressing noise than the cry
of a brute suffering from fear; it seems to partake of the feeling
that causes it, and carries with it something fearful; but the cries
of the poor brute were vain; they got him on board, and in the same
way urged on board three others. They then threw in the donkey, and
seven camels and the donkey were so stowed in the bottom of the
boat, that they did not take up much more room than calves on board
of our country boats.
In the afternoon I met another travelling party of an entirely
different description. If before I had occasionally any doubts or
misgivings as to the reality of my situation; if sometimes it seemed
to be merely a dream, that it could not be that I was so far from
home, wandering alone on the plains of Asia, with a guide whom I
never saw till that morning, whose language I could not understand,
and upon whose faith I could not rely; if the scenes of turbaned
Turks, of veiled women, of caravans and camels, of graveyards with
their mourning cypress and thousands of tombstones, where every
trace of the cities which supplied them with their dead had entirely
disappeared; if these and the other strange scenes around me would
seem to be the mere creations of a roving imagination, the party
which I met now was so marked in its character, so peculiar to an
oriental country, and to an oriental country only, that it roused
me from my waking dreams, fixed my wandering thoughts, and convinced
me, beyond all peradventure, that I was indeed far from home, among
a people "whose thoughts are not as our thoughts, and whose ways are
not as our ways;" in short, in a land where ladies are not the
omnipotent creatures that they are with us.
This party was no other than the ladies of a harem. They were all
dressed in white, with their white shawls wrapped around their
faces, so that they effectually concealed every feature, and could
bring to bear only the artillery of their eyes. I found this,
however, to be very potent, as it left so much room for the
imagination; and it was a very easy matter to make a Fatima of every
one of them. They were all on horseback, not riding sidewise, but
_otherwise_; though I observed, as before, that their saddles were
so prepared that their delicate limbs were not subject to that
extreme expansion required by the saddle of the rougher sex. They
were escorted by a party of armed Turks, and followed by a man in
Frank dress, who, as I after understood, was the physician of the
harem. They were thirteen in number, just a baker's dozen, and
belonged to a pacha who was making his annual tour of the different
posts under his government, and had sent them on before to have the
household matters all arranged upon his arrival. And no doubt, also,
they were to be in readiness to receive him with their smiles; and
if they continued in the same humour in which I saw them, he must
have been a happy man who could call them all his own. I had not
fairly recovered from the cries of the poor camel when I heard their
merry voices: verily, thought I, stopping to catch the last musical
notes, there are exceedingly good points about the Turks: chibouks,
coffee, and as many wives as they please. It made me whistle to
think of it. Oh, thought I, that some of our ladies could see these
things; that some haughty beauty, at whose feet dozens of worthy and
amiable young gentlemen are sighing themselves into premature
wrinkles and ugliness, might see these things.
I am no rash innovator. I would not sweep away the established
customs of our state of society. I would not lay my meddling fingers
upon the admitted prerogatives of our ladies; but I cannot help
asking myself if, in the rapid changes of this turning world,
changes which completely alter rocks and the hardest substances of
nature, it may not by possibility happen that the tenour of a lady's
humour will change. What a goodly spectacle to see those who are
never content without a dozen admirers in their train, following by
dozens in the train of one man! But I fear me much that this will
never be, at least in our day. Our system of education is radically
wrong. The human mind, says some philosopher, and the gentleman is
right, is like the sand upon the shore of the sea. You may write
upon it what character you please. _We_ begin by writing upon their
innocent unformed minds, that, "Born for their use, we live but to
oblige them." The consequence is, I will not say what; for I hope to
return among them and kiss the rod in some fair hand; but this I do
know, that here the "twig is so bent" that they become as gentle, as
docile, and as tractable as any domestic animal. I say again, there
are many exceeding good points about the Turks.
At about six o'clock we came in sight of Smyrna, on the opposite
side of the gulf, and still a long way off. At dusk we were directly
opposite the city; and although we had yet to make a long circuit
round the head of the gulf, I was revelling in the bright prospect
before me. Dreams of pulling off my pantaloons; delightful visions
of clean sheets and a Christian bed flitted before my eyes. Yes,
said I to my pantaloons and shirt, ye worthy and faithful servants,
this night ye shall have rest. While other garments have fallen from
me by the way, ye have stuck to me. And thou, my gray pantaloons,
little did the neat Parisian tailor who made thee think that the
strength of his stitching would ever be tested by three weeks'
uninterrupted wear; but to-morrow thou shalt go into the hands of a
master, who shall sew on thy buttons and sew up thy rents; and thou,
my--I was going on with words of the same affectionate import to my
shirt, stockings, and drawers, which, however, did not deserve so
well of me, for they had in a measure _dropped off_ on the way, when
my Tartar came to a dead stop before the door of a cabin,
dismounted, and made signs to me to do the same. But I began now to
have some notions of my own; heretofore I had been perfectly
passive; I had always done as I was told, but in sight of Smyrna I
became restiff. I talked and shouted to him, pointed to the city,
and turned my horse as though I was going on alone. My Tartar,
however, paid no attention to me; he very coolly took off my
carpet-bag and carried it into the cabin, lighted his pipe, and sat
down by the door, looking at me with the most imperturbable gravity.
I had hardly had time to admire his impudence, and to calculate the
chances of my being able, alone at night, to cross the many streams
which emptied into the gulf, when the wind, which had been rising
for some time, became very violent, and the rain began to fall in
torrents. With a sigh I bade farewell to the bright visions that
had deluded me, gave another sigh to the uncertainty of all human
calculations, the cup and the lip, &c., and took refuge in the
cabin.
What a substitute for the pretty little picture I had drawn! Three
Turks were sitting round a brazier of charcoal frying doughballs.
Three rugs were spread in three corners of the cabin, and over each
of them were the eternal pistols and yataghan. There was nothing
there to defend; their miserable lives were not worth taking; why
were these weapons there? The Turks at first took no notice of me,
and I had now to make amends for my backwardness in entering. I
resolved to go to work boldly, and at once elbowed among them for a
seat around the brazier. The one next me on my right seemed a little
struck by my easy ways; he put his hand on his ribs to feel how far
my elbow had penetrated, and then took his pipe from his mouth and
offered it to me. The ice broken, I smoked the pipe to the last
whiff, and handed it to him to be refilled; with all the horrors of
dyspepsy before my eyes, I scrambled with them for the last
doughball, and, when the attention of all of them was particularly
directed toward me, took out my watch, held it over the lamp, and
wound it up. I addressed myself particularly to the one who had
first taken notice of me, and made myself extremely agreeable by
always smoking his pipe. After coffee and half a dozen pipes, he
gave me to understand that I was to sleep with him upon his mat, at
which I slapped him on the back and cried out, "Bono," having heard
him use that word apparently with a knowledge of its meaning.
I was surprised in the course of the evening to see one of them
begin to undress, knowing that such was not the custom of the
country, but found that it was only a temporary disrobing for
sporting purposes, to hunt fleas and bedbugs; by which I had an
opportunity of comparing the Turkish with some I had brought with me
from Greece; and though the Turk had great reason to be proud of
his, I had no reason to be ashamed of mine. I now began to be
drowsy, and should soon have fallen asleep; but the youngest of the
party, a sickly and sentimental young man, melancholy and musical,
and, no doubt, in love, brought out the common Turkish instrument, a
sort of guitar, on which he worked with untiring vivacity, keeping
time with his head and heels. My friend accompanied him with his
voice, and this brought out my Tartar, who joined in with groans and
grunts which might have waked the dead. But my cup was not yet full.
During the musical festival my friend and intended bedfellow took
down from a shelf above me a large plaster, which he warmed over the
brazier. He then unrolled his turban, took off a plaster from the
back of his head, and disclosed a wound, raw, gory, and ghastly,
that made my heart sink within me: I knew that the plague was about
Smyrna; I had heard that it was on this road; I involuntarily
recurred to the Italian prayer, "Save me from the three miseries of
the Levant: plague, fire, and the dragoman." I shut my eyes; I had
slept but two hours the night before; had ridden twelve hours that
day on horseback; I drew my cloak around me; my head sank upon my
carpet-bag, and I fell asleep, leaving the four Turks playing cards
on the bottom of a pewter plate. Once during the night I was
awakened by my bedfellow's mustaches tickling my lips. I turned my
back and slept on.
In the morning my Tartar, with one jerk, stood me upright on the
floor, and holding me in that position until I got awake, kicked
open the door, and pointed to my horse standing before it ready
saddled and bridled. In three hours I was crossing the caravan
bridge, a bridge over the beautiful Melissus, on the banks of which
Homer was born; and picking my way among caravans, which for ages
have continued to cross this bridge laden with all the riches of the
East, I entered the long-looked-for city of Smyrna, a city that has
braved the reiterated efforts of conflagrations, plagues, and
earthquakes; ten times destroyed, and ten times risen from her
ruins; the queen of the cities of Anatolia; extolled by the ancients
as Smyrna the lovely, the crown of Ionia, the pride of Asia. But old
things have passed away, and the ancient city now figures only under
the head of arrivals in a newspaper, in the words and figures
following, that is to say, "Brig Betsy, Baker master, 57 days from
Smyrna, with figs and raisins to order. Mastic dull, opium rising."
In half an hour I was in the full enjoyment of a Turkish bath;
lolled half an hour on a divan, with chibouk and coffee, and came
out fresh as if I had spent the last three weeks training for the
ring. Oh, these Turks are luxurious dogs. Chibouks, coffee, hot
baths, and as many wives as they please. What a catalogue of human
enjoyments! But I intend Smyrna as a place of rest, and, in charity,
give you the benefit, of it.
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