First Sight of Smyrna.--Unveiled Women.--Ruins of Ephesus.--Ruin,
all Ruin.--Temple of Diana.--Encounter with a Wolf.--Love at first
Sight.--Gatherings on the Road.
(_Another letter._)
MY DEAR ****,
AFTER my bath I returned to my hotel, breakfasted, and sallied out
for a walk. It was now about twelve o'clock, Sunday--the first
Sunday after Easter--and all the Frank population was in the
streets. My hotel was in an out-of-the-way quarter, and when,
turning a corner, I suddenly found myself in the main street, I was
not prepared for the sight that met my eye. Paris on a fete day does
not present so gay and animated a scene. It was gay, animated,
striking, and beautiful, and entirely different from anything I had
ever seen in any European city. Franks, Jews, Greeks, Turks, and
Armenians, in their various and striking costumes, were mingled
together in agreeable confusion; and making all due allowance for
the circumstance that I had for some time been debarred the sight of
an unveiled woman, I certainly never saw so much beauty, and I never
saw a costume so admirably calculated to set off beauty. At the same
time the costume is exceedingly trying to a lady's pretensions.
Being no better than one of the uninitiated, I shall not venture
upon such dangerous ground as a lady's toilet. I will merely refer
to that part which particularly struck me, and that is the
headdress; no odious broad-brimmed hat; no enormous veils enveloping
nose, mouth, and eyes; but simply a large gauze turban, sitting
lightly and gracefully on the head, rolled back over the forehead,
leaving the whole face completely exposed, and exhibiting clear dark
complexions, rosy lips closing over teeth of dazzling whiteness; and
then such eyes, large, dark, and rolling. It is matter of history,
and it is confirmed by poetry, that
"The angelic youths of old,
Burning for maids of mortal mould,
Bewildered, left the glorious skies,
And lost their heaven for woman's eyes."
My dear friend, this is the country where such things happened; the
throne of the Thunderer, high Olympus, is almost in sight, and these
are the daughters of the women who worked such miracles. If the age
of passion, like the age of chivalry, were not over and for ever
gone, if this were not emphatically a bank-note world, I would say
of the Smyrniotes, above all others, that they are that description
of women who could
"Raise a mortal to the skies,
Or bring an angel down."
And they walk, too, as if conscious of their high pretensions, as if
conscious that the reign of beauty is not yet ended; and, under that
enchanting turban, charge with the whole artillery of their charms.
It is a perfect unmasked battery; nothing can stand before it. I
wonder the sultan allows it. The Turks are as touchy as tinder; they
take fire as quick as any of the old demigods, and a pair of black
eyes is at any time enough to put mischief in them. But the Turks
are a considerate people. They consider that the Franks, or rather
the Greeks, to whom I particularly refer, have periodical fits of
insanity that they go mad twice a year during carnival and after
Lent; and if at such a time a follower of the Prophet, accidentally
straggling in the Frank quarter, should find the current of his
blood disturbed, he would sooner die, nay, he would sooner cut off
his beard, than hurt a hair of any one of the light heads that he
sees flitting before him. There is something remarkable, by-the-way,
in the tenacity with which the Grecian women have sustained the
rights and prerogatives of beauty in defiance of Turkish customs and
prejudices; while the men have fallen into the habits of their
quondam masters, have taken to pipes and coffee, and in many
instances to turbans and big trousers, the women have ever gone with
their faces uncovered, and to this day one and all eschew the veil
of the Turkish women.
Pleased and amused with myself and everything I saw, I moved along
unnoticed and unknown, staring, observing, and admiring; among other
things, I observed that one of the amiable customs of our own city
was in full force here, viz., that of the young gentlemen, with
light sticks in their hands, gathering around the door of the
fashionable church to stare at the ladies as they came out. I was
pleased to find such a mark of civilization in a land of barbarians,
and immediately fell into a thing which seemed so much like home;
but, in justice to the Smyrniote ladies, I must say I cannot flatter
myself that I stared a single one out of countenance.
But I need not attempt to interest you in Smyrna; it is too
every-day a place; every Cape Cod sailor knows it better than I do.
I have done all that I could; I have waived the musty reminiscences
of its history; I have waived ruins which are said to exist here,
and have endeavoured to give you a faint but true picture of its
living and existing beauties, of the bright and beautiful scene
that broke upon me the first morning of my arrival; and now, if I
have not touched you with the beauty of its women, I should despair
of doing so by any description of its beautiful climate, its
charming environs, and its hospitable society.
Leave, then, what is, after all, but the city of figs and raisins,
and go with me where, by comparison, the foot of civilized man
seldom treads; go with me into the desert and solitary places; go
with me among the cities of the seven churches of Asia; and, first,
to the ruins of Ephesus. I had been several days expecting a
companion to make this tour with me, but, being disappointed, was
obliged to set out alone. I was not exactly alone, for I had with me
a Turk as guide and a Greek as cicerone and interpreter, both well
mounted and armed to the teeth. We started at two o'clock in the
morning, under the light of thousands of stars; and the day broke
upon us in a country wild and desolate, as if it were removed
thousands of miles from the habitations of men. There was little
variety and little incident in our ride. During the whole day it lay
through a country decidedly handsome, the soil rich and fertile, but
showing with appalling force the fatal effects of misgovernment,
wholly uncultivated, and almost wholly uninhabited. Indeed, the only
habitations were the little Turkish coffee-houses and the black
tents of the Turcomans. These are a wandering tribe, who come out
from the desert, and approach comparatively near the abodes of
civilization. They are a pastoral people; their riches are their
flocks and herds; they lead a wandering life, free as the air they
breathe; they have no local attachments; to-day they pitch their
tents on the hillside, to-morrow on the plain; and wherever they sit
themselves down, all that they have on earth, wife, children, and
friends, are immediately around them. There is something primitive,
almost patriarchal, in their appearance; indeed, it carries one back
to a simple and perhaps a purer age, and you can almost realize that
state of society when the patriarch sat in the door of his tent and
called in and fed the passing traveller.
The general character of the road is such as to prepare one for the
scene that awaits him at Ephesus; enormous burying-grounds, with
thousands of headstones shaded by the mourning cypress, in the midst
of a desolate country, where not a vestige of a human habitation is
to be seen. They stand on the roadside as melancholy telltales that
large towns or cities once existed in their immediate neighbourhood,
and that the generations who occupied them have passed away,
furnishing fearful evidence of the decrease of the Turkish
population, and perhaps that the gigantic empire of the Ottoman is
tottering to its fall.
For about three hours before reaching Ephesus, the road, crossing a
rich and beautiful plain watered by the Cayster, lies between two
mountains; that on the right leads to the sea, and on the left are
the ruins of Ephesus. Near, and in the immediate vicinity, storks
were calmly marching over the plain and building among the ruins;
they moved as if seldom disturbed by human footsteps, and seemed to
look upon us as intruders upon a spot for a long time abandoned to
birds and beasts of prey. About a mile this side are the remains of
the Turkish city of Aysalook, or Temple of the Moon, a city of
comparatively modern date, reared into a brief magnificence out of
the ruins of its fallen neighbour. A sharp hill, almost a mountain,
rises abruptly from the plain, on the top of which is a ruined
fortress, with many ruins of Turkish magnificence at the base;
broken columns, baths overgrown with ivy, and the remains of a grand
mosque, the roof sustained by four granite columns from the Temple
of Diana; the minaret fallen, the mosque deserted; the Mussulman no
more goes there to pray; bats and owls were building in its lofty
roof, and snakes and lizards were crawling over its marble floor.
It was late in the afternoon when I arrived at the little
coffee-house at Aysalook; a caravan had already encamped under some
fine old sycamores before the door, preparatory to passing the
night. I was somewhat fatigued, and my Greek, who had me in charge,
was disposed to stop and wait for the morrow; but the fallen city
was on the opposite hill at but a short distance, and the shades of
evening seemed well calculated to heighten the effect of a ramble
among its ruins. In a right line it was not more than half a mile,
but we soon found that we could not go directly to it; a piece of
low swampy ground lay between, and we had not gone far before our
horses sank up to their saddle-girths. We were obliged to retrace
our steps, and work our way around by a circuitous route of more
than two miles. This, too, added to the effect of our approach. It
was a dreary reflection, that a city, whose ports and whose gates
had been open to the commerce of the then known world; whose wealth
had invited the traveller and sojourner within its walls should lie
a ruin upon a hillside, with swamps and morasses extending around
it, in sight but out of reach, near but unapproachable. A warning
voice seemed to issue from the ruins, "_Procul, procul, este
profani_," my day is past, my sun is set, I have gone to my grave;
pass on, stranger, and disturb not the ashes of the dead.
But my Turk did not understand Latin, and we continued to advance.
We moved along in perfect silence, for besides that my Turk never
spoke, and my Greek, who was generally loquacious enough, was out of
humour at being obliged to go on, we had enough to do in picking our
lonely way. But silence best suited the scene; the sound of the
human voice seemed almost a mockery of fallen greatness. We entered
by a large and ruined gateway into a place distinctly marked as
having been a street, and, from the broken columns strewed on each
side, probably having been lined with a colonnade. I let my reins
fall upon my horse's neck; he moved about in the slow and desultory
way that suited my humour; now sinking to his knees in heaps of
rubbish, now stumbling over a Corinthian capital, and now sliding
over a marble pavement. The whole hillside is covered with ruins to
an extent far greater than I expected to find, and they are all of a
kind that tends to give a high idea of the ancient magnificence of
the city. To me, these ruins appeared to be a confused and shapeless
mass; but they have been examined by antiquaries with great care,
and the character of many of them identified with great certainty. I
had, however, no time for details; and, indeed, the interest of
these ruins in my eyes was not in the details. It mattered little to
me that this was the stadium and that a fountain; that this was a
gymnasium and that a market-place; it was enough to know that the
broken columns, the mouldering walls, the grass-grown streets, and
the wide-extended scene of desolation and ruin around me were all
that remained of one of the greatest cities of Asia, one of the
earliest Christian cities in the world. But what do I say? Who does
not remember the tumults and confusion raised by Demetrius the
silversmith, "lest the temple of the great goddess Diana should be
despised, and her magnificence be destroyed;" and how the people,
having caught "Caius and Aristarchus, Paul's companions in travel,"
rushed with one accord into the theatre, crying out, "great is Diana
of the Ephesians." My dear friend, I sat among the ruins of that
theatre; the stillness of death was around me; far as the eye could
reach, not a living soul was to be seen save my two companions and a
group of lazy Turks smoking at the coffee-house in Aysalook. A man
of strong imagination might almost go wild with the intensity of his
own reflections; and do not let it surprise you, that even one like
me, brought up among the technicalities of declarations and
replications, rebutters and surrebutters, and in nowise given to the
illusions of the senses, should find himself roused, and
irresistibly hurried back to the time when the shapeless and
confused mass around him formed one of the most magnificent cities
in the world; when a large and busy population was hurrying through
its streets, intent upon the same pleasures and the same business
that engage men now; that he should, in imagination, see before him
St. Paul preaching to the Ephesians, shaking their faith in the gods
of their fathers, gods made with their own hands; and the noise and
confusion, and the people rushing tumultuously up the very steps
where he sat; that he should almost hear their cry ringing in his
ears, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians;" and then that he should
turn from this scene of former glory and eternal ruin to his own
far-distant land; a land that the wisest of the Ephesians never
dreamed of; where the wild man was striving with the wild beast when
the whole world rang with the greatness of the Ephesian name; and
which bids fair to be growing greater and greater when the last
vestige of Ephesus shall be gone and its very site unknown.
But where is the temple of the great Diana, the temple two hundred
and twenty years in building; the temple of one hundred and
twenty-seven columns, each column the gift of a king? Can it be that
the temple of the "Great goddess Diana," that the ornament of Asia,
the pride of Ephesus, and one of the seven wonders of the world, has
gone, disappeared, and left not a trace behind? As a traveller, I
would fain be able to say that I have seen the ruins of this temple;
but, unfortunately, I am obliged to limit myself by facts. Its site
has of course engaged the attention of antiquaries. I am no skeptic
in these matters, and am disposed to believe all that my cicerone
tells me. You remember the countryman who complained to his minister
that he never gave him any Latin in his sermons; and when the
minister answered that he would not understand it, the countryman
replied that he paid for the best, and ought to have it. I am like
that honest countryman; but my cicerone understood himself better
than the minister; he knew that I paid him for the best; he knew
what was expected from him, and that his reputation was gone for
ever if, in such a place as Ephesus, he could not point out the
ruins of the great temple of Diana. He accordingly had _his_ temple,
which he stuck to with as much pertinacity as if he had built it
himself; but I am sorry to be obliged to say, in spite of his
authority and my own wish to believe him, that the better opinion
is, that now not a single stone is to be seen.
Topographers have fixed the site on the plain, near the gate of the
city which opened to the sea. The sea, which once almost washed the
walls, has receded or been driven back for several miles. For many
years a new soil has been accumulating, and all that stood on the
plain, including so much of the remains of the temple as had not
been plundered and carried away by different conquerors, is probably
now buried many feet under its surface.
It was dark when I returned to Aysalook. I had remarked, in passing,
that several caravans had encamped there, and on my return found the
camel-drivers assembled in the little coffee-house in which I was to
pass the night. I soon saw that there were so many of us that we
should make a tight fit in the sleeping part of the khan, and
immediately measured off space enough to fit my body, allowing
turning and kicking room. I looked with great complacency upon the
light slippers of the Turks, which they always throw off, too, when
they go to sleep, and made an ostentatious display of a pair of
heavy iron-nailed boots, and, in lying down, gave one or two
preliminary thumps to show them that I was restless in my movements,
and, if they came too near me these iron-nailed boots would be
uncomfortable neighbours.
And here I ought to have spent half the night in musing upon the
strange concatenation of circumstances which had broken up a quiet
practising attorney, and sent him a straggler from a busy,
money-getting land, to meditate among the ruins of ancient cities,
and sleep pellmell with turbaned Turks. But I had no time for
musing; I was amazingly tired; I looked at the group of Turks in one
corner, and regretted that I could not talk with them; thought of
the Tower of Babel and the wickedness of man, which brought about a
confusion of tongues; of camel-drivers, and Arabian Nights'
Entertainments; of home, and my own comfortable room in the third
story; brought my boot down with a thump that made them all start,
and in five minutes was asleep.
In the morning I again went over to the ruins. Daylight, if
possible, added to their effect; and a little thing occurred, not
much in itself, but which, under the circumstances, fastened itself
upon my mind in such a way that I shall never forget it. I had read
that here, in the stillness of the night, the jackal's cry was
heard; that, if a stone was rolled, a scorpion or lizard slipped
from under it; and, while picking our way slowly along the lower
part of the city, a wolf of the largest size came out above, as if
indignant at being disturbed in his possessions. He moved a few
paces toward us with such a resolute air that my companions both
drew their pistols; then stopped, and gazed at us deliberately as we
were receding from him, until, as if satisfied that we intended to
leave his dominions, he turned and disappeared among the ruins. It
would have made a fine picture; the Turk first, then the Greek, each
with a pistol in his hand, then myself, all on horseback, the wolf
above us, the valley, and the ruined city. I feel my inability to
give you a true picture of these ruins. Indeed, if I could lay
before you every particular, block for block, fragment for fragment,
here a column and there a column, I could not convey a full idea of
the desolation that marks the scene.
To the Christian, the ruins of Ephesus carry with them a peculiar
interest; for here, upon the wreck of heathen temples, was
established one of the earliest Christian churches; but the
Christian church has followed the heathen temple, and the
worshippers of the true God have followed the worshippers of the
great goddess Diana; and in the city where Paul preached, and where,
in the words of the apostle, "much people were gathered unto the
Lord," now not a solitary Christian dwells. Verily, in the prophetic
language of inspiration, the "candlestick is removed from its
place;" a curse seems to have fallen upon it, men shun it, not a
human being is to be seen among its ruins; and Ephesus, in faded
glory and fallen grandeur, is given up to birds and beasts of prey,
a monument and a warning to nations.
From Ephesus I went to Scala Nova, handsomely situated on the shore
of the sea, and commanding a fine view of the beautiful Island of
Samos, distant not more than four miles. I had a letter to a Greek
merchant there, who received me kindly, and introduced me to the
Turkish governor. The governor, as usual, was seated upon a divan,
and asked us to take seats beside him. We were served with coffee
and pipes by two handsome Greek slaves, boys about fourteen, with
long hair hanging down their necks, and handsomely dressed; who,
after serving us, descended from the platform, and waited with
folded arms until we had finished. Soon after a third guest came,
and a third lad, equally handsome and equally well dressed, served
him in the same manner. This is the style of the Turkish grandees, a
slave to every guest. I do not know to what extent it is carried,
but am inclined to think that, in the present instance, if one or
two more guests had happened to come in, my friend's retinue of
slaves would have fallen short. The governor asked me from what
country I came, and who was my king; and when I told him that we had
no king, but a president, he said, very graciously, that our
president and the grand seignior were very good friends; a
compliment which I acknowledged with all becoming humility. Wanting
to show off a little, I told him that we were going to fight the
French, and he said we should certainly whip them if we could get
the grand seignior to help us.
I afterward called on my own account upon the English consul. The
consuls in these little places are originals. They have nothing to
do, but they have the government arms blazoned over their doors, and
strut about in cocked hats and regimentals, and shake their heads,
and look knowing, and talk about their government; they do not know
what the government will think, &c., when half the time their
government hardly knows of the existence of its worthy
representatives. This was an old Maltese, who spoke French and
Italian. He received me very kindly, and pressed me to stay all
night. I told him that I was not an Englishman, and had no claim
upon his hospitality; but he said that made no difference; that he
was consul for all civilized nations, among which he did me the
honour to include mine.
At three o'clock I took leave of the consul. My Greek friend
accompanied me outside the gate, where my horses were waiting for
me; and, at parting, begged me to remember that I had a friend, who
hardly knew what pleasure was except in serving me. I told him that
the happiness of my life was not complete before I met him; we threw
ourselves into each other's arms, and, after a two hours'
acquaintance, could hardly tear away from each other's embraces.
Such is the force of sympathy between congenial spirits. My friend
was a man about fifty, square built, broad shouldered, and big
mustached; and the beauty of it was, that neither could understand a
word the other said; and all this touching interchange of sentiment
had to pass through my mustached, big-whiskered, double-fisted,
six-feet interpreter.
At four o'clock we set out on our return; at seven we stopped in a
beautiful valley surrounded by mountains, and on the sides of the
mountains were a number of Turcomans tents. The khan was worse than
any I had yet seen. It had no floor and no mat. The proprietor of
the khan, if such a thing, consisting merely of four mud walls with
a roof of branches, which seemed to have been laid there by the
winds, could be said to have a proprietor, was uncommonly sociable;
he set before me my supper, consisting of bread and yort--a
preparation of milk--and appeared to be much amused at seeing me
eat. He asked my guide many questions about me; examined my pistols,
took off his turban, and put my hat upon his shaved head, which
transformed him from a decidedly bold, slashing-looking fellow, into
a decidedly sneaking-looking one. I had certainly got over all
fastidiousness in regard to eating, drinking, and sleeping; but I
could not stand the vermin at this khan. In the middle of the night
I rose and went out of doors; it was a brilliant starlight night,
and, as the bare earth was in any case to be my bed, I exchanged the
mud floor of my khan for the greensward and the broad canopy of
heaven. My Turk was sleeping on the ground, about a hundred yards
from the house, with his horse grazing around him. I nestled close
to him, and slept perhaps two hours. Toward morning I was awakened
by the cold, and, with the selfishness of misery, I began punching
my Turk under the ribs to wake him. This was no easy matter; but,
after a while, I succeeded, got him to saddle the horses, and in a
few minutes we were off, my Greek not at all pleased with having his
slumbers so prematurely disturbed.
At about two o'clock we passed some of the sultan's _volunteers_.
These were about fifty men chained together by the wrists and
ankles, who had been chased, run down, and caught in some of the
villages, and were now on their way to Constantinople, under a
guard, to be trained as soldiers. I could but smile as I saw them,
not at them, for, in truth, there was nothing in their condition to
excite a smile, but at the recollection of an article I had seen a
few days before in a European paper, which referred to the new
levies making by the sultan, and the spirit with which his subjects
entered into the service. They were a speaking comment upon European
insight into Turkish politics. But, without more ado, suffice it to
say, that at about four o'clock I found myself at the door of my
hotel, my outer garments so covered with creeping things that my
landlord, a prudent Swiss, with many apologies, begged me to shake
myself before going into the house; and my nether garments so
stained with blood, that I looked as if a corps of the sultan's
regulars had pricked me with their bayonets. My enthusiasm on the
subject of the seven churches was in no small degree abated, and
just at that moment I was willing to take upon trust the condition
of the others, that all that was foretold of them in the Scriptures
had come to pass. I again betook me to the bath, and, in thinking of
the luxury of my repose, I feel for you, and come to a full stop.
****