Position of Smyrna.--Consular Privileges.--The Case of the
Lover.--End of the Love Affair.--The Missionary's Wife.--The
Casino.--Only a Greek Row.--Rambles in Smyrna.--The
Armenians.--Domestic Enjoyments.
BUT I must go back a little, and make the amende honourable, for, in
truth, Ghiaour Ismir, or Infidel Smyrna, with its wild admixture of
European and Asiatic population, deserves better than the rather
cavalier notice contained in my letter.
Before reaching it I had remarked its exceeding beauty of position,
chosen as it is with that happy taste which distinguished the Greeks in
selecting the sites of their ancient cities, on the declivity of a
mountain running down to the shore of the bay, with houses rising in
terraces on its sides; its domes and minarets, interspersed with
cypresses, rising above the tiers of houses, and the summit of the hill
crowned with a large solitary castle. It was the first large Turkish
city I had seen, and it differed, too, from all other Turkish cities in
the strong foothold obtained there by Europeans. Indeed, remembering it
as a place where often, and within a very few years, upon a sudden
outbreaking of popular fury, the streets were deluged with Christian
blood, I was particularly struck, not only with the air of confidence
and security, but, in fact, with the bearing of superiority assumed by
the "Christian dog!" among the followers of the Prophet.
Directly on the bay is a row of large houses running along the whole
front of the city, among which are seen emblazoned over the doors the
arms of most of the foreign consuls, including the American. By the
treaties of the Porte with Christian powers, the Turkish tribunals have
no jurisdiction of matters touching the rights of foreign residents; and
all disputes between these, and even criminal offences, fall under the
cognizance of their respective consuls. This gives the consuls in all
the maritime ports of Turkey great power and position; and all over the
Levant they are great people; but at Smyrna they are far more important
than ambassadors and ministers at the European capitals; and, with their
janisaries and their appearance on all public occasions in uniform, are
looked up to by the Levantines somewhat like the consuls sent abroad
under the Roman empire, and by the Turks as almost sultans.
The morning after my arrival I delivered letters of introduction to Mr.
Offley, the American consul, a native of Philadelphia, thirty years
resident in Smyrna, and married to an Armenian lady, Mr. Langdon, a
merchant of Boston, and Mr. Styth, of Baltimore, of the firm of
Issaverdens, Styth, and Company; one to Mr. Jetter, a German missionary,
whose lady told me, while her husband was reading it, that she had met
me in the street the day before, and on her return home told him that an
American had just arrived. I was curious to know the mark by which she
recognised me as an American, being rather dubious whether it was by
reason of anything praiseworthy or the reverse; but she could not tell.
I trust the reader has not forgotten the victim of the tender passion
who, in the moment of my leaving Athens, had reposed in my sympathizing
bosom the burden of his hopes and fears. At the very first house in
which I was introduced to the female members of the family, I found
making a morning call the lady who had made such inroads upon his
affections. I had already heard her spoken of as being the largest
fortune, and, par consequence, the greatest belle in Smyrna, and I
hailed it as a favourable omen that I accidentally made her acquaintance
so soon after my arrival. I made my observations, and could not help
remarking that she was by no means pining away on account of the absence
of my friend. I was almost indignant at her heartless happiness, and,
taking advantage of an opportunity, introduced his name, hoping to see a
shade come over her, and, perhaps, to strike her pensive for two or
three minutes; but her comment was a deathblow to my friend's prospects
and my mediation: "Poor M.!" and all present repeated "Poor M.!" with a
portentous smile, and the next moment had forgotten his existence. I
went away in the full conviction that it was all over with "Poor M.!"
and murmuring to myself, Put not your trust in woman, I dined, and in
the afternoon called with my letter of introduction upon his friend the
Rev. Mr. Brewer, and Mr. Brewer's comment on reading it was about equal
to the lady's "Poor M.!" He asked me in what condition I left our
unfortunate friend. I told him his _leg_ was pretty bad, though he
continued to hobble about; but Mr. Brewer interrupted me; he did not
mean his leg, but, he hesitated and with reluctance, as if he wished to
avoid speaking of it outright, added, _his mind_. I did not comprehend
him, and, from his hesitation and delicacy, imagined that he was
alluding to the lover's heart; but he cleared the matter up, and to my
no small surprise, by telling me that, some time before he left Smyrna,
"Poor M." had shown such strong marks of aberration of intellect, that
his friends had deemed it advisable to put him under the charge of a
brother missionary and send him home, and that they hoped great benefit
from travel and change of scene. I was surprised, and by no means
elevated in my own conceit, when I found that I had been made the
confidant of a crazy man. Mr. Hill, not knowing of any particular
intimacy between us, and probably not wishing to publish his misfortune
unnecessarily, had not given me the slightest intimation of it, and I
had not discovered it. I had considered his communication to me strange,
and his general conduct not less so, but I had no idea that it was
anything more than the ordinary derangement which every man is said to
labour under when in love. I then told Mr. Brewer my story, and the
commission with which I was intrusted, which he said was perfectly
characteristic, his malady being a sort of monomania on the subject of
the tender passion; and every particle of interest which I might
nevertheless have taken in the affair, in connecting his derangement in
some way with the lady in question, was destroyed by the volatile
direction of his passion, sometimes to one object and sometimes with
another; and in regard to the lady to whom I was accredited, he had
never shown any penchant toward her in particular, and must have given
me her name because it happened to be the first that suggested itself at
the moment of his unburdening himself to me. Fortunately, I had not
exposed myself by any demonstrations in behalf of my friend, so I
quietly dropped him. On leaving Mr. Brewer I suggested a doubt whether I
could be regarded as an acquaintance upon the introduction of a crazy
man; but we had gone so far that it was decided, for that specific
purpose, to admit his sanity. I should not mention these particulars if
there was any possibility of their ever wounding the feelings of him to
whom they refer; but he is now beyond the reach either of calumny or
praise, for about a year after I heard, with great regret, that his
malady had increased, accompanied with a general derangement of health;
and, shortly after his return home, he died.
My intercourse with the Franks was confined principally to my own
countrymen, whose houses were open to me at all times; and I cannot help
mentioning the name of Mr. Van Lennup, the Dutch consul, the great
friend of the missionaries in the Levant, who had been two years
resident in the United States, and was intimately acquainted with many
of my friends at home. Society in Smyrna is purely mercantile; and
having been so long out of the way of it, it was actually grateful to me
once more to hear men talking with all their souls about cotton, stocks,
exchanges, and other topics of _interest_, in the literal meaning of the
word. Sometimes lounging in a merchant's counting-room, I took up an
American paper, and heard Boston, and New-York, and Baltimore, and
cotton, and opium, and freight, and quarter per cent. less bandied
about, until I almost fancied myself at home; and when this became too
severe I had a resource with the missionaries, gentlemanly and
well-educated men, well acquainted with the countries and the places
worth visiting, with just the books I wanted, and, I had almost said,
the wives; I mean with wives always glad to see a countryman, and to
talk about home. There is something exceedingly interesting in a
missionary's wife. A soldier's is more so, for she follows him to danger
and, perhaps, to death; but glory waits him if he falls, and while she
weeps she is proud. Before I went abroad the only missionary I ever knew
I despised, for I believed him to be a canting hypocrite; but I saw much
of them abroad, and made many warm friends among them; and, I repeat
it, there is something exceedingly interesting in a missionary's wife.
She who had been cherished as a plant that the winds must not breathe on
too rudely, recovers from the shock of a separation from her friends to
find herself in a land of barbarians, where her loud cry of distress can
never reach their ears. New ties twine round her heart, and the tender
and helpless girl changes her very nature, and becomes the staff and
support of the man. In his hours of despondency she raises his drooping
spirits; she bathes his aching head; she smooths his pillow of sickness;
and, after months of wearisome silence, I have entered her dwelling, and
her heart instinctively told her that I was from the same land. I have
been welcomed as a brother; answered her hurried, and anxious, and eager
questions; and sometimes, when I have known any of her friends at home,
I have been for a moment more than recompensed for all the toils and
privations of a traveller in the East. I have left her dwelling burdened
with remembrances to friends whom she will perhaps never see again. I
bore a letter to a father, which was opened by a widowed mother. Where I
could, I have discharged every promise to a missionary's wife; but I
have some yet undischarged which I rank among the sacred obligations of
my life. It is true, the path of the missionary is not strewed with
roses; but often, in leaving his house at night, and following my guide
with a lantern through the narrow streets of a Turkish city, I have run
over the troubles incident to every condition of life, not forgetting
those of a traveller, and have taken to whistling, and, as I stumbled
into the gate of an old convent, have murmured involuntarily, "After
all, these missionaries are happy fellows."
Every stranger, upon his arrival in Smyrna, is introduced at the casino.
I went there the first time to a concert. It is a large building,
erected by a club of merchants, with a suite of rooms on the lower
floor, billiards, cards, reading and sitting room, and a ball room above
covering the whole. The concert was given in the ballroom, and, from
what I had seen in the streets, I expected an extraordinary display of
beauty; but I was much disappointed. The company consisted only of the
aristocracy or higher mercantile classes, the families of the gentlemen
composing the club, and excluded the Greek and Smyrniote women, among
whom is found a great portion of the beauty of the place. A patent of
nobility in Smyrna, as in our own city, is founded upon the time since
the possessor gave up selling goods, or the number of consignments he
receives in the course of a year. The casino, by-the-way, is a very
aristocratic institution, and sometimes knotty questions occur in its
management. Captains of merchant vessels are not admitted. A man came
out as owner of a vessel and cargo, and also master: _quere_, could he
be admitted? His consignee said yes; but the majority, not being
interested in the sales of his cargo, went for a strict construction,
and excluded him.
The population of Smyrna, professing three distinct religions, observe
three different Sabbaths; the Mohammedans Friday, the Jews Saturday, and
the Christians Sunday, so that there are only four days in the week in
which all the shops and bazars are open together, and there are so many
fete days that these are much broken in upon. The most perfect
toleration prevails, and the religious festivals of the Greeks often
terminate in midnight orgies which debase and degrade the Christian in
the eyes of the pious Mussulman.
On Saturday morning I was roused from my bed by a loud cry and the tramp
of a crowd through the street. I ran to my window, and saw a Greek
tearing down the street at full speed, and another after him with a
drawn yataghan in his hand; the latter gained ground at every step, and,
just as he turned the corner, stabbed the first in the back. He returned
with the bloody poniard in his hand, followed by the crowd, and rushed
into a little Greek drinking-shop next door to my hotel. There was a
loud noise and scuffling inside, and presently I saw him pitched out
headlong into the street, and the door closed upon him. In a phrensy of
passion he rushed back, and drove his yataghan with all his force into
the door, stamped against it with his feet, and battered it with stones;
unable to force it open, he sat down on the opposite side of the street,
occasionally renewing his attack upon the door, talking violently with
those inside, and sometimes the whole crowd laughing loud at the answers
from within. Nobody attempted to interfere. Giusseppi, my host, said it
was only a row among the Greeks. The Greek kept the street in an uproar
for more than an hour, when he was secured and taken into custody.
After dinner, under the escort of a merchant, a Jew from Trieste
residing at the same hotel, I visited the Jews' quarter. The Jews of
Smyrna are the descendants of that unhappy people who were driven out
from Spain by the bloody persecutions of Ferdinand and Isabel; they
still talk Spanish in their families; and though comparatively secure,
now, as ever, they live the victims of tyranny and oppression, ever
toiling and accumulating, and ever fearing to exhibit the fruits of
their industry, lest they should excite the cupidity of a rapacious
master. Their quarter is by far the most miserable in Smyrna, and within
its narrow limits are congregated more than ten thousand of "the
accursed people." It was with great difficulty that I avoided wounding
the feelings of my companion by remarking its filthy and disgusting
appearance; and wishing to remove my unfavourable impression by
introducing me to some of the best families first, he was obliged to
drag me through the whole range of its narrow and dirty streets. From
the external appearance of the tottering houses, I did not expect
anything better within; and, out of regard to his feelings, was really
sorry that I had accepted his offer to visit his people; but with the
first house I entered I was most agreeably disappointed. Ascending
outside by a tottering staircase to the second story, within was not
only neatness and comfort, but positive luxury. At one end of a spacious
room was a raised platform opening upon a large latticed window, covered
with rich rugs and divans along the wall. The master of the house was
taking his afternoon siesta, and while we were waiting for him I
expressed to my gratified companion my surprise and pleasure at the
unexpected appearance of the interior. In a few minutes the master
entered, and received us with the greatest hospitality and kindness. He
was about thirty, with the high square cap of black felt, without any
rim or border, long silk gown tied with a sash around the waist, a
strongly-marked Jewish face, and amiable expression. In the house of the
Israelite the welcome is the same as in that of the Turk; and seating
himself, our host clapped his hands together, and a boy entered with
coffee and pipes. After a little conversation he clapped his hands
again; and hearing a clatter of wooden shoes, I turned my head and saw
a little girl coming across the room, mounted on high wooden sabots
almost like stilts, who stepped up the platform, and with quite a
womanly air took her seat on the divan. I looked at her, and thought her
a pert, forward little miss, and was about asking her how old she was,
when my companion told me she was our host's wife. I checked myself, but
in a moment felt more than ever tempted to ask the same question; and,
upon inquiring, learned that she had attained the respectable age of
thirteen, and had been then two years a wife. Our host told us that she
had cost him a great deal of money, and the expense consisted in the
outlay necessary for procuring a divorce from another wife. He did not
like the other one at all; his father had married him to her, and he had
great difficulty in prevailing on his father to go to the expense of
getting him freed. This wife was also provided by his father, and he did
not like her much at first; he had never seen her till the day of
marriage, but now he began to like her very well, though she cost him a
great deal for ornaments. All this time we were looking at her, and she,
with a perfectly composed expression, was listening to the conversation
as my companion interpreted it, and following with her eyes the
different speakers. I was particularly struck with the cool,
imperturbable expression of her face, and could not help thinking that,
on the subject of likings and dislikings, young as she was, she might
have some curious notions of her own; and since we had fallen into this
little disquisition on family matters, and thinking that he had gone so
far himself that I might waive delicacy, I asked him whether she liked
him; he answered in that easy tone of confidence of which no idea can be
given in words, "oh yes;" and when I intimated a doubt, he told me I
might ask herself. But I forbore, and did not ask her, and so lost the
opportunity of learning from both sides the practical operation of
matches made by parents. Our host sustained them; the plan saved a great
deal of trouble, and wear and tear of spirit; prudent parents always
selected such as were likely to suit each other; and being thrown
together very young, they insensibly assimilated in tastes and habits;
he admitted that he had missed it the first time, but he had hit it the
second, and allowed that the system would work much better if the cost
of procuring a divorce was not so great. With the highest respect, and a
pressing invitation to come again, seconded by his wife, I took my leave
of the self-satisfied Israelite.
From this we went into several other houses, in all of which the
interior belied, in the same manner, their external appearance. I do not
say that they were gorgeous or magnificent, but they were clean,
comfortable, and striking by their oriental style of architecture and
furniture; and being their Sabbath, the women were in their best attire,
with their heads, necks, and wrists adorned with a profusion of gold and
silver ornaments. Several of the houses had libraries, with old Hebrew
books, in which an old rabbi was reading or sometimes instructing
children. In the last house a son was going through his days of mourning
on the death of his father. He was lying in the middle of the floor,
with his black cap on, and covered with a long black cloak. Twenty or
thirty friends were sitting on the floor around him, who had come in to
condole with him. When we entered, neither he nor any of his friends
took any notice of us, except to make room on the floor. We sat down
with them. It was growing dark, and the light broke dimly through the
latticed windows upon the dusky figures of the mourning Israelites; and
there they sat, with stern visages and long beards, the feeble remnant
of a fallen people, under scorn and contumely, and persecution and
oppression, holding on to the traditions received from their fathers,
practising in the privacy of their houses the same rites as when the
priests bore aloft the ark of the covenant, and out of the very dust in
which they lie still looking for the restoration of their temporal
kingdom. In a room adjoining sat the widow of the deceased, with a group
of women around her, all perfectly silent; and they too took no notice
of us either when we entered or when we went away.
The next day the shops were shut, and the streets again thronged as on
the day of my arrival. I went to church at the English chapel attached
to the residence of the British consul, and heard a sermon from a German
missionary. I dined at one o'clock, and, in company with mine host of
the Pension Suisse, and a merchant of Smyrna resident there, worked my
way up the hill through the heart of the Turks' quarter to the old
castle standing alone and in ruins on its summit. We rested a little
while at the foot of the castle, and looked over the city and the tops
of the minarets upon the beautiful bay, and descending in the rear of
the castle, we came to the river Meles winding through a deep valley at
the foot of the hill. This stream was celebrated in Grecian poetry three
thousand years ago. It was the pride of the ancient Smyrneans, once
washed the walls of the ancient city, and tradition says that on its
banks the nymph Critheis gave birth to Homer. We followed it in its
winding course down the valley, murmuring among evergreens. Over it in
two places were the ruins of aqueducts which carried water to the old
city, and in one or two places it turns an overshot mill. On each side,
at intervals along its banks, were oriental summer-houses, with
verandahs, and balconies, and latticed windows. Approaching the caravan
bridge we met straggling parties, and by degrees fell into a crowd of
people, Franks, Europeans of every nation, Greeks, Turks, and Armenians,
in all their striking costumes, sitting on benches under the shade of
noble old sycamores, or on the grass, or on the river's brink, and
moving among them were Turks cleanly dressed, with trays of
refreshments, ices, and sherbet. There was an unusual collection of
Greek and Smyrniote women, and an extraordinary display of beauty; none
of them wore hats, but the Greek women a light gauze turban, and the
Smyrniotes a small piece of red cloth, worked with gold, secured on the
top of the head by the folds of the hair, with a long tassel hanging
down from it. Opposite, and in striking contrast, the great Turkish
burying-ground, with its thick grove of gloomy cypress, approached the
bank of the river. I crossed over and entered the burying-ground, and
penetrated the grove of funereal trees; all around were the graves of
the dead; thousands and tens of thousands who but yesterday were like
the gay crowd I saw flitting through the trees, were sleeping under my
feet. Over some of the graves the earth was still fresh, and they who
lay in them were already forgotten; but no, they were not forgotten;
woman's love still remembered them, for Turkish women, with long white
shawls wrapped around their faces, were planting over them myrtle and
flowers, believing that they were paying an acceptable tribute to the
souls of the dead. I left the burying-ground and plunged once more among
the crowd. It may be that memory paints these scenes brighter than they
were; but, if that does not deceive me, I never saw at Paris or Vienna
so gay and beautiful a scene, so rich in landscape and scenery, in
variety of costume, and in beauty of female form and feature.
We left the caravan bridge early to visit the Armenian quarter, this
being the best day for seeing them collectively at home; and I had not
passed through the first street of their beautiful quarter before I was
forcibly struck with the appearance of a people different from any I had
yet seen in the East. The Armenians are one of the oldest nations of the
civilized world, and, amid all the revolutions of barbarian war and
despotism, have maintained themselves as a cultivated people. From the
time when their first chieftain fled from Babylon, his native place, to
escape from the tyranny of Belus, king of Assyria, this warlike people,
occupying a mountainous country near the sources of the Tigris and
Euphrates, battled the Assyrians, Medes, the Persians, Macedonians, and
Arabians, until their country was depopulated by the shah of Persia.
Less than two millions are all that now remain of that once powerful
people. Commerce has scattered them, like the Israelites, among all the
principal nations of Europe and Asia, and everywhere they have preserved
their stern integrity and uprightness of character. The Armenian
merchant is now known in every quarter of the globe, and everywhere
distinguished by superior cultivation, honesty, and manners. As early as
the fourth century the Armenians embraced Christianity; they never had
any sympathy with, and always disliked and avoided, the Greek
Christians, and constantly resisted the endeavours of the popes to bring
them within the Catholic pale. Their doctrine differs from that of the
orthodox chiefly in their admitting only one nature in Christ, and
believing the Holy Spirit to issue from the Father alone. Their first
abode, Mount Ararat, is even at the present day the centre of their
religious and political union. They are distinguished by a patriarchal
simplicity in their domestic manners; and it was the beautiful
exhibition of this trait in their character that struck me on entering
their quarter at Smyrna. In style and appearance their quarter is
superior to any in Smyrna; their streets are broad and clean; their
houses large, in good order, and well painted; oriental in their style
of architecture, with large balconies and latticed windows, and spacious
halls running through the centre, floored with small black and white
stones laid in the form of stars and other fanciful devices, and leading
to large gardens in the rear, ornamented with trees, vines, shrubs, and
flowers, then in full bloom and beauty. All along the streets the doors
of the houses were thrown wide open, and the old Armenian
"Knickerbockers" were sitting outside or in the doorway, in their
flowing robes, grave and sedate, with long pipes and large amber mouth
pieces, talking with their neighbours, while the younger members were
distributed along the hall or strolling through the garden, and children
climbing the trees and arbours. It was a fete day for the whole
neighbourhood. All was social, and cheerful, and beautiful, without
being gay or noisy, and all was open to the observation of every
passer-by. My companion, an old resident of Smyrna, stopped with me at
the house of a large banker, whose whole family, with several neighbours
young and old, were assembled in the hall.
In the street the Armenian ladies observe the Turkish custom of wearing
the shawl tied around the face so that it is difficult to see their
features, though I had often admired the dignity and grace of their
walk, and their propriety of manners; but in the house there was a
perfect absence of all concealment; and I have seldom seen more
interesting persons than the whole group of Armenian ladies, and
particularly the young Armenian girls. They were not so dark, and wanted
the bold, daring beauty of the Greek, but altogether were far more
attractive. The great charm of their appearance was an exceeding
modesty, united with affability and elegance of manner; in fact, there
was a calm and quiet loveliness about them that would have made any one
of them dangerous to be shut up alone with, i.e., if a man could talk
with her without an interpreter. This was one of the occasions when I
numbered among the pains of life the confusion of tongues. But,
notwithstanding this, the whole scene was beautiful; and, with all the
simplicity of a Dutchman's fireside, the style of the house, the pebbled
hall, the garden, the foliage, and the oriental costumes, threw a charm
around it which now, while I write, comes over me again.