Visit to the Slave-market.--Horrors of Slavery.--Departure from
Stamboul.--The stormy Euxine.--Odessa.--The Lazaretto.--Russian
Civility.--Returning Good for Evil.
THE day before I left Constantinople I went, in company with Dr. N. and
his son, and attended by Paul, to visit the slave-market; crossing over
to Stamboul, we picked up a Jew in the bazars, who conducted us through
a perfect labyrinth of narrow streets to a quarter of the city from
which it would have been utterly impossible for me to extricate myself
alone. I only know that it was situated on high ground, and that we
passed through a gateway into a hollow square of about a hundred and
fifty or two hundred feet on each side. It was with no small degree of
emotion that I entered this celebrated place, where so many Christian
hearts have trembled; and, before crossing the threshold, I ran over in
my mind all the romantic stories and all the horrible realities that I
could remember connected with its history: the tears of beauty, the
pangs of brave men, and so down to the unsentimental exclamation of
Johnson to his new friend Don Juan:
"Yon black eunuch seems to eye us;
I wish to God that somebody would buy us."
The bazar forms a hollow square, with little chambers about fifteen feet
each way around it, in which the slaves belonging to the different
dealers are kept. A large shed or portico projects in front, under
which, and in front of each chamber, is a raised platform, with a low
railing around it, where the slave-merchant sits and gossips, and dozes
over his coffee and pipes. I had heard so little of this place, and it
was so little known among Europeans, taking into consideration,
moreover, that in a season of universal peace the market must be without
a supply of captives gained in war, that I expected to see but a remnant
of the ancient traffic, supposing that I should find but few slaves, and
those only black; but, to my surprise, I found there twenty or thirty
white women. Bad, horrible as this traffic is under any circumstances,
to my habits and feelings it loses a shade of its horrors when confined
to blacks; but here whites and blacks were exposed together in the same
bazar. The women were from Circassia and the regions of the Caucasus,
that country so renowned for beauty; they were dressed in the Turkish
costume, with the white shawl wrapped around the mouth and chin, and
over the forehead, shading the eyes, so that it was difficult to judge
with certainty as to their personal appearance. Europeans are not
permitted to purchase, and their visits to this bazar are looked upon
with suspicion. If we stopped long opposite a door, it was closed upon
us; but I was not easily shaken off, and returned so often at odd times,
that I succeeded in seeing pretty distinctly all that was to be seen. In
general, the best slaves are not exposed in the bazars, but are kept at
the houses of the dealers; but there was one among them not more than
seventeen, with a regular Circassian face, a brilliantly fair
complexion, a mild and cheerful expression; and in the slave-market,
under the partial disguise of the Turkish shawl, it required no great
effort of the imagination to make her decidedly beautiful. Paul stopped,
and with a burst of enthusiasm, the first I had discovered in him,
exclaimed "Quelle beaute!" She noticed my repeatedly stopping before
her bazar; and, when I was myself really disposed to be sentimental,
instead of drooping her head with the air of a distressed heroine, to my
great surprise she laughed and nodded, and beckoned me to come to her.
Paul was very much struck; and repeating his warm expression of
admiration at her beauty, told me that she wanted me to buy her. Without
waiting for a reply, he went off and inquired the price, which was two
hundred and fifty dollars; and added that he could easily get some Turk
to let me buy her in his name, and then I could put her on board a
vessel, and carry her where I pleased. I told him it was hardly worth
while at present; and he, thinking my objection was merely to the
person, in all honesty and earnestness told me he had been there
frequently, and never saw anything half so handsome; adding that, if I
let slip this opportunity, I would scarcely have another as good, and
wound up very significantly by declaring that, if he was a gentleman, he
would not hesitate a moment. A gentleman, in the sense in which Paul
understood the word, is apt to fall into irregular ways in the East.
Removed from the restraints which operate upon men in civilized
countries, if he once breaks through the trammels of education, he goes
all lengths; and it is said to be a matter of general remark, that
slaves are always worse treated by Europeans than by the Turks. The
slave-dealers are principally Jews, who buy children when young, and, if
they have beauty train up the girls in such accomplishments as may
fascinate the Turks. Our guide told us that, since the Greek revolution,
the slave-market had been comparatively deserted; but, during the whole
of that dreadful struggle, every day presented new horrors; new captives
were brought in, the men raving and struggling, and vainly swearing
eternal vengeance against the Turks, and the women shrieking
distractedly in the agony of a separation. After the massacre at Scio,
in particular, hundreds of young girls, with tears streaming down their
cheeks, and bursting hearts, were sold to the unhallowed embraces of the
Turks for a few dollars a head. We saw nothing of the horrors and
atrocities of this celebrated slave-market. Indeed, except prisoners of
war and persons captured by Turkish corsairs, the condition of those who
now fill the slave-market is not the horrible lot that a warm
imagination might suppose. They are mostly persons in a semibarbarous
state; blacks from Sennaar and Abyssinia, or whites from the regions of
the Caucasus, bought from their parents for a string of beads or a
shawl; and, in all probability, the really beautiful girl whom I saw had
been sold by parents who could not feed or clothe her, who considered
themselves rid of an encumbrance, and whom she left without regret; and
she, having left poverty and misery behind her, looked to the
slave-market as the sole means of advancing her fortune; and, in
becoming the favoured inmate of a harem, expected to attain a degree of
happiness she could never have enjoyed at home.
I intended to go from Constantinople to Egypt, but the plague was raging
there so violently that it would have been foolhardy to attempt it; and
while making arrangements with a Tartar to return to Europe on horseback
across the Balkan, striking the Danube at Semlin and Belgrade, a Russian
government steamer was advertised for Odessa; and as this mode of
travelling at that moment suited my health better, I altered my whole
plan, and determined to leave the ruined countries of the Old World for
a land just emerging from a state of barbarism, and growing into
gigantic greatness. With great regret I took leave of Dr. N. and his
son, who sailed the same day for Smyrna, and I have never seen them
since. Paul was the last man to whom I said farewell. At the moment of
starting my shirts were brought in dripping wet, and Paul bestowed a
malediction upon the Greek while he wrung them out and tumbled them into
my carpet-bag. I afterward found him at Malta, whence he accompanied me
on my tour in Egypt, Arabia Petraea, and the Holy Land, by which he is,
perhaps, already known to some of my readers.
With my carpet-bag on the shoulders of a Turk, I walked for the last
time to Tophana. A hundred caiquemen gathered around me, but I pushed
them all back, and kept guard over my carpet-bag, looking out for one
whom I had been in the habit of employing ever since my arrival in
Constantinople. He soon spied me; and when he took my luggage and myself
into his caique, manifested that he knew it was for the last time.
Having an hour to spare, I directed him to row once more under the walls
of the seraglio; and still loath to leave, I went on shore and walked
around the point, until I was stopped by a Turkish bayonet. The Turk
growled, and his mustache curled fiercely as he pointed it at me. I had
been stopped by Frenchmen, Italians, and by a mountain Greek, but found
nothing that brings a man to such a dead stand as the Turkish bayonet.
I returned to my caique, and went on board the steamer. She was a
Russian government vessel, more classically called a pyroscaphe, a
miserable old thing; and yet as much form and circumstance were observed
in sending her off as in fitting out an _exploring expedition_.
Consuls' and ambassadors' boats were passing and repassing, and after
an enormous fuss and preparation, we started under a salute of cannon,
which was answered from one of the sultan's frigates. We had the usual
scene of parting with friends, waving of handkerchiefs, and so on; and
feeling a little lonely at the idea of leaving a city containing a
million inhabitants without a single friend to bid me Godspeed, I took
my place on the quarter-deck, and waved my handkerchief to my caiqueman,
who, I have no doubt, independent of the loss of a few piasters per day,
was very sorry to lose me; for we had been so long together, that, in
spite of our ignorance of each other's language, we understood each
other perfectly.
I found on board two Englishmen whom I had met at Corfu, and a third,
who had joined them at Smyrna, going to travel in the Crimea; our other
cabin-passengers were Mr. Luoff, a Russian officer, an aiddecamp of
the emperor, just returned from travels in Egypt and Syria, Mr.
Perseani, secretary to the Russian legation in Greece; a Greek merchant,
with a Russian protection, on his way to the Sea of Azoff; and a French
merchant of Odessa. The tub of a steamboat dashed up the Bosphorus at
the rate of three miles an hour; while the classic waters, as if
indignant at having such a bellowing, blowing, blustering monster upon
their surface, seemed to laugh at her unwieldy and ineffectual efforts.
Slowly we mounted the beautiful strait, lined on the European side
almost with one continued range of houses, exhibiting in every beautiful
nook a palace of the sultan, and at Terapeia and Buyukdere the palaces
of the foreign ambassadors; passed the Giant's Mountain, and about an
hour before dark were entering a new sea, the dark and stormy Euxine.
Advancing, the hills became more lofty and ragged, terminating on the
Thracian side in high rocky precipices. The shores of this extremity of
the Bosphorus were once covered with shrines, altars, and temples,
monuments of the fears or gratitude of mariners who were about to leave,
or who had escaped, the dangers of the inhospitable Euxine; and the
remains of these antiquities were so great that a traveller almost in
our own day describes the coasts as "covered by their ruins." The
castles on the European and the Asiatic side of the strait are supposed
to occupy the sites where stood, in ancient days, the great temples of
Jupiter Serapis and Jupiter Urius. The Bosphorus opens abruptly, without
any enlargement at its mouth, between two mountains. The parting view of
the strait, or, rather, of the coast on each side, was indescribably
grand, presenting a stupendous wall opposed to the great bed of waters,
as if torn asunder by an earthquake, leaving a narrow rent for their
escape. On each side, a miserable lantern on the top of a tower, hardly
visible at the distance of a few miles, is the only light to guide the
mariner at night; and as there is another opening called the false
Bosphorus, the entrance is difficult and dangerous, and many vessels are
lost here annually.
As the narrow opening closed before me, I felt myself entering a new
world; I was fairly embarked upon that wide expanse of water which once,
according to ancient legends, mingled with the Caspian, and covered the
great oriental plain of Tartary, and upon which Jason, with his
adventurous Argonauts, having killed the dragon and carried off the
golden fleece from Colchis, if those same legends be true (which some
doubt), sailed across to the great ocean. I might and should have
speculated upon the great changes in the face of nature and the great
deluge recorded by Grecian historians and poets, which burst the narrow
passage of the Thracian Bosphorus for the outlet of the mighty waters;
but who could philosophize in a steamboat on the Euxine? Oh Fulton! much
as thou hast done for mechanics and the useful arts, thy hand has fallen
rudely upon all cherished associations. We boast of thee; I have myself
been proud of thee as an American; but as I sat at evening on the stern
of the steamer, and listened to the clatter of the engine, and watched
the sparks rushing out of the high pipes, and remembered that this was
on the dark and inhospitable Euxine, I wished that thy life had begun
after mine was ended. I trust I did his memory no wrong; but if I had
borne him malice, I could not have wished him worse than to have all his
dreams of the past disturbed by the clatter of one of his own engines.
I turned away from storied associations to a new country grown up in our
own day. We escaped, and, I am obliged to say, without noticing them,
the Cyaneae, "the blue Symplegades," or "wandering islands," which, lying
on the European and Asiatic side, floated about, or, according to Pliny,
"were alive, and moved to and fro more swiftly than the blast," and in
passing through which the good ship Argo had a narrow escape, and lost
the extremity of her stern. History and poetry have invested this sea
with extraordinary and ideal terrors; but my experience both of the
Mediterranean and Black Sea was unfortunate for realizing historical and
poetical accounts. I had known the beautiful Mediterranean a sea of
storm and sunshine, in which the storm greatly predominated. I found the
stormy Euxine calm as an untroubled lake; in fact, the Black Sea is in
reality nothing more than a lake, not as large as many of our own,
receiving the waters of the great rivers of the north: the Don, the
Cuban, the Phase, the Dnieper, and the Danube, and pouring their
collected streams through the narrow passage of the Bosphorus into the
Mediterranean. Still, if the number of shipwrecks be any evidence of its
character, it is indeed entitled to its ancient reputation of a
dangerous sea, though probably these accidents proceed, in a great
measure, from the ignorance and unskilfulness of mariners, and the want
of proper charts and of suitable lighthouses at the opening of the
Bosphorus. At all events, we outblustered the winds and waves with our
steamboat; passed the Serpent Isles, the ancient Leuce, with a roaring
that must have astonished the departed heroes whose souls, according to
the ancient poets, were sent there to enjoy perpetual paradise, and
scared the aquatic birds which every morning dipped their wings in the
sea, and sprinkled the Temple of Achilles, and swept with their plumage
its sacred pavement.
[Illustration: Odessa.]
On the third day we made the low coast of Moldavia or Bess Arabia,
within a short distance of Odessa, the great seaport of Southern Russia.
Here, too, there was nothing to realize preconceived notions; for,
instead of finding a rugged region of eternal snows, we were suffering
under an intensely hot sun when we cast anchor in the harbour of Odessa.
The whole line of the coast is low and destitute of trees; but Odessa is
situated on a high bank; and, with its beautiful theatre, the exchange,
the palace of the governor, &c., did not look like a city which, thirty
years ago, consisted only of a few fishermen's huts.
The harbour of Odessa is very much exposed to the north and east winds,
which often cause great damage to the shipping. Many hundred anchors
cover the bottom, which cut the rope cables; and, the water being
shallow, vessels are often injured by striking on them. An Austrian brig
going out, having struck one, sank in ten minutes. There are two moles,
the quarantine mole, in which we came to anchor, being the principal.
Quarantine flags were flying about the harbour, the yellow indicating
those undergoing purification, and the red the fatal presence of the
plague. We were prepared to undergo a vexatious process. At
Constantinople I had heard wretched accounts of the rude treatment of
lazaretto subjects, and the rough, barbarous manners of the Russians to
travellers, and we had a foretaste of the light in which we were to be
regarded, in the conduct of the health-officer who came alongside. He
offered to take charge of any letters for the town, purify them that
night, and deliver them in the morning; and, according to his
directions, we laid them down on the deck, where he took them up with a
pair of long iron tongs, and putting them into an iron box, shut it up
and rowed off.
In the morning, having received notice that the proper officers were
ready to attend us, we went ashore. We landed in separate boats at the
end of a long pier, and, forgetting our supposed pestiferous influence,
were walking up toward a crowd of men whom we saw there, when their
retrograde movements, their gestures, and unintelligible shouts reminded
us of our situation. One of our party, in a sort of ecstasy at being on
shore, ran capering up the docks, putting to flight a group of idlers,
and, single-handed, might have depopulated the city of Odessa, if an
ugly soldier with a bayonet had not met him in full career and put a
stop to his gambols. The soldier conducted us to a large building at the
upper end of the pier; and carefully opening the door, and falling back
so as to avoid even the wind that might blow from us in his direction,
told us to go in. At the other end of a large room, divided by two
parallel railings, sat officers and clerks to examine our passports and
take a general account of us. We were at once struck with the military
aspect of things, every person connected with the establishment wearing
a military uniform; and now commenced a long process. The first
operation was to examine our passports, take down our names, and make a
memorandum of the purposes for which we severally entered the dominions
of the emperor and autocrat of all the Russias. We were all called up,
one after the other, captain, cook, and cabin-boy, cabin and deck
passengers; and never, perhaps, did steamboat pour forth a more motley
assemblage than we presented. We were Jews, Turks, and Christians;
Russians, Poles, and Germans; English, French, and Italians; Austrians,
Greeks, and Illyrians; Moldavians, Wallachians, Bulgarians, and
Sclavonians; Armenians, Georgians, and Africans; and one American. I had
before remarked the happy facility of the Russians in acquiring
languages, and I saw a striking instance in the officer who conducted
the examination, and who addressed every man in his own language with
apparently as much facility as though it had been his native tongue.
After the oral commenced a corporeal examination. We were ordered one by
one into an adjoining room, where, on the other side of a railing,
stood a doctor, who directed us to open our shirt bosoms, and slap our
hands smartly under our arms and upon our groins, these being the places
where the fatal plague-marks first exhibit themselves.
This over, we were forthwith marched to the lazaretto, escorted by
guards and soldiers, who behaved very civilly and kept at a respectful
distance from us. Among our deck passengers were forty or fifty Jews,
dirty and disgusting objects, just returned from a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem. An old man, who seemed to be, in a manner, the head of the
party, and exceeded them all in rags and filthiness, but was said to be
rich, in going up to the lazaretto amused us and vexed the officers by
sitting down on the way, paying no regard to them when they urged him
on, being perfectly assured that they would not dare to touch him. Once
he resolutely refused to move; they threatened and swore at him, but he
kept his place until one got a long pole and punched him on ahead.
In this way we entered the lazaretto; but if it had not been called by
that name, and if we had not looked upon it as a place where we were
compelled to stay for a certain time, nolens volens, we should have
considered it a beautiful spot. It is situated on high ground, within an
enclosure of some fifteen or twenty acres, overlooking the Black Sea,
laid out in lawn and gravel walks, and ornamented with rows of
acacia-trees. Fronting the sea was a long range of buildings divided
into separate apartments, each with a little courtyard in front
containing two or three acacias. The director, a fine, military-looking
man, with a decoration on his lapel, met us on horseback within the
enclosure, and with great suavity of manner said that he could not bid
us welcome to a prison, but that we should have the privilege of
walking at will over the grounds, and visiting each other, subject only
to the attendance of a guardiano; and that all that could contribute to
our comfort should be done for us.
We then selected our rooms, and underwent another personal examination.
This was the real touchstone; the first was a mere preliminary
observation by a medical understrapper; but this was conducted by a more
knowing doctor. We were obliged to strip naked; to give up the clothes
we pulled off, and put on a flannel gown, drawers, and stockings, and a
woollen cap provided by the government, until our own should be smoked
and purified. In everything, however, the most scrupulous regard was
paid to our wishes, and a disposition was manifested by all to make this
rather vexatious proceeding as little annoying as possible. The bodily
examination was as delicate as the nature of the case would admit; for
the doctor merely opened the door, looked in, and went out without
taking his hand from off the knob. It was none of my business, I know,
and may be thought impertinent, but, as he closed the door, I could not
help calling him back to ask him whether he held the same inquisition
upon the fair sex; to which he replied with a melancholy upturning of
the eyes that in the good old days of Russian barbarism this had been
part of his duties, but that the march of improvement had invaded his
rights, and given this portion of his professional duties to a _sage
femme_.
All our effects were then taken to another chamber, and arranged on
lines, each person superintending the disposition of his own, so as to
prevent all confusion, and left there to be fumigated with sulphuric
acid for twenty-four hours. So particular were they in fumigating
everything susceptible of infection, that I was obliged to leave there
a black riband which I wore round my neck as a guard to my watch. Toward
evening the principal director, one of the most gentlemanly men I ever
met, came round, and with many apologies and regrets for his inability
to receive us better, requested us to call upon him freely for anything
we might want. Not knowing any of us personally, he did me the honour to
say that he understood there was an American in the party, who had been
particularly recommended to him by a Russian officer and fellow-passenger.
Afterward came the commissary, or chief of the department, and repeated
the same compliments, and left us with an exalted opinion of Russian
politeness. I had heard horrible accounts of the rough treatment of
travellers in Russia, and I made a note at the time, lest after
vexations should make me forget it, that I had received more politeness
and civility from these northern barbarians, as they are called by the
people of the south of Europe, than I ever found amid their boasted
civilization.
Having still an hour before dark, I strolled out, followed by my
guardiano, to take a more particular survey of our prison. In a
gravel walk lined with acacias, immediately before the door of my little
courtyard, I came suddenly upon a lady of about eighteen, whose dark
hair and eyes I at once recognised as Grecian, leading by the hand a
little child. I am sure my face brightened at the first glimpse of this
vision which promised to shine upon us in our solitude; and perhaps my
satisfaction was made too manifest by my involuntarily moving toward
her. But my presumption received a severe and mortifying check; for
though at first she merely crossed to the other side of the walk, she
soon forgot all ceremony, and, fairly dragging the child after her, ran
over the grass to another walk to avoid me; my mortification, however,
was but temporary; for though, in the first impulse of delight and
admiration, I had forgotten time, place, and circumstance, the repulse I
had received made me turn to myself, and I was glad to find an excuse
for the lady's flight in the flannel gown and long cap and slippers,
which marked me as having just entered upon my season of purification.
I was soon initiated into the routine of lazaretto ceremonies and
restrictions. By touching a quarantine patient, both parties are
subjected to the longest term of either; so that if a person, on the
last day of his term, should come in contact with another just entered,
he would lose all the benefit of his days of purification, and be
obliged to wait the full term of the latter. I have seen, in various
situations in life, a system of operations called keeping people at a
distance, but I never saw it so effectually practised as in quarantine.
For this night, at least, I had full range. I walked where I pleased,
and was very sure that every one would keep out of my way. During the
whole time, however, I could not help treasuring up the precipitate
flight of the young lady; and I afterward told her, and, I hope, with
the true spirit of one ready to return good for evil, that if she had
been in my place, and the days of my purification had been almost ended,
in spite of plague and pestilence she might have rushed into my arms
without my offering the least impediment.
In making the tour of the grounds, I had already an opportunity of
observing the relation in which men stand to each other in Russia. When
an officer spoke to a soldier, the latter stood motionless as a statue,
with his head uncovered during the whole of the conference; and when a
soldier on guard saw an officer, no matter at what distance, he
presented arms, and remained in that position until the officer was out
of sight. Returning, I passed a grating, through which I saw our
deck passengers, forty or fifty in number, including the Jewish
pilgrims, miserable, dirty-looking objects, turned in together for
fourteen days, to eat, drink, and sleep as best they might, like brutes.
With a high idea of the politeness of the Russians toward the rich and
great, or those whom they believed to be so, and with a strong
impression already received confirming the accounts of the degraded
condition of the lower classes, I returned to my room, and, with a
Frenchman and a Greek for my room-mates, my window opening upon the
Black Sea, I spent my first night in quarantine.