Eothen

_I.--Through Servia to Constantinople_

Alexander William Kinglake, born near Taunton, England,

Aug. 5, 1809, was the eldest son of William Kinglake,

banker and solicitor, of Taunton. He was educated at Eton

and Cambridge, where he was a friend of Tennyson and

Thackeray. In 1835 he made the Eastern tour described in

"Eothen [Greek, 'from the dawn'], or Traces of Travel

Brought Home from the East," which was twice re-written

before it appeared in 1844. It is more a record of

personal impressions of the countries visited than an

ordinary book of travel, and is distinguished for its

refined style and delightful humour. Kinglake accompanied

St. Arnaud and his army in the campaign which resulted in

the conquest of Algiers for France. In 1854 he went to the

Crimea with the British troops, met Lord Raglan, and

stayed with the British commander until the opening of the

siege of Sebastopol. At the request of Lady Raglan he

wrote the famous history of the "Invasion of the Crimea,"

which appeared at intervals between 1863 and 1887. He died

on January 2, 1891.

At Semlin I was still encompassed by the scenes and sounds of familiar

life, yet whenever I chose to look southward I saw the Ottoman

fortress--austere, and darkly impending high over the vale of the

Danube--historic Belgrade. I had come to the end of wheel-going Europe,

and now my eyes would see the splendour and havoc of the East. We

managed the work of departure from Semlin with nearly as much solemnity

as if we had been departing this life. The plague was supposed to be

raging in the Ottoman Empire, and we were asked by our Semlin friends if

we were perfectly certain that we had wound up all our affairs in

Christendom.

We soon reached the southern bank in our row-boat, and were met by an

invitation from the pasha to pay him a visit. In the course of an

interesting interview, conducted with Oriental imagery by our dragoman,

we informed the pasha that we were obliged for his hospitality and the

horses he had promised for our journey to Constantinople, whereupon the

pasha, standing up on his divan, said, "Proud are the sires and blessed

are the dams of the horses that shall carry your excellency to the end

of your prosperous journey."

Our party, consisting of my companion, Methley, our personal servants,

interpreter, and escort, started from Belgrade, as usual, hours after

the arranged time, and night had closed in as we entered the great

Servian forest through which our road lay for more than a hundred miles.

When we came out of the forest our road lay through scenes like those of

an English park. There are few countries less infested by "lions in the

path," in the shape of historic monuments, and therefore there were no

perils. The only robbers we saw anything of had been long since dead and

gone.

The poor fellows had been impaled upon high poles, and so propped up by

the transverse spokes beneath them that their skeletons, clothed with

some white, wax-like remains of flesh, still sat up lolling in the

sunshine, and listlessly stared without eyes. After a fifteen days'

journey we crossed the Golden Horn, and found shelter in Stamboul.

All the while I stayed at Constantinople the plague was prevailing. Its

presence lent a mysterious and exciting, though not very pleasant,

interest to my first knowledge of a great Oriental city. Europeans,

during the prevalence of the plague, if they are forced to enter into

the streets, will carefully avoid the touch of every human being they

pass. The Moslem stalks on serenely, as though he were under the eye of

his God, and were "equal to either fate."

In a steep street or a narrow alley you meet one of those coffin-shaped

bundles of white linen which implies an Ottoman lady. She suddenly

withdraws the yashmak, shines upon your heart and soul with all the pomp

and might of her beauty. This dazzles your brain; she sees and exults;

then with a sudden movement she lays her blushing fingers upon your arm

and cries out, "Yumourdjak!" (plague), meaning, "There is a present of

the plague for you." This is her notion of a witticism.

_II.--The Troad, Smyrna, and Cyprus_

While my companion, Methley, was recovering from illness contracted

during our progress to Constantinople, I studied Turkish, and sated my

eyes with the pomps of the city and its crowded waters. When capable of

travelling, we determined to go to Troad together. Away from our people

and our horses, we went loitering along the plains of Troy by the

willowy banks of a stream which I could see was finding itself new

channels from year to year, and flowed no longer in its ancient track.

But I knew that the springs which fed it were high in Ida--the springs

of Simois and Scamander. Methley reminded me that Homer himself had

warned us of some such changes. The Greeks, in beginning their wall, had

neglected the hecatombs due to the gods, and so, after the fall of Troy,

Apollo turned the paths of the rivers that flow from Ida, and sent them

flooding over the wall till all the beach was smooth and free from the

unhallowed works of the Greeks.

After a journey of some days, we reached Smyrna, from which place

private affairs obliged Methley to return to England. Smyrna may be

called the chief town of the Greek race, against which you will be

cautioned so carefully as soon as you touch the Levant. For myself, I

love the race, in spite of their vices and their meannesses. I remember

the blood that is in them. I sailed from Smyrna in the Amphitrite--a

Greek brigantine which was confidently said to be bound for the coast of

Smyrna. I knew enough of Greek navigation to be sure that our vessel

should touch at many an isle before I set foot upon the Syrian coast. My

patience was extremely useful to me, for the cruise altogether endured

some forty days. We touched at Cyprus, whither the ship ran for shelter

in half a gale of wind. A Greek of Limasol who hoisted his flag as

English Vice-Consul insisted upon my accepting his hospitality. The

family party went off very well. The mamma was shy at first, but she

veiled the awkwardness she felt by affecting to scold her children, who

had all of them immortal names. Every instant I was delighted by some

such phrases as these: "Themistocles, my love, don't fight,"

"Alcibiades, can't you sit still?" "Socrates, put down the cup!" "Oh,

fie! Aspasia, don't be naughty!"

The heathenish longing to visit the scene where for Pallas Athene "the

hundred altars glowed with Arabian incense, and breathed with the

fragrance of garlands ever fresh," found disenchantment when I spent the

night in the cabin of a Greek priest--not a priest of the goddess, but

of the Greek church--where there was but one room for man, priest, and

beast. A few days after, our brigantine sailed for Beyrout.

At Beyrout I soon discovered that the standing topic of interest was the

Lady Hester Stanhope, who lived in an old convent on the Lebanon range

at a distance of a day's journey from the town, and was acknowledged as

an inspired being by the people of the mountains, and as more than a

prophet.

I visited Lady Hester in her dwelling-place, a broad, grey mass of

irregular buildings on the summit of one of the many low hills of

Lebanon. I was received by her ladyship's doctor, and apartments were

set apart for myself and my party. After dinner the doctor conducted me

to Miladi's chamber, where the lady prophetess received me standing up

to the full of her majestic height, perfectly still and motionless until

I had taken my appointed place, when she resumed her seat on a common

European sofa.

Her ladyship addressed to me some inquiries respecting my family; and

then the spirit of the prophetess kindled within her, and for hours and

hours this wondrous white woman poured forth her speech, for the most

part concerning sacred and profane mysteries. Now and again she adverted

to the period when she exercised astonishing sway and authority over the

wandering Bedouin tribes in the desert which lies between Damascus and

Palmyra.

Lady Hester talked to me long and earnestly on the subject of religion,

announcing that the Messiah was yet to come. She strived to impress me

with the vanity and falseness of all European creeds, as well as with a

sense of her own spiritual greatness. Throughout her conversation upon

these high topics, she skilfully insinuated, without actually asserting,

her heavenly rank.

_III.--Nazareth, Jordan, and the Dead Sea_

I crossed the plain of Esdraelon, and entered amongst the hills of

beautiful Galilee. It was at sunset that my path brought me sharply

round into the gorge of a little valley, and close upon a grey mass of

dwellings that lay happily nestled in the lap of the mountain. It was

Christian Nazareth.

Within the precincts of the Latin convent, in which I was quartered,

there stands a great Catholic church, which encloses the sanctuary--the

dwelling of the Blessed Virgin. This is a grotto, forming a little

chapel, to which you descend by steps.

The attending friar led me down, all but silently, to the Virgin's home.

Religion and gracious custom commanded me that I fall down loyally and

kiss the rock that blessed Mary pressed. With a half-consciousness, a

semblance of a thrilling hope that I was plunging deep into my first

knowledge of some most holy mystery, or of some new, rapturous, and

daring sin, I knelt and bowed down my face till I met the smooth rock

with my lips.

One moment--my heart, or some old pagan demon within me, woke up, and

fiercely bounded--my bosom was lifted and swam as though I had touched

her warm robe. One moment--one more, and then--the fever had left me. I

rose from my knees. I felt hopelessly sane. The mere world reappeared.

My good old monk was there, dangling his keys with listless patience;

and as he guided me from the church, and talked of the refectory and the

coming repast, I listened to his words with some attention and pleasure.

Having engaged a young Nazarene as guide to Jerusalem, our party passed

by Cana, and the house in which the water had been turned into wine, and

came to the field in which our Saviour had rebuked the Scotch

Sabbath-keepers of that period by suffering His disciples to pluck corn

on the Sabbath day.

I rode over the ground on which the fainting multitude had been fed, and

was shown some massive fragments--relics, I was told, of that wondrous

banquet, now turned into stone. The petrifaction was most complete. I

ascended the heights on which our Lord was standing when He wrought the

miracle, and looked away eagerly eastward. There lay the Sea of Galilee,

less stern than Wastwater, less fair than gentle Windermere, but still

with the winning ways of an English lake. My mind, however, flew away

from the historical associations of the place, and I thought of the

mysterious desert which stretched from these grey hills to the gates of

Bagdad.

I went on to Tiberias, and soon got afloat upon the water. In the

evening I took up my quarters in the Catholic church. Tiberias is one of

the four holy cities, the others being Jerusalem, Hebron, and Safet;

and, according to the Talmud, it is from Tiberias, or its immediate

neighbourhood, that the Messiah is to arise. Except at Jerusalem, never

think of attempting to sleep in a "holy city."

After leaving Tiberias, we rode for some hours along the right bank of

the Jordan till we came to an old Roman bridge which crossed the river.

My Nazarene guide, riding ahead of the party, led on over the bridge. I

knew that the true road to Jerusalem must be mainly by the right bank,

but I supposed that my guide had crossed the bridge in order to avoid

some bend in the river, and that he knew of a ford lower down by which

we should regain the western bank. For two days we wandered, unable to

find a ford across the swollen river, and at last the guide fell on his

knees and confessed that he knew nothing of the country. Thrown upon my

own resources, I concluded that the Dead Sea must be near, and in the

afternoon I first caught sight of those waters of death which stretched

deeply into the southern desert. Before me and all around as far as the

eye could follow, blank hills piled high over hills, pale, yellow, and

naked, walled up in her tomb for ever the dead and damned of Gomorrah.

The water is perfectly bright and clear, its taste detestable. My steps

were reluctantly turned towards the north. On the west there flowed the

impassable Jordan, on the east stood an endless range of barren

mountains, on the south lay the desert sea. Suddenly there broke upon my

ear the ludicrous bray of a living donkey. I followed the direction of

the sound, and in a hollow came upon an Arab encampment. Through my Arab

interpreter an arrangement was come to with the sheikh to carry my party

and baggage in safety to the other bank of the river on condition that I

should give him and his tribe a "teskeri," or written certificate of

their good conduct, and some baksheish.

The passage was accomplished by means of a raft formed of inflated skins

and small boughs cut from the banks of the river, and guided by Arabs

swimming alongside. The horses and mules were thrown into the water and

forced to swim over. We camped on the right side of the river for the

night, and the Arabs were made most savagely happy by the tobacco with

which I supplied them, and they spent the whole night in one smoking

festival. I parted upon very good terms from this tribe, and in three

hours gained Rihah, a village said to occupy the ancient site of

Jericho. Some hours after sunset I reached the convent of Santa Saba.

_IV.--Jerusalem and Bethlehem_

The enthusiasm that had glowed, or seemed to glow, within me for one

blessed moment when I knelt by the shrine of the Blessed Virgin at

Nazareth was not rekindled at Jerusalem. In the stead of the solemn

gloom, and a deep stillness which by right belonged to the Holy City,

there was the hum and the bustle of active life. It was the "height of

the season." The Easter ceremonies drew near, and pilgrims were flocking

in from all quarters. The space fronting the church of the Holy

Sepulchre becomes a kind of bazaar. I have never seen elsewhere in Asia

so much commercial animation. When I entered the church I found a babel

of worshippers. Greek, Roman, and Armenian priests were performing their

different rites in various nooks, and crowds of disciples were rushing

about in all directions--some laughing and talking, some begging, but

most of them going about in a regular, methodical way to kiss the

sanctified spots, speak the appointed syllables, and lay down their

accustomed coins. They seemed to be not "working out," but "transacting"

the great business of salvation.

The Holy Sepulchre is under the roof of this great church. It is a

handsome tomb of oblong form, partly subterranean. You descend into the

interior by a few steps, and there find an altar with burning tapers.

When you have seen enough of it you feel, perhaps, weary of the busy

crowd, and ask your dragoman whether there will be time before sunset to

procure horses and take a ride to Mount Calvary.

"Mount Calvary, signor! It is upstairs--on the first floor!" In effect

you ascend just thirteen steps, and then are shown the now golden

sockets in which the crosses of our Lord and the two thieves were fixed.

The village of Bethlehem lies prettily couched on the slope of a hill.

The sanctuary is a subterranean grotto, and is committed to the joint

guardianship of the Romans, Greeks, and Armenians, who vie with each

other in adorning it. Beneath an altar gorgeously decorated, and lit

with everlasting fires, there stands the low slab of stone which marked

the holy site of the Nativity, and near to this is a hollow scooped out

of the living rock. Here the infant Jesus was laid. Near the spot of the

Nativity is the rock against which the Blessed Virgin was leaning when

she presented her babe to the adoring shepherds.

_V.--To Cairo and the Pyramids_

Gaza is upon the edge of the desert, to which it stands in the same

relation as a seaport to the sea. It is there that you charter your

camels, "the ships of the desert," and lay in your stores for the

voyage. The agreement with the desert Arabs includes a safe conduct

through their country as well as the hire of the camels. On the ninth

day, without startling incident, I arrived at the capital of Egypt.

Cairo and the plague! During the whole time of my stay, the plague was

so master of the city, and showed himself so staringly in every street

and alley, that I can't now affect to dissociate the two ideas. I was

the only European traveller in Cairo, and was provided with a house by

one Osman Effendi, whose history was curious. He was a Scotchman born,

and landed in Egypt as a drummer-boy with Mackenzie Fraser's force,

taken prisoner, and offered the alternative of death or the Koran.

He did not choose death, and followed the orthodox standard of the

Prophet in fierce campaigns against the Wahabees. Returning to Cairo in

triumph from his Holy Wars, Osman began to flourish in the world,

acquired property, and became effendi, or gentleman, giving pledge of

his sincere alienation from Christianity by keeping a couple of wives.

The strangest feature in Osman's character was his inextinguishable

nationality. In his house he had three shelves of books, and the books

were thoroughbred Scotch! He afterwards died of the plague, of which

visitation one-half of the whole people of the city, 200,000 in number,

were carried off. I took it into my pleasant head that the plague might

be providential or epidemic, but was not contagious, and therefore I

determined that it should not alter my habits in any one respect. I

hired a donkey, and saw all that was to be seen in the city in the way

of public buildings--one handsome mosque, which had been built by a

wealthy Hindoostanee merchant, and the citadel. From the platform of the

latter there is a superb view of the town. But your eyes are drawn

westward over the Nile, till they rest upon the massive enormities of

the Ghizeh pyramids. At length the great difficulty which I had in

procuring beasts for my departure was overcome, and with two dromedaries

and three camels I and my servants gladly wound our way from out the

pest-stricken city.

Of course, I went to see and explore the pyramids of Ghizeh, Aboucir,

and Sakkara, which I need not describe. Near the pyramids, more wondrous

and more awful than all else in the land of Egypt, there sits the

lonely sphinx. Upon ancient dynasties of Ethiopian and Egyptian kings,

upon conquerors, down through all the ages till to-day, this unworldly

sphinx has watched like a Providence with the same earnest eyes, and the

same sad, tranquil mien. And we shall die, and Islam will wither away,

and the Englishman, leaning far over to hold his loved India, will plant

a firm foot on the banks of the Nile and sit in the seats of the

faithful, and still that sleepless rock will lie watching and watching

the works of the new, busy race with those same sad, earnest eyes, the

same tranquil mien everlasting.

I accomplished the journey to Suez after an exciting adventure in the

desert. There are two opinions as to the point at which the Israelites

passed the Red Sea. One is that they traversed only the very small creek

at the northern extremity of the inlet, and that they entered the bed of

the water at the spot on which Suez now stands. The other is that they

crossed the sea from a point eighteen miles down the coast.

From Suez I crossed the desert once more to Gaza, and thence to Nablous

and Safet--beautiful on its craggy height. Thereafter, for a part of two

days, I wound under the base of the snow-crowned Djibel El Sheik, and

then entered upon a vast plain. Before evening came there were straining

eyes that saw, and joyful voices that announced, the sight of the holy,

blessed Damascus. This earthly paradise of the Prophet is a city of

hidden palaces, of copses and gardens, fountains and bubbling streams.

The path by which I crossed the Lebanon is like that of the Foorca in

the Bernese Oberland, and from the white shoulder of the mountain I saw

the breadth of all Syria west of the range. I descended, passing the

group of cedars which is held sacred by the Greek Church. They occupy

three or four acres on the mountain-side, and many of them are gnarled

in a way that implies great age; but I saw nothing in their appearance

that tended to prove them contemporaries of the cedars employed in

Solomon's temple. Beyrout was reached without further adventure, and my

eastern travel practically ended.