poet's soul. "David," she says, "did not rise earlier than I to see the
day break over the shores of Palestine. A fire-red cloud was spread
like an arch above the verdurous hills, green with palms and other
trees. Upon a height near the shore was grouped a mass of houses of grey
stone, with low cupola roofs. Here and there the palm-trees towered
among them. It was Jaffa, the ancient Joppa, one of the oldest cities in
the world. In the distance rose a chain of deep blue mountains,
perpendicular as a wall; it was the Judaean chain. Further to the west,
another considerable chain descended seaward; that was Carmel. At a
still greater distance, in the same direction, and in the interior of
the country, is a lofty mountain, snow-crowned, and, beyond that wall of
rock, invisible to our eyes, lay Jerusalem!"
Landing at Joppa, Miss Bremer and her party hired horses to carry them
to the Holy City; but it was not without much mental perturbation that
the novelist, who was but an indifferent equestrian, saw herself at the
mercy of a young and fiery courser. On this occasion she gained two
victories--one over herself and one over her steed, whose ardent
impatience she contrived to master.
The small caravan with which Miss Bremer travelled included a Russian
princess, two boyars, and some Englishmen; among others there was a
professor with a cynical smile and a sarcastic wit, who possessed a
happy faculty of describing, in epigrammatic phrase and always at the
right moment, the more noticeable features of the manners of the
natives. While the first-named of these eminent personages rode in
advance, Mr. Levison, the professor, remained by the side of Miss Bremer
in the rear. Between the two cultured minds there was a certain bond of
sympathy, and the length of the journey was beguiled by their animated
conversations.
The professor amused himself by calling our novelist Sitti, an Arabic
title bestowed upon women of high rank, and almost equivalent to that of
"princess." Abhul, the guide, overhearing it, inquired if she were a
kinswoman of the Sultan of Prussia, Frederick! "Yes," answered Mr.
Levison, gravely, "she is a kinswoman, but a distant one." And then he
apprised his fellow-traveller of the new dignity he had conferred upon
her.
This was sufficient to convert Abhul into her devoted slave. He was
mightily proud of attending, and acting as guide to, a princess of royal
blood. He almost went down on his knees before her; his attentions were
unremitting. The title which had been flashed before him produced on his
commonplace mind a thousand times the effect that would have been
produced by the knowledge that, plain little middle-class dame as she
was, the humble Swedish lady was infinitely more celebrated than
three-fourths of the princesses of Europe. But there are hundreds of our
own compatriots who are quite as eager tuft-hunters as this poor Arab
guide! John Bull dearly loves "a lord," while before "a princess" his
soul creeps and grovels in infinite abasement.
"This ridiculous mania for titles which overwhelmed the guide Abhul" is,
nevertheless, in M. Cortambert's opinion, "one of the most pronounced
characteristics of the boastful and childish genius of the Orientals.
The Turks and Arabs cannot believe in the importance of personages
without titles of distinction; and hence the smallest _proletaire_ who
can equip a caravan is saluted with the name of excellency. M. de
Lamartine was hailed as prince and lord; he was supposed, I believe, to
belong to the House of Orleans. One of our friends, an artist of high
merit, by no means desirous of being taken for that which he was not,
and valuing more highly his personal repute than all the titles in the
world, could not shake off the rank of prince, which welcomed him at
every village. Since the visit of M. de Lamartine every French traveller
seems to be regarded as a seigneur of illustrious lineage. One easily
understands that the purse of the tourist was the first to suffer from
this circumstance. Several times our friend endeavoured to set his guide
right, but in vain; the moukra was unwilling to pass, in the eyes of his
companions, for the conductor of a private individual. By elevating his
master he thought that he was raising himself."
* * * * *
Frederika Bremer did not allow her supposititious title of Sitti to
blind her to the fact that she was before all a poet and a woman of
letters. On entering Jerusalem she gave the reins to her imagination,
and set herself to work on one of those delightful letters which
afterwards formed the basis of a complete narrative of her Eastern tour.
"I raise my hands," she says, "towards the mountain of the house of the
Lord, experiencing an indescribable thankfulness for my safe arrival
here. I am in Jerusalem; I dwell upon the hill of Zion--the hill of King
David. From my window the view embraces all Jerusalem, that ancient and
venerable cradle of the grandest memories of humanity--the origin of so
many sanguinary contests, so many pilgrimages, hymns of praise, and
chants of sorrow."
Everybody knows what constitutes a traveller's life in Palestine: a
succession of pilgrimages to the several places connected with Old
Testament history, or with the life of our Lord; a constant renewal of
those touching experiences which so deeply impress the heart and brain
of every Christian. Even the freethinker cannot gaze without emotion on
the shrines of a religion which has so largely affected the destinies of
humanity and the currents of the world's history. What, then, must be
the feeling with which they are regarded by those to whom that religion
is the sure promise of eternal life? Not Greece, with its memories of
poets, sages and patriots; its haunted valleys and mysterious
mountain-tops; nor Italy, with its glories of art and nature, and its
footprints of a warrior-people, once rulers of the known world, so
appeals to the thoughtful mind as does the Holy Land, in the fulness of
its sanctity as the home and dwelling-place of Jesus Christ.
But the attention of Miss Bremer was not wholly given to the hallowed
scenes by which she was surrounded. In the East, as in the West, she
reverted to the question of woman's independence, the restoration of her
sex to its natural and legitimate freedom. What she saw was not of a
nature to cheer and encourage her. Nowhere else is the condition of
woman so deplorable; not so much because she is deprived of her liberty
as because she is condemned to the most absolute ignorance. And in this
ignorance lies one of the principal causes of Oriental degeneracy; for
the young, being brought up in the polluted atmosphere of the harem,
undergo a fatal enervation of body and soul, and imbibe the germs of the
most fatal vices.
One day, in company with several young persons of her own sex, Frederika
Bremer paid a visit of courtesy to the wife of a sheikh, who, when
informed that the ladies she had admitted to her presence were
unmarried, manifested the liveliest surprise, and added that it was a
great shame. The girls laughingly pointed to Miss Bremer as being also a
spinster; whereupon their hostess threatened to withdraw, declaring
herself overwhelmed, and, indeed, almost scandalized by such a
revelation. However, on reaching the threshold she turned back, and
desired to know what had induced the European lady to remain unmarried.
The reasons given in reply must have been, we suppose, of a shocking
character, since she cut them short by a declaration that she did not
wish to hear such things spoken of.
To this example of the complete condition of moral dependence to which
even the wives of sheikhs are degraded, Miss Bremer adds another and not
less characteristic fact. She asked several young women, distinguished
by their eager and animated air, whether they had no desire to travel
and see Allah's beautiful earth.
"Oh no," they replied, "for women that would be a sin!"
Women bred in this state of mental and moral degradation can never play
an important part in the regeneration of the East.
A philosopher first, a poet after, and sometimes a painter, such is
Frederika Bremer. She does not often paint a picture, however; when she
does, it is brightly coloured, and its details are carefully elaborated;
but her skill is more favourably displayed in portraiture. Her palette
is not rich enough in glowing colours to reproduce fairly the warm
luxuriant landscapes of the East. For this reason she excels in a sketch
like the following, where she deals not with sky, and sea, and mountain,
but the humanity in those types of it which crowd the streets and lanes
of the Holy City:--
"The population of Jerusalem," she says, "I would divide into three
classes: the smokers, the criers, and the mutes or phantoms. The
first-named, forming in groups or bands, are seated outside the cafes
smoking, while youths in the pretty Greek costume hasten from one to
another with a wretched-looking coffee-pot and pour out the coffee--the
blacker it is the more highly it is esteemed--into very small cups.
With an air of keen satisfaction the smokers quaff it, drop by drop.
Frequently one of them delivers himself of a recital with very animated
gestures; the others listen attentively, but you seldom see them laugh.
In the cafe may often be heard the sound of a guitar, accompanied by a
dull monotonous strain, in celebration of warlike exploits or love
adventures; the Arabs give to it their pleased attention. In the
bazaars, in the shops, wherever a pacific life predominates, smokers are
met with. Those wearing a green turban spring from the stock of
Mohammed, or else have performed the pilgrimage to Mecca and learned the
Koran by heart, which raises them to the rank of holy men.
"The criers' class of Jerusalem consists of all who sell in the streets,
of the camel and donkey drivers, and of the country-women who daily
bring fuel, herbs, vegetables, and eggs, into the city. They generally
station themselves and their wares on the Place de Jaffa, and scream in
a frightful manner; one would think they were quarrelling, when, in
reality, they are only gossiping. These women allow their dirty mantles
or veils to fall from the head down upon the back, and do not cover the
face. They are always decked and sometimes _plated_ with silver
ornaments. Silver coins, strung together, are carried in bands across
the forehead, and hang down the cheeks. Their fingers are covered with
rings and their wrists with bracelets. Not unfrequently you will see
very young girls with the face framed in silver money, to correspond
with their head-gear--a small cap or hood embroidered with Turkish
piastres, set as close together as the scales of a fish.
"I have heard it said that this cap is a maiden's dower. The
country-women are often remarkable for a kind of savage beauty, but
generally they are ugly, with an expression of rudeness and ill-nature.
They are a collection of sorceresses, whom I feared more than the men of
the same class, though the latter assuredly did not inspire me with much
confidence.
"The Arab women of high rank, enveloped in long white mantles, and with
their faces hidden by a close veil of black, yellow, or blue gauze, form
my third division. They walk, or rather totter, through the streets in
numerous groups or bands, shod with yellow slippers or _bottines_, to
enjoy a promenade outside the Jaffa Gate. You never hear them utter a
word in the streets, nor do they pause for a moment. If that black or
yellow object approach you, covered with her white veil, and turn in
your direction, it is with an expressive, a piercing, questioning
glance; but you cannot discover nor even divine the face concealed by
that coloured gauze. These poor dumb phantoms, who are all the more to
be pitied because they have no idea that they need pity, generally
betake themselves to the cemeteries, where, seated under the olive
trees, they spend the day in doing nothing."
The ease, grace, and dramatic power of this description no reader will
question.
After visiting most shrines of interest in the Holy Land, Miss Bremer
extended her tour to the Turkish sea-coast, and investigated all that
was worth seeing at Beyrout, Tripoli, Latakia, Rhodes, Smyrna, and
Constantinople. In bidding farewell to the East, she expressed her joy
and delight at having seen it, but added that not all its gold, nor all
its treasure, would induce her to spend her days in its indolent and
luxurious atmosphere. She loved the West, with its intellectual activity
and deep moral life, its progress and its aspirations after the higher
liberty. The inertia of the East irritates a strong brain almost to
madness.
Her next pilgrimage was to classic Greece, the land of Solon and
Lycurgus, Pericles and Pisistratus, AEschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and
Demosthenes--the land of Byron and Shelley--the land of poetry and
patriotism, of the myths of gods and the histories of heroes--the land
which Art and Nature have fondly combined to enrich with their choicest
treasures. The impression it made upon her was profound. Writing at
Athens, she says:--
"I confess that the effect produced upon me here by life and the
surrounding objects makes me almost dread to remain for any length of
time; dread, lest beneath this clear Olympian heaven, and amid all the
delightful entertainment offered to the senses, it might be possible,
not, indeed, to forget, but to feel much less forcibly the great aim and
purpose of that life for which the God-Man lived, died, and rose again
from the dead. 'They who cannot bear strong wines should not make use of
them.' For this reason, therefore, I shall soon leave Greece, and return
to my Northern home, the cloudy skies and long winters of which will not
delude me into finding an earthly existence too bewitchingly beautiful.
Yet am I glad that I shall be able to say to the men and women in the
far North, 'If there be any one among you who suffers both in body and
soul from the bleak cold of the North, or from the heavy burden of its
life, let him come hither. Not to Italy, where prevails too much
sirocco, and the rain, when it once begins, rains as if it would never
leave off; no, but hither, where the air is pure as the atmosphere of
freedom, the heavens as free from cloud as the dwellings of the gods;
where the temples on the heights lift the glance upwards, and the sea
and the mountains expand vast horizons to the eye, rich in colour, in
thought, and in feeling; where all things are full of hope-awakening
life--antiquity, the present, and the future. Let him, beneath the
sacred colonnades on the hills, or in the shade of the classic groves in
the valleys, listen anew to the divine Plato, enjoy the grapes of the
vales of Athene, the figs from the native village of Socrates, honey
from the thyme-scented hills of Hymettus and Cithaeron, feed the glance
and the mind, the soul and the body, daily with that old, ever-young
beauty--that which was, and that which now springs up to new life, and
he will be restored to his usual vigour of health; or, dying, will thank
God that the earth can become a vestibule to the Father's home
above.'"[15]
"I shall soon leave Greece," she writes; but the charm of Hellas proved
too powerful for her, and she spent nearly a year in visiting its
memorable places. It was in the early days of August, 1859, that she
landed at Athens; in the early days of June, 1860, she arrived at
Venice. In the interval she had visited Nauplia, Argos, and Corinth; had
sailed amongst the beautiful islands of the blue AEgean; had wandered in
the classic vale of Eurotas, and amongst the ruins of Sparta; had
traversed Thessaly, and surveyed the famous Pass where Leonidas and his
warriors stood at bay against the hosts of Persia; had mused in the
oracular shades of Delphi and gazed at the haunted peak of Parnassus,
and looked upon all that remains of hundred-gated Thebes. It is
impossible for us to follow in all this extended circuit, and over
ground so rich in tradition and association. Wherever she went she
carried the great gift of a refined taste and a cultivated mind, so that
she was always in full accord with the scene, could appreciate its
character, and recall whatever was memorable about it. It is only thus
that travel can be made profitable, or that a genuine enjoyment can be
derived from it; just as it is only an harmonious nature that feels the
full charm of music.
There are delightful pages in Miss Bremer's "Greece and the Greeks";
the keen pleasure she felt in the classic and lovely scenes around her
she knows how to communicate to her readers; her literary skill puts
them before us in all their freshness of colour and purity of
atmosphere. Let us take a picture from Naxos, the island consecrated by
the lovely legend of Ariadne; it shall be a landscape fit to inspire a
poet's song:--
"Villa Somariva is situated on the slope of a mountain, or on one of the
many terraces which are formed from the slopes. Behind the villa lies,
somewhat higher up the mountain, a little village of white-washed,
small, den-like houses, and a yet whiter church; and still higher up
than the village, a square tower--Pyrgos--in the style of the Middle
Ages. Below, and on both sides of our villa, spread out extensive
grounds, consisting of private gardens and groves, separated from each
other by two walls, almost concealed from the eye by the number of trees
and bushes which grow there in a state of nature and with all its
luxuriance. Vines clamber up into the lofty olive trees, and fall down
again in light green festoons, heavy with grapes, which wave in the
wind. Slender cypresses rise up from amidst brightly verdant groves of
orange, fig, pomegranate, plum, and peach trees. Tall mulberry trees,
umbrageous planes, and ash trees glance down upon thickets and hedges of
blossoming myrtles, oleanders, and the aguus cactus. From amidst this
garden-paradise, which occupies the whole higher portion of the entire
extent of the valley, rise here and there white villas, with ornaments
upon their roofs and balconies, with small towers, which show a mediaeval
Venetian origin. Around the valley ascend mountains in a wide circuit,
their slopes covered with shadowy olive woods, and cultivated almost to
their summits, which are rounded and not very high. These larger
villages, with their churches, and half a dozen lesser homesteads, are
situated on the terraces of the hills, surrounded by cultivated fields
and olive groves. All these houses are of stone, and white-washed, and
all approach the square or dice-like form. From our windows and
balconies which face the west, we can overlook almost the whole of this
extensive valley, and beyond a depression in its ring of mountains, we
see the white-grey marble tympanum of Paros, with its two sister
cupolas, surrounded by that clear blue vapour which makes it apparent
that the sea lies between them and our island. On the side opposite to
the softly-rounded crown of Paros shines out the interior summit of
Naxos, high above the mountain of Melanes, a giant head upon giant
shoulders, which are called Bolibay, and have a fantastic appearance.
[Illustration: CORINTH.]
"But I have not yet mentioned the Fountain of Beauty, in the valley of
Melanes, the fountain of its fertility--the Fleurio, which flows in many
small streams through the gardens, and supplies us with the most
glorious water.... The river Fleurio bounds along the middle of the
valley, and makes its fields green; it murmurs meanderingly along over a
deep bed of marble blocks and stones, its banks garlanded with
fine-leaved, white-flowering savin and oleanders; besides being
overshadowed in many places by the most beautiful plane trees stretching
out their high branches to each other across the little stream, which in
its calm but fresh career, and its romantic meanderings, is a living
image of a beautiful quiet life."
* * * * *
Not the least interesting of Miss Bremer's many pilgrimages was the one
she made to that plain of Marathon, where the genius of Miltiades beat
back the legions of Persia under Datis--the scene of the first great
victory of the West over the East. The lower portion of the plain, which
skirts the coast, was clothed with abundant harvests of wheat and rye,
which waved softly in the wind. What monument, asks Miss Bremer, could
have been more beautiful for those brave men whose dust has been mingled
with the earth?[16] After thousands of years their heroic contention for
liberty had prepared freedom and peace for Greece. The seed they sowed
was "flaming" seed, which continues to live even in the darkness of the
grave; seed from which the harvests of peace spring up in all their
glory.
The Swedish novelist and her companions rested and dined on the
greensward at a spot where a number of white marble slabs indicated that
the ancient monuments had stood there. Around them spread the shining
corn-fields, and myriads of beautiful flowers gleamed amid the grass.
In the afternoon they rambled to the village of Viana--old
Marathon--picturesquely situated at the foot of Pentelicus. Old and
young gathered round them in the village--a poor, ignorant, half-savage
people, but not one of them begged; on the contrary, they were generous
and hospitable according to their means. They fetched straw mats and
mattresses, and laid them on the ground round a large tree.... In a
cleft of the mountain, just above the village, stood a little monastery
church, wonderfully picturesque. The prospect over the extensive plain,
the gleaming straits, and the cliffs of the island of Euboea, is full
of inspiration. Visitors to Marathon, in search of mementoes, generally
look for the arrows that are sometimes found upon the shore; but Miss
Bremer, as a more appropriate souvenir, carried away a bouquet of wheat
ears and wild everlastings.
* * * * *
It would be pleasant to follow Miss Bremer from place to place
throughout her classic wanderings, for such a companion enhances the
delight and utility of travel; it is like studying a fine poem with the
help of a poet's interpretation of it. But our space is exhausted, and
the reader who would go further must be referred to her interesting
volumes. Every page bears the stamp of a sympathetic intelligence.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] F. Milon: "Life and Letters of Frederika Bremer" (Ed. 1868), p. 9.
[10] Besides the works named in the preceding pages, Frederika Bremer
wrote "The Diary," "Life in Dalecarlia," "Brothers and Sisters," and
"The Midnight Sun."
[11] Frederika Bremer's judgment is certainly at fault here; and in
other points she does not show a very exact discrimination. The sketch,
indeed, is witty rather than accurate; a clever caricature rather than a
correct drawing.
[12] There is much more poetry in Miss Bremer's prose works than in her
poems, which are little more than the efforts of an accomplished
versifier.
[13] F. Bremer, "Two Years in Switzerland and Italy" (transl. by Mary
Howitt), i. 15-17.
[14] One or two quotations, illustrative of Frederika Bremer's style, we
may give in a note. And, first, her impression of the mountains ("Two
Years in Switzerland and Italy," i. 239):--
"They stand in nature like the prophets of the Old Testament, or, more
correctly speaking, like the old wise men and teachers of the pagan
world, and point us to a greatness high above that in which we, the
children of the valleys and the plains, have our being. For these
pyramids are not the pleasantest things upon earth, they are not the
fragrance of the flowers, not the singing of the birds, not the changing
life of the seasons. Imperishable in their eternal place, they are moved
alone by the sun. The sun alone causes them to glow or become pale, and
to paint for us images of life or of death. But they alone receive its
earliest beams in the morning, and retain its light in the evening long
after it has departed from us. It is in their bosoms that spring feeds
the great rivers which fertilize the earth, foster the life of cities,
and extend themselves, beautifying, benefiting, even to the smallest
blades of grass."
And, secondly, the Simplon (ibid. i. 315, 316):--