RHODES
The sailing of a vessel direct for Jaffa brought a great number of
passengers together, and our decks were covered with Christian, Jew,
and Heathen. In the cabin we were Poles and Russians, Frenchmen,
Germans, Spaniards, and Greeks; on the deck were squatted several
little colonies of people of different race and persuasion. There was a
Greek Papa, a noble figure with a flowing and venerable white beard,
who had been living on bread-and-water for I don’t know how many years,
in order to save a little money to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
There were several families of Jewish Rabbis, who celebrated their
“feast of tabernacles” on board; their chief men performing worship
twice or thrice a day, dressed in their pontifical habits, and bound
with phylacteries: and there were Turks, who had their own ceremonies
and usages, and wisely kept aloof from their neighbours of Israel.
The dirt of these children of captivity exceeds all possibility of
description; the profusion of stinks which they raised, the grease of
their venerable garments and faces, the horrible messes cooked in the
filthy pots, and devoured with the nasty fingers, the squalor of mats,
pots, old bedding, and foul carpets of our Hebrew friends, could hardly
be painted by Swift in his dirtiest mood, and cannot be, of course,
attempted by my timid and genteel pen. What would they say in Baker
Street to some sights with which our new friends favoured us? What
would your ladyship have said if you had seen the interesting Greek nun
combing her hair over the cabin— combing it with the natural fingers,
and, averse to slaughter, flinging the delicate little intruders, which
she found in the course of her investigation, gently into the great
cabin? Our attention was a good deal occupied in watching the strange
ways and customs of the various comrades of ours.
The Jews were refugees from Poland, going to lay their bones to rest in
the valley of Jehoshaphat, and performing with exceeding rigour the
offices of their religion. At morning and evening you were sure to see
the chiefs of the families, arrayed in white robes, bowing over their
books, at prayer. Once a week, on the eve before the Sabbath, there was
a general washing in Jewry, which sufficed until the ensuing Friday.
The men wore long gowns and caps of fur, or else broad-brimmed hats,
or, in service time, bound on their heads little iron boxes, with the
sacred name engraved on them. Among the lads there were some beautiful
faces; and among the women your humble servant discovered one who was a
perfect rosebud of beauty when first emerging from her Friday’s toilet,
and for a day or two afterwards, until each succeeding day’s smut
darkened those fresh and delicate cheeks of hers. We had some very
rough weather in the course of the passage from Constantinople to
Jaffa, and the sea washed over and over our Israelitish friends and
their baggages and bundles; but though they were said to be rich, they
would not afford to pay for cabin shelter. One father of a family,
finding his progeny half drowned in a squall, vowed he WOULD pay for a
cabin; but the weather was somewhat finer the next day, and he could
not squeeze out his dollars, and the ship’s authorities would not admit
him except upon payment.
This unwillingness to part with money is not only found amongst the
followers of Moses, but in those of Mahomet, and Christians too. When
we went to purchase in the bazaars, after offering money for change,
the honest fellows would frequently keep back several piastres, and
when urged to refund, would give most dismally: and begin doling out
penny by penny, and utter pathetic prayers to their customer not to
take any more. I bought five or six pounds’ worth of Broussa silks for
the womankind, in the bazaar at Constantinople, and the rich Armenian
who sold them begged for three-halfpence to pay his boat to Galata.
There is something naif and amusing in this exhibition of cheatery—this
simple cringing and wheedling, and passion for twopence-halfpenny. It
was pleasant to give a millionaire beggar an alms, and laugh in his
face and say, “There, Dives, there’s a penny for you: be happy, you
poor old swindling scoundrel, as far as a penny goes.” I used to watch
these Jews on shore, and making bargains with one another as soon as
they came on board; the battle between vendor and purchaser was an
agony—they shrieked, clasped hands, appealed to one another
passionately; their handsome noble faces assumed a look of woe— quite
an heroic eagerness and sadness about a farthing.
Ambassadors from our Hebrews descended at Rhodes to buy provisions, and
it was curious to see their dealings: there was our venerable Rabbi,
who, robed in white and silver, and bending over his book at the
morning service, looked like a patriarch, and whom I saw chaffering
about a fowl with a brother Rhodian Israelite. How they fought over the
body of that lean animal! The street swarmed with Jews: goggling eyes
looked out from the old carved casements— hooked noses issued from the
low antique doors—Jew boys driving donkeys, Hebrew mothers nursing
children, dusky, tawdry, ragged young beauties and most venerable
grey-bearded fathers were all gathered round about the affair of the
hen! And at the same time that our Rabbi was arranging the price of it,
his children were instructed to procure bundles of green branches to
decorate the ship during their feast. Think of the centuries during
which these wonderful people have remained unchanged; and how, from the
days of Jacob downwards, they have believed and swindled!
The Rhodian Jews, with their genius for filth, have made their quarter
of the noble desolate old town the most ruinous and wretched of all.
The escutcheons of the proud old knights are still carved over the
doors, whence issue these miserable greasy hucksters and pedlars. The
Turks respected these emblems of the brave enemies whom they had
overcome, and left them untouched. When the French seized Malta they
were by no means so delicate: they effaced armorial bearings with their
usual hot-headed eagerness; and a few years after they had torn down
the coats-of- arms of the gentry, the heroes of Malta and Egypt were
busy devising heraldry for themselves, and were wild to be barons and
counts of the Empire.
The chivalrous relics at Rhodes are very superb. I know of no buildings
whose stately and picturesque aspect seems to correspond better with
one’s notions of their proud founders. The towers and gates are warlike
and strong, but beautiful and aristocratic: you see that they must have
been high-bred gentlemen who built them. The edifices appear in almost
as perfect a condition as when they were in the occupation of the noble
Knights of St. John; and they have this advantage over modern
fortifications, that they are a thousand times more picturesque.
Ancient war condescended to ornament itself, and built fine carved
castles and vaulted gates: whereas, to judge from Gibraltar and Malta,
nothing can be less romantic than the modern military architecture;
which sternly regards the fighting, without in the least heeding the
war-paint. Some of the huge artillery with which the place was defended
still lies in the bastions; and the touch-holes of the guns are
preserved by being covered with rusty old corselets, worn by defenders
of the fort three hundred years ago. The Turks, who battered down
chivalry, seem to be waiting their turn of destruction now. In walking
through Rhodes one is strangely affected by witnessing the signs of
this double decay. For instance, in the streets of the knights, you see
noble houses, surmounted by noble escutcheons of superb knights, who
lived there, and prayed, and quarrelled, and murdered the Turks; and
were the most gallant pirates of the inland seas; and made vows of
chastity, and robbed and ravished; and, professing humility, would
admit none but nobility into their order; and died recommending
themselves to sweet St. John, and calmly hoping for heaven in
consideration of all the heathen they had slain. When this superb
fraternity was obliged to yield to courage as great as theirs, faith as
sincere, and to robbers even more dexterous and audacious than the
noblest knight who ever sang a canticle to the Virgin, these halls were
filled by magnificent Pashas and Agas, who lived here in the intervals
of war, and having conquered its best champions, despised Christendom
and chivalry pretty much as an Englishman despises a Frenchman. Now the
famous house is let to a shabby merchant, who has his little beggarly
shop in the bazaar; to a small officer, who ekes out his wretched
pension by swindling, and who gets his pay in bad coin. Mahometanism
pays in pewter now, in place of silver and gold. The lords of the world
have run to seed. The powerless old sword frightens nobody now—the
steel is turned to pewter too, somehow, and will no longer shear a
Christian head off any shoulders. In the Crusades my wicked sympathies
have always been with the Turks. They seem to me the better Christians
of the two: more humane, less brutally presumptuous about their own
merits, and more generous in esteeming their neighbours. As far as I
can get at the authentic story, Saladin is a pearl of refinement
compared to the brutal beef-eating Richard—about whom Sir Walter Scott
has led all the world astray.
When shall we have a real account of those times and heroes—no
good-humoured pageant, like those of the Scott romances—but a real
authentic story to instruct and frighten honest people of the present
day, and make them thankful that the grocer governs the world now in
place of the baron? Meanwhile a man of tender feelings may be pardoned
for twaddling a little over this sad spectacle of the decay of two of
the great institutions of the world. Knighthood is gone—amen; it
expired with dignity, its face to the foe: and old Mahometanism is
lingering about just ready to drop. But it is unseemly to see such a
Grand Potentate in such a state of decay: the son of Bajazet Ilderim
insolvent; the descendants of the Prophet bullied by Calmucs and
English and whipper-snapper Frenchmen; the Fountain of Magnificence
done up, and obliged to coin pewter! Think of the poor dear houris in
Paradise, how sad they must look as the arrivals of the Faithful become
less and less frequent every day. I can fancy the place beginning to
wear the fatal Vauxhall look of the Seraglio, and which has pursued me
ever since I saw it: the fountains of eternal wine are beginning to run
rather dry, and of a questionable liquor; the ready-roasted-meat trees
may cry, “Come eat me,” every now and then, in a faint voice, without
any gravy in it—but the Faithful begin to doubt about the quality of
the victuals. Of nights you may see the houris sitting sadly under
them, darning their faded muslins: Ali, Omar, and the Imaums are
reconciled and have gloomy consultations: and the Chief of the Faithful
himself, the awful camel-driver, the supernatural husband of Khadijah,
sits alone in a tumbledown kiosk, thinking moodily of the destiny that
is impending over him; and of the day when his gardens of bliss shall
be as vacant as the bankrupt Olympus.
All the town of Rhodes has this appearance of decay and ruin, except a
few consuls’ houses planted on the sea-side, here and there, with
bright flags flaunting in the sun; fresh paint; English crockery;
shining mahogany, &c.,—so many emblems of the new prosperity of their
trade, while the old inhabitants were going to rack—the fine Church of
St. John, converted into a mosque, is a ruined church, with a ruined
mosque inside; the fortifications are mouldering away, as much as time
will let them. There was considerable bustle and stir about the little
port; but it was the bustle of people who looked for the most part to
be beggars; and I saw no shop in the bazaar that seemed to have the
value of a pedlar’s pack.
I took, by way of guide, a young fellow from Berlin, a journeyman
shoemaker, who had just been making a tour in Syria, and who professed
to speak both Arabic and Turkish quite fluently—which I thought he
might have learned when he was a student at college, before he began
his profession of shoemaking; but I found he only knew about three
words of Turkish, which were produced on every occasion, as I walked
under his guidance through the desolate streets of the noble old town.
We went out upon the lines of fortification, through an ancient gate
and guard-house, where once a chapel probably stood, and of which the
roofs were richly carved and gilded. A ragged squad of Turkish soldiers
lolled about the gate now; a couple of boys on a donkey; a grinning
slave on a mule; a pair of women flapping along in yellow papooshes; a
basket-maker sitting under an antique carved portal, and chanting or
howling as he plaited his osiers: a peaceful well of water, at which
knights’ chargers had drunk, and at which the double-boyed donkey was
now refreshing himself—would have made a pretty picture for a
sentimental artist. As he sits, and endeavours to make a sketch of this
plaintive little comedy, a shabby dignitary of the island comes
clattering by on a thirty-shilling horse, and two or three of the
ragged soldiers leave their pipes to salute him as he passes under the
Gothic archway.
The astonishing brightness and clearness of the sky under which the
island seemed to bask, struck me as surpassing anything I had seen-
-not even at Cadiz, or the Piraeus, had I seen sands so yellow, or
water so magnificently blue. The houses of the people along the shore
were but poor tenements, with humble courtyards and gardens; but every
fig-tree was gilded and bright, as if it were in an Hesperian orchard;
the palms, planted here and there, rose with a sort of halo of light
round about them; the creepers on the walls quite dazzled with the
brilliancy of their flowers and leaves; the people lay in the cool
shadows, happy and idle, with handsome solemn faces; nobody seemed to
be at work; they only talked a very little, as if idleness and silence
were a condition of the delightful shining atmosphere in which they
lived.
We went down to an old mosque by the sea-shore, with a cluster of
ancient domes hard by it, blazing in the sunshine, and carved all over
with names of Allah, and titles of old pirates and generals who reposed
there. The guardian of the mosque sat in the garden- court, upon a high
wooden pulpit, lazily wagging his body to and fro, and singing the
praises of the Prophet gently through his nose, as the breeze stirred
through the trees overhead, and cast chequered and changing shadows
over the paved court, and the little fountains, and the nasal psalmist
on his perch. On one side was the mosque, into which you could see,
with its white walls and cool-matted floor, and quaint carved pulpit
and ornaments, and nobody at prayers. In the middle distance rose up
the noble towers and battlements of the knightly town, with the deep
sea-line behind them.
It really seemed as if everybody was to have a sort of sober
cheerfulness, and must yield to indolence under this charming
atmosphere. I went into the courtyard by the sea-shore (where a few
lazy ships were lying, with no one on board), and found it was the
prison of the place. The door was as wide open as Westminster Hall.
Some prisoners, one or two soldiers and functionaries, and some
prisoners’ wives, were lolling under an arcade by a fountain; other
criminals were strolling about here and there, their chains clinking
quite cheerfully; and they and the guards and officials came up
chatting quite friendly together, and gazed languidly over the
portfolio, as I was endeavouring to get the likeness of one or two of
these comfortable malefactors. One old and wrinkled she- criminal, whom
I had selected on account of the peculiar hideousness of her
countenance, covered it up with a dirty cloth, at which there was a
general roar of laughter among this good- humoured auditory of
cut-throats, pickpockets, and policemen. The only symptom of a prison
about the place was a door, across which a couple of sentinels were
stretched, yawning; while within lay three freshly-caught
pirates—chained by the leg. They had committed some murders of a very
late date, and were awaiting sentence; but their wives were allowed to
communicate freely with them: and it seemed to me that if half-a-dozen
friends would set them flee, and they themselves had energy enough to
move, the sentinels would be a great deal too lazy to walk after them.
The combined influence of Rhodes and Ramazan, I suppose, had taken
possession of my friend the Schustergesell from Berlin. As soon as he
received his fee, he cut me at once, and went and lay down by a
fountain near the port, and ate grapes out of a dirty pocket-
handkerchief. Other Christian idlers lay near him, dozing, or
sprawling, in the boats, or listlessly munching water-melons. Along the
coffee-houses of the quay sat hundreds more, with no better employment;
and the captain of the “Iberia” and his officers, and several of the
passengers in that famous steamship, were in this company, being idle
with all their might. Two or three adventurous young men went off to
see the valley where the dragon was killed; but others, more
susceptible of the real influence of the island, I am sure would not
have moved though we had been told that the Colossus himself was taking
a walk half a mile off.