A Turkish Pic-Nic, on the plain of Troy—Fingers _v._
Forks—Trieste—The Boschetto—Graceful freedom of Italian
Manners—A Rural Fête—Fireworks—Amateur Musicians.
DARDANELLES.—The oddest invitation I ever had in my life was from a
Turkish Bey to a _fête champètre_, on the ruins of Troy! We have just
returned, full of wassail and pillaw, by the light of an Asian moon.
The morning was such a one as you would expect in the country where
mornings were first made. The sun was clear, but the breeze was fresh,
and as we sat on the Bey’s soft divans, taking coffee before starting, I
turned my cheek to the open window, and confessed the blessing of
existence.
We were sixteen, from the ship, and our boat was attended by his
interpreter, the general of his troops, the governor of Bournabashi (the
name of the Turkish town near Troy), and a host of attendants on foot
and horseback. His cook had been sent forward at daylight with the
provisions.
The handsome Bey came to the door, and helped to mount us upon his own
horses, and we rode on, with the whole population of the village
assembled to see our departure. We forded the Scamander, near the town,
and pushed on at a hard gallop over the plain. The Bey soon overtook us
upon a fleet grey mare, caparisoned with red trappings, holding an
umbrella over his head, which he courteously offered to the commodore on
coming up. We followed a grass path, without hill or stone, for nine or
ten miles, and after having passed one or two hamlets, with their open
threshing-floors, and crossed the Simois, with the water to our
saddle-girths, we left a slight rising ground by a sudden turn, and
descended to a cluster of trees, where the Turks sprang from their
horses, and made signs for us to dismount.
It was one of nature’s drawing-rooms. Thickets of brush and willows
enclosed a fountain, whose clear waters were confined in a tank, formed
of marble slabs, from the neighbouring ruins. A spreading tree above,
and soft meadow-grass to its very tip, left nothing to wish but friends
and a quiet mind to perfect its beauty. The cook’s fires were smoking in
the thicket, the horses were grazing without saddle or bridle in the
pasture below, and we laid down upon the soft Turkish carpets, spread
beneath the trees, and reposed from our fatigues for an hour.
The interpreter came when the sun had slanted a little across the trees,
and invited us to the Bey’s gardens, hard by. A path, overshadowed with
wild brush, led us round the little meadow to a gate, close to the
fountain-head of the Scamander. One of the common cottages of the
country stood upon the left, and in front of it a large arbour, covered
with a grape-vine, was under-laid with cushions and carpets. Here we
reclined, and coffee was brought us with baskets of grapes, figs,
quinces, and pomegranates, the Bey and his officers waiting on us
themselves with amusing assiduity. The people of the house, meantime,
were sent to the fields for green corn, which was roasted for us, and
this with nuts, wine, and conversation, and a ramble to the source of
the Simois, which bursts from a cleft in the rock very beautifully,
whiled away the hours till dinner.
About four o’clock we returned to the fountain. A white muslin cloth was
laid upon the grass between the edge and the overshadowing tree, and all
around it were spread the carpets upon which we were to recline while
eating. Wine and melons were cooling in the tank, and plates of honey
and grapes, and new-made butter (a great luxury in the Archipelago),
stood on the marble rim. The dinner might have fed Priam’s army. Half a
lamb, turkeys, and chickens, were the principal meats, but there was,
besides, “a rabble rout” of made dishes, peculiar to the country, of
ingredients at which I could not hazard even a conjecture.
We crooked our legs under us with some awkwardness, and producing our
knives and forks (which we had brought with the advice of the
interpreter), commenced, somewhat abated in appetite by too liberal a
lunch. The Bey and his officers sitting upright with, their feet under
them, pinched off bits of meat dexterously with the thumb and
forefinger, passing from one to the other a dish of rice, with a large
spoon, which all used indiscriminately. It is odd that eating with the
fingers seemed only disgusting to me in the Bey. His European dress
probably made the peculiarity more glaring. The fat old governor who sat
beside me was greased to the elbows, and his long grey beard was studded
with rice and drops of gravy to his girdle. He rose when the meats were
removed, and waddled off to the stream below, where a wash in the clean
water made him once more a presentable person.
It is a Turkish custom to rise and retire while the dishes are changing,
and after a little ramble through the meadow, we returned to a lavish
spread of fruits and honey, which concluded the repast.
It is doubted where Troy stood. The reputed site is a rising ground,
near the fountain of Bournabashi, to which we strolled after dinner. We
found nothing but quantities of fragments of columns, believed by
antiquaries to be the ruins of a city that sprung up and died long since
Troy.
We mounted and rode home by a round moon, whose light filled the air
like a dust of phosphoric silver. The plains were in a glow with it. Our
Indian summer nights, beautiful as they are, give you no idea of an
Asian moon.
The Bey’s rooms were lit, and we took coffee with him once more, and,
fatigued with pleasure and excitement, got to our boats, and pulled up
against the arrowy current of the Dardanelles to the frigate.
* * * * *
A long, narrow valley, with precipitous sides, commences directly at the
gate of Trieste, and follows a small stream into the mountains of
Friuli. It is a very sweet, green place, and studded on both sides with
cottages and kitchen-gardens, which supply the city with flowers and
vegetables. The right hand slope is called the Boschetto, and is laid
out with pretty avenues of beech and elm as a public walk, while, at
every few steps, stands a bowling-alley or drinking arbour, and here and
there a trim little restaurant, just large enough for a rural party. It
is perhaps a mile and a half in length, and one grand café in the
centre, usually tempts the better class of promenaders into the expense
of an ice.
It was a Sunday afternoon, and all Trieste was pouring out to the
Boschetto. I had come ashore with one of the officers, and we fell into
the tide. Few spots in the world are so variously peopled as this
thriving seaport, and we encountered every style of dress and feature.
The greater part were Jewesses. How instantly the most common observer
distinguishes them in a crowd! The clear sallow skin, the sharp black
eye and broad eyebrow, the aquiline nose, the small person, the slow,
cautious step of the old, and the quick, restless one of the young, the
ambitious ornaments, and the look of cunning, which nothing but the
highest degree of education does away, mark the race with the
definiteness of another species.
We strolled on to the end of the walk, amused constantly with the family
groups sitting under the trees with their simple repast of a fritata and
a mug of beer, perfectly unconscious of the presence of the crowd. There
was something pastoral and contented in the scene that took my fancy.
Almost all the female promenaders were without bonnets, and the mixture
of the Greek style of head-dress with the Parisian coiffure, had a
charming effect. There was just enough of fashion to take off the
vulgarity.
We coquetted along, smiled upon by here and there a group that had
visited the ship, and on our return sat down at a table in front of the
café, surrounded by some hundreds of people of all classes, conversing
and eating ices. I thought as I glanced about me, how oddly such a scene
would look in America. In the broad part of an open walk, the whole town
passing and repassing, sat elegantly dressed ladies, with their husbands
or lovers, mothers with their daughters, and occasionally a group of
modest girls alone, eating or drinking with as little embarrassment as
at home, and preserving toward each other that courtesy of deportment
which in these classes of society can result only from being so much in
public.
Under the next tree to us sat an excessively pretty woman with two
gentlemen, probably her husband and cavalier. I touched my hat to them
as we seated ourselves, and this common courtesy of the country was
returned with smiles that put us instantly upon the footing of a half
acquaintance. A caress to the lady’s greyhound, and an apology for
smoking, produced a little conversation, and when they rose to leave us,
the compliments of the evening were exchanged with a cordiality that in
America would scarce follow an acquaintance of months. I mention it as
an every-day instance of the kind-hearted and open manners of Europe. It
is what makes these countries so agreeable to the stranger and the
traveller. Every café, on a second visit, seems like a home.
* * * * *
We were at a rural fête last night, given by a wealthy merchant of
Trieste, at his villa in the neighbourhood. We found the company
assembled on a terraced observatory, crowning a summer-house, watching
the sunset over one of the sweetest landscapes in the world. We were at
the head of a valley, broken at the edge of the Adriatic by the city,
and beyond spread the golden waters of the gulf toward Venice, headed in
on the right by the long chain of the Friuli. The country around was
green and fertile, and small white villas peeped out everywhere from the
foliage, evidences of the prosperous commerce of the town. We watched
the warm colours out of the sky, and the party having by this time
assembled, we walked through the long gardens to a house open with long
windows from the ceiling to the floor, and furnished only with the light
and luxurious arrangement of summer.
Music is the life of all amusement within the reach of Italy, and the
waltzing was mingled with performances on the piano (and very wonderful
ones to me) by an Italian count and his friend, a German. They played
duets in a style I have seldom heard even by professors.
The supper was fantastically rural. The table was spread under a large
tree, from the branches of which was trailed a vine, by a square frame
of lattice-work in the proportions of a pretty saloon. The lamps were
hung in coloured lanterns among the branches, and the trunk of the tree
passed through the centre of the table hollowed to receive it. The
supper was sumptuously splendid, and the effect of the party within,
seen from the grounds about, through the arched and vine-concealed
doors, was the most picturesque imaginable.
A waltz or two followed, and we were about calling for our horses, when
the whole place was illuminated with a discharge of fireworks. Every
description of odd figures was described in flame during the hour they
detained us, and the bright glare on the trees, and the figures of the
party strolling up and down the gravelled walks, was admirably
beautiful.
They do these things so prettily here! We were invited out on the
morning of the same day, and expected nothing but a drive and a cup of
tea, and we found an entertainment worthy of a king. The simplicity and
frankness with which we were received, and the unpretendingness of the
manner of introducing the amusements of the evening, might have been
lessons in politeness to nobles.
A drive to town by starlight, and a pull off to the ship in the cool and
refreshing night air, concluded a day of pure pleasure. It has been my
good fortune of late to number many such.
* * * * *
* * * * *