The Dardanelles—Visit from the Pacha—His Delight at hearing
the Piano—Turkish Fountains—Caravan of Mules laden with
Grapes—Turkish Mode of Living—Houses, Cafés, and Women—The
Mosque and the Muezzin—American Consul of the Dardanelles,
another “Caleb Quotem.”
COAST OF ASIA.—We have lain in the mouth of the Dardanelles sixteen
mortal days, waiting for a wind. Like Don Juan (who passed here on his
way to Constantinople)—
“Another time we might have liked to see ’em,
But now are not much pleased with Cape Sigæum.”
An occasional trip with the boats to the watering-place, a Turkish bath,
and a stroll in the bazaar of the town behind the castle, gazing with a
glass at the tombs of Ajax and Achilles, and the long, undulating shores
of Asia, eating often and sleeping much, are the only appliances to our
philosophy. One cannot always be thinking of Hero and Leander, though he
lie in the Hellespont.
A merchant-brig from Smyrna is anchored just astern of us, waiting like
ourselves for this eternal northeaster to blow itself out. She has forty
or fifty passengers for Constantinople, among whom are the wife of an
American merchant (a Greek lady), and Mr. Schauffler, a missionary, in
whom I recognised a quondam fellow-student. They were nearly starved on
board the brig, as she was provisioned but for a few days, and the
commodore has courteously offered them a passage in the frigate. Fifty
or sixty sail lie below Castle Europe, in the same predicament. With the
“cap of King Erricus,” this cruising, pleasant as it is, would be a
thought pleasanter to my fancy.
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