Natural Statue of Niobe—The Thorn of Syria and its
Tradition—Approach to Magnesia—Hereditary Residence of the
Family of Bey-Oglou—Character of its Present Occupant—The
Truth about Oriental Caravanserais—Comforts and Appliances they
yield to Travellers—Figaro of the Turks—The Pilaw—Morning
Scene at the Departure—Playful Familiarity of a Solemn old
Turk—Magnificent Prospect from Mount Sypilus.
Three or four hours more of hard riding brought us to a long glen,
opening upon the broad plains of Lydia. We were on the look-out here for
the “natural statue of Niobe,” spoken of by the ancient writers as
visible from the road in this neighbourhood; but there was nothing that
looked like her, unless she was, as the poet describes her, a “Niobe,
_all_ tears,” and runs down toward the Sarabat, in what we took to be
only a very pretty mountain rivulet. It served for simple fresh water to
our volunteer companion, who darted off an hour before sunset, and had
finished his ablutions and prayers, and was rising from his knees as we
overtook him upon its grassy border. Almost the only thing that grows in
these long mountain passes, is the peculiar thorn of Syria, said to be
the same of which our Saviour’s crown was plaited. It differs from the
common species, in having a hooked thorn alternating with the straight,
adding cruelly to its power of laceration. It is remarkable that the
flower, at this season withering on the bush, is a circular
golden-coloured leaf, resembling exactly the radiated glory usually
drawn around the heads of Christ and the Virgin.
Amid a sunset of uncommon splendour, firing every peak of the opposite
range of hills with an effulgent red, and filling the valley between
with an atmosphere of heavenly purple, we descended into the plain.
Mount Sypilus, in whose rocks the magnetic ore is said to have been
first discovered, hung over us in bold precipices; and, rounding a
projecting spur, we came suddenly in sight of the minarets and cypresses
of _Magnesia_ (not pronounced as if written in an apothecary’s bill),
the ancient capital of the Ottoman empire.
On the side of the ascent, above the town, we observed a large isolated
mansion, surrounded with a wall, and planted about with noble trees,
looking, with the exception that it was too freshly painted, like one of
the fine old castle palaces of Italy. It was something very
extraordinary for the East, where no man builds beyond the city wall,
and no house is very much larger than another. It was the hereditary
residence, we afterwards discovered, of almost the only noble family in
Turkey—that of the Bey-Oglou. You will recollect Byron’s allusion to it
in the “Bride of Abydos:”
“We Moslem reck not much of blood,
But yet the race of Karaisman,
Unchanged, unchangeable hath stood,
First of the bold Timareot bands
Who won, and well can keep, their lands;
Enough that he who comes to woo
Is kinsman of the Bey-Oglou.”