sat just across the aisle, engaged in their usual edifying discussion as
to the identity of the historic sites we were supposed to be passing.
Finally they got into a particularly illuminating dispute as to the
period of St. Paul's life and ministrations. It began by the Apostle
(our Apostle) casually remarking that St. Paul had lived about
twenty-one hundred years ago.
It was a mild remark--innocent enough in its trifling inaccuracy of two
or three centuries--but it disturbed the Colonel, who has fallen into
the guide-book habit, and is set up with the knowledge thereof.
"Look here," he said, "if I knew as little as you do about such things
I'd restrain the desire to give out information before company."
The Apostle was undisturbed by this sarcasm. He folded his hands across
his comfortable forward elevation and smiled in his angel way.
"Oh, you think so," he said placidly. "Well, you think like a camel's
hump. You never heard of St. Paul till you started on this trip. I used
to study about him at Sunday-school when a mere child."
"Yes, you did! as a child! Why, you old lobscouse" (lobscouse is an
article on the _Kurfuerst_ bill of fare) "you never saw the inside of a
Sunday-school. You heard somebody last night say something about
twenty-one hundred years ago, and with your genius for getting facts
mixed you saddled that date on St. Paul."
The Colonel turned for corroboration to the Horse-Doctor, who regarded
critically the outlines of the Apostle, which for convenience required
an entire seat; then, speaking thoughtfully:
"It isn't worth while to notice the remarks of a person who looks like
that. Why, he's all malformed. He'll probably explode before we reach
Ephesus."
I felt sorry for the Apostle, and was going over to sit with him, only
there wasn't room, and just then somebody noticed a camel train--the
first we have seen--huge creatures heavily loaded and plodding along on
the old highway. This made a diversion. Then there was another camel
train, and another. Then came a string of donkeys--all laden with the
wares of the East going to Smyrna. The lagging Oriental day was awake;
the old road was still alive, after all.
Like the first "Innocents," we had brought a carload or so of
donkeys--four-legged donkeys--from Smyrna, and I think they were the
same ones, from their looks. They were aged and patchy, and they filled
the bill in other ways. They wrung our hearts with their sad, patient
faces and their decrepitude, and they exasperated us with their
indifference to our desires.
I suppose excursion parties look pretty much alike, and that the _Quaker
City_ pilgrims forty-two years ago looked a good deal like ours as we
strung away down the valley toward the ancient city. I hope they did not
look any worse than ours. To see long-legged men and stout ladies
perched on the backs of those tiny asses, in rickety saddles that feel
as if they would slip (and do slip if one is not careful), may be
diverting enough, but it is not pretty. If the donkey stays in the
middle of the narrow, worn pathway, it is very well; but if he goes to
experimenting and wandering off over the rocks, then look out. You can't
steer him with the single remnant of rope on his halter (he has no
bridle), and he pitches a good deal when he gets off his course. Being a
tall person, I was closed up like a grasshopper, and felt fearfully
top-heavy. Laura, age fourteen, kept behind me--commenting on my
appearance and praying for my overthrow.
It was a good way to the ruins--the main ruins--though in reality there
were ruins everywhere: old mosques, gray with age and half-buried in the
soil--a thousand years old, but young compared with the more ancient
city; crumbling Roman aqueducts leading away to the mountains--old even
before the mosques were built, but still new when Ephesus was already
hoary with antiquity; broken columns sticking everywhere out of the
weeds and grass--scarred, crumbling, and moss-grown, though still not of
that first, far, unrecorded period.
But by-and-by we came to mighty walls of stone--huge abutments rising
from the marshy plain--and these were really old. The Phoenicians may
have laid them in some far-off time, but tradition goes still farther
back and declares they were laid by giants--the one-eyed kind, the
Cyclops--when all this marsh was sea. These huge abutments were piers in
that ancient day. A blue harbor washed them, and the merchant ships of
mighty Ephesus lay alongside and loaded for every port.
That was a long time ago. Nobody can say when these stone piers were
built, but Diana and Apollo were both born in Ephesus, and there was
probably a city here even then. What we know is that by the beginning of
the Christian era Ephesus was a metropolis with a temple so amazing, a
theatre so vast and a library so beautiful that we stand amid the
desolation to-day, helplessly trying to reconstruct the proportions of a
community which could require these things; could build them and then
vanish utterly, leaving not a living trace behind.
For nobody to-day lives in Ephesus--not a soul. A wandering shepherd may
build his camp-fire here, or an Arab who is tilling a bit of ground; but
his home will be in Ayasaluk, several miles away, not here. Once the
greatest port of trade in western Asia, Ephesus is voiceless and vacant
now, except when a party like ours comes to disturb its solitude and
trample among its forlorn glories.
There is no lack of knowledge concerning certain of the structures
here--the more recent ones, we may call them, though they were built two
thousand years ago. There are descriptions everywhere, and some of them
are as cleanly cut to-day as they were when the tool left them. This
library was built in honor of Augustus Caesar and Livia, and it must have
been a veritable marble vision. Here in its corners the old students sat
and pored over books and precious documents that filled these crumbling
recesses and the long-vanished shelves. St. Paul doubtless came here to
study during the three years of his residence, and before him St. John,
for he wrote his gospel in Ephesus, and would be likely to seek out the
place of books. And Mary would walk with him to the door sometimes, I
think, and Mary of Magdala, for these three passed their final days in
Ephesus, and would be drawn close together by their sacred bond.
The great theatre where St. Paul battled with the wild beasts stands
just across the way. It seated twenty-five thousand, and its stone
benches stretch upward to the sky. The steep marble flight that carries
you from tier to tier is there to-day exactly as when troops of fair
ladies and handsome beaux climbed up and still up to find their places
from which to look down on the play or the gladiatorial combat or the
massacre of the Christians in the arena below.
These old theatres were built in a semicircle dug out of the
mountain-side, so that the seats were solid against the ground and rose
one above the other with the slope of the hill, which gave everybody a
good view. There were no columns to interfere with one's vision, for
there was no roof to be supported, except, perhaps, over the stage, but
the top seats were so remote from the arena and the proscenium that the
players must have seemed miniatures. Yet even above these there was
still mountain-side, and little boys who could not get money for an
entrance fee or carry water to the animals for a ticket sat up in that
far perch, no doubt, and looked down and shouted at the show.
Laura and I, who, as usual, had dropped behind the party, climbed far up
among the seats and tried to imagine we had come to the afternoon
performance--had come early, not to miss any of it. But it was
difficult, even when we shut our eyes. Weeds and grass grew everywhere
in the crevices; dandelions bloomed and briers tangled where sat the
beaux and belles of twenty centuries ago. Just here at our feet the mobs
of Demetrius the silversmith gathered, crying, "Great is Diana of the
Ephesians!" because the religion of St. Paul was spoiling their trade
for miniature temples. Down there in the arena Paul did battle with the
beasts, very likely as punishment. This is the spot--these are the very
benches--but we cannot see the picture: we cannot wake the tread of the
vanished years.
Behind the arena are the columns that support the stage, and back of
these are the dressing-rooms, their marble walls as solid and perfect
to-day as when the ancient players dallied and gossiped there. At one
end is a dark, cave-like place where we thought the wild beasts might
have been kept. I stood at the entrance and Laura made my picture, but
she complained that I did not look fierce enough for her purpose.
On another slope of the hill a smaller theatre, the Odeon, has recently
been uncovered. A gem of beauty it was, and much of its wonder is still
preserved. Here the singers of a forgotten time gave forth their melody
to a group of music-lovers, gathered in this close circle of seats that
not a note or shading might be lost.
[Illustration: ALL THE PLAINS AND SLOPES OF THE OLD CITY WITH ITS WHITE
FRAGMENTS AND POOR RUINED HARBOR LAY AT OUR FEET
NOTE.--In this picture the theatre where St. Paul fought is in the
foreground; the library just beyond, the market-place to the right. Bits
of water show where the harbor once lay.]
We passed around this dainty playhouse, across a little wheat-field that
some peasant has planted against its very walls, on up the hill,
scrambling along steep declivities over its brow, and, behold! we came
out high above the great theatre on the other side, and all the plain
and slopes of the old city, with its white fragments and its poor
ruined harbor, lay at our feet. Earthquakes shook the city down and
filled up the splendid harbor. If the harbor had been spared the city
would have been rebuilt. Instead, the harbor is a marsh, the city a
memory.
From where we stood we could survey the sweep of the vanished city. We
could look across into the library and the market-place and follow a
marble road--its white blocks worn smooth by a million treading
feet--where it stretched away toward the sea. And once more we tried to
conjure the vision of the past--to close our eyes and reproduce the
vanished day. And once more we failed. We could glimpse a picture, we
could construct a city, but it was never quite that city--never quite in
that place. Our harbor with its white sails and thronging wharves was
never quite that harbor--our crowded streets were never quite those
streets. Here were just ruins--always ruins--they could never have been
anything but ruins. Perhaps our imaginations were not in good working
order.
We descended again into the great theatre, for it fascinated us, nearly
breaking our necks where vines and briers tangled, pausing every other
minute to rest and consider and dream. Pawing over a heap of
rubbish--odd bits of carving, inscriptions, and the like--the place is a
treasure-trove of such things--I found a little marble torso of a female
figure. Head and arms and the lower part of the body all gone, but what
remained was exquisite beyond words--a gem, even though rubbish, in
Ephesus.
Now, of course, the reader is an honest person. He would have said, as
I did: "No, it does not matter, rubbish or no rubbish, it is not mine.
It belongs to the government-- I cannot steal. Besides, there is Laura,
age fourteen: I cannot set her a bad example. Also, there are the
police. No, my conscience is perfect; I cannot do it."
I know the reader would have reflected thus, and so did I, as stated.
Then I found I could crowd it into my inside coat-pocket, and that by
cramming my handkerchief carefully on top of it, it did not distress me
so much, especially when I gave it a little support with my forearm, to
make it swing in a natural way. But when I remembered that the _Quaker
City_ pilgrims had been searched on leaving Ephesus, my conscience began
to harass me again, though not enough as yet to make me disgorge.
Our party had all trailed back to the hotel when we got to our donkeys,
and it was beginning to sprinkle rain. The sky was overcast and a quiet
had settled among the ruins. When our donkey-driver gave me a sharp look
I began to suffer. I thought he was a spy, and had his eye on that
pocket. I recalled now that I had always had a tender conscience; it
seemed unwise to torture it in this way.
I began to think of ways to ease it. I thought five francs might do it,
so far as our donkey-boy was concerned. But then there was the official
search at the other end; that, of course, would be a public matter, and
the five francs would be wasted. I was almost persuaded to drop the
little torso quietly by the roadside--it discomforted me so.
We rode along rather quietly, and I spoke improvingly to Laura of how
St. Paul had travelled over this very road when he was making his good
fight, and of several other saints and their works, and how Ephesus had
probably been destroyed because of its sinfulness. Near a crumbling arch
a flock of sheep grazed, herded by a shepherd who had been there when
the apostles came--at least his cape had, and his hat--and everything
about him was Biblical and holylike, and so were the gentle rain and the
donkeys, and I said how sweet and soothing it all was; after which I
began to reflect on what would be proper to do if anything resembling an
emergency should conclude our peaceful ride. I decided that, as we had
just come from Smyrna, I had bought the bit of heathen marble on the way
to the station. That was simple and straightforward, and I felt a good
deal strengthened as I practised it over and tried it on Laura as we
rode along. The _Kurfuersters_ had been with me and would stand by the
statement--any _Kurfuerster_ would do that whether he flocked with the
forward-cabin crowd or the unregenerates of the booze-bazaar. I felt
reassured and whistled a little, and then from the roadside a man rose
up and said something sharp to our donkey-driver. It was sudden, and I
suppose I did jump a little, but I was ready for him.
"No," I said, "I didn't steal it. I bought it in Smyrna on the way to
the train. I can prove it by Laura here, and the other passengers. We
are incorruptible. Go in peace."
But it was wasted. This creature had business only with our
donkey-driver and his tobacco. He didn't understand a word I said.
We rode amid a very garden of fragmentary ruins. Precious blocks of
fluted marble, rich with carving and inscriptions, lay everywhere. We
were confronted by gems of sculpture and graven history at every turn.
Yet here I was, suffering over a little scrap the size of one's fist. No
conscience should be as sensitive as that.
Suddenly a regular bundle of firearms--a human arsenal--stepped out of a
shed into the middle of the road and began a harangue. I could feel my
hair turning gray.
"You are wholly in error," I said. "I bought it in Smyrna. All the
passengers saw me. Still, I will give it up if you say so."
But that was wasted, too. He only took the rest of our driver's tobacco
and let us pass. We met a little puny calf next, standing shrunken and
forlorn in the drizzle, but not too shrunken and friendless to have a
string of blue beads around his neck to avert the evil eye. I was
inclined to take them away from him and put them on myself.
We were opposite the Temple of Diana by this time--all that is left of
what was once one of the seven wonders of the world. It is only some
broken stones sinking into a marsh now, but it was a marvel in its time,
and I remembered how one Herostratus, ages ago, had fired it to
perpetuate his name--also how the Ephesians had snuffed out Herostratus,
and issued a decree that his name should never again be mentioned on
pain of severe punishment; which was a mistake, of course, for it
advertised Herostratus into the coveted immortality. I wonder what kind
of a mistake the Ephesians would make when they found that bit of
marble on my person, and what kind of advertising I would get.
We were almost to the little hotel now, and, lo! right at the gates we
were confronted by a file of men with muskets. Here it was, then, at
last. My moral joints turned to water.
"I didn't do it, gentlemen," I said. "I am without a flaw. It was
Laura--you can see for yourself she looks guilty."
But they did not search Laura. They did not even search me. They merely
looked us over and talked about us in strange tongues. We reached the
shelter of the hotel and the comfort of food in safety. Neither did they
inspect us at the station, and as we glided back to Smyrna I impressed
upon Laura the value of keeping one's conscience clear, and how one is
always rewarded with torsos and things for pursuing a straightforward,
simple course through life.
I suppose a man could take away marble from Ephesus to-day by the
wagon-load if he had any place to take it to. Nobody is excavating
there--nobody seems to care for it, and never was such a mine of relics
under the sun. At Ayasaluk, the Arab village, priceless treasures of
carving and inscription look out at you from the wall of every peasant's
hut and stable--from the tumbling stone fences that divide their fields.
Wonderful columns stick out of every bank and heap of earth. Precious
marbles and porphyry mingle with the very macadam of the roads. Rare
pieces are sold around the hotel for a few piastres.
Remember, a mighty marble city perished here. Earthquakes shook it
down, shattered the walls of its temples, overthrew the statuary,
tumbled the inscriptions in the dust. The ages have spread a layer of
earth upon the ruin, but only partially covered it. Just beneath the
shallow plough of the peasant lie riches uncountable for the nation that
shall bring them to the light of day. Historical societies dig a little
here and there, and have done noble work. But their means run low before
they can make any real beginning on the mighty task. Ephesus is still a
buried city.
The day will come when Ephesus will be restored to her former greatness.
It will take an earthquake to do it, but the spirit of prophecy is upon
me and I foresee that earthquake. The future is very long--I am in no
hurry--fulfilment may take its time. I merely want to get my prophecy in
now and registered, so when the event comes along I shall get proper
credit. Some day an earthquake will strike Ephesus again; the bottom
will drop out of that swamp and make it a harbor once more; ships will
sail in as in the old days, and Ephesus, like Athens, will renew her
glory.
* * * * *
Back to Smyrna--a modern city and beautiful from any high vantage, with
its red-tiled roofs, its domes and minarets, its graceful cypress-trees,
its picture hillsides, and its cobalt sky. It is clean, too, compared
with Constantinople. To be sure, Smyrna has its ruins and its historic
interest, with the tomb of Polycarp the martyr, who was Bishop of Smyrna
in the second century, and died for his faith at the age of eighty-six.
He was burned on a hill just outside the city on the Ephesus road, and
his tomb, guarded by two noble cypresses, overlooks the sea.
But it is busy, bustling Smyrna that, after Ephesus, most attracted us.
It is more truly the Orient than anything we have seen. Fully as
picturesque as Constantinople in costume, it is brighter, fresher,
healthier-looking, and, more than all, its crowded streets are
perpetually full of mighty camel trains swinging in from the deeper
East, loaded with all the wares and fabrics of our dreams. Those camels
are monstrously large--twice the size of any circus camels that come to
America, and with their great panniers they fill an Oriental street from
side to side.
They move, too, and other things had better keep out of the way when a
camel train heaves in sight if they want to remain undamaged. I was
examining some things outside of a bazaar when suddenly I thought I had
been hit by a planet. I thought so because of the positive manner of my
disaster and the number of constellations I saw. But it was only one
side of a loaded camel that had annihilated me, and the camel was moving
straight ahead without the slightest notion that anything had interfered
with its progress.
It hadn't, as a matter of fact. Nothing short of a stone wall interrupts
a camel--a Smyrna camel--when he's out for business and under a full
head of steam. Vehicles and other things turn down another street when
there is a camel train coming. You may squat down, as these Orientals
do, and get below the danger line, for a camel is not likely to step on
you, but his load is another matter--you must look out for that
yourself.
I was fascinated by the camel trains; they are a part of the East I
hardly expected to find. I thought their day was about over. Nothing of
the sort. The camel trains, in fact, own Smyrna, and give it its
commercial importance. They bring the great bulk of merchandise--rugs,
mattings, nuts, dried fruits, spices, and all the rare native handiwork
from far dim interiors that railroads will not reach in a hundred years.
They come swinging out of Kurdistan--from Ispahan and from Khiva; they
cross the burning desert of Kara Koom.
A camel train can run cheaper than the railway kind. A railway requires
coal and wood for fuel. A camel would like those things also. But he is
not particular--he will accept whatever comes along. He will eat
anything a goat can, and he would eat the goat, too, if permitted--horns
and all. Consequently, he arrives at Smyrna fit and well fed, ready for
the thousand miles or so of return trip at a moment's notice.
They run these camel trains in sections--about six camels in each. An
Arab mounted on a donkey that wears a string of blue beads for luck
leads each section, and the forward camel wears against his shoulder a
bell. It is a musical compound affair--one bell inside the other with a
blue bead in the last one to keep off the evil eye. I had already
acquired some of the blue strings of donkey beads, and I made up my mind
now to have a camel bell.
By-and-by, at the entrance of a bazaar, I saw one. It was an old
one--worn with years of chafing against the shoulder muscle of many a
camel that had followed the long track from the heart of Asia over
swamp and steep and across burning sands. At the base of the outer bell
was a band of Arabic characters--prayers, no doubt, from the Koran, for
the safety of the caravan. I would never leave Smyrna without that bell.
However, one must be cautious. I gave it an indifferent jingle as I
passed in and began to examine other things. A murmuring, insinuating
Moslem was at my elbow pushing forward the gaudy bits of embroidery and
cheaply chased weapons in which I pretended an interest. I dallied and
priced, and he grew weary and discouraged. Finally, hesitating at the
doorway, I touched the bell again, scarcely noticing it.
"How much?"
"Sixtin franc--very chip."
My impulse was to fling the money at him and grab the treasure before he
changed his mind. But we do not do these things--not any more--we have
acquired education. Besides, we have grown professionally proud of our
bargains.
"Ho! Sixteen francs! You mean six francs-- I give you five."
"No--no--sixtin franc--sixtin! What you think? Here--fine!" He had the
precious thing down and was jingling it. Its music fairly enthralled me.
But I refused to take it in my hands--if I did I should surrender.
"See," he continued, pointing to the inscription. "Oh, be-eautiful.
Here, fiftin franc--three dollar!"
He pushed it toward me. I pretended to be interested in a wretchedly new
and cheaply woven rug. I had to, to keep steadfast. I waved him off.
"No--no; five francs--no more!"
He hung up the bell and I started to go. He seized it and ran after me.
"Here, mister--fourtin franc--give me!"
"Five francs!--no more."
"No, no, mister--twelve franc--las' price--ver' las' price. Here, see!"
He jingled the bell a little. If he did that once more I was gone at any
price.
"_Five francs_," I said, with heavy decision. "I'll give you five francs
for it--no more."
I faced resolutely around--as resolutely as I could--and pretended
really to start.
"Here, mister--_ten franc--ten_! Mister--mister!"
He followed me, but fortunately he had hung up the bell and couldn't
jingle it. I was at least two steps away.
"Eight franc, mister--please--I lose money--I make
nothing--mister--seven! seven franc!"