This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler
[Picture: Book cover]
[Picture: Eastern Travel]
EOTHEN
_By_
A. W. KINGLAKE
_WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES_
BY ANON
* * * * *
_WITH A FRONTISPIECE_
_FROM A PAINTING_
BY THE AUTHOR
* * * * *
LONDON
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.
MDCCCC
* * * * *
Πρὸς ᾒῶ τε καί ήλἱου ἀνατολὰς ὲποιέετο τὴν ὀδὁν.—HEROD. vii. 58.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE.
INTRODUCTION vii
PREFACE xxxv
I. OVER THE BORDER 1
II. TURKISH TRAVELLING 14
III. CONSTANTINOPLE 30
IV. THE TROAD 41
V. INFIDEL SMYRNA 50
VI. GREEK MARINERS 63
VII. CYPRUS 74
VIII. LADY HESTER STANHOPE 82
IX. THE SANCTUARY 111
X. THE MONKS OF PALESTINE 115
XI. GALILEE 123
XII. MY FIRST BIVOUAC 128
XIII. THE DEAD SEA 137
XIV. THE BLACK TENTS 144
XV. PASSAGE OF THE JORDAN 148
XVI. TERRA SANTA 155
XVII. THE DESERT 175
XVIII. CAIRO AND THE PLAGUE 202
XIX. THE PYRAMIDS 231
XX. THE SPHINX 235
XXI. CAIRO TO SUEZ 237
XXII. SUEZ 246
XXIII. SUEZ TO GAZA 253
XXIV. GAZA TO NABLUS 261
XXV. MARIAM 267
XXVI. THE PROPHET DAMOOR 278
XXVII. DAMASCUS 284
XXVIII. PASS OF THE LEBANON 293
XXIX. SURPRISE OF SATALIEH 298
APPENDIX 308
INTRODUCTION
I
_EOTHEN_ is the earliest work of Alexander William Kinglake, best known
as the historian of the Crimean War. It is an account of a tour—or
rather of selected adventures which occurred during a tour—undertaken in
the Levant in 1834, but was not published until ten years later. The
biographical notices of the Author are somewhat meagre, as by his dying
directions all his papers were destroyed. He was born near Taunton in
1809, and educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, at which
latter he is said to have been the friend of Thackeray and Tennyson. On
leaving college he started on his Oriental tour with Lord Pollington (the
Methley of _Eothen_), and on returning to England was called to the Bar
at Lincoln’s Inn, and obtained a lucrative practice. But the life was
too tame to suit his taste. In 1845 he visited Algeria, and went through
a campaign with the flying column of St. Arnaud; and in 1854 went to the
Crimea with Lord Raglan, and was present at the battle of Alma. On
returning to England he decided to go into politics, and was elected for
Bridgewater in 1857 in the Liberal interest. He seems to have been a
poor speaker, and to have exercised little parliamentary influence; but
we are told that in 1859 he was strongly opposed to the Conspiracy Bill,
which was introduced after Orsini’s attempt to murder Napoleon III., and
that in 1860 he denounced the cession of Nice and Savoy to France. In
both cases he was apparently actuated by his personal dislike of
Napoleon, which is evident in his historical works. In 1868 he was again
returned for Bridgewater, but unseated on petition, for bribery. One
might have supposed that he had acquired this habit in the East, but his
biographers assert that he knew nothing of the irregularities which were
committed by his agents. But the chief business of his later life was
the composition of the _History of the War in the Crimea_, of which the
first two volumes appeared in 1863, and the seventh and eighth
(completing the work) in 1887. He died in 1891.
II
His earlier and less ambitious, though perhaps more charming, book was
rejected by several publishers, but proved an immense success. It caught
the popular fancy at once, and after the lapse of more than fifty years
still maintains an honourable position. In the year after its first
appearance it passed through three editions, containing several
variations from the _editio princeps_ which have attracted the attention
of those who are interested in bibliography. It is only fair to reprint
the book with these corrections, which seem mostly due to the author’s
laudable desire for greater accuracy. For instance, he was apparently
seized with qualms as to his assertion (end of chap. xiii.) that when he
emerged from the Dead Sea after bathing therein his “skin was thickly
encrusted with sulphate of magnesia,” and cautiously substituted “salts”
for the more chemical expression. Yet I observe that the most recent
Encyclopædia states that “the water of the Dead Sea is characterised by
the presence of a large quantity of magnesian salts,” so perhaps his
first statement was not so wrong after all. He also found that he had
talked of Jove when he should have said Neptune in his account of the
Troad, and, conceiving a mistrust of the former deity, removed his name
not only from this passage but also from chap. xviii., in which he
altered “That touch was worthy of Jove” into “In that touch was true
hospitality.” I confess that I think this regard for truth might have
moved him to expunge his account of the advances made to him by the young
ladies of Bethlehem (end of chap. xvi.); I cannot believe that narrative
to be even probable, but anyone may retort that my scepticism is due to
the absence of those attractive qualities which Kinglake possessed.
In chap. xvi. he says that shrouds are dipped in the holy water of the
Jordan and “preserved as a burial dress which shall inure” (later
editions “enure”) “for salvation in the realms of death.” Some critical
scholar of eminence should be called upon to emend or explain this
mysterious passage. At least, if people are allowed to print such things
in the nineteenth century what right have we to emend the classical
authors when they choose to be unintelligible?
The truth is that _Eothen_, despite its great literary merits, is often
comfortably slipshod. And very properly so, for if there is to be any
correspondence between subject and style, it must be inappropriate for a
traveller recounting confidentially his diversions and mishaps to adopt
the phraseology of Gibbon. Matthew Arnold, in his “Essay on the Literary
Influence of Academies,” selected the _History of the Crimean War_ as an
example of what he called the Corinthian style. _Eothen_ certainly
presents specimens of this manner, but they are hardly characteristic; it
is often “urbane,” and has “the warm glow, blithe movement, and pliancy
of life,” which, according to the critic’s definition, Corinthians lack.
It is not devoid of unity, but it is many sided and kaleidoscopic. The
author varies from the trivial to the solemn, from boisterous exuberance
to careful austerity, from flippancy to rhapsody, and is perhaps never
quite serious. One wonders whether one is reading a clever but somewhat
slangy letter, or a long-meditated essay polished and repolished by
incessant _labor limæ_. Perhaps between 1834 and 1844 he worked up and
rearranged old spontaneous effusions, as indeed his preface suggests. He
often writes like a schoolboy, and sometimes like a philosopher; he is at
his best when he records what he has seen in phrases not without rhetoric
and not without humour, but distinct and clear as his own impressions.
“The foot falls noiseless in the crumbling soil of an Eastern city, and
silence follows you still. Again and again you meet turbans, and faces
of men, but they have nothing for you—no welcome—no wonder—no wrath—no
scorn—they look upon you as we do upon a December’s fall of snow—as a
‘seasonable,’ unaccountable, uncomfortable work of God, that may have
been sent for some good purpose to be revealed hereafter.” How vivid and
how true!
But perhaps the reader may ask, as I ask myself, whether an introduction
to _Eothen_ is really necessary. The book is so simple and complete in
itself that it seems to require no explanation or commentary. But for
the benefit of those who are not acquainted with the Levant of to-day, it
is well to explain that the sixty-four years which have elapsed since
Kinglake made his Eastern tour have brought about important changes in
the extent, and some few in the condition, of the Turkish Empire. The
“unchanging East” is a popular phrase which is only true in a very
limited sense. It has arisen chiefly from the habit of pious publishers
of representing Abraham in the costume of a modern Bedouin Sheikh, and it
is peculiarly audacious to apply it to regions like Constantinople and
Egypt, which have witnessed exceptional vicissitudes and undergone
remarkable changes,—political, religious, and linguistic. It is however
just to say that the Turk is unchanging,—and it is to the presence of the
Turk that are due the peculiar characteristics of the Levant, as the
region visited by Kinglake may conveniently be termed; like the Bourbons,
he forgets nothing and learns nothing; as he was on the day when he
entered Europe, so he was in 1834 and so he is now. The boundaries of
Turkey have changed; there are now no Pashas at Belgrade, or even at
Sofia; and Ottoman territory is no longer plague-stricken. But whenever
one crosses the Turkish frontier, one may find functionaries like the
delightful potentate of Karagholookoldour, and be conscious of effecting
within the space of a few hundred yards a change greater than can be
experienced in any amount of travel in other European countries,
including Russia. One passes from regions where people have roughly the
same habits and ideas as ourselves—where they believe in political
economy, get drunk in public, sit upon chairs, and do not feel there is
anything indelicate in mentioning their wives—to a land where people do
none of these things, where the naked desolation of the country at the
side of the railway offers a startling contrast to the smug prosperity of
the Balkan States, where people prefer to sit curled up on hard sofas,
and where it is bad taste to condole with a man on his wife’s death.
In 1834, the year of Kinglake’s journey, Turkey in Europe was
considerably more extensive than at the present day. Greece had already
revolted and been recognised as an independent state. Wallachia and
Moldavia were in process of securing their freedom. But the territories
now known as Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Herzegovina were still integral
portions of the Ottoman Empire; and though Servia (in which the scene of
the opening chapters of _Eothen_ is laid) had been constituted a
principality under Milosh Obrenovich as prince, in 1830, several of the
fortresses were still garrisoned by Ottoman troops, which accounts for
the presence of the Pasha at Belgrade. It is interesting to observe that
though our Author must have proceeded to Adrianople straight across
Bulgaria, he never mentions the name of that country. This apparently
strange omission is really quite natural. The Bulgarians, though in some
ways the most vigorous element among the Balkan races, passed through
greater trials than the Servians or Roumanians, and for a time lost their
national consciousness more completely. They were nearer Constantinople,
and therefore any political movement was more easily kept in check; while
all the religious and educational establishments of the country were in
the hands of Greek priests who practically proscribed the Bulgarian
language. I have been informed by a gentleman who has resided forty
years in Turkey, that when he first entered the Ottoman dominions every
educated Bulgarian called himself a Greek, and would have been ashamed to
employ his national designation, which was hardly in general use before
the movement of 1860. Another striking omission of _Eothen_ is that it
contains hardly any allusion to the Sultan. At the present day the
descendant of Osman, who claims to be also the successor of the Prophet,
is a well-known figure to the British public. The _Pall Mall Gazette_
familiarly calls him “The Shadow.” {xiv} The friends of the Armenians
hold him personally responsible for the massacres; and a modern Kinglake,
even if bent on avoiding “political disquisitions,” would certainly
describe the Selamlik or weekly visit of the Sovereign to the mosque.
You cannot travel in Turkey without hearing the name of “Our Master”
(Effendimiz) or “the Imperial Person” (Zat-i-Shahane) daily mentioned,
and feeling that his wishes (which usually do not coincide with those of
European travellers, and affect the minutest details) are the only real
power in the country. This state of things is due almost entirely to the
personal energy of the present occupant of the Ottoman throne, who for
good or evil has succeeded in concentrating all power into his hands, and
in displaying the greatest example of practical autocracy ever seen. In
1834 Mahmoud was Sultan, one of the most vigorous of Ottoman princes, but
then near his end, and doubtless wearied out by a reign of constant
reverse and ineffectual efforts at reform.
The Armenian question, like the Bulgarian, is of recent date, and we
consequently find that Kinglake says as little of the one as of the
other; but he often speaks of the doings of Mehemet Ali and his son
Ibrahim Pasha, which at this period formed one of the chief
preoccupations of the Porte. Mehemet Ali was a native of Cavalla who
held a military command in Egypt. In the troubles which succeeded the
French occupation of that country, at the beginning of the century, he
succeeded in making himself head of the popular party in Cairo, ousted
the Turkish Governor, and established himself in his place. He was
recognised by the Porte in 1805, and the Khediviate was subsequently made
hereditary in his family. At this time the Mamluks (or descendants of
the Turkish Guard instituted by the Sultans of Egypt in the thirteenth
century) occupied a position somewhat similar to that of the Janissaries
at Constantinople. Mehemet Ali, like Sultan Mahmoud, felt that this
military _imperium in imperio_ rendered fixed Government impossible, and
determined to consolidate his own rule by breaking the power of the
Mamluks. He did so by inviting their leaders to a banquet, at which they
were surprised and massacred. The Sultan, in return for his recognition
of Mehemet Ali as ruler of Egypt, made use of him during some years to
keep in order various rebellious provinces of the Empire. He was first
ordered to quell the Wahabi insurrection in Arabia, and his campaign
there is alluded to in chap. xviii. These people were a sort of
Mohammedan Puritans {xvi} who had made themselves masters of the Holy
Cities of Mecca and Medina. Mehemet Ali sent against them his son Tosun,
who captured Mecca in 1813, but died, and was replaced by his younger
brother Ibrahim Pasha, who is often mentioned in _Eothen_. He finally
concluded the Wahabi war in 1818, and is next heard of fighting against
Greece, which was beginning the struggle for independence. Mehemet Ali
was again called upon to assist the Sultan in suppressing rebellion, and
again sent his son to represent him. Ibrahim captured Missolonghi in
1825, but was defeated in 1827 by the united fleets at Navarino, under
Sir Edward Codrington, and retired from Greece. In return for these
services Mehemet Ali claimed that the Pashalik of Syria should be added
to his dominions. The Sultan refused the request of his powerful vassal;
but the latter picked a quarrel with the Turkish governor of Syria, and
sent Ibrahim to invade the province. Ibrahim not only made a triumphal
entry into Damascus, but defeated the Turkish Army at Beilan and advanced
into Asia Minor, where he routed a second force, sent against him by the
Sultan, near Konia, in December 1832. The defeated Turkish troops joined
the Egyptians, Ibrahim advanced victoriously to Broussa, and had
Constantinople at his mercy. The Sultan in his extremity called the
Russians to his assistance. The Treaty of Unkiar Iskelesi was concluded
in 1833; Ibrahim was obliged to retire, but the Pashaliks of Syria and
Adana were given to Mehemet Ali, and treated with great rigour, as
mentioned in chap. xv. At the time of Kinglake’s visit to Egypt the
plague seems to have been the one absorbing preoccupation of everyone in
Cairo, and we learn little from him of the normal state of the country at
this period. The most remarkable of his Egyptian sayings is the prophecy
at the end of the chapter called “The Sphinx.” “The Englishman leaning
far over to hold his loved India will plant a firm foot on the banks of
the Nile and sit in the seats of the faithful.” To have made this
prediction at a time when India was still under the Company, when we had
no interests in North-East Africa or the Red Sea, before the Suez Canal
was a serious project, perhaps before we had occupied Aden, {xvii} is
indeed an example of no ordinary political foresight.
Such was the political condition of the lands which Kinglake visited, and
of many aspects of which he gives a most living picture. In his
diverting preface he disclaims all intention of being instructive, of
describing manners and customs, still less of discussing political and
social questions. Perhaps his narrative sometimes reminds the reader of
his statement (chap. viii.) that a story may be false as a mere fact but
perfectly true as an illustration. Some great writers impart durability
to their work by selecting from a mass of details such traits as are
important and characteristic, and passing lightly over what is
transitory. For instance, the main impression left by Thackeray’s novels
is not that the life there described is old-fashioned, but that it is in
essentials the life of to-day. So, too, in _Eothen_ a reader acquainted
with the East hardly notices anachronisms. Judged as a description of
the Levant of 1898, it is inaccurate, or rather inadequate, almost
exclusively on account of its omissions. But the principal descriptions,
incidents, and portraits—the Mohammedan quarter at Belgrade, the
conversation between the Pasha and the Dragoman, the meeting of the two
Englishmen in the desert, Dimitri and Mysseri—are, if considered as
types, as true to nature to-day as they were sixty years ago, and
doubtless will be sixty years hence.
Kinglake treats the Levant in the only way it ought to be treated if it
is to be enjoyed—half-seriously. Those whom business or philanthropy
oblige to devote to it any real exertion, sentiment, or interest, lay up
for themselves nothing but disillusion and disappointment, for, whether
they are fascinated by the picturesque and manly virtues of the Moslems,
or roused to honourable indignation by the slaughter and oppression of
their fellow-Christians, they will find in the end that, as Lord
Salisbury once said, they have put their money on the wrong horse. In
the Eastern Derby there are no winning horses. One after another they
have all disappointed their backers; the faults of Eastern Christendom
brought about and still keep up the rule of the Turk, and few who have an
adequate knowledge of the facts of the case believe either that the
Christians are happy under that rule or that they furnish in themselves
the elements of anything much better.
Yet this dreary tragedy—this daily round of oppression and misgovernment,
varied by outbursts of interracial fury—has a brighter side. To the mere
spectator, to the intelligent traveller with literary taste and a sense
of humour, the surface of Levantine life is a stream of perpetual
amusement, often broadening into comedy, and sometimes bursting all
bounds and breaking into a screaming farce. The number and variety of
races and languages afford infinite possibilities of misunderstanding and
mistranslation (which it must be admitted are the basis of many good
stories); the Orientalised European and the Europeanised Oriental are
alike inexpressibly droll. Their very crimes have an element of the
burlesque, which seems to disarm censure and remove the whole transaction
to a non-moral sphere where ordinary rules of right and wrong do not
apply. The Turk, if not precisely witty himself, is at least the cause
of wit in others. Extreme Asiatic dignity amidst ludicrously undignified
European surroundings, a mixture of pomp and homeliness, power and
childishness, give rise to humorous anecdotes of a peculiar and very
characteristic flavour, examples of which may be found in several works
besides _Eothen_, notably Robert Curzon’s _Monasteries of the Levant_.
Another excellent illustration is supplied by Vazoff’s _Under the Yoke_,
a translation of which has been published in English. It is an
historical novel, written by a Bulgarian burning with indignation against
the Ottoman rule. Yet the Turkish Caimmakam, as drawn by a bitter enemy,
is no bloody tyrant, but an exquisitely diverting old gentleman whose
every appearance is hailed by the reader with impatient delight. As the
violence of the Turk, so also the dishonesty and corruption of the Rayah
seem to lose their enormity when viewed in this gentle, humorous light.
The swindling is so palpable, and yet so gravely decorous in its external
forms, that it ceases to shock; it is so universal that in the end no one
seems to have suffered much wrong. To vary the celebrated remark about
the Scilly Islanders, one may say that these people gain a precarious
livelihood by taking bribes from one another. Again the elaborate and
ceremonious phraseology essential to all literary composition in the East
enables a writer to make intrinsically preposterous assertions with a
gravity which renders criticism impossible. What reply can be given to
the officials who assert that Armenians commit suicide in order to throw
suspicion on certain excellent Kurds residing in their neighbourhood? or
who when called upon to explain why they have incarcerated a foreign
traveller under circumstances of extreme indignity, blandly reply that
“the said gentleman was indeed hospitably entertained in the Government
buildings”?
This last instance shows that Oriental travelling must not be undertaken
without due precautions. A certain retinue, and sufficient influence to
secure the courtesy of the authorities (which Kinglake evidently had),
are essential. With them the traveller acquires a feeling, often
manifest in _Eothen_, that he is a sultan possessed of absolute authority
over his surroundings. There is just enough hardship to make comparative
comfort seem luxury, just enough danger to make it pleasant, when all is
over, to hear from what perils one has escaped. Should, however, any
reader be inclined to use _Eothen_ as a practical manual, he must be
cautious in following some of its precepts. Kinglake constantly insists
that intimidation, haughtiness, and defiance of all regulations are the
only means of impressing Orientals; and chronicles with great
satisfaction his own exploits in this line, concluding with “the Surprise
of Satalieh.” What he says is true enough as long as the Oriental
believes that the traveller is a prince in his own country, and that any
interference with his mad whims will bring severe punishment. But
unfortunately the secret is out. Enlightened officials are well aware
that many Englishmen are not cousins of the Queen, and have a shrewd
suspicion that hindrances placed in the way of the prying European are
not displeasing to the Imperial Government. The “Lord of London,” who
fifty years ago obtained a firman which made every provincial official
bow before him, may now be kept waiting days or weeks for a travelling
passport; and, unless he uses tact as well as bumptiousness, may find
himself in a position to write to the _Times_ about the interior of
Turkish provincial prisons, and become the subject of a Blue Book. Still
even now, if travellers will be cautious and polite in dealing with
people of whose language and customs they are profoundly ignorant, and
not bluster unless they know very well what they are about (for I admit
that bluster has its uses), they will find travelling more interesting,
diverting, and enjoyable in the Levant than in any other part of the
world.
I write these lines as I sit in the hall of the largest hotel in New
York, a newly arrived stranger, somewhat dazed by the bustle and the
glare. The whole establishment is on a greater scale than anything else
in the world—except its own bills. Everything is made of gold and
marble, including, I fancy, the food—at least this hypothesis plausibly
reconciles the quality and texture of the viands with the value the
vendors seem to attach to them. Enormous lifts shoot their living
freights up into spheres unseen, or engulf them in abysmal chasms. All
round people are ringing electric bells, telephoning, telegraphing,
stenographing, polygraphing, and generally communicating their ideas
about money to their fellow-creatures by any means rather than the voice
which God put in the larynx for the purpose of quiet conversation. On
one side an operatic concert is being performed, on the other porters and
luggage jostle a brilliant throng of fashionably dressed people. It is
as if someone had given an evening party at a railway station. “Whirr!
whirr! all by wheels! whizz! whizz! all by steam!” and electricity, as
the immortal Pasha of Karagholookoldour would have said. Now my mind
(like the Pasha’s) comprehends locomotives, and I am an enthusiast for
progress, but amidst all the whizz and whirr and ringing of electric
bells, my memory turns somewhat regretfully to a hotel where I resided
not long ago in the “Exalted Country”—that fine old Stamboul’s jargon is
so much more soothing to the tongue than the strange abbreviations and
initials they use over here—which was certainly more interesting, and
not, I think, more uncomfortable than this Transatlantic Caravanserai.
Perhaps I shall write an introduction congenial to the Shade of Kinglake
(if indeed the Shades are interested in new editions of their works) if
instead of instituting a comparison between the Levant of to-day and of
1834, I recount a journey to the town of Karakeui in the year of grace
1898, and describe the local hotel. Let not the reader in pursuit of
that “sound learning” which Kinglake kept at arm’s length rashly identify
Karakeui with the first town he finds on the map bearing that name. The
Turk has not a great variety of local designations. When possible he
adopts one from some other language, treating it with the scant courtesy
which long-winded, infidel polysyllables deserve (_e.g._ Edirné, Fílibé,
for Adrianople and Phílippopoli); but when forced to have recourse to his
own invention he calls most places Karakeui (or Blacktown), except those
which are dubbed Oldtown, Newtown, or Whitetown.
It has been justly said that the East begins on the other side of Vienna,
but, out of deference to the susceptibilities of the Magyars, who
consider themselves in the van of civilisation, the Orient Express
affects to be extremely European during its transit through Hungary. It
bustles and shakes, and is very uncomfortable. In Servia it is more at
its ease, though it still makes a pretence of thinking that time is money
by only stopping ten minutes at every station. In Bulgaria it ceases to
imitate Western ways, and becomes frankly Oriental, reposing for half an
hour at spots where there are no passengers and no traffic. The part of
the journey which lies on Turkish territory follows a singularly tortuous
and corkscrew course, across a perfectly level plain which presents no
obvious engineering difficulties. The Porte confided the construction of
this line to an eminent Israelite at a remuneration of so much for every
kilometre built. The eminent Israelite was straightway possessed by the
spirit of his ancestors, and made a large fortune by laying the rails
along a road as lengthy and complicated as that selected by Moses when he
spent forty years in traversing a distance which anyone else can
accomplish in a few days.
On arriving in Turkey we are at once seized by the representatives of the
Board of Health. After all, times have indeed changed since _Eothen_ was
written. Instead of being put in quarantine by Europe, Turkey now puts
Europe in quarantine. It is true that good Moslems still hold that men’s
souls leave their bodies when God calls them, and count it impious to
suppose that neglect or precaution can hasten or delay the Divine
summons. But though the Porte are not disposed to amend the sanitary
condition of Mecca, they enforce quarantine regulations all round
Constantinople with fanatical rigour. This is due partly to the fears of
the Palace, and partly, I think, to a sense of humour. It is an
excellent joke to apply a parody of European rules to Europeans in the
name of sanitary science: to keep a set of fussy business people waiting
a few days because they have come from a country which has not imposed
quarantine on another country where there has been a doubtful case of
cholera, or to detain a ship with a valuable cargo while embassies and
merchants scream that thousands of pounds are being lost daily. On the
present occasion we are told we must wait a day under inspection, to see
if we develop the symptoms of any terrible malady, and are accordingly
lodged in damp little wooden huts on a muddy plain, where we are
certainly likely to fall ill even if hale and hearty on arriving.
Turkish soldiers prevent us from crossing an imaginary line and
contaminating the surrounding desert. The quarantine doctor, however,
explains to me that he has a peculiar respect for my character, sanitary
and general, and would like to take a walk with me outside the limits of
the establishment. He has a remarkable pedigree. His father was a
Bohemian monk who found convent life too narrow for his taste, and
accordingly embraced Islam. Once within the true fold he made up for
lost time by marrying as many wives as his new liberty allowed, and this
is one of the results. He confides to me that his one ambition is to
wear decorations, and that in return for his civilities strangers of
distinction have procured for him the orders of their respective
countries. The Siamese Minister, who recently passed through, made him a
Commander of the Order of the White Elephant. Could I not obtain for him
the Order of the Garter? Doubtless I possess it myself. With blushing
mendacity I lead him to believe that I do, but explain that the
distinction is only given to Englishmen and not to foreigners. I see
that he does not believe me, and meditates revenge. Before we leave the
quarantine station we have to be disinfected. The doctor attaches a
garden hose to a reservoir filled with a fetid and corrosive fluid. The
victims are led up one by one by the military authorities as if to
execution, and the jet is turned upon them, causing their garments to
burst out into leprous spots. I see by the doctor’s eye that he means to
make me pay for my unfriendliness in the matter of the decoration, and
therefore, casting scruple to the winds, I assure him that if he will
only treat me gently he shall have the Fourth Class of the Garter. He is
at once all civility and consideration, and when I am led up in front of
his infernal machine, directs an odoriferous douche to the right and
left, leaving me unwetted in the middle.
Truly the way into Turkey is beset with as many difficulties as the road
to paradise. After the quarantine comes the Custom House. The entry of
most things is absolutely prohibited, and those which do enter pay a high
duty. Books are treated with incredible severity. No work is allowed to
pass the frontier which hints that the Turks were ever defeated, or that
the Ottoman Government or the Mohammedan religion have any imperfections.
Turkish officials having found by experience that very little European
literature comes up to their high standard, simply confiscate as
“seditious” every publication which mentions Turkey or the Mohammedan
East. _Eothen_, even without the present highly seditious preface, is
placed on the index, as are also Shakespeare, Byron, Dante, the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_, Baedeker, and Murray. In practice, of course,
certain familiar _argumenta ad hominem_ modify this Draconian system, but
even the golden key sometimes fails to open the door. The officials
watch one another, and know that they are much more likely to obtain a
Turkish decoration by confiscating some infamous historian who is not
ashamed to say that the Turks were once driven out of Hungary than they
are to receive the Garter for letting his calumnies in. But there is an
end to all troubles, even on the Turkish frontier, and at last we are
allowed to proceed to Karakeui, where I ultimately alight at the hotel.
Karakeui lies on a plateau, under a range of snowy mountains which
glitter with strange distinctness in the pure translucent air. A forest
of minarets bears testimony to the piety of the place. It is the sacred
month of Ramazan, and at sunset they will be festooned with lights and
blaze like columns of fire, while in the mosque below myriads of little
oil lamps will shed their soft glow on the bowing crowds, the plashing
fountains, and the names of saints and prophets blazoned on the walls in
green and red. In the streets is a motley throng of men and animals.
Strings of camels and pack-horses, dogs, sheep, and turkeys are mixed up
with the human crowd. Bulgarians and Servians quarrel in the bazaar, and
denounce one another to the Turks. They each claim exclusive rights over
the only Christian Church, and the Governor, to end the dispute, has shut
it up altogether. A few Greeks are occupied in making large fortunes,
and are ready to expatiate on the Hellenic Idea, and to explain how, from
a certain peculiar point of view, the late war may be regarded as a
victory for Greece. Albanians, armed with many weapons, and with
moustaches as long as their own rifles, swagger through the crowd which
respectfully makes way for them.
The hotel is kept by an Armenian, who left his native village on account
of what are beautifully termed the “events” which occurred there. Having
been inspired by these occurrences with a wholesome respect for the
followers of the Prophet, he is a little apt to recoup himself at the
expense of his co-religionists; but the local Ottoman authorities, to
whose care I am duly recommended as being “one of those who wish well to
the Sublime Government,” have sternly informed him that I am not to be
fleeced. (I wonder if the Governor of New York would address a similar
warning to the proprietor of this hotel.) The establishment is
constructed in the form of a quadrangle. The central space is a
quagmire, wherein are embedded, and, so to speak, held as hostages for
payment, the vehicles in which the travellers have arrived. The ground
floor of the surrounding buildings is devoted to stabling. Outside the
first floor, and above the aforesaid quagmire, runs a gallery, from which
open a number of cells, bare and whitewashed, devoid of all furniture,
but, contrary to what might be expected, scrupulously clean. A marble
bath is not, as in New York, attached to each apartment, but in response
to a suitable shout a boy brings a brass jug and basin, pours water over
your hands and wipes them on an embroidered towel. There is no table and
no bed. When you are disposed to sleep, a pile of rugs is spread on the
floor. If you want to write, you naturally sit on your heels and hold
your paper in your hand—an attitude which, at least in the case of
Europeans, tends to restrain exuberance and keep literary composition
within due limits. At meal times a little table like a high stool is
brought in. The guests squat round it on their heels, and eat with their
fingers out of a large saucer set on a broad tin tray. Turkish dinners
consist of a quantity of dishes, generally at least seven or eight, and
sometimes as many as twenty; but each is only tasted and rapidly removed.
At first it looks somewhat mysterious when people apparently wrap up some
pieces of string in brown paper and eat the parcel with avidity. But the
string is cheese drawn out like very attenuated vermicelli, and the brown
paper sheets of very thin bread which serve as a tablecloth and napkin as
well as for food. During Ramazan no Moslem may eat, drink, or smoke
between sunrise and sunset. The latter phenomenon is announced by a
cannon, and some minutes before the gun fires a hungry crowd is gathered
round the table waiting for the blessed sound. Then follows half an hour
of rapid, silent nutrition, for Turks do not talk at table. Afterwards,
an hour or more of prayer; and then the earlier part of the night, until
at least twelve or one, is devoted to visiting or attending the puppet
show called Karagyöz. {xxxi} Half an hour before dawn people go round
the town beating drums, and the faithful hurriedly take a last meal
before the morning cannon announces the dawn.
My neighbour in the room on the right is a spy appointed by the Imperial
Government to watch over my doings. He is a charming companion, and I
fancy has a very pretty talent for the composition of imaginative
literature. My only regret is that I have never seen the daily reports
which he draws up on my conduct. They are, I believe, replete with
incident, and are excellent specimens of a new and interesting variety of
fiction. The room on my left is occupied by the Christian Vice-Governor
of the Province, who was appointed some months ago under immense pressure
from the Powers, met by such resistance on the part of the Porte that one
might have supposed his nomination was a deadly blow to the Turkish
Empire. It is a wise plan of the Porte’s never to make the most trivial
concession without opposing a resistance, which is often successful, and
always seems to enhance the importance of the point in dispute. But the
concession once made, means are soon discovered to deprive it of all its
value, and the positions of victors and vanquished in the game prove to
be reversed. In the present case the Christian Vice-Governor found that
none of his co-religionists were disposed to let him lodgings; and the
local authorities, with a tender solicitude for his welfare, represented
to him that there was a strong feeling against him in the town, and that
he would be much more comfortable in the hotel; predicting (like
Kinglake’s prophet, Damoor) that if he went out into the streets, or
meddled in the administration, he would arouse that excitable sentiment
known as Mussulman religious feeling. Like the Jews of Safet, the
Christian Vice-Governor thought that the predictions of such practical
men were not to be disregarded, and takes his ease in his inn with as
good a grace as he can muster. Another interesting occupant of the hotel
is the Turkish inspector of Reforms. To rightly understand the duties of
this functionary it must be remembered that the Turkish Government is
divided into two parts, which have no connection with one another:
_firstly_, the real Government, which is hard to comprehend, but of which
one gets a dim idea by observation on the spot; and _secondly_, the show
Government, intended to impress Europe, and having as chief practical
result the enrichment of telegraphic agencies. Two common manifestations
of the show Government are circulars to the Powers, and commissions
despatched to the Provinces to rectify abuses. The present Commissioner
has come to inspect reforms, and from the official language used
respecting him it may be supposed that his mission is to tend and water
the new institutions which are springing up like a luxuriant vegetation
in a favourable climate, but at the same time to exercise a fatherly
control, prevent the country from rushing into downright republicanism,
and not permit the Christians to positively oppress their weaker
Mohammedan brethren. He is a very affable man, with a broad, smiling
face, and an amiable rotundity of person which causes his gorgeous
uniform to burst its buttons and gape at critical points. He pays me
long visits for the purpose of political discussion, being, as he calls
it, _tout à fait dans les idées libérales_, and in order that this
outpouring of radical views may not be interrupted, he brings a soldier
to mount guard over the door. No tortures could make me disclose the
Commissioner’s confidences. I will merely observe that the long fasts of
Ramazan are irksome to an enlightened mind, and that liberal theologians
hold that a mixture of brandy and champagne does not fall under the
Prophet’s ban, inasmuch as it cannot accurately be described as either
wine or spirits.
Very different is the room at the end of the passage. No guard is needed
here. The door stands proudly open, and all the world may see that no
crumb of bread or drop of water enters from sunrise to sunset. In the
middle of a low sofa sits, cross-legged, a Hodja, clad in striped silk.
He is no ordinary country parson, but a noted preacher invited to tour in
the provinces during Ramazan, and hold what in other countries would be
called revival meetings. His thin nervous face shows that he is not a
real Turk. Probably he is of Arab extraction, and in any case he burns
with a Semitic indignation against those who “ascribe companions to God.”
Round him sit in a solemn circle the notables of the town,—stout, devout
men of the churchwarden order, who, to judge from the heavy sighs and
puffs which they occasionally emit, do not share the Hodja’s fierce joy
in trampling on the desires of the flesh. To-morrow he will preach in
the Great Mosque with a sword in his hand, in token that the building was
once a Christian Church and has been won from the infidel. I tell the
Commissioner for Reforms that I think this dangerous and injudicious. He
explains that the whole point of the ceremony lies in the fact that the
sword is sheathed, as a token that religious discord is at an end, and
that an era of mutual love and toleration has commenced. But when I
think of that nervous, fanatical face, the green garments, the ample
turban, the amulets and the sword, I cannot help suspecting that it is
better to be a Christian traveller than a Christian resident at Karakeui.
Preface to the First Edition
Addressed by the
Author to One of His Friends
WHEN you first entertained the idea of travelling in the East you asked
me to send you an outline of the tour which I had made, in order that you
might the better be able to choose a route for yourself. In answer to
this request I gave you a large French map, on which the course of my
journeys had been carefully marked; but I did not conceal from myself
that this was rather a dry mode for a man to adopt when he wished to
impart the results of his experience to a dear and intimate friend. Now,
long before the period of your planning an Oriental tour I had intended
to write some account of my Eastern travels. I had, indeed, begun the
task, and had failed; I had begun it a second time, and failing again,
had abandoned my attempt with a sensation of utter distaste. I was
unable to speak out, and chiefly, I think, for this reason, that I knew
not to whom I was speaking. It might be you, or perhaps our Lady of
Bitterness, {xxxv} who would read my story, or it might be some member of
the Royal Statistical Society, and how on earth was I to write in a way
that would do for all three?
Well, your request for a sketch of my tour suggested to me the idea of
complying with your wish by a revival of my twice-abandoned attempt. I
tried; and the pleasure and confidence which I felt in speaking to you
soon made my task so easy, and even amusing, that after a while (though
not in time for your tour) I completed the scrawl from which this book
was originally printed.
The very feeling, however, which enabled me to write thus freely,
prevented me from robing my thoughts in that grave and decorous style
which I should have maintained if I had professed to lecture the public.
Whilst I feigned to myself that you, and you only, were listening, I
could not by any possibility speak very solemnly. Heaven forbid that I
should talk to my own genial friend as though he were a great and
enlightened community, or any other respectable aggregate!
Yet I well understood that the mere fact of my professing to speak to you
rather than to the public generally could not perfectly excuse me for
printing a narrative too roughly worded, and accordingly, in revising the
proof-sheets, I have struck out those phrases which seemed to be less fit
for a published volume than for intimate conversation. It is hardly to
be expected, however, that correction of this kind should be perfectly
complete, or that the almost boisterous tone in which many parts of the
book were originally written should be thoroughly subdued. I venture,
therefore, to ask, that the familiarity of language still possibly
apparent in the work may be laid to the account of our delightful
intimacy, rather than to any presumptuous motive. I feel, as you know,
much too timidly, too distantly, and too respectfully toward the public
to be capable of seeking to put myself on terms of easy fellowship with
strange and casual readers.
It is right to forewarn people (and I have tried to do this as well as I
can, by my studiously unpromising title-page) {xxxvii} that the book is
quite superficial in its character. I have endeavoured to discard from
it all valuable matter derived from the works of others, and it appears
to me that my efforts in this direction have been attended with great
success. I believe I may truly acknowledge that from all details of
geographical discovery, or antiquarian research—from all display of
“sound learning and religious knowledge”—from all historical and
scientific illustrations—from all useful statistics—from all political
disquisitions—and from all good moral reflections, the volume is
thoroughly free.
My excuse for the book is its truth. You and I know a man fond of
hazarding elaborate jokes, who, whenever a story of his happens not to go
down as wit, will evade the awkwardness of the failure by bravely
maintaining that all he has said is pure fact. I can honestly take this
decent though humble mode of escape. My narrative is not merely
righteously exact in matters of fact (where fact is in question), but it
is true in this larger sense—it conveys, not those impressions which
_ought to have been_ produced upon any “well-constituted mind,” but those
which were really and truly received at the time of his rambles by a
headstrong and not very amiable traveller, whose prejudices in favour of
other people’s notions were then exceedingly slight. As I have felt, so
I have written; and the result is, that there will often be found in my
narrative a jarring discord between the associations properly belonging
to interesting sites, and the tone in which I speak of them. This
seemingly perverse mode of treating the subject is forced upon me by my
plan of adhering to sentimental truth, and really does not result from
any impertinent wish to tease or trifle with readers. I ought, for
instance, to have felt as strongly in Judæa as in Galilee, but it was not
so in fact. The religious sentiment (born in solitude) which had heated
my brain in the sanctuary of Nazareth was rudely chilled at the foot of
Zion by disenchanting scenes, and this change is accordingly disclosed by
the perfectly worldly tone in which I speak of Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
My notion of dwelling precisely upon those matters which happened to
interest me, and upon none other, would of course be intolerable in a
regular book of travels. If I had been passing through countries not
previously explored, it would have been sadly perverse to withhold
careful descriptions of admirable objects merely because my own feelings
of interest in them may have happened to flag; but where the countries
which one visits have been thoroughly and ably described, and even
artistically illustrated by others, one is fully at liberty to say as
little (though not quite so much) as one chooses. Now a traveller is a
creature not always looking at sights; he remembers (how often!) the
happy land of his birth; he has, too, his moments of humble enthusiasm
about fire and food, about shade and drink; and if he gives to these
feelings anything like the prominence which really belonged to them at
the time of his travelling, he will not seem a very good teacher. Once
having determined to write the sheer truth concerning the things which
chiefly have interested him, he must, and he will, sing a sadly long
strain about self; he will talk for whole pages together about his
bivouac fire, and ruin the ruins of Baalbec with eight or ten cold lines.
But it seems to me that this egotism of a traveller, however incessant,
however shameless and obtrusive, must still convey some true ideas of the
country through which he has passed. His very selfishness, his habit of
referring the whole external world to his own sensations, compels him, as
it were, in his writings to observe the laws of perspective;—he tells you
of objects, not as he knows them to be, but as they seemed to him. The
people and the things that most concern him personally, however mean and
insignificant, take large proportions in his picture, because they stand
so near to him. He shows you his dragoman, and the gaunt features of his
Arabs—his tent, his kneeling camels, his baggage strewed upon the sand;
but the proper wonders of the land—the cities, the mighty ruins and
monuments of bygone ages, he throws back faintly in the distance. It is
thus that he felt, and thus he strives to repeat the scenes of the Elder
World. You may listen to him for ever without learning much in the way
of statistics; but, perhaps, if you bear with him long enough, you may
find yourself slowly and faintly impressed with the realities of Eastern
travel.
My scheme of refusing to dwell upon matters which failed to interest my
own feelings has been departed from in one instance—namely, in my detail
of the late Lady Hester Stanhope’s conversation on supernatural topics.
The truth is, that I have been much questioned on this subject, and I
thought that my best plan would be to write down at once all that I could
ever have to say concerning the personage whose career has excited so
much curiosity amongst Englishwomen. The result is, that my account of
the lady goes to a length which is not justified either by the importance
of the subject, or by the extent to which it interested the narrator.
You will see that I constantly speak of “my People,” “my Party,” “my
Arabs,” and so on, using terms which might possibly seem to imply that I
moved about with a pompous retinue. This of course was not the case. I
travelled with the simplicity proper to my station, as one of the
industrious class, who was not flying from his country because of ennui,
but was strengthening his will, and tempering the metal of his nature,
for that life of toil and conflict in which he is now engaged. But an
Englishman journeying in the East must necessarily have with him dragomen
capable of interpreting the Oriental languages; the absence of wheeled
carriages obliges him to use several beasts of burthen for his baggage,
as well as for himself and his attendants; the owners of the horses, or
camels, with _their_ slaves or servants, fall in as part of his train;
and altogether, the cavalcade becomes rather numerous, without, however,
occasioning any proportionate increase of expense. When a traveller
speaks of all these followers in mass, he calls them his “people,” or his
“troop,” or his “party,” without intending to make you believe that he is
therefore a Sovereign Prince.
You will see that I sometimes follow the custom of the Scots in
describing my fellow-countrymen by the names of their paternal homes.
Of course all these explanations are meant for casual readers. To you,
without one syllable of excuse or deprecation, and in all the confidence
of a friendship that never yet was clouded, I give the long-promised
volume, and add but this one “Goodbye!” for I dare not stand greeting you
here.
CHAPTER I
OVER THE BORDER
AT Semlin I still was encompassed by the scenes and the sounds of
familiar life; the din of a busy world still vexed and cheered me; the
unveiled faces of women still shone in the light of day. Yet, whenever I
chose to look southward, I saw the Ottoman’s fortress—austere, and darkly
impending high over the vale of the Danube—historic Belgrade. I had
come, as it were, to the end of this wheel-going Europe, and now my eyes
would see the splendour and havoc of the East.
The two frontier towns are less than a cannon-shot distant, and yet their
people hold no communion. {1} The Hungarian on the north, and the Turk
and Servian on the southern side of the Save are as much asunder as
though there were fifty broad provinces that lay in the path between
them. Of the men that bustled around me in the streets of Semlin there
was not, perhaps, one who had ever gone down to look upon the stranger
race dwelling under the walls of that opposite castle. It is the plague,
and the dread of the plague, that divide the one people from the other.
All coming and going stands forbidden by the terrors of the yellow flag.
If you dare to break the laws of the quarantine, you will be tried with
military haste; the court will scream out your sentence to you from a
tribunal some fifty yards off; the priest, instead of gently whispering
to you the sweet hopes of religion, will console you at duelling
distance; and after that you will find yourself carefully shot, and
carelessly buried in the ground of the lazaretto.
When all was in order for our departure we walked down to the precincts
of the quarantine establishment, and here awaited us a “compromised” {2}
officer of the Austrian Government, who lives in a state of perpetual
excommunication. The boats, with their “compromised” rowers, were also
in readiness.
After coming in contact with any creature or thing belonging to the
Ottoman Empire it would be impossible for us to return to the Austrian
territory without undergoing an imprisonment of fourteen days in the
odious lazaretto. We felt, therefore, that before we committed ourselves
it was important to take care that none of the arrangements necessary for
the journey had been forgotten; and in our anxiety to avoid such a
misfortune, we managed the work of departure from Semlin with nearly as
much solemnity as if we had been departing this life. Some obliging
persons, from whom we had received civilities during our short stay in
the place, came down to say their farewell at the river’s side; and now,
as we stood with them at the distance of three or four yards from the
“compromised” officer, they asked if we were perfectly certain that we
had wound up all our affairs in Christendom, and whether we had no
parting requests to make. We repeated the caution to our servants, and
took anxious thought lest by any possibility we might be cut off from
some cherished object of affection:—were they quite sure that nothing had
been forgotten—that there was no fragrant dressing-case with its
gold-compelling letters of credit from which we might be parting for
ever?—No; all our treasures lay safely stowed in the boat, and we were
ready to follow them to the ends of the earth. Now, therefore, we shook
hands with our Semlin friends, who immediately retreated for three or
four paces, so as to leave us in the centre of a space between them and
the “compromised” officer. The latter then advanced, and asking once
more if we had done with the civilised world, held forth his hand. I met
it with mine, and there was an end to Christendom for many a day to come.
We soon neared the southern bank of the river, but no sounds came down
from the blank walls above, and there was no living thing that we could
yet see, except one great hovering bird of the vulture race, flying low,
and intent, and wheeling round and round over the pest-accursed city.
But presently there issued from the postern a group of human
beings—beings with immortal souls, and possibly some reasoning faculties;
but to me the grand point was this, that they had real, substantial, and
incontrovertible turbans. They made for the point towards which we were
steering, and when at last I sprang upon the shore, I heard, and saw
myself now first surrounded by men of Asiatic blood. I have since ridden
through the land of the Osmanlees, from the Servian border to the Golden
Horn—from the Gulf of Satalieh to the tomb of Achilles; but never have I
seen such ultra-Turkish looking fellows as those who received me on the
banks of the Save. They were men in the humblest order of life, having
come to meet our boat in the hope of earning something by carrying our
luggage up to the city; but poor though they were, it was plain that they
were Turks of the proud old school, and had not yet forgotten the fierce,
careless bearing of their once victorious race.
Though the province of Servia generally has obtained a kind of
independence, yet Belgrade, as being a place of strength on the frontier,
is still garrisoned by Turkish troops under the command of a Pasha.
Whether the fellows who now surrounded us were soldiers, or peaceful
inhabitants, I did not understand: they wore the old Turkish costume;
vests and jackets of many and brilliant colours, divided from the loose
petticoat-trousers by heavy volumes of shawl, so thickly folded around
their waists as to give the meagre wearers something of the dignity of
true corpulence. This cincture enclosed a whole bundle of weapons; no
man bore less than one brace of immensely long pistols, and a yataghan
(or cutlass), with a dagger or two of various shapes and sizes; most of
these arms were inlaid with silver, and highly burnished, so that they
contrasted shiningly with the decayed grandeur of the garments to which
they were attached (this carefulness of his arms is a point of honour
with the Osmanlee, who never allows his bright yataghan to suffer from
his own adversity); then the long drooping mustachios, and the ample
folds of the once white turbans, that lowered over the piercing eyes, and
the haggard features of the men, gave them an air of gloomy pride, and
that appearance of trying to be disdainful under difficulties, which I
have since seen so often in those of the Ottoman people who live, and
remember old times; they seemed as if they were thinking that they would
have been more usefully, more honourably, and more piously employed in
cutting our throats than in carrying our portmanteaus. The faithful
Steel (Methley’s Yorkshire servant) stood aghast for a moment at the
sight of his master’s luggage upon the shoulders of these warlike
porters, and when at last we began to move up he could scarcely avoid
turning round to cast one affectionate look towards Christendom, but
quickly again he marched on with steps of a man, not frightened exactly,
but sternly prepared for death, or the Koran, or even for plural wives.
The Moslem quarter of a city is lonely and desolate. You go up and down,
and on over shelving and hillocky paths through the narrow lanes walled
in by blank, windowless dwellings; you come out upon an open space
strewed with the black ruins that some late fire has left; you pass by a
mountain of castaway things, the rubbish of centuries, and on it you see
numbers of big, wolflike dogs lying torpid under the sun, with limbs
out-stretched to the full, as if they were dead; storks, or cranes,
sitting fearless upon the low roofs, look gravely down upon you; the
still air that you breathe is loaded with the scent of citron, and
pomegranate rinds scorched by the sun, or (as you approach the bazaar)
with the dry, dead perfume of strange spices. You long for some signs of
life, and tread the ground more heavily, as though you would wake the
sleepers with the heel of your boot; but the foot falls noiseless upon
the crumbling soil of an Eastern city, and silence follows you still.
Again and again you meet turbans, and faces of men, but they have nothing
for you—no welcome—no wonder—no wrath—no scorn—they look upon you as we
do upon a December’s fall of snow—as a “seasonable,” unaccountable,
uncomfortable work of God, that may have been sent for some good purpose,
to be revealed hereafter.
Some people had come down to meet us with an invitation from the Pasha,
and we wound our way up to the castle. At the gates there were groups of
soldiers, some smoking, and some lying flat like corpses upon the cool
stones. We went through courts, ascended steps, passed along a corridor,
and walked into an airy, whitewashed room, with an European clock at one
end of it, and Moostapha Pasha at the other; the fine, old, bearded
potentate looked very like Jove—like Jove, too, in the midst of his
clouds, for the silvery fumes of the _narghile_ {6} hung lightly circling
round him.
The Pasha received us with the smooth, kind, gentle manner that belongs
to well-bred Osmanlees; then he lightly clapped his hands, and instantly
the sound filled all the lower end of the room with slaves; a syllable
dropped from his lips which bowed all heads, and conjured away the
attendants like ghosts (their coming and their going was thus swift and
quiet, because their feet were bare, and they passed through no door, but
only by the yielding folds of a purder). Soon the coffee-bearers
appeared, every man carrying separately his tiny cup in a small metal
stand; and presently to each of us there came a pipe-bearer, who first
rested the bowl of the _tchibouque_ at a measured distance on the floor,
and then, on this axis, wheeled round the long cheery stick, and
gracefully presented it on half-bended knee; already the well-kindled
fire was glowing secure in the bowl, and so, when I pressed the amber lip
{7} to mine, there was no coyness to conquer; the willing fume came up,
and answered my slightest sigh, and followed softly every breath
inspired, till it touched me with some faint sense and understanding of
Asiatic contentment.
Asiatic contentment! Yet scarcely, perhaps, one hour before I had been
wanting my bill, and ringing for waiters, in a shrill and busy hotel.
In the Ottoman dominions there is scarcely any hereditary influence
except that which belongs to the family of the Sultan; and wealth, too,
is a highly volatile blessing, not easily transmitted to the descendant
of the owner. From these causes it results that the people standing in
the place of nobles and gentry are official personages, and though many
(indeed the greater number) of these potentates are humbly born and bred,
you will seldom, I think, find them wanting in that polished smoothness
of manner, and those well-undulating tones which belong to the best
Osmanlees. The truth is, that most of the men in authority have risen
from their humble station by the arts of the courtier, and they preserve
in their high estate those gentle powers of fascination to which they owe
their success. Yet unless you can contrive to learn a little of the
language, you will be rather bored by your visits of ceremony; the
intervention of the interpreter, or dragoman as he is called, is fatal to
the spirit of conversation. I think I should mislead you if I were to
attempt to give the substance of any particular conversation with
Orientals. A traveller may write and say that “the Pasha of So-and-so
was particularly interested in the vast progress which has been made in
the application of steam, and appeared to understand the structure of our
machinery—that he remarked upon the gigantic results of our manufacturing
industry—showed that he possessed considerable knowledge of our Indian
affairs, and of the constitution of the Company, and expressed a lively
admiration of the many sterling qualities for which the people of England
are distinguished.” But the heap of commonplaces thus quietly attributed
to the Pasha will have been founded perhaps on some such talking as
this:—
_Pasha_.—The Englishman is welcome; most blessed among hours is this, the
hour of his coming.
_Dragoman_ (to the traveller).—The Pasha pays you his compliments.
_Traveller_.—Give him my best compliments in return, and say I’m
delighted to have the honour of seeing him.
_Dragoman_ (to the Pasha).—His lordship, this Englishman, Lord of London,
Scorner of Ireland, Suppressor of France, has quitted his governments,
and left his enemies to breathe for a moment, and has crossed the broad
waters in strict disguise, with a small but eternally faithful retinue of
followers, in order that he might look upon the bright countenance of the
Pasha among Pashas—the Pasha of the everlasting Pashalik of
Karagholookoldour.
_Traveller_ (to his dragoman).—What on earth have you been saying about
London? The Pasha will be taking me for a mere cockney. Have not I told
you _always_ to say that I am from a branch of the family of Mudcombe
Park, and that I am to be a magistrate for the county of Bedfordshire,
only I’ve not qualified, and that I should have been a deputy-lieutenant
if it had not been for the extraordinary conduct of Lord Mountpromise,
and that I was a candidate for Goldborough at the last election, and that
I should have won easy if my committee had not been bought. I wish to
Heaven that if you _do_ say anything about me, you’d tell the simple
truth.
_Dragoman_ [is silent].
_Pasha_.—What says the friendly Lord of London? is there aught that I can
grant him within the Pashalik of Karagholookoldour?
_Dragoman_ (growing sulky and literal).—This friendly Englishman—this
branch of Mudcombe—this head-purveyor of Goldborough—this possible
policeman of Bedfordshire, is recounting his achievements, and the number
of his titles.
_Pasha_.—The end of his honours is more distant than the ends of the
earth, and the catalogue of his glorious deeds is brighter than the
firmament of heaven!
_Dragoman_ (to the traveller).—The Pasha congratulates your Excellency.
_Traveller_.—About Goldborough? The deuce he does!—but I want to get at
his views in relation to the present state of the Ottoman Empire. Tell
him the Houses of Parliament have met, and that there has been a speech
from the throne, pledging England to preserve the integrity of the
Sultan’s dominions.
_Dragoman_ (to the Pasha).—This branch of Mudcombe, this possible
policeman of Bedfordshire, informs your Highness that in England the
talking houses have met, and that the integrity of the Sultan’s dominions
has been assured for ever and ever by a speech from the velvet chair.
_Pasha_.—Wonderful chair! Wonderful houses!—whirr! whirr! all by
wheels!—whiz! whiz! all by steam!—wonderful chair! wonderful houses!
wonderful people!—whirr! whirr! all by wheels!—whiz! whiz! all by steam!
_Traveller_ (to the dragoman).—What does the Pasha mean by that whizzing?
he does not mean to say, does he, that our Government will ever abandon
their pledges to the Sultan?
_Dragoman_.—No, your Excellency; but he says the English talk by wheels,
and by steam.
_Traveller_.—That’s an exaggeration; but say that the English really have
carried machinery to great perfection; tell the Pasha (he’ll be struck
with that) that whenever we have any disturbances to put down, even at
two or three hundred miles from London, we can send troops by the
thousand to the scene of action in a few hours.
_Dragoman_ (recovering his temper and freedom of speech).—His Excellency,
this Lord of Mudcombe, observes to your Highness, that whenever the
Irish, or the French, or the Indians rebel against the English, whole
armies of soldiers, and brigades of artillery, are dropped into a mighty
chasm called Euston Square, and in the biting of a cartridge they arise
up again in Manchester, or Dublin, or Paris, or Delhi, and utterly
exterminate the enemies of England from the face of the earth.
_Pasha_.—I know it—I know all—the particulars have been faithfully
related to me, and my mind comprehends locomotives. The armies of the
English ride upon the vapours of boiling caldrons, and their horses are
flaming coals!—whirr! whirr! all by wheels!—whiz! whiz! all by steam!
_Traveller_ (to his dragoman).—I wish to have the opinion of an
unprejudiced Ottoman gentleman as to the prospects of our English
commerce and manufactures; just ask the Pasha to give me his views on the
subject.
_Pasha_ (after having received the communication of the dragoman).—The
ships of the English swarm like flies; their printed calicoes cover the
whole earth; and by the side of their swords the blades of Damascus are
blades of grass. All India is but an item in the ledger-books of the
merchants, whose lumber-rooms are filled with ancient thrones!—whirr!
whirr! all by wheels!—whiz! whiz! all by steam!
_Dragoman_.—The Pasha compliments the cutlery of England, and also the
East India Company.
_Traveller_.—The Pasha’s right about the cutlery (I tried my scimitar
with the common officers’ swords belonging to our fellows at Malta, and
they cut it like the leaf of a novel). Well (to the dragoman), tell the
Pasha I am exceedingly gratified to find that he entertains such a high
opinion of our manufacturing energy, but I should like him to know,
though, that we have got something in England besides that. These
foreigners are always fancying that we have nothing but ships, and
railways, and East India Companies; do just tell the Pasha that our rural
districts deserve his attention, and that even within the last two
hundred years there has been an evident improvement in the culture of the
turnip, and if he does not take any interest about that, at all events
you can explain that we have our virtues in the country—that we are a
truth-telling people, and, like the Osmanlees, are faithful in the
performance of our promises. Oh! and, by the bye, whilst you are about
it, you may as well just say at the end that the British yeoman is still,
thank God! the British yeoman.
_Pasha_ (after hearing the dragoman).—It is true, it is true:—through all
Feringhistan the English are foremost and best; for the Russians are
drilled swine, and the Germans are sleeping babes, and the Italians are
the servants of songs, and the French are the sons of newspapers, and the
Greeks they are weavers of lies, but the English and the Osmanlees are
brothers together in righteousness; for the Osmanlees believe in one only
God, and cleave to the Koran, and destroy idols; so do the English
worship one God, and abominate graven images, and tell the truth, and
believe in a book, and though they drink the juice of the grape, yet to
say that they worship their prophet as God, or to say that they are
eaters of pork, these are lies—lies born of Greeks, and nursed by Jews!
_Dragoman_.—The Pasha compliments the English.
_Traveller_ (rising).—Well, I’ve had enough of this. Tell the Pasha I am
greatly obliged to him for his hospitality, and still more for his
kindness in furnishing me with horses, and say that now I must be off.
_Pasha_ (after hearing the dragoman, and standing up on his divan).
{13}—Proud are the sires, and blessed are the dams of the horses that
shall carry his Excellency to the end of his prosperous journey. May the
saddle beneath him glide down to the gates of the happy city, like a boat
swimming on the third river of Paradise. May he sleep the sleep of a
child, when his friends are around him; and the while that his enemies
are abroad, may his eyes flame red through the darkness—more red than the
eyes of ten tigers! Farewell!
_Dragoman_.—The Pasha wishes your Excellency a pleasant journey.
So ends the visit.