We will not indulge ourselves, at the risk of wearying our readers, by
traversing in the society of Mildred and Winston the environs of Naples;
we will not wander with them through the disinterred streets and temples
of Pompeii; nor attempt to partake of their delight at those exquisite
views which their excursions, on both sides of the bay presented to
them. Often did Winston sit by the side of Mildred, looking at those
scenes, and his happy spirit for a while reflected them as calmly as the
blue waters those beautiful islands within them. Alas! the pebble soon
fell in _one_ of those mirrors--the tranquil mood was ever and anon
cruelly disturbed.
We will not even trust ourselves in the museum of Naples, so rich in the
curiosities of the antiquarian, and in works of art; nor stand with
Mildred before those statues of the goddess Isis, from which it was
difficult to persuade her to move, so much was there of thought as well
as beauty in the countenances. One especially (for there are several) of
these statues of Isis--it was the smallest in the group--she confessed,
after all she had seen of sculpture, had affected her more intensely
than any work of art, by its thrilling union of deep mystery with
perfect loveliness. Of Isis herself, or of the religion taught under her
name, she confessed, she said, to have very obscure ideas; but if ever
a temple should be erected to human philosophy, that statue, she
thought, was worthy to occupy the chief place in it.
One of their excursions, however, it is necessary, for the sake of our
narrative, to give some account of--it is that to Vesuvius. Perhaps
there are few travellers who have not recorded the day they visited the
burning mountain as amongst the most remarkable of their lives. The
extreme beauty of the views as you ascend, the strange desolation
immediately around, and the grand spectacle that awaits you on the
summit, so vary and sustain the interest, that every emotion which
nature is capable of producing, seems to have been crowded into one
spot, and one hour.
The whole party started together on this expedition, but Mr. and Miss
Bloomfield had no intention of proceeding further than the hermitage--a
small house erected, as every one knows, half way up the mountain,
before the ascent becomes steep or severe, and, for the rest, very
little like a hermitage. Here they designed to stay, enjoying the
magnificent view it commands, while the younger half of the party
proceeded to scale the mountain. It would have been easy for them to
ascend thus far by a circuitous route in a carriage, but, beside that
horses could convey Mildred and her companion somewhat further than the
carriage road extends, the uncle and aunt were not unwilling to partake
to a certain extent the spirit of the enterprise. They all, therefore,
mounted their horses, and, accompanied by their guide, advanced by the
steeper and more direct path.
The ascent begins amongst gardens and vineyards--the vine flowing from
tree to tree, and making of a whole field one continuous harbour. The
path next winds along a vast barren hill-side, utterly without verdure,
whose brown furrows present the appearance of a ploughed field; but the
clods here do not give way to the tread of your animal; you stoop and
touch them, they are of stone, they are the old lava. As you ascend,
these clods grow larger, grow darker, till the narrow road winds between
great blocks of black lava, pitched here and there in the wildest
confusion. You then reach a level piece of road, on which stands the
hermitage.
Here Mr. and Miss Bloomfield paused. The rest proceeded somewhat further
on horseback, till the mountain, taking the shape of a cone, presents a
steep ascent, to be mastered only on foot.
"Let us pause a moment here," said Mildred, when they had dismounted,
"and look at the bay. I have longed several times upon the road to make
a halt, but if I had, it would have been a signal for the general hubbub
of conversation. You," she continued with a smile, "are a sensible
companion, you know how to be silent, or can talk in those snatches or
broken utterances which rather relieve silence than dissipate it, which
do not scare the gentle goddess altogether from our company. Had I asked
my uncle to stop, he would immediately have commenced talking, and
talked till we went on again."
The scene lay outstretched before them in all its beauty, and under an
almost cloudless sky. One peculiar charm of this celebrated bay depends
on the islands scattered on both sides of its entrance, as Capri,
Ischia, and others. These, as you shift your position on the bay,
produce an endless variety--interlacing the azure water with stripes of
blue mountainous land, in the same manner as well-defined clouds are
sometimes set, ridge after ridge, in the clear sky. From their present
point of view, the centre of their picture was open sea, and the sides
filled up and diversified by these islands. Seen under the mid-day sun,
they appear invested in _a mist of light_.
"They rise from the deep blue sea like sapphires that love has breathed
upon," said Winston. "What fantastic tricks," he continued, "but always
beautiful--Nature plays under her own high heaven. The hills on yonder
coast, huge as they are, have a way of hiding themselves in the very
air--vanishing in the very light. And, look, yonder, in the extreme
distance, the light seems to have _cut away_ the solid basis of the
hills, and left nothing but the ridge, the wavy outline, which one might
expect to rise into the air, it is so cloud-like."
"The earth and heaven do so mingle here, there is no separating them,"
said Mildred. "I wonder not that the inhabitants of such a region as
this threw a certain dimness, as of twilight, over their future Elysium.
Some difference it was necessary to imagine between it and their
familiar earth, and could they fancy any thing more bright and beautiful
than this?"
"Look behind you," said Winston. She turned, and started at the sudden
and complete contrast which the utter desolation of the scathed mountain
presented to her.
They then addressed themselves to their somewhat arduous undertaking.
Mildred had refused to be carried up in a chair--had determined to walk.
She had received a very accurate description of this part of her task,
and found things exactly as she expected. The side of the mountain
seems, at first, composed of large loose stones, of a brown colour; but
the lava, which assumes this shape, is not loose, and you step from
projection to projection with perfect safety,--with the same
fatigue,--neither more nor less, as one walks up a flight of stairs. It
is rather a long flight, however, and there is no bannister. This last
deficiency the guide is in the habit of supplying--to such as condescend
to accept his assistance--by fastening a leathern strap round his waist,
and giving the end of it into the hand of the traveller. Winston
insisted upon putting this strap round his own waist, and that Mildred
should allow him to take what seemed to him the most enviable position,
of the guide. It was a dangerous experiment. Not the weight of
Mildred--for she leant very lightly--it was not the weight of Mildred
which he felt at every step was exhausting his strength, till his heart
beat and his knees trembled. After a little time he was compelled to sit
down, faint as a child. Mildred was far from guessing the cause of this
sudden weakness, but requested that the belt might be again transferred
to the guide. Nor did he hesitate a moment. Had he attempted to proceed
much farther they might both have been precipitated to the bottom.
Their march was toilsome; and Mildred, taking advantage of a commodious
place, sat down to rest upon the lava. At the altitude which they had
reached the temperature changes,--a cold wintry wind was blowing--and
she had not quite prepared herself for so sudden a change. Winston,
anxious only that the breath of heaven should not visit her too rudely,
and forgetting to ask himself whether there might not be a too familiar
kindness in the act, pulled off a light over-coat which he wore, and,
making the best shawl he could of it, put it over her shoulders. She was
not a little confused at the unaffected anxiety which had evidently
given rise to this prompt attention; and blushed as she refused to rob
him of his own attire. She attempted, by some playful remark, to remove
the feeling of embarrassment which had seized upon both parties.
"But from a poor gentleman," replied Winston, alluding to something that
had passed between them at an earlier part of the day, "any gift may be
safely accepted. Like the priest, he wears a tonsure, which at once
gives him unusual privileges, and reduces him to a subject of
indifference."
Mildred made no answer; but she thought that, in one of these cases, the
tonsure was so little visible, was kept so much out of sight, that it
might fail of its due precautionary influence. She rose, and they
proceeded on their walk, or, rather, their climbing. And now the volume
of smoke which had, for some time, been concealed from view by the
mountain itself, burst upon them, and a few minutes placed them on the
summit. They stood within the crater, or what has been such, for, at
present, the mountain discharges itself through a lofty cone which rises
on one side of this strange, black, sulphurous amphitheatre. All around
them, however, the volcanic vapours were steaming up from innumerable
crevices, and the hot lava pouring out, moving slowly, with a dull red
heat. No need here of further clothing. Their feet were burning where
they stood. They had again exchanged the cold of winter, not for the
heat of summer, but of a furnace.
There is a terrific grandeur in the scene. The black masses of lava,
whose surface, here, is of the hue and texture of cinders, are piled and
jostled together with the utmost irregularity, with deep fissures
between them, in the same manner, though the material is so different,
as the blocks of ice in the glaciers of Mont Blanc. Sometimes these
cindery surfaces undulate and take the appearance of black coils, as of
a huge cable laid in parallel folds. These coils, as you advance, are
explained; for you will see the dull red lava sweltering out from
underneath one of those great blocks, in a long and narrow wave, which
does not subside, but stiffens as it cools, and, in this form, is pushed
forward by the succeeding wave. In another part, the lava is flowing in
a small stream, about a foot in breadth, just as the metal in a
foundery, but more slowly, and the surface dimmed with a black scaly
film; on raising which, with your stick, the flame bursts out. It flows
so slowly that, sometimes, you must watch it narrowly before you detect
the motion; you may be looking at such a stream and not suspect it to be
this stealthy Phlegethon, till suddenly it is seen to stir, like a vast
serpent moving in its sleep.
To the left of them, as they stood in this crater, the wall of the
mountain enclosed them in, utterly without vestige of any kind of
verdure, bare brown ore, with fissures exhaling their sulphurous vapour;
before them, extending to and meeting the horizon, lay the tumbled
masses of black lava, with the glowing at intervals of their dull red
furnaces, and every where the same vapour steaming up; and at their
right rose the conical summit from which Vesuvius was discharging its
artillery, the sides of which are covered with a green and yellow
sulphur that, elsewhere, might be mistaken at a distance for some sort
of moss or other vegetation, but the eye has learnt to expect here
nothing of so peaceful a nature. From this cone volleys of huge stones
were perpetually issuing, with thunder-like explosions; and, above all,
that majestic column of smoke! Smoke seems a very ordinary word,
expressive of a very ordinary thing, but it forms here no ordinary
spectacle. At each explosion it bursts up impetuously, struggling like
frenzy from its imprisonment, revolving with amazing rapidity, thick,
turbid, ruddy, mixed with flame; as it rises, it revolves less rapidly,
and becomes more pure, more calm; ever rising higher, and expanding in
greater and purer volumes, it at length fills the heavens, towering
majestically, whiter than the whitest cloud, and floating off in light
etherial vapours, which the blue sky gladly receives. "The spirit of
Beauty," said Mildred, as she gazed upwards, "has triumphed."
As she looked with increasing interest on this spectacle, the spirit of
enterprise grew strong within her, and she wished to ascend this cone
itself. But besides that the huge stones which at that time were being
constantly projected, rendered the expedition dangerous, the guide
assured her that the fatigue would be to her excessive. In fact, he
resolutely declined to lend his aid to such a scheme.
"If you had been alone," she said to Winston, "you would have gone
farther. I am a sore hinderance to you, I fear."
"On the contrary," he replied, "if you had not come, I should not have
ascended so far as this."
And he spoke the simple truth; for Vesuvius itself would have been
forgotten in the society of Mildred. To ascend the mountain at
night-time had been one of the most conspicuous objects he had proposed
to himself in his visit to Italy; but as it was out of the question (the
uncle and aunt would not have listened to it for a moment) that she
should accompany him in such an expedition, he had at once foregone it,
or rather it had slipped from his thoughts.
After some time longer spent in this remarkable scene, they began their
descent, which they found to be quite an easy and amusing piece of
business. The descent is made on a side of the mountain covered with
loose ashes that yield to the foot. _Up_ this it would be impossible to
get, but you go down it with the same facility as if you were skating
along the side of the mountain. Mildred, with the help of a staff,
accomplished this part of her task with much ease, and not without
hilarity.
Mr. and Miss Bloomfield were happy to see them return--had begun to
wonder what could keep them so long--had for some time grown quite
tired of their own position. The carriage had been ordered to come
slowly round by the other road, and meet them at the hermitage. It was
waiting for them. They were all willing to enter it, and return by the
carriage road to Naples.
On the ride home Mildred was very silent. Many little incidents had
occurred, many words had dropped, during the course of the day, which
became subjects of reflection, not quite so calm as the works of art or
nature had hitherto supplied. Winston--she could not refuse to see
it--loved! But loved, as he desired to intimate, without the least hope,
the least prospect of alliance. Well, she was warned. What remained for
her but to keep her own heart quite sure? Keep! was she quite sure that
she still retained it in undisputed custody?
But we have lost sight, all this while, of Mrs. Jackson and her
daughter, which it was not our intention to do. They had not lost sight
of Winston. As they had inquired of him, when at Rome, what hotel he
would recommend them at Naples, and as he had very naturally mentioned
the one he had selected for himself, it was not at all surprising that
he should find himself, one afternoon, seated very snugly by Mrs. and
Miss Jackson, at the comfortable quiet _table-d'hôte_ of the _Hôtel des
Etrangers_. Happily there existed no secrets, and no division of opinion
between the mother and daughter on what now chiefly preoccupied the
thoughts of both. Mrs. Jackson had herself conceived a great partiality
for Winston--sympathised entirely with her daughter's romantic
attachment--and was willing to promote her views by all means in her
power. She was at heart a generous woman, though certain petty and
rooted habits would, at first acquaintance, lead to an opposite
impression. There was nothing she was not ready to do for Winston. It
was only the good sense, or the somewhat better sense, of the daughter,
that prevented her at Rome from secretly calling for his bill and paying
it for him behind his back. At Naples, Winston almost always met them at
the dinner table; and it was impossible for him to be churlish towards
persons who seemed so very pleased with whatever he said, and so kindly
disposed towards him. Mrs. Jackson was confidential in the extreme as to
the several items which formed her worldly prosperity, and very clearly
intimated the extremely benevolent designs she had upon himself. To
Louisa, indeed, it was a sad blow and heavy discouragement when she met
him in the company of one so beautiful as Mildred; but she had tact
enough, even from Winston himself, to extract certain particulars
respecting the fortune of the lady, which went far to set her fears at
rest.
And now began in Winston's mind one of the saddest conflicts and
confusions that could visit a poor mortal. On the one hand was hopeless
passion--poverty forbidding; on the other, a fortune offered to a needy
gentleman--ay, and affection too, if he could resign himself to accept
it. Strange as it may seem, it was his very love for Mildred that gave
its greatest influence to the fortune of Miss Jackson. By a marriage
with this latter lady he should escape from the tortures of his hopeless
passion; it would be a refuge from this, and all like disquietudes. Most
people will be doubtless of opinion that the attractions of wealth need
no auxiliary. Those, however, who are well read in the human heart, will
have no difficulty in believing us when we say of Winston, that if he
had never encountered Mildred, he would have merely smiled at the idea
of a marriage with Louisa Jackson. It now came recommended to him as an
escape from an intolerable torture: he would rush into matrimony as a
shelter from love.
When passing the morning in the society of Mildred, not a single
fragment of a thought fell to the share of Louisa. But when, having left
her, he proceeded to his hotel with a heavy and perplexed heart, and
asked himself where all this was tending--when he afterwards found
himself seated by the side of two persons, somewhat silly and ridiculous
it is true, but kind-hearted and most amiably disposed, able and anxious
to offer him that only safe harbour of life which property builds up for
us--a harbour, too, which would secure him from that wild tempest so
evidently preparing for him--it seemed that a very little more would
turn the balance in favour of Louisa.
That _very little more_, an incident which we have to record, supplied.
Whilst walking and sitting with Mildred in the Villa Reale, he had
noticed that a tall, military-looking gentleman had appeared singularly
struck with the beauty Of his fair companion. In this there was nothing
unusual. Few people passed her without paying a certain silent homage to
those blue eyes and their singular sweetness of expression. Even the
common people, even the beggars, when they had received their alms and
stayed no longer to beg, would still stay, lingering about, to catch
another look at that face, when it should be turned towards them. But in
the stranger's manner there was something more than admiration
expressed; and, what was more remarkable and more alarming to the
feelings of Winston, Mildred herself manifested towards this
stranger--if he were a stranger--an almost equal degree of interest. On
the last occasion, when they encountered him, this gentleman was
observed to turn and follow them, and watch them to the door of Mr.
Bloomfield's residence. Winston, after parting with his companion,
re-entered the gardens opposite, and from this position he saw the same
stranger return to Mr. Bloomfield's door, ring at the bell, ask, as it
seemed, several questions of the porter, and then--enter the house!
As he stood staring at this inexplicable vision, he was accosted by a
young Englishman, with whom he had some slight travelling acquaintance;
and, by a singular coincidence, the very first question his companion
put, was--whether he knew that gentleman who had just entered the house
opposite?
"No! do you?" was the prompt reply of Winston.
"I do not," said the other; "but I confess I am rather curious to learn.
He must be _somebody_--travels in grand style--has taken the best rooms
in the _Victoria_. I took him for a Russian prince, but he speaks
English like a native."
"The Russians are said to be such good linguists, this may be no
criterion," said Winston, hiding, as best he could, under the
commonplace remark, the agitation that he felt. He very soon made some
excuse to escape from his companion, and returned to his hotel. That day
he was at dinner more absent than usual; yet there was something in his
manner which Louisa liked, which gave her more hope than she had lately
entertained.
The next morning Winston called as usual at the Bloomfields. They had
ridden out; and he learned, on inquiry, that his seat in the carriage
had been occupied by this mysterious stranger. Where should he go? what
should he do? He now felt how complete a slave he had become--how
utterly dependent for all his happiness upon another. His happiness!
what but misery could he reap from this passion? And now to love was to
be added all the pangs of jealousy.
He entered the gardens opposite the Villa Reale. That "prince of
promenades," as some one has called it, extending as it does along a
quay unparalleled for the beauty of its position, with its thick dark
shelter of olives on the one side of you, and its light and graceful
avenue of acacias on the other, with its statues surrounded each by its
parterre of flowers or niched in its green recess, with the fountain
bubbling from the ground at its feet--all had ceased to please. At one
part the promenade projects into a small semicircle, fitted up with
marble seats, which commands an uninterrupted view of the bay and of
Vesuvius. It is difficult to recognise our old boisterous friend, the
sea, such as we know him in our northern latitudes, in the dancing blue
waters which, stirred by the lightest breeze, are here flinging the
whitest foam over the polished black rocks or stones that line these
coasts, and still more, in the glassy azure which extends, like a lake,
in the distance: it is a scene to induce the most perfect repose. But
Winston found no repose in it, and its beauty awoke not a single emotion
of enthusiasm. He turned towards Vesuvius. Its column of smoke, rising
always there, neither subsiding nor increasing, now irritated him by
its sameness and its constancy. "Always thus!" he mentally exclaimed.
"Why does it not explode at once? Why not at once give out all its
rage?"
He passed through the gardens. They lead, at the further extremity, into
an open space, where much rabble assemble, where a sort of market is
held, and where, on the neighbouring beach, the fishermen draw up their
boats: fishermen bare-legged, bare-thighed, but legs and thighs not of
flesh but mahogany. At other times he had been amused with the sudden
contrast this scene affords with the well-dressed crowd within the
gardens. It now disgusted him. There was nothing but noise and dirt,
nothing but dust and heat, and glare. The various beggars who had often
vexed him by their clamours, but had generally ended by extorting from
him some pence and some good-humour, were quite intolerable. The little
children, with their naked feet, tanned and dusted to the colour of the
road, girt with their scanty complement of rags, with nothing on earth
but their little shrill voices--their Signor! Signor!--to get their
daily morsel with, and who had so often, when Mildred was at his side,
received a whole handful of copper coins amongst them, now excited not
the least commiseration, called forth nothing but some passing
execration upon the slovenly government that could permit human life to
sink down into all the wildness, and more than the destitution of the
brute animal.
After the lapse of some hours, spent in this horrible restlessness, he
again called on the Bloomfields. They had returned from their drive. He
ran up the stairs: but, when he reached the landing-place, he paused.
Perhaps that stranger might have returned with them. The door of the
drawing-room was half-open: he looked, and saw that formidable intruder
seated there. He was not formidable, evidently, to Mildred. She stood
gracefully before him, and, putting back his dark hair from his fine
manly brow, she stooped, and laid a kiss upon his forehead. Winston drew
back instantly, and hurried from the house.
He had not retreated, however, so quickly, but that he had been seen by
Mildred--thanks to the tall mirror before which she stood, and which had
faithfully reflected his image. Had he been less distracted, he would
have heard a soft voice call him by his name, from the head of the
stairs; but he heard nothing, and he seemed to see nothing, as he strode
along the street, and, rushing into his hotel, shut himself up in his
room. "This intolerable anguish!" he cried; "it must have an end. To a
passion which itself is the merest despair, must I add the maddest of
jealousies?"
That day, after the dinner was concluded, Winston accepted an invitation
which Mrs. Jackson had often pressed upon him in vain, to adjourn to her
sitting-room, and partake of a dessert there. He accepted the
invitation. It sealed his fate; and he intended that it should. He left
that room--he, the lover of Mildred--the affianced of Louisa Jackson!
The next morning--it was a sleepless night that intervened--he paid his
respects, with the due appearance of felicity upon his countenance, to
Mrs. Jackson and her daughter. It was into their carriage he was now to
enter, to take one of those drives in the environs which he had so often
enjoyed with Mildred. It was to _their_ admiration he was now to listen
and respond.
The party was preparing to start, when a message was brought to them
that two ladies were below who wished to speak to Mr. Winston. Mrs.
Jackson, all anxiety to be polite, told the servant to show the ladies
into her room. Immediately after Miss Bloomfield and Mildred Willoughby
were ushered up stairs.
Never was Mildred looking more beautiful, for never was she so happy in
her life. The name even of Mrs. Jackson she had never heard pronounced;
and, not aware of being in the apartment of that lady, but considering
she was in some room destined for the reception of visiters, she merely
made to the ladies that slight curtsey by which the presence of a
stranger is recognised, and immediately turned and addressed herself to
Winston.
"Congratulate me!" she said. "Congratulate me!--But first I must repeat
my message from Mr. Bloomfield, who insists upon it that you break
through your unsocial rule, and dine with him to-day. And now again
congratulate me! My father has returned from India. It was he whom we
called the mysterious stranger. As to the conflicting reports which had
been spread of him in England, you shall hear all at leisure. But he has
returned!--and he has returned wealthy and amiable."
There was a slight tremor in her voice as she uttered these last words.
That slight tremor, it was the response now given to certain passionate
but desponding declarations, which he had so often half uttered in her
ear.
The answer came one day too late. Winston stood as if struck dumb. His
rage, his shame, his agony of vexation, he knew not how to express. And
indeed there was that convulsion in his throat which, if he had
attempted to speak, would have choked his utterance. But there was one
amongst the party who found words fit for the occasion, and quite
explanatory. In what she conceived the prettiest manner in the world,
Louisa Jackson laid her hand upon Winston's shoulder. She had heard
something of an invitation--"But, Alfred dear," she said, "you will not
surely dine out to-day!"
Mildred started at the tone of that address, telling as it did so
strange a history, so utterly unexpected. Then collecting herself, and
taking the arm of Miss Bloomfield, she expressed her regret, in some
words of course, that they could not have the pleasure of Mr. Winston's
company to dinner, and, curtseying slightly to the rest of the society,
withdrew.
What a drama had passed between them, and in silence! What feelings had
been hidden under those few words of formal and ceremonious speech!
No sooner had she left than Winston rushed into his own apartment.
Amongst the curiosities which he had collected in Italy was a genuine
stiletto. This had sometimes accompanied him in his solitary rambles;
and of late he had sometimes, in his moods of despondency, contemplated
that instrument, thinking the while of some other purpose than that of
striking a foe to which it might be applicable. They are dangerous
moments which we spend in reflecting on the mere possibility of some
fatal act. The imagination becomes familiarised with the deed. When the
fiery and ungovernable passion falls upon us, it finds the train ready
laid. Winston locked his door--ran to the stiletto--buried it in his
heart!
The horror and distraction of Louisa and her mother may be easily
imagined. It might be a subject of more deep and curious interest to
trace the influence of such a catastrophe on the mind of Mildred; but
this also we must leave to the reflection and perspicacity of the
reader. Mr. Bloomfield and his sister soon after left Italy, embarking
in the steam-boat direct for Marseilles: they had grown weary of travel.
Colonel Willoughby and his daughter Mildred took the route by land, and
quitted Naples for the north of Italy and the Alps.
* * * * *
THE EARLY TAKEN.
The idea embodied in the following verses is the subject of an old
German legend, intended, perhaps somewhat painfully, to represent a
repining and diseased spirit awed by a fearful vision of eventual
futurity into a becoming resignation for the early loss of those who
might have proved unequal to the temptations of a longer life.
A mother mourned her children dead,
Two blooming boys, whose opening prime
Along her path a light had shed,
Now quenched, alas! before its time.
She mourned as one who dreamed that here
Our home and dwelling place should be;
She mourned as if she felt no fear
Of earthly sin and misery.
Once, in the watches of the night,
Before her dim and tearful eye,
Beyond the clouds an opening bright
Revealed a vision of the sky.
There, amid amaranthine bowers,
Where God's own glory seemed to shine,
She saw, on beds of golden flowers,
Her dear departed ones recline.
Thence bending down, a pitying smile
Their fair illumined features wore:
"For us now freed from guilt and guile,
O, dearest mother, weep no more!"
But still her tears rebellious flow,
And still she raves of angry fate,
As if, with blind and selfish wo,
She grudged her children's blissful state.
Again in visions of the night,
Sent to impart a sad relief,
The matron saw another sight
That stayed the torrent of her grief.
A youth, by wine to madness stirred,
Stood brawling on the midnight street,
And as a clash of swords was heard,
Sunk lifeless at a rival's feet.
New horrors o'er her senses steal;
She sees, appearing through the gloom,
A hardened outlaw on the wheel,
While crowds around applaud his doom.
She gazed upon the hapless youth,
She gazed upon the hardened man,
And dawnings of the dreadful truth
To rise upon her soul began.
Then thus a voice was heard to say,
"What now they are thine eye hath seen:
Here, had they not been snatch'd away,
See also what they would have been."
* * * * *
A RIDE TO MAGNESIA.
STAGE FIRST.
Smyrna is a capital starting point for eastern expeditions, though it is
too full of _gaóors_, of every description, to be, in itself, a fair
specimen of orientalism. The man would carry home a queer account of
Turkey who should begin his notes at Smyrna, and, passing up the
Dardanelles, make up his book as he travelled overland from
Constantinople to Jannina, _en route_ to Tower Stairs. This is the
approved track, or, perhaps, it may be up the Danube in the Austrian
steamer. Such an expedition is capital fun, no doubt, and to be
recommended to any of our friends with a little loose cash, and some six
weeks' holiday. It introduces to many notabilities, first-rate in their
way, but not to that singular notability, the genuine old Osmanli. He is
a branch of the ethnographical tree that will not flourish in European
atmosphere: though the same exuberance of vigour that first sent forth
the mighty shoot from central Asia, has prevailed to pass through the
feeble defences of the West. It is as an overgrown weakling that he
exists in our quarter of the world. His eyes are without fire, his
manners without the stamp of originality. He succumbs beneath the
presence of the Frank,--the hated and despised, and yet the feared and
the envied. The better feelings of his nature suffer from the constant
presence of those whose superiority he is forced to admire, but whose
personal character he naturally detests. Such conflict of feeling cannot
but be with detriment to the spirit, which, so fettered, refuses the
generous offices of brotherhood, and yields the debt of civility only
from policy or by constraint. How different is this man in his proper
country! where the usages and language, and ideas are unmixedly those
which have been his father's before him; where the leading idea of
_gaóors_ is, that they are infidel dogs, who eat pork and are
unenlightened of Islam; and where every one firmly believes that the
whole set of Franks are allowed to occupy and rule only by the clemency
of their high and mighty lord the Padishah! Here the Turk may
condescend, and here he can be truly generous and hospitable. The Frank
comes as a wanderer from his own remote, settlement (somewhere or other
at the world's end,) to see the lords of the earth, the true believers.
He is a poor ignorant stranger who cannot speak a word of intelligible
language. It is kind, and gratifying to self-esteem, to receive such an
one, and show him those good things that shall make him sigh to return
to his own forlorn fatherland. Besides all this, the outward
modifications affecting the European Turk spoil his nationality. The
reforms of Mahmoud, and of the present sultan, have wofully cut up the
appearance of their subjects; and, of course, sumptuary changes such as
these affect especially those who mix with the world, and are near
court. Who can believe in the ill-looking fellow with smooth face,
regular built boots, and tight frock coat, buttoned up to the chin,--to
say nothing of the wretched red cap he wears instead of a turban! That a
Turk! pshaw!
When I landed at that nest of pirates, Valona,--what time we bore a
message to the respectable inhabitants, that unless they took a little
more pains to grow honest, we should be under certain painful
necessities with respect to them,--was I to look upon that wretched
rabble as Turks? Men dressed in every variety of shabby frock coat and
trousers; and, above all, men who were undisguised in the exhibition of
vulgar curiosity. What amount of excitement would it take to make a
genuine Turk open the eyes of astonishment? or, should he even be
betrayed into an unguarded Mashhallah! has the power of morbid
attraction been discovered which may draw him from his seat and lead him
to any effort of inquiry? When, then, I saw these people flocking
together on their jetty to meet us, I at once recognised them as mongrel
and degenerated. They were queer fellows in their way, too, quite worthy
of observation. The whole community are piratical: the youth
practically, the seniors by counsel. They manage their evil deeds with a
singleness of purpose that neglects no feasible opportunity; and with a
caution that restrains from doubtful attempts, and almost secures them
from capture. They are not like the pirates of the nautical novels, who
embark in a sea-going ship, and stand by to fight it out with any
cruisers they may meet. Like cautious sportsmen, they mark down their
prey first, and do not waste powder and shot. In a breeze there is no
danger on their coast. But wo betideth the trabaccalo or short-handed
merchantman that may happen to be becalmed in their sight. Incontinent
they launch their boats,--terrible vessels that hold twenty or thirty
armed men besides the rowers, and cleave their irresistible course
towards the motionless and defenceless victim. On such occasions it is
only by rare hap that any individual survives to tell the tale and cry
for vengeance. And how shall this cry be satisfied? The bloody work is
no sooner over than its traces are obliterated and the community
restored to the appearance of inoffensiveness: the boats are pulled up
on shore, the crews dispersed. Should an avenger arrive on the spot, he
finds the miserable huts either deserted or tenanted by women and old
men. How can these be made to suffer for other men's offences, or forced
to give information which they declare themselves not to possess?
The same dissatisfaction must be confessed with Previsa Salonica, that
place of steady disrespectability, which has maintained its bad
character since the apostolic days, and even with Constantinople. This
last is a gem of the earth, but, its beauties are to a great extent
those of civilised elaboration. Courtiers form but one species, and
breathe pretty much the same atmosphere throughout the world. He who has
studied them throughout the world has marked only the circumstantial
differences of locality producing their effect on a spring of action,
itself one and constant. To search out and know this principle it may be
useful to visit foreign courts; but Man, beyond the exhibition of this
one phase of character, does not flourish in such places. If the best
place of observation be not actually the wilderness, because that too is
as extensive, calling forth necessarily particular energies, and
exhibiting to a great extent one effect, we may take favourable ground
somewhere midway between the extremes. It is to the heart and centre of
a country that we should go for the vigorous current of its life. Here
the colour is vivid, the speciality preserved, the family features of
our brethren distinguishable.
I suppose it was some such profound rumination as this that suggested to
my two friends and myself the idea of the cruise hereinafter to be
recorded. All three were right travel-smitten, a state of mind which
marvellously thrives on slight nourishment. We had had substantial food
in this way, and were proportionately vigorous in enterprise. We had
seen at odd times a good deal of our friends the Turks, but it had been
chiefly of the vagabonds near the coast. Into all sorts of queer creeks
and corners had we found our way in boat expeditions, that most capital
mode of adventure; though rather ticklish for those who are not pretty
strong in numbers. So had we dug into the sinuosities of Greece, of
which both eastern and western borders were familiar to us; and it is
not a little that I would take for my Horace, which I bore with me up
the Ambracian Gulf, and which bears over the "_nunc est bibendum_" the
note of my personal presence off Actium. Pleasant, too, are the
recollections of our visit to Nicopolis, the mighty monument of this
victory, now serving, as all things earthly must one day serve, to
display the victory of time. We were forced to walk on this occasion, as
to have touched a saddle or animal would have exposed us to the
penalties of quarantine. Our good friend Achmet walked before with a
long stick, booming the people off, who shrank from our contact right
and left, as if we had been the lords of the soil, or as if it had been
_they_, instead of us, who had to fear the plague-compromising touch.
And then when we returned hungry as hunters from our march, full of
ready forgiveness for any faults of cookery, what a banquet was that
which consular hospitality had prepared! Oh, the jocosity of that
breakfast, which was in the open air, because we could not go into the
house, where we could take nothing from, and could give nothing to, the
ladies, but had to keep them at most respectful distance, and be civil
under the control of a vigilant _guardiano_.
There is no mode of travelling which can possibly be compared to this
boat-work. The scope of such proceeding is certainly, by comparison,
confined; but, so far as it goes, nothing is to be mentioned in the same
day with it--that is, so far as comfort is concerned. Places even inland
may be visited in this way, for almost any where a horse or two can be
mustered, and the craft left in charge of her crew. What a difference
between turning into your own berth at night, and affording the
amusement one does on shore to the Hellenic vermin. One good joke in
this way happened to me once upon a time, showing what quarters
travellers may stumble upon even with the best recommendations. A large
party of us had started, particularly recommended by letter from the
consular agent of a place that shall be nameless, to no less a person
than the Demarch of a high-sounding Greek town, who was to do every
thing for us in the way of billeting. By great exertion, and with aching
bones, we managed to reach this place after night-fall, prolonging, for
its hope's sake, our course through a most break-neck road, and through
unseen but clamorous numbers of their wolf-like dogs. At last we came up
with a miserable shed, which proved to be the mansion of the great man.
Of course we should have looked for no other floor but the mudden one we
found, had it not been for our magnificent recommendation, which
warranted the expectation of a suite of apartments. But the floor was so
packed with goods and chattels, affording the most comfortable roosting
for the fleas, and with children who brought in ever-fresh collections
to the stock, that among the many undelectable nights we passed, none
equalled in horrors that one of official introduction and high classical
association. And such is pretty generally the hap of him who ventures to
pass the night in one of those habitations where sweeping and washing
remain exotics, and where the [Greek: autochthones] acquire impenetrable
skins. Now, all this sort of thing you avoid in a boat, besides
converting the mere locomotion from a frequent punishment into a
delight: always supposing, be it remembered, that you have not to beat
your way home up the Sinus Saronicus against a tempest. But the old
story of the rose and the thorn comes in here too. By land you are
exposed to the miseries of your nightly quarterings: by sea you may
rejoice your heart with the beauties with which Nature rejoices to
adorn, many of which she reserves for, the coast, and plunge each
morning into the brine with an unsmarting skin; and if you be a genuine
lover of the picturesque, you will be no less eager to seek it among the
fantasies of human society than among the rocks and crags of a
landscape.
So thought I and my two friends as we sat smoking the chibouque of
reflection, at that best of Smyrna's cafés, on the French quay. We were
unanimous on the conclusion that Smyrna had no earthly right to the
title of a Turkish city, except the accident of its happening to be in
Turkey. You may go half over the place and meet not a single Turk,
except those wonderful fellows, the porters, whose Herculean powers have
been so often noticed; or perhaps friend Hassan, the chief of the
police, making a progress, with some couple of grim attendants. In fact,
in the motley of its society, if any one colour prevail, it is that of
France: for among all decent people her language is spoken, and in all
reunions of pretension, her colonists are the more numerous body. The
Greeks, to be sure, are in great plenty, but they occupy chiefly the
lower grades. And as it so happens that the Sisters of Charity have here
an establishment, and maintain, with much ability and diligence, a
female school, the only one in the place--and that the Lazarists are
equally sedulous in their province, it seems not unlikely that Smyrna
will become entirely French in spirit, so far as the upper classes are
concerned. At present the mixture only savours strongly of the Gallic
ingredient. And a most agreeable mixture it makes, affording the blended
essences of many nations. Few who have seen much of that society can
entertain its reflection without pleasure; and all are wise to make the
most of its image, as the wide world affords no twin establishment.
Coming from many parts of Europe, the colonists have, by the influences
of climate and association, been blended into a general assimilation of
character, yet retaining the one or two salient points of nationality.
Their physiognomies express the wild influences of Ionia; and it would
be vain to seek in their native countries such beautiful specimens of
French or Italian women (I except Englishwomen) as are to be found in
this birth-place of poetry. It is a city of wonderful linguists, for the
necessities of intercourse demand at least three, and in many cases
four, languages: Greek with the servants, Italian with the shop-keepers,
and French among the polished. Many of them possess more than this
number, and truly wonderful it is to see them turn from one guest to
another in their pleasant assemblies, and to each address the tongue of
his proper country. The same causes that loosened the vowels and
softened the utterance of the old Greek in Ionia, have dipped in honey
the tongues of the modern Levantines; and whatever they be speaking it
is always mellifluously. It is no less true that the old grace of these
shores revives in the persons of the ladies, and gives a Lydian softness
to all that they do. Whether you mark the Armenian matron, languid from
her siesta, seeking the breeze at her lattice; or the more active Frank
maiden at the hour of her evening promenade, you are ever struck with
the idea of grace and poetry. But chiefly is it pleasant to mark them
when the unruffled sea, and cloudless moon, invite them to wander on the
marina, and embark on the waters--when the hot sun has persecuted the
day, and evening first allowed to breathe freely. There is the bay alive
with boats, and resonant of music and laughter, and the shore alive with
gay promenaders. There are certain seasons when it might be presumed
that the Smyrnists divorce night from sleep; for often have I listened
to the cheerful sound till long past midnight, and still has some
passing boat brought music to contribute to my dreams. Or, take your
hat, and wander forth at evening to the banks of Meles, where Homer
sang--whose waters have washed the feet of the epic father, and say
whether Homer's self would not acknowledge these groups as worthy of the
soil.
Now this is all pleasant exceedingly, but to enjoy this sort of thing
sustainedly one should not have an English constitution. We are a
phlegmatic set, to whom such zests should be dealt out
homoeopathically: else do we soon begin to criticise and take
exceptions. Now it so happens that we had entered upon the experience of
this delectability with every good disposition towards it, but a still
better disposition towards the getting beyond it if we could, that we
might see something of the real state of the people. We soon voted
Smyrna a bore, as was likely with those who in coming thither had been
bent on using it only as a stepping-stone to get farther. But this was
more easily said than done with us, who were travellers not for our own
fancy's sake, but in the service of her most gracious Majesty. Had we
been simply unfettered, our will was good to have started directly
coastward, and to have explored those vast tracts of Asia Minor, of so
much of which nothing is known. The country between the coast and the
western border of Persia, explored in a direct line, not going towards
Eszeroun, and a divergence southward towards and about Caramania, would
be a fine field for travel. We could well afford to receive some
addition to our knowledge of the central parts of Asia Minor, and I
should like right well to be one of two bound to the borders of lake
Van, to pay a visit to the Armenian patriarch. But such an expedition
would take a deal of time and of money. Now we had but the short
interval of time at our disposal, during which it was judged that
Britannic interests might suffer our absence without detriment. Happily
for us, we knew that foreign infection was but skin deep in this
country; so that, although the curious recesses were beyond our reach,
we might, by a comparatively short expedition, arrive at the texture and
substance of the mass. Two cities invited us, Aidin, and Magnesia, both
of which are, as nearly as possible, free from foreigners: for the
rajahs, though they be Christians, are not, of course, to be considered
foreign to that soil, in which they have been implanted since before its
occupation by the Turks. In Magnesia, so far as we could discover, there
dwelt but a single Frank, who was consular agent for England, as he was,
probably, for half-a-dozen other European powers, an office little
likely to be useful or needful in the case of personal protection to
distressed wanderers, but no doubt not without value as a commercial
relationship. Magnesia also is interesting, because it is the seat of
the great Carasman, Oglû Pascha, a name to which are attached little
less than royal honours. He is one of the great hereditary dignitaries
of the kingdom, who, from olden time, and till but a few years ago, used
to be almost kings within their territory. At the command of the Sultan,
these men used to bring into the field enormous bodies of cavalry,
raised by themselves, forming the staple of the Ottoman armies; and Mr.
Slade, in his book on Turkey, places the alterations of Mahmoud with
respect to these Beys among the prominent causes of the decay of the
Ottoman empire.
The vote passed in favour of Magnesia; partly because we expected in
that place to find, through the good offices of the consular agent,
decent quarters in some Greek house. The question of ways and means
remained. The ordinary mode of conducting these proceedings is through
the ministry of a _Kawash_ or guide; a person whose assistance is
generally considered indispensable, in a country where one neither knows
the roads, nor can exchange a word of inquiry with the people. But this
plan was little suited to our taste, as we knew by experience that these
men are apt to assume the absolute control of their parties. In this
respect they are no worse than the other whole tribe of ciceroni, who
assuredly are among the greatest bores that necessity imposes. If they
would confine themselves to leading the way, and interpreting, and rest
contented with solicitude for the horses, they would be useful and
endurable. S---- forewent for a moment his amber mouthpiece to give us
his experience and opinion.
"These _kawashes_ are greater plagues on a journey than a pebble in the
shoe. When I was a youngster on board the Blanche, we started, a party
of us, for Aidin, under convoy of one of them with a first-rate
character. We had hardly got clear of the town when he began to take
command of us, coolly wanting to regulate our pace. We stood no
nonsense, but set off full cry, with him at our heels shouting like mad.
He was presently up with me, and caught my horse's bridle, uttering all
sorts of unintelligible exclamations. The fellow drew his yataghan, and
I really thought was going to cut my head off. However, he vented his
rage on the brute, striking him with the flat of his weapon; and it was
with difficulty I pacified him at last, by saying, 'Pasha!' several
times, and pointing forward; giving him to understand that if he did not
behave himself, I should complain to the Pasha as soon as we arrived."
"And then," said K----, "you must always battle with them for your
halting-place, if they do not happen to fancy it. If you want to go
ahead, the horses are tired; and if you want to stop, there's sure to be
some better place farther on."
I joined in the vote against subjecting ourselves to tutelage.
"But these fellows do something else besides showing the way--they
interpret. Isn't that rather a floorer for us?"
"Not a bit of it," said S----. "I'll be the [Greek: hêgemôn], for I've
been the road once before; and K---- there talks a little Turkish."
"Yes, I know the numbers, and can say '_Kateh saket_,' which means, 'how
many hours,' or 'how far to?'"
"That will do capitally; for if you say, '_Kateh saket_ Magnesia?' any
blockhead will know that you mean 'How far to Magnesia?' Besides, we all
can say, '_Salam Aleikum_,' so can do the polite as well as the
interrogative."
Reader, this was a mistake. A Mussulman loves not to hear this
salutation at the mouth of a Christian; it is the expression of a
religious wish; and when uttered by one who receives not the Korán, it
falls on the ear of a Turk as a profanation. The correct thing to say
by way of being civil is, "_A-oorahah_!"
Thus slender was the stock of language with which we started; but
perhaps we were not much worse off than we should have been had we known
a good deal more. It is all very well with our European dialects to have
a certain smattering of grammar and principle; but the hopeless
languages of the East come under a different category. Any knowledge of
their theory short of actual accuracy is nearly useless; perhaps worse
than useless, because, by beguiling the unhappy smatterer into ambitious
attempts, it cheats him of the little power he may have of rendering
himself intelligible. A man who is content with the attainment of a
certain vocabulary of substantives, in whose pronunciation he is
perfect, has much the best chance, because he can eke out the other
parts of speech by gesture. But the _attaché_ of legation, who has been
poring over their orthography, and hammering at principle, often proves
the uselessness of his acquisitions for colloquial purposes. However, we
might have done very well with a little more knowledge than we possessed
on this particular occasion.
We did not know at this time what Magnesia could do for us in the way of
an inn, though we were quite aware of the fact, that throughout the
kingdom khans are provided for the accommodation of travellers. What we
had seen in this way was very undesirable, being little more than what
might serve to minister to the comfort of the horses. In some places,
the subsiding stream of travellers has left them bare and ruined; in
others, Smyrna to wit, there is so ready entertainment elsewhere, that
the khan has become little more than a public stable yard. And here, any
time of the day, you may see tethered a collection of donkeys that would
set up all the costermongers in London, and drivers who would surely
make fortunes by their lessons, if their brethren of Hampstead possessed
ambition and gratitude. The vulgar argument of the stick may be
occasionally exhibited, but it is by the magic of a single word that the
energies of the donkey are usually aroused. And the mystery of the
training is this, that neither words nor blows are effective, except
from the initiated. Often it will happen, that after long trial of
coaxing, the meekest rider will be betrayed into the experiment of
cudgelling. It will then certainly happen, that after having cudgelled
his full, he will yield the victory to the impassible brute, and be
reduced to hope, that when he has had thistles enough, he may be induced
to move on. Suddenly there sounds behind him the exclamation of _Dêáh!
Dêáh!_ and the donkey starts into a dislocating trot. This is your true
driver's policy, to make his presence and aid indispensable. By dint of
great practice, I acquired a pretty accurate imitation of this sound,
and have practised it successfully. But the animals were quick to
discover the imposture, and to punish it by extra impassibility.
Many of the best khans or caravansaries are of royal foundation; others,
like the fountains, the monuments of departed piety. But much as we
might admire the institution, we could not feel very ambitious of
occupying a billet of so very gregarious and inexclusive character.
Besides, in these khans you must provide for yourself all that you
require in the shape of provisions; and it was too much of a good thing
to carry with us tea, and bread and butter. We clung to the hope of
finding lodging in the shade of domestic hospitality, the rather because
of our recommendation to the consular agent. A second string was added
to our bow by a worthy Armenian of Smyrna. He kindly assisted our
intention by a letter to a compatriot of his at Magnesia, of whom the
least that we could expect was, that he would receive us to the
fellowship of trencher and hearth; that is, should we present our
introduction, for, in the first instance, our purpose was to seek the
man of office.
We had some debate concerning the propriety of our going ostensibly
armed--no doubt, however, concerning the advisability of our actually
being armed. In those desolate tracts, where you may ride pretty well
all day and meet no wayfarer, except some lone camel-driver, riding at
the head of his long string of animals, it is impossible to say what
contingencies may be your hap. It is, to say the least, a locality where
thieves might have things pretty much their own way; for the
guard-houses, scattered throughout the routes, are far from being within
hail of each other, and far from possessing the control of the road
mid-way. Nay, they are themselves tenanted by men so fierce by nature,
and so imperfectly disciplined, that some people might fear the guards
more than the robbers. They are not detachments of the regular forces,
but men taken chiefly from the Xebeques, whose manners and dress are
sufficiently distinct from those of the ordinary Turks. Each of these
detachments is placed under the control of an Agah; and on the personal
character of this officer depends the security of the district. The
prescribed discipline is necessarily strict, for any admitted relaxation
would soon lead to confusion. Especially is it enjoined that all
spirituous liquors be absolutely excluded from the guard-houses--and a
neglect of this law by the Agah is never forgiven. When intoxicated,
they are said to rage like demons, respecting no person or
thing--utterly rejecting all semblance of discipline. It will be long
before I forget the apprehensions connected with even faint symptoms in
them of approach to such a state. A party of us, with ladies among our
numbers, had halted for night at a guard-house. The spot was of the
rarest beauty--the evening such as breathes only in Ionia; cities and
men were removed out of sight and thought; and, full of poetry and
peace--the pleasing sadness we had caught on the hallowed ground of
the mighty Ephesus,--we resigned ourselves to the influence of the
moment. What was that sound of revelry that broke upon the stillness?
The mandolin tinkled--voices were heard in chorus. We got up to explore,
and found, to our consternation, that the guards of our station, having
received a visit from their brethren of the next detachment, were
holding festival on the occasion. We had previously been informed that
the Agah was absent on duty, and had left the command to his
ancient--and this we were ready to suppose was not calculated to tighten
the reins of discipline. Drinking and jollity were such natural
associates, that we feared terribly these men would be getting at
spirits--and then what did we not fear for the fair companions of our
adventure? However, to make a long story short, the men did not get
drunk, and separated peacefully after the performance of many
Terpsichorean novelties. But they taught the careless to feel that
travellers in such a country should not be without the means of defence.
It is quite true that arms may do you a bad turn, either by tempting you
to a hasty display, or by being of so costly a character as to excite
the cupidity of some ruffian. But it is just as true that any other
thing you possess may do you the like ill turn among men who would shoot
you for the value of your skin. The golden mean is to be armed usefully,
but not showily; and, above all things, to be very discreet in the
production of weapons.
The first of these laws on this particular occasion I egregiously
transgressed. My two friends were supplied with unimpeachable pistols of
their own; but I, being of peaceable disposition, had made no such
provision. A worthy friend on shore supplied the deficiency, by lending
me a pair of the most formidable weapons one would wish to see. They
were of the old style of theatrical horse-pistols, as long nearly as a
small carbine, and beyond any ordinary man's power of holding steady.
The stocks were deeply incrusted with silver, or something that looked
very like it. The only objection to them was, that nothing could
persuade the flint to give out a spark, or induce the pan to take the
hint at the proper time. Yet though I knew them to be in fact thoroughly
useless, they contributed sensibly to my comfort, for they were most
excellent make-believes. Our steeds were supplied by our good friend
George, the Greek stable keeper, as no Turk would have let out his
animals on such an occasion without sending along with them a kawash to
look after the mad Franks. It betokened no little confidence in George,
that he allowed his horses to be taken away, whither and for how long he
know not.
It is a noble climate where you can start of a fine morning, with a
certainty that the weather will continue and fulfil its promise. One
starts light without any wrappings, or any thing more than he has on.
One _tescharé_, or passport, was our luggage for three. Our first little
adventure was about this same _tescharé_. It is to be got, as are all
things in this land, only through the medium of interpreters and
kawashs. A first-rate bore it is to be in all matters of business
subjected to the ministration of these gentry: and what a pity it is
that some steady Englishmen will not qualify themselves to fulfil their
functions. But, from the most important diplomatic negotiations down to
the most trivial matter of convenience, procedure can only be had
through such agency: at least almost without exception at present,
whatever revolutions may lurk in the recent studies of the _attachés_ at
Constantinople.
Mahmoud, the Janissary--by the way it is odd that they should call this
consular body-guard of one by such a name--brought us the document, and
then, of course, stood by to pocket his _backshish_. We were then making
our final preparations for the start, laying in a little personal
provender at the _restaurant_ in Frank Street, at the door of which
stood our animals, saddled and impatient.
"Give him his tip," we said to S----, who had been installed pay-master
for the nonce.
A smile and a coin were forthwith presented to the functionary. "Bow,
wow, wow," or something like it, uttered by our Mahometan friend, made
us look up, and we saw him unaccepting and unsmiling. "Why, thou greedy
varlet," (friend, the words were innocuous, because unintelligible,)
"'tis by so much exactly too much for thee."
It is an amusing thing to have a dispute where words will not second
energy. Such a scene have I noted more than once, as a fine
psychological demonstration. You abuse a guide or a donkey driver in a
language he does not understand, for disobeying directions that he did
not understand, word or particle. The whole thing is absurd, and as a
man of sense you ought to be philosophical. But when I have noted you in
such case, and seen that you do not lose your temper, nor abuse the
offender in round English, I will set you down as of placid temperament.
Mahmoud growled, and looked as if he would fain have resumed the paper,
or abducted the horses; and thus it was with the interchange of such
pleasantries, and followed by his good wishes, that we started.
"Bravo," said K----; "we start with a row, we shall be all right
presently."
And now stoop well your head and keep your eyes open as you turn the
corner into the Armenian quarter. These houses that make such beautiful
streets, are ticklish things to ride by. They all project forward,
having the upper story supported by a kind of flying buttress. These are
at no great height from the ground, so that an unbending horseman
passing under, would infallibly knock his head against the corner of one
of their first floors. But chiefly on donkeys is this risk
noticeable--the stubborn brutes which it is much the fashion to ride,
and whom none but the drivers can guide. On entering Smyrna by
night--those dull streets where gas is not--your only plan is to keep
well in the middle of the street, right in the hollow. It is a beautiful
quarter of the town; in itself picturesque and variegated in colour, and
beset with the fairest embellishments. Look up at that lattice for a
moment only, and then prick your way again. Did you see those lustrous
eyes and graceful head-dress? The sun is now high, and these stars
twinkle but from lattices. Pass this way at even, and you shall see them
congregated in brilliancy. They are not of the retiring nature that
shuns observation. They sit congregated round every door wooing the
breeze. Supper is spread in the spacious halls, beyond which the open
doors give to view a perspective of garden. Nay, you may stop and
stare--the men are occupied with their pipes, and the women are not
offended at admiration.
Right interesting are these Armenians, of whom the men have all the
riches, and the women all the beauty (at least unveiled and cognisable)
of Turkey. They have lost all trace of the active spirit that in an age
of iron kept them busy in the _melée_ of nations. Their gravest senior
would stare unintelligent were you to speak to him of Tiridates, or the
Romans: and with their thoughts of Persia no ideas of tyranny are mixed;
no stirring of the ancient spirit that kept them faithful in an ocean of
foes, and rendered their land a continued battle-field. They give no
signs of intelligence if you challenge them on the subject of Eutychus,
by whose arch heresy they suffered severance from Catholicity, and in
whose dogmas they live. They are a quiet, matter-of-fact, business-like
people--the bankers and capitalists of the kingdom. Their mode of
existence under the shadow of the Sultan's mercy, but without national
representation or protection, has subdued them to a condition of patient
endurance, and killed the energy of their nature. They are quiet, fat,
and lethargic, reserving their anxieties for money-getting.
There might be to fiery spirits something humiliating in the dress to
which they are so anxious to acquire the right: the huge and ugly cap
which bespeaks them to be under some particular foreign protection, as
the case may be, which is their only safeguard against all sorts of
oppression. But where nationality is a mere idea without embodiment, it
soon becomes as a dream. The Armenian is content to be endured and
protected. Meanwhile he is not without a sort of national ambition; but
it is of a new kind for him. They believe themselves to be the most
ancient of people, retaining the original language that was spoken
before the dispersion of Babel, and by consequence the identical
language that was spoken by Adam. An interesting excursion might be made
on this subject, seemingly so far at variance with the conclusions of
learned ethnographers. Their deductions are from undoubted facts, and
tend to their conclusion with a force that some philologists at least
have considered irresistible.
Through the Armenian quarter our road lay onward for a short distance by
the banks of Miles. It is but an insignificant stream, of scarcely
sufficient tide to turn a mill; but in no better case are Ilissus and
Cephissus found to be in the present day. The shade of Socrates still
seems to linger over the Attic streamlet, swelling its puny tide to the
capacity of the loftiest musings of the humanized; and the memory of
Homer is wedded to these waters of Meles. The critics who would disprove
the existence of the bard, and assign the different members of his
compositions to numerous anonymous authors, or to indefinite traditions,
would find this no vantage ground. The influences of the place would
abash their contumacy. There is something poetical even now about the
locality. The stream flows through the Armenian quarter, passing by a
short course to the well-known Caravan-bridge, and thence into the open
country. At pretty well all hours of the day, groups of nymphs may be
seen washing clothes in the waters, exhibiting _tableaux vivans_ of
Nausicaa and her maidens. No vulgar washerwomen are these with
corrugated hands at reeking tubs, but such as painters and poets might
celebrate. Washing is with them a pastime, and an elegance: their
laundry a studio of art. They go right into the water, and splash about
their things like naiads sporting; and anon returning to the bank, put
forth their little strength in beating out the clothes. It would be rash
to say that the process is so effectual as our more homely method; but
it is at least pretty to look at. At evening the banks of the stream
assume another appearance. Gay crowds promenade, and cavalcades linger;
people of many nations congregate to unbend the brow laden with the
cares of the day. Fathers muse, maidens gambol, and matrons chide.
A little farther on, and we come to Caravan-bridge,--of all Smyrna's
objects, perhaps the one best known by reputation. It has its name from
the number of caravans that, entering Smyrna from the interior, have to
pass over it. And see, there is at this moment a string of camels in the
way, so that we may as well halt in this convenient shade till they be
gone by. That little Ethiopian will look after our horses, and Ali will
bring us coffee and chibouques in a twinkling. See how pleasantly these
trees overshadow our resting-place, and how the gliding of the water,
here a broader and more rapid stream, seems to cool our very thoughts.
This is the great picnic place for the citizens--a sort of Turkish
Vauxhall. Yet what a difference between the orderly composure of these
holiday makers, and the noisy mirth of our own compatriots. These folks
take their _kef_, as they do every thing else, quietly. Here you may see
hundreds of revellers, and not a drunkard among them. Perhaps the repose
of the scene draws some of its influence from those sombre burying
grounds, of which two are just opposite. No where is such truth of
funereal effect preserved as in this country. Père la Chaise, and all
European cemeteries are puerile in comparison. The stately evergreen
which they have consecrated to the overshadowing of the dead fulfils the
idea of solemnity and awe. There is effect in the manner in which the
simple head-stones are planted together, with no separation of rails, no
interspersion of pretending sarcophagi. All have returned to their dust,
and have put off the ephemeral distinctions of life; they have returned
to the bosom of their mother, where there is no aristocracy, and slumber
as brethren till they shall be awakened to new distinctions.
This is a place where at odd times many a pleasant hour may be passed.
It is such a thoroughfare, (at least the bridge, though you are in the
shade by its side, well out of the bustle,) that there is always
something passing worthy of notice. It is also a capital place to
practise the language, if you have any of it to expend. You see the
strangest figures entering from the interior with their merchandise,
which is all diligently examined by the officer of the customs here
posted. It is a singular thing that the long trains of camels are
invariably headed by a donkey; who takes the lead as coolly as if it
were quite in order that such an insignificant brute should drag after
him some five hundred animals, each big enough to eat him. The
Caravandgis might be supposed to come all from one locality, so strong
is the family likeness subsisting between them. Perhaps they actually
do, for this hereditary disposition of employments is quite according to
the genius of the nation. They are short, stout, little men, with round
smooth faces, especially stolid in expression. They dress in the old
style, never wearing the fez; and sure we ought to take the portrait of
one of them, were it only for the sake of their boots. Such buckets are
not often worn, and to pedestrians would be impracticable. But these men
do not walk: seated on their donkeys, they jog on at the head of the
caravan, bearing the merchandise of Asia through wildernesses where the
foot of man is strange. With man they have little communion, and with
nature they have little sympathy, or their soulless visages belie them.
Life to them must be a blended experience of tobacco and camel's bells.
I have marked them at night, when arrived at their journey's end, and
bivouacking in the midst of their animals. The brutes formed a circular
rampart, in the centre of which reclined the men. It was a desolate
spot, such as generally disposes men to sociability with the stray
fellow-creature or two who may happen to have been led to the same
point; and here were two or three fellow-countrymen of the drivers. But
they took no notice of their neighbours; they performed their
prostrations, they disposed of their supper, and coiled themselves up to
rest. If they rose for a moment, it was to look after some restless
camel; and early in the morning, long before the sun, when I turned out,
they were departed to a more remote solitude. But now the road is clear,
and we make a start of it, leaving the town fairly behind.
"Stop, my men," said J----; "look at your horses' feet."
"What's that for?"
"We shall pass never another smithy this livelong day; and should a
screw be loose in any of their shoes, it would be rather a bring up for
us." Sage and sound advice for those who have a long ride before them;
which yet at this time of our need we rejected; and for which I
afterwards suffered. Awakening to a sense of my error, I did afterwards
make a divergence to a village by the way; but there found no artist,
and in the course of the day I learned fully to appreciate the
importance of a nail in time. By the way, the shoes hereabout are of a
peculiar kind, composed of a plate that entirely covers the hoof. They
are at least effective in preventing the infraction of pebbles.