VII

It was at least as agreeable to starve on the non-proceeds of landscape

painting as on those of journalism, and when nothing in the way of meat

and drink was to be got out of either, it was only a choice as to the

form of euthanasia. I guessed I could make no money out of painting;

but I knew by practical experience that there was nothing to be made by

journalism.

I was daubing in a friend's chambers when the angel of opportunity came.

He appeared in the form of an American gentleman with a fur collar and

an astonishing Massachusetts accent. War had been actually declared

between Russia and Turkey a week or two before. The Russians were

already at Giurgevo, building a bridge of boats with intent to cross the

Danube, and the Turks were gathered in force at Rustchuk and Schumla.

So much I knew from I the newspapers, but no further intelligence of the

opening campaign had reached me.

My visitors card announced him as Colonel ------, and he bore a letter

of introduction from the representative of a leading New York journal.

He was himself in London as the representative of a newspaper published

in Chicago, and in the course of a five minutes' conversation he told me

that he was in search of a young, healthy, and enterprising journalist

who was willing to risk his life for the honour of his craft, and a

rather considerable sum per column for copy delivered at the office

of the newspaper of which he made himself the flying herald, The only

engagement I had in the world was to breakfast with a man on Sunday

morning, and that I waived instantly. An immediate 40L. was put into my

hands; an arrangement was made that on calling at the American Embassy

at Vienna I should receive more, and that at the bank at Constantinople

I should find a sum of two hundred sterling on arrival. With this

understanding I started for the seat of war at seven o'clock on the

following morning, and in due course found myself at Vienna. There I

tried, in pursuance of instructions, for an interview with the Turkish

Ambassador, who steadfastly declined to see me. I made certain necessary

preparations, and called at the bank half a dozen times over. There was

no hint or sign of my Chicago friend; and possibly if I had been more

experienced than I was I might have at once taken warning and returned

home. As things were at the time no such idea entered my head; and when,

after a delay of two days, half the promised money reached me, I took

ticket gladly for Trieste, and embarked on a Messageries Maritimes boat

for Constantinople.

It was the twelfth of May of that year when we set sail down the

Adriatic, and I had never seen anything so heavenly beautiful as the

coast and sea. We were five days on our journey; and now, when I have

travelled the wide world over, have seen most of its show places, and

have made myself familiar with exotic beauties of the landscape and

seascape sort, I can recall nothing like that five days' dream of

heaven. Perhaps the fact that I was going to look at war for the

first time, and had some premonition of its horrors, made the placid

loveliness of the Mediterranean more charming and exquisite by a kind

of foreseen contrast. But I do not remember to have beheld (and I do not

think I shall fail to remember it all till the day I die) anything so

beautiful as the far-off islands that lifted their purple heads as we

steamed through the Piraeus, and the long-drawn wonderful panoramic

splendours of the Mediterranean sunsets. I have travelled in many ships

since then, and have never missed the inevitable fool. There is always

a fool aboard ship; and I remember one day when we were within sight of

Corfu that the fool who was our local property for the moment touched me

on the shoulder as I hung over the bows, and pointed to the island.

'They say that's land,' said he, 'but you d think it was a sweetmeat.

Looks good to eat, doesn't it? It's like them biled violet things in

sugar that they sell in Paris.'

I was all on fire to see the interior of my first Eastern city, and when

I saw the domes and minarets of Constantinople actually before me, the

traveller's instinct was quickened to a passion. We got in at sundown,

and behind the picturesque roofs of the town lay an amber and crimson

mystery of light, which was half-obscured by the smoke and steam of a

score or two of vessels. The whole scene looked like a smeared landscape

from the hand of Turner. He, at least, would have seen to it that the

colour was clear; but Nature is very often behind the artist, and the

effect was grossly muddy and untransparent.

In common with the rest of the world I had heard of baksheesh, but until

then I never understood its magic power. A huge functionary took charge

of my trunk and portmanteau, and impounded them so decisively in the

name of the law that I had made up my mind to see neither of them any

more. The captain of the boat whispered in my ear that a mejidieh

would do it, I tried a French five-franc piece! which proved instantly

efficacious; and a minute or two later I was on shore at Galata, astride

a donkey whose tail was industriously twisted round by his driver,

and who was followed by an unequally laden brother ass, who bore my

portmanteau on one flank and my trunk upon another.

We scrambled up the stony road towards the main street of Pera. The city

had looked like a Turneresque dream from the outside, but known from

within it was the home of ugliness, and of stinks innumerable. The

yellow dogs tripped the feet as often as the abominable pavement, and

seemed as immovable and as much a part of the road itself. Now and again

in the side streets a whole horde howled like a phalanx of advancing

wolves; but they were outside the parish of the brutes who encumbered

the roadway I had to travel, and though the noise of war was near,

the canine regiment not actually called to fight rested immobile, its

members suffering themselves to be kicked by foot passengers, trodden on

by cattle, and rolled over by wheels with an astonishing stolidity.

We reached the hotel in time for an admirable dinner--the precursor of

many admirable meals, whose only fault was that they were built too much

on one pattern. We were served, as I recall too well, with tomato soup,

red mullet, quail, tomato farcie, and cutlet. Next morning at breakfast

came red mullet, quail, and tomato farcie. At luncheon came red mullet,

quail, tomato farcie, and cutlet At dinner came tomato soup, red mullet,

tomato farcie, quail, and cutlet. It was a charming menu--for once:

but when we had gone on with it for a week my travelling companions and

myself grew a little weary of it, and would fain have found a change.

Poor Campbell--Schipka Campbell we called him afterwards--had arrived

with an earlier boatload of adventurers and was staying at the Hôtel de

Misserie. Captain Tiburce Morrisot, of the Troisième Chasseurs, stayed

at the Byzance; and we three made a party together to dine at Valori's

and to escape the eternal red mullet, tomato farcie, and quail.

We found there an astonishing German waiter who seemed, more or less,

to speak every language under heaven. There were in the café Greeks,

Italians, Spaniards, Turks, Bulgars, Germans, Frenchmen, and Englishmen,

and people, for aught I know, of half a dozen other nationalities; and

the head waiter addressed each and all of these in turn in any language

which might be addressed to him. One of us asked him with how many

tongues he was familiar, and he answered, with an apologetic aspect,

'Onily twelf.' What could we have for dinner? 'Fery good dinner,

gentlemen. There is red mullet, there is tomato farcie, there is qvail,'

We elected finally to dine on something which was announced as roast

beef and looked suspiciously like horse. Anything was better than that

eternal round of delicacies which had grown to be so tiresome. The

city was in a state of siege, and every ramble along the street was

productive of interest and amusement--sometimes of a rather striking

sort. I had only been there some three or four days when, in the course

of a morning stroll, I found myself in front of the Wallach Serai. The

footpaths were lined pretty thickly with loungers who had stood to watch

the march-past of a regiment of Zeibecks. The bare-legged ruffians, with

their amazing beehive hats and their swagging belly-bands crammed

with the antique weapons with which their ancestors had stormed Genoa,

straggled past in any kind of order they chose to adopt and made their

way towards the Sweet Waters of Europe, by whose shores they were

destined to encamp. When they were all gone and the stagnant tide of

passage was revived there came by an old Hoja, a holy man, dressed in

green robe and caftan and wearing yellow slippers--self-proclaimed as

one who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca. He was followed by a very

small donkey laden with panniers. By my side on the footwalk stood a

Circassian who had been flourishing in the air, whilst the troops

went by, a formidable-looking yataghan, and had been cheering in some

language of which I did not understand a syllable.

This man was now standing, with an admiring crowd about him, licking

the back of his wrist and shaving off the hair that grew there by way

of showing the edge and temper of his weapon. It must have been set as

finely as a razor, and, like a razor, it was broad-backed and finely

bevelled. Just as the old Hoja went by, and the placid little donkey

followed at his heels, the Circassian stepped into the horse-road, gave

the weapon a braggadocio swing, and at a single blow divided the head of

the poor little ass from the body as cleanly as any dandy swordsman of

the Guards will sever a hanging sheep. The head fell plump; but for a

second or two the body stood, spouting a vivid streak of scarlet from

the neck, and then toppled over. The old green-clad Hoja turned at the

noise made by the crowd, saw the blood-stained sword waving behind him,

understood at a glance what had happened, and shuffled on as fast as his

yellow pantoufles would carry him.