Soul of Sappho, if, to-night,
When my boat is drifting near
Your fair island, spirit bright--
If I sing, and if you hear,
From your island in the sea,
Soul of Sappho, speak to me.
Soul of Sappho, they have said
That your hair, a heap of gold,
Made a halo for your head;
And your eyes, I have been told,
Were like stars. Oh, from the sea,
Soul of Sappho, speak to me!
Constantinople may be considered as the end of the railway system of
the earth. Here, if you wish to see more of the Orient, you must take
to the sea. There is, to be sure, a projected railway out of the
Sultan's city into the interior, but only completed to Angora, three
hundred and sixty-five miles. The intention of the projectors was to
continue the road down to Bagdad, on the river Tigris, through which
they could reach the Persian Gulf.
[Illustration: SACRED DOGS, CONSTANTINOPLE.]
I had arranged to go to Angora, but found a ten-days' quarantine five
miles out of Constantinople, and backed into town, and then made an
effort to secure from the office of the titled German who stands for
the railway company, some idea of the road, its prospects, probable
cost, and estimated earnings, but had my letters returned without a
line.
To show them that I was acting in good faith, and willing to pay for
what I got, I went with Vincent, the guide (the only guide I ever
had), and asked them for some printed matter or photographs, or
anything that would throw a little light along the line of their
plague-stricken railway; but they still refused to talk. No wonder it
has taken these dreamers ten years to build three hundred and sixty
miles of very cheap railroad.
It was my misfortune to fall into a little old Austrian-Lloyd steamer
called the "Daphne." Before we lifted anchor in the Golden Horn I
learned that her boilers had not been overhauled for ten years; and
before we reached the Dardanelles I concluded that the sand had not
been changed in the pillows for a quarter of a century. I have slept
in the American Desert for a period of thirty nights, between the
earth and the heavens, and found a better bed than was made by the
ossified mattress and petrified pillows of the "Daphne." It was bad
enough to breathe the foul air that came up from the camping pilgrims
on the main deck; but the first day out we learned that these ugly
Armenians, greasy Greeks, and buggy Bedouins would be allowed to come
up on the promenade deck and mingle with those who had paid for
first-class passage. Poorly clad, half-starved, poverty-stricken
people, headed for the Holy Land, came and rubbed elbows with American
and European women and children. Of course one sympathizes with these
poor, miserable people, but one does not want their secrets.
[Illustration: THE RAILROAD STATION AT CONSTANTINOPLE.]
We left the Bosporus at twilight, crossed the Sea of Marmora during
the night, and the next morning were at Gallipoli, where the
bird-seeds come from. The day broke beautifully, and the little sea
was as calm as a summer lake. By ten o'clock we were drifting down the
Dardanelles, which resembles a great river, for the land is always
near on either side.
The ship's doctor, who was my guide, at every landing-place kindly
pointed out the many points of interest.
"Those pyramids over there," he would say, "were erected by the Turks,
to commemorate a victory. Here is where Byron swam the sea from Europe
to Asia; and over there is where King Midas lived, whose touch turned
piastres to napoleons, and flounders to goldfish. Here, to the left,
on that hill, stood ancient Troy."
All things seemed to work together to make the day a most enjoyable
one, and just at nightfall the doctor came to me and said:
"See that island over there? That was the home of Sappho."
An hour later we anchored in a little natural harbor, and five of us
went ashore. Besides the ship's doctor (whose uniform was a sufficient
passport for all), there were in our party a Pole and a
Frenchman--both inspectors of revenue for the Turkish government, and
splendid fellows--a Belgian, and the writer. We entered a _café_
concert, where one man and five or six girls sat in a sort of balcony
at one end of the building and played at "fiddle." The main hall was
filled with small tables, at which were Greeks, Arabs, Armenians,
Turks, and negroes as black as a hole in the night. Between acts the
girls were expected to come down, distribute themselves about, and
consume beer and other fluid at the expense of the frequenters.
The girls were nearly all Germans, plain, honest, tired-looking
creatures, who seemed half embarrassed at seeing what they call
Europeans. One very pretty girl, with peachy checks, who, as we
learned, had for several evenings been in the habit of drinking beer
with a Greek, sat this evening with a dark Egyptian, almost jet-black.
The Greek--a hollow-chested, long-haired fellow--came in, and, the
moment he saw the girl with the chalk-eyed Egyptian, turned red, then
white, and then whipping out a pistol levelled it at the girl. Nearly
all the lights went out, and the girl dropped from the chair. When the
smoke and excitement cleared away, it was found that the bullet had
only parted the girl's hair, and she was able to take her fiddle and
beer when time was called.
At midnight we were rowed back to the boat, with all the poetry
knocked out of the isle of Sappho, hoisted anchor, and steamed away.
On the whole, however, the day had been most delightful. To me there
are no fairer stretches of water for a glorious day's sail than the
Dardanelles.
When we dropped anchor again, ten hours later, it was at Smyrna, the
garden of Asia Minor. Here I went ashore with my faithful guide the
doctor, and found a real railway.