CHAPTER X.
Position of Smyrna.--Consular Privileges.--The Case of the Lover.--End of the Love Affair.--The Missionary"s Wife.--The Casino.--Only a Greek Row.--Rambles in Smyrna.--The Armenians.--Domestic Enjoyments.
BUT I must go back a little, and make the amende honourable, for, in truth, Ghiaour Ismir, or Infidel Smyrna, with its wild admixture of European and Asiatic population, deserves better than the rather cavalier notice contained in my letter.
Before reaching it I had remarked its exceeding beauty of position, chosen as it is with that happy taste which distinguished the Greeks in selecting the sites of their ancient cities, on the declivity of a mountain running down to the sh.o.r.e of the bay, with houses rising in terraces on its sides; its domes and minarets, interspersed with cypresses, rising above the tiers of houses, and the summit of the hill crowned with a large solitary castle. It was the first large Turkish city I had seen, and it differed, too, from all other Turkish cities in the strong foothold obtained there by Europeans. Indeed, remembering it as a place where often, and within a very few years, upon a sudden outbreaking of popular fury, the streets were deluged with Christian blood, I was particularly struck, not only with the air of confidence and security, but, in fact, with the bearing of superiority a.s.sumed by the "Christian dog!" among the followers of the Prophet.
Directly on the bay is a row of large houses running along the whole front of the city, among which are seen emblazoned over the doors the arms of most of the foreign consuls, including the American. By the treaties of the Porte with Christian powers, the Turkish tribunals have no jurisdiction of matters touching the rights of foreign residents; and all disputes between these, and even criminal offences, fall under the cognizance of their respective consuls. This gives the consuls in all the maritime ports of Turkey great power and position; and all over the Levant they are great people; but at Smyrna they are far more important than amba.s.sadors and ministers at the European capitals; and, with their janisaries and their appearance on all public occasions in uniform, are looked up to by the Levantines somewhat like the consuls sent abroad under the Roman empire, and by the Turks as almost sultans.
The morning after my arrival I delivered letters of introduction to Mr.
Offley, the American consul, a native of Philadelphia, thirty years resident in Smyrna, and married to an Armenian lady, Mr. Langdon, a merchant of Boston, and Mr. Styth, of Baltimore, of the firm of Issaverdens, Styth, and Company; one to Mr. Jetter, a German missionary, whose lady told me, while her husband was reading it, that she had met me in the street the day before, and on her return home told him that an American had just arrived. I was curious to know the mark by which she recognised me as an American, being rather dubious whether it was by reason of anything praiseworthy or the reverse; but she could not tell.
I trust the reader has not forgotten the victim of the tender pa.s.sion who, in the moment of my leaving Athens, had reposed in my sympathizing bosom the burden of his hopes and fears. At the very first house in which I was introduced to the female members of the family, I found making a morning call the lady who had made such inroads upon his affections. I had already heard her spoken of as being the largest fortune, and, par consequence, the greatest belle in Smyrna, and I hailed it as a favourable omen that I accidentally made her acquaintance so soon after my arrival. I made my observations, and could not help remarking that she was by no means pining away on account of the absence of my friend. I was almost indignant at her heartless happiness, and, taking advantage of an opportunity, introduced his name, hoping to see a shade come over her, and, perhaps, to strike her pensive for two or three minutes; but her comment was a deathblow to my friend"s prospects and my mediation: "Poor M.!" and all present repeated "Poor M.!" with a portentous smile, and the next moment had forgotten his existence. I went away in the full conviction that it was all over with "Poor M.!"
and murmuring to myself, Put not your trust in woman, I dined, and in the afternoon called with my letter of introduction upon his friend the Rev. Mr. Brewer, and Mr. Brewer"s comment on reading it was about equal to the lady"s "Poor M.!" He asked me in what condition I left our unfortunate friend. I told him his _leg_ was pretty bad, though he continued to hobble about; but Mr. Brewer interrupted me; he did not mean his leg, but, he hesitated and with reluctance, as if he wished to avoid speaking of it outright, added, _his mind_. I did not comprehend him, and, from his hesitation and delicacy, imagined that he was alluding to the lover"s heart; but he cleared the matter up, and to my no small surprise, by telling me that, some time before he left Smyrna, "Poor M." had shown such strong marks of aberration of intellect, that his friends had deemed it advisable to put him under the charge of a brother missionary and send him home, and that they hoped great benefit from travel and change of scene. I was surprised, and by no means elevated in my own conceit, when I found that I had been made the confidant of a crazy man. Mr. Hill, not knowing of any particular intimacy between us, and probably not wishing to publish his misfortune unnecessarily, had not given me the slightest intimation of it, and I had not discovered it. I had considered his communication to me strange, and his general conduct not less so, but I had no idea that it was anything more than the ordinary derangement which every man is said to labour under when in love. I then told Mr. Brewer my story, and the commission with which I was intrusted, which he said was perfectly characteristic, his malady being a sort of monomania on the subject of the tender pa.s.sion; and every particle of interest which I might nevertheless have taken in the affair, in connecting his derangement in some way with the lady in question, was destroyed by the volatile direction of his pa.s.sion, sometimes to one object and sometimes with another; and in regard to the lady to whom I was accredited, he had never shown any penchant toward her in particular, and must have given me her name because it happened to be the first that suggested itself at the moment of his unburdening himself to me. Fortunately, I had not exposed myself by any demonstrations in behalf of my friend, so I quietly dropped him. On leaving Mr. Brewer I suggested a doubt whether I could be regarded as an acquaintance upon the introduction of a crazy man; but we had gone so far that it was decided, for that specific purpose, to admit his sanity. I should not mention these particulars if there was any possibility of their ever wounding the feelings of him to whom they refer; but he is now beyond the reach either of calumny or praise, for about a year after I heard, with great regret, that his malady had increased, accompanied with a general derangement of health; and, shortly after his return home, he died.
My intercourse with the Franks was confined princ.i.p.ally to my own countrymen, whose houses were open to me at all times; and I cannot help mentioning the name of Mr. Van Lennup, the Dutch consul, the great friend of the missionaries in the Levant, who had been two years resident in the United States, and was intimately acquainted with many of my friends at home. Society in Smyrna is purely mercantile; and having been so long out of the way of it, it was actually grateful to me once more to hear men talking with all their souls about cotton, stocks, exchanges, and other topics of _interest_, in the literal meaning of the word. Sometimes lounging in a merchant"s counting-room, I took up an American paper, and heard Boston, and New-York, and Baltimore, and cotton, and opium, and freight, and quarter per cent. less bandied about, until I almost fancied myself at home; and when this became too severe I had a resource with the missionaries, gentlemanly and well-educated men, well acquainted with the countries and the places worth visiting, with just the books I wanted, and, I had almost said, the wives; I mean with wives always glad to see a countryman, and to talk about home. There is something exceedingly interesting in a missionary"s wife. A soldier"s is more so, for she follows him to danger and, perhaps, to death; but glory waits him if he falls, and while she weeps she is proud. Before I went abroad the only missionary I ever knew I despised, for I believed him to be a canting hypocrite; but I saw much of them abroad, and made many warm friends among them; and, I repeat it, there is something exceedingly interesting in a missionary"s wife.
She who had been cherished as a plant that the winds must not breathe on too rudely, recovers from the shock of a separation from her friends to find herself in a land of barbarians, where her loud cry of distress can never reach their ears. New ties twine round her heart, and the tender and helpless girl changes her very nature, and becomes the staff and support of the man. In his hours of despondency she raises his drooping spirits; she bathes his aching head; she smooths his pillow of sickness; and, after months of wearisome silence, I have entered her dwelling, and her heart instinctively told her that I was from the same land. I have been welcomed as a brother; answered her hurried, and anxious, and eager questions; and sometimes, when I have known any of her friends at home, I have been for a moment more than recompensed for all the toils and privations of a traveller in the East. I have left her dwelling burdened with remembrances to friends whom she will perhaps never see again. I bore a letter to a father, which was opened by a widowed mother. Where I could, I have discharged every promise to a missionary"s wife; but I have some yet undischarged which I rank among the sacred obligations of my life. It is true, the path of the missionary is not strewed with roses; but often, in leaving his house at night, and following my guide with a lantern through the narrow streets of a Turkish city, I have run over the troubles incident to every condition of life, not forgetting those of a traveller, and have taken to whistling, and, as I stumbled into the gate of an old convent, have murmured involuntarily, "After all, these missionaries are happy fellows."
Every stranger, upon his arrival in Smyrna, is introduced at the casino.
I went there the first time to a concert. It is a large building, erected by a club of merchants, with a suite of rooms on the lower floor, billiards, cards, reading and sitting room, and a ball room above covering the whole. The concert was given in the ballroom, and, from what I had seen in the streets, I expected an extraordinary display of beauty; but I was much disappointed. The company consisted only of the aristocracy or higher mercantile cla.s.ses, the families of the gentlemen composing the club, and excluded the Greek and Smyrniote women, among whom is found a great portion of the beauty of the place. A patent of n.o.bility in Smyrna, as in our own city, is founded upon the time since the possessor gave up selling goods, or the number of consignments he receives in the course of a year. The casino, by-the-way, is a very aristocratic inst.i.tution, and sometimes knotty questions occur in its management. Captains of merchant vessels are not admitted. A man came out as owner of a vessel and cargo, and also master: _quere_, could he be admitted? His consignee said yes; but the majority, not being interested in the sales of his cargo, went for a strict construction, and excluded him.
The population of Smyrna, professing three distinct religions, observe three different Sabbaths; the Mohammedans Friday, the Jews Sat.u.r.day, and the Christians Sunday, so that there are only four days in the week in which all the shops and bazars are open together, and there are so many fete days that these are much broken in upon. The most perfect toleration prevails, and the religious festivals of the Greeks often terminate in midnight orgies which debase and degrade the Christian in the eyes of the pious Mussulman.
On Sat.u.r.day morning I was roused from my bed by a loud cry and the tramp of a crowd through the street. I ran to my window, and saw a Greek tearing down the street at full speed, and another after him with a drawn yataghan in his hand; the latter gained ground at every step, and, just as he turned the corner, stabbed the first in the back. He returned with the b.l.o.o.d.y poniard in his hand, followed by the crowd, and rushed into a little Greek drinking-shop next door to my hotel. There was a loud noise and scuffling inside, and presently I saw him pitched out headlong into the street, and the door closed upon him. In a phrensy of pa.s.sion he rushed back, and drove his yataghan with all his force into the door, stamped against it with his feet, and battered it with stones; unable to force it open, he sat down on the opposite side of the street, occasionally renewing his attack upon the door, talking violently with those inside, and sometimes the whole crowd laughing loud at the answers from within. n.o.body attempted to interfere. Giusseppi, my host, said it was only a row among the Greeks. The Greek kept the street in an uproar for more than an hour, when he was secured and taken into custody.
After dinner, under the escort of a merchant, a Jew from Trieste residing at the same hotel, I visited the Jews" quarter. The Jews of Smyrna are the descendants of that unhappy people who were driven out from Spain by the b.l.o.o.d.y persecutions of Ferdinand and Isabel; they still talk Spanish in their families; and though comparatively secure, now, as ever, they live the victims of tyranny and oppression, ever toiling and acc.u.mulating, and ever fearing to exhibit the fruits of their industry, lest they should excite the cupidity of a rapacious master. Their quarter is by far the most miserable in Smyrna, and within its narrow limits are congregated more than ten thousand of "the accursed people." It was with great difficulty that I avoided wounding the feelings of my companion by remarking its filthy and disgusting appearance; and wishing to remove my unfavourable impression by introducing me to some of the best families first, he was obliged to drag me through the whole range of its narrow and dirty streets. From the external appearance of the tottering houses, I did not expect anything better within; and, out of regard to his feelings, was really sorry that I had accepted his offer to visit his people; but with the first house I entered I was most agreeably disappointed. Ascending outside by a tottering staircase to the second story, within was not only neatness and comfort, but positive luxury. At one end of a s.p.a.cious room was a raised platform opening upon a large latticed window, covered with rich rugs and divans along the wall. The master of the house was taking his afternoon siesta, and while we were waiting for him I expressed to my gratified companion my surprise and pleasure at the unexpected appearance of the interior. In a few minutes the master entered, and received us with the greatest hospitality and kindness. He was about thirty, with the high square cap of black felt, without any rim or border, long silk gown tied with a sash around the waist, a strongly-marked Jewish face, and amiable expression. In the house of the Israelite the welcome is the same as in that of the Turk; and seating himself, our host clapped his hands together, and a boy entered with coffee and pipes. After a little conversation he clapped his hands again; and hearing a clatter of wooden shoes, I turned my head and saw a little girl coming across the room, mounted on high wooden sabots almost like stilts, who stepped up the platform, and with quite a womanly air took her seat on the divan. I looked at her, and thought her a pert, forward little miss, and was about asking her how old she was, when my companion told me she was our host"s wife. I checked myself, but in a moment felt more than ever tempted to ask the same question; and, upon inquiring, learned that she had attained the respectable age of thirteen, and had been then two years a wife. Our host told us that she had cost him a great deal of money, and the expense consisted in the outlay necessary for procuring a divorce from another wife. He did not like the other one at all; his father had married him to her, and he had great difficulty in prevailing on his father to go to the expense of getting him freed. This wife was also provided by his father, and he did not like her much at first; he had never seen her till the day of marriage, but now he began to like her very well, though she cost him a great deal for ornaments. All this time we were looking at her, and she, with a perfectly composed expression, was listening to the conversation as my companion interpreted it, and following with her eyes the different speakers. I was particularly struck with the cool, imperturbable expression of her face, and could not help thinking that, on the subject of likings and dislikings, young as she was, she might have some curious notions of her own; and since we had fallen into this little disquisition on family matters, and thinking that he had gone so far himself that I might waive delicacy, I asked him whether she liked him; he answered in that easy tone of confidence of which no idea can be given in words, "oh yes;" and when I intimated a doubt, he told me I might ask herself. But I forbore, and did not ask her, and so lost the opportunity of learning from both sides the practical operation of matches made by parents. Our host sustained them; the plan saved a great deal of trouble, and wear and tear of spirit; prudent parents always selected such as were likely to suit each other; and being thrown together very young, they insensibly a.s.similated in tastes and habits; he admitted that he had missed it the first time, but he had hit it the second, and allowed that the system would work much better if the cost of procuring a divorce was not so great. With the highest respect, and a pressing invitation to come again, seconded by his wife, I took my leave of the self-satisfied Israelite.
From this we went into several other houses, in all of which the interior belied, in the same manner, their external appearance. I do not say that they were gorgeous or magnificent, but they were clean, comfortable, and striking by their oriental style of architecture and furniture; and being their Sabbath, the women were in their best attire, with their heads, necks, and wrists adorned with a profusion of gold and silver ornaments. Several of the houses had libraries, with old Hebrew books, in which an old rabbi was reading or sometimes instructing children. In the last house a son was going through his days of mourning on the death of his father. He was lying in the middle of the floor, with his black cap on, and covered with a long black cloak. Twenty or thirty friends were sitting on the floor around him, who had come in to condole with him. When we entered, neither he nor any of his friends took any notice of us, except to make room on the floor. We sat down with them. It was growing dark, and the light broke dimly through the latticed windows upon the dusky figures of the mourning Israelites; and there they sat, with stern visages and long beards, the feeble remnant of a fallen people, under scorn and contumely, and persecution and oppression, holding on to the traditions received from their fathers, practising in the privacy of their houses the same rites as when the priests bore aloft the ark of the covenant, and out of the very dust in which they lie still looking for the restoration of their temporal kingdom. In a room adjoining sat the widow of the deceased, with a group of women around her, all perfectly silent; and they too took no notice of us either when we entered or when we went away.
The next day the shops were shut, and the streets again thronged as on the day of my arrival. I went to church at the English chapel attached to the residence of the British consul, and heard a sermon from a German missionary. I dined at one o"clock, and, in company with mine host of the Pension Suisse, and a merchant of Smyrna resident there, worked my way up the hill through the heart of the Turks" quarter to the old castle standing alone and in ruins on its summit. We rested a little while at the foot of the castle, and looked over the city and the tops of the minarets upon the beautiful bay, and descending in the rear of the castle, we came to the river Meles winding through a deep valley at the foot of the hill. This stream was celebrated in Grecian poetry three thousand years ago. It was the pride of the ancient Smyrneans, once washed the walls of the ancient city, and tradition says that on its banks the nymph Critheis gave birth to Homer. We followed it in its winding course down the valley, murmuring among evergreens. Over it in two places were the ruins of aqueducts which carried water to the old city, and in one or two places it turns an overshot mill. On each side, at intervals along its banks, were oriental summer-houses, with verandahs, and balconies, and latticed windows. Approaching the caravan bridge we met straggling parties, and by degrees fell into a crowd of people, Franks, Europeans of every nation, Greeks, Turks, and Armenians, in all their striking costumes, sitting on benches under the shade of n.o.ble old sycamores, or on the gra.s.s, or on the river"s brink, and moving among them were Turks cleanly dressed, with trays of refreshments, ices, and sherbet. There was an unusual collection of Greek and Smyrniote women, and an extraordinary display of beauty; none of them wore hats, but the Greek women a light gauze turban, and the Smyrniotes a small piece of red cloth, worked with gold, secured on the top of the head by the folds of the hair, with a long ta.s.sel hanging down from it. Opposite, and in striking contrast, the great Turkish burying-ground, with its thick grove of gloomy cypress, approached the bank of the river. I crossed over and entered the burying-ground, and penetrated the grove of funereal trees; all around were the graves of the dead; thousands and tens of thousands who but yesterday were like the gay crowd I saw flitting through the trees, were sleeping under my feet. Over some of the graves the earth was still fresh, and they who lay in them were already forgotten; but no, they were not forgotten; woman"s love still remembered them, for Turkish women, with long white shawls wrapped around their faces, were planting over them myrtle and flowers, believing that they were paying an acceptable tribute to the souls of the dead. I left the burying-ground and plunged once more among the crowd. It may be that memory paints these scenes brighter than they were; but, if that does not deceive me, I never saw at Paris or Vienna so gay and beautiful a scene, so rich in landscape and scenery, in variety of costume, and in beauty of female form and feature.
We left the caravan bridge early to visit the Armenian quarter, this being the best day for seeing them collectively at home; and I had not pa.s.sed through the first street of their beautiful quarter before I was forcibly struck with the appearance of a people different from any I had yet seen in the East. The Armenians are one of the oldest nations of the civilized world, and, amid all the revolutions of barbarian war and despotism, have maintained themselves as a cultivated people. From the time when their first chieftain fled from Babylon, his native place, to escape from the tyranny of Belus, king of a.s.syria, this warlike people, occupying a mountainous country near the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates, battled the a.s.syrians, Medes, the Persians, Macedonians, and Arabians, until their country was depopulated by the shah of Persia.
Less than two millions are all that now remain of that once powerful people. Commerce has scattered them, like the Israelites, among all the princ.i.p.al nations of Europe and Asia, and everywhere they have preserved their stern integrity and uprightness of character. The Armenian merchant is now known in every quarter of the globe, and everywhere distinguished by superior cultivation, honesty, and manners. As early as the fourth century the Armenians embraced Christianity; they never had any sympathy with, and always disliked and avoided, the Greek Christians, and constantly resisted the endeavours of the popes to bring them within the Catholic pale. Their doctrine differs from that of the orthodox chiefly in their admitting only one nature in Christ, and believing the Holy Spirit to issue from the Father alone. Their first abode, Mount Ararat, is even at the present day the centre of their religious and political union. They are distinguished by a patriarchal simplicity in their domestic manners; and it was the beautiful exhibition of this trait in their character that struck me on entering their quarter at Smyrna. In style and appearance their quarter is superior to any in Smyrna; their streets are broad and clean; their houses large, in good order, and well painted; oriental in their style of architecture, with large balconies and latticed windows, and s.p.a.cious halls running through the centre, floored with small black and white stones laid in the form of stars and other fanciful devices, and leading to large gardens in the rear, ornamented with trees, vines, shrubs, and flowers, then in full bloom and beauty. All along the streets the doors of the houses were thrown wide open, and the old Armenian "Knickerbockers" were sitting outside or in the doorway, in their flowing robes, grave and sedate, with long pipes and large amber mouth pieces, talking with their neighbours, while the younger members were distributed along the hall or strolling through the garden, and children climbing the trees and arbours. It was a fete day for the whole neighbourhood. All was social, and cheerful, and beautiful, without being gay or noisy, and all was open to the observation of every pa.s.ser-by. My companion, an old resident of Smyrna, stopped with me at the house of a large banker, whose whole family, with several neighbours young and old, were a.s.sembled in the hall.
In the street the Armenian ladies observe the Turkish custom of wearing the shawl tied around the face so that it is difficult to see their features, though I had often admired the dignity and grace of their walk, and their propriety of manners; but in the house there was a perfect absence of all concealment; and I have seldom seen more interesting persons than the whole group of Armenian ladies, and particularly the young Armenian girls. They were not so dark, and wanted the bold, daring beauty of the Greek, but altogether were far more attractive. The great charm of their appearance was an exceeding modesty, united with affability and elegance of manner; in fact, there was a calm and quiet loveliness about them that would have made any one of them dangerous to be shut up alone with, i.e., if a man could talk with her without an interpreter. This was one of the occasions when I numbered among the pains of life the confusion of tongues. But, notwithstanding this, the whole scene was beautiful; and, with all the simplicity of a Dutchman"s fireside, the style of the house, the pebbled hall, the garden, the foliage, and the oriental costumes, threw a charm around it which now, while I write, comes over me again.
CHAPTER XI.
An American Original.--Moral Changes in Turkey.--Wonders of Steam Navigation.--The March of Mind.--Cla.s.sic Localities.--Sestos and Abydos.--Seeds of Pestilence.
ON my return from Ephesus I heard of the arrival in Smyrna of two American travellers, father and son, from Egypt; and the same day, at Mr. Langdon"s, I met the father, Dr. N. of Mississippi. The doctor had made a long and interesting tour in Egypt and the Holy Land, interrupted, however, by a severe attack of ophthalmia on the Nile, from which he had not yet recovered, and a narrow escape from the plague at Cairo. He was about fifty-five, of a strong, active, and inquiring mind; and the circ.u.mstances which had brought him to that distant country were so peculiar, that I cannot help mentioning them. He had pa.s.sed all his life on the banks of the Mississippi, and for many years had busied himself with speculations in regard to the creation of the world. Year after year he had watched the deposites and the formation of soil on the banks of the Mississippi, had visited every mound and mountain indicating any peculiar geological formation, and, unable to find any data to satisfy him, he started from his plantation directly for the banks of the Nile. He possessed all the warm, high-toned feelings of the Southerner, but a thorough contempt for the usages of society and everything like polish of manners. He came to New-York and embarked for Havre. He had never been even to New-York before; was utterly ignorant of any language but his own; despised all foreigners, and detested their "jabber." He worked his way to Ma.r.s.eilles with the intention of embarking for Alexandria, but was taken sick, and retraced his steps directly to his plantation on the Mississippi. Recovering, he again set out for the Nile the next year, accompanied by his son, a young man of about twenty-three, acquainted with foreign languages, and competent to profit by foreign travel. This time he was more successful, and, when I saw him, he had rambled over the Pyramids and explored the ruined temples of Egypt. The result of his observations had been to fortify his preconceived notions, that the age of this world far exceeds six thousand years. Indeed, he was firmly persuaded that some of the temples of the Nile were built more than six thousand years ago. He had sent on to Smyrna enormous boxes of earth and stones, to be shipped to America, and was particularly curious on the subject of trees, having examined and satisfied himself as to the age of the olive-trees in the Garden of Gethsemane and the cedars of Lebanon. I accompanied him to his hotel, where I was introduced to his son; and I must not forget another member of this party, who is, perhaps, already known to some of my readers by the name of Paolo Nuozzo, or, more familiarly, Paul. This worthy individual had been travelling on the Nile with two Hungarian counts, who discharged him, or whom he discharged (for they differed as to the fact), at Cairo. Dr. N. and his son were in want, and Paul entered their service as dragoman and superintendent of another man, who, they said, was worth a dozen of Paul. I have a very imperfect recollection of my first interview with this original. Indeed, I hardly remember him at all until my arrival at Constantinople, and have only an indistinct impression of a dark, surly-looking, mustached man following at the heels of Dr. N., and giving crusty answers in horrible English.
Before my visit to Ephesus I had talked with a Prussian baron of going up by land to Constantinople; but on my return I found myself attacked with a recurrence of an old malady, and determined to wait for the steamboat. The day before I left Smyrna, accompanied by Mr. O. Langdon, I went out to Boujac to dine with Mr. Styth. The great beauty of Smyrna is its surrounding country. Within a few miles there are three villages, Bournabat, Boujac, and Sediguey, occupied by Franks, of which Boujac is the favourite. The Franks are always looking to the time of going out to their country houses, and consider their residences in their villages the most agreeable part of their year; and, from what I saw of it, nothing can be more agreeable. Not more than half of them had yet moved out, but after dinner we went round and visited all who were there.
They are all well acquainted, and, living in a strange and barbarous country, are drawn closer together than they would be in their own.
Every evening there is a reunion at some of their houses, and there is among them an absence of all unnecessary form and ceremony, without which there can be no perfect enjoyment of the true pleasures of social intercourse. These villages, too, are endeared to them as places of refuge during the repeated and prolonged visitations of the plague, the merchant going into the city every morning and returning at night, and during the whole continuance of the disease avoiding to touch any member of his family. The whole region of country around their villages is beautiful in landscape and scenery, producing the choicest flowers and fruits; the fig tree particularly growing with a luxuriance unknown in any other part of the world. But the whole of this beautiful region lies waste and uncultivated, although, if the government could be relied on, holding out, by reason of its fertility, its climate, and its facility of access, particularly now by means of steamboats, far greater inducements to European emigration than any portion of our own country.
I will not impose upon the reader my speculations on this subject; my notes are burdened with them; but, in my opinion, the Old World is in process of regeneration, and at this moment offers greater opportunities for enterprise than the New.
On Monday, accompanied by Dr. N. and his son and Paolo Nuozzo, I embarked on board the steamboat Maria Dorothea for Constantinople; and here follows another letter, and the last, dated from the capital of the Eastern empire.
Constantinople, May ----, 1835.
MY DEAR ****,
Oh you who hope one day to roam in Eastern lands, to bend your curious eyes upon the people warmed by the rising sun, come quickly, for all things are changing. You who have pored over the story of the Turk; who have dreamed of him as a gloomy enthusiast, hating, spurning, and slaying all who do not believe and call upon the Prophet;
"One of that saintly, murderous brood, To carnage and the Koran given, Who think through unbelievers" blood Lies their directest path to Heaven;"
come quickly, for that description of Turk is pa.s.sing away. The day has gone by when the haughty Mussulman spurned and persecuted the "Christian dog." A few years since it would have been at peril of a man"s life to appear in many parts of Turkey in a European dress; but now the European is looked upon, not only as a creature fit to live, but as a man to be respected. The sultan himself, the great head of the nation and the religion, the vicegerent of G.o.d upon earth, has taken off the turban, and all the officers of government have followed his example. The army wears a b.a.s.t.a.r.d European uniform, and the great study of the sultan is to introduce European customs. Thanks to the infirmities of human nature, many of these customs have begun to insinuate themselves. The pious follower of the Prophet has dared to raise the winecup to his lips; and in many instances, at the peril of losing his paradise of houris, has given himself up to strong drink. Time was when the word of a Turk was sacred as a precept of the Koran; now he can no more be relied upon than a Jew or a Christian. He has fallen with great facility into lying, cheating, and drinking, and if the earnest efforts to change him are attended with success, perhaps we may soon add stealing and having but one wife. And all this change, this mighty fall, is ascribed by the Europeans here to the destruction of the janisaries, a band of men dangerous to government, brave, turbulent, and b.l.o.o.d.y, but of indomitable pride; who were above doing little things, and who gave a high tone to the character of the whole people. If I was not bent upon a gallop, and could stop for the jogtrot of an argument, I would say that the destruction of the janisaries is a mere incidental circ.u.mstance, and that the true cause is--_steam navigation_. Do not laugh, but listen. The Turks have ever been a proud people, possessing a sort of peac.o.c.k pride, an extravagantly good opinion of themselves, and a superlative contempt for all the rest of the world. Heretofore they have had comparatively little intercourse with Europeans, consequently but little opportunity of making comparisons, and consequently, again, but little means of discovering their own inferiority. But lately things have changed; the universal peace in Europe and the introduction of steamboats into the Mediterranean have brought the Europeans and the Turks comparatively close together. It seems to me that the effect of steamboats here has as yet hardly begun to be felt. There are but few of them, indifferent boats, constantly getting out of order, and running so irregularly that no reliance can be placed upon them. But still their effects are felt, their convenience is acknowledged; and, so far as my knowledge extends, they have never been introduced anywhere yet without multiplying in numbers, and driving all other vessels off the water. Now the Mediterranean is admirably suited to the use of steamboats; indeed, the whole of these inland waters, the Mediterranean, the Adriatic, the Archipelago, the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmora, the Bosphorus, and the Black Sea, from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Sea of Azoff, offer every facility that can be desired for steam navigation; and when we consider that the most interesting cities in the world are on the sh.o.r.es of these waters, I cannot but believe that in a very few years they will be, to a certain extent, covered with steamboats. At all events, I have no doubt that in two or three years you will be able to go from Paris to Constantinople in fifteen or twenty days; and, when that time comes, it will throw such numbers of Europeans into the East as will have a sensible effect upon the manners and customs of the people. These eastern countries will be invaded by all cla.s.ses of people, travellers, merchants, and mechanics, gentlemen of elegant leisure, and blacksmiths, shoemakers, tinkers, and tailors, nay, even mantuamakers, milliners, and bandboxes, the last being an incident to civilized life as yet unknown in Turkey. Indeed, wonderful as the effects of steamboats have been under our own eyes, we are yet to see them far more wonderful in bringing into close alliance, commercial and social, people from distant countries, of different languages and habits; in removing national prejudices, and in breaking down the great characteristic distinctions of nations.
Nous verrons, twenty years hence, what steamboats will have done in this part of the world!
But, in standing up for steamboats, I must not fail in doing justice to the grand seignior. His highness has not always slept upon a bed of roses. He had to thank the petticoats of a female slave for saving his life when a boy, and he had hardly got upon his throne before he found that he should have a hard task to keep it. It lay between him and the janisaries. In spite of them and of the general prejudices of the people, he determined to organize an army according to European tactics. He staked his throne and his head upon the issue; and it was not until he had been pushed to the desperate expedient of unfurling the sacred standard of the Prophet, parading it through the streets of Constantinople, and calling upon all good Mussulmans to rally round it; in short, it was not until the dead bodies of thirty thousand janisaries were floating down the Bosphorus, that he found himself the master in his own dominions.
Since that time, either because he is fond of new things, or because he really sees farther than those around him, he is constantly endeavouring to introduce European improvements. For this purpose he invites talent, particularly mechanical and military, from every country, and has now around him Europeans among his most prominent men, and directing nearly all his public works.
The Turks are a sufficiently intelligent people, and cannot help feeling the superiority of strangers. Probably the immediate effect may be to make them p.r.o.ne rather to catch the faults and vices than the virtues of Europeans; but afterward better things will come; they will fall into our better ways; and perhaps, though that is almost more than we dare hope for, they will embrace a better religion.
But, however this may be, or whatever may be the cause, all ye who would see the Turk of Mohammed; the Turk who swept the plains of Asia, who leaned upon his b.l.o.o.d.y sword before the walls of Vienna, and threatened the destruction of Christendom in Europe; the Turk of the turban, and the pipe, and the seraglio, come quickly, for he is becoming another man. A little longer, and the great characteristic distinctions will be broken down; the long pipe, the handsome pipe-bearer, and the amber mouthpiece are gone, and oh, death to all that is beautiful in Eastern romance, the walls of the seraglio are prostrated, the doors of the harem thrown open, the black eunuch and the veiled woman are no more seen, while the honest Turk trudges home from a quiet tea-party stripped of his retinue of fair ones, with his one and only wife tucked under his arm, his head drooping between his shoulders, taking a lecture from his better half for an involuntary sigh to the good old days that are gone. And oh you who turn up your aristocratic noses at such parvenues as Mohammed and the Turks; who would go back to those distant ages which time covers with its dim and twilight glories,
"When the world was fresh and young, And the great deluge still had left it green;"
you who come piping-hot from college, your brains teeming with recollections of the heroic ages; who would climb Mount Ida, to sit in council with the G.o.ds, come quickly, also, for all things are changing. A steamboat--shade of Hector, Ajax, and Agamemnon, forgive the sins of the day--an Austrian steamboat is now splashing the island-studded aegean, and paddling the cla.s.sic waters of the h.e.l.lespont. Oh ye princes and heroes who armed for the Trojan war, and covered these waters with your thousand ships, with what pious horror must you look down from your blessed abodes upon the impious modern monster of the deep, which strips the tall mast of its flowing canva.s.s, renders unnecessary the propitiation of the G.o.ds, and flounders on its way in spite of wind and weather!
A new and unaccountable respect for the cla.s.sics almost made me scorn the newfangled conveyance, though much to the comfort of wayfaring men; but sundry recollections of Greek caiques, and also an apprehension that there might be those yet living who had heard me in early days speak anything but respectfully of Homer, suggested to me that one man could not stem the current of the times, and that it was better for a humble individual like myself to float with the tide. This idea, too, of currents and tides made me think better of Prince Metternich and his steamboat; and smothering, as well as I could, my sense of shame, I sneaked on board the Maria Dorothea for a race to Constantinople. Join me, now, in this race; and if your heart does not break at going by at the rate of eight or ten miles an hour, I will whip you over a piece of the most cla.s.sic ground consecrated in history, mythology, or poetry, and in less time than ever the swiftfooted Achilles could have travelled it. At eleven o"clock on a bright sunny day the Maria Dorothea turned her back upon the city and beautiful bay of Smyrna; in about two hours pa.s.sed the harbour of Vourla, then used as a quarantine station, the yellow plague flag floating in the city and among the shipping; and toward dark, turning the point of the gulf, came upon my old acquaintance Foggi, the little harbour into which I had been twice driven by adverse winds. My Greek friend happened to be on board, and, in the honesty of his heart, congratulated me upon being this time independent of the elements, without seeming to care a fig whether he profaned the memory of his ancestors in travelling by so uncla.s.sical a conveyance. If he takes it so coolly, thought I, what is it to me? they are his relations, not mine. In the evening we were moving close to the Island of Mytilene, the ancient Lesbos, the country of Sappho, Alcaeus, and Terpander, famed for the excellence of its wine and the beauty of its women, and pre-eminently distinguished for dissipation and debauchery, the fatal plague flag now floating mournfully over its walls, marking it as the abode of pestilence and death.
Early in the morning I found myself opposite the promontory of Lectum, now Cape Baba, separating the ancient Troas from aeolia; a little to the right, but hardly visible, were the ruins of a.s.sos, where the apostles stopped to take in Paul; a little farther the ruins of Alexandria Troas, one of the many cities founded by Alexander during his conquests in Asia; to the left, at some distance in the sea, is the Island of Lemnos, in the songs of the poets overshadowed by the lofty Olympus, the island that received Vulcan after he was kicked out of heaven by Jupiter. A little farther, nearer the land, is the Island of Tenedos, the ancient Leucophrys, where Paris first landed after carrying off Helen, and behind which the Greeks withdrew their fleet when they pretended to have abandoned the siege of Troy. Still farther, on the mainland, is the promontory of Sigaeum, where the Scamander empties into the sea, and near which were fought the princ.i.p.al of Homer"s battles. A little farther--but hold, stop the engine! If there be a spot of cla.s.sic ground on earth in which the historical, and the poetical, and the fabulous are so beautifully blended together that we would not separate them even to discover the truth, it is before us now.
Extending for a great distance along the sh.o.r.e, and back as far as the eye can reach, under the purest sky that ever overshadowed the earth, lies a rich and beautiful plain, and it is the plain of Troy, the battle-ground of heroes. Oh field of glory and of blood, little does he know, that surly Turk who is now lazily following his plough over thy surface, that every blade of thy gra.s.s could tell of heroic deeds, the shock of armies, the meeting of war chariots, the crashing of armour, the swift flight, the hot pursuit, the shouts of victors, and the groans of the dying. Beyond it, towering to the heavens, is a lofty mountain, and it is Mount Ida, on whose top Paris adjudged the golden apple to the G.o.ddess of beauty, and paved the way for those calamities which brought on the ten years" siege, and laid in ruins the ancient city of Priam. Two small streams, taking their rise from the mountain of the G.o.ds, join each other in the middle of the plain; Scamander and Simois, whose waters once washed the walls of the ancient city of Darda.n.u.s; and that small, confused, and shapeless ma.s.s of ruins, that beautiful sky and the songs of Homer, are all that remain to tell us that "Troy was."
Close to the sea, and rising like mountains above the plain, are two immense mounds of earth; they are the tombs of Ajax and Achilles.
Shades of departed heroes, fain would we stop and pay the tribute which we justly owe, but we are hurried past by an engine of a hundred horse power.
Onward, still onward! We have reached the ancient h.e.l.lespont, the Dardanelles of the Turks, famed as the narrow water that divides Europe from Asia, for the beauties that adorn its banks, and for its great Turkish fortifications. Three miles wide at the mouth, it becomes gradually narrower, until, in the narrowest part, the natives of Europe and Asia can talk together from the opposite sides. For sixty miles (its whole length) it presents a continued succession of new beauties, and in the hands of Europeans, particularly English, improved as country seats, would make one of the loveliest countries in the world. I had just time to reflect that it was melancholy, and seemed inexplicable that this and other of the fairest portions of the earth should be in the hands of the Turks, who neither improve it themselves nor allow others to do so.
At three o"clock we arrived at the Dardanelles, a little Turkish town in the narrowest and most beautiful part of the straits; a strong fort with enormous cannon stands frowning on each side. These are the terrible fortifications of Mohammed II., the keys of Constantinople. The guns are enormous; of one in particular, the muzzle is two feet three inches in diameter; but, with Turkish ingenuity, they are so placed as to be discharged when a ship is directly opposite. If the ship is not disabled by the first fire, and does not choose to go back and take another, she is safe. At every moment a new picture presents itself; a new fort, a new villa, or the ruins of an ancient city. A naked point on the European side, so ugly compared with all around it as to attract particular attention, projects into the strait, and here are the ruins of Sestos; here Xerxes built his bridge of boats to carry over his millions to the conquest of Greece; and here, when he returned with the wreck of his army, defeated and disgraced, found his bridge destroyed by a tempest, and, in his rage, ordered the chains to be thrown into the sea and the waves to be lashed with rods. From this point, too, Leander swam the h.e.l.lespont for love of Hero, and Lord Byron and Mr. Ekenhead for fun. Nearly opposite, close to a Turkish fort, are the ruins of Abydos. Here Xerxes, and Leander, and Lord Byron, and Mr. Ekenhead landed.
Our voyage is drawing to a close. At Gallipoli, a large Turkish town handsomely situated at the mouth of the Dardanelles, we took on board the Turkish governor, with his pipe-bearer and train of attendants, escorted by thirty or forty boats, containing three or four hundred people, his mightiness taking a deck pa.s.sage. Toward evening we were entering the Sea of Marmora, the ancient Propontis, like one of our small lakes, and I again went to sleep lulled by the music of a high-pressure engine. At daylight we were approaching Constantinople; twelve miles this side, on the bank of the Sea of Marmora, is the village of St. Stephano, the residence of Commodore Porter. Here the domes and minarets of the ancient city, with their golden points and glittering crescents, began to appear in sight.
High above the rest towered the mosque of Sultan Achmet and the beautiful dome of St. Sophia, the ancient Christian church, but now, for nearly four hundred years, closed against the Christians" feet.
We approach the walls and pa.s.s a range of gloomy turrets; there are the Seven Towers, prisons, portals of the grave, whose mysteries few live to publish: the bowstring and the sea reveal no secrets. That palace, with its blinded windows and its superb garden, surrounded by a triple range of walls, is the far-famed seraglio; there beauty lingers in a splendid cage, and, lolling on her rich divan, sighs for the humblest lot and freedom. In front, that narrow water, a thousand caiques shooting through it like arrows, and its beautiful banks covered with high palaces and gardens in the oriental style, is the Thracian Bosphorus. We float around the walls of the seraglio, enter the Golden Horn, and before us, with its thousand mosques and its myriad of minarets, their golden points glittering in the sun, is the Roman city of Constantinople, the Thracian Byzantium, the Stamboul of the Turks; the city which, more than all others, excites the imagination and interests the feelings; once dividing with Rome the empire of the world; built by a Christian emperor and consecrated as a Christian city, a "burning and a shining light" in a season of universal darkness, all at once lost to the civilized world; falling into the hands of a strange and fanatic people, the gloomy followers of a successful soldier; a city which, for nearly four centuries, has sat with its gates closed in sullen distrust and haughty defiance of strangers; which once sent forth large and terrible armies, burning, slaying, and destroying, shaking the hearts of princes and people, now lying like a fallen giant, huge, unwieldy, and helpless, ready to fall into the hands of the first invader, and dragging out a precarious and ign.o.ble existence but by the mercy or policy of the great Christian powers.
The morning sun, now striking upon its domes and minarets, covers it, as it were, with burnished gold; a beautiful verdure surrounds it, and pure waters wash it on every side. Can this beautiful city, rich with the choicest gifts of Heaven, be pre-eminently the abode of pestilence and death? where a man carries about with him the seeds of disease to all whom he holds dear? if he extend the hand of welcome to a friend, if he embrace his child or rub against a stranger, the friend, and the child, and the stranger follow him to the grave? where, year after year, the angel of death stalks through the streets, and thousands and tens of thousands look him calmly in the face, and murmuring "Allah, Allah, G.o.d is merciful," with a fatal trust in the Prophet, lie down and die? We enter the city, and these questions are quickly answered. A lazy, lounging, and filthy population; beggars basking in the sun, and dogs licking their sores; streets never cleaned but by the winds and rains; immense burying-grounds all over the city; tombstones at the corners of the streets; graves gaping ready to throw out their half-buried dead, the whole approaching to one vast charnel-house, dispel all illusions and remove all doubts, and we are ready to ask ourselves if it be possible that, in such a place, health can ever dwell. We wonder that it should ever, for the briefest moment, be free from that dreadful scourge which comes with every summer"s sun and strews its streets with dead.
CHAPTER XII.