MY DEAR ****,
I have just arrived at this place, and I live to tell it. I have been three weeks performing a voyage usually made in three days. It has been tedious beyond all things; but, as honest Dogberry would say, if it had been ten times as tedious, I could find it in my heart to bestow it all upon you. To begin at the beginning: on the morning of the second instant, I and my long-lost carpet-bag left the eternal city of Athens, without knowing exactly whither we were going, and sincerely regretted by Miltiades Panajotti, the garcon of the hotel. We wound round the foot of the Acropolis, and, giving a last look to its ruined temples, fell into the road to the Piraeus, and in an hour found ourselves at that ancient harbour, almost as celebrated in the history of Greece as Athens itself. Here we took counsel as to farther movements, and concluded to take pa.s.sage in a caique to sail that evening for Syra, being advised that that island was a great place of rendezvous for vessels, and that from it we could procure a pa.s.sage to any place we chose. Having disposed of my better half (I may truly call it so, for what is man without pantaloons, vests, and shirts), I took a little sailboat to float around the ancient harbour and muse upon its departed glories.
The day that I lingered there before bidding farewell, perhaps for ever, to the sh.o.r.es of Greece, is deeply impressed upon my mind. I had hardly begun to feel the magic influence of the land of poets, patriots, and heroes, until the very moment of my departure. I had travelled in the most interesting sections of the country, and found all enthusiasm dead within me when I had expected to be carried away by the remembrance of the past; but here, I know not how it was, without any effort, and in the mere act of whiling away my time, all that was great, and n.o.ble, and beautiful in her history rushed upon me at once; the sun and the breeze, the land and the sea, contributed to throw a witchery around me; and in a rich and delightful frame of mind, I found myself among the monuments of her better days, gliding by the remains of the immense wall erected to enclose the harbour during the Peloponnesian war, and was soon floating upon the cla.s.sic waters of Salamis.
If I had got there by accident it would not have occurred to me to dream of battles and all the fierce panoply of war upon that calm and silvery surface. But I knew where I was, and my blood was up. I was among the enduring witnesses of the Athenian glory. Behind me was the ancient city, the Acropolis, with its ruined temples, the telltale monuments of by-gone days, towering above the plain; here was the harbour from which the galleys carried to the extreme parts of the then known world the glories of the Athenian name; before me was unconquered Salamis; here the invading fleet of Xerxes; there the little navy, the last hope of the Athenians; here the island of aegina, from which Aristides, forgetting his quarrel with Themistocles, embarked in a rude boat, during the hottest of the battle, for the ship of the latter; and there the throne of Xerxes, where the proud invader stationed himself as spectator of the battle that was to lay the rich plain of Attica at his feet. There could be no mistake about localities; the details have been handed down from generation to generation, and are as well known to the Greeks of the present day as they were to their fathers. So I went to work systematically, and fought the whole battle through. I gave the Persians ten to one, but I made the Greeks fight like tigers; I pointed them to their city; to their wives and children; I brought on long strings of little innocents, urging them as in the farce, "sing out, young uns;" I carried old Themistocles among the Persians like a modern Greek fireship among the Turks; I sunk ship after ship, and went on demolishing them at a most furious rate, until I saw old Xerxes scudding from his throne, and the remnant of the Persian fleet scampering away to the tune of "devil take the hindmost." By this time I had got into the spirit of the thing; and moving rapidly over that water, once red with blood of thousands from the fields of Asia, I steered for the sh.o.r.e and mounted the vacant throne of Xerxes. This throne is on a hill near the sh.o.r.e, not very high, and as pretty a place as a man could have selected to see his friends whipped and keep out of harm"s way himself; for you will recollect that in those days there was no gunpowder nor cannon b.a.l.l.s, and, consequently, no danger from long chance shots. I selected a particular stone, which I thought it probable Xerxes, as a reasonable man, and with an eye to perspective, might have chosen as his seat on the eventful day of the battle; and on that same stone sat down to meditate upon the vanity of all earthly greatness.
But, most provokingly, whenever I think of Xerxes, the first thing that presents itself to my mind is the couplet in the Primer,
"Xerxes the Great did die, And so must you and I."
This is a very sensible stanza, no doubt, and worthy of always being borne in mind; but it was not exactly what I wanted. I tried to drive it away; but the more I tried, the more it stuck to me. It was all in vain. I railed at early education, and resolved that acquired knowledge hurts a man"s natural faculties; for if I had not received the first rudiments of education, I should not have been bothered with the vile couplet, and should have been able to do something on my own account. As it was, I lost one of the best opportunities ever a man had for moralizing; and you, my dear ----, have lost at least three pages. I give you, however, all the materials; put yourself on the throne of Xerxes, and do what you can, and may your early studies be no stumbling-block in your way. As for me, vexed and disgusted with myself, I descended the hill as fast as the great king did of yore, and jumping into my boat, steered for the farthest point of the Piraeus; from the throne of _Xerxes_ to the tomb of Themistocles.
I was prepared to do something here. This was not merely a place where he had been; I was to tread upon the earth that covered his bones; here were his ashes; here was all that remained of the best and bravest of the Greeks, save his immortal name. As I approached I saw the large square stones that enclosed his grave, and mused upon his history; the deliverer of his country, banished, dying an exile, his bones begged by his repenting countrymen, and buried with peculiar propriety near the sh.o.r.e of the sea commanding a full view of the scene of his naval glory. For more than two thousand years the waves have almost washed over his grave, the sun has shone and the winds have howled over him; while, perhaps, his spirit has mingled with the sighing of the winds and the murmur of the waters, in moaning over the long captivity of his countrymen; perhaps, too, his spirit has been with them in their late struggle for liberty; has hovered over them in the battle and the breeze, and is now standing sentinel over his beloved and liberated country. I approached as to the grave of one who will never die. His great name, his great deeds, hallowed by the lapse of so many ages; the scene--I looked over the wall with a feeling amounting to reverence, when, directly before me, the first thing I saw, the only thing I could see, so glaring and conspicuous that nothing else could fix my eye, was a tall, stiff, wooden headboard, painted white, with black letters, to the memory of an Englishman with as uncla.s.sical a name as that of _John Johnson_. My eyes were blasted with the sight; I was ferocious; I railed at him as if he had buried himself there with his own hands. What had he to do there? I railed at his friends. Did they expect to give him a name by mingling him with the ashes of the immortal dead? Did they expect to steal immortality like fire from the flint? I dashed back to my boat, steered directly for the harbour, gave sentiment to the dogs, and in half an hour was eating a most voracious and spiteful dinner.
In the evening I embarked on board my little caique. She was one of the most rakish of that rakish description of vessels. I drew my cloak around me and stretched myself on the deck as we glided quietly out of the harbour; saw the throne of Xerxes, the island of Salamis, and the sh.o.r.es of Greece gradually fade from view; looked at the dusky forms of the Greeks in their capotes lying asleep around me; at the helmsman sitting cross-legged at his post, apparently without life or motion; gave one thought to home, and fell asleep.
In the morning I began to examine my companions. They were, in all, a captain and six sailors, probably all part owners, and two pa.s.sengers from one of the islands, not one of whom could speak any other language than Greek. My knowledge of that language was confined to a few rolling hexameters, which had stuck by me in some unaccountable way as a sort of memento of college days. These, however, were of no particular use, and, consequently, I was pretty much tongue-tied during the whole voyage. I amused myself by making my observations quietly upon my companions, as they did more openly upon me, for I frequently heard the word "Americanos" pa.s.s among them. I had before had occasion to see something of Greek sailors, and to admire their skill and general good conduct, and I was fortified in my previous opinion by what I saw of my present companions. Their temperance in eating and drinking is very remarkable, and all my comparisons between them and European sailors were very much in their favour. Indeed, I could not help thinking, as they sat collectively, Turkish fashion, around their frugal meal of bread, caviari, and black olives, that I had never seen finer men. Their features were regular, in that style which we to this day recognise as Grecian; their figures good, and their faces wore an air of marked character and intelligence; and these advantages of person were set off by the island costume, the fez or red cloth cap, with a long black ta.s.sel at the top, a tight vest and jacket, embroidered and without collars, large Turkish trousers coming down a little below the knee, legs bare, sharp-pointed slippers, and a sash around the waist, tied under the left side, with long ends hanging down, and a knife sticking out about six inches. There was something bold and daring in their appearance; indeed, I may say, rakish and piratical; and I could easily imagine that, if the Mediterranean should again become infested with pirates, my friends would cut no contemptible figure among them. But I must not detain you as long on the voyage as I was myself. The sea was calm; we had hardly any wind; our men were at the oars nearly all the time, and, pa.s.sing slowly by aegina, Cape Sunium, with its magnificent ruins mournfully overlooking the sea, better known in modern times as Colonna"s Height and the scene of Falconer"s shipwreck, pa.s.sing also the island of Zea, the ancient Chios, Thermia, and other islands of lesser note, in the afternoon of the third day we arrived at Syra.
With regard to Syra I shall say but little; I am as loath to linger about it now as I was to stay there then. The fact is, I cannot think of the place with any degree of satisfaction. The evening of my arrival I heard, through a Greek merchant to whom I had a letter from a friend in Athens, of a brig to sail the next day for Smyrna; and I lay down on a miserable bed in a miserable locanda, in the confident expectation of resuming my journey in the morning. Before morning, however, I was roused by "bl.u.s.tering Boreas" rushing through the broken cas.e.m.e.nt of my window; and for more than a week all the winds ever celebrated in the poetical history of Greece were let loose upon the island. We were completely cut off from all communication with the rest of the world. Not a vessel could leave the port, while vessel after vessel put in there for shelter. I do not mean to go into any details; indeed, for my own credit"s sake I dare not; for if I were to draw a true picture of things as I found them; if I were to write home the truth, I should be considered as utterly dest.i.tute of taste and sentiment; I should be looked upon as a most unpoetical dog, who ought to have been at home poring over the revised statutes instead of breathing the pure air of poetry and song. And now, if I were writing what might by chance come under the eyes of a sentimental young lady or a young gentleman in his teens, the truth would be the last thing I would think of telling. No, though my teeth chatter, though a cold sweat comes over me when I think of it, I would go through the usual rhapsody, and huzzah for "the land of the East and the clime of the sun." Indeed, I have a sc.r.a.p in my portfolio, written with my cloak and greatcoat on, and my feet over a brazier, beginning in that way. But to you, my dear ----, who know my touching sensibilities, and who, moreover, have a tender regard for my character and will not publish me, I would as soon tell the truth as not. And I therefore do not hesitate to say, but do not whisper it elsewhere, that in one of the beautiful islands of the aegean; in the heart of the Cyclades, in the sight of Delos, and Paros, and Antiparos, any one of which is enough to throw one who has never seen them into raptures with their fancied beauties, here, in this paradise of a young man"s dreams, in the middle of April, I would have hailed "chill November"s surly blast" as a zephyr; I would have exchanged all the beauties of this balmy clime for the sunny side of Kamschatka; I would have given my room and the whole Island of Syra for a third-rate lodging in Communipaw. It was utterly impossible to walk out, and equally impossible to stay in my room; the house, to suit that delightful climate, being built without windows or window-shutters. If I could forget the island, I could remember with pleasure the society I met there. I pa.s.sed my mornings in the library of Mr. R., one of our worthy American missionaries; and my evenings at the house of Mr.
W., the British consul. This gentleman married a Greek lady of Smyrna, and had three beautiful daughters, more than half Greeks in their habits and feelings; one of them is married to an English baronet, another to a Greek merchant of Syra, and the third--.
On the ninth day the wind fell, the sun once more shone brightly, and in the evening I embarked on board a rickety brig for Smyrna. At about six o"clock P.M. thirty or forty vessels were quietly crawling out of the harbour like rats after a storm. It was almost a calm when we started: in about two hours we had a favourable breeze; we turned in, going at the rate of eight miles an hour, and rose with a strong wind dead ahead. We beat about all that day; the wind increased to a gale, and toward evening we took shelter in the harbour of Scio.
The history of this beautiful little island forms one of the bloodiest pages in the history of the world, and one glance told that dreadful history. Once the most beautiful island of the Archipelago, it is now a ma.s.s of ruins. Its fields, which once "budded and blossomed as the rose," have become waste places; its villages are deserted, its towns are in ruins, its inhabitants murdered, in captivity, and in exile. Before the Greek revolution the Greeks of Scio were engaged in extensive commerce, and ranked among the largest merchants in the Levant. Though living under hard taskmasters, subject to the exactions of a rapacious pacha, their industry and enterprise, and the extraordinary fertility of their island, enabled them to pay a heavy tribute to the Turks and to become rich themselves. For many years they had enjoyed the advantages of a college, with professors of high literary and scientific attainments, and their library was celebrated throughout all that country; it was, perhaps, the only spot in Greece where taste and learning still held a seat. But the island was far more famed for its extraordinary natural beauty and fertility. Its bold mountains and its soft valleys, the mildness of its climate and the richness of its productions, bound the Greeks to its soil by a tie even stronger than the chain of their Turkish masters. In the early part of the revolution the Sciotes took no part with their countrymen in their glorious struggle for liberty. Forty of their princ.i.p.al citizens were given up as hostages, and they were suffered to remain in peace. Wrapped in the rich beauties of their island, they forgot the freedom of their fathers and their own chains; and, under the precarious tenure of a tyrant"s will, gave themselves up to the full enjoyment of all that wealth and taste could purchase.
We must not be too hard upon human nature; the cause seemed desperate; they had a little paradise at stake; and if there is a spot on earth, the risk of losing which could excuse men in forgetting that they were slaves in a land where their fathers were free, it is the Island of Scio. But the sword hung suspended over them by a single hair. In an unexpected hour, without the least note of preparation, they were startled by the thunder of the Turkish cannon; fifty thousand Turks were let loose like bloodhounds upon the devoted island. The affrighted Greeks lay unarmed and helpless at their feet, but they lay at the feet of men who did not know mercy even by name; at the feet of men who hungered and thirsted after blood; of men, in comparison with whom wild beasts are as lambs. The wildest beast of the forest may become gorged with blood; not so with the Turks at Scio. Their appet.i.te "grew with what it fed on," and still longed for blood when there was not a victim left to bleed. Women were ripped open, children dashed against the walls, the heads of whole families stuck on pikes out of the windows of their houses, while their murderers gave themselves up to riot and plunder within. The forty hostages were hung in a row from the walls of the castle; an indiscriminate and universal burning and ma.s.sacre took place; in a few days the ground was c.u.mbered with the dead, and one of the loveliest spots on earth was a pile of smoking ruins. Out of a population of one hundred and ten thousand, sixty thousand are supposed to have been murdered, twenty thousand to have escaped, and thirty thousand to have been sold into slavery. Boys and young girls were sold publicly in the streets of Smyrna and Constantinople at a dollar a head. And all this did not arise from any irritated state of feeling toward them. It originated in the cold-blooded, calculating policy of the sultan, conceived in the same spirit which drenched the streets of Constantinople with the blood of the Janisaries; it was intended to strike terror into the hearts of the Greeks, but the murderer failed in his aim. The groans of the hapless Sciotes reached the ears of their countrymen, and gave a headlong and irresistible impulse to the spirit then struggling to be free. And this b.l.o.o.d.y tragedy was performed in our own days, and in the face of the civilized world. Surely if ever Heaven visits in judgment a nation for a nation"s crimes, the burning and ma.s.sacre at Scio will be deeply visited upon the accursed Turks.
It was late in the afternoon when I landed, and my landing was under peculiarly interesting circ.u.mstances. One of my fellow-pa.s.sengers was a native of the island, who had escaped during the ma.s.sacre, and now revisited it for the first time. He asked me to accompany him ash.o.r.e, promising to find some friends at whose house we might sleep; but he soon found himself a stranger in his native island: where he had once known everybody, he now knew n.o.body. The town was a complete ma.s.s of ruins; the walls of many fine buildings were still standing, crumbling to pieces, and still black with the fire of the incendiary Turks. The town that had grown up upon the ruins consisted of a row of miserable shantees, occupied as shops for the sale of the mere necessaries of life, where the shopman slept on his window-shutter in front. All my companion"s efforts to find an acquaintance who would give us a night"s lodging were fruitless. We were determined not to go on board the vessel, if possible to avoid it; her last cargo had been oil, the odour of which still remained about her. The weather would not permit us to sleep on deck, and the cabin was intolerably disagreeable. To add to our unpleasant position, and, at the same time, to heighten the cheerlessness of the scene around us, the rain began to fall violently. Under the guidance of a Greek we searched among the ruins for an apartment where we might build a fire and shelter ourselves for the night, but we searched in vain; the work of destruction was too complete.
Cold, and thoroughly drenched with rain, we were retracing our way to our boat, when our guide told my companion that a Greek archbishop had lately taken up his abode among the ruins. We immediately went there, and found him occupying apartments, partially repaired, in what had once been one of the finest houses in Scio. The entrance through a large stone gateway was imposing; the house was cracked from top to bottom by fire, nearly one half had fallen down, and the stones lay scattered as they fell; but enough remained to show that in its better days it had been almost a palace. We ascended a flight of stone steps to a terrace, from which we entered into a large hall perhaps thirty feet wide and fifty feet long. On one side of this hall the wall had fallen down the whole length, and we looked out upon the ma.s.s of ruins beneath. On the other side, in a small room in one corner, we found the archbishop.
He was sick, and in bed with all his clothes on, according to the universal custom here, but received us kindly. The furniture consisted of an iron bedstead with a mattress, on which he lay with a quilt spread over him, a wooden sofa, three wooden chairs, about twenty books, and two large leather cases containing clothes, napkins, and, probably, all his worldly goods. The rain came through the ceiling in several places; the bed of the poor archbishop had evidently been moved from time to time to avoid it, and I was obliged to change my position twice. An air of cheerless poverty reigned through the apartment. I could not help comparing his lot with that of more favoured and, perhaps, not more worthy servants of the church. It was a style so different from that of the priests at Rome, the pope and his cardinals, with their gaudy equipages and mult.i.tudes of footmen rattling to the Vatican; or from the pomp and state of the haughty English prelates, or even from the comforts of our own missionaries in different parts of this country, that I could not help feeling deeply for the poor priest before me. But he seemed contented and cheerful, and even thankful that, for the moment, there were others worse off than himself, and that he had it in his power to befriend them.
Sweetmeats, coffee, and pipes were served; and in about an hour we were conducted to supper in a large room, also opening from the hall. Our supper would not have tempted an epicure, but suited very well an appet.i.te whetted by exercise and travel. It consisted of a huge lump of bread and a large gla.s.s of water for each of us, caviari, black olives, and two kinds of Turkish sweetmeats. We were waited upon by two priests: one of them, a handsome young man, not more than twenty, with long black hair hanging over his shoulders like a girl"s, stood by with a napkin on his arm and a pewter vessel, with which he poured water on our hands, receiving it again in a basin. This was done both before and after eating; then came coffee and pipes. During the evening the young priest brought out an edition of Homer, and I surprised _him_, and astounded _myself_, by being able to translate a pa.s.sage in the Iliad. I translated it in French, and my companion explained it in modern Greek to the young priest. Our beds were cushions laid on a raised platform or divan extending around the walls, with a quilt for each of us. In the morning, after sweetmeats, coffee, and pipes, we paid our respects to the good old archbishop, and took our leave. When we got out of doors, finding that the wind was the same, and that there was no possibility of sailing, my friend proposed a ride into the country.
We procured a couple of mules, took a small basket of provisions for a collation, and started.
Our road lay directly along the sh.o.r.e; on one side the sea, and on the other the ruins of houses and gardens, almost washed by the waves. At about three miles" distance we crossed a little stream, by the side of which we saw a sarcophagus, lately disinterred, containing the usual vases of a Grecian tomb, including the piece of money to pay Charon his ferriage over the river Styx, and six pounds of dust; being all that remained of a _man_--perhaps one who had filled a large s.p.a.ce in the world; perhaps a hero--buried probably more than two thousand years ago. After a ride of about five miles we came to the ruins of a large village, the style of which would anywhere have fixed the attention, as having been once a favoured abode of wealth and taste. The houses were of brown stone, built together, strictly in the Venetian style, after the models left during the occupation of the island by the Venetians, large and elegant, with gardens of three or four acres, enclosed by high walls of the same kind of stone, and altogether in a style far superior to anything I had seen in Greece. These were the country-houses and gardens of the rich merchants of Scio. The manner of living among the proprietors here was somewhat peculiar, and the ties that bound them to this little village were peculiarly strong. This was the family home; the community was essentially mercantile, and most of their business transactions were carried on elsewhere. When there were three or four brothers in a family, one would be in Constantinople a couple of years, another at Trieste, and so on, while another remained at home; so that those who were away, while toiling amid the perplexities of business, were always looking to the occasional family reunion; and all trusted to spend the evening of their days among the beautiful gardens of Scio. What a scene for the heart to turn to now! The houses and gardens were still there, some standing almost entire, others black with smoke and crumbling to ruins. But where were they who once occupied them? Where were they who should now be coming out to rejoice in the return of a friend and to welcome a stranger? An awful solitude, a stillness that struck a cold upon the heart, reigned around us. We saw n.o.body; and our own voices, and the tramping of our horses upon the deserted pavements, sounded hollow and sepulchral in our ears. It was like walking among the ruins of Pompeii; it was another city of the dead; but there was a freshness about the desolation that seemed of to-day; it seemed as though the inhabitants should be sleeping and not dead. Indeed, the high walls of the gardens, and the outside of the houses too, were generally so fresh and in so perfect a state, that it seemed like riding through a handsome village at an early hour before the inhabitants had risen; and I sometimes could not help thinking that in an hour or two the streets would be thronged with a busy population. My friend continued to conduct me through the solitary streets; telling me, as we went along, that this was the house of such a family, this of such a family, with some of whose members I had become acquainted in Greece, until, stopping before a large stone gateway, he dismounted at the gate of his father"s house. In that house he was born; there he had spent his youth; he had escaped from it during the dreadful ma.s.sacre, and this was the first time of his revisiting it. What a tide of recollections must have rushed upon him!
We entered through the large stone gateway into a courtyard beautifully paved in mosaic in the form of a star, with small black and white round stones. On our left was a large stone reservoir, perhaps twenty-five feet square, still so perfect as to hold water, with an arbour over it supported by marble columns; a venerable grapevine completely covered the arbour. The garden covered an extent of about four acres, filled with orange, lemon, almond, and fig trees; overrun with weeds, roses, and flowers, growing together in wild confusion. On the right was the house, and a melancholy spectacle it was; the wall had fallen down on one side, and the whole was black with smoke. We ascended a flight of stone steps, with marble bal.u.s.trades, to the terrace, a platform about twenty feet square, overlooking the garden. From the terrace we entered the saloon, a large room with high ceilings and fresco paintings on the walls; the marks of the fire kindled on the stone floor still visible, all the woodwork burned to a cinder, and the whole black with smoke. It was a perfect picture of wanton destruction. The day, too, was in conformity with the scene; the sun was obscured, the wind blew through the ruined building, it rained, was cold and cheerless. What were the feelings of my friend I cannot imagine; the houses of three of his uncles were immediately adjoining; one of these uncles was one of the forty hostages, and was hanged; the other two were murdered; his father, a venerable-looking old man, who came down to the vessel when we started to see him off, had escaped to the mountains, from thence in a caique to Ipsara, and from thence into Italy. I repeat it, I cannot imagine what were his feelings; he spoke but little; they must have been too deep for utterance. I looked at everything with intense interest; I wanted to ask question after question, but could not, in mercy, probe his bleeding wounds. We left the house and walked out into the garden.
It showed that there was no master"s eye to watch over it; I plucked an orange which had lost its flavour; the tree was withering from want of care; our feet became entangled among weeds, and roses, and rare hothouse plants growing wildly together. I said that he did not talk much; but the little he did say amounted to volumes. Pa.s.sing a large vase in which a beautiful plant was running wildly over the sides, he murmured indistinctly "the same vase" (le meme vase), and once he stopped opposite a tree, and, turning to me, said, "This is the only tree I do not remember." These and other little incidental remarks showed how deeply all the particulars were engraved upon his mind, and told me, plainer than words, that the wreck and ruin he saw around him harrowed his very soul. Indeed, how could it be otherwise? This was his father"s house, the home of his youth, the scene of his earliest, dearest, and fondest recollections. Busy memory, that source of all our greatest pains as well as greatest pleasures, must have pressed sorely upon him, must have painted the ruined and desolate scene around him in colours even brighter, far brighter, than they ever existed in; it must have called up the faces of well-known and well-loved friends; indeed, he must have asked himself, in bitterness and in anguish of spirit, "The friends of my youth where are they?" while the fatal answer fell upon his heart, "Gone murdered, in captivity and in exile."
CHAPTER VIII.
A n.o.ble Grecian Lady.--Beauty of Scio.--An Original.--Foggi.--A Turkish Coffee-house.--Mussulman at Prayers.--Easter Sunday.--A Greek Priest.--A Tartar Guide.--Turkish Ladies.--Camel Scenes.--Sight of a Harem.--Disappointed Hopes.--A rare Concert.--Arrival at Smyrna.
(_Continuation of the Letter._)
WE returned to the house, and seeking out a room less ruined than the rest, partook of a slight collation, and set out on a visit to a relative of my Sciote friend.
On our way my companion pointed out a convent on the side of a hill, where six thousand Greeks, who had been prevailed upon to come down from the mountains to ransom themselves, were treacherously murdered to a man; their unburied bones still whiten the ground within the walls of the convent. Arriving at the house of his relative, we entered through a large gateway into a handsome courtyard, with reservoir, garden, &c., ruinous, though in better condition than those we had seen before. This relative was a widow, of the n.o.ble house of Mavrocordato, one of the first families in Greece, and perhaps the most distinguished name in the Greek revolution. She had availed herself of the sultan"s amnesty to return; had repaired two or three rooms, and sat down to end her days among the scenes of her childhood, among the ruins of her father"s house. She was now not more than thirty; her countenance was remarkably pensive, and she had seen enough to drive a smile for ever from her face. The meeting between her and my friend was exceedingly affecting, particularly on her part. She wept bitterly, though, with the elasticity peculiar to the Greek character, the smile soon chased away the tear. She invited us to spend the night there, pointing to the divan, and promising us cushions and coverlets. We accepted her invitation, and again set forth to ramble among the ruins.
I had heard that an American missionary had lately come into the island, and was living somewhere in the neighbourhood. I found out his abode, and went to see him. He was a young man from Virginia, by the name of ****; had married a lady from Connecticut, who was unfortunately sick in bed. He was living in one room in the corner of a ruined building, but was then engaged in repairing a house into which he expected to remove soon. As an American, the first whom they had seen in that distant island, they invited me into the sickroom. In a strange land, and among a people whose language they did not understand, they seemed to be all in all to each other; and I left them, probably for ever, in the earnest hope that the wife might soon be restored to health, that hand in hand they might sustain each other in the rough path before them.
Toward evening we returned to the house of my friend"s relative. We found there a nephew, a young man about twenty-two, and a cousin, a man about thirty-five, both accidentally on a visit to the island.
As I looked at the little party before me, sitting around a brazier of charcoal, and talking earnestly in Greek, I could hardly persuade myself that what I had seen and heard that day was real. All that I had ever read in history of the ferocity of the Turkish character; all the wild stories of corsairs, of murdering, capturing, and carrying into captivity, that I had ever read in romances, crowded upon me, and I saw living witnesses that the bloodiest records of history and the wildest creations of romance were not overcharged.
They could all testify in their own persons that these things were true. They had all been stripped of their property, and had their houses burned over their heads; had all narrowly escaped being murdered; and had all suffered in their nearest and dearest connexions. The nephew, then a boy nine years old, had been saved by a maidservant, his father had been murdered; a brother, a sister, and many of his cousins, were at that moment, and had been for years, in slavery among the Turks; my friend, with his sister, had found refuge in the house of the Austrian consul, and from thence had escaped into Italy; the cousin was the son of one of the forty hostages who were hung, and was the only member of his father"s family that escaped death; while our pensive and amiable hostess, a bride of seventeen, had seen her young husband murdered before her eyes; had herself been sold into slavery, and, after two years"
servitude, redeemed by her friends.
In the morning I rose early and walked out upon the terrace. Nature had put on a different garb. The wind had fallen, and the sun was shining warmly upon a scene of softness and luxuriance surpa.s.sing all that I had ever heard or dreamed of the beauty of the islands of Greece. Away with all that I said about Syra; skip the page. The terrace overlooked the garden filled with orange, lemon, almond, and fig trees; with plants, roses, and flowers of every description, growing in luxuriant wildness. But the view was not confined to the garden. Looking back to the harbour of Scio, was a bold range of rugged mountains bounding the view on that side; on the right was the sea, then calm as a lake; on both the other sides were ranges of mountains, irregular and picturesque in their appearance, verdant and blooming to their very summits; and within these limits, for an extent of perhaps five miles, were continued gardens like that at my feet, filled with the choicest fruit-trees, with roses and the greatest variety of rare plants and flowers that ever unfolded their beauties before the eyes of man; above all, the orange-trees, the peculiar favourite of the island, then almost in full bloom, covered with blossoms, from my elevated position on the terrace made the whole valley appear an immense bed of flowers. All, too, felt the freshening influence of the rain; and a gentle breeze brought to me from this wilderness of sweets the most delicious perfume that ever greeted the senses. Do not think me extravagant when I say that, in your wildest dreams, you could never fancy so rich and beautiful a scene. Even among ruins, that almost made the heart break, I could hardly tear my eyes from it. It is one of the loveliest spots on earth. It is emphatically a Paradise lost, for the hand of the Turks is upon it; a hand that withers all that it touches. In vain does the sultan invite the survivers, and the children made orphans by his b.l.o.o.d.y ma.s.sacre, to return; in vain do the fruits and the flowers, the sun and the soil, invite them to return; their wounds are still bleeding; they cannot forget that the wild beast"s paw might again be upon them, and that their own blood might one day moisten the flowers which grow over the graves of their fathers. But I must leave this place. I could hardly tear myself away then, and I love to linger about it now. While I was enjoying the luxury of the terrace a messenger came from the captain to call us on board. With a feeling of the deepest interest I bade farewell, probably for ever, to my sorrowing hostess and to the beautiful gardens of Scio.
We mounted our mules, and in an hour were at the port. My feelings were so wrought upon that I felt my blood boil at the first Turk I met in the streets. I felt that I should like to sacrifice him to the shades of the murdered Greeks. I wondered that the Greeks did not kill every one on the island. I wondered that they could endure the sight of the turban. We found that the captain had hurried us away unnecessarily. We could not get out of the harbour, and were obliged to lounge about the town all day. We again made a circuit among the ruins; examined particularly those of the library, where we found an old woman who had once been an attendant there, living in a little room in the cellar, completely buried under the stones of the fallen building; and returning, sat down with a chibouk before the door of an old Turkish coffee-house fronting the harbour.
Here I met an original in the person of the Dutch consul. He was an old Italian, and had been in America during the revolutionary war as _dragoman_, as he called it, to the Count de Gra.s.se, though, from his afterward incidentally speaking of the count as "my master," I am inclined to think that the word dragoman, which here means a person of great character and trust, may be interpreted as "valet de chambre." The old consul was in Scio during the whole of the ma.s.sacre, and gave me many interesting particulars respecting it. He hates the Greeks, and spoke with great indignation about the manner in which their dead bodies lay strewed about the streets for months after the ma.s.sacre. "D--n them," he said, "he could not go anywhere without stumbling over them." As I began to have some apprehensions about being obliged to stay here another night, I thought I could not employ my time better than in trying to work out of the consul an invitation to spend it with him. But the old fellow was too much for me. When I began to talk about the unpleasantness of being obliged to spend the night on board, and the impossibility of spending it on sh.o.r.e, _having no acquaintance_ there, he began to talk poverty in the most up and down terms. I was a little discouraged, but I looked at his military coat, his c.o.c.ked hat and cane, and considering his talk merely a sort of apology for the inferior style of housekeeping I would find, was ingeniously working things to a point, when he sent me to the right about by enumerating the little instances of kindness he had received from strangers who happened to visit the island; among others, from one--he had his name in his pocketbook; he should never forget him; perhaps I had heard of him--who, at parting, shook him affectionately by the hand, and gave him a doubloon and a Spanish dollar. I hauled off from the representative of the majesty of Holland, and perhaps, before this, have been served up to some new visitor as the "mean, stingy American."
In the evening we again got under weigh; before morning the wind was again blowing dead ahead; and about midday we put into the harbour of Foggi, a port in Asia Minor, and came to anchor under the walls of the castle, under the blood-red Mussulman flag. We immediately got into the boat to go ash.o.r.e. This was my first port in Turkey. A huge ugly African, marked with the smallpox, with two pistols and a yataghan in his belt, stood on a little dock, waited till we were in the act of landing, and then rushed forward, ferocious as a tiger from his native sands, throwing up both his hands, and roaring out "Quarantino." This was a new thing in Turkey. Heretofore the Turks, with their fatalist notions, had never taken any precautions against the plague; but they had become frightened by the terrible ravages the disease was then making in Egypt, and imposed a quarantine upon vessels coming from thence. We were, however, suffered to land, and our first movement was to the coffee-house directly in front of the dock. The coffee-house was a low wooden building, covering considerable ground, with a large piazza, or, rather, projecting roof all around it. Inside and out there was a raised platform against the wall. This platform was one step from the floor, and on this step every one left his shoes before taking his seat on the matting. There were, perhaps, fifty Turks inside and out; sitting cross-legged, smoking the chibouk, and drinking coffee out of cups not larger than the sh.e.l.l of a Madeira-nut.
We kicked our shoes off on the steps, seated ourselves on a mat outside, and took our chibouk and coffee with an air of savoir faire that would not have disgraced the worthiest Moslem of them all.
Verily, said I, as I looked at the dozing, smoking, coffee-sipping congregation around me, there are some good points about the Turks, after all. They never think--that hurts digestion; and they love chibouks and coffee--that shows taste and feeling. I fell into their humour, and for a while exchanged nods with my neighbours all around. Suddenly the bitterness of thought came upon me; I found that my pipe was exhausted. I replenished it, and took a sip of coffee. Verily, said I, there are few better things in this world than chibouks and coffee; they even make men forget there is blood upon their hands. The thought started me; I shrank from contact with my neighbours, cut my way through the volumes of smoke, and got out into the open air.
My companion joined me. We entered the walls and made a circuit of the town. It was a dirty little place, having one princ.i.p.al street lined with shops or bazars; every third shop, almost, being a cafteria, where a parcel of huge turbaned fellows were at their daily labours of smoking pipes and drinking coffee. The first thing I remarked as being strikingly different from a European city was the total absence of women. The streets were thronged with men, and not a woman was to be seen, except occasionally I caught a glimpse of a white veil or a pair of black eyes sparkling through the latticed bars of a window. Afterward, however, in walking outside the walls into the country, we met a large party of women. When we first saw them they had their faces uncovered; but, as soon as they saw us coming toward them, they stopped and arranged their long white shawls, winding them around their faces so as to leave barely s.p.a.ce enough uncovered to allow them to see and breathe, but so that it was utterly impossible for us to distinguish a single one of their features.
Going on in the direction from which they came, and attracted by the mourning cypress, we came to a large burying-ground. It is situated on the side of a hill almost washed by the waves, and shaded by a thick grove of the funereal tree. There is, indeed, something peculiarly touching in the appearance of this tree; it seems to be endowed with feelings, and to mourn over the dead it shades. The monuments were generally a single upright slab of marble, with a turban on the top. There were many, too, in form like one of our oblong tombstones; and, instead of a slab of marble over the top, the interior was filled with earth, and the surface overrun with roses, evergreens, and flowers. The burying-grounds in the East are always favourite places for walking in; and it is a favourite occupation of the Turkish women to watch and water the flowers growing over the graves of their friends.
Toward evening we returned to the harbour. I withdrew from my companion, and, leaning against one of the gates of the city, fixed my eyes upon the door of a minaret, watching till the muezzin should appear, and, for the last time before the setting of the sun, call all good Mussulmans to prayer. The door opens toward Mecca, and a little before dark the muezzin came out, and, leaning over the railing with his face toward the tomb of the Prophet, in a voice, every tone of which fell distinctly upon my ear, made that solemn call which, from the time of Mohammed, has been addressed five times a day from the tops of the minarets to the sons of the faithful.
"Allah! Allah! G.o.d is G.o.d, and Mohammed is his prophet. To prayer!
to prayer!" Immediately an old Turk by my side fell upon his knees, with his face to the tomb of the Prophet; ten times, in quick succession, he bowed his forehead till it touched the earth; then clasped his hands and prayed. I never saw more rapt devotion than in this pious old Mussulman. I have often marked in Italy the severe observance of religious ceremonies; I have seen, for instance, at Rome, fifty penitents at a time mounting on their knees, and kissing, as they mounted, the steps of the Scala Santa, or holy staircase, by which, as the priests tell them, our Saviour ascended into the presence of Pontius Pilate. I have seen the Greek prostrate himself before a picture until he was physically exhausted; and I have seen the humble and pious Christian at his prayers, beneath the simple fanes and before the peaceful altars of my own land; but I never saw that perfect abandonment with which a Turk gives himself up to his G.o.d in prayer. He is perfectly abstracted from the things of this world; he does not regard time or place; in his closet or in the street, alone or in a crowd, he sees nothing, he hears nothing; the world is a blank; his G.o.d is everything. He is lost in the intensity of his devotion. It is a spectacle almost sublime, and for the moment you forget the polluted fountain of his religion, and the thousand crimes it sanctions, in your admiration of his sincerity and faith.
Not being able to find any place where we could sleep ash.o.r.e, except on one of the mats of the coffee-house, head and heels with a dozen Turks, we went on board, and toward morning again got under weigh.
We beat up to the mouth of the Gulf of Smyrna, but, with the sirocco blowing directly in our teeth, it was impossible to go farther. We made two or three attempts to enter, but in tacking the last time our old brig, which had hardly ballast enough to keep her keel under water, received such a rough shaking that we got her away before the wind, and at three o"clock P.M. were again anch.o.r.ed in the harbour of Foggi. I now began to think that there was a spell upon my movements, and that Smyrna, which was becoming to me a sort of land of promise, would never greet my longing eyes.
I was somewhat comforted, however, by remembering that I had never yet reached any port in the Mediterranean for which I had sailed, without touching at one or two intermediate ports; and that, so far, I had always worked right at last. I was still farther comforted by our having the good fortune to be able to procure lodging ash.o.r.e, at the house of a Greek, the son of a priest. It was the Sat.u.r.day before Easter Sunday, and the resurrection of our Saviour was to be celebrated at midnight, or, rather, the beginning of the next day, according to the rites and ceremonies of the Greek church. It was also the last of the forty days" fasting, and the next day commenced feasting. Supper was prepared for us, at which meat was put on the table for me only; my Greek friend being supposed not to eat meat during the days of fasting. He had been, however, two years out of Greece; and though he did not like to offend the prejudices of his countrymen, he did not like fasting. I felt for my fellow-traveller; and, cutting up some meat in small parcels, kept my eye upon the door while he whipped them into his mouth. After supper we lay down upon the divan, with large quilts over us, my friend having promised to rise at twelve o"clock and accompany me to the Greek church.
At midnight we were roused by the chant of the Greeks in the streets, on their way to the church. We turned out, and fell into a procession of five hundred people, making the streets as light as day with their torches. At the door of the church we found our host, sitting at a table with a parcel of wax tapers on one side and a box to receive money on the other. We each bought a taper and went in.
After remaining there at least two hours, listening to a monotonous and unintelligible routine of prayers and chants, the priests came out of the holy doors, bearing aloft an image of our Saviour on the cross, ornamented with gold leaf, ta.s.sels, and festoons of artificial flowers; pa.s.sed through the church, and out of the opposite door. The Greeks lighted their tapers and formed into a procession behind them, and we did the same. Immediately outside the door, up the staircase, and on each side of the corridor, allowing merely room enough for the procession to pa.s.s, were arranged the women, dressed in white, with long white veils, thrown back from their faces however, laid smooth over the tops of their heads, and hanging down to their feet. Nearly every woman, old or young, had a child in her arms. In fact, there seemed to be as great a mustering of children as of men and women, and, for aught that I could see, as much to the edification of the former as the latter. A continued chant was kept up during the movements of the procession, and perhaps for half an hour after the arrival of the priests at the courtyard, when it rose to a tremendous burst. The torches were waved in the air; a wild, unmeaning, and discordant scream or yell rang through the hollow cloisters, and half a dozen pistols, two or three muskets, and twenty or thirty crackers were fired. This was intended as a feu-de-joie, and was supposed to mark the precise moment of our Saviour"s resurrection. In a few moments the phrensy seemed to pa.s.s away; the noise fell from a wild clamour to a slow chant, and the procession returned to the church. The scene was striking, particularly the part outside the church; the dead of night; the waving of torches; the women with their long white dresses, and the children in their arms, &c.; but, from beginning to end, there was nothing solemn in it.
Returned to the church, a priest came round with a picture of the Saviour risen; and, as far as I could make it out, holding in his hand the Greek flag, followed by another priest with a plate to receive contributions. He held out the picture to be kissed, then turned his hand to receive the same act of devotion, keeping his eye all the time upon the plate which followed to receive the offerings of the pious, as a sort of payment for the privilege of the kiss.
His manner reminded me of the Dutch parson, who, immediately after p.r.o.nouncing a couple man and wife, touching the bridegroom with his elbow, said, "And now where ish mine dollar?" I kissed the picture, dodged his knuckles, paid my money, and left the church. I had been there four hours, during which time, perhaps, more than a thousand persons had been completely absorbed in their religious ceremonies; and though beginning in the middle of the night, I have seen more yawning at the theatre or at an Italian opera than I saw there. They now began to disperse, though I remember I left a crowd of regular amateurs, at the head of whom were our sailors, still hanging round the desk of an exhorting priest, with an earnestness that showed a still craving appet.i.te.
I do not wonder that the Turks look with contempt upon Christians, for they have constantly under their eyes the disgusting mummeries of the Greek church, and see nothing of the pure and sublime principles our religion inculcates. Still, however, there was something striking and interesting in the manner in which the Greeks in this Turkish town had kept themselves, as it were, a peculiar people, and, in spite of the brands of "dog" and "infidel," held fast to the religion they received from their fathers. There was nothing interesting about them as Greeks; they had taken no part with their countrymen in their glorious struggle for liberty; they were engaged in petty business, and bartered the precious chance of freedom once before them for base profits and ign.o.ble ease; and even now were content to live in chains, and kiss the rod that smote them.
We returned to the house where we had slept; and, after coffee, in company with our host and his father, the priest, sat down to a meal, in which, for the first time in forty days, they ate meat. I had often remarked the religious observance of fast days among the common people in Greece. In travelling there I had more than once offered an egg to my guide on a fast day, but never could get one to accept anything that came so near to animal food, though, by a strange confusion of the principles of religious obligation, perhaps the same man would not have hesitated to commit murder if he had any inducement to do so. Mrs. Hill, at Athens, told me that, upon one occasion, a little girl in her school refused to eat a piece of cake because it was made with eggs.
At daylight I was lying on the floor looking through a crevice of the window-shutter at the door of the minaret, waiting for the muezzin"s morning cry to prayer. At six o"clock I went out, and finding the wind still in the same quarter, without any apparent prospect of change, determined, at all hazards, to leave the vessel and go on by land. My friend and fellow-pa.s.senger was also very anxious to get to Smyrna, but would not accompany me, from an indefinite apprehension of plague, robbers, &c. I had heard so many of these rumours, all of which had proved to be unfounded, that I put no faith in any of them. I found a Turk who engaged to take me through in fourteen hours; and at seven o"clock I was in my saddle, charged with a dozen letters from captains, supercargoes, and pa.s.sengers, whom I left behind waiting for a change of wind.
My Tartar was a big swarthy fellow, with an extent of beard and mustaches unusual even among his bearded countrymen. He was armed with a pair of enormous pistols and a yataghan, and was, altogether, a formidable fellow to look upon. But there was a something about him that I liked. There was a doggedness, a downright stubbornness that seemed honest. I knew nothing about him. I picked him up in the street, and took him in preference to others who offered, because he would not be beaten down in his price. When he saw me seated on my horse he stood by my side a little distance off, and looking at me without opening his lips, drew his belt tight around him, and adjusted his pistols and yataghan. His manner seemed to say that he took charge of me as a bale of goods, to be paid for on safe delivery, and that he would carry me through with fire and sword, if necessary. And now, said I, "Let fate do her worst;" I have a good horse under me, and in fourteen hours I shall be in Smyrna. "Blow winds and crack your cheeks;" I defy you.
My Tartar led off at a brisk trot, never opening his lips nor turning his head except occasionally to see how I followed him across a stream. At about ten o"clock he turned off from the horse-path into a piece of fine pasture, and, slipping the bridle off his horse, turned him loose to feed. He then did the same with mine, and, spreading my cloak on the ground for me to sit upon, sat down by my side and opened his wallet. His manner seemed to intimate a disposition to throw provisions into a common stock, no doubt expecting the gain to be on his side; but as I could only contribute a couple of rolls of bread which I bought as we rode through the town, I am inclined to think that he considered me rather a sponge.