Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland, Vol. I (of 2)

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Title: Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland, Vol. I (of 2)
Author: Stephens, John Lloyd
Language: English
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Transcriber's notes:

Punctuation and hyphenation have been normalised. Variable, archaic or
unusual spelling has been retained. A list of the few corrections made
can found at the end of the book. Italics indicated by _underscores_.

[Illustration: GREECE, TURKEY, _PART OF_ RUSSIA & POLAND.]

INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

"INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN EGYPT, ARABIA PETRÆA, AND THE HOLY LAND."

WITH A MAP AND ENGRAVINGS.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

SEVENTH EDITION.

NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS.
329 & 331 PEARL STREET,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1853.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1838, by HARPER &
BROTHERS, in the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New York.

PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION.

THE fourth edition of this work was published during the author's
absence from the city. His publishers, in a preface in his behalf,
returned his acknowledgments to the public, and he can but respond to
the acknowledgments there made. He has made some alterations in the page
relating to the American phil-Hellenists; and for the rest, he concludes
as in the preface to his first edition.

The author has been induced by his publishers to put forth his
"Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland." In point of
time they precede his tour in Egypt, Arabia Petræa, and the Holy Land.
The countries which form the subject of the following pages perhaps do
not, in themselves, possess the same interest with those in his first
work; but the author has reason to believe that part of his route,
particularly from the Black Sea to the Baltic, through the interior of
Russia, and from St. Petersburgh through the interior of Poland to
Warsaw and Cracow, is comparatively new to most of his countrymen. As in
his first work, his object has been to present a picture of the
every-day scenes which occur to the traveller in the countries referred
to, rather than any detailed description of the countries themselves.

_New York, November, 1838._

CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME

CHAPTER I. Page

A Hurricane.--An Adventure.--Missilonghi.--Siege of
Missilonghi.--Byron.--Marco Bozzaris.--Visit to the Widow,
Daughters, and Brother of Bozzaris.--Halleck's "Marco Bozzaris."
13

CHAPTER II.

Choice of a Servant.--A Turnout.--An Evening Chat.--Scenery of the
Road.--Lepanto.--A projected Visit.--Change of
Purpose.--Padras.--Vostitza.--Variety and Magnificence of Scenery.
28

CHAPTER III.

Quarrel with the Landlord.--Ægina.--Sicyon.--Corinth.--A
distinguished Reception.--Desolation of Corinth.--The
Acropolis.--View from the Acropolis.--Lechæum and Cenchreæ.--Kaka
Scala.--Arrival at Athens. 46

CHAPTER IV.

American Missionary School.--Visit to the School.--Mr. Hill and the
Male Department.--Mrs. Hill and the Female Department.--Maid of
Athens.--Letter from Mr. Hill.--Revival of Athena.--Citizens of
the World. 61

CHAPTER V.

Ruins of Athens.--Hill of Mars.--Temple of the Winds.--Lantern of
Demosthenes.--Arch of Adrian.--Temple of Jupiter Olympus.--Temple
of Theseus.--The Acropolis.--The Parthenon.--Pentelican
Mountain.--Mount Hymettus.--The Piræus.--Greek Fleas.--Napoli. 73

CHAPTER VI.

Argos.--Parting and Farewell.--Tomb of Agamemnon.--Mycenæ.--Gate of
the Lions.--A Misfortune.--Meeting in the Mountains.--A Landlord's
Troubles.--A Midnight Quarrel.--One good Turn deserves
another.--Gratitude of a Greek Family.--Megara.--The Soldiers'
Revel. 99

CHAPTER VII.

A Dreary Funeral.--Marathon.--Mount Pentelicus.--A Mystery.--Woes of
a Lover.--Reveries of Glory.--Scio's Rocky Isle.--A blood-stained
Page of History.--A Greek Prelate.--Desolation.--The Exile's
Return. 118

CHAPTER VIII.

A Noble 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. 149

CHAPTER IX.

First Sight of Smyrna.--Unveiled Women.--Ruins of Ephesus.--Ruin,
all Ruin.--Temple of Diana.--Encounter with a Wolf.--Love at first
Sight.--Gatherings on the Road. 173

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. 188

CHAPTER XI.

An American Original.--Moral Changes in Turkey.--Wonders of Steam
Navigation.--The March of Mind.--Classic Localities.--Sestos and
Abydos.--Seeds of Pestilence. 203

CHAPTER XII.

Mr. Churchill.--Commodore Porter.--Castle of the Seven Towers.--The
Sultan's Naval Architect.--Launch of the Great Ship.--Sultan
Mahmoud.--Jubilate.--A National Grievance.--Visit to a
Mosque.--The Burial-grounds. 218

CHAPTER XIII.

Visit to the Slave-market.--Horrors of Slavery.--Departure from
Stamboul.--The stormy Euxine.--Odessa.--The Lazaretto.--Russian
Civility.--Returning Good for Evil. 236

CHAPTER XIV.

The Guardiano.--One too many.--An Excess of Kindness.--The last Day
of Quarantine.--Mr. Baguet.--Rise of Odessa.--City-making.--Count
Woronzow.--A Gentleman Farmer.--An American Russian. 258

INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND.

CHAPTER I.

A Hurricane.--An Adventure.--Missilonghi.--Siege of
Missilonghi.--Byron.--Marco Bozzaris.--Visit to the Widow,
Daughters, and Brother of Bozzaris.

ON the evening of the ---- February, 1835, by a bright starlight, after a
short ramble among the Ionian Islands, I sailed from Zante in a
beautiful cutter of about forty tons for Padras. My companions were
Doctor W., an old and valued friend from New-York, who was going to
Greece merely to visit the Episcopal missionary school at Athens, and a
young Scotchman, who had travelled with me through Italy, and was going
farther, like myself, he knew not exactly why. There was hardly a breath
of air when we left the harbour, but a breath was enough to fill our
little sail. The wind, though of the gentlest, was fair; and as we
crawled from under the lee of the island, in a short time it became a
fine sailing breeze. We sat on the deck till a late hour, and turned in
with every prospect of being at Padras in the morning. Before daylight,
however, the wind chopped about, and set in dead ahead, and when I went
on deck in the morning it was blowing a hurricane. We had passed the
point of Padras; the wind was driving down the Gulf of Corinth as if old
Æolus had determined on thwarting our purpose; and our little cutter,
dancing like a gull upon the angry waters, was driven into the harbour
of Missilonghi.

The town was full in sight, but at such a distance, and the waves were
running so high, that we could not reach it with our small boat. A long
flat extends several miles into the sea, making the harbour completely
inaccessible except to small Greek caiques built expressly for such
navigation. We remained on board all day; and the next morning, the gale
still continuing, made signals to a fishing boat to come off and take us
ashore. In a short time she came alongside; we bade farewell to our
captain--an Italian and a noble fellow, cradled, and, as he said, born
to die on the Adriatic--and in a few minutes struck the soil of fallen
but immortal Greece.

Our manner of striking it, however, was not such as to call forth any of
the warm emotions struggling in the breast of the scholar, for we were
literally stuck in the mud. We were yet four or five miles from the
shore, and the water was so low that the fishing-boat, with the
additional weight of four men and luggage, could not swim clear. Our
boatmen were two long, sinewy Greeks, with the red tarbouch, embroidered
jacket, sash, and large trousers, and with their long poles set us
through the water with prodigious force; but, as soon as the boat
struck, they jumped out, and, putting their brawny shoulders under her
sides, heaved her through into better water, and then resumed their
poles. In this way they propelled her two or three miles, working
alternately with their poles and shoulders, until they got her into a
channel, when they hoisted the sail, laid directly for the harbour, and
drove upon the beach with canvass all flying.

During the late Greek revolution, Missilonghi was the great
debarking-place of European adventurers; and, probably, among all the
desperadoes who ever landed there, none were more destitute and in
better condition to "go ahead" than I; for I had all that I was worth on
my back. At one of the Ionian Islands I had lost my carpet-bag,
containing my notebook and every article of wearing apparel except the
suit in which I stood. Every condition, however, has its advantages;
mine put me above porters and custom-house officers; and while my
companions were busy with these plagues of travellers, I paced with
great satisfaction the shore of Greece, though I am obliged to confess
that this satisfaction was for reasons utterly disconnected with any
recollections of her ancient glories. Business before pleasure: one of
our first inquiries was for a breakfast. Perhaps, if we had seen a
monument, or solitary column, or ruin of any kind, it would have
inspired us to better things; but there was nothing, absolutely nothing,
that could recall an image of the past. Besides, we did not expect to
land at Missilonghi, and were not bound to be inspired at a place into
which we were thrown by accident; and, more than all, a drizzling rain
was penetrating to our very bones; we were wet and cold, and what can
men do in the way of sentiment when their teeth are chattering?

The town stands upon a flat, marshy plain, which extends several miles
along the shore. The whole was a mass of new-made ruins--of houses
demolished and black with smoke--the tokens of savage and desolating
war. In front, and running directly along the shore, was a long street
of miserable one-story shantees, run up since the destruction of the old
town, and so near the shore that sometimes it is washed by the sea, and
at the time of our landing it was wet and muddy from the rain. It was a
cheerless place, and reminded me of Communipaw in bad weather. It had no
connexion with the ancient glory of Greece, no name or place on her
historic page, and no hotel where we could get a breakfast; but one of
the officers of the customs conducted us to a shantee filled with
Bavarian soldiers drinking. There was a sort of second story, accessible
only by a ladder; and one end of this was partitioned off with boards,
but had neither bench, table, nor any other article of housekeeping. We
had been on and almost _in_ the water since daylight, exposed to a keen
wind and drizzling rain, and now, at eleven o'clock, could probably have
eaten several chickens apiece; but nothing came amiss, and, as we could
not get chickens, we took eggs, which, for lack of any vessel to boil
them in, were roasted. We placed a huge loaf of bread on the middle of
the floor, and seated ourselves around it, spreading out so as to keep
the eggs from rolling away, and each hewing off bread for himself.
Fortunately, the Greeks have learned from their quondam Turkish masters
the art of making coffee, and a cup of this Eastern cordial kept our dry
bread from choking us.

When we came out again the aspect of matters was more cheerful; the long
street was swarming with Greeks, many of them armed with pistols and
yataghan, but miserably poor in appearance, and in such numbers that not
half of them could find the shelter of a roof at night. We were accosted
by one dressed in a hat and frockcoat, and who, in occasional visits to
Corfu and Trieste, had picked up some Italian and French, and a suit of
European clothes, and was rather looked up to by his untravelled
countrymen. As a man of the world, who had received civilities abroad,
he seemed to consider it incumbent upon him to reciprocate at home, and,
with the tacit consent of all around, he undertook to do the honours of
Missilonghi.

If, as a Greek, he had any national pride about him, he was imposing
upon himself a severe task; for all that he could do was to conduct us
among ruins, and, as he went along, tell us the story of the bloody
siege which had reduced the place to its present woful state. For more
than a year, under unparalleled hardships, its brave garrison resisted
the combined strength of the Turkish and Egyptian armies, and, when all
hope was gone, resolved to cut their way through the enemy or die in the
attempt. Many of the aged and sick, the wounded and the women, refused
to join in the sortie, and preferred to shut themselves up in an old
mill, with the desperate purpose of resisting until they should bring
around them a large crowd of Turks, when they would blow all up
together. An old invalid soldier seated himself in a mine under the
Bastion Bozzaris (the ruins of which we saw), the mine being charged
with thirty kegs of gunpowder; the last sacrament was administered by
the bishop and priests to the whole population and, at a signal, the
besieged made their desperate sortie. One body dashed through the
Turkish ranks, and, with many women and children, gained the mountains;
but the rest were driven back. Many of the women ran to the sea and
plunged in with their children; husbands stabbed their wives with their
own hands to save them from the Turks, and the old soldier under the
bastion set fire to the train, and the remnant of the heroic garrison
buried themselves under the ruins of Missilonghi.

Among them were thirteen foreigners, of whom only one escaped. One of
the most distinguished was Meyer, a young Swiss, who entered as a
volunteer at the beginning of the revolution, became attached to a
beautiful Missilonghiote girl, married her, and, when the final sortie
was made, his wife being sick, he remained with her, and was blown up
with the others. A letter written a few days before his death, and
brought away by one who escaped in the sortie, records the condition of
the garrison.

"A wound which I have received in my shoulder, while I am in daily
expectation of one which will be my passport to eternity, has prevented
me till now from bidding you a last adieu. We are reduced to feed upon
the most disgusting animals. We are suffering horribly with hunger and
thirst. Sickness adds much to the calamities which overwhelm us.
Seventeen hundred and forty of our brothers are dead; more than a
hundred thousand bombs and balls thrown by the enemy have destroyed our
bastions and our homes. We have been terribly distressed by the cold,
for we have suffered great want of food. Notwithstanding so many
privations, it is a great and noble spectacle to behold the ardour and
devotedness of the garrison. A few days more, and these brave men will
be angelic spirits, who will accuse before God the indifference of
Christendom. In the name of all our brave men, among whom are Notho
Bozzaris, *** I announce to you the resolution sworn to before Heaven,
to defend, foot by foot, the land of Missilonghi, and to bury ourselves,
without listening to any capitulation, under the ruins of this city. We
are drawing near our final hour. History will render us justice. I am
proud to think that the blood of a Swiss, of a child of William Tell, is
about to mingle with that of the heroes of Greece."

But Missilonghi is a subject of still greater interest than this, for
the reader will remember it as the place where Byron died. Almost the
first questions I asked were about the poet, and it added to the dreary
interest which the place inspired, to listen to the manner in which the
Greeks spoke of him. It might be thought that here, on the spot where he
breathed his last, malignity would have held her accursed tongue; but it
was not so. He had committed the fault, unpardonable in the eyes of
political opponents, of attaching himself to one of the great parties
that then divided Greece; and though he had given her all that man could
give, in his own dying words, "his time, his means, his health, and,
lastly, his life," the Greeks spoke of him with all the rancour and
bitterness of party spirit. Even death had not won oblivion for his
political offences; and I heard those who saw him die in her cause
affirm that Byron was no friend to Greece.

His body, the reader will remember, was transported to England and
interred in the family sepulchre. The church where it lay in state is a
heap of ruins, and there is no stone or monument recording his death,
but, wishing to see some memorial connected with his residence here, we
followed our guide to the house in which he died. It was a large square
building of stone, one of the walls still standing, black with smoke,
the rest a confused and shapeless mass of ruins. After his death it was
converted into a hospital and magazine; and, when the Turks entered the
city, they set fire to the powder; the sick and dying were blown into
the air, and we saw the ruins lying as they fell after the explosion. It
was a melancholy spectacle, but it seemed to have a sort of moral
fitness with the life and fortunes of the poet. It was as if the same
wild destiny, the same wreck of hopes and fortunes that attended him
through life, were hovering over his grave. Living and dead, his actions
and his character have been the subject of obloquy and reproach, perhaps
justly; but it would have softened the heart of his bitterest enemy to
see the place in which he died.

It was in this house that, on his last birthday, he came from his
bedroom and produced to his friends the last notes of his dying muse,
breathing a spirit of sad foreboding and melancholy recollections; of
devotion to the noble cause in which he had embarked, and a prophetic
consciousness of his approaching end.

"My days are in the yellow leaf,
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone.

* * * * *

"If thou regret'st thy youth, _why live?_
The land of honourable death
Is here: up to the field, and give
Away thy breath!

"Seek out--less often sought than found--
A soldier's grave, for thee the best;
Then look around, and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest."

Moving on beyond the range of ruined houses, though still within the
line of crumbling walls, we came to a spot perhaps as interesting as any
that Greece in her best days could show. It was the tomb of Marco
Bozzaris! No monumental marble emblazoned his deeds and fame; a few
round stones piled over his head, which, but for our guide, we should
have passed without noticing, were all that marked his grave. I would
not disturb a proper reverence for the past; time covers with its dim
and twilight glories both distant scenes and the men who acted in them,
but, to my mind, Miltiades was not more of a hero at Marathon or
Leonidas at Thermopylæ than Marco Bozzaris at Missilonghi. When they
went out against the hosts of Persia, Athens and Sparta were great and
free, and they had the prospect of _glory_ and the praise of men, to the
Greeks always dearer than life. But when the Suliote chief drew his
sword, his country lay bleeding at the feet of a giant, and all Europe
condemned the Greek revolution as foolhardy and desperate. For two
months, with but a few hundred men, protected only by a ditch and slight
parapet of earth, he defended the town where his body now rests against
the whole Egyptian army. In stormy weather, living upon bad and
unwholesome bread, with no covering but his cloak, he passed his days
and nights in constant vigil; in every assault his sword cut down the
foremost assailant, and his voice, rising above the din of battle,
struck terror into the hearts of the enemy. In the struggle which ended
with his life, with two thousand men he proposed to attack the whole
army of Mustapha Pacha, and called upon all who were willing to die for
their country to stand forward. The whole band advanced to a man.
Unwilling to sacrifice so many brave men in a death-struggle, he chose
three hundred, the sacred number of the Spartan band, his tried and
trusty Suliotes. At midnight he placed himself at their head, directing
that not a shot should be fired till he sounded his bugle; and his last
command was, "If you lose sight of me, seek me in the pacha's tent." In
the moment of victory he ordered the pacha to be seized, and received a
ball in the loins; his voice still rose above the din of battle,
cheering his men until he was struck by another ball in the head, and
borne dead from the field of his glory.

Not far from the grave of Bozzaris was a pyramid of sculls, of men who
had fallen in the last attack upon the city, piled up near the blackened
and battered wall which they had died in defending. In my after
wanderings I learned to look more carelessly upon these things; and,
perhaps, noticing everywhere the light estimation put upon human life in
the East, learned to think more lightly of it myself; but, then, it was
melancholy to see bleaching in the sun, under the eyes of their
countrymen, the unburied bones of men who, but a little while ago, stood
with swords in their hands, and animated by the noble resolution to free
their country or die in the attempt. Our guide told us that they had all
been collected in that place with a view to sepulture; and that King
Otho, as soon as he became of age and took the government in his own
hands, intended to erect a monument over them. In the mean time, they
are at the mercy of every passing traveller; and the only remark that
our guide made was a comment upon the force and unerring precision of
the blow of the Turkish sabre, almost every scull being laid open on the
side nearly down to the ear.

But the most interesting part of our day at Missilonghi was to come.
Returning from a ramble round the walls, we noticed a large square
house, which, our guide told us, was the residence of Constantine, the
brother of Marco Bozzaris. We were all interested in this intelligence,
and our interest was in no small degree increased when he added that the
widow and two of the children of the Suliote chief were living with his
brother. The house was surrounded by a high stone wall, a large gate
stood most invitingly wide open, and we turned toward it in the hope of
catching a glimpse of the inhabitants; but, before we reached the gate,
our interest had increased to such a point that, after consulting with
our guide, we requested him to say that, if it would not be considered
an intrusion, three travellers, two of them Americans, would feel
honoured in being permitted to pay their respects to the widow and
children of Marco Bozzaris.

We were invited in, and shown into a large room on the right, where
three Greeks were sitting cross-legged on a divan, smoking the long
Turkish chibouk. Soon after the brother entered, a man about fifty, of
middling height, spare built, and wearing a Bavarian uniform, as holding
a colonel's commission in the service of King Otho. In the dress of the
dashing Suliote he would have better looked the brother of Marco
Bozzaris, and I might then more easily have recognised the daring
warrior who, on the field of battle, in a moment of extremity, was
deemed, by universal acclamation, worthy of succeeding the fallen hero.
Now the straight military frockcoat, buttoned tight across the breast,
the stock, tight pantaloons, boots, and straps, seemed to repress the
free energies of the mountain warrior; and I could not but think how
awkward it must be for one who had spent all his life in a dress which
hardly touched him, at fifty to put on a stock, and straps to his boots.
Our guide introduced us, with an apology for our intrusion. The colonel
received us with great kindness, thanked us for the honour done his
brother's widow, and, requesting us to be seated, ordered coffee and
pipes.

And here, on the very first day of our arrival in Greece, and from a
source which made us proud, we had the first evidence of what afterward
met me at every step, the warm feeling existing in Greece toward
America; for almost the first thing that the brother of Marco Bozzaris
said was to express his gratitude as a Greek for the services rendered
his country by our own; and, after referring to the provisions sent out
for his famishing countrymen, his eyes sparkled and his cheek flushed as
he told us that, when the Greek revolutionary flag first sailed into the
port of Napoli di Romania, among hundreds of vessels of all nations, an
American captain was the first to recognise and salute it.

In a few moments the widow of Marco Bozzaris entered. I have often been
disappointed in my preconceived notions of personal appearance, but it
was not so with the lady who now stood before me; she looked the widow
of a hero; as one worthy of her Grecian mothers, who gave their hair for
bowstrings, their girdle for a sword-belt, and, while their heartstrings
were cracking, sent their young lovers from their arms to fight and
perish for their country. Perhaps it was she that led Marco Bozzaris
into the path of immortality; that roused him from the wild guerilla
warfare in which he had passed his early life, and fired him with the
high and holy ambition of freeing his country. Of one thing I am
certain, no man could look in her face without finding his wavering
purposes fixed, without treading more firmly in the path of high and
honourable enterprise. She was under forty, tall and stately in person
and habited in deep black, fit emblem of her widowed condition, with a
white handkerchief laid flat over her head, giving the Madonna cast to
her dark eyes and marble complexion. We all rose as she entered the
room; and though living secluded, and seldom seeing the face of a
stranger, she received our compliments and returned them with far less
embarrassment than we both felt and exhibited.

But our embarrassment, at least I speak for myself, was induced by an
unexpected circumstance. Much as I was interested in her appearance, I
was not insensible to the fact that she was accompanied by two young and
beautiful girls, who were introduced to us as her daughters. This
somewhat bewildered me. While waiting for their appearance, and talking
with Constantine Bozzaris, I had in some way conceived the idea that the
daughters were mere children, and had fully made up my mind to take them
both on my knee and kiss them; but the appearance of the stately mother
recalled me to the grave of Bozzaris; and the daughters would probably
have thought that I was taking liberties upon so short an acquaintance
if I had followed up my benevolent purpose in regard to them; so that,
with the long pipe in my hand, which, at that time, I did not know how
to manage well, I cannot flatter myself that I exhibited any of the
benefit of Continental travel.

The elder was about sixteen, and even in the opinion of my friend Doctor
W., a cool judge in these matters, a beautiful girl, possessing in its
fullest extent all the elements of Grecian beauty: a dark, clear
complexion, dark hair, set off by a little red cap embroidered with gold
thread, and a long blue tassel hanging down behind, and large black
eyes, expressing a melancholy quiet, but which might be excited to shoot
forth glances of fire more terrible than her father's sword. Happily,
too, for us, she talked French, having learned it from a French marquis
who had served in Greece and been domesticated with them; but young and
modest, and unused to the company of strangers, she felt the
embarrassment common to young ladies when attempting to speak a foreign
language. And we could not talk to her on common themes. Our lips were
sealed, of course, upon the subject which had brought us to her house.
We could not sound for her the praises of her gallant father. At
parting, however, I told them that the name of Marco Bozzaris was as
familiar in America as that of a hero of our own revolution, and that it
had been hallowed by the inspiration of an American poet; and I added
that, if it would not be unacceptable, on my return to my native country
I would send the tribute referred to, as an evidence of the feeling
existing in America toward the memory of Marco Bozzaris. My offer was
gratefully accepted; and afterward, while in the act of mounting my
horse to leave Missilonghi, our guide, who had remained behind, came to
me with a message from the widow and daughters reminding me of my
promise.

I do not see that there is any objection to my mentioning that I wrote
to a friend, requesting him to procure Halleck's "Marco Bozzaris," and
send it to my banker at Paris. My friend, thinking to enhance its value,
applied to Mr. Halleck for a copy in his own handwriting. Mr. Halleck,
with his characteristic modesty, evaded the application; and on my
return home I told him the story of my visit, and reiterated the same
request. He evaded me as he had done my friend, but promised me a copy
of the new edition of his poems, which he afterward gave me, and which,
I hope, is now in the hands of the widow and daughters of the Grecian
hero.

I make no apology for introducing in a book the widow and daughters of
Marco Bozzaris. True, I was received by them in private, without any
expectation, either on their part or mine, that all the particulars of
the interview would be noted and laid before the eyes of all who choose
to read. I hope it will not be considered invading the sanctity of
private life; but, at all events, I make no apology; the widow and
children of Marco Bozzaris are the property of the world.

CHAPTER II.

Choice of a Servant.--A Turnout.--An Evening Chat.--Scenery of the
Road.--Lepanto.--A projected Visit.--Change of
Purpose.--Padras.--Vostitza.--Variety and Magnificence of Scenery.

BARREN as our prospect was on landing, our first day in Greece had
already been full of interest. Supposing that we should not find
anything to engage us long, before setting out on our ramble we had
directed our servant to procure horses, and when we returned we found
all ready for our departure.

One word with regard to this same servant. We had taken him at Corfu,
much against my inclination. We had a choice between two, one a
full-blooded Greek in fustinellas, who in five minutes established
himself in my good graces, so that nothing but the democratic principle
of submitting to the will of the majority could make me give him up. He
held at that time a very good office in the police at Corfu, but the
eagerness which he showed to get out of regular business and go roving
warmed me to him irresistibly. He seemed to be distracted between two
opposing feelings; one the strong bent of his natural vagabond
disposition to be rambling, and the other a sort of tugging at his
heartstrings by wife and children, to keep him in a place where he had a
regular assured living, instead of trusting to the precarious business
of guiding travellers. He had a boldness and confidence that won me; and
when he drew on the sand with his yataghan a map of Greece, and told us
the route he would take us, zigzag across the Gulf of Corinth to Delphi
and the top of Parnassus, I wondered that my companions could resist
him.

Our alternative was an Italian from somewhere on the coast of the
Adriatic, whom I looked upon with an unfavourable eye, because he came
between me and my Greek; and on the morning of our departure I was
earnestly hoping that he had overslept himself, or got into some scrape
and been picked up by the guard; but, most provokingly, he came in time,
and with more baggage than all of us had together. Indeed, he had so
much of his own, that, in obedience to Nature's first law, he could not
attend to ours, and in putting ashore some British soldiers at
Cephalonia he contrived to let my carpet-bag go with their luggage. This
did not increase my amiable feeling toward him, and, perhaps, assisted
in making me look upon him throughout with a jaundiced eye; in fact,
before we had done with him, I regarded him as a slouch, a knave, and a
fool, and had the questionable satisfaction of finding that my
companions, though they sustained him as long as they could, had formed
very much the same opinion.

It was to him, then, that, on our return from our visit to the widow and
daughters of Marco Bozzaris, we were indebted for a turnout that seemed
to astonish even the people of Missilonghi. The horses were miserable
little animals, hidden under enormous saddles made of great clumps of
wood over an old carpet or towcloth, and covering the whole back from
the shoulders to the tail; the luggage was perched on the tops of these
saddles, and with desperate exertions and the help of the citizens of
Missilonghi we were perched on the top of the luggage. The little
animals had a knowing look as they peered from under the superincumbent
mass, and, supported on either side by the by-standers till we got a
little steady in our seats, we put forth from Missilonghi. The only
gentleman of our party was our servant, who followed on a European
saddle which he had brought for his own use, smoking his pipe with great
complacency, perfectly satisfied with our appearance and with himself.

It was four o'clock when we crossed the broken walls of Missilonghi. For
three hours our road lay over a plain extending to the sea. I have no
doubt, if my Greek had been there, he would have given an interest to
the road by referring to scenes and incidents connected with the siege
of Missilonghi; but Demetrius--as he now chose to call himself--knew
nothing of Greece, ancient or modern; he had no sympathy of feeling with
the Greeks; had never travelled on this side of the Gulf of Corinth
before; and so he lagged behind and smoked his pipe.

It was nearly dark when we reached the miserable little village of
Bokara. We had barely light enough to look around for the best khan in
which to pass the night. Any of the wretched tenants would have been
glad to receive us for the little remuneration we might leave with them
in the morning. The khans were all alike, one room, mud floor and walls,
and we selected one where the chickens had already gone to roost, and
prepared to measure off the dirt floor according to our dimensions.
Before we were arranged a Greek of a better class, followed by half a
dozen villagers, came over, and, with many regrets for the wretched
state of the country, invited us to his house. Though dressed in the
Greek costume, it was evident that he had acquired his manners in a
school beyond the bounds of his miserable little village, in which his
house now rose like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, higher than everything
else, but rather rickety. In a few minutes we heard the death notes of
some chickens, and at about nine o'clock sat down to a not unwelcome
meal. Several Greeks dropped in during the evening, and one, a
particular friend of our host's, supped with us. Both talked French, and
had that perfect ease of manner and savoir faire which I always remarked
with admiration in all Greeks who had travelled. They talked much of
their travels; of time spent in Italy and Germany, and particularly of a
long residence at Bucharest. They talked, too, of Greece; of her long
and bitter servitude, her revolution, and her independence; and from
their enthusiasm I could not but think that they had fought and bled in
her cause. I certainly was not lying in wait to entrap them, but I
afterward gathered from their conversation that they had taken occasion
to be on their travels at the time when the bravest of their countrymen
were pouring out their blood like water to emancipate their native land.
A few years before I might have felt indignation and contempt for men
who had left their country in her hour of utmost need, and returned to
enjoy the privileges purchased with other men's blood; but I had already
learned to take the world as I found it, and listened quietly while our
host told us that, confiding in the permanency of the government secured
by the three great powers, England, France, and Russia, he had returned
to Greece, and taken a lease of a large tract of land for fifty years,
paying a thousand drachms, a drachm being one sixth of a dollar, and one
tenth of the annual fruits, at the end of which time one half of the
land under cultivation was to belong to his heirs in fee.

As our host could not conveniently accommodate us all, M. and Demetrius
returned to the khan at which we had first stopped and where, to judge
from the early hour at which they came over to us the next morning, they
had not spent the night as well as we did. At daylight we took our
coffee, and again perched our luggage on the backs of the horses, and
ourselves on top of the luggage. Our host wished us to remain with him,
and promised the next day to accompany us to Padras; but this was not a
sufficient inducement; and taking leave of him, probably for ever, we
started for Lepanto.

We rode about an hour on the plain; the mountains towered on our left,
and the rich soil was broken into rough sandy gullies running down to
the sea. Our guides had some apprehensions that we should not be able to
cross the torrents that were running down from the mountain; and when we
came to the first, and had to walk up along the bank, looking out for a
place to ford, we fully participated in their apprehensions. Bridges
were a species of architecture entirely unknown in that part of modern
Greece; indeed, no bridges could have stood against the mountain
torrents. There would have been some excitement in encountering these
rapid streams if we had been well mounted; but, from the manner in which
we were hitched on our horses, we did not feel any great confidence in
our seats. Still nothing could be wilder or more picturesque than our
process in crossing them, except that it might have added somewhat to
the effect to see one of us floating down stream, clinging to the tail
of his horse. But we got over or through them all. A range of mountains
then formed on our right, cutting us off from the sea, and we entered a
valley lying between the two parallel ranges. At first the road, which
was exceedingly difficult for a man or a sure-footed horse, lay along a
beautiful stream, and the whole of the valley extending to the Gulf of
Lepanto is one of the loveliest regions of country I ever saw. The
ground was rich and verdant, and, even at that early season of the year,
blooming with wild flowers of every hue, but wholly uncultivated, the
olive-trees having all been cut down by the Turks, and without a single
habitation on the whole route. My Scotch companion, who had a good eye
for the picturesque and beautiful in natural scenery, was in raptures
with this valley. I have since travelled in Switzerland, not, however,
in all the districts frequented by tourists; but in what I saw,
beautiful as it is, I do not know a place where the wildness of mountain
scenery is so delightfully contrasted with the softness of a rich
valley.

At the end of the valley, directly opposite Padras, and on the borders
of the gulf, is a wild road called Scala Cativa, running along the sides
of a rocky, mountainous precipice overlooking the sea. It is a wild and
almost fearful road; in some places I thought it like the perpendicular
sides of the Palisades; and when the wind blows in a particular
direction it is impossible to make headway against it. Our host told us
that we should find difficulty that day; and there was just rudeness
enough to make us look well to our movements. Directly at our feet was
the Gulf of Corinth; opposite a range of mountains; and in the distance
the island of Zante. On the other side of the valley is an extraordinary
mountain, very high, and wanting a large piece in the middle, as if cut
out with a chisel, leaving two straight parallel sides, and called by
the unpoetical name of the armchair. In the wildest pan of the Scala,
where a very slight struggle would have precipitated us several hundred
feet into the sea, an enormous shepherd's dog came bounding and barking
toward us; and we were much relieved when his master, who was hanging
with his flock of goats on an almost inaccessible height, called him
away. At the foot of the mountain we entered a rich plain, where the
shepherds were pasturing their flocks down to the shore of the sea, and
in about two hours arrived at Lepanto.

After diligent search by Demetrius (the name by which we had taken him,
whose true name, however, we found to be Jerolamon), and by all the
idlers whom the arrival of strangers attracted, we procured a room near
the farthest wall; it was reached by ascending a flight of steps
outside, and boasted a floor, walls, and an apology for a roof. We piled
up our baggage in one corner, or, rather, my companions did theirs, and
went prowling about in search of something to eat. Our servant had not
fully apprized us of the extreme poverty of the country, the entire
absence of all accommodations for travellers, and the absolute necessity
of carrying with us everything requisite for comfort. He was a man of
few words, and probably thought that, as between servant and master,
example was better than precept, and that the abundant provision he had
made for himself might serve as a lesson for us; but, in our case, the
objection to this mode of teaching was, that it came too late to be
profitable. At the foot of the hill fronting the sea was an open place,
in one side of which was a little cafteria, where all the good-for-nothing
loungers of Lepanto were assembled. We bought a loaf of bread and some
eggs, and, with a cup of Turkish coffee, made our evening meal.

We had an hour before dark, and strolled along the shore. Though in a
ruinous condition, Lepanto is in itself interesting, as giving an exact
idea of an ancient Greek city, being situated in a commanding position
on the side of a mountain running down to the sea, with its citadel on
the top, and enclosed by walls and turrets. The port is shut within the
walls, which run into the sea, and are erected on the foundations of the
ancient Naupactus. At a distance was the promontory of Actium, where
Cleopatra, with her fifty ships, abandoned Antony, and left to Augustus
the empire of the world; and directly before us, its surface dotted with
a few straggling Greek caiques, was the scene of a battle which has rung
throughout the world, the great battle of the Cross against the
Crescent, where the allied forces of Spain, Venice, and the pope,
amounting to nearly three hundred sail, under the command of Don John of
Austria, humbled for ever the naval pride of the Turks. One hundred and
thirty Turkish galleys were taken and fifty-five sunk; thirty thousand
Turks were killed, ten thousand taken prisoners, fifteen thousand
Christian slaves delivered; and Pope Pius VI., with holy fervour,
exclaimed, "There was a man sent from God, and his name was John."
Cervantes lost his left hand in this battle; and it is to wounds he
received here that he makes a touching allusion when reproached by a
rival: "What I cannot help feeling deeply is, that I am stigmatized with
being old and maimed, as though it belonged to me to stay the course of
time; or as though my wounds had been received in some tavern broil,
instead of the most lofty occasion which past ages have yet seen, or
which shall ever be seen by those to come. The scars which the soldier
wears on his person, instead of badges of infamy, are stars to guide the
daring in the path of glory. As for mine, though they may not shine in
the eyes of the envious, they are at least esteemed by those who know
where they were received; and, even was it not yet too late to choose, I
would rather remain as I am, maimed and mutilated, than be now whole of
my wounds, without having taken part in so glorious an achievement."

I shall, perhaps, be reproached for mingling with the immortal names of
Don John of Austria and Cervantes those of George Wilson, of Providence,
Rhode Island, and James Williams, a black of Baltimore, cook on board
Lord Cochrane's flagship in the great battle between the Greek and
Turkish fleets. George Wilson was a gunner on board one of the Greek
ships, and conducted himself with so much gallantry, that Lord Cochrane,
at a dinner in commemoration of the event, publicly drank his health. In
the same battle James Williams, who had lost a finger in the United
States service under Decatur at Algiers, and had conducted himself with
great coolness and intrepidity in several engagements, when no Greek
could be found to take the helm, volunteered his services, and was
struck down by a splinter, which broke his legs and arms. The historian
will probably never mention these gallant fellows in his quarto volumes;
but I hope the American traveller, as he stands at sunset by the shore
of the Gulf of Lepanto, and recalls to mind the great achievements of
Don John and Cervantes, will not forget _George Wilson_ and _James
Williams_.

At evening we returned to our room, built a fire in the middle, and,
with as much dignity as we could muster, sitting on the floor, received
a number of Greek visiters. When they left us we wrapped ourselves in
our cloaks and lay down to sleep. Sleep, however, is not always won when
wooed. Sometimes it takes the perverse humour of the wild Irish boy:
"The more you call me, the more I won't come." Our room had no chimney;
and though, as I lay all night looking up at the roof, there appeared to
be apertures enough to let out the smoke, it seemed to have a loving
feeling toward us in our lowly position, and clung to us so closely that
we were obliged to let the fire go out, and lie shivering till morning.

Every schoolboy knows how hard it is to write poetry, but few know the
physical difficulties of climbing the poetical mountain itself. We had
made arrangements to sleep the next night at Castri, by the side of the
sacred oracle of Delphi, a mile up Parnassus. Our servant wanted to
cross over and go up on the other side of the gulf, and entertained us
with several stories of robberies committed on this road, to which we
paid no attention. The Greeks who visited us in the evening related,
with much detail, a story of a celebrated captain of brigands having
lately returned to his haunt on Parnassus, and attacked nine Greek
merchants, of whom he killed three; the recital of which interesting
incident we ascribed to Demetrius, and disregarded.

Early in the morning we mounted our horses and started for Parnassus. At
the gate of the town we were informed that it was necessary, before
leaving, to have a passport from the eparchos, and I returned to procure
it. The eparchos was a man about forty-five, tall and stout, with a
clear olive complexion and a sharp black eye, dressed in a rich Greek
costume, and, fortunately, able to speak French. He was sitting
cross-legged on a divan, smoking a pipe, and looking out upon the sea;
and when I told him my business, he laid down his pipe, repeated the
story of the robbery and murder that we had heard the night before, and
added that we must abandon the idea of travelling that road. He said,
farther, that the country was in a distracted state; that poverty was
driving men to desperation; and that, though they had driven out the
Turks, the Greeks were not masters of their own country. Hearing that I
was an American, and as if in want of a bosom in which to unburden
himself, and as one assured of sympathy, he told me the whole story of
their long and bloody struggle for independence, and the causes that now
made the friends of Greece tremble for her future destiny. I knew that
the seat of the muses bore a rather suspicious character, and, in fact,
that the rocks and caves about Parnassus were celebrated as the abodes
of robbers, but I was unwilling to be driven from our purpose of
ascending it. I went to the military commandant, a Bavarian officer, and
told him what I had just heard from the eparchos. He said frankly that
he did not know much of the state of the country, as he had but lately
arrived in it; but, with the true Bavarian spirit, advised me, as a
general rule, not to believe anything a Greek should tell me. I returned
to the gate, and made my double report to my companions. Dr. W. returned
with me to the eparchos, where the latter repeated, with great
earnestness, all he had told me; and when I persisted in combating his
objections, shrugged his shoulders in a manner that seemed to say, "your
blood be on your own heads;" that he had done his duty, and washed his
hands of the consequences. As we were going out he called me back, and,
recurring to our previous conversation, said that he had spoken to me as
an American more freely than he would have done to a stranger, and
begged that, as I was going to Athens, I would not repeat his words
where they could do him injury. I would not mention the circumstance
now, but that the political clouds which then hung over the horizon of
Greece have passed away; King Otho has taken his seat on the throne, and
my friend has probably long since been driven or retired from public
life. I was at that time a stranger to the internal politics of Greece,
but I afterward found that the eparchos was one of a then powerful body
of Greeks opposed to the Bavarian influence, and interested in
representing the state of the country as more unsettled than it really
was. I took leave of him, however, as one who had intended me a
kindness, and, returning to the gate, found our companion sitting on his
horse, waiting the result of our farther inquiries. Both he and my
fellow envoy were comparatively indifferent upon the subject, while I
was rather bent on drinking from the Castalian fount, and sleeping on
the top of Parnassus. Besides, I was in a beautiful condition to be
robbed. I had nothing but what I had on my back, and I felt sure that a
Greek mountain robber would scorn my stiff coat and pantaloons and black
hat. My companions, however were not so well situated, particularly M.,
who had drawn money at Corfu, and had no idea of trusting it to the
tender mercies of a Greek bandit. In the teeth of the advice we had
received, it would, perhaps, have been foolhardy to proceed; and, to my
great subsequent regret, for the first and the last time in my
ramblings, I was turned aside from my path by fear of perils on the
road. Perhaps, after all, I had a lucky escape; for, if the Greek
tradition be true, whoever sleeps on the mountain becomes an inspired
poet or a madman, either of which, for a professional man, is a
catastrophe to be avoided.

Our change of plan suited Demetrius exactly; he had never travelled on
this side of the Gulf of Corinth; and, besides that, he considered it a
great triumph that his stories of robbers were confirmed by others,
showing his superior knowledge of the state of the country; he was glad
to get on a road which he had travelled before, and on which he had a
chance of meeting some of his old travelling acquaintance. In half an
hour he had us on board a caique. We put out from the harbour of Lepanto
with a strong and favourable wind; our little boat danced lightly over
the waters of the Gulf of Corinth; and in three hours, passing between
the frowning castles of Romelia and Morea, under the shadow of the walls
of which were buried the bodies of the Christians who fell in the great
naval battle, we arrived at Padras.

The first thing we recognised was the beautiful little cutter which we
had left at Missilonghi, riding gracefully at anchor in the harbour, and
the first man we spoke to on landing was our old friend the captain. We
exchanged a cordial greeting, and he conducted us to Mr. Robertson, the
British vice-consul, who, at the moment of our entering, was in the act
of directing a letter to me at Athens. The subject was my interesting
carpet-bag. There being no American consul at Padras, I had taken the
liberty of writing to Mr. Robertson, requesting him, if my estate should
find its way into his hands, to forward it to me at Athens, and the
letter was to assure me of his attention to my wishes. It may be
considered treason against classical taste, but it consoled me somewhat
for the loss of Parnassus to find a stranger taking so warm an interest
in my fugitive habiliments.

There was something, too, in the appearance of Padras, that addressed
itself to other feelings than those connected with the indulgence of a
classical humour. Our bones were still aching with the last night's
rest, or, rather, the want of it, at Lepanto; and when we found
ourselves in a neat little locanda, and a complaisant Greek asked us
what we would have for dinner, and showed us our beds for the night, we
almost agreed that climbing Parnassus and such things were fit only for
boys just out of college.

Padras is beautifully situated at the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth, and
the windows of our locanda commanded a fine view of the bold mountains
on the opposite side of the gulf, and the parallel range forming the
valley which leads to Missilonghi. It stands on the site of the ancient
Patræ, enumerated by Herodotus among the twelve cities of Achaia. During
the intervals of peace in the Peloponnesian war, Alcibiades, about four
hundred and fifty years before Christ, persuaded its inhabitants to
build long walls down to the sea. Philip of Macedon frequently landed
there in his expeditions to Peloponnesus. Augustus Cæsar, after the
battle of Actium, made it a Roman colony, and sent thither a large body
of his veteran soldiers; and, in the time of Cicero, Roman merchants
were settled there just as French and Italians are now. The modern town
has grown up since the revolution, or rather since the accession of
Otho, and bears no marks of the desolation at Missilonghi and Lepanto.
It contains a long street of shops well supplied with European goods;
the English steamers from Corfu to Malta touch here; and, besides the
little Greek caiques trading in the Gulf of Corinth, vessels from all
parts of the Adriatic are constantly in the harbour.

Among others, there was an Austrian man-of-war from Trieste, on her way
to Alexandria. By a singular fortune, the commandant had been in one of
the Austrian vessels that carried to New-York the unfortunate Poles; the
only Austrian man-of-war which had ever been to the United States. A day
or two after their arrival at New-York I had taken a boat at the Battery
and gone on board this vessel, and had met the officers at some parties
given to them at which he had been present; and though we had no actual
acquaintance with each other, these circumstances were enough to form an
immediate link between us, particularly as he was enthusiastic in his
praises of the hospitality of our citizens and the beauty of our women.
Lest, however, any of the latter should be vainglorious at hearing that
their praises were sounded so far from home, I consider it my duty to
say that the commandant was almost blind, very slovenly, always smoking
a pipe, and generally a little tipsy.

Early in the morning we started for Athens. Our turnout was rather
better than at Missilonghi, but not much. The day, however, was fine;
the cold wind which, for several days, had been blowing down the Gulf
of Corinth, had ceased, and the air was warm, and balmy, and
invigorating. We had already found that Greece had something to attract
the stranger besides the recollections of her ancient glories, and often
forgot that the ground we were travelling was consecrated by historians
and poets, in admiration of its own wild and picturesque beauty. Our
road for about three hours lay across a plain, and then close along the
gulf, sometimes winding by the foot of a wild precipitous mountain, and
then again over a plain, with the mountains rising at some distance on
our right. Sometimes we rose and crossed their rugged summits, and again
descended to the seashore. On our left we had constantly the gulf,
bordered on the opposite side by a range of mountains sometimes receding
and then rising almost out of the water, while high above the rest rose
the towering summits of Parnassus covered with snow.

It was after dark when we arrived at Vostitza, beautifully situated on
the banks of the Gulf of Corinth. This is the representative of the
ancient Ægium, one of the most celebrated cities in Greece, mentioned by
Homer as having supplied vessels for the Trojan war, and in the second
century containing sixteen sacred edifices, a theatre, a portico, and an
agora. For many ages it was the seat of the Achaian Congress. Probably
the worthy delegates who met here to deliberate upon the affairs of
Greece had better accommodations than we obtained, or they would be
likely, I should imagine, to hold but short sessions.

We stopped at a vile locanda, the only one in the place, where we found
a crowd of men in a small room, gathered around a dirty table, eating,
one of whom sprang up and claimed me as an old acquaintance. He had on
a Greek capote and a large foraging cap slouched over his eyes, so that
I had some difficulty in recognising him as an Italian who, at Padras,
had tried to persuade me to go by water up to the head of the gulf. He
had started that morning, about the same time we did, with a crowd of
passengers, half of whom were already by the ears. Fortunately, they
were obliged to return to their boats, and left all the house to us;
which, however, contained little besides a strapping Greek, who called
himself its proprietor.

Before daylight we were again in the saddle. During the whole day's ride
the scenery was magnificent. Sometimes we were hemmed in as if for ever
enclosed in an amphitheatre of wild and gigantic rocks; then from some
lofty summit we looked out upon lesser mountains, broken, and torn, and
thrown into every wild and picturesque form, as if by an earthquake; and
after riding among deep dells and craggy steeps, yawning ravines and
cloud-capped precipices, we descended to a quiet valley and the
seashore.

At about four o'clock we came down, for the last time, to the shore, and
before us, at some distance, espied a single khan, standing almost on
the edge of the water. It was a beautiful resting-place for a traveller;
the afternoon was mild, and we walked on the shore till the sun set. The
khan was sixty or seventy feet long, and contained an upper room running
the whole length of the building. This room was our bedchamber. We built
a fire at one end, made tea, and roasted some eggs, the smoke ascending
and curling around the rafters, and finally passing out of the openings
in the roof; we stretched ourselves in our cloaks and, with the murmur
of the waves in our ears, looked through the apertures in the roof upon
the stars, and fell asleep.

About the middle of the night the door opened with a rude noise, and a
tall Greek, almost filling the doorway, stood on the threshold. After
pausing a moment he walked in, followed by half a dozen gigantic
companions, their tall figures, full dresses, and the shining of their
pistols and yataghans wearing a very ugly look to a man just roused from
slumber. But they were merely Greek pedlers or travelling merchants,
and, without any more noise, kindled the fire anew, drew their capotes
around them, stretched themselves upon the floor, and were soon asleep.

CHAPTER III.

IN the morning Demetrius had a roaring quarrel with the keeper of the
locanda, in which he tried to keep back part of the money we gave him to
pay for us. He did this, however, on principle, for we had given twice
as much as our lodging was worth, and no man ought to have more. His
character was at stake in preventing any one from cheating us too much;
and, in order to do this, he stopped our funds in transitu.

We started early, and for some time our road lay along the shore. It was
not necessary, surrounded by such magnificent scenery, to draw upon
historical recollections for the sake of giving interest to the road;
still it did not diminish that interest to know that, many centuries
ago, great cities stood here, whose sites are now desolate or occupied
as the miserable gathering-places of a starving population. Directly
opposite Parnassus, and at the foot of a hill crowned with the ruins of
an acropolis, in perfect desolation now, stood the ancient Ægira; once
numbering a population of ten thousand inhabitants, and in the second
century containing three hiera, a temple, and another sacred edifice.
Farther on, and toward the head of the Gulf of Corinth, the miserable
village of Basilico stands on the site of the ancient Sicyon, boasting
as high an antiquity as any city in Greece, and long celebrated as the
first of her schools of painting. In five hours we came in sight of the
Acropolis of Corinth, and, shortly after, of Corinth itself.

The reader need not fear my plunging him deeply into antiquities. Greece
has been explored, and examined, and written upon, till the subject is
almost threadbare; and I do not flatter myself that I discovered in it
anything new. Still no man from such a distant country as mine can find
himself crossing the plain of Corinth, and ascending to the ancient
city, without a strange and indescribable feeling. We have no old
monuments, no classical associations; and our history hardly goes beyond
the memory of that venerable personage, "the oldest inhabitant." Corinth
is so old that its early records are blended with the history of the
heathen gods. The Corinthians say that it was called after the son of
Jupiter, and its early sovereigns were heroes of the Grecian mythology.
It was the friend of Sparta and the rival of Athens; the first city to
build war-galleys and send forth colonies, which became great empires.
It was the assembling-place of their delegates, who elected Philip, and
afterward Alexander the Great, to conduct the war against the Persians.
In painting, sculpture, and architecture surpassing all the achievements
of Greece, or which the genius of man has ever since accomplished.
Conquered by the then barbarous Romans, her walls were razed to the
ground, her men put to the sword, her women and children sold into
captivity, and the historian who records her fall writes that he saw the
finest pictures thrown wantonly on the ground, and Roman soldiers
playing on them at draughts and dice. For many years deserted, Corinth
was again peopled; rose rapidly from its ruins; and, when St. Paul
abode there "a year and six months"--to the Christian the most
interesting period in her history--she was again a populous city, and
the Corinthians a luxurious people.

Its situation in the early ages of the world could not fail to make it a
great commercial emporium. In the inexperienced navigation of early
times it was considered difficult and dangerous to go around the point
of the Peloponnesus, and there was a proverb, "Before the mariner
doubles Cape Malea, he should forget all he holds dearest in the world."
Standing on the isthmus commanding the Adriatic and Ægean Seas;
receiving in one hand the riches of Asia and in the other those of
Europe; distributing them to every quarter of the then known world,
wealth followed commerce, and then came luxury and extravagance to such
an extent that it became a proverb, "It is not for every man to go to
Corinth."

As travellers having regard to supper and lodging, we should have been
glad to see some vestige of its ancient luxury; but times are changed;
the ruined city stands where stood Corinth of old, but it has fallen
once more; the sailor no longer hugs the well-known coasts, but launches
fearlessly into the trackless ocean, and Corinth can never again be what
she has been.

Our servant had talked so much of the hotel at Corinth, that perhaps the
idea of bed and lodging was rather too prominent in our reveries as we
approached the fallen city. He rode on before to announce our coming,
and, working our way up the hill through narrow streets, stared at by
all the men, followed by a large representation from the juvenile
portion of the modern Corinthians, and barked at by the dogs, we turned
into a large enclosure, something like a barnyard, on which opened a
ruined balcony forming the entrance to the hotel. Demetrius was standing
before it with our host, as unpromising a looking scoundrel as ever took
a traveller in. He had been a notorious captain of brigands, and when
his lawless band was broken up and half of its number hanged, he could
not overcome his disposition to prey upon travellers, but got a couple
of mattresses and bedsteads, and set up a hotel at Corinth. Demetrius
had made a bargain for us at a price that made him hang his head when he
told it, and we were so indignant at the extortion that we at first
refused to dismount. Our host stood aloof, being used to such scenes,
and perfectly sure that, after storming a little, we should be glad to
take the only beds between Padras and Athens. In the end, however, we
got the better both of him and Demetrius; for, as he had fixed separate
prices for dinner, beds, and breakfast, we went to a little Greek
coffee-house, and raised half Corinth to get us something to eat, and
paid him only for our lodging.

We had a fine afternoon before us, and our first movement was to the
ruins of a temple, the only monument of antiquity in Corinth. The city
has been so often sacked and plundered, that not a column of the
Corinthian order exists in the place from which it derives its name.
Seven columns of the old temple are still standing, fluted and of the
Doric order, though wanting in height the usual proportion to the
diameter; built probably before that order had attained its perfection,
and long before the Corinthian order was invented; though when it was
built, by whom, or to what god it was consecrated, antiquaries cannot
agree in deciding. Contrasted with these solitary columns of an unknown
antiquity are ruins of yesterday. Houses fallen, burned, and black with
smoke, as if the wretched inmates had fled before the blaze of their
dwellings; and high above the ruined city, now as in the days when the
Persian and Roman invaded it, still towers the Acropolis, a sharp and
naked rock, rising abruptly a thousand feet from the earth, inaccessible
and impregnable under the science of ancient war; and in all times of
invasion and public distress, from her earliest history down to the
bloody days of the late revolution, the refuge of the inhabitants.

[Illustration: Corinth.]

It was late in the afternoon when we set out for the Acropolis. About a
mile from the city we came to the foot of the hill, and ascended by a
steep and difficult path, with many turnings and windings, to the first
gate. Having been in the saddle since early in the morning, we stopped
several times to rest, and each time lingered and looked out with
admiration upon the wild and beautiful scenery around us; and we thought
of the frequently recurring times when hostile armies had drawn up
before the city at our feet, and the inhabitants, in terror and
confusion, had hurried up this path and taken refuge within the gate
before us.

Inside the gate were the ruins of a city, and here, too, we saw the
tokens of ruthless war; the fire-brand was hardly yet extinguished, and
the houses were in ruins. Within a few years it has been the stronghold
and refuge of infidels and Christians, taken and retaken, destroyed,
rebuilt, and destroyed again, and the ruins of Turkish mosques and
Christian churches are mingled together in undistinguishable confusion.
This enclosure is abundantly supplied with water, issuing from the rock,
and is capable of containing several thousand people. The fountain of
Pyrene, which supplies the Acropolis, called the most salubrious in
Greece, is celebrated as that at which Pegasus was drinking when taken
by Bellerophon. Ascending among ruined and deserted habitations, we came
to a second gate flanked by towers. A wall about two miles in
circumference encloses the whole summit of the rock, including two
principal points which still rise above the rest. One is crowned with a
tower and the other with a mosque, now in ruins; probably erected where
once stood a heathen temple. Some have mistaken it for a Christian
church, but all agree that it is a place built and consecrated to divine
use, and that, for unknown ages men have gone up to this cloud-capped
point to worship their Creator. It was a sublime idea to erect on this
lofty pinnacle an altar to the Almighty. Above us were only the
unclouded heavens; the sun was setting with that brilliancy which
attends his departing glory nowhere but in the East; and the sky was
glowing with a lurid red, as of some great conflagration. The scene
around and below was wondrously beautiful. Mountains and rivers, seas
and islands, rocks, forests, and plains, thrown together in perfect
wantonness, and yet in the most perfect harmony, and every feature in
the expanded landscape consecrated by the richest associations. On one
side the Saronic Gulf, with its little islands, and Ægina and Salamis,
stretching off to "Sunium's marble height," with the ruins of its temple
looking out mournfully upon the sea; on the other, the Gulf of Corinth
or Lepanto, bounded by the dark and dreary mountains of Cytheron, where
Acteon, gazing at the goddess, was changed into a stag, and hunted to
death by his own hounds; and where Bacchus, with his train of satyrs and
frantic bacchantes, celebrated his orgies. Beyond were Helicon, sacred
to Apollo and the Muses, and Parnassus, covered with snow. Behind us
towered a range of mountains stretching away to Argos and the ancient
Sparta, and in front was the dim outline of the temple of the Acropolis
at Athens. The shades of evening gathered thick around us while we
remained on the top of the Acropolis, and it was dark long before we
reached our locanda.

The next morning we breakfasted at the coffee-house, and left Corinth
wonderfully pleased at having outwitted Demetrius and our brigand host,
who gazed after us with a surly scowl as we rode away, and probably
longed for the good old days when, at the head of his hanged companions,
he could have stopped us at the first mountain-pass and levied
contributions at his own rate. I probably condemn myself when I say that
we left this ancient city with such a trifle uppermost in our thoughts,
but so it was; we bought a loaf of bread as we passed through the
market-place, and descended to the plain of Corinth. We had still the
same horses which we rode from Padras; they were miserable animals, and
I did not mount mine the whole day. Indeed, this is the true way to
travel in Greece; the country is mountainous, and the road or narrow
horse-path so rough and precipitous that the traveller is often obliged
to dismount and walk. The exercise of clambering up the mountains and
the purity of the air brace every nerve in the body, and not a single
feature of the scenery escapes the eye.

But, as yet, there are other things beside scenery; on each side of the
road and within site of each other are the ruins of the ancient cities
of Lechæum and Cenchreæ, the ports of Corinth on the Corinthian and
Saronic Gulfs; the former once connected with it by two long walls, and
the road to the latter once lined with temples and sepulchres, the ruins
of which may still be seen. The isthmus connecting the Peloponnesus with
the continent is about six miles wide, and Corinth owed her commercial
greatness to the profits of her merchants in transporting merchandise
across it. Entire vessels were sometimes carried from one sea and
launched into the other. The project of a canal across suggested itself
both to the Greeks and Romans, and there yet exist traces of a ditch
commenced for that purpose.

On the death of Leonidas, and in apprehension of a Persian invasion, the
Peloponnesians built a wall across the isthmus from Lechæum to Cenchreæ.
This wall was at one time fortified with a hundred and fifty towers; it
was often destroyed and as often rebuilt; and in one place, about three
miles from Corinth, vestiges of it may still be seen. Here were
celebrated those Isthmian games so familiar to every tyro in Grecian
literature and history; toward Mount Oneus stands on an eminence an
ancient mound, supposed to be the tomb of Melicertes, their founder, and
near it is at this day a grove of the sacred pine, with garlands of the
leaves of which the victors were crowned.

In about three hours from Corinth we crossed the isthmus, and came to
the village of Kalamaki on the shore of the Saronic Gulf, containing a
few miserable buildings, fit only for the miserable people who occupied
them. Directly on the shore was a large coffee-house enclosed by mud
walls, and having branches of trees for a roof; and in front was a
little flotilla of Greek caiques.

Next to the Greek's love for his native mountains is his passion for the
waters that roll at their feet; and many of the proprietors of the
rakish little boats in the harbour talked to us of the superior
advantage of the sea over a mountainous road, and tried to make us
abandon our horses and go by water to Athens; but we clung to the land,
and have reason to congratulate ourselves upon having done so, for our
road was one of the most beautiful it was ever my fortune to travel
over. For some distance I walked along the shore, on the edge of a plain
running from the foot of Mount Geranion. The plain was intersected by
mountain torrents, the channel-beds of which were at that time dry. We
passed the little village of Caridi, supposed to be the Sidus of
antiquity, while a ruined church and a few old blocks of marble mark the
site of ancient Crommyon, celebrated as the haunt of a wild boar
destroyed by Theseus.

At the other end of the plain we came to the foot of Mount Geranion,
stretching out boldly to the edge of the gulf, and followed the road
along its southern side close to and sometimes overhanging the sea. From
time immemorial this has been called the Kaka Scala, or bad way. It is
narrow, steep, and rugged, and wild to sublimity. Sometimes we were
completely hemmed in by impending mountains, and then rose upon a lofty
eminence commanding an almost boundless view. On the summit of the range
the road runs directly along the mountain's brink, overhanging the sea,
and so narrow that two horsemen can scarcely pass abreast; where a
stumble would plunge the traveller several hundred yards into the waters
beneath. Indeed, the horse of one of my companions stumbled and fell,
and put him in such peril that both dismounted and accompanied me on
foot. In the olden time this wild and rugged road was famous as the
haunt of the robber Sciron, who plundered the luckless travellers, and
then threw them from this precipice. The fabulous account is, that
Theseus, three thousand years before, on his first visit to Athens,
encountered the famous robber, and tossed him from the same precipice
whence he had thrown so many better men. According to Ovid, the earth
and the sea refused to receive the bones of Sciron, which continued for
some time suspended in the open air, until they were changed into large
rocks, whose points still appear at the foot of the precipice; and to
this day, say the sailors, knock the bottoms out of the Greek vessels.
In later days this road was so infested by corsairs and pirates, that
even the Turks feared to travel on it; at one place, that looks as
though it might be intended as a jumping-off point into another world,
Ino, with her son Melicertes in her arms (so say the Greek poets), threw
herself into the sea to escape the fury of her husband; and we know
that in later days St. Paul travelled on this road to preach the gospel
to the Corinthians.

But, independently of all associations, and in spite of its difficulties
and dangers, if a man were by accident placed on the lofty height
without knowing where he was, he would be struck with the view which it
commands, as one of the most beautiful that mortal eyes ever beheld. It
was my fortune to pass over it a second time on foot, and I often seated
myself on some wild point, and waited the coming up of my muleteers,
looking out upon the sea, calm and glistening as if plated with silver,
and studded with islands in continuous clusters stretching away into the
Ægean.

During the greater part of the passage of the Kaka Scala my companions
walked with me; and, as we always kept in advance, when we seated
ourselves on some rude rock overhanging the sea to wait for our beasts
and attendants, few things could be more picturesque than their
approach.

On the summit of the pass we fell into the ancient paved way that leads
from Attica into the Peloponnesus, and walked over the same pavement
which the Greeks travelled, perhaps, three thousand years ago. A ruined
wall and gate mark the ancient boundary; and near this an early
traveller observed a large block of white marble projecting over the
precipice, and almost ready to fall into the sea, which bore an
inscription, now illegible. Here it is supposed stood the Stèle erected
by Theseus, bearing on one side the inscription, "Here is Peloponnesus,
not Ionia;" and on the other the equally pithy notification, "Here is
not Peloponnesus, but Ionia." It would be a pretty place of residence
for a man in misfortune; for, besides the extraordinary beauty of the
scenery, by a single step he might avoid the service of civil process,
and set the sheriff of Attica or the Peloponnesus at defiance.
Descending, we saw before us a beautiful plain, extending from the foot
of the mountain to the sea, and afar off, on an eminence commanding the
plain, was the little town of Megara.

It is unfortunate for the reader that every ruined village on the road
stands on the site of an ancient city. The ruined town before us was the
birthplace of Euclid, and the representative of that Megara which is
distinguished in history more than two thousand years ago; which sent
forth its armies in the Persian and Peloponnesian wars; alternately the
ally and enemy of Corinth and Athens; containing numerous temples, and
the largest public houses in Greece; and though exposed, with her other
cities, to the violence of a fierce democracy, as is recorded by the
historian, "the Megareans retained their independence and lived in
peace." As a high compliment, the people offered to Alexander the Great
the freedom of their city. When we approached it its appearance was a
speaking comment upon human pride.

It had been demolished and burned by Greeks and Turks, and now presented
little more than a mass of blackened ruins. A few apartments had been
cleared out and patched up, and occasionally I saw a solitary figure
stalking amid the desolation.

I had not mounted my horse all day; had kicked out a pair of Greek shoes
on my walk, and was almost barefoot when I entered the city. A little
below the town was a large building enclosed by a high wall, with a
Bavarian soldier lounging at the gate. We entered, and found a good
coffee-room below, and a comfortable bed chamber above, where we found
good quilts and mattresses, and slept like princes.

Early in the morning we set out for Athens, our road for some time lying
along the sea. About half way to the Piræus, a ruined village, with a
starving population, stands on the site of the ancient Eleusis, famed
throughout all Greece for the celebration of the mysterious rites of
Ceres. The magnificent temple of the goddess has disappeared, and the
colossal statue made by the immortal Phidias now adorns the vestibule of
the University at Cambridge. We lingered a little while in the village,
and soon after entered the Via Sacra, by which, centuries ago, the
priests and people moved in solemn religious processions from Athens to
the great temple of Ceres. At first we passed underneath the cliff along
the shore, then rose by a steep ascent among the mountains, barren and
stony, and wearing an aspect of desolation equal to that of the Roman
Campagna; then we passed through a long defile, upon the side of which,
deeply cut in the rock, are seen the marks of chariot-wheels; perhaps of
those used in the sacred processions. We passed the ruined monastery of
Daphne, in a beautifully picturesque situation, and in a few minutes saw
the rich plain of Attica; and our muleteers and Demetrius, with a burst
of enthusiasm, perhaps because the journey was ended, clapped their
hands and cried out, "Atinæ! Atinæ!"

The reader, perhaps, trembles at the name of Athens, but let him take
courage. I promise to let him off easily. A single remark, however,
before reaching it. The plain of Attica lies between two parallel ranges
of mountains, and extends from the sea many miles back into the
interior. On the border of the sea stands the Piræus, now, as in former
times, the harbour of the city, and toward the east, on a little
eminence, Athens itself, like the other cities in Greece, presenting a
miserable appearance, the effects of protracted and relentless wars. But
high above the ruins of the modern city towers the Acropolis, holding up
to the skies the ruined temples of other days, and proclaiming what
Athens was. We wound around the temple of Theseus, the most beautiful
and perfect specimen of architecture that time has spared; and in
striking contrast with this monument of the magnificence of past days,
here, in the entrance to the city, our horses were struggling and
sinking up to their saddle-girths in the mud.

We did in Athens what we should have done in Boston or Philadelphia;
rode up to the best hotel, and, not being able to obtain accommodations
there, rode to another; where, being again refused admittance, we were
obliged to distribute ourselves into three parcels. Dr. Willet went to
Mr. Hill's (of whom more anon). M. found entrance at a new hotel in the
suburbs, and I betook myself to the Hotel de France. The garçon was
rather bothered when I threw him a pair of old boots which I had hanging
at my saddle-bow, and told him to take care of my baggage; he asked me
when the rest would come up; and hardly knew what to make of me when I
told him that was all I travelled with.

I was still standing in the court of the hotel, almost barefoot, and
thinking of the prosperous condition of the owner of a dozen shirts, and
other things conforming, when Mr. Hill came over and introduced himself;
and telling me that his house was the house of every American, asked me
to waive ceremony and bring my luggage over at once. This was again
hitting my sore point; everybody seemed to take a special interest in
my luggage, and I was obliged to tell my story more than once. I
declined Mr. Hill's kind invitation, but called upon him early the next
day, dined with him, and, during the whole of my stay in Athens, was in
the habit, to a great extent, of making his house my home; and this, I
believe, is the case with all the Americans who go there; besides which,
some borrow his money, and others his clothes.

CHAPTER IV.

THE first thing we did in Athens was to visit the American missionary
school. Among the extraordinary changes of an ever-changing world, it is
not the least that the young America is at this moment paying back the
debt which the world owes to the mother of science, and the citizen of a
country which the wisest of the Greeks never dreamed of, is teaching the
descendants of Plato and Aristotle the elements of their own tongue. I
did not expect among the ruins of Athens to find anything that would
particularly touch my national feelings, but it was a subject of deep
and interesting reflection that, in the city which surpassed all the
world in learning, where Socrates, and Plato, and Aristotle taught, and
Cicero went to study, the only door of instruction was that opened by
the hands of American citizens, and an American missionary was the only
schoolmaster; and I am ashamed to say that I was not aware of the
existence of such an institution until advised of it by my friend Dr. W.

In eighteen hundred and thirty the Rev. Messrs. Hill and Robinson, with
their families, sailed from this city (New-York) as the agents of the
Episcopal missionary society, to found schools in Greece. They first
established themselves in the Island of Tenos; but, finding that it was
not the right field for their labours, employed themselves in acquiring
a knowledge of the language, and of the character and habits of the
modern Greeks. Their attention was directed to Athens, and in the spring
of eighteen hundred and thirty-one they made a visit to that city, and
were so confirmed in their impressions, that they purchased a lot of
ground on which to erect edifices for a permanent establishment, and, in
the mean time, rented a house for the immediate commencement of a
school. They returned to Tenos for their families and effects, and again
arrived at Athens about the end of June following. From the deep
interest taken in their struggle for liberty, and the timely help
furnished them in their hour of need, the Greeks were warmly
prepossessed in favour of our countrymen; and the conduct of the
missionaries themselves was so judicious, that they were received with
the greatest respect and the warmest welcome by the public authorities
and the whole population of Athens. Their furniture, printing-presses,
and other effects were admitted free of duties; and it is but justice to
them to say that, since that time, they have moved with such discretion
among an excitable and suspicious people, that, while they have advanced
in the great objects of their mission, they have grown in the esteem and
good-will of the best and most influential inhabitants of Greece; and so
great was Mr. Hill's confidence in their affections, that, though there
was at that time a great political agitation, and it was apprehended
that Athens might again become the scene of violence and bloodshed, he
told me he had no fears, and felt perfectly sure that, in any
outbreaking of popular fury, himself and family, and the property of the
mission, would be respected.[1]

In the middle of the summer of their arrival at Athens, Mrs. Hill
opened a school for girls in the magazine or cellar of the house in
which they resided; the first day she had twenty pupils, and in two
months one hundred and sixty-seven. Of the first ninety-six, not more
than six could read at all, and that very imperfectly; and not more than
ten or twelve knew a letter. At the time of our visit the school
numbered nearly five hundred; and when we entered the large room, and
the scholars all rose in a body to greet us as Americans, I felt a deep
sense of regret that, personally, I had no hand in such a work, and
almost envied the feelings of my companion, one of its patrons and
founders. Besides teaching them gratitude to those from whose country
they derived the privileges they enjoyed, Mr. Hill had wisely
endeavoured to impress upon their minds a respect for the constituted
authorities, particularly important in that agitated and unsettled
community; and on one end of the wall, directly fronting the seats of
the scholars, was printed, in large Greek characters, the text of
Scripture, "Fear God, honour the king."

It was all important for the missionaries not to offend the strong
prejudices of the Greeks by any attempt to withdraw the children from
the religion of their fathers; and the school purports to be, and is
intended for, the diffusion of elementary education only; but it is
opened in the morning with prayer, concluding with the Lord's Prayer as
read in our churches, which is repeated by the whole school aloud; and
on Sundays, besides the prayers, the creed, and sometimes the Ten
Commandments, are recited, and a chapter from the Gospels is read aloud
by one of the scholars, the missionaries deeming this more expedient
than to conduct the exercises themselves. The lesson for the day is
always the portion appointed for the gospel of the day in their own
church; and they close by singing a hymn. The room is thrown open to the
public, and is frequently resorted to by the parents of the children and
strangers; some coming, perhaps, says Mr. Hill, to "hear what these
babblers will say," and "other some" from a suspicion that "we are
setters forth of strange gods."

The boys' school is divided into three departments, the lowest under
charge of a Greek qualified on the Lancasterian system. They were of all
ages, from three to eighteen; and, as Mr. Hill told me, most of them had
been half-clad, dirty, ragged little urchins, who, before they were put
to their A, B, C, or, rather, their Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, had to be
thoroughly washed, rubbed, scrubbed, doctored, and dressed, and, but for
the school, would now, perhaps, be prowling vagabonds in the streets of
Athens, or training for robbery in the mountains. They were a body of
fine-looking boys, possessing, as Mr. Hill told me, in an extraordinary
degree, all that liveliness of imagination, that curiosity and eagerness
after knowledge, which distinguished the Greeks of old, retaining, under
centuries of dreadful oppression, the recollection of the greatness of
their fathers, and, what was particularly interesting, many of them
bearing the great names so familiar in Grecian history; I shook hands
with a little Miltiades, Leonidas, Aristides, &c., in features and
apparent intelligence worthy descendants of the immortal men whose names
they bear. And there was one who startled me, he was the son of the
Maid of Athens! To me the Maid of Athens was almost an imaginary being,
something fanciful, a creation of the brain, and not a corporeal
substance, to have a little urchin of a boy. But so it was. The Maid of
Athens is married. She had a right to marry, no doubt; and it is said
that there is poetry in married life, and, doubtless, she is a much more
interesting person now than the Maid of Athens at thirty-six could be;
but the Maid of Athens is married to a Scotchman! the Maid of Athens is
now Mrs. Black! wife of George Black. Comment is unnecessary.

But the principal and most interesting part of this missionary school
was the female department, under the direction of Mrs. Hill, the first,
and, except at Syra, the only school for females in all Greece, and
particularly interesting to me from the fact that it owed its existence
to the active benevolence of my own country-women. At the close of the
Greek revolution, female education was a thing entirely unknown in
Greece, and the women of all classes were in a most deplorable state of
ignorance. When the strong feeling that ran through our country in
favour of this struggling people had subsided, and Greece was freed from
the yoke of the Mussulman, an association of ladies in the little town
of Troy, perhaps instigated somewhat by an inherent love of power and
extended rule, and knowing the influence of their sex in a cultivated
state of society, formed the project of establishing at Athens a school
exclusively for the education of females; and, humble and unpretending
as was its commencement, it is becoming a more powerful instrument in
the civilization and moral and religious improvement of Greece, than all
that European diplomacy has ever done for her. The girls were
distributed in different classes, according to their age and
advancement; they had clean faces and hands, a rare thing with Greek
children, and were neatly dressed, many of them wearing frocks made by
ladies at home (probably at some of our sewing societies); and some of
them had attained such an age, and had such fine, dark, rolling eyes as
to make even a northern temperament feel the powerful influence they
would soon exercise over the rising, excitable generation of Greeks and
almost make him bless the hands that were directing that influence
aright.

Mr. and Mrs. Hill accompanied us through the whole establishment, and,
being Americans, we were everywhere looked upon and received by the
girls as patrons and fathers of the school, both which characters I
waived in favour of my friend; the one because he was really entitled to
it, and the other because some of the girls were so well grown that I
did not care to be regarded as standing in that venerable relationship.
The didaskalissas, or teachers, were of this description, and they spoke
English. Occasionally Mr. Hill called a little girl up to us, and told
us her history, generally a melancholy one, as, being reduced to the
extremity of want by the revolution; or an orphan, whose parents had
been murdered by the Turks; and I had a conversation with a little
Penelope, who, however, did not look as if she would play the faithful
wife of Ulysses, and, if I am a judge of physiognomy, would never endure
widowhood twenty years for any man.

Before we went away the whole school rose at once, and gave us a
glorious finale with a Greek hymn. In a short time these girls will grow
up into women and return to their several families; others will succeed
them, and again go out, and every year hundreds will distribute
themselves in the cities and among the fastnesses of the mountains, to
exercise over their fathers, and brothers, and lovers, the influence of
the education acquired here; instructed in all the arts of woman in
civilized domestic life, firmly grounded in the principles of morality,
and of religion purified from the follies, absurdities, and abominations
of the Greek faith. I have seen much of the missionary labours in the
East, but I do not know an institution which promises so surely the
happiest results. If the women are educated, the men cannot remain
ignorant; if the women are enlightened in religion, the men cannot
remain debased and degraded Christians.

The ex-secretary Rigos was greatly affected at the appearance of this
female school; and, after surveying it attentively for some moments,
pointed to the Parthenon on the summit of the Acropolis, and said to
Mrs. Hill, with deep emotion, "Lady, you are erecting in Athens a
monument more enduring and more noble than yonder temple;" and the king
was so deeply impressed with its value, that, a short time before my
arrival, he proposed to Mr. Hill to take into his house girls from
different districts and educate them as teachers, with the view of
sending them back to their districts, there to organize new schools, and
carry out the great work of female education. Mr. Hill acceded to the
proposal, and the American missionary school now stands as the nucleus
of a large and growing system of education in Greece; and, very
opportunely for my purpose, within a few days I have received a letter
from Mr. Hill, in which, in relation to the school, he says, "Our
missionary establishment is much increased since you saw it; our labours
are greatly increased, and I think I may say we have now reached the
summit of what we had proposed to ourselves. We do not think it possible
that it can be extended farther without much larger means and more
personal aid. We do not wish or intend to ask for either. We have now
nearly forty persons residing with us, of whom thirty-five are Greeks,
all of whom are brought within the influence of the gospel; the greater
part of them are young girls from different parts of Greece, and even
from Egypt and Turkey (Greeks, however), whom we are preparing to become
instructresses of youth hereafter in their various districts. We have
five hundred, besides, under daily instruction in the different schools
under our care, and we employ under us in the schools twelve native
teachers, who have themselves been instructed by us. We have provided
for three of our dear pupils (all of whom were living with us when you
were here), who are honourably and usefully settled in life. One is
married to a person every way suited to her, and both husband and wife
are in our missionary service. One has charge of the government female
school at the Piræus, and supports her father and mother and a large
family by her salary; and the third has gone with our missionaries to
Crete, to take charge of the female schools there. We have removed into
our new house" (of which the foundation was just laid at the time of my
visit), "and, large as it is, it is not half large enough. We are trying
to raise ways and means to enlarge it considerably, that we may take
more boarders under our own roof, which we look up to as the most
important means of making sure of our labour; for every one who comes to
reside with us is taken away from the corrupt example exhibited at home,
and brought within a wholesome influence. Lady Byron has just sent us
one hundred pounds toward enlarging our house with this view, and we
have commenced the erection of three additional dormitories with the
money."

Athens is again the capital of a kingdom. Enthusiasts see in her present
condition the promise of a restoration to her ancient greatness; but
reason and observation assure us that the world is too much changed for
her ever to be what she has been. In one respect, her condition
resembles that of her best days; for, as her fame then attracted
strangers from every quarter of the world to study in her schools, so
now the capital of King Otho has become a great gathering-place of
wandering spirits from many near and distant regions. For ages difficult
and dangerous of access, the ancient capital of the arts lay shrouded in
darkness, and almost cut off from the civilized world. At long
intervals, a few solitary travellers only found their way to it; but,
since the revolution, it has again become a place of frequent resort and
intercourse. It is true that the ancient halls of learning are still
solitary and deserted, but strangers from every nation now turn hither;
the scholar to roam over her classic soil, the artist to study her
ancient monuments, and the adventurer to carve his way to fortune.

The first day I dined at the hotel I had an opportunity of seeing the
variety of material congregated in the reviving city. We had a long
table, capable of accommodating about twenty persons. The manner of
living was à la carte, each guest dining when he pleased; but, by tacit
consent, at about six o'clock all assembled at the table. We presented a
curious medley. No two were from the same country. Our discourse was in
English, French, Italian, German, Greek, Russian, Polish, and I know not
what else, as if we were the very people stricken with confusion of
tongues at the Tower of Babel. Dinner over, all fell into French, and
the conversation became general. Every man present was, in the fullest
sense of the term, a citizen of the world. It had been the fortune of
each, whether good or bad, to break the little circle in which so many
are born, revolve, and die; and the habitual mingling with people of
various nations had broken down all narrow prejudices, and given to
every one freedom of mind and force of character. All had seen much, had
much to communicate, and felt that they had much yet to learn. By some
accident, moreover, all seemed to have become particularly interested in
the East. They travelled over the whole range of Eastern politics, and,
to a certain extent, considered themselves identified with Eastern
interests. Most of the company were or had been soldiers, and several
wore uniforms and stars, or decorations of some description. They spoke
of the different campaigns in Greece in which some of them had served;
of the science of war; of Marlborough, Eugene, and more modern captains;
and I remember that they startled my feelings of classical reverence by
talking of Leonidas at Thermopylæ and Miltiades at Marathon in the same
tone as of Napoleon at Leipsic and Wellington at Waterloo. One of them
constructed on the table, with the knives and forks and spoons, a map of
Marathon, and with a sheathed yataghan pointed out the position of the
Greeks and Persians, and showed where Miltiades, as a general, was
wrong. They were not blinded by the dust of antiquity. They had been
knocked about till all enthusiasm and all reverence for the past were
shaken out of them, and they had learned to give things their right
names. A French engineer showed us the skeleton of a map of Greece,
which was then preparing under the direction of the French Geographical
Society, exhibiting an excess of mountains and deficiency of plain which
surprised even those who had travelled over every part of the kingdom.
One had just come from Constantinople, where he had seen the sultan
going to mosque; another had escaped from an attack of the plague in
Egypt; a third gave the dimensions of the Temple of the Sun at Baalbeck;
and a fourth had been at Babylon, and seen the ruins of the Tower of
Babel. In short, every man had seen something which the others had not
seen, and all their knowledge was thrown into a common stock. I found
myself at once among a new class of men; and I turned from him who
sneered at Miltiades to him who had seen the sultan, or to him who had
been at Bagdad, and listened with interest, somewhat qualified by
consciousness of my own inferiority. I was lying in wait, however, and
took advantage of an opportunity to throw in something about America;
and, at the sound, all turned to me with an eagerness of curiosity that
I had not anticipated.

In Europe, and even in England, I had often found extreme ignorance of
my own country; but here I was astonished to find, among men so familiar
with all parts of the Old World, such total lack of information about
the New. A gentleman opposite me, wearing the uniform of the King of
Bavaria, asked me if I had ever been in America. I told him that I was
born, and, as they say in Kentucky, raised there. He begged my pardon,
but doubtfully _suggested_, "You are not black?" and I was obliged to
explain to him that in our section of America the Indian had almost
entirely disappeared, and that his place was occupied by the descendants
of the Gaul and the Briton. I was forthwith received into the
fraternity, for my home was farther away than any of them had ever been;
my friend opposite considered me a bijou, asked me innumerable
questions, and seemed to be constantly watching for the breaking out of
the cannibal spirit, as if expecting to see me bite my neighbour. At
first I had felt myself rather a small affair but, before separating,
_l'Americain_, or _le sauvage_, or finally, _le cannibal_ found himself
something of a lion.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Since my return home I have seen in a newspaper an account of a
popular commotion at Syra, in which the printing-presses and books at
the missionaries were destroyed, and Mr. Robinson was threatened with
personal violence.

CHAPTER V.

THE next morning I began my survey of the ruins of Athens. It was my
intention to avoid any description of these localities and monuments,
because so many have preceded me, stored with all necessary knowledge,
ripe in taste and sound in judgment, who have devoted to them all the
time and research they so richly merit; but as, in our community,
through the hurry and multiplicity of business occupations, few are able
to bestow upon these things much time or attention, and, farthermore, as
the books which treat of them are not accessible to all, I should be
doing injustice to my readers if I were to omit them altogether.
Besides, I should be doing violence to my own feelings, and cannot get
fairly started in Athens, without recurring to scenes which I regarded
at the time with extraordinary interest. I have since visited most of
the principal cities in Europe, existing as well as ruined and I hardly
know any to which I recur with more satisfaction than Athens. If the
reader tire in the brief reference I shall make, he must not impute it
to any want of interest in the subject; and as I am not in the habit of
going into heroics, he will believe me when I say that, if he have any
reverence for the men or things consecrated by the respect and
admiration of ages, he will find it called out at Athens. In the hope
that I may be the means of inducing some of my countrymen to visit that
famous city, I will add another inducement by saying that he may have,
as I had, Mr. Hill for a cicerone. This gentleman is familiar with every
locality and monument around or in the city, and, which I afterward
found to be an unusual thing with those living in places consecrated in
the minds of strangers, he retains for them all that freshness of
feeling which we possess who only know them from books and pictures.

By an arrangement made the evening before, early in the morning of my
second day in Athens Mr. Hill was at the door of my hotel to attend us.
As we descended the steps a Greek stopped him, and, bowing with his hand
on his heart, addressed him in a tone of earnestness which we could not
understand; but we were struck with the sonorous tones of his voice and
the musical cadence of his sentences; and when he had finished, Mr. Hill
told us that he had spoken in a strain which, in the original, was
poetry itself, beginning, "Americanos, I am a Stagyrite. I come from the
land of Aristotle, the disciple of Plato," &c., &c.; telling him the
whole story of his journey from the ancient Stagyra and his arrival in
Athens; and that, having understood that Mr. Hill was distributing books
among his countrymen, he begged for one to take home with him. Mr. Hill
said that this was an instance of every-day occurrence, showing the
spirit of inquiry and thirst for knowledge among the modern Greeks. This
little scene with a countryman of Aristotle was a fit prelude to our
morning ramble.

The house occupied by the American missionary as a school stands on the
site of the ancient Agora or market-place, where St. Paul "disputed
daily with the Athenians." A few columns still remain; and near them is
an inscription mentioning the price of oil. The schoolhouse is built
partly from the ruins of the Agora; and to us it was an interesting
circumstance, that a missionary from a newly-discovered world was
teaching to the modern Greeks the same saving religion which, eighteen
hundred years ago, St. Paul, on the same spot, preached to their
ancestors.

Winding around the foot of the Acropolis, within the ancient and outside
the modern wall, we came to the Areopagus or Hill of Mars, where, in the
early days of Athens, her judges sat in the open air; and, for many
ages, decided with such wisdom and impartiality, that to this day the
decisions of the court of Areopagites are regarded as models of judicial
purity. We ascended this celebrated hill, and stood on the precise spot
where St. Paul, pointing to the temples which rose from every section of
the city and towered proudly on the Acropolis, made his celebrated
address: "Ye men of Athens, I see that in all things ye are too
superstitious." The ruins of the very temples to which he pointed were
before our eyes.

Descending, and rising toward the summit of another hill, we came to the
Pnyx, where Demosthenes, in the most stirring words that ever fell from
human lips, roused his countrymen against the Macedonian invader. Above,
on the very summit of the hill, is the old Pnyx, commanding a view of
the sea of Salamis, and of the hill where Xerxes sat to behold the great
naval battle. During the reign of the thirty tyrants the Pnyx was
removed beneath the brow of the hill, excluding the view of the sea,
that the orator might not inflame the passions of the people by
directing their eyes to Salamis, the scene of their naval glory. But,
without this, the orator had material enough; for, when he stood on the
platform facing the audience, he had before him the city which the
Athenians loved and the temples in which they worshipped, and I could
well imagine the irresistible force of an appeal to these objects of
their enthusiastic devotion, their firesides and altars. The place is
admirably adapted for public speaking. The side of the hill has been
worked into a gently inclined plane, semicircular in form, and supported
in some places by a wall of immense stones. This plain is bounded above
by the brow of the hill, cut down perpendicularly. In the centre the
rock projects into a platform about eight or ten feet square, which
forms the Pnyx or pulpit for the orator. The ascent is by three steps
cut out of the rock, and in front is a place for the scribe or clerk. We
stood on this Pnyx, beyond doubt on the same spot where Demosthenes
thundered his philippics in the ears of the Athenians. On the road
leading to the Museum hill we entered a chamber excavated in the rock,
which tradition hallows as the prison of Socrates; and though the
authority for this is doubtful, it is not uninteresting to enter the
damp and gloomy cavern wherein, according to the belief of the modern
Athenians, the wisest of the Greeks drew his last breath. Farther to the
south is the hill of Philopappus, so called after a Roman governor of
that name. On the very summit, near the extreme angle of the old wall,
and one of the most conspicuous objects around Athens, is a monument
erected by the Roman governor in honour of the Emperor Trajan. The
marble is covered with the names of travellers, most of whom, like
Philopappus himself, would never have been heard of but for that
monument.

Descending toward the Acropolis, and entering the city among streets
encumbered with ruined houses, we came to the Temple of the Winds, a
marble octagonal tower, built by Andronicus. On each side is a
sculptured figure, clothed in drapery adapted to the wind he represents;
and on the top was formerly a Triton with a rod in his hand, pointing to
the figure marking the wind. The Triton is gone, and great part of the
temple buried under ruins. Part of the interior, however, has been
excavated, and probably, before long, the whole will be restored.

East of the foot of the Acropolis, and on the way to Adrian's Gate, we
came to the Lantern of Demosthenes (I eschew its new name of the
Choragic Monument of Lysichus), where, according to an absurd tradition,
the orator shut himself up to study the rhetorical art. It is considered
one of the most beautiful monuments of antiquity, and the capitals are
most elegant specimens of the Corinthian order refined by Attic taste.
It is now in a mutilated condition, and its many repairs make its
dilapidation more perceptible. Whether Demosthenes ever lived here or
not, it derives an interest from the fact that Lord Byron made it his
residence during his visit to Athens. Farther on, and forming part of
the modern wall, is the Arch of Adrian, bearing on one side an
inscription in Greek, "This is the city of Theseus;" and on the other,
"But this is the city of Adrian." On the arrival of Otho a placard was
erected, on which was inscribed, "These were the cities of Theseus and
Adrian, but now of Otho." Many of the most ancient buildings in Athens
have totally disappeared. The Turks destroyed many of them to construct
the wall around the city, and even the modern Greeks have not scrupled
to build their miserable houses with the plunder of the temples in which
their ancestors worshipped.

Passing under the Arch of Adrian, outside the gate, on the plain toward
the Ilissus, we came to the ruined Temple of Jupiter Olympus, perhaps
once the most magnificent in the world. It was built of the purest white
marble, having a front of nearly two hundred feet, and more than three
hundred and fifty in length, and contained one hundred and twenty
columns, sixteen of which are all that now remain; and these, fluted and
having rich Corinthian capitals, tower more than sixty feet above the
plain, perfect as when they were reared. I visited these ruins often,
particularly in the afternoon; they are at all times mournfully
beautiful, but I have seldom known anything more touching than, when the
sun was setting, to walk over the marble floor, and look up at the
lonely columns of this ruined temple. I cannot imagine anything more
imposing than it must have been when, with its lofty roof supported by
all its columns, it stood at the gate of the city, its doors wide open,
inviting the Greeks to worship. That such an edifice should be erected
for the worship of a heathen god! On the architrave connecting three of
the columns a hermit built his lonely cell, and passed his life in that
elevated solitude, accessible only to the crane and the eagle. The
hermit is long since dead, but his little habitation still resists the
whistling of the wind, and awakens the curiosity of the wondering
traveller.

The Temple of Theseus is the last of the principal monuments, but the
first which the traveller sees on entering Athens. It was built after
the battle of Marathon, and in commemoration of the victory which drove
the Persians from the shores of Greece. It is a small but beautiful
specimen of the pure Doric, built of Pentelican marble, centuries of
exposure to the open air giving it a yellowish tint, which softens the
brilliancy of the white. Three Englishmen have been buried within this
temple. The first time I visited it a company of Greek recruits, with
some negroes among them, was drawn up in front, going through the manual
under the direction of a German corporal; and, at the same time, workmen
were engaged in fitting it up for the coronation of King Otho!

[Illustration: Temple of Jupiter Olympus and Acropolis at Athena.]

These are the principal monuments around the city, and, except the
temples at Pæstum, they are more worthy of admiration than all the ruins
in Italy; but towering above them in position, and far exceeding them in
interest, are the ruins of the Acropolis. I have since wandered among
the ruined monuments of Egypt and the desolate city of Petra, but I
look back with unabated reverence to the Athenian Acropolis. Every day I
had gazed at it from the balcony of my hotel, and from every part of the
city and suburbs. Early on my arrival I had obtained the necessary
permit, paid a hurried visit, and resolved not to go again until I had
examined all the other interesting objects. On the fourth day, with my
friend M., I went again. We ascended by a broad road paved with stone.
The summit is enclosed by a wall, of which some of the foundation
stones, very large, and bearing an appearance of great antiquity, are
pointed out as part of the wall built by Themistocles after the battle
of Salamis, four hundred and eighty years before Christ. The rest is
Venetian and Turkish, falling to decay, and marring the picturesque
effect of the ruins from below. The guard examined our permit, and we
passed under the gate. A magnificent propylon of the finest white
marble, the blocks of the largest size ever laid by human hands, and
having a wing of the same material on each side, stands at the entrance.
Though broken and ruined, the world contains nothing like it even now.
If my first impressions do not deceive me, the proudest portals of
Egyptian temples suffer in comparison. Passing this magnificent
propylon, and ascending several steps, we reached the Parthenon or
ruined Temple of Minerva; an immense white marble skeleton, the noblest
monument of architectural genius which the world ever saw. Standing on
the steps of this temple, we had around us all that is interesting in
association and all that is beautiful in art. We might well forget the
capital of King Otho, and go back in imagination to the golden age of
Athens. Pericles, with the illustrious throng of Grecian heroes,
orators, and sages, had ascended there to worship, and Cicero and the
noblest of the Romans had gone there to admire; and probably, if the
fashion of modern tourists had existed in their days, we should see
their names inscribed with their own hands on its walls. The great
temple stands on the very summit of the Acropolis, elevated far above
the Propylæa and the surrounding edifices. Its length is two hundred and
eight feet, and breadth one hundred and two. At each end were two rows
of eight Doric columns, thirty-four feet high and six feet in diameter,
and on each side were thirteen more. The whole temple within and without
was adorned with the most splendid works of art, by the first sculptors
in Greece, and Phidias himself wrought the statue of the goddess, of
ivory and gold, twenty-six cubits high, having on the top of her helmet
a sphinx, with griffins on each of the sides; on the breast a head of
Medusa wrought in ivory, and a figure of Victory about four cubits high,
holding a spear in her hand and a shield lying at her feet. Until the
latter part of the seventeenth century, this magnificent temple, with
all its ornaments, existed entire. During the siege of Athens by the
Venetians, the central part was used by the Turks as a magazine; and a
bomb, aimed with fatal precision or by a not less fatal chance, reached
the magazine, and, with a tremendous explosion, destroyed a great part
of the buildings. Subsequently the Turks used it as a quarry, and
antiquaries and travellers, foremost among whom is Lord Elgin, have
contributed to destroy "what Goth, and Turk, and Time had spared."

Around the Parthenon, and covering the whole summit of the Acropolis,
are strewed columns and blocks of polished white marble, the ruins of
ancient temples. The remains of the Temples of Erectheus and Minerva
Polias are pre-eminent in beauty; the pillars of the latter are the most
perfect specimens of the Ionic in existence, and its light and graceful
proportions are in elegant contrast with the severe and simple majesty
of the Parthenon. The capitals of the columns are wrought and ornamented
with a delicacy surpassing anything of which I could have believed
marble susceptible. Once I was tempted to knock off a corner and bring
it home, as a specimen of the exquisite skill of the Grecian artist,
which it would have illustrated better than a volume of description; but
I could not do it; it seemed nothing less than sacrilege.

Afar off, and almost lost in the distance, rises the Pentelican
Mountain, from the body of which were hewed the rough rude blocks which,
wrought and perfected by the sculptor's art, now stand the lofty and
stately columns of the ruined temple. What labour was expended upon each
single column! how many were employed in hewing it from its rocky bed,
in bearing it to the foot of the mountain, transporting it across the
plain of Attica, and raising it to the summit of the Acropolis! and then
what time, and skill, and labour, in reducing it from a rough block to a
polished shaft, in adjusting its proportions, in carving its rich
capitals, and rearing it where it now stands, a model of majestic grace
and beauty! Once, under the direction of Mr. Hill, I clambered up to the
very apex of the pediment, and, lying down at full length, leaned over
and saw under the frieze the acanthus leaf delicately and beautifully
painted on the marble, and, being protected from exposure, still
retaining its freshness of colouring. It was entirely out of sight from
below, and had been discovered, almost at the peril of his life, by the
enthusiasm of an English artist. The wind was whistling around me as I
leaned over to examine it, and, until that moment, I never appreciated
fully the immense labour employed and the exquisite finish displayed in
every portion of the temple.

The sentimental traveller must already mourn that Athens has been
selected as the capital of Greece. Already have speculators and the
whole tribe of "improvers" invaded the glorious city; and while I was
lingering on the steps of the Parthenon, a German, who was quietly
smoking among the ruins, a sort of superintendent whom I had met before,
came up, and offering me a segar, and leaning against one of the lofty
columns of the temple, opened upon me with "his plans of city
improvements;" with new streets, and projected railroads, and the rise
of lots. At first I almost thought it personal, and that he was making a
fling at me in allusion to one of the greatest hobbies of my native
city; but I soon found that he was as deeply bitten as if he had been in
Chicago or Dunkirk; and the way in which he talked of moneyed
facilities, the wants of the community, and a great French bank then
contemplated at the Piræus, would have been no discredit to some of my
friends at home. The removal of the court has created a new era in
Athens; but, in my mind, it is deeply to be regretted that it has been
snatched from the ruin to which it was tending. Even I, deeply imbued
with the utilitarian spirit of my country, and myself a quondam
speculator in "up-town lots," would fain save Athens from the ruthless
hand of renovation; from the building mania of modern speculators. I
would have her go on till there was not a habitation among her ruins;
till she stood, like Pompeii, alone in the wilderness, a sacred desert,
where the traveller might sit down and meditate alone and undisturbed
among the relics of the past. But already Athens has become a
heterogeneous anomaly; the Greeks in their wild costume are jostled in
the streets by Englishmen, Frenchmen, Italians, Dutchmen, Spaniards, and
Bavarians, Russians, Danes, and sometimes Americans. European shops
invite purchasers by the side of Eastern bazars, coffee-houses, and
billiard-rooms, and French and German restaurants are opened all over
the city. Sir Pultney Malcolm has erected a house to hire near the site
of Plato's Academy. Lady Franklin has bought land near the foot of Mount
Hymettus for a country-seat. Several English gentlemen have done the
same. Mr. Richmond, an American clergyman, has purchased a farm in the
neighbourhood; and in a few years, if the "march of improvement"
continues, the Temple of Theseus will be enclosed in the garden of the
palace of King Otho; the Temple of the Winds will be concealed by a
German opera-house, and the Lantern of Demosthenes by a row of
"three-story houses."

I was not a sentimental traveller, but I visited all the localities
around Athens, and, therefore, briefly mention that several times I
jumped over the poetic and perennial Ilissus, trotted my horse over the
ground where Aristotle walked with his peripatetics, and got muddied up
to my knees in the garden of Plato.

One morning my Scotch friend and I set out early to ascend Mount
Hymettus. The mountain is neither high nor picturesque, but a long flat
ridge of bare rock, the sides cut up into ravines, fissures, and
gullies. There is an easy path to the summit, but we had no guide, and
about midday, after a wild scramble, were worn out, and descended
without reaching the top, which is exceedingly fortunate for the reader,
as otherwise he would be obliged to go through a description of the view
therefrom.

Returning, we met the king taking his daily walk, attended by two aids,
one of whom was young Marco Bozzaris. Otho is tall and thin, and, when I
saw him, was dressed in a German military frockcoat and cap, and
altogether, for a king, seemed to be an amiable young man enough. All
the world speaks well of him, and so do I. We touched our hats to him,
and he returned the civility; and what could he do more without inviting
us to dinner? In old times there was a divinity about a king; but now,
if a king is a gentleman, it is as much as we can expect. He has spent
his money like a gentleman, that is, he cannot tell what has become of
it. Two of the three-millions loan are gone, and there is no
colonization, no agricultural prosperity, no opening of roads, no
security in the mountains; not a town in Greece but is in ruins, and no
money to improve them. Athens, however, is to be embellished. With ten
thousand pounds in the treasury, he is building a palace of white
Pentelican marble, to cost three hundred thousand pounds.

Otho was very popular, because, not being of age, all the errors of his
administration were visited upon Count Armansbergh and the regency, who,
from all accounts, richly deserved it; and it was hoped that, on
receiving the crown, he would shake off the Bavarians who were preying
upon the vitals of Greece, and gather around him his native-born
subjects. In private life he bore a most exemplary character. He had no
circle of young companions, and passed much of his time in study, being
engaged, among other things, in acquiring the Greek and English
languages. His position is interesting, though not enviable; and if, as
the first king of emancipated Greece, he entertains recollections of her
ancient greatness, and the ambition of restoring her to her position
among the nations of the earth, he is doomed to disappointment. Otho is
since crowned and married. The pride of the Greeks was considerably
humbled by a report that their king's proposals to several daughters of
German princes had been rejected; but the king had great reason to
congratulate himself upon the spirit which induced the daughter of the
Duke of Oldenburgh to accept his hand. From her childhood she had taken
an enthusiastic interest in Greek history, and it had been her constant
wish to visit Greece; and when she heard that Otho had been called to
the throne, she naively expressed an ardent wish to share it with him.
Several years afterward, by the merest accident, she met Otho at a
German watering-place, travelling with his mother, the Queen of Bavaria,
as the Count de Missilonghi; and in February last she accompanied him to
Athens, to share the throne which had been the object of her youthful
wish.

M. dined at my hotel, and, returning to his own, he was picked up and
carried to the guardhouse. He started for his hotel without a lantern,
the requisition to carry one being imperative in all the Greek and
Turkish cities; the guard could not understand a word he said until he
showed them some money, which made his English perfectly intelligible;
and they then carried him to a Bavarian corporal, who, after two hours'
detention, escorted him to his hotel. After that we were rather careful
about staying out late at night.

"Thursday. I don't know the day of the month." I find this in my notes,
the caption of a day of business, and at this distance of time will not
undertake to correct the entry. Indeed, I am inclined to think that my
notes in those days are rather uncertain and imperfect; certainly not
taken with the precision of one who expected to publish them.
Nevertheless, the residence of the court, the diplomatic corps, and
strangers form an agreeable society at Athens. I had letters to some of
the foreign ministers, but did not present them, as I was hardly
presentable myself without my carpet-bag. On "Thursday," however, in
company with Dr. W., I called upon Mr. Dawkins, the British minister.
Mr. Dawkins went to Greece on a special mission, which he supposed would
detain him six months from home, and had remained there ten years. He is
a high tory, but retained under a whig administration, because his
services could not well be dispensed with. He gave us much interesting
information in regard to the present condition and future prospects of
Greece; and, in answer to my suggestion that the United States were not
represented at all in Greece, not even by a consul, he said, with
emphasis, "You are better represented than any power in Europe. Mr. Hill
has more influence here than any minister plenipotentiary among us." A
few days after, when confined to my room by indisposition, Mr. Dawkins
returned my visit, and again spoke in the same terms of high
commendation of Mr. Hill. It was pleasing to me, and I have no doubt it
will be so to Mr. Hill's numerous friends in this country, to know that
a private American citizen, in a position that keeps him aloof from
politics, was spoken of in such terms by the representative of one of
the great powers of Europe. I had heard it intimated that there was a
prospect of Mr. Dawkins being transferred to this country, and parted
with him in the hope at some future day of seeing him the representative
of his government here.

I might have been presented to the king, but my carpet-bag--Dr. W.
borrowed a hat, and was presented; the doctor had an old white hat,
which he had worn all the way from New-York. The tide is rolling
backward; Athens is borrowing her customs from the barbarous nations of
the north; and it is part of the etiquette to enter a drawing-room with
a hat (a black one) under the arm. The doctor, in his republican
simplicity, thought that a hat, good enough to put on his own head, was
good enough to go into the king's presence; but he was advised to the
contrary, and took one of Mr. Hill's, not very much too large for him.
He was presented by Dr. ----, a German, the king's physician, with whom
he had discoursed much of the different medical systems in Germany and
America. Dr. W. was much pleased with the king. Did ever a man talk with
a king who was not pleased with him? But the doctor was particularly
pleased with King Otho, as the latter entered largely into discourse on
the doctor's favourite theme, Mr. Hill's school, and the cause of
education in Greece. Indeed, it speaks volumes in favour of the young
king, that education is one of the things in which he takes the deepest
interest. The day the doctor was to be presented we dined at Mr. Hill's,
having made arrangements for leaving Athens that night; the doctor and
M. to return to Europe. In the afternoon, while the doctor remained to
be presented, M. and I walked down to the Piræus, now, as in the days of
her glory, the harbour of Athens. The ancient harbour is about five
miles from Athens, and was formerly joined to it by _long walls_ built
of stone of enormous size, sixty feet high, and broad enough on the top
for two wagons to pass abreast. These have long since disappeared, and
the road is now over a plain shaded a great part of the way by groves of
olives. As usual at this time of day, we met many parties on horseback,
sometimes with ladies; and I remember particularly the beautiful and
accomplished daughters of Count Armansbergh, both of whom are since
married and dead.[2] It is a beautiful ride, in the afternoon
particularly, as then the dark outline of the mountains beyond, and the
reflections of light and shade, give a peculiarly interesting effect to
the ruins of the Acropolis. Toward the other end we paced between the
ruins of the old walls, and entered upon a scene which reminded me of
home. Eight months before there was only one house at the Piræus; but,
as soon as the court removed to Athens, the old harbour revived; and
already we saw long ranges of stores and warehouses, and all the hurry
and bustle of one of our rising western towns. A railroad was in
contemplation, and many other improvements, which have since failed; but
an _omnibus!_ that most modern and commonplace of inventions, is now
running regularly between the Piræus and Athens. A friend who visited
Greece six months after me brought home with him an advertisement
printed in Greek, English, French, and German, the English being in the
words and figures following, to wit:

"ADVERTISEMENT.

"The public are hereby informed, that on the nineteenth instant an
omnibus will commence running between Athena and the Piræus, and
will continue to do so every day at the undermentioned hours until
farther notice.

_Hours of Departure._

From Athens. From Piræus.

Half past seven o'clock A.M. Half past eight o'clock A.M.
Ten o'clock A.M. Eleven o'clock A.M.
Two o'clock P.M. Three o'clock P.M.
Half past four P.M. Half past five P.M.

"The price of a seat in the omnibus is one drachme.

"Baggage, if not too bulky and heavy, can be taken on the roof.

"Smoking cannot be allowed in the omnibus, nor can dogs be admitted.

"Small parcels and packages may be sent by this conveyance at a
moderate charge, and given to the care of the conducteur.

"The omnibus starts from the corner of the Hermes and Æolus streets
at Athens and from the bazar at the Piræus, and will wait five
minutes at each place, during which period the conducteur will sound
his horn.

"Athens, 17th, 29th September, 1836."

Old things are passing away, and all things are becoming new. For a
little while yet we may cling to the illusions connected with the past,
but the mystery is fast dissolving, the darkness is breaking away, and
Greece, and Rome, and even Egypt herself, henceforward claim our
attention with objects and events of the present hour. Already they have
lost much of the deep and absorbing interest with which men turned to
them a generation ago. All the hallowed associations of these ancient
regions are fading away. We may regret it, we may mourn over it, but we
cannot help it. The world is marching onward; I have met parties of my
own townsmen while walking in the silent galleries of the Coliseum; I
have seen Americans drinking Champagne in an excavated dwelling of the
ancient Pompeii, and I have dined with Englishmen among the ruins of
Thebes, but, blessed be my fortune, I never rode in an omnibus from the
Piræus to Athens.

We put our baggage on board the caique, and lounged among the little
shops till dark, when we betook ourselves to a dirty little coffee-house
filled with Greeks dozing and smoking pipes. We met there a boat's crew
of a French man-of-war, waiting for some of the officers, who were
dining with the French ambassador at Athens. One of them had been born
to a better condition than that of a common sailor. One juvenile
indiscretion after another had brought him down, and, without a single
vice, he was fairly on the road to ruin. Once he brushed a tear from his
eyes as he told us of prospects blighted by his own follies; but,
rousing himself, hurried away, and his reckless laugh soon rose above
the noise and clamour of his wild companions.

About ten o'clock the doctor came in, drenched with rain and up to his
knees in mud. We wanted to embark immediately, but the appearance of the
weather was so unfavourable that the captain preferred waiting till
after midnight. The Greeks went away from the coffee-house, the
proprietor fell asleep in his seat, and we extended ourselves on the
tables and chairs; and now the fleas, which had been distributed about
among all the loungers, made a combined onset upon us. Life has its
cares and troubles, but few know that of being given up to the tender
mercies of Greek fleas. We bore the infliction till human nature could
endure no longer; and, at about three in the morning, in the midst of
violent wind and rain, broke out of the coffee-house and went in search
of our boat. It was very dark, but we found her and got on board. She
was a caique, having an open deck with a small covering over the stern.
Under this we crept, and with our cloaks and a sailcloth spread over us,
our heated blood cooled, and we fell asleep. When we woke we were on the
way to Epidaurus. The weather was raw and cold. We passed within a
stone's throw of Salamis and Ægina, and at about three o'clock, turning
a point which completely hid it from view, entered a beautiful little
bay, on which stands the town of Epidaurus. The old city, the birthplace
of Esculapius, stands upon a hill projecting into the bay, and almost
forming an island. In the middle of the village is a wooden building
containing a large chamber, where the Greek delegates, a band of
mountain warriors, with arms in their hands, "in the name of the Greek
nation, proclaimed before gods and men its independence."

At the locanda there was by chance one bed, which not being large enough
for three, I slept on the floor. At seven o'clock, after a quarrel with
our host and paying him about half his demand, we set out for Napoli di
Romania. For about an hour we moved in the valley running off from the
beautiful shore of Epidaurus; soon the valley deepened into a glen, and
in an hour we turned off on a path that led into the mountains, and,
riding through wild and rugged ravines, fell into the dry bed of a
torrent; following which, we came to the Hieron Elios, or Sacred Grove
of Esculapius. This was the great watering-place for the invalids of
ancient Greece, the prototype of the Cheltenham and Saratoga of modern
days. It is situated in a valley surrounded by high mountains, and was
formerly enclosed by walls, within which, that the credit of the God
might not be impeached, _no man was allowed to die, and no woman to be
delivered_. Within this enclosure were temples, porticoes and fountains,
now lying in ruins hardly distinguishable. The theatre is the most
beautiful and best preserved. It is scooped out of the side of the
mountain, rather more than semicircular in form, and containing
fifty-four seats. These seats are of pink marble, about fifteen inches
high and nearly three feet wide. In the middle of each seat is a groove,
in which, probably, woodwork was constructed, to prevent the feet of
those above from incommoding them who sat below, and also to support the
backs of an invalid audience. The theatre faces the north, and is so
arranged that, with the mountain towering behind it, the audience was
shaded nearly all the day. It speaks volumes in favour of the
intellectual character of the Greeks, that it was their favourite
recreation to listen to the recitation of their poets and players. And
their superiority in refinement over the Romans is in no way manifested
more clearly than by the fact, that in the ruined cities of the former
are found the remains of theatres, and in the latter of amphitheatres,
showing the barbarous taste of the Romans for combats of gladiators and
wild beasts. It was in beautiful keeping with this intellectual taste of
the Greeks, that their places of assembling were in the open air, amid
scenery calculated to elevate the mind; and, as I sat on the marble
steps of the theatre, I could well imagine the high satisfaction with
which the Greek, under the shade of the impending mountain, himself all
enthusiasm and passion, rapt in the interest of some deep tragedy, would
hang upon the strains of Euripides or Sophocles. What deep-drawn
exclamations, what shouts of applause had rung through that solitude,
what bursts of joy and grief had echoed from those silent benches! And
then, too, what flirting and coqueting, the state of society at the
springs in the Grove of Esculapius being probably much the same as at
Saratoga in our own days. The whole grove is now a scene of desolation.
The lentisculus is growing between the crevices of the broken marble;
birds sing undisturbed among the bushes; the timid hare steals among the
ruined fragments; and sometimes the snake is seen gliding over the
marble steps.

We had expected to increase the interest of our visit by taking our
noonday refection on the steps of the theatre, but it was too cold for a
picnic _al fresco_; and, mounting our horses, about two o'clock we came
in sight of Argos, on the opposite side of the great plain; and in half
an hour more, turning the mountain, saw Napoli di Romania beautifully
situated on a gentle elevation on the shore of the gulf. The scenery in
every direction around Napoli is exceedingly beautiful; and, when we
approached it, bore no marks of the sanguinary scenes of the late
revolution. The plain was better cultivated than any part of the
adjacent country; and the city contained long ranges of houses and
streets, with German names, such as Heidecker, Maurer-street, &c., and
was seemingly better regulated than any other city in Greece. We drove
up to the Hotel des Quatre Nations, the best we had found in Greece,
dined at a restaurant with a crowd of Bavarian officers and adventurers,
and passed the evening in the streets and coffee-houses.

The appearance of Otho-street, which is the principal, is very
respectable; it runs from what was the palace to the grand square or
esplanade, on one side of which are the barracks of the Bavarian
soldiers, with a park of artillery posted so as to sweep the square and
principal streets; a speaking comment upon the liberty of the Greeks,
and the confidence reposed in them by the government.

Everything in Napoli recalls the memory of the brief and unfortunate
career of Capo d'Istria. Its recovery from the horrors of barbarian war,
and the thriving appearance of the country around, are ascribed to the
impulse given by his administration. A Greek by birth, while his country
lay groaning under the Ottoman yoke he entered the Russian service,
distinguished himself in all the diplomatic correspondence during the
French invasion, was invested with various high offices and honours, and
subscribed the treaty of Paris in 1815 as imperial Russian
plenipotentiary. He withdrew from her service because Russia disapproved
the efforts of his countrymen to free themselves from the Turkish yoke;
and, after passing five years in Germany and Switzerland, chiefly at
Geneva, in 1827 he was called to the presidency of Greece. On his
arrival at Napoli amid the miseries of war and anarchy, he was received
by the whole people as the only man capable of saving their country.
Civil war ceased on the very day of his arrival, and the traitor Grievas
placed in his hands the key of the Palimethe. I shall not enter into any
speculations upon the character of his administration. The rank he had
attained in a foreign service is conclusive evidence of his talents, and
his withdrawal from that service for the reason stated is as conclusive
of his patriotism; but from the moment he took into his hands the reins
of government, he was assailed by every so-called liberal press in
Europe with the party cry of Russian influence. The Greeks were induced
to believe that he intended to sell them to a stranger; and Capo
d'Istria, strong in his own integrity, and confidently relying on the
fidelity and gratitude of his countrymen, was assassinated in the
streets on his way to mass. Young Mauromichalis, the son of the old Bey
of Maina, struck the fatal blow, and fled for refuge to the house of
the French ambassador. A gentleman attached to the French legation told
me that he himself opened the door when the murderer rushed in with the
bloody dagger in his hand, exclaiming, "I have killed the tyrant." He
was not more than twenty-one, tall and noble in his appearance, and
animated by the enthusiastic belief that he had delivered his country.
My informant told me that he barred all the doors and windows, and went
up stairs to inform the minister, who had not yet risen. The latter was
embarrassed and in doubt what he should do. A large crowd gathered round
the house; but, as yet, they were all Mauromichalis's friends. The young
enthusiast spoke of what he had done with a high feeling of patriotism
and pride; and while the clamour out of doors was becoming outrageous,
he ate his breakfast and smoked his pipe with the utmost composure. He
remained at the embassy more than two hours, and until the regular
troops drew up before the house. The French ambassador, though he at
first refused, was obliged to deliver him up; and my informant saw him
shot under a tree outside the gate of Napoli, dying gallantly in the
firm conviction that he had played the Brutus and freed his country from
a Cæsar.

The fate of Capo d'Istria again darkened the prospects of Greece, and
the throne went begging for an occupant until it was accepted by the
King of Bavaria for his second son Otho. The young monarch arrived at
Napoli in February, eighteen hundred and thirty-three. The whole
population came out to meet him, and the Grecian youth ran breast deep
in the water to touch his barge as it approached the shore. In February,
eighteen hundred and thirty-four, it was decided to establish Athens as
the capital. The propriety of this removal has been seriously
questioned, for Napoli possessed advantages in her location, harbour,
fortress and a town already built; but the King of Bavaria, a scholar
and an antiquary, was influenced more, perhaps, by classical feeling
than by regard for the best interests of Greece. Napoli has received a
severe blow from the removal of the seat of government; still it was by
far the most European in its appearance of any city I had seen in
Greece. It had several restaurants and coffee-houses, which were
thronged all the evening with Bavarian officers and broken-down European
adventurers, discussing the internal affairs of that unfortunate
country, which men of every nation seemed to think they had a right to
assist in governing. Napoli had always been the great gathering-place of
the phil-Hellenists, and many appropriating to themselves that sacred
name were hanging round it still. All over Europe thousands of men are
trained up to be shot at for so much per day; the soldier's is as
regular a business as that of the lawyer or merchant, and there is
always a large class of turbulent spirits constantly on the look-out for
opportunities, and ever ready with their swords to carve their way to
fortune. I believe that there were men who embarked in the cause of
Greece with as high and noble purposes as ever animated the warrior; but
of many, there is no lack of charity in saying that, however good they
might be as fighters, they were not much as men; and I am sorry to add
that, from the accounts I heard in Greece, some of the American
phil-Hellenists were rather shabby fellows. Mr. M., then resident in
Napoli, was accosted one day in the streets by a young man, who asked
him where he could find General Jarvis. "What do you want with him?"
said Mr. M. "I hope to obtain a commission in his army." "Do you see
that dirty fellow yonder?" said Mr. M., pointing to a ragged patriot
passing at the moment; "well, twenty such fellows compose Jarvis's army,
and Jarvis himself is no better off." "Well, then," said the young
_American_, "I believe I'll join the Turks!" Allen, another American
patriot, was hung at Constantinople. One bore the sacred name of
Washington; a brave but unprincipled man. Mr. M. had heard him say, that
if the devil himself should raise a regiment and would give him a good
commission, he would willingly march under him. He was struck by a shot
from the fortress of Napoli while directing a battery against it; was
taken on board his Britannic majesty's ship Asia, and breathed his last
uttering curses on his country.

There were others, however, who redeemed the American character. The
agents sent out by the Greek committee (among them our townsmen, Messrs.
Post and Stuyvesant), under circumstances of extraordinary difficulty
fulfilled the charitable purposes of their mission with such zeal and
discretion as to relieve the wants of a famishing people, and secure the
undying gratitude of the Greeks. Dr. Russ, another of the agents,
established an American hospital at Poros, and, under the most severe
privations, devoted himself gratuitously to attendance upon the sick and
wounded. Dr. Howe, one of the earliest American phil-Hellenists, in the
darkest hour of the revolution, and at a time when the Greeks were
entirely destitute of all medical aid, with an honourable enthusiasm,
and without any hope of pecuniary reward, entered the service as
surgeon, was the fellow-labourer of Dr. Russ in establishing the
American hospital, and, at the peril of his life, remained with them
during almost the whole of their dreadful struggle. Colonel Miller, the
principal agent, now resident in Vermont, besides faithfully performing
the duties of his trust, entered the army, and conducted himself with
such distinguished gallantry that he was called by the Greek braves the
American Delhi, or Daredevil.[3]

FOOTNOTES:

[2] They married two brothers, the young princes Cantacuzenes. Some
scruples being raised against this double alliance on the score of
consanguinity, the difficulty was removed by each couple going to
separate churches with separate priests to pronounce the mystic words at
precisely the same moment; so that neither could be said to espouse his
sister-in-law.

[3] In the previous editions of his work, the author's remarks were so
general as to reflect upon the character of individuals who stand in our
community above reproach. The author regrets that the carelessness of
his expressions should have wounded where he never intended, and hopes
the gentlemen affected will do him the justice to believe that he would
not wantonly injure any man's character or feelings.

CHAPTER VI.

Argos.--Tomb of Agamemnon.--Mycenæ.--Gate of the Lions.--A
Misfortune.--A Midnight Quarrel.--Gratitude of a Greek
Family.--Megara.

IN the morning, finding a difficulty in procuring horses, some of the
loungers about the hotel told us there was a carriage in Napoli, and we
ordered it to be brought out, and soon after saw moving majestically
down the principal street a bella carozza, imported by its enterprising
proprietor from the Strada Toledo at Naples. It was painted a bright
flaring yellow, and had a big breeched Albanian for coachman. While
preparing to embark, a Greek came up with two horses, and we discharged
the bella carozza. My companion hired the horses for Padras, and I threw
my cloak on one of them and followed on foot.

The plain of Argos is one of the most beautiful I ever saw. On every
side except toward the sea it is bounded by mountains, and the contrast
between these mountains, the plain, and the sea is strikingly beautiful.
The sun was beating upon it with intense heat; the labourers were almost
naked, or in several places lying asleep on the ground, while the tops
of the mountains were covered with snow. I walked across the whole
plain, being only six miles, to Argos. This ancient city is long since
in ruins; her thirty temples, her costly sepulchres, her gymnasium, and
her numerous and magnificent monuments and statues have disappeared,
and the only traces of her former greatness are some remains of her
Cyclopean walls, and a ruined theatre cut in the rock and of magnificent
proportions. Modern Argos is nothing more than a straggling village. Mr.
Riggs, an American missionary, was stationed there, but was at that time
at Athens with an invalid wife. I was still on foot, and wandered up and
down the principal street looking for a horse. Every Greek in Argos soon
knew my business, and all kinds of four-legged animals were brought to
me at exorbitant prices. When I was poring over the Iliad I little
thought that I should ever visit Argos; still less that I should create
a sensation in the ancient city of the Danai; but man little knows for
what he is reserved.

Argos has been so often visited that Homer is out of date. Every middy
from a Mediterranean cruiser has danced on the steps of her desolate
theatre, and, instead of busying myself with her ancient glories, I
roused half the population in hiring a horse. In fact, in this ancient
city I soon became the centre of a regular horsemarket. Every rascally
jockey swore that his horse was the best, and, according to the
descendants of the respectable sons of Atreus, blindness, lameness,
spavin, and staggers were a recommendation. A Bavarian officer, whom I
had met in the bazars, came to my assistance, and stood by me while I
made my bargain. I had more regard to the guide than the horse; and
picking out one who had been particularly noisy, hired him to conduct me
to Corinth and Athens. He was a lad of about twenty, with a bright
sparkling eye, who, laughing roguishly at his unsuccessful competitors,
wanted to pitch me at once on the horse and be off. I joined my
companions, and in a few minutes we left Argos.

The plain of Argos has been immortalized by poetic genius as the great
gathering-place of the kings and armies that assembled for the siege of
Troy. To the scholar and poet few plains in the world are more
interesting. It carries him back to the heroic ages, to the history of
times bordering on the fabulous, when fact and fiction are so
beautifully blended that we would not separate them if we could. I had
but a little while longer to remain with my friends, for we were
approaching the point where our roads separated, and about eleven
o'clock we halted and exchanged our farewell greetings. We parted in the
middle of the plain, they to return to Padras and Europe, and I for the
tomb of Agamemnon, and back to Athens, and I hardly know where besides.
Dr. W. I did not meet again until my return home. About a year afterward
I arrived in Antwerp in the evening from Rotterdam. The city was filled
with strangers, and I was denied admission at a third hotel, when a
young man brushed by me in the doorway, and I recognised Maxwell. I
hailed him, but in cap and cloak, and with a large red shawl around my
neck, he did not know me. I unrolled and discovered myself, and it is
needless to say that I did not leave the hotel that night. It was his
very last day of two years' travel on the Continent; he had taken his
passage in the steamer for London, and one day later I should have
missed him altogether. I can give but a faint idea of the pleasure of
this meeting. He gave me the first information of the whereabout of Dr.
W.; we talked nearly all night, and about noon the next day I again bade
him farewell on board the steamer.

I have for some time neglected our servant. When we separated, the
question was who should _not_ keep him. We were all heartily tired of
him, and I would not have had him with me on any account. Still, at the
moment of parting in that wild and distant region, never expecting to
see him again, I felt some slight leaning toward him. Touching the
matter of shirts, it will not be surprising to a man of the world that,
at the moment of parting, I had one of M.'s on my back; and, in justice
to him, I must say it was a very good one, and lasted a long time. A
friend once wrote to me on a like occasion not to wear his out of its
turn, but M. laid no such restriction upon me. But this trifling gain
did not indemnify me for the loss of my friends. I had broken the only
link that connected me with home, and was setting out alone for I knew
not where. I felt at once the great loss I had sustained, for my young
muleteer could speak only his own language, and, as Queen Elizabeth said
to Sir Walter Raleigh of her Hebrew, we had "forgotten our" Greek.

But on that classical soil I ought not to have been lonely. I should
have conjured up the ghosts of the departed Atridæ, and held converse on
their own ground with Homer's heroes. Nevertheless, I was not in the
mood; and, entirely forgetting the glories of the past, I started my
horse into a gallop. My companion followed on a full run, close at my
heels, belabouring my horse with a stick, which when he broke, he pelted
him with stones; indeed, this mode of scampering over the ground seemed
to hit his humour, for he shouted, hurraed, and whipped, and sometimes
laying hold of the tail of the beast, was dragged along several paces
with little effort of his own. I soon tired of this, and made signs to
him to stop; but it was his turn now, and I was obliged to lean back
till I reached him with my cane before I could make him let go his hold,
and then he commenced shouting and pelting again with stones.

In this way we approached the village of Krabata, about a mile below
the ruins of Mycenæ, and the most miserable place I had seen in Greece.
With the fertile plain of Argos uncultivated before them, the
inhabitants exhibited a melancholy picture of the most abject poverty.
As I rode through, crowds beset me with outstretched arms imploring
charity; and a miserable old woman, darting out of a wretched hovel,
laid her gaunt and bony hand upon my leg, and attempted to stop me. I
shrunk from her grasp, and, under the effect of a sudden impulse, threw
myself off on the other side, and left my horse in her hands.

Hurrying through the village, a group of boys ran before me, crying out
"Agamemnon," "Agamemnon." I followed, and they conducted me to the tomb
of "the king of kings," a gigantic structure, still in good
preservation, of a conical form, covered with turf; the stone over the
door is twenty-seven feet long and seventeen wide, larger than any hewn
stone in the world except Pompey's Pillar. I entered, my young guides
going before with torches, and walked within and around this ancient
sepulchre. A worthy Dutchman, Herman Van Creutzer, has broached a theory
that the Trojan war is a mere allegory, and that no such person as
Agamemnon ever existed. Shame upon the cold-blooded heretic. I have my
own sins to answer for in that way, for I have laid my destroying hand
upon many cherished illusions; but I would not, if I could, destroy the
mystery that overhangs the heroic ages. The royal sepulchre was forsaken
and empty; the shepherd drives within it his flock for shelter; the
traveller sits under its shade to his noonday meal; and, at the moment,
a goat was dozing quietly in one corner. He started as I entered, and
seemed to regard me as an intruder; and when I flared before him the
light of my torch, he rose up to butt me. I turned away and left him in
quiet possession. The boys were waiting outside, and crying "Mycenæ,"
"Mycenæ," led me away. All was solitude, and I saw no marks of a city
until I reached the relics of her Cyclopean walls. I never felt a
greater degree of reverence than when I approached the lonely ruins of
Mycenæ. At Argos I spent most of my time in the horsemarket, and I had
galloped over the great plain as carelessly as if it had been the road
to Harlem; but all the associations connected with this most interesting
ground here pressed upon me at once. Its extraordinary antiquity, its
gigantic remains, and its utter and long-continued desolation, came home
to my heart. I moved on to the Gate of the Lions, and stood before it a
long time without entering. A broad street led to it between two immense
parallel walls; and this street may, perhaps, have been a market-place.
Over the gate are two lions rampant, like the supporters of a modern
coat-of-arms, rudely carved, and supposed to be the oldest sculptured
stone in Greece. Under this very gate Agamemnon led out his forces for
the siege of Troy; three thousand years ago he saw them filing before
him, glittering in brass, in all the pomp and panoply of war; and I held
in my hand a book which told me that this city was so old that, more
than seventeen hundred years ago, travellers came as I did to visit its
ruins; and that Pausanias had found the Gate of the Lions in the same
state in which I beheld it now. A great part is buried by the rubbish of
the fallen city. I crawled under, and found myself within the walls, and
then mounted to the height on which the city stood. It was covered with
a thick soil and a rich carpet of grass. My boys left me, and I was
alone. I walked all over it, following the line of the walls. I paused
at the great blocks of stone, the remnants of Cyclopic masonry, the work
of wandering giants. The heavens were unclouded, and the sun was beaming
upon it with genial warmth. Nothing could exceed the quiet beauty of the
scene. I became entangled in the long grass, and picked up wild flowers
growing over long-buried dwellings. Under it are immense caverns, their
uses now unknown; and the earth sounded hollow under my feet, as if I
were treading on the sepulchre of a buried city. I looked across the
plain to Argos; all was as beautiful as when Homer sang its praises; the
plain, and the mountains, and the sea were the same, but the once
magnificent city, her numerous statues and gigantic temples, were gone
for ever; and but a few remains were left to tell the passing traveller
the story of her fallen greatness. I could have remained there for
hours; I could have gone again and again, for I had not found a more
interesting spot in Greece; but my reveries were disturbed by the
appearance of my muleteer and my juvenile escort. They pointed to the
sun as an intimation that the day was passing; and crying "Cavallo,"
"Cavallo," hurried me away. To them the ruined city was a playground;
they followed capering behind; and, in descending, three or four of them
rolled down upon me; they hurried me through the Gate of the Lions, and
I came out with my pantaloons, my only pantaloons, rent across the knee
almost irreparably. In an instant I was another man; I railed at the
ruins for their strain upon wearing apparel, and bemoaned my unhappy lot
in not having with me a needle and thread. I looked up to the old gate
with a sneer. This was the city that Homer had made such a noise about;
a man could stand on the citadel and almost throw a stone beyond the
boundary-line of Agamemnon's kingdom. In full sight, and just at the
other side of the plain, was the kingdom of Argos. The little state of
Rhode Island would make a bigger kingdom than both of them together.

But I had no time for deep meditation, having a long journey to Corinth
before me. Fortunately, my young Greek had no tire in him; he started me
off on a gallop, whipping and pelting my horse with stones, and would
have hurried me on, over rough and smooth, till either he, or I, or the
horse broke down, if I had not jumped off and walked. As soon as I
dismounted he mounted, and then he moved so leisurely that I had to
hurry him on in turn. In this way we approached the range of mountains
separating the plain of Argos from the Isthmus of Corinth. Entering the
pass, we rode along a mountain torrent, of which the channel-bed was
then dry, and ascended to the summit of the first range. Looking back,
the scene was magnificent. On my right and left were the ruined heights
of Argos and Mycenæ; before me, the towering Acropolis of Napoli di
Romania; at my feet, the rich plain of Argos, extending to the shore of
the sea; and beyond, the island-studded Ægean. I turned away with a
feeling of regret that, in all probability, I should never see it more.

I moved on, and in a narrow pass, not wide enough to turn my horse if I
had been disposed to take to my heels, three men rose up from behind a
rock, armed to the teeth with long guns, pistols, yataghans, and
sheepskin cloaks--the dress of the klept or mountain robber--and
altogether presenting a most diabolically cutthroat appearance. If they
had asked me for my purse I should have considered it all regular, and
given up the remnant of my stock of borrowed money without a murmur;
but I was relieved from immediate apprehension by the cry of passe
porta. King Otho has begun the benefits of civilized government in
Greece by introducing passports, and mountain warriors were stationed in
the different passes to examine strangers. They acted, however, as if
they were more used to demanding purses than passports, for they sprang
into the road and rattled the butts of their guns on the rock with a
violence that was somewhat startling. Unluckily, my passport had been
made out with those of my companions, and was in their possession, and
when we parted neither thought of it; and this demand to me, who had
nothing to lose, was worse than that of my purse. A few words of
explanation might have relieved me from all difficulty, but my friends
could not understand a word I said. I was vexed at the idea of being
sent back, and thought I would try the effect of a little impudence; so,
crying out "Americanos," I attempted to pass on; but they answered me
"Nix," and turned my horse's head toward Argos. The scene, which a few
moments before had seemed so beautiful, was now perfectly detestable.
Finding that bravado had not the desired effect, I lowered my tone and
tried a bribe; this was touching the right chord; half a dollar removed
all suspicions from the minds of these trusty guardians of the pass;
and, released from their attentions, I hurried on.

The whole road across the mountain is one of the wildest in Greece. It
is cut up by numerous ravines, sufficiently deep and dangerous, which at
every step threaten destruction to the incautious traveller. During the
late revolution the soil of Greece had been drenched with blood; and my
whole journey had been through cities and over battle-fields memorable
for scenes of slaughter unparalleled in the annals of modern war. In
the narrowest pass of the mountains my guide made gestures indicating
that it had been the scene of a desperate battle. When the Turks, having
penetrated to the plain of Argos, were compelled to fall back again upon
Corinth, a small band of Greeks, under Niketas and Demetrius Ypsilanti,
waylaid them in this pass. Concealing themselves behind the rocks, and
waiting till the pass was filled, all at once they opened a tremendous
fire upon the solid column below, and the pass was instantly filled with
slain. Six thousand were cut down in a few hours. The terrified
survivers recoiled for a moment; but, as if impelled by an invisible
power, rushed on to meet their fate. "The Mussulman rode into the passes
with his sabre in his sheath and his hands before his eyes, the victim
of destiny." The Greeks again poured upon them a shower of lead, and
several thousand more were cut down before the Moslem army accomplished
the passage of this terrible defile.

It was nearly dark when we rose to the summit of the last range of
mountains, and saw, under the rich lustre of the setting sun, the
Acropolis of Corinth, with its walls and turrets, towering to the sky,
the plain forming the Isthmus of Corinth; the dark, quiet waters of the
Gulf of Lepanto; and the gloomy mountains of Cithæron, and Helicon, and
Parnassus covered with snow. It was after dark when we passed the region
of the Nemean Grove, celebrated as the haunt of the lion and the scene
of the first of the twelve labours of Hercules. We were yet three hours
from Corinth; and, if the old lion had still been prowling in the grove,
we could not have made more haste to escape its gloomy solitude.
Reaching the plain, we heard behind us the clattering of horses' hoofs,
at first sounding in the stillness of evening as if a regiment of
cavalry or a troop of banditti was at our heels, but it proved to be
only a single traveller, belated like ourselves, and hurrying on to
Corinth. I could see through the darkness the shining butts of his
pistols and hilt of his yataghan, and took his dimensions with more
anxiety, perhaps, than exactitude. He recognised my Frank dress; and
accosted me in bad Italian, which he had picked up at Padras (being just
the Italian in which I could meet him on equal ground), and told me that
he had met a party of Franks on the road to Padras, whom, from his
description, I recognised as my friends.

It was nearly midnight when we rattled up to the gate of the old
locanda. The yard was thronged with horses and baggage, and Greek and
Bavarian soldiers. On the balcony stood my old brigand host, completely
crestfallen, and literally turned out of doors in his own house; a
detachment of Bavarian soldiers had arrived that afternoon from Padras,
and taken entire possession, giving him and his wife the freedom of the
outside. He did not recognise me, and, taking me for an Englishman,
began, "Sono Inglesi Signor" (he had lived at Corfu under the British
dominion); and, telling me the whole particulars of his unceremonious
ouster, claimed, through me, the arm of the British government to resent
the injury to a British subject; his wife was walking about in no very
gentle mood, but, in truth, very much the contrary. I did not speak to
her, and she did not trust herself to speak to me; but, addressing
myself to the husband, introduced the subject of my own immediate wants,
a supper and night's lodging. The landlord told me, however, that the
Bavarians had eaten everything in the house, and he had not a room, bed,
blanket, or coverlet to give me; that I might lie down in the hall or
the piazza, but there was no other place.

I was outrageous at the hard treatment he had received from the
Bavarians. It was too bad to turn an honest innkeeper out of his house,
and deny him the pleasure of accommodating a traveller who had toiled
hard all day, with the perfect assurance of finding a bed at night. I
saw, however, that there was no help for it; and noticing an opening at
one end of the hall, went into a sort of storeroom filled with all kinds
of rubbish, particularly old barrels. An unhinged door was leaning
against the wall, and this I laid across two of the barrels, pulled off
my coat and waistcoat, and on this extemporaneous couch went to sleep.

I was roused from my first nap by a terrible fall against my door. I
sprang up; the moon was shining through the broken casement, and,
seizing a billet of wood, I waited another attack. In the mean time I
heard the noise of a violent scuffling on the floor of the hall, and,
high above all, the voices of husband and wife, his evidently coming
from the floor in a deprecating tone, and hers in a high towering
passion, and enforced with severe blows of a stick. As soon as I was
fairly awake I saw through the thing at once. It was only a little
matrimonial _tête-à-tête_. The unamiable humour in which I had left them
against the Bavarians had ripened into a private quarrel between
themselves, and she had got him down, and was pummelling him with a
broomstick or something of that kind. It seemed natural and right
enough, and was, moreover, no business of mine; and remembering that
whoever interferes between man and wife is sure to have both against
him, I kept quiet. Others, however, were not so considerate, and the
occupants of the different rooms tumbled into the hall in every variety
of fancy night-gear, among whom was one whose only clothing was a
military coat and cap, with a sword in his hand. When the hubbub was at
its highest I looked out, and found, as I expected, the husband and wife
standing side by side, she still brandishing the stick, and both
apparently outrageous at everything and everybody around them. I
congratulated myself upon my superior knowledge of human nature, and
went back to my bed on the door.

In the morning I was greatly surprised to find that, instead of whipping
her husband, she had been taking his part. Two German soldiers, already
half intoxicated, had come into the hall, and insisted upon having more
wine; the host refused, and when they moved toward my sleeping place,
where the wine was kept, he interposed, and all came down together with
the noise which had woke me. His wife came to his aid, and the blows
which, in my simplicity, I had supposed to be falling upon him, were
bestowed on the two Bavarians. She told me the story herself; and when
she complained to the officers, they had capped the climax of her
passion by telling her that her husband deserved more than he got. She
was still in a perfect fury; and as she looked at them in the yard
arranging for their departure, she added, in broken English, with deep
and, as I thought, ominous passion, "'Twas better to be under the
Turks."

I learned all this while I was making my toilet on the piazza, that is,
while she was pouring water on my hands for me to wash; and, just as I
had finished, my eye fell upon my muleteer assisting the soldiers in
loading their horses. At first I did not notice the subdued expression
of his usually bright face, nor that he was loading my horse with some
of their camp equipage; but all at once it struck me that they were
pressing him into their service. I was already roused by what the woman
had told me, and, resolving that they should not serve me as they did
the Greeks, I sprang off the piazza, cleared my way through the crowd,
and going up to my horse, already staggering under a burden poised on
his back, but not yet fastened, put my hand under one side and tumbled
it over with a crash on the other. The soldiers cried out furiously;
and, while they were sputtering German at me, I sprang into the saddle.
I was in admirable pugilistic condition, with nothing on but pantaloons,
boots, and shirt, and just in a humour to get a whipping, if nothing
worse; but I detested the manner in which the Bavarians lorded it in
Greece; and riding up to a group of officers who were staring at me,
told them that I had just tumbled their luggage off my horse, and they
must bear in mind that they could not deal with strangers quite so
arbitrarily as they did with the Greeks. The commandant was disposed to
be indignant and very magnificent; but some of the others making
suggestions to him, he said he understood I had only hired my horse as
far as Corinth; but, if I had taken him for Athens, he would not
interfere; and, apologizing on the ground of the necessities of
government, ordered him to be released. I apologized back again,
returned the horse to my guide, whose eyes sparkled with pleasure, and
went in for my hat and coat.

I dressed myself, and, telling him to be ready when I had finished my
breakfast, went out expecting to start forthwith; but, to my surprise,
my host told me that the lad refused to go any farther without an
increase of pay; and, sure enough, there he stood, making no preparation
for moving. The cavalcade of soldiers had gone, and taken with them
every horse in Corinth, and the young rascal intended to take advantage
of my necessity. I told him that I had hired him to Athens for such a
price, and that I had saved him from impressment, and consequent loss of
wages, by the soldiers, which he admitted. I added that he was a young
rascal, which he neither admitted nor denied, but answered with a
roguish laugh. The extra price was no object compared with the vexation
of a day's detention; but a traveller is apt to think that all the world
is conspiring to impose upon him, and, at times, to be very resolute in
resisting. I was peculiarly so then, and, after a few words, set off to
complain to the head of the police. Without any ado he trotted along
with me, and we proceeded together, followed by a troup of idlers, I in
something of a passion, he perfectly cool, good-natured, and
considerate, merely keeping out of the way of my stick. Hurrying along
near the columns of the old temple, I stumbled, and he sprang forward to
assist me, his face expressing great interest, and a fear that I had
hurt myself; and when I walked toward a house which I had mistaken for
the bureau of the police department, he ran after me to direct me right.
All this mollified me considerably; and, before we reached the door, the
affair began to strike me as rather ludicrous.

I stated my case, however, to the eparchos, a Greek in Frank dress, who
spoke French with great facility, and treated me with the greatest
consideration. He was so full of professions that I felt quite sure of a
decision in my favour; but, assuming my story to be true, and without
asking the lad for his excuse, he shrugged his shoulders, and said it
would take time to examine the matter, and, if I was in a hurry, I had
better submit. To be sure, he said, the fellow was a great rogue, and he
gave his countrymen in general a character that would not tell well in
print; but added, in their justification, that they were imposed upon
and oppressed by everybody, and therefore considered that they had a
right to take their advantage whenever an opportunity offered. The young
man sat down on the floor, and looked at me with the most frank, honest,
and open expression, as if perfectly unconscious that he was doing
anything wrong. I could not but acknowledge that some excuse for him was
to be drawn from the nature of the school in which he had been brought
up, and, after a little parley, agreed to pay him the additional price,
if, at the end of the journey, I was satisfied with his conduct. This
was enough; his face brightened, he sprang up and took my hand, and we
left the house the best friends in the world. He seemed to be hurt as
well as surprised at my finding fault with him, for to him all seemed
perfectly natural; and, to seal the reconciliation, he hurried on ahead,
and had the horse ready when I reached the locanda. I took leave of my
host with a better feeling than before, and set out a second time on the
road to Athens.

At Kalamaki, while walking along the shore, a Greek who spoke the lingua
Franca came from on board one of the little caiques, and, when he
learned that I was an American, described to me the scene that had taken
place on that beach upon the arrival of provisions from America; when
thousands of miserable beings who had fled from the blaze of their
dwellings, and lived for months upon plants and roots; grayheaded men,
mothers with infants at their breasts, emaciated with hunger and almost
frantic with despair, came down from their mountain retreats to receive
the welcome relief. He might well remember the scene, for he had been
one of that starving people; and he took me to his house, and showed me
his wife and four children, now nearly all grown, telling me that they
had all been rescued from death by the generosity of my countrymen. I do
not know why, but in those countries it did not seem unmanly for a
bearded and whiskered man to weep; I felt anything but contempt for him
when, with his heart overflowing and his eyes filled with tears, he told
me, when I returned home, to say to my countrymen that I had seen and
talked with a recipient of their bounty; and though the Greeks might
never repay us, they could never forget what we had done for them. I
remembered the excitement in our country in their behalf, in colleges
and schools, from the graybearded senator to the prattling schoolboy,
and reflected that, perhaps, my mite, cast carelessly upon the waters,
had saved from the extremity of misery this grateful family. I wish that
the cold-blooded prudence which would have checked our honest enthusiasm
in favour of a people, under calamities and horrors worse than ever fell
to the lot of man struggling to be free, could have listened to the
gratitude of this Greek family. With deep interest I bade them farewell,
and, telling my guide to follow with my horse, walked over to the foot
of the mountain.

Ascending, I saw in one of the openings of the road a packhorse and a
soldier in the Bavarian uniform, and, hoping to find some one to talk
with, I hailed him. He was on the top of the mountain, so far off that
he did not hear me; and when, with the help of my Greek, I had succeeded
in gaining his attention, he looked for some time without being able to
see me. When he did, however, he waited; but, to my no small
disappointment, he answered my first question with the odious "Nix." We
tried each other in two or three dialects; but, finding it of no use, I
sat down to rest, and he, for courtesy, joined me; my young Greek, in
the spirit of good-fellowship, doing the same. He was a tall,
noble-looking fellow, and, like myself, a stranger in Greece; and,
though we could not say so, it was understood that we were glad to meet
and travel together as comrades. The tongue causes more evils than the
sword; and, as we were debarred the use of this mischievous member, and
walked all day side by side, seldom three paces apart, before night we
were sworn friends.

About five o'clock in the afternoon we arrived at Megara. A group of
Bavarian soldiers was lounging round the door of the khan, who welcomed
their expected comrade and me as his companion. My friend left me, and
soon returned with the compliments of the commandant, and an invitation
to visit him in the evening. I had, however, accepted a prior invitation
from the soldiers for a rendezvous in the locanda. I wandered till dark
among the ruined houses of the town, thought of Euclid and Alexander the
Great, and returning, went up to the same room in which I had slept with
my friends, pored over an old map of Greece hanging on the wall, made a
few notes, and throwing myself back on a sort of divan, while thinking
what I should do fell asleep.

About ten o'clock I was roused by the loud roar of a chorus, not like a
sudden burst, but a thing that seemed to have swelled up to that point
by degrees; and rubbing my eyes, and stumbling down stairs, I entered
the banqueting hall; a long, rough wooden table extended the whole
length of the room, supplied with only two articles, wine-flagons and
tobacco-pouches; forty or fifty soldiers were sitting round it, smoking
pipes and singing with all their souls, and, at the moment I entered,
waving their pipes to the dying cadence of a hunting chorus. Then
followed a long thump on the table, and they all rose; my long
travelling friend, with a young soldier who spoke a little French, came
up, and, escorting me to the head of the table, gave me a seat by the
side of the chairman. One of them attempted to administer a cup of wine,
and the other thrust at me the end of a pipe, and I should have been
obliged to kick and abscond but for the relief afforded me by the
entrance of another new-comer. This was no other than the corporal's
wife; and if I had been received warmly, she was greeted with
enthusiasm. Half the table sprang forward to escort her, two of them
collared the president and hauled him off his seat, and the whole
company, by acclamation, installed her in his place. She accepted it
without any hesitation, while two of them, with clumsy courtesy, took
off her bonnet, which I, sitting at her right hand, took charge of. All
then resumed their places, and the revel went on more gayly than ever.
The lady president was about thirty, plainly but neatly dressed, and,
though not handsome, had a frank, amiable, and good-tempered expression,
indicating that greatest of woman's attributes, a good heart. In fact,
she looked what the young man at my side told me she was, the peacemaker
of the regiment; and he added, that they always tried to have her at
their convivial meetings, for when she was among them the brawling
spirits were kept down, and every man would be ashamed to quarrel in her
presence. There was no chivalry, no heroic devotion about them, but
their manner toward her was as speaking a tribute as was ever paid to
the influence of woman; and I question whether beauty in her bower,
surrounded by belted knights and barons bold, ever exercised in her
more exalted sphere a more happy influence. I talked with her, and with
the utmost simplicity she told me that the soldiers all loved her; that
they were all kind to her, and she looked upon them all as brothers. We
broke up at about twelve o'clock with a song, requiring each person to
take the hand of his neighbour; one of her hands fell to me, and I took
it with a respect seldom surpassed in touching the hand of woman; for I
felt that she was cheering the rough path of a soldier's life, and,
among scenes calculated to harden the heart, reminding them of mothers,
and sisters, and sweethearts at home.

CHAPTER VII.

EARLY in the morning I again started. In a little khan at Eleusis I saw
three or four Bavarian soldiers drinking, and ridiculing the Greek
proprietor, calling him patrioti and capitani. The Greek bore their
gibes and sneers without a word; but there was a deadly expression in
his look, which seemed to say, "I bide my time;" and I remember then
thinking that the Bavarians were running up an account which would one
day be settled with blood. In fact, the soldiers went too far; and, as I
thought, to show off before me, one of them slapped the Greek on the
back, and made him spill a measure of wine which he was carrying to a
customer, when the latter turned upon him like lightning, threw him
down, and would have strangled him if he had not been pulled off by the
by-standers. Indeed, the Greeks had already learned both their
intellectual and physical superiority over the Bavarians; and, a short
time before, a party of soldiers sent to subdue a band of Maniote
insurgents had been captured, and, after a farce of selling them at
auction at a dollar a head, were kicked, and whipped, and sent off.

About four o'clock I arrived once more at Athens, dined at my old hotel,
and passed the evening at Mr. Hill's.

The next day I lounged about the city. I had been more than a month
without my carpet-bag, and the way in which I managed during that time
is a thing between my travelling companions and myself. A prudent
Scotchman used to boast of a careful nephew, who, in travelling, instead
of leaving some of his clothes at every hotel on the road, always
brought home _more_ than he took away with him. I was a model of this
kind of carefulness while my opportunities lasted; but my companions had
left me, and this morning I went to the bazars and bought a couple of
shirts. Dressed up in one of them, I strolled outside the walls; and,
while sitting in the shadow of a column of the Temple of Jupiter, I saw
coming from the city, through Hadrian's Gate, four men, carrying a
burden by the corners of a coverlet, followed by another having in his
hands a bottle and spade. As they approached I saw they were bearing the
dead body of a woman, whom, on joining them, I found to be the wife of
the man who followed. He was an Englishman or an American (for he called
himself either, as occasion required) whom I had seen at my hotel and at
Mr. Hill's; had been a sailor, and probably deserted from his ship, and
many years a resident of Athens, where he married a Greek woman. He was
a thriftless fellow, and, as he told me, had lived principally by the
labour of his wife, who washed for European travellers. He had been so
long in Greece, and his connexions and associations were so thoroughly
Greek, that he had lost that sacredness of feeling so powerful both in
Englishmen and Americans of every class in regard to the decent burial
of the dead, though he did say that he had expected to procure a coffin,
but the police of the city had sent officers to take her away and bury
her. There was something so forlorn in the appearance of this rude
funeral, that my first impulse was to turn away; but I checked myself
and followed. Several times the Greeks laid the corpse on the ground and
stopped to rest, chattering indifferently on various subjects. We
crossed the Ilissus, and at some distance came to a little Greek chapel
excavated in the rock. The door was so low that we were obliged to stoop
on entering, and when within we could hardly stand upright. The Greeks
laid down the body in front of the altar; the husband went for the
priest, the Greeks to select a place for a grave, and I remained alone
with the dead. I sat in the doorway, looking inside upon the corpse, and
out upon the Greeks digging the grave. In a short time the husband
returned with a priest, one of the most miserable of that class of
"blind teachers" who swarm in Greece. He immediately commenced the
funeral service, which continued nearly an hour, by which time the
Greeks returned and, taking up the body, carried it to the graveside and
laid it within. I knew the hollow sound of the first clod of earth which
falls upon the lid of a coffin, and shrunk from its leaden fall upon the
uncovered body. I turned away, and, when at some distance, looked back
and saw them packing the earth over the grave. I never saw so dreary a
burial-scene.

Returning, I passed by the ancient stadium of Herodes Atticus, once
capable of containing twenty-five thousand spectators; the whole
structure was covered with the purest white marble. All remains of its
magnificence are now gone; but I could still trace on the excavated side
of the hill its ancient form of a horseshoe, and walked through the
subterraneous passage by which the vanquished in the games retreated
from the presence of the spectators.

Returning to the city, I learned that an affray had just taken place
between some Greeks and Bavarians, and, hurrying to the place near the
bazars, found a crowd gathered round a soldier who had been stabbed by a
Greek. According to the Greeks, the affair had been caused by the
habitual insults and provocation given by the Bavarians, the soldier
having wantonly knocked a drinking-cup out of the Greek's hand while he
was drinking. In the crowd I met a lounging Italian (the same who wanted
me to come up from Padras by water), a good-natured and good-for-nothing
fellow, and skilled in tongues; and going with him into a coffee-house
thronged with Bavarians and Europeans of various nations in the service
of government, heard another story, by which it appeared that the
Greeks, as usual, were in the wrong, and that the poor Bavarian had been
stabbed without the slightest provocation, purely from the Greeks' love
of stabbing. Tired of this, I left the scene of contention, and a few
streets off met an Athenian, a friend of two or three days' standing,
and, stopping under a window illuminated by a pair of bright eyes from
above, happened to express my admiration of the lady who owned them,
when he tested the strength of my feelings on the subject by asking me
if I would like to marry her. I was not prepared at the moment to give
precisely that proof, and he followed up his blow by telling me that, if
I wished it, he would engage to secure her for me before the next
morning. The Greeks are almost universally poor. With them every
traveller is rich, and they are so thoroughly civilized as to think that
a rich man is, of course, a good match.

Toward evening I paid my last visit to the Acropolis. Solitude, silence,
and sunset are the nursery of sentiment. I sat down on a broken capital
of the Parthenon; the owl was already flitting among the ruins. I looked
up at the majestic temple and down at the ruined and newly-regenerated
city, and said to myself, "Lots must rise in Athens!" I traced the line
of the ancient walls, ran a railroad to the Piræus, and calculated the
increase on "up-town lots" from building the king's palace near the
Garden of Plato. Shall I or shall I not "make an operation" in Athens?
The court has removed here, the country is beautiful, climate fine,
government fixed, steamboats are running, all the world is coming, and
lots must rise. I bought (in imagination) a tract of good tillable land,
laid it out in streets, had my Plato, and Homer, and Washington Places,
and Jackson Avenue, built a row of houses to improve the neighbourhood
where nobody lived, got maps lithographed, and sold off at auction. I
was in the right condition to "go in," for I had nothing to lose; but,
unfortunately, the Greeks were very far behind the spirit of the age,
knew nothing of the beauties of the credit system, and could not be
brought to dispose of their consecrated soil "on the usual terms," _ten
per cent. down, balance on bond and mortgage_, so, giving up the idea,
at dark I bade farewell to the ruins of the Acropolis, and went to my
hotel to dinner.

Early the next morning I started for the field of Marathon. I engaged a
servant at the hotel to accompany me, but he disappointed me, and I set
out alone with my muleteer. Our road lay along the base of Mount
Hymettus, on the borders of the plain of Attica, shaded by thick groves
of olives. At noon I was on the summit of a lofty mountain, at the base
of which, still and quiet as if it had never resounded with the shock of
war, the great battle-ground of the Greeks and Persians extended to the
sea. The descent was one of the finest things I met with in Greece;
wild, rugged, and, in fact, the most magnificent kind of mountain
scenery. At the foot of the mountain we came to a ruined convent,
occupied by an old white-bearded monk. I stopped there and lunched, the
old man laying before me his simple store of bread and olives, and
looking on with pleasure at my voracious appetite.

[Illustration: Mound of Marathon.]

This over, I hurried to the battle-field. Toward the centre is a large
mound of earth, erected over the Athenians who fell in the battle. I
made directly for this mound, ascended it, and threw the reins loose
over my horse's neck; and, sitting on the top, read the account of the
battle in Herodotus.

After all, is not our reverence misplaced, or, rather does not our
respect for deeds hallowed by time render us comparatively unjust? The
Greek revolution teems with instances of as desperate courage, as great
love of country, as patriotic devotion, as animated the men of Marathon,
and yet the actors in these scenes are not known beyond the boundaries
of their native land. Thousands whose names were never heard of, and
whose bones, perhaps, never received burial, were as worthy of an
eternal monument as they upon whose grave I sat. Still that mound is a
hallowed sepulchre; and the shepherd who looks at it from his mountain
home, the husbandman who drives his plough to its base, and the sailor
who hails it as a landmark from the deck of his caique, are all reminded
of the glory of their ancestors. But away with the mouldering relics of
the past. Give me the green grave of Marco Bozzaris. I put Herodotus in
my pocket, gathered a few blades of grass as a memorial, descended the
mound, betook myself to my saddle, and swept the plain on a gallop, from
the mountain to the sea.

It is about two miles in width, and bounded by rocky heights enclosing
it at either extremity. Toward the shore the ground is marshy, and at
the place where the Persians escaped to their ships are some unknown
ruins; in several places the field is cultivated, and toward evening, on
my way to the village of Marathon, I saw a Greek ploughing; and when I
told him that I was an American, he greeted me as the friend of Greece.
It is the last time I shall recur to this feeling; but it was music to
my heart to hear a ploughman on immortal Marathon sound in my ears the
praises of my country.

I intended to pass the night at the village of Marathon; but every khan
was so cluttered up with goats, chickens, and children, that I rode
back to the monastery at the foot of the mountain. It was nearly dark
when I reached it. The old monk was on a little eminence at the door of
his chapel, clapping two boards together to call his flock to vespers.
With his long white beard, his black cap and long black gown, his
picturesque position and primitive occupation, he seemed a guardian
spirit hovering on the borders of Marathon in memory of its ancient
glory. He came down to the monastery to receive me, and, giving me a
paternal welcome, and spreading a mat on the floor, returned to his
chapel. I followed, and saw his little flock assemble. The ploughman
came up from the plain and the shepherd came down from the mountain; the
old monk led the way to the altar, and all kneeled down and prostrated
themselves on the rocky floor. I looked at them with deep interest. I
had seen much of Greek devotion in cities and villages, but it was a
spectacle of extraordinary interest to see these wild and lawless men
assembled on this lonely mountain to worship in all sincerity, according
to the best light they had, the god of their fathers. I could not follow
them in their long and repeated kneelings and prostrations; but my young
Greek, as if to make amends for me, and, at the same time, to show how
they did things in Athens, led the van. The service over, several of
them descended with us to the monastery; the old monk spread his mat,
and again brought out his frugal store of bread and olives. I
contributed what I had brought from Athens, and we made our evening
meal. If I had judged from appearances, I should have felt rather uneasy
at sleeping among such companions; but the simple fact of having seen
them at their devotions gave me confidence. Though I had read and heard
that the Italian bandit went to the altar to pray forgiveness for the
crimes he intended to commit, and, before washing the stains from his
hands, hung up the bloody poniard upon a pillar of the church, and asked
pardon for murder, I always felt a certain degree of confidence in him
who practised the duties of his religion, whatever that religion might
be. I leaned on my elbow, and, by the blaze of the fire, read Herodotus,
while my muleteer, as I judged from the frequent repetition of the word
Americanos, entertained them with long stories about me. By degrees the
blaze of the fire died away, the Greeks stretched themselves out for
sleep, the old monk handed me a bench about four inches high for a
pillow, and, wrapping myself in my cloak, in a few moments I was
wandering in the land of dreams.

Before daylight my companions were in motion. I intended to return by
the marble quarries on the Pentelican Mountain; and crying "Cavallo" in
the ear of my still sleeping muleteer, in a few minutes I bade farewell
for ever to the good old monk of Marathon. Almost from the door of the
monastery we commenced ascending the mountain. It was just peep of day,
the weather raw and cold, the top of the mountain covered with clouds,
and in an hour I found myself in the midst of them. The road was so
steep and dangerous that I could not ride; a false step of my horse
might have thrown me over a precipice several hundred feet deep; and the
air was so keen and penetrating, that, notwithstanding the violent
exercise of walking, I was perfectly chilled. The mist was so dense,
too, that, when my guide was a few paces in advance, I could not see
him, and I was literally groping my way through the clouds. I had no
idea where I was nor of the scene around me, but I felt that I was in a
measure lifted above the earth. The cold blasts drove furiously along
the sides of the mountain, whistled against the precipices, and
bellowed in the hollows of the rocks, sometimes driving so furiously
that my horse staggered and fell back. I was almost bewildered in
struggling blindly against them; but, just before reaching the top of
the mountain, the thick clouds were lifted as if by an invisible hand,
and I saw once more the glorious sun pouring his morning beams upon a
rich valley extending a great distance to the foot of the Pentelican
Mountain. About half way down we came to a beautiful stream, on the
banks of which we took out our bread and olives. Our appetites were
stimulated by the mountain air, and we divided till our last morsel was
gone.

At the foot of the mountain, lying between it and Mount Pentelicus, was
a large monastery, occupied by a fraternity of monks. We entered and
walked through it, but found no one to receive us. In a field near by we
saw one of the monks, from whom we obtained a direction to the quarries.
Moving on to the foot of the mountain, which rises with a peaked summit
into the clouds, we commenced ascending, and soon came upon the strata
of beautiful white marble for which Mount Pentelicus has been celebrated
thousands of years. Excavations appear to have been made along the whole
route, and on the roadside were blocks, and marks caused by the friction
of the heavy masses transported to Athens. The great quarries are toward
the summit. The surface has been cut perpendicularly smooth, perhaps
eighty or a hundred feet high, and one hundred and fifty or two hundred
feet in width, and excavations have been made within to an unknown
extent. Whole cities might have been built with the materials taken
away, and yet by comparison with what is left, there is nothing gone. In
front are entrances to a large chamber, in one corner of which, on the
right, is a chapel with the painted figure of the Virgin to receive the
Greeks' prayers. Within are vast humid caverns, over which the wide roof
awfully extends, adorned with hollow tubes like icicles, while a small
transparent petrifying stream trickles down the rock. On one side are
small chambers communicating with subterraneous avenues, used, no doubt,
as places of refuge during the revolution, or as the haunts of robbers.
Bones of animals and stones blackened with smoke showed that but lately
some part had been occupied as a habitation. The great excavations
around, blocks of marble lying as they fell, perhaps, two thousand years
ago, and the appearances of having been once a scene of immense industry
and labour, stand in striking contrast with the desolation and solitude
now existing. Probably the hammer and chisel will never be heard there
more, great temples will no more be raised, and modern genius will
never, like the Greeks of old, make the rude blocks of marble speak.

[Illustration: Quarries of Pentelicus.]

At dark I was dining at the Hotel de France, when Mr. Hill came over
with the welcome intelligence that my carpet-bag had arrived. On it was
pinned a large paper, with the words "Huzzah!" "Huzzah!" "Huzzah!" by my
friend Maxwell, who had met it on horse back on the shores of the Gulf
of Lepanto, travelling under the charge of a Greek in search of me. I
opened it with apprehension, and, to my great satisfaction, found
undisturbed the object of my greatest anxiety, the precious notebook
from which I now write, saved from the peril of an anonymous publication
or of being used up for gun-waddings.

The next morning, before I was up, I heard a gentle rap at my door,
which was followed by the entrance of a German, a missionary, whom I had
met several times at Mr. Hill's, and who had dined with me once at my
hotel. I apologized for being caught in bed, and told him that he must
possess a troubled spirit to send him so early from his pillow. He
answered that I was right; that he did indeed possess a troubled spirit;
and closing the door carefully, came to my bedside, and said he had
conceived a great regard for me, and intended confiding in me an
important trust. I had several times held long conversations with him at
Mr. Hill's, and very little to my edification, as his English was hardly
intelligible; but I felt pleased at having, without particularly
striving for it, gained the favourable opinion of one who bore the
character of a very learned and a very good man. I requested him to step
into the dining-room while I rose and dressed myself; but he put his
hand upon my breast to keep me down, and drawing a chair, began, "You
are going to Smyrna." He then paused, but, after some moments of
hesitation, proceeded to say that the first name I would hear on my
arrival there would be his own; that, unfortunately, it was in
everybody's mouth. My friend was a short and very ugly middle-aged man,
with a very large mouth, speaking English with the most disagreeable
German sputter, lame from a fall, and, altogether, of a most
uninteresting and unsentimental aspect; and he surprised me much by
laying before me a veritable _affaire du coeur_. It was so foreign to my
expectations, that I should as soon have expected to be made a confidant
in a love affair by the Archbishop of York. After a few preliminaries he
went into particulars; lavished upon the lady the usual quota of charms
"in such case made and provided," but was uncertain, rambling, and
discursive in regard to the position he held in her regard. At first I
understood that it was merely the old story, a flirtation and a victim;
then that they were very near being married, which I afterward
understood to be only so near as this, that he was willing and she not;
and, finally, it settled down into the every-day occurrence, the lady
smiled, while the parents and a stout two-fisted brother frowned. I
could but think, if such a homely expression may be introduced in
describing these tender passages, that he had the boot on the wrong leg,
and that the parents were much more likely than the daughter to favour
such a suitor. However, on this point I held my peace. The precise
business he wished to impose on me was, immediately on my arrival in
Smyrna to form the acquaintance of the lady and her family, and use all
my exertions in his favour. I told him I was an entire stranger in
Smyrna, and could not possibly have any influence with the parties; but,
being urged, promised him that, if I could interfere without intruding
myself improperly, he should have the benefit of my mediation. At first
he intended giving me a letter to the lady, but afterward determined to
give me one to the Rev. Mr. Brewer, an American missionary, who, he
said, was a particular friend of his, and intimate with the beloved and
her family, and acquainted with the whole affair. Placing himself at my
table, on which were pens, ink, and paper, he proceeded to write his
letter, while I lay quietly till he turned over the first side, when,
tired of waiting, I rose, dressed myself, packed up, and, before he had
finished, stood by the table with my carpet-bag, waiting until he should
have done to throw in my writing materials. He bade me good-by after I
had mounted my horse to leave, and, when I turned back to look at him, I
could not but feel for the crippled, limping victim of the tender
passion, though, in honesty, and with the best wishes for his success, I
did not think it would help his suit for the lady to see him.

An account of my journey from Athens to Smyrna, given in a letter to
friends at home, was published during my absence and without my
knowledge, in successive numbers of the American Monthly Magazine, and
perhaps the favourable notice taken of it had some influence in inducing
me to write a book. I give the papers as they were then published.

_Smyrna, April_, 1835.

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 garçon 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 Piræus,
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 passage 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 passage 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 shores 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 noble, 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 classic 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
Ægina, 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 shore and mounted the
vacant throne of Xerxes. This throne is on a hill near the shore,
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 balls, 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 Piræus; 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 shore 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 unclassical 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 shores 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
passengers 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" pass 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 tassel 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,
passing slowly by Ægina, 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, passing 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 "blustering Boreas" rushing
through the broken casement 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 destitute 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
scrap 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 Ægean; 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 passed 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 mass 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
principal 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 appetite "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 massacre
took place; in a few days the ground was cumbered 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 bloody 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 massacre 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 circumstances. One of my fellow-passengers
was a native of the island, who had escaped during the massacre, and
now revisited it for the first time. He asked me to accompany him
ashore, 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 nobody. The town was
a complete mass 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 mass 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
multitudes 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 appetite whetted by exercise and travel. It consisted of a
huge lump of bread and a large glass 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 passage 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 shore; 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 space 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 nobody;
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 massacre, 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 balustrades, 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. Passing a
large vase in which a beautiful plant was running wildly over the
sides, he murmured indistinctly "the same vase" (le même 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.

(_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 noble
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 surpassing
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 bloody massacre, 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 Grasse, 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
massacre, 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 massacre. "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 shore, _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 cocked 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 ashore. 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 shell 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 principal 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
space 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! God is God, 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 God 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 God 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 ashore, 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 anchored 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 ashore, at
the house of a Greek, the son of a priest. It was the Saturday
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, tassels, and festoons of
artificial flowers; passed 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 pass, 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 pass 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
pronouncing 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 appetite.

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 ignoble 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-passenger 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
passengers, 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.

While we were sitting there a travelling party came up, consisting
of five Turks and three women. The women were on horseback, riding
crosswise, though there were so many quilts, cushions, &c., piled on
the backs of their horses that they sat rather on seats than on
saddles. After a few words of parley with my Tartar, the men lifted
the women from the horses, taking them in their arms, and, as it
were, hauling them off, not very gracefully, but very kindly; and,
spreading their quilts on the ground a short distance from us,
turned their horses loose to feed, and sat down to make their
morning meal. An unusual and happy thing for me the women had their
faces uncovered nearly all the time, though they could not well have
carried on the process of eating with them muffled up in the usual
style. One of the women was old, the other two were exceedingly
young; neither of them more than sixteen; each had a child in her
arms, and, without any allowance for time and place, both were
exceedingly beautiful. I do not say so under the influence of the
particular circumstances of our meeting, nor with the view of making
an incident of it, but I would have singled them out as such if I
had met them in a ballroom at home. I was particularly struck with
their delicacy of figure and complexion. Notwithstanding their
laughing faces, their mirth, and the kind treatment of the men, I
could not divest myself of the idea that they were caged birds
longing to be free. I could not believe that a woman belonging to a
Turk could be otherwise than unhappy. Unfortunately, I could not
understand a word of their language; and as they looked from their
turbaned lords to my stiff hat and frockcoat, they seemed to regard
me as something the Tartar had just caught and was taking up to
Constantinople as a present to the sultan. I endeavoured to show,
however, that I was not the wild thing they took me to be; that I
had an eye to admire their beauty, and a heart to feel for their
servitude. I tried to procure from them some signal of distress; I
did all that I could to get some sign to come to their rescue, and
to make myself generally agreeable. I looked sentimentally. This
they did not seem to understand at all. I smiled; this seemed to
please them better; and there is no knowing to what a point I might
have arrived, but my Tartar hurried me away; and I parted on the
wild plains of Turkey with two young and beautiful women, leading
almost a savage life, whose personal graces would have made them
ornaments in polished and refined society. Verily, said I, the Turks
are not so bad, after all; they have handsome wives, and a handsome
wife comes next after chibouks and coffee.

I was now reminded at every step of my being in an oriental country
by the caravans I was constantly meeting. Caravans and camels are
more or less associated with all the fairy scenes and glowing
pictures of the East. They have always presented themselves to my
mind with a sort of poetical imagery, and they certainly have a fine
effect in a description or in a picture; but, after all, they are
ugly-looking things to meet on the road. I would rather see the two
young Turk-_esses_ again than all the caravans in the East. The
caravan is conducted by a guide on a donkey, with a halter attached
to the first camel, and so on from camel to camel through the whole
caravan. The camel is an exceedingly ugly animal in his proportions,
and there is a dead uniformity in his movement; with a dead, vacant
expression in his face, that is really distressing. If a man were
dying of thirst in the desert, it would be enough to drive him to
distraction to look in the cool, unconcerned, and imperturbable face
of his camel. But their value is inestimable in a country like this,
where there are no carriage roads, and where deserts and drought
present themselves in every direction.

One of the camel scenes, the encampment, is very picturesque, the
camels arranged around on their knees in a circle, with their heads
to the centre, and the camel-drivers with their bales piled up
within; and I was struck with another scene; we came to the borders
of a stream, which it was necessary to cross in a boat. The boat
was then on the other side, and the boatman and camel driver were
trying to get on board some camels. When we came up they had got
three on board, down on their knees in the bottom of the boat, and
were then in the act of coercing the fourth. The poor brute was
frightened terribly; resisted with all his might, and put forth most
piteous cries; I do not know a more distressing noise than the cry
of a brute suffering from fear; it seems to partake of the feeling
that causes it, and carries with it something fearful; but the cries
of the poor brute were vain; they got him on board, and in the same
way urged on board three others. They then threw in the donkey, and
seven camels and the donkey were so stowed in the bottom of the
boat, that they did not take up much more room than calves on board
of our country boats.

In the afternoon I met another travelling party of an entirely
different description. If before I had occasionally any doubts or
misgivings as to the reality of my situation; if sometimes it seemed
to be merely a dream, that it could not be that I was so far from
home, wandering alone on the plains of Asia, with a guide whom I
never saw till that morning, whose language I could not understand,
and upon whose faith I could not rely; if the scenes of turbaned
Turks, of veiled women, of caravans and camels, of graveyards with
their mourning cypress and thousands of tombstones, where every
trace of the cities which supplied them with their dead had entirely
disappeared; if these and the other strange scenes around me would
seem to be the mere creations of a roving imagination, the party
which I met now was so marked in its character, so peculiar to an
oriental country, and to an oriental country only, that it roused
me from my waking dreams, fixed my wandering thoughts, and convinced
me, beyond all peradventure, that I was indeed far from home, among
a people "whose thoughts are not as our thoughts, and whose ways are
not as our ways;" in short, in a land where ladies are not the
omnipotent creatures that they are with us.

This party was no other than the ladies of a harem. They were all
dressed in white, with their white shawls wrapped around their
faces, so that they effectually concealed every feature, and could
bring to bear only the artillery of their eyes. I found this,
however, to be very potent, as it left so much room for the
imagination; and it was a very easy matter to make a Fatima of every
one of them. They were all on horseback, not riding sidewise, but
_otherwise_; though I observed, as before, that their saddles were
so prepared that their delicate limbs were not subject to that
extreme expansion required by the saddle of the rougher sex. They
were escorted by a party of armed Turks, and followed by a man in
Frank dress, who, as I after understood, was the physician of the
harem. They were thirteen in number, just a baker's dozen, and
belonged to a pacha who was making his annual tour of the different
posts under his government, and had sent them on before to have the
household matters all arranged upon his arrival. And no doubt, also,
they were to be in readiness to receive him with their smiles; and
if they continued in the same humour in which I saw them, he must
have been a happy man who could call them all his own. I had not
fairly recovered from the cries of the poor camel when I heard their
merry voices: verily, thought I, stopping to catch the last musical
notes, there are exceedingly good points about the Turks: chibouks,
coffee, and as many wives as they please. It made me whistle to
think of it. Oh, thought I, that some of our ladies could see these
things; that some haughty beauty, at whose feet dozens of worthy and
amiable young gentlemen are sighing themselves into premature
wrinkles and ugliness, might see these things.

I am no rash innovator. I would not sweep away the established
customs of our state of society. I would not lay my meddling fingers
upon the admitted prerogatives of our ladies; but I cannot help
asking myself if, in the rapid changes of this turning world,
changes which completely alter rocks and the hardest substances of
nature, it may not by possibility happen that the tenour of a lady's
humour will change. What a goodly spectacle to see those who are
never content without a dozen admirers in their train, following by
dozens in the train of one man! But I fear me much that this will
never be, at least in our day. Our system of education is radically
wrong. The human mind, says some philosopher, and the gentleman is
right, is like the sand upon the shore of the sea. You may write
upon it what character you please. _We_ begin by writing upon their
innocent unformed minds, that, "Born for their use, we live but to
oblige them." The consequence is, I will not say what; for I hope to
return among them and kiss the rod in some fair hand; but this I do
know, that here the "twig is so bent" that they become as gentle, as
docile, and as tractable as any domestic animal. I say again, there
are many exceeding good points about the Turks.

At about six o'clock we came in sight of Smyrna, on the opposite
side of the gulf, and still a long way off. At dusk we were directly
opposite the city; and although we had yet to make a long circuit
round the head of the gulf, I was revelling in the bright prospect
before me. Dreams of pulling off my pantaloons; delightful visions
of clean sheets and a Christian bed flitted before my eyes. Yes,
said I to my pantaloons and shirt, ye worthy and faithful servants,
this night ye shall have rest. While other garments have fallen from
me by the way, ye have stuck to me. And thou, my gray pantaloons,
little did the neat Parisian tailor who made thee think that the
strength of his stitching would ever be tested by three weeks'
uninterrupted wear; but to-morrow thou shalt go into the hands of a
master, who shall sew on thy buttons and sew up thy rents; and thou,
my--I was going on with words of the same affectionate import to my
shirt, stockings, and drawers, which, however, did not deserve so
well of me, for they had in a measure _dropped off_ on the way, when
my Tartar came to a dead stop before the door of a cabin,
dismounted, and made signs to me to do the same. But I began now to
have some notions of my own; heretofore I had been perfectly
passive; I had always done as I was told, but in sight of Smyrna I
became restiff. I talked and shouted to him, pointed to the city,
and turned my horse as though I was going on alone. My Tartar,
however, paid no attention to me; he very coolly took off my
carpet-bag and carried it into the cabin, lighted his pipe, and sat
down by the door, looking at me with the most imperturbable gravity.
I had hardly had time to admire his impudence, and to calculate the
chances of my being able, alone at night, to cross the many streams
which emptied into the gulf, when the wind, which had been rising
for some time, became very violent, and the rain began to fall in
torrents. With a sigh I bade farewell to the bright visions that
had deluded me, gave another sigh to the uncertainty of all human
calculations, the cup and the lip, &c., and took refuge in the
cabin.

What a substitute for the pretty little picture I had drawn! Three
Turks were sitting round a brazier of charcoal frying doughballs.
Three rugs were spread in three corners of the cabin, and over each
of them were the eternal pistols and yataghan. There was nothing
there to defend; their miserable lives were not worth taking; why
were these weapons there? The Turks at first took no notice of me,
and I had now to make amends for my backwardness in entering. I
resolved to go to work boldly, and at once elbowed among them for a
seat around the brazier. The one next me on my right seemed a little
struck by my easy ways; he put his hand on his ribs to feel how far
my elbow had penetrated, and then took his pipe from his mouth and
offered it to me. The ice broken, I smoked the pipe to the last
whiff, and handed it to him to be refilled; with all the horrors of
dyspepsy before my eyes, I scrambled with them for the last
doughball, and, when the attention of all of them was particularly
directed toward me, took out my watch, held it over the lamp, and
wound it up. I addressed myself particularly to the one who had
first taken notice of me, and made myself extremely agreeable by
always smoking his pipe. After coffee and half a dozen pipes, he
gave me to understand that I was to sleep with him upon his mat, at
which I slapped him on the back and cried out, "Bono," having heard
him use that word apparently with a knowledge of its meaning.

I was surprised in the course of the evening to see one of them
begin to undress, knowing that such was not the custom of the
country, but found that it was only a temporary disrobing for
sporting purposes, to hunt fleas and bedbugs; by which I had an
opportunity of comparing the Turkish with some I had brought with me
from Greece; and though the Turk had great reason to be proud of
his, I had no reason to be ashamed of mine. I now began to be
drowsy, and should soon have fallen asleep; but the youngest of the
party, a sickly and sentimental young man, melancholy and musical,
and, no doubt, in love, brought out the common Turkish instrument, a
sort of guitar, on which he worked with untiring vivacity, keeping
time with his head and heels. My friend accompanied him with his
voice, and this brought out my Tartar, who joined in with groans and
grunts which might have waked the dead. But my cup was not yet full.
During the musical festival my friend and intended bedfellow took
down from a shelf above me a large plaster, which he warmed over the
brazier. He then unrolled his turban, took off a plaster from the
back of his head, and disclosed a wound, raw, gory, and ghastly,
that made my heart sink within me: I knew that the plague was about
Smyrna; I had heard that it was on this road; I involuntarily
recurred to the Italian prayer, "Save me from the three miseries of
the Levant: plague, fire, and the dragoman." I shut my eyes; I had
slept but two hours the night before; had ridden twelve hours that
day on horseback; I drew my cloak around me; my head sank upon my
carpet-bag, and I fell asleep, leaving the four Turks playing cards
on the bottom of a pewter plate. Once during the night I was
awakened by my bedfellow's mustaches tickling my lips. I turned my
back and slept on.

In the morning my Tartar, with one jerk, stood me upright on the
floor, and holding me in that position until I got awake, kicked
open the door, and pointed to my horse standing before it ready
saddled and bridled. In three hours I was crossing the caravan
bridge, a bridge over the beautiful Melissus, on the banks of which
Homer was born; and picking my way among caravans, which for ages
have continued to cross this bridge laden with all the riches of the
East, I entered the long-looked-for city of Smyrna, a city that has
braved the reiterated efforts of conflagrations, plagues, and
earthquakes; ten times destroyed, and ten times risen from her
ruins; the queen of the cities of Anatolia; extolled by the ancients
as Smyrna the lovely, the crown of Ionia, the pride of Asia. But old
things have passed away, and the ancient city now figures only under
the head of arrivals in a newspaper, in the words and figures
following, that is to say, "Brig Betsy, Baker master, 57 days from
Smyrna, with figs and raisins to order. Mastic dull, opium rising."

In half an hour I was in the full enjoyment of a Turkish bath;
lolled half an hour on a divan, with chibouk and coffee, and came
out fresh as if I had spent the last three weeks training for the
ring. Oh, these Turks are luxurious dogs. Chibouks, coffee, hot
baths, and as many wives as they please. What a catalogue of human
enjoyments! But I intend Smyrna as a place of rest, and, in charity,
give you the benefit, of it.

****

CHAPTER IX.

First Sight of Smyrna.--Unveiled Women.--Ruins of Ephesus.--Ruin,
all Ruin.--Temple of Diana.--Encounter with a Wolf.--Love at first
Sight.--Gatherings on the Road.

(_Another letter._)

MY DEAR ****,

AFTER my bath I returned to my hotel, breakfasted, and sallied out
for a walk. It was now about twelve o'clock, Sunday--the first
Sunday after Easter--and all the Frank population was in the
streets. My hotel was in an out-of-the-way quarter, and when,
turning a corner, I suddenly found myself in the main street, I was
not prepared for the sight that met my eye. Paris on a fête day does
not present so gay and animated a scene. It was gay, animated,
striking, and beautiful, and entirely different from anything I had
ever seen in any European city. Franks, Jews, Greeks, Turks, and
Armenians, in their various and striking costumes, were mingled
together in agreeable confusion; and making all due allowance for
the circumstance that I had for some time been debarred the sight of
an unveiled woman, I certainly never saw so much beauty, and I never
saw a costume so admirably calculated to set off beauty. At the same
time the costume is exceedingly trying to a lady's pretensions.
Being no better than one of the uninitiated, I shall not venture
upon such dangerous ground as a lady's toilet. I will merely refer
to that part which particularly struck me, and that is the
headdress; no odious broad-brimmed hat; no enormous veils enveloping
nose, mouth, and eyes; but simply a large gauze turban, sitting
lightly and gracefully on the head, rolled back over the forehead,
leaving the whole face completely exposed, and exhibiting clear dark
complexions, rosy lips closing over teeth of dazzling whiteness; and
then such eyes, large, dark, and rolling. It is matter of history,
and it is confirmed by poetry, that

"The angelic youths of old,
Burning for maids of mortal mould,
Bewildered, left the glorious skies,
And lost their heaven for woman's eyes."

My dear friend, this is the country where such things happened; the
throne of the Thunderer, high Olympus, is almost in sight, and these
are the daughters of the women who worked such miracles. If the age
of passion, like the age of chivalry, were not over and for ever
gone, if this were not emphatically a bank-note world, I would say
of the Smyrniotes, above all others, that they are that description
of women who could

"Raise a mortal to the skies,
Or bring an angel down."

And they walk, too, as if conscious of their high pretensions, as if
conscious that the reign of beauty is not yet ended; and, under that
enchanting turban, charge with the whole artillery of their charms.
It is a perfect unmasked battery; nothing can stand before it. I
wonder the sultan allows it. The Turks are as touchy as tinder; they
take fire as quick as any of the old demigods, and a pair of black
eyes is at any time enough to put mischief in them. But the Turks
are a considerate people. They consider that the Franks, or rather
the Greeks, to whom I particularly refer, have periodical fits of
insanity that they go mad twice a year during carnival and after
Lent; and if at such a time a follower of the Prophet, accidentally
straggling in the Frank quarter, should find the current of his
blood disturbed, he would sooner die, nay, he would sooner cut off
his beard, than hurt a hair of any one of the light heads that he
sees flitting before him. There is something remarkable, by-the-way,
in the tenacity with which the Grecian women have sustained the
rights and prerogatives of beauty in defiance of Turkish customs and
prejudices; while the men have fallen into the habits of their
quondam masters, have taken to pipes and coffee, and in many
instances to turbans and big trousers, the women have ever gone with
their faces uncovered, and to this day one and all eschew the veil
of the Turkish women.

Pleased and amused with myself and everything I saw, I moved along
unnoticed and unknown, staring, observing, and admiring; among other
things, I observed that one of the amiable customs of our own city
was in full force here, viz., that of the young gentlemen, with
light sticks in their hands, gathering around the door of the
fashionable church to stare at the ladies as they came out. I was
pleased to find such a mark of civilization in a land of barbarians,
and immediately fell into a thing which seemed so much like home;
but, in justice to the Smyrniote ladies, I must say I cannot flatter
myself that I stared a single one out of countenance.

But I need not attempt to interest you in Smyrna; it is too
every-day a place; every Cape Cod sailor knows it better than I do.
I have done all that I could; I have waived the musty reminiscences
of its history; I have waived ruins which are said to exist here,
and have endeavoured to give you a faint but true picture of its
living and existing beauties, of the bright and beautiful scene
that broke upon me the first morning of my arrival; and now, if I
have not touched you with the beauty of its women, I should despair
of doing so by any description of its beautiful climate, its
charming environs, and its hospitable society.

Leave, then, what is, after all, but the city of figs and raisins,
and go with me where, by comparison, the foot of civilized man
seldom treads; go with me into the desert and solitary places; go
with me among the cities of the seven churches of Asia; and, first,
to the ruins of Ephesus. I had been several days expecting a
companion to make this tour with me, but, being disappointed, was
obliged to set out alone. I was not exactly alone, for I had with me
a Turk as guide and a Greek as cicerone and interpreter, both well
mounted and armed to the teeth. We started at two o'clock in the
morning, under the light of thousands of stars; and the day broke
upon us in a country wild and desolate, as if it were removed
thousands of miles from the habitations of men. There was little
variety and little incident in our ride. During the whole day it lay
through a country decidedly handsome, the soil rich and fertile, but
showing with appalling force the fatal effects of misgovernment,
wholly uncultivated, and almost wholly uninhabited. Indeed, the only
habitations were the little Turkish coffee-houses and the black
tents of the Turcomans. These are a wandering tribe, who come out
from the desert, and approach comparatively near the abodes of
civilization. They are a pastoral people; their riches are their
flocks and herds; they lead a wandering life, free as the air they
breathe; they have no local attachments; to-day they pitch their
tents on the hillside, to-morrow on the plain; and wherever they sit
themselves down, all that they have on earth, wife, children, and
friends, are immediately around them. There is something primitive,
almost patriarchal, in their appearance; indeed, it carries one back
to a simple and perhaps a purer age, and you can almost realize that
state of society when the patriarch sat in the door of his tent and
called in and fed the passing traveller.

The general character of the road is such as to prepare one for the
scene that awaits him at Ephesus; enormous burying-grounds, with
thousands of headstones shaded by the mourning cypress, in the midst
of a desolate country, where not a vestige of a human habitation is
to be seen. They stand on the roadside as melancholy telltales that
large towns or cities once existed in their immediate neighbourhood,
and that the generations who occupied them have passed away,
furnishing fearful evidence of the decrease of the Turkish
population, and perhaps that the gigantic empire of the Ottoman is
tottering to its fall.

For about three hours before reaching Ephesus, the road, crossing a
rich and beautiful plain watered by the Cayster, lies between two
mountains; that on the right leads to the sea, and on the left are
the ruins of Ephesus. Near, and in the immediate vicinity, storks
were calmly marching over the plain and building among the ruins;
they moved as if seldom disturbed by human footsteps, and seemed to
look upon us as intruders upon a spot for a long time abandoned to
birds and beasts of prey. About a mile this side are the remains of
the Turkish city of Aysalook, or Temple of the Moon, a city of
comparatively modern date, reared into a brief magnificence out of
the ruins of its fallen neighbour. A sharp hill, almost a mountain,
rises abruptly from the plain, on the top of which is a ruined
fortress, with many ruins of Turkish magnificence at the base;
broken columns, baths overgrown with ivy, and the remains of a grand
mosque, the roof sustained by four granite columns from the Temple
of Diana; the minaret fallen, the mosque deserted; the Mussulman no
more goes there to pray; bats and owls were building in its lofty
roof, and snakes and lizards were crawling over its marble floor.

It was late in the afternoon when I arrived at the little
coffee-house at Aysalook; a caravan had already encamped under some
fine old sycamores before the door, preparatory to passing the
night. I was somewhat fatigued, and my Greek, who had me in charge,
was disposed to stop and wait for the morrow; but the fallen city
was on the opposite hill at but a short distance, and the shades of
evening seemed well calculated to heighten the effect of a ramble
among its ruins. In a right line it was not more than half a mile,
but we soon found that we could not go directly to it; a piece of
low swampy ground lay between, and we had not gone far before our
horses sank up to their saddle-girths. We were obliged to retrace
our steps, and work our way around by a circuitous route of more
than two miles. This, too, added to the effect of our approach. It
was a dreary reflection, that a city, whose ports and whose gates
had been open to the commerce of the then known world; whose wealth
had invited the traveller and sojourner within its walls should lie
a ruin upon a hillside, with swamps and morasses extending around
it, in sight but out of reach, near but unapproachable. A warning
voice seemed to issue from the ruins, "_Procul, procul, este
profani_," my day is past, my sun is set, I have gone to my grave;
pass on, stranger, and disturb not the ashes of the dead.

But my Turk did not understand Latin, and we continued to advance.
We moved along in perfect silence, for besides that my Turk never
spoke, and my Greek, who was generally loquacious enough, was out of
humour at being obliged to go on, we had enough to do in picking our
lonely way. But silence best suited the scene; the sound of the
human voice seemed almost a mockery of fallen greatness. We entered
by a large and ruined gateway into a place distinctly marked as
having been a street, and, from the broken columns strewed on each
side, probably having been lined with a colonnade. I let my reins
fall upon my horse's neck; he moved about in the slow and desultory
way that suited my humour; now sinking to his knees in heaps of
rubbish, now stumbling over a Corinthian capital, and now sliding
over a marble pavement. The whole hillside is covered with ruins to
an extent far greater than I expected to find, and they are all of a
kind that tends to give a high idea of the ancient magnificence of
the city. To me, these ruins appeared to be a confused and shapeless
mass; but they have been examined by antiquaries with great care,
and the character of many of them identified with great certainty. I
had, however, no time for details; and, indeed, the interest of
these ruins in my eyes was not in the details. It mattered little to
me that this was the stadium and that a fountain; that this was a
gymnasium and that a market-place; it was enough to know that the
broken columns, the mouldering walls, the grass-grown streets, and
the wide-extended scene of desolation and ruin around me were all
that remained of one of the greatest cities of Asia, one of the
earliest Christian cities in the world. But what do I say? Who does
not remember the tumults and confusion raised by Demetrius the
silversmith, "lest the temple of the great goddess Diana should be
despised, and her magnificence be destroyed;" and how the people,
having caught "Caius and Aristarchus, Paul's companions in travel,"
rushed with one accord into the theatre, crying out, "great is Diana
of the Ephesians." My dear friend, I sat among the ruins of that
theatre; the stillness of death was around me; far as the eye could
reach, not a living soul was to be seen save my two companions and a
group of lazy Turks smoking at the coffee-house in Aysalook. A man
of strong imagination might almost go wild with the intensity of his
own reflections; and do not let it surprise you, that even one like
me, brought up among the technicalities of declarations and
replications, rebutters and surrebutters, and in nowise given to the
illusions of the senses, should find himself roused, and
irresistibly hurried back to the time when the shapeless and
confused mass around him formed one of the most magnificent cities
in the world; when a large and busy population was hurrying through
its streets, intent upon the same pleasures and the same business
that engage men now; that he should, in imagination, see before him
St. Paul preaching to the Ephesians, shaking their faith in the gods
of their fathers, gods made with their own hands; and the noise and
confusion, and the people rushing tumultuously up the very steps
where he sat; that he should almost hear their cry ringing in his
ears, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians;" and then that he should
turn from this scene of former glory and eternal ruin to his own
far-distant land; a land that the wisest of the Ephesians never
dreamed of; where the wild man was striving with the wild beast when
the whole world rang with the greatness of the Ephesian name; and
which bids fair to be growing greater and greater when the last
vestige of Ephesus shall be gone and its very site unknown.

But where is the temple of the great Diana, the temple two hundred
and twenty years in building; the temple of one hundred and
twenty-seven columns, each column the gift of a king? Can it be that
the temple of the "Great goddess Diana," that the ornament of Asia,
the pride of Ephesus, and one of the seven wonders of the world, has
gone, disappeared, and left not a trace behind? As a traveller, I
would fain be able to say that I have seen the ruins of this temple;
but, unfortunately, I am obliged to limit myself by facts. Its site
has of course engaged the attention of antiquaries. I am no skeptic
in these matters, and am disposed to believe all that my cicerone
tells me. You remember the countryman who complained to his minister
that he never gave him any Latin in his sermons; and when the
minister answered that he would not understand it, the countryman
replied that he paid for the best, and ought to have it. I am like
that honest countryman; but my cicerone understood himself better
than the minister; he knew that I paid him for the best; he knew
what was expected from him, and that his reputation was gone for
ever if, in such a place as Ephesus, he could not point out the
ruins of the great temple of Diana. He accordingly had _his_ temple,
which he stuck to with as much pertinacity as if he had built it
himself; but I am sorry to be obliged to say, in spite of his
authority and my own wish to believe him, that the better opinion
is, that now not a single stone is to be seen.

Topographers have fixed the site on the plain, near the gate of the
city which opened to the sea. The sea, which once almost washed the
walls, has receded or been driven back for several miles. For many
years a new soil has been accumulating, and all that stood on the
plain, including so much of the remains of the temple as had not
been plundered and carried away by different conquerors, is probably
now buried many feet under its surface.

It was dark when I returned to Aysalook. I had remarked, in passing,
that several caravans had encamped there, and on my return found the
camel-drivers assembled in the little coffee-house in which I was to
pass the night. I soon saw that there were so many of us that we
should make a tight fit in the sleeping part of the khan, and
immediately measured off space enough to fit my body, allowing
turning and kicking room. I looked with great complacency upon the
light slippers of the Turks, which they always throw off, too, when
they go to sleep, and made an ostentatious display of a pair of
heavy iron-nailed boots, and, in lying down, gave one or two
preliminary thumps to show them that I was restless in my movements,
and, if they came too near me these iron-nailed boots would be
uncomfortable neighbours.

And here I ought to have spent half the night in musing upon the
strange concatenation of circumstances which had broken up a quiet
practising attorney, and sent him a straggler from a busy,
money-getting land, to meditate among the ruins of ancient cities,
and sleep pellmell with turbaned Turks. But I had no time for
musing; I was amazingly tired; I looked at the group of Turks in one
corner, and regretted that I could not talk with them; thought of
the Tower of Babel and the wickedness of man, which brought about a
confusion of tongues; of camel-drivers, and Arabian Nights'
Entertainments; of home, and my own comfortable room in the third
story; brought my boot down with a thump that made them all start,
and in five minutes was asleep.

In the morning I again went over to the ruins. Daylight, if
possible, added to their effect; and a little thing occurred, not
much in itself, but which, under the circumstances, fastened itself
upon my mind in such a way that I shall never forget it. I had read
that here, in the stillness of the night, the jackal's cry was
heard; that, if a stone was rolled, a scorpion or lizard slipped
from under it; and, while picking our way slowly along the lower
part of the city, a wolf of the largest size came out above, as if
indignant at being disturbed in his possessions. He moved a few
paces toward us with such a resolute air that my companions both
drew their pistols; then stopped, and gazed at us deliberately as we
were receding from him, until, as if satisfied that we intended to
leave his dominions, he turned and disappeared among the ruins. It
would have made a fine picture; the Turk first, then the Greek, each
with a pistol in his hand, then myself, all on horseback, the wolf
above us, the valley, and the ruined city. I feel my inability to
give you a true picture of these ruins. Indeed, if I could lay
before you every particular, block for block, fragment for fragment,
here a column and there a column, I could not convey a full idea of
the desolation that marks the scene.

To the Christian, the ruins of Ephesus carry with them a peculiar
interest; for here, upon the wreck of heathen temples, was
established one of the earliest Christian churches; but the
Christian church has followed the heathen temple, and the
worshippers of the true God have followed the worshippers of the
great goddess Diana; and in the city where Paul preached, and where,
in the words of the apostle, "much people were gathered unto the
Lord," now not a solitary Christian dwells. Verily, in the prophetic
language of inspiration, the "candlestick is removed from its
place;" a curse seems to have fallen upon it, men shun it, not a
human being is to be seen among its ruins; and Ephesus, in faded
glory and fallen grandeur, is given up to birds and beasts of prey,
a monument and a warning to nations.

From Ephesus I went to Scala Nova, handsomely situated on the shore
of the sea, and commanding a fine view of the beautiful Island of
Samos, distant not more than four miles. I had a letter to a Greek
merchant there, who received me kindly, and introduced me to the
Turkish governor. The governor, as usual, was seated upon a divan,
and asked us to take seats beside him. We were served with coffee
and pipes by two handsome Greek slaves, boys about fourteen, with
long hair hanging down their necks, and handsomely dressed; who,
after serving us, descended from the platform, and waited with
folded arms until we had finished. Soon after a third guest came,
and a third lad, equally handsome and equally well dressed, served
him in the same manner. This is the style of the Turkish grandees, a
slave to every guest. I do not know to what extent it is carried,
but am inclined to think that, in the present instance, if one or
two more guests had happened to come in, my friend's retinue of
slaves would have fallen short. The governor asked me from what
country I came, and who was my king; and when I told him that we had
no king, but a president, he said, very graciously, that our
president and the grand seignior were very good friends; a
compliment which I acknowledged with all becoming humility. Wanting
to show off a little, I told him that we were going to fight the
French, and he said we should certainly whip them if we could get
the grand seignior to help us.

I afterward called on my own account upon the English consul. The
consuls in these little places are originals. They have nothing to
do, but they have the government arms blazoned over their doors, and
strut about in cocked hats and regimentals, and shake their heads,
and look knowing, and talk about their government; they do not know
what the government will think, &c., when half the time their
government hardly knows of the existence of its worthy
representatives. This was an old Maltese, who spoke French and
Italian. He received me very kindly, and pressed me to stay all
night. I told him that I was not an Englishman, and had no claim
upon his hospitality; but he said that made no difference; that he
was consul for all civilized nations, among which he did me the
honour to include mine.

At three o'clock I took leave of the consul. My Greek friend
accompanied me outside the gate, where my horses were waiting for
me; and, at parting, begged me to remember that I had a friend, who
hardly knew what pleasure was except in serving me. I told him that
the happiness of my life was not complete before I met him; we threw
ourselves into each other's arms, and, after a two hours'
acquaintance, could hardly tear away from each other's embraces.
Such is the force of sympathy between congenial spirits. My friend
was a man about fifty, square built, broad shouldered, and big
mustached; and the beauty of it was, that neither could understand a
word the other said; and all this touching interchange of sentiment
had to pass through my mustached, big-whiskered, double-fisted,
six-feet interpreter.

At four o'clock we set out on our return; at seven we stopped in a
beautiful valley surrounded by mountains, and on the sides of the
mountains were a number of Turcomans tents. The khan was worse than
any I had yet seen. It had no floor and no mat. The proprietor of
the khan, if such a thing, consisting merely of four mud walls with
a roof of branches, which seemed to have been laid there by the
winds, could be said to have a proprietor, was uncommonly sociable;
he set before me my supper, consisting of bread and yort--a
preparation of milk--and appeared to be much amused at seeing me
eat. He asked my guide many questions about me; examined my pistols,
took off his turban, and put my hat upon his shaved head, which
transformed him from a decidedly bold, slashing-looking fellow, into
a decidedly sneaking-looking one. I had certainly got over all
fastidiousness in regard to eating, drinking, and sleeping; but I
could not stand the vermin at this khan. In the middle of the night
I rose and went out of doors; it was a brilliant starlight night,
and, as the bare earth was in any case to be my bed, I exchanged the
mud floor of my khan for the greensward and the broad canopy of
heaven. My Turk was sleeping on the ground, about a hundred yards
from the house, with his horse grazing around him. I nestled close
to him, and slept perhaps two hours. Toward morning I was awakened
by the cold, and, with the selfishness of misery, I began punching
my Turk under the ribs to wake him. This was no easy matter; but,
after a while, I succeeded, got him to saddle the horses, and in a
few minutes we were off, my Greek not at all pleased with having his
slumbers so prematurely disturbed.

At about two o'clock we passed some of the sultan's _volunteers_.
These were about fifty men chained together by the wrists and
ankles, who had been chased, run down, and caught in some of the
villages, and were now on their way to Constantinople, under a
guard, to be trained as soldiers. I could but smile as I saw them,
not at them, for, in truth, there was nothing in their condition to
excite a smile, but at the recollection of an article I had seen a
few days before in a European paper, which referred to the new
levies making by the sultan, and the spirit with which his subjects
entered into the service. They were a speaking comment upon European
insight into Turkish politics. But, without more ado, suffice it to
say, that at about four o'clock I found myself at the door of my
hotel, my outer garments so covered with creeping things that my
landlord, a prudent Swiss, with many apologies, begged me to shake
myself before going into the house; and my nether garments so
stained with blood, that I looked as if a corps of the sultan's
regulars had pricked me with their bayonets. My enthusiasm on the
subject of the seven churches was in no small degree abated, and
just at that moment I was willing to take upon trust the condition
of the others, that all that was foretold of them in the Scriptures
had come to pass. I again betook me to the bath, and, in thinking of
the luxury of my repose, I feel for you, and come to a full stop.

****

CHAPTER X.

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 shore 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 assumed 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 ambassadors 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 passion
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 passion; 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 passion, 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 principally 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 classes, 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
nobility 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 institution, 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 Saturday, 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
fête 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 Saturday 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 bloody 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
passion 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. Nobody 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 bloody 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 accumulating, 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 spacious
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 assimilated 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
noble old sycamores, or on the grass, 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 tassel 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
passed 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 Assyria, this warlike people,
occupying a mountainous country near the sources of the Tigris and
Euphrates, battled the Assyrians, 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
principal 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 spacious
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 fête 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
passer-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 assembled 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.--Classic 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 circumstances which had brought him to that distant
country were so peculiar, that I cannot help mentioning them. He had
passed 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 Marseilles 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 passing 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 God upon
earth, has taken off the turban, and all the officers of government
have followed his example. The army wears a bastard 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 bloody,
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 circumstance, 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 peacock 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 shores 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 classes 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 prone 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 bloody 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 gods, 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 Ægean, and paddling the classic waters of the
Hellespont. 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 canvass, renders unnecessary the propitiation of the gods,
and flounders on its way in spite of wind and weather!

A new and unaccountable respect for the classics 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 classic 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 passed
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
unclassical 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, Alcæus, 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 Æolia; a
little to the right, but hardly visible, were the ruins of Assos,
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 Sigæum, where the Scamander empties into the sea,
and near which were fought the principal of Homer's battles. A
little farther--but hold, stop the engine! If there be a spot of
classic 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 shore, 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 grass 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 goddess 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 gods, join each other in
the middle of the plain; Scamander and Simois, whose waters once
washed the walls of the ancient city of Dardanus; and that small,
confused, and shapeless mass 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 Hellespont, 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 Hellespont 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 passage. 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 pass 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 ignoble
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, God 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.

THERE is a good chance for an enterprising Connecticut man to set up a
hotel in Constantinople. The reader will see that I have travelled with
my eyes open, and I trust this shrewd observation on entering the city
of the Cæsars will be considered characteristic and American. Paul was
at home in Pera, and conducted us to the Hotel d'Italia, which was so
full that we could not get admission, and so vile a place that we were
not sorry for it. We then went to Madame Josephine's, a sort of private
boarding-house, but excellent of its kind. We found there a collection
of travellers, English, French, German, and Russian, and the dinner was
particularly social; but Dr. N. was so disgusted with the clatter of
foreign tongues, that he left the table with the first course, and swore
he would not stay there another day. We tried to persuade him. I
reminded him that there was an Englishman among them, but this only made
him worse; he hated an Englishman, and wondered how I, as an American,
could talk with one as I had with him. In short, he was resolved, and
had Paul running about every street in Pera looking for rooms.
Notwithstanding his impracticabilities as a traveller, I liked the
doctor, and determined to follow him, and before breakfast the next
morning we were installed in a suite of rooms in the third story of a
house opposite the old palace of the British ambassador.

For two or three days I was _hors du combat_, and put myself under the
hands of Dr. Zohrab, an Armenian, educated at Edinburgh, whom I
cordially recommend both for his kindness and medical skill. On going
out, one of my first visits was to my banker, Mr. Churchill, a gentleman
whose name has since rung throughout Europe, and who at one time seemed
likely to be the cause of plunging the whole civilized world into a war.
He was then living in Sedikuey, on the site of the ancient Chalcedon, in
Asia; and I have seldom been more shocked than by reading in a
newspaper, while in the lazaretto at Malta, that, having accidentally
shot a Turkish boy with a fowling-piece, he had been seized by the
Turks, and, in defiance of treaties, _bastinadoed_ till he was almost
dead. I had seen the infliction of that horrible punishment; and,
besides the physical pain, there was a sense of the indignity that
roused every feeling. I could well imagine the ferocious spirit with
which the Turks would stand around and see a Christian scourged. The
civilized world owes a deep debt of gratitude to the English government
for the uncompromising stand taken in this matter with the sultan, and
the firmness with which it insisted on, and obtained, the most ample
redress for Mr. Churchill, and atonement for the insult offered to all
Christendom in his person.

My companions and myself had received several invitations from Commodore
Porter, and, accompanied by Mr. Dwight, one of our American
missionaries, to whom I am under particular obligations for his
kindness, early in the morning we took a caique with three athletic
Turks, and, after a beautiful row, part of it from the seraglio point to
the Seven Towers, a distance of five miles, being close under the walls
of the city, in two hours reached the commodore's residence at St.
Stephano, twelve miles from Constantinople, on the borders of the Sea of
Marmora. The situation is beautiful, abounding in fruit-trees, among
which are some fig trees of the largest size; and the commodore was then
engaged in building a large addition to his house. It will be remembered
that Commodore Porter was the first envoy ever sent by the United
States' government to the Sublime Porte. He had formerly lived at
Buyukdere, on the Bosphorus, with the other members of the diplomatic
corps; but his salary as chargé being inadequate to sustain a becoming
style, he had withdrawn to this place. I had never seen Commodore Porter
before. I afterward passed a month with him in the lazaretto at Malta,
and I trust he will not consider me presuming when I say that our
acquaintance ripened into friendship. He is entirely different from the
idea I had formed of him; small, dark, weather-beaten, much broken in
health, and remarkably mild and quiet in his manners. His eye is his
best feature, though even that does not indicate the desperate hardihood
of character which he has exhibited on so many occasions. Perhaps I
ought not to say so, but he seemed ill at ease in his position, and I
could not but think that he ought still to be standing in the front rank
of that service he so highly honoured. He spoke with great bitterness of
the Foxardo affair, and gave me an account of an interesting interview
between General Jackson and himself on his recall from South America.
General Jackson wished him to resume his rank in the navy, but he
answered that he would never accept service with men who had suspended
him for doing what, they said in their sentence of condemnation, was
done "to sustain the honour of the American flag."

At the primitive hour of one we sat down to a regular family dinner. We
were all Americans. The commodore's sister, who was living with him,
presided, and we looked out on the Sea of Marmora and talked of home. I
cannot describe the satisfaction of these meetings of Americans so far
from their own country. I have often experienced it most powerfully in
the houses of the missionaries in the East. Besides having, in many
instances, the same acquaintances, we had all the same habits and ways
of thinking; their articles of furniture were familiar to me, and there
was scarcely a house in which I did not find an article unknown except
among Americans, a Boston rocking-chair.

We talked over the subject of our difficulties with France, then under
discussion in the Chamber of Deputies, and I remember that Commodore
Porter was strong in the opinion that the bill paying the debt would
pass. Before rising from table, the commodore's janisary came down from
Constantinople, with papers and letters just arrived by the courier from
Paris. He told me that I should have the honour of breaking the seals,
and I took out the paper so well known all over Europe, "Galignani's
Messenger," and had the satisfaction of reading aloud, in confirmation
of the commodore's opinion, that the bill for paying the American claims
had passed the Chamber of Deputies by a large majority.

[Illustration: Castle of the Seven Towers.]

About four o'clock we embarked in our caique to return to Constantinople.
In an hour Mr. D. and I landed at the foot of the Seven Towers, and few
things in this ancient city interested me more than my walk around its
walls. We followed them the whole extent on the land side, from the Sea
of Marmora to the Golden Horn. They consist of a triple range, with five
gates, the principal of which is the Cannon Gate, through which Mohammed
II. made his triumphal entry into the Christian city. They have not been
repaired since the city fell into the hands of the Turks, and are the
same walls which procured for it the proud name of the "well-defended
city;" to a great extent, they are the same walls which the first
Constantine built and the last Constantine died in defending. Time has
laid his ruining hand upon them, and they are everywhere weak and
decaying, and would fall at once before the thunder of modern war. The
moat and fossé have alike lost their warlike character, and bloom and
blossom with the vine and fig tree. Beyond, hardly less interesting than
the venerable walls, and extending as far as the eye can reach, is one
continued burying-ground, with thousands and tens of thousands of
turbaned headstones, shaded by thick groves of the mourning cypress.
Opposite the Damascus Gate is an elevated enclosure, disconnected from
all around, containing five headstones in a row, over the bodies of Ali
Pacha, the rebel chief of Yanina, and his four sons. The fatal mark of
death by the bowstring is conspicuous on the tombs, as a warning to
rebels that they cannot escape the sure vengeance of the Porte. It was
toward the sunset of a beautiful evening, and all Stamboul was out among
the tombs. At dark we reached the Golden Horn, crossed over in a caique,
and in a few minutes were in Pera.

The next day I took a caique at Tophana, and went up to the shipyards at
the head of the Golden Horn to visit Mr. Rhodes, to whom I had a letter
from a friend in Smyrna. Mr. Rhodes is a native of Long Island, but from
his boyhood a resident of this city, and I take great pleasure in saying
that he is an honour to our state and country. The reader will remember
that, some years ago, Mr. Eckford, one of our most prominent citizens,
under a pressure of public and domestic calamities, left his native
city. He sailed from New-York in a beautiful corvette, its destination
unknown, and came to anchor under the walls of the seraglio in the
harbour of Constantinople. The sultan saw her, admired her, and bought
her; and I saw her "riding like a thing of life" on the waters of the
Golden Horn, a model of beauty.

The fame of his skill, and the beautiful specimen he carried out with
him, recommended Mr. Eckford to the sultan as a fit instrument to build
up the character of the Ottoman navy; and afterward, when his full value
became known, the sultan remarked of him that America must be a great
nation if she could spare from her service such a man. Had he lived,
even in the decline of life he would have made for himself a reputation
in that distant quarter of the globe equal to that he had left behind
him, and doubtless would have reaped the attendant pecuniary reward. Mr.
Rhodes went out as Mr. Eckford's foreman, and on his death the task of
completing his employer's work devolved on him. It could not have
fallen upon a better man. From a journeyman shipbuilder, all at once Mr.
Rhodes found himself brought into close relations with the seraskier
pacha, the reis effendi, the grand vizier, and the sultan himself; but
his good sense never deserted him. He was then preparing for the launch
of the great ship; the longest, as he said, and he knew the dimensions
of every ship that floated, in the world. I accompanied him over the
ship and through the yards, and it was with no small degree of interest
that I viewed a townsman, an entire stranger in the country, by his
skill alone standing at the head of the great naval establishment of the
sultan. He was dressed in a blue roundabout jacket, without whiskers or
mustache, and, except that he wore the tarbouch, was thorough American
in his appearance and manners, while his dragoman was constantly by his
side, communicating his orders to hundreds of mustached Turks, and in
the same breath he was talking with me of shipbuilders in New-York, and
people and things most familiar in our native city. Mr. Rhodes knows and
cares but little for things that do not immediately concern him; his
whole thoughts are of his business, and in that he possesses an ambition
and industry worthy of all praise. As an instance of his discretion,
particularly proper in the service of that suspicious and despotic
government, I may mention that, while standing near the ship and
remarking a piece of cloth stretched across her stern, I asked him her
name, and he told me he did not know; that it was painted on her stern,
and his dragoman knew, but he had never looked under, that he might not
be able to answer when asked. I have seldom met a countryman abroad with
whom I was more pleased, and at parting he put himself on a pinnacle in
my estimation by telling me that, if I came to the yard the next day at
one, I would see the sultan! There was no man living whom I had a
greater curiosity to see. At twelve o'clock I was at the yard, but the
sultan did not come. I went again, and his highness had come two hours
before the time; had accompanied Mr. Rhodes over the ship, and left the
yard less than five minutes before my arrival; his caique was still
lying at the little dock, his attendants were carrying trays of
refreshments to a shooting-ground in the rear, and two black eunuchs
belonging to the seraglio, handsomely dressed in long black cloaks of
fine pelisse cloth, with gold-headed canes and rings on their fingers,
were still lingering about the ship, their effeminate faces and musical
voices at once betraying their neutral character.

The next was the day of the launch; and early in the morning, in the
suite of Commodore Porter, I went on board an old steamer provided by
the sultan expressly for the use of Mr. Rhodes's American friends. The
waters of the Golden Horn were already covered; thousands of caiques,
with their high sharp points, were cutting through it, or resting like
gulls upon its surface; and there were ships with the still proud banner
of the crescent, and strangers with the flags of every nation in
Christendom, and sailboats, longboats, and rowboats, ambassadors'
barges, and caiques of effendis, beys, and pachas, with red silk flags
streaming in the wind, while countless thousands were assembled on the
banks to behold the extraordinary spectacle of an American ship, the
largest in the world, launched in the harbour of old Stamboul. The
sultan was then living at his beautiful palace at Sweet Waters, and was
obliged to pass by our boat; he had made a great affair of the launch;
had invited all the diplomatic corps, and, through the reis effendi,
particularly requested the presence of Commodore Porter; had stationed
his harem on the opposite side of the river; and as I saw prepared for
himself near the ship a tent of scarlet cloth trimmed with gold, I
expected to see him appear in all the pomp and splendour of the greatest
potentate on earth. I had already seen enough to convince me that the
days of Eastern magnificence had gone by, or that the gorgeous scenes
which my imagination had always connected with the East had never
existed; but still I could not divest myself of the lingering idea of
the power and splendour of the sultan. His commanding style to his own
subjects: "I command you, ----, my slave, that you bring the head of ----,
my slave, and lay it at my feet;" and then his lofty tone with foreign
powers: "I, who am, by the infinite grace of the great, just, and
all-powerful Creator, and the abundance of the miracles of the chief of
his prophets, emperor of powerful emperors; refuge of sovereigns;
distributor of crowns to the kings of the earth; keeper of the two very
holy cities (Mecca and Medina); governor of the holy city of Jerusalem;
master of Europe, Asia, and Africa, conquered with our victorious sword
and our terrible lance; lord of two seas (Black and White); of Damascus,
the odour of Paradise; of Bagdad, the seat of the califs; of the
fortresses of Belgrade, Agra, and a multitude of countries, isles,
straits, people, generations, and of so many victorious armies who
repose under the shade of our Sublime Porte; I, in short, who am the
shadow of God upon earth;" I was rolling these things through my mind
when a murmur, "the sultan is coming," turned me to the side of the
boat, and one view dispelled all my gorgeous fancies. There was no
style, no state, a citizen king, a republican president, or a
democratic governor, could not have made a more unpretending appearance
than did this "shadow of God upon earth." He was seated in the bottom of
a large caique, dressed in the military frockcoat and red tarbouch, with
his long black beard, the only mark of a Turk about him, and he moved
slowly along the vacant space cleared for his passage, boats with the
flags of every nation, and thousands of caiques falling back, and the
eyes of the immense multitude earnestly fixed upon him, but without any
shouts or acclamations; and when he landed at the little dock, and his
great officers bowed to the dust before him, he looked the plainest,
mildest, kindest man among them. I had wished to see him as a wholesale
murderer, who had more blood upon his hands than any man living; who had
slaughtered the janisaries, drenched the plains of Greece, to say
nothing of bastinadoes, impalements, cutting off heads, and tying up in
sacks, which are taking place every moment; but I will not believe that
Sultan Mahmoud finds any pleasure in shedding blood. Dire necessity, or,
as he himself would say, fate, has ever been driving him on. I look upon
him as one of the most interesting characters upon earth; as the
creature of circumstances, made bloody and cruel by the necessities of
his position. I look at his past life and at that which is yet in store
for him, through all the stormy scenes he is to pass until he completes
his unhappy destiny, the last of a powerful and once-dreaded race,
bearded by those who once crouched at the footstool of his ancestors,
goaded by rebellious vassals, conscious that he is going a downward
road, and yet unable to resist the impulse that drives him on. Like the
strong man encompassed with a net, he finds no avenue of escape, and
cannot break through it.

The seraskier pacha and other principal officers escorted him to his
tent, and now all the interest which I had taken in the sultan was
transferred to Mr. Rhodes. He had great anxiety about the launch, and
many difficulties to contend with: first, in the Turks' jealousy of a
stranger, which obliged him to keep constantly on the watch lest some of
his ropes should be cut or fastenings knocked away; and he had another
Turkish prejudice to struggle against: the day had been fixed twice
before, but the astronomers found an unfortunate conjunction of the
stars, and it was postponed, and even then the stars were unpropitious;
but Mr. Rhodes had insisted that the work had gone so far that it could
not be stopped. And, besides these, he had another great difficulty in
his ignorance of their language. With more than a thousand men under
him, all his orders had to pass through interpreters, and often, too,
the most prompt action was necessary, and the least mistake might prove
fatal. Fortunately, he was protected from treachery by the kindness of
Mr. Churchill and Dr. Zohrab, one of whom stood on the bow and the other
in the stern of the ship, and through whom every order was transmitted
in Turkish. Probably none there felt the same interest that we did; for
the flags of the barbarian and every nation in Christendom were waving
around us, and at that distance from home the enterprise of a single
citizen enlisted the warmest feelings of every American. We watched the
ship with as keen an interest as if our own honour and success in life
depended upon her movements. For a long time she remained perfectly
quiet. At length she moved, slowly and almost imperceptibly; and then,
as if conscious that the eyes of an immense multitude were on her, and
that the honour of a distant nation was in some measure at stake, she
marched proudly to the water, plunged in with a force that almost buried
her, and, rising like a huge leviathan, parted the foaming waves with
her bow, and rode triumphantly upon them. Even Mussulman indifference
was disturbed; all petty jealousies were hushed; the whole immense mass
was roused into admiration; loud and long-continued shouts of applause
rose with one accord from Turks and Christians, and the sultan was so
transported that he jumped up and clapped his hands like a schoolboy.

Mr. Rhodes's triumph was complete; the sultan called him to his tent,
and with his own hands fixed on the lappel of his coat a gold medal set
in diamonds, representing the launching of a ship. Mr. Rhodes has
attained among strangers the mark of every honourable man's ambition,
the head of his profession. He has put upon the water what Commodore
Porter calls the finest ship that ever floated, and has a right to be
proud of his position and prospects under the "shade of the Sublime
Porte." The sultan wishes to confer upon him the title of chief naval
constructor, and to furnish him with a house and a caique with four
oars. In compliment to his highness, who detests a hat, Mr. Rhodes wears
the tarbouch; but he declines all offices and honours, and anything that
may tend to fix him as a Turkish subject, and looks to return and enjoy
in his own country and among his own people the fruits of his honourable
labours. If the good wishes of a friend can avail him, he will soon
return to our city rich with the profits of untiring industry, and an
honourable testimony to his countrymen of the success of American skill
and enterprise abroad.

To go back a moment. All day the great ship lay in the middle of the
Golden Horn, while perhaps more than a hundred thousand Turks shot
round her in their little caiques, looking up from the surface of the
water to her lofty deck: and in Pera, wherever I went, perhaps because I
was an American, the only thing I heard of was the American ship. Proud
of the admiration excited so far from home by this noble specimen of the
skill of an American citizen, I unburden myself of a long-smothered
subject of complaint against my country. I cry out with a loud voice for
_reform_, not in the hackneyed sense of petty politicians, but by a
liberal and enlarged expenditure of public money; by increasing the
outfits and salaries of our foreign ambassadors and ministers. We claim
to be rich, free from debt, and abundant in resources, and yet every
American abroad is struck with a feeling of mortification at the
inability of his representative to take that position in social life to
which the character of his country entitles him. We may talk of
republican simplicity as we will, but there are certain usages of
society and certain appendages of rank which, though they may be
unmeaning and worthless, are sanctioned, if not by the wisdom, at least
by the practice of all civilized countries. We have committed a fatal
error since the time when Franklin appeared at the court of France in a
plain citizen's dress; everywhere our representative conforms to the
etiquette of the court to which he is accredited, and it is too late to
go back and begin anew; and now, unless our representative is rich and
willing to expend his own fortune for the honour of the nation, he is
obliged to withdraw from the circles and position in which he has a
right and ought to move, or to move in them on an inferior footing,
under an acknowledgment of inability to appear as an equal.

And again: our whole consular system is radically wrong, disreputable,
and injurious to our character and interests. While other nations
consider the support of their consuls a part of the expenses of their
government, we suffer ourselves to be represented by merchants, whose
pecuniary interests are mixed up with all the local and political
questions that affect the place and who are under a strong inducement to
make their office subservient to their commercial relations. I make no
imputations against any of them. I could not if I would, for I do not
know an American merchant holding the office who is not a respectable
man; but the representative of our country ought to be the
representative of our country only; removed from any distracting or
conflicting interests, standing like a watchman to protect the honour of
his nation and the rights of her citizens. And more than this, all over
the Mediterranean there are ports where commerce presents no inducements
to the American merchant, and there the office falls into the hands of
the natives; and at this day the American arms are blazoned on the
doors, and the American flag is waving over the houses, of Greeks,
Italians, Jews, and Arabs, and all the mongrel population of that inland
sea; and in the ports under the dominion of Turkey particularly, the
office is coveted as a means of protecting the holder against the
liabilities to his own government, and of revenue by selling that
protection to others. I will not mention them by name, for I bear them
no ill will personally, and I have received kindness from most of the
petty vagabonds who live under the folds of the American flag; but the
consuls at Gendoa and Algiers are a disgrace to the American name.
Congress has lately turned its attention to this subject, and will,
before long, I hope, effect a complete change in the character of our
consular department, and give it the respectability which it wants; the
only remedy is by following the example of other nations, in fixing
salaries to the office, and forbidding the holders to engage in trade.
Besides the leading inducements to this change, there is a secondary
consideration, which, in my eyes, is not without its value, in that it
would furnish a valuable school of instruction for our young men. The
offices would be sought by such. A thousand or fifteen hundred dollars a
year would maintain them respectably, in most of the ports of the
Mediterranean, and young men resident in those places, living upon
salaries, and not obliged to engage in commerce, would employ their
leisure hours in acquiring the language of the country, in communicating
with the interior, and among them would return upon us an accumulation
of knowledge far more than repaying us for all the expense of supporting
them abroad.

Doubtless the reader expects other things in Constantinople; but all
things are changing. The day has gone by when the Christian could not
cross the threshold of a mosque and live. Even the sacred mosque of St.
Sophia, the ancient Christian church, so long closed against the
Christians' feet, now, upon great occasions, again opens its doors to
the descendants of its Christian builders. One of these great occasions
happened while I was there. The sultan gave a firman to the French
ambassador, under which all the European residents and travellers
visited it. Unfortunately, I was unwell, and could not go out that day,
and was obliged afterward to content myself with walking around its
walls, with uplifted eyes and a heavy heart, admiring the glittering
crescent and thinking of the prostrate cross.

But no traveller can leave Constantinople without having seen the
interior of a mosque; and accordingly, under the guidance of Mustapha,
the janisary of the British consul, I visited the mosque of Sultan
Suliman, next in point of beauty to that of St. Sophia, though far
inferior in historical interest. At an early hour we crossed the Golden
Horn to old Stamboul; threaded our way through its narrow and intricate
streets to an eminence near the seraskier pacha's tower; entered by a
fine gateway into a large courtyard, more than a thousand feet square,
handsomely paved and ornamented with noble trees, and enclosed by a high
wall; passed a marble fountain of clear and abundant water, where, one
after another, the faithful stopped to make their ablutions; entered a
large colonnade, consisting of granite and marble pillars of every form
and style, the plunder of ancient temples, worked in without much regard
to architectural fitness, yet, on the whole, producing a fine effect;
pulled off our shoes at the door, and, with naked feet and noiseless
step, crossed the sacred threshold of the mosque. Silently we moved
among the kneeling figures of the faithful scattered about in different
parts of the mosque and engaged in prayer; paused for a moment under the
beautiful dome sustained by four columns from the Temple of Diana at
Ephesus; leaned against a marble pillar which may have supported, two
thousand years ago, the praying figure of a worshipper of the great
goddess; gazed at the thousand small lamps suspended from the lofty
ceiling, each by a separate cord, and with a devout feeling left the
mosque.

[Illustration: Mosque of Sultan Suliman.]

In the rear, almost concealed from view by a thick grove of trees,
shrubs, and flowers, is a circular building about forty feet in
diameter, containing the tomb of Suliman, the founder of the mosque, his
brother, his favourite wife Roxala, and two other wives. The monuments
are in the form of sarcophagi, with pyramidal tops, covered with rich
Cashmere shawls, having each at the head a large white turban, and
enclosed by a railing covered with mother-of-pearl. The great beauty of
the sepulchral chamber is its dome, which is highly ornamented, and
sparkles with brilliants. In one corner is a plan of Mecca, the holy
temple, and tomb of the Prophet.

In the afternoon I went for the last time to the Armenian burying-ground.
In the East the graveyards are the general promenades, the places of
rendezvous, and the lounging-places; and in Constantinople the Armenian
burying-ground is the most beautiful, and the favourite. Situated in the
suburbs of Pera, overlooking the Bosphorus, shaded by noble palm-trees,
almost regularly toward evening I found myself sitting upon the same
tombstone, looking upon the silvery water at my feet, studded with
palaces, flashing and glittering with caiques from the golden palace of
the sultan to the seraglio point, and then turned to the animated groups
thronging the burying-ground; the Armenian in his flowing robes, the
dashing Greek, the stiff and out-of-place-looking Frank; Turks in their
gay and bright costume, glittering arms, and solemn beards, enjoying the
superlative of existence in dozing over their pipe; and women in long
white veils, apart under some delightful shade, in little picnic
parties, eating ices and confectionary. Here and there, toward the
outskirts, was the araba, the only wheeled carriage known among the
Turks, with a long low body, highly carved and gilded, drawn by oxen
fancifully trimmed with ribands, and filled with soft cushions, on which
the Turkish and Armenian ladies almost buried themselves. Instead of the
cypress, the burying-ground is shaded by noble plane-trees; and the
tombstones, instead of being upright, are all flat, having at the head a
couple of little niches scooped out to hold water, with the beautiful
idea to induce birds to come there and drink and sing among the trees.
Their tombstones, too, have another mark, which, in a country where men
are apt to forget who their fathers were, would exclude them even from
that place where all mortal distinctions are laid low, viz., a mark
indicating the profession or occupation of the deceased; as, a pair of
shears to mark the grave of a tailor; a razor that of a barber; and on
many of them was another mark indicating the manner of death, the
bowstring, or some other mark, showing that the stone covered a victim
of Turkish cruelty. But all these things are well known; nothing has
escaped the prying eyes of curious travellers; and I merely state, for
my own credit's sake, that I followed the steps of those who had gone
before me, visited the Sweet Waters, Scutary, and Belgrade, the
reservoirs, aqueducts, and ruins of the palace of Constantine, and saw
the dancing dervishes; rowed up the Bosphorus to Buyukdere, lunched
under the tree where Godfrey encamped with his gallant crusaders, and
looked out upon the Black Sea from the top of the Giant's Mountain.

CHAPTER XIII.

Visit to the Slave-market.--Horrors of Slavery.--Departure from
Stamboul.--The stormy Euxine.--Odessa.--The Lazaretto.--Russian
Civility.--Returning Good for Evil.

THE day before I left Constantinople I went, in company with Dr. N. and
his son, and attended by Paul, to visit the slave-market; crossing over
to Stamboul, we picked up a Jew in the bazars, who conducted us through
a perfect labyrinth of narrow streets to a quarter of the city from
which it would have been utterly impossible for me to extricate myself
alone. I only know that it was situated on high ground, and that we
passed through a gateway into a hollow square of about a hundred and
fifty or two hundred feet on each side. It was with no small degree of
emotion that I entered this celebrated place, where so many Christian
hearts have trembled; and, before crossing the threshold, I ran over in
my mind all the romantic stories and all the horrible realities that I
could remember connected with its history: the tears of beauty, the
pangs of brave men, and so down to the unsentimental exclamation of
Johnson to his new friend Don Juan:

"Yon black eunuch seems to eye us;
I wish to God that somebody would buy us."

The bazar forms a hollow square, with little chambers about fifteen feet
each way around it, in which the slaves belonging to the different
dealers are kept. A large shed or portico projects in front, under
which, and in front of each chamber, is a raised platform, with a low
railing around it, where the slave-merchant sits and gossips, and dozes
over his coffee and pipes. I had heard so little of this place, and it
was so little known among Europeans, taking into consideration,
moreover, that in a season of universal peace the market must be without
a supply of captives gained in war, that I expected to see but a remnant
of the ancient traffic, supposing that I should find but few slaves, and
those only black; but, to my surprise, I found there twenty or thirty
white women. Bad, horrible as this traffic is under any circumstances,
to my habits and feelings it loses a shade of its horrors when confined
to blacks; but here whites and blacks were exposed together in the same
bazar. The women were from Circassia and the regions of the Caucasus,
that country so renowned for beauty; they were dressed in the Turkish
costume, with the white shawl wrapped around the mouth and chin, and
over the forehead, shading the eyes, so that it was difficult to judge
with certainty as to their personal appearance. Europeans are not
permitted to purchase, and their visits to this bazar are looked upon
with suspicion. If we stopped long opposite a door, it was closed upon
us; but I was not easily shaken off, and returned so often at odd times,
that I succeeded in seeing pretty distinctly all that was to be seen. In
general, the best slaves are not exposed in the bazars, but are kept at
the houses of the dealers; but there was one among them not more than
seventeen, with a regular Circassian face, a brilliantly fair
complexion, a mild and cheerful expression; and in the slave-market,
under the partial disguise of the Turkish shawl, it required no great
effort of the imagination to make her decidedly beautiful. Paul stopped,
and with a burst of enthusiasm, the first I had discovered in him,
exclaimed "Quelle beauté!" She noticed my repeatedly stopping before
her bazar; and, when I was myself really disposed to be sentimental,
instead of drooping her head with the air of a distressed heroine, to my
great surprise she laughed and nodded, and beckoned me to come to her.
Paul was very much struck; and repeating his warm expression of
admiration at her beauty, told me that she wanted me to buy her. Without
waiting for a reply, he went off and inquired the price, which was two
hundred and fifty dollars; and added that he could easily get some Turk
to let me buy her in his name, and then I could put her on board a
vessel, and carry her where I pleased. I told him it was hardly worth
while at present; and he, thinking my objection was merely to the
person, in all honesty and earnestness told me he had been there
frequently, and never saw anything half so handsome; adding that, if I
let slip this opportunity, I would scarcely have another as good, and
wound up very significantly by declaring that, if he was a gentleman, he
would not hesitate a moment. A gentleman, in the sense in which Paul
understood the word, is apt to fall into irregular ways in the East.
Removed from the restraints which operate upon men in civilized
countries, if he once breaks through the trammels of education, he goes
all lengths; and it is said to be a matter of general remark, that
slaves are always worse treated by Europeans than by the Turks. The
slave-dealers are principally Jews, who buy children when young, and, if
they have beauty train up the girls in such accomplishments as may
fascinate the Turks. Our guide told us that, since the Greek revolution,
the slave-market had been comparatively deserted; but, during the whole
of that dreadful struggle, every day presented new horrors; new captives
were brought in, the men raving and struggling, and vainly swearing
eternal vengeance against the Turks, and the women shrieking
distractedly in the agony of a separation. After the massacre at Scio,
in particular, hundreds of young girls, with tears streaming down their
cheeks, and bursting hearts, were sold to the unhallowed embraces of the
Turks for a few dollars a head. We saw nothing of the horrors and
atrocities of this celebrated slave-market. Indeed, except prisoners of
war and persons captured by Turkish corsairs, the condition of those who
now fill the slave-market is not the horrible lot that a warm
imagination might suppose. They are mostly persons in a semibarbarous
state; blacks from Sennaar and Abyssinia, or whites from the regions of
the Caucasus, bought from their parents for a string of beads or a
shawl; and, in all probability, the really beautiful girl whom I saw had
been sold by parents who could not feed or clothe her, who considered
themselves rid of an encumbrance, and whom she left without regret; and
she, having left poverty and misery behind her, looked to the
slave-market as the sole means of advancing her fortune; and, in
becoming the favoured inmate of a harem, expected to attain a degree of
happiness she could never have enjoyed at home.

I intended to go from Constantinople to Egypt, but the plague was raging
there so violently that it would have been foolhardy to attempt it; and
while making arrangements with a Tartar to return to Europe on horseback
across the Balkan, striking the Danube at Semlin and Belgrade, a Russian
government steamer was advertised for Odessa; and as this mode of
travelling at that moment suited my health better, I altered my whole
plan, and determined to leave the ruined countries of the Old World for
a land just emerging from a state of barbarism, and growing into
gigantic greatness. With great regret I took leave of Dr. N. and his
son, who sailed the same day for Smyrna, and I have never seen them
since. Paul was the last man to whom I said farewell. At the moment of
starting my shirts were brought in dripping wet, and Paul bestowed a
malediction upon the Greek while he wrung them out and tumbled them into
my carpet-bag. I afterward found him at Malta, whence he accompanied me
on my tour in Egypt, Arabia Petræa, and the Holy Land, by which he is,
perhaps, already known to some of my readers.

With my carpet-bag on the shoulders of a Turk, I walked for the last
time to Tophana. A hundred caiquemen gathered around me, but I pushed
them all back, and kept guard over my carpet-bag, looking out for one
whom I had been in the habit of employing ever since my arrival in
Constantinople. He soon spied me; and when he took my luggage and myself
into his caique, manifested that he knew it was for the last time.
Having an hour to spare, I directed him to row once more under the walls
of the seraglio; and still loath to leave, I went on shore and walked
around the point, until I was stopped by a Turkish bayonet. The Turk
growled, and his mustache curled fiercely as he pointed it at me. I had
been stopped by Frenchmen, Italians, and by a mountain Greek, but found
nothing that brings a man to such a dead stand as the Turkish bayonet.

I returned to my caique, and went on board the steamer. She was a
Russian government vessel, more classically called a pyroscaphe, a
miserable old thing; and yet as much form and circumstance were observed
in sending her off as in fitting out an _exploring expedition_.
Consuls' and ambassadors' boats were passing and repassing, and after
an enormous fuss and preparation, we started under a salute of cannon,
which was answered from one of the sultan's frigates. We had the usual
scene of parting with friends, waving of handkerchiefs, and so on; and
feeling a little lonely at the idea of leaving a city containing a
million inhabitants without a single friend to bid me Godspeed, I took
my place on the quarter-deck, and waved my handkerchief to my caiqueman,
who, I have no doubt, independent of the loss of a few piasters per day,
was very sorry to lose me; for we had been so long together, that, in
spite of our ignorance of each other's language, we understood each
other perfectly.

I found on board two Englishmen whom I had met at Corfu, and a third,
who had joined them at Smyrna, going to travel in the Crimea; our other
cabin-passengers were Mr. Luoff, a Russian officer, an aiddecamp of
the emperor, just returned from travels in Egypt and Syria, Mr.
Perseani, secretary to the Russian legation in Greece; a Greek merchant,
with a Russian protection, on his way to the Sea of Azoff; and a French
merchant of Odessa. The tub of a steamboat dashed up the Bosphorus at
the rate of three miles an hour; while the classic waters, as if
indignant at having such a bellowing, blowing, blustering monster upon
their surface, seemed to laugh at her unwieldy and ineffectual efforts.
Slowly we mounted the beautiful strait, lined on the European side
almost with one continued range of houses, exhibiting in every beautiful
nook a palace of the sultan, and at Terapeia and Buyukdere the palaces
of the foreign ambassadors; passed the Giant's Mountain, and about an
hour before dark were entering a new sea, the dark and stormy Euxine.

Advancing, the hills became more lofty and ragged, terminating on the
Thracian side in high rocky precipices. The shores of this extremity of
the Bosphorus were once covered with shrines, altars, and temples,
monuments of the fears or gratitude of mariners who were about to leave,
or who had escaped, the dangers of the inhospitable Euxine; and the
remains of these antiquities were so great that a traveller almost in
our own day describes the coasts as "covered by their ruins." The
castles on the European and the Asiatic side of the strait are supposed
to occupy the sites where stood, in ancient days, the great temples of
Jupiter Serapis and Jupiter Urius. The Bosphorus opens abruptly, without
any enlargement at its mouth, between two mountains. The parting view of
the strait, or, rather, of the coast on each side, was indescribably
grand, presenting a stupendous wall opposed to the great bed of waters,
as if torn asunder by an earthquake, leaving a narrow rent for their
escape. On each side, a miserable lantern on the top of a tower, hardly
visible at the distance of a few miles, is the only light to guide the
mariner at night; and as there is another opening called the false
Bosphorus, the entrance is difficult and dangerous, and many vessels are
lost here annually.

As the narrow opening closed before me, I felt myself entering a new
world; I was fairly embarked upon that wide expanse of water which once,
according to ancient legends, mingled with the Caspian, and covered the
great oriental plain of Tartary, and upon which Jason, with his
adventurous Argonauts, having killed the dragon and carried off the
golden fleece from Colchis, if those same legends be true (which some
doubt), sailed across to the great ocean. I might and should have
speculated upon the great changes in the face of nature and the great
deluge recorded by Grecian historians and poets, which burst the narrow
passage of the Thracian Bosphorus for the outlet of the mighty waters;
but who could philosophize in a steamboat on the Euxine? Oh Fulton! much
as thou hast done for mechanics and the useful arts, thy hand has fallen
rudely upon all cherished associations. We boast of thee; I have myself
been proud of thee as an American; but as I sat at evening on the stern
of the steamer, and listened to the clatter of the engine, and watched
the sparks rushing out of the high pipes, and remembered that this was
on the dark and inhospitable Euxine, I wished that thy life had begun
after mine was ended. I trust I did his memory no wrong; but if I had
borne him malice, I could not have wished him worse than to have all his
dreams of the past disturbed by the clatter of one of his own engines.

I turned away from storied associations to a new country grown up in our
own day. We escaped, and, I am obliged to say, without noticing them,
the Cyaneæ, "the blue Symplegades," or "wandering islands," which, lying
on the European and Asiatic side, floated about, or, according to Pliny,
"were alive, and moved to and fro more swiftly than the blast," and in
passing through which the good ship Argo had a narrow escape, and lost
the extremity of her stern. History and poetry have invested this sea
with extraordinary and ideal terrors; but my experience both of the
Mediterranean and Black Sea was unfortunate for realizing historical and
poetical accounts. I had known the beautiful Mediterranean a sea of
storm and sunshine, in which the storm greatly predominated. I found the
stormy Euxine calm as an untroubled lake; in fact, the Black Sea is in
reality nothing more than a lake, not as large as many of our own,
receiving the waters of the great rivers of the north: the Don, the
Cuban, the Phase, the Dnieper, and the Danube, and pouring their
collected streams through the narrow passage of the Bosphorus into the
Mediterranean. Still, if the number of shipwrecks be any evidence of its
character, it is indeed entitled to its ancient reputation of a
dangerous sea, though probably these accidents proceed, in a great
measure, from the ignorance and unskilfulness of mariners, and the want
of proper charts and of suitable lighthouses at the opening of the
Bosphorus. At all events, we outblustered the winds and waves with our
steamboat; passed the Serpent Isles, the ancient Leuce, with a roaring
that must have astonished the departed heroes whose souls, according to
the ancient poets, were sent there to enjoy perpetual paradise, and
scared the aquatic birds which every morning dipped their wings in the
sea, and sprinkled the Temple of Achilles, and swept with their plumage
its sacred pavement.

[Illustration: Odessa.]

On the third day we made the low coast of Moldavia or Bess Arabia,
within a short distance of Odessa, the great seaport of Southern Russia.
Here, too, there was nothing to realize preconceived notions; for,
instead of finding a rugged region of eternal snows, we were suffering
under an intensely hot sun when we cast anchor in the harbour of Odessa.
The whole line of the coast is low and destitute of trees; but Odessa is
situated on a high bank; and, with its beautiful theatre, the exchange,
the palace of the governor, &c., did not look like a city which, thirty
years ago, consisted only of a few fishermen's huts.

The harbour of Odessa is very much exposed to the north and east winds,
which often cause great damage to the shipping. Many hundred anchors
cover the bottom, which cut the rope cables; and, the water being
shallow, vessels are often injured by striking on them. An Austrian brig
going out, having struck one, sank in ten minutes. There are two moles,
the quarantine mole, in which we came to anchor, being the principal.
Quarantine flags were flying about the harbour, the yellow indicating
those undergoing purification, and the red the fatal presence of the
plague. We were prepared to undergo a vexatious process. At
Constantinople I had heard wretched accounts of the rude treatment of
lazaretto subjects, and the rough, barbarous manners of the Russians to
travellers, and we had a foretaste of the light in which we were to be
regarded, in the conduct of the health-officer who came alongside. He
offered to take charge of any letters for the town, purify them that
night, and deliver them in the morning; and, according to his
directions, we laid them down on the deck, where he took them up with a
pair of long iron tongs, and putting them into an iron box, shut it up
and rowed off.

In the morning, having received notice that the proper officers were
ready to attend us, we went ashore. We landed in separate boats at the
end of a long pier, and, forgetting our supposed pestiferous influence,
were walking up toward a crowd of men whom we saw there, when their
retrograde movements, their gestures, and unintelligible shouts reminded
us of our situation. One of our party, in a sort of ecstasy at being on
shore, ran capering up the docks, putting to flight a group of idlers,
and, single-handed, might have depopulated the city of Odessa, if an
ugly soldier with a bayonet had not met him in full career and put a
stop to his gambols. The soldier conducted us to a large building at the
upper end of the pier; and carefully opening the door, and falling back
so as to avoid even the wind that might blow from us in his direction,
told us to go in. At the other end of a large room, divided by two
parallel railings, sat officers and clerks to examine our passports and
take a general account of us. We were at once struck with the military
aspect of things, every person connected with the establishment wearing
a military uniform; and now commenced a long process. The first
operation was to examine our passports, take down our names, and make a
memorandum of the purposes for which we severally entered the dominions
of the emperor and autocrat of all the Russias. We were all called up,
one after the other, captain, cook, and cabin-boy, cabin and deck
passengers; and never, perhaps, did steamboat pour forth a more motley
assemblage than we presented. We were Jews, Turks, and Christians;
Russians, Poles, and Germans; English, French, and Italians; Austrians,
Greeks, and Illyrians; Moldavians, Wallachians, Bulgarians, and
Sclavonians; Armenians, Georgians, and Africans; and one American. I had
before remarked the happy facility of the Russians in acquiring
languages, and I saw a striking instance in the officer who conducted
the examination, and who addressed every man in his own language with
apparently as much facility as though it had been his native tongue.
After the oral commenced a corporeal examination. We were ordered one by
one into an adjoining room, where, on the other side of a railing,
stood a doctor, who directed us to open our shirt bosoms, and slap our
hands smartly under our arms and upon our groins, these being the places
where the fatal plague-marks first exhibit themselves.

This over, we were forthwith marched to the lazaretto, escorted by
guards and soldiers, who behaved very civilly and kept at a respectful
distance from us. Among our deck passengers were forty or fifty Jews,
dirty and disgusting objects, just returned from a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem. An old man, who seemed to be, in a manner, the head of the
party, and exceeded them all in rags and filthiness, but was said to be
rich, in going up to the lazaretto amused us and vexed the officers by
sitting down on the way, paying no regard to them when they urged him
on, being perfectly assured that they would not dare to touch him. Once
he resolutely refused to move; they threatened and swore at him, but he
kept his place until one got a long pole and punched him on ahead.

In this way we entered the lazaretto; but if it had not been called by
that name, and if we had not looked upon it as a place where we were
compelled to stay for a certain time, nolens volens, we should have
considered it a beautiful spot. It is situated on high ground, within an
enclosure of some fifteen or twenty acres, overlooking the Black Sea,
laid out in lawn and gravel walks, and ornamented with rows of
acacia-trees. Fronting the sea was a long range of buildings divided
into separate apartments, each with a little courtyard in front
containing two or three acacias. The director, a fine, military-looking
man, with a decoration on his lapel, met us on horseback within the
enclosure, and with great suavity of manner said that he could not bid
us welcome to a prison, but that we should have the privilege of
walking at will over the grounds, and visiting each other, subject only
to the attendance of a guardiano; and that all that could contribute to
our comfort should be done for us.

We then selected our rooms, and underwent another personal examination.
This was the real touchstone; the first was a mere preliminary
observation by a medical understrapper; but this was conducted by a more
knowing doctor. We were obliged to strip naked; to give up the clothes
we pulled off, and put on a flannel gown, drawers, and stockings, and a
woollen cap provided by the government, until our own should be smoked
and purified. In everything, however, the most scrupulous regard was
paid to our wishes, and a disposition was manifested by all to make this
rather vexatious proceeding as little annoying as possible. The bodily
examination was as delicate as the nature of the case would admit; for
the doctor merely opened the door, looked in, and went out without
taking his hand from off the knob. It was none of my business, I know,
and may be thought impertinent, but, as he closed the door, I could not
help calling him back to ask him whether he held the same inquisition
upon the fair sex; to which he replied with a melancholy upturning of
the eyes that in the good old days of Russian barbarism this had been
part of his duties, but that the march of improvement had invaded his
rights, and given this portion of his professional duties to a _sage
femme_.

All our effects were then taken to another chamber, and arranged on
lines, each person superintending the disposition of his own, so as to
prevent all confusion, and left there to be fumigated with sulphuric
acid for twenty-four hours. So particular were they in fumigating
everything susceptible of infection, that I was obliged to leave there
a black riband which I wore round my neck as a guard to my watch. Toward
evening the principal director, one of the most gentlemanly men I ever
met, came round, and with many apologies and regrets for his inability
to receive us better, requested us to call upon him freely for anything
we might want. Not knowing any of us personally, he did me the honour to
say that he understood there was an American in the party, who had been
particularly recommended to him by a Russian officer and fellow-passenger.
Afterward came the commissary, or chief of the department, and repeated
the same compliments, and left us with an exalted opinion of Russian
politeness. I had heard horrible accounts of the rough treatment of
travellers in Russia, and I made a note at the time, lest after
vexations should make me forget it, that I had received more politeness
and civility from these northern barbarians, as they are called by the
people of the south of Europe, than I ever found amid their boasted
civilization.

Having still an hour before dark, I strolled out, followed by my
guardiano, to take a more particular survey of our prison. In a
gravel walk lined with acacias, immediately before the door of my little
courtyard, I came suddenly upon a lady of about eighteen, whose dark
hair and eyes I at once recognised as Grecian, leading by the hand a
little child. I am sure my face brightened at the first glimpse of this
vision which promised to shine upon us in our solitude; and perhaps my
satisfaction was made too manifest by my involuntarily moving toward
her. But my presumption received a severe and mortifying check; for
though at first she merely crossed to the other side of the walk, she
soon forgot all ceremony, and, fairly dragging the child after her, ran
over the grass to another walk to avoid me; my mortification, however,
was but temporary; for though, in the first impulse of delight and
admiration, I had forgotten time, place, and circumstance, the repulse I
had received made me turn to myself, and I was glad to find an excuse
for the lady's flight in the flannel gown and long cap and slippers,
which marked me as having just entered upon my season of purification.

I was soon initiated into the routine of lazaretto ceremonies and
restrictions. By touching a quarantine patient, both parties are
subjected to the longest term of either; so that if a person, on the
last day of his term, should come in contact with another just entered,
he would lose all the benefit of his days of purification, and be
obliged to wait the full term of the latter. I have seen, in various
situations in life, a system of operations called keeping people at a
distance, but I never saw it so effectually practised as in quarantine.
For this night, at least, I had full range. I walked where I pleased,
and was very sure that every one would keep out of my way. During the
whole time, however, I could not help treasuring up the precipitate
flight of the young lady; and I afterward told her, and, I hope, with
the true spirit of one ready to return good for evil, that if she had
been in my place, and the days of my purification had been almost ended,
in spite of plague and pestilence she might have rushed into my arms
without my offering the least impediment.

In making the tour of the grounds, I had already an opportunity of
observing the relation in which men stand to each other in Russia. When
an officer spoke to a soldier, the latter stood motionless as a statue,
with his head uncovered during the whole of the conference; and when a
soldier on guard saw an officer, no matter at what distance, he
presented arms, and remained in that position until the officer was out
of sight. Returning, I passed a grating, through which I saw our
deck passengers, forty or fifty in number, including the Jewish
pilgrims, miserable, dirty-looking objects, turned in together for
fourteen days, to eat, drink, and sleep as best they might, like brutes.
With a high idea of the politeness of the Russians toward the rich and
great, or those whom they believed to be so, and with a strong
impression already received confirming the accounts of the degraded
condition of the lower classes, I returned to my room, and, with a
Frenchman and a Greek for my room-mates, my window opening upon the
Black Sea, I spent my first night in quarantine.

CHAPTER XIV.

The Guardiano.--One too many.--An Excess of Kindness.--The last Day
of Quarantine.--Mr. Baguet.--Rise of Odessa.--City-making.--Count
Woronzow.--A Gentleman Farmer.--An American Russian.

I SHALL pass over briefly the whole of our _pratique_. The next morning
I succeeded in getting a room to myself. A guardiano was assigned to
each room, who took his place in the antechamber, and was always in
attendance. These guardianos are old soldiers, entitled by the rules of
the establishment to so much a day; but, as they always expect a
gratuity, their attention and services are regulated by that
expectation. I was exceedingly fortunate in mine; he was always in the
antechamber, cleaning his musket, mending his clothes, or stretched on a
mattress looking at the wall; and, whenever I came through with my hat
on, without a word he put on his belt and followed me; and very soon,
instead of regarding him as an encumbrance, I became accustomed to him,
and it was a satisfaction to have him with me. Sometimes, in walking for
exercise, I moved so briskly that it tired him to keep up with me; and
then I selected a walk where he could sit down and keep his eye upon me,
while I walked backward and forward before him. Besides this, he kept my
room in order, set my table, carried my notes, brushed my clothes, and
took better care of me than any servant I ever had.

Our party consisted of eight, and being subjected to the same
quarantine, and supposed to have the same quantum of infection, we were
allowed to visit each other; and every afternoon we met in the yard,
walked an hour or two, took tea together, and returned to our own
rooms, where our guardianos mounted guard in the antechamber; our gates
were locked up, and a soldier walked outside as sentinel. I was
particularly intimate with the Russian officer, whom I found one of the
most gentlemanly, best educated, and most amiable men I ever met. He had
served and been wounded in the campaign against Poland; had with him two
soldiers, his own serfs, who had served under him in that campaign, and
had accompanied him in his tour in Egypt and Syria. He gave me his
address at St. Petersburgh and promised me the full benefit of his
acquaintance there. I have before spoken of the three Englishmen. Two of
them I had met at Corfu; the third joined them at Smyrna, and added
another proof to the well-established maxim that three spoil company;
for I soon found that they had got together by the ears; and the
new-comer having connected himself with one of the others, they were
anxious to get rid of the third. Many causes of offence existed between
them; and though they continued to room together, they were merely
waiting till the end of our pratique for an opportunity to separate. One
morning the one who was about being thrown off came to my room, and told
me that he did not care about going to the Crimea, and proposed
accompanying me. This suited me very well; it was a long and expensive
journey, and would cost a mere fraction more for two than for one; and
when the breach was widened past all possibility of being healed, the
cast-off and myself agreed to travel together. I saw much of the
secretary of legation, and also of the Greek and Frenchman, my
room-mates for the first night. Indeed, I think I may say that I was an
object of special interest to all our party. I was unwell, and my
companions overwhelmed me with prescriptions and advice; they brought
in their medicine chests; one assuring me that he had been cured by
this, another by that, and each wanted me to swallow his own favourite
medicine, interlarding their advice with anecdotes of whole sets of
passengers who had been detained, some forty, some fifty, and some sixty
days, by the accidental sickness of one. I did all I could for them,
always having regard to the circumstance that it was not of such vital
importance to me, at least, to hold out fourteen days if I broke down on
the fifteenth. In a few days the doctor, in one of his rounds, told me
he understood I was unwell, and I confessed to him the reason of my
withholding the fact, and took his prescriptions so well, that, at
parting, he gave me a letter to a friend in Chioff, and to his brother,
a distinguished professor in the university at St. Petersburgh.

We had a restaurant in the lazaretto, with a new bill of fare every day;
not first-rate, perhaps, but good enough. I had sent a letter of
introduction to Mr. Baguet, the Spanish consul, also to a German, the
brother of a missionary at Constantinople, and a note to Mr. Ralli, the
American consul, and had frequent visits from them, and long talks at
the parlatoria through the grating. The German was a knowing one, and
came often; he had a smattering of English, and would talk in that
language, as I thought, in compliment to me; but the last time he came
he thanked me kindly, and told me he had improved more in his English
than by a year's study. When I got out he never came near me.

Sunday, June seventh, was our last day in quarantine. We had counted the
days anxiously; and though our time had passed as agreeably as, under
the circumstances, it could pass, we were in high spirits at the
prospect of our liberation. To the last, the attention and civility of
the officers of the yard continued unremitted. Every morning regularly
the director knocked at each gate to inquire how we had passed the
night, and whether he could do anything for us; then the doctor, to
inquire into our corporeal condition; and every two or three days,
toward evening, the director, with the same decoration on the lapel of
his coat, and at the same hour, inquired whether we had any complaints
to make of want of attendance or improper treatment.

Our last day in the lazaretto is not to be forgotten. We kept as clear
of the rest of the inmates as if they had been pickpockets, though once
I was thrown into a cold sweat by an act of forgetfulness. A child fell
down before me; I sprang forward to pick him up, and should infallibly
have been fixed for ten days longer if my guardiano had not caught me.
Lingering for the last time on the walk overlooking the Black Sea, I saw
a vessel coming up under full sail, bearing, as I thought, the American
flag. My heart almost bounded at seeing the stars and stripes on the
Black Sea; but I was deceived; and almost dejected with the
disappointment, called my guardiano, and returned for the last time to
my room.

The next morning we waited in our rooms till the doctor paid his final
visit, and soon after we all gathered before the door of the directory,
ready to sally forth. Every one who has made a European voyage knows the
metamorphosis in the appearance of the passengers on the day of landing.
It was much the same with us; we had no more slipshod, long-bearded
companions, but all were clean shirted and shaved becomingly, except our
old Jew and his party, who probably had not changed a garment or washed
their faces since the first day in quarantine, nor perhaps for many
years before. They were people from whom, under any circumstances, one
would be apt to keep at a respectful distance; and to the last they
carried everything before them.

We had still another vexatious process in passing our luggage through
the custom-house. We had handed in a list of all our effects the night
before, in which I intentionally omitted to mention Byron's poems, these
being prohibited in Russia. He had been my companion in Italy and
Greece, and I was loath to part with him; so I put the book under my
arm, threw my cloak over me, and walked out unmolested. Outside the gate
there was a general shaking of hands; the director, whom we had seen
every day at a distance, was the first to greet us, and Mr. Baguet, the
brother of the Spanish consul, who was waiting to receive me, welcomed
me to Russia. With sincere regret I bade good-by to my old soldier,
mounted a drosky, and in ten minutes was deposited in a hotel, in size
and appearance equal to the best in Paris. It was a pleasure once more
to get into a wheel-carriage; I had not seen one since I left Italy,
except the old hack I mentioned at Argos, and the arabas at
Constantinople. It was a pleasure, too, to see hats, coats, and
pantaloons. Early associations will cling to a man; and, in spite of a
transient admiration for the dashing costume of the Greek and Turk, I
warmed to the ungraceful covering of civilized man, even to the long
surtout and bell-crowned hat of the Russian marchand; and, more than
all, I was attracted by an appearance of life and energy particularly
striking after coming from among the dead-and-alive Turks.

While in quarantine I had received an invitation to dine with Mr.
Baguet, and had barely time to make one tour of the city in a drosky
before it was necessary to dress for dinner. Mr. Baguet was a bachelor
of about forty, living in pleasant apartments, in an unpretending and
gentlemanly style. As in all the ports of the Levant, except where there
are ambassadors, the consuls are the nobility of the place. Several of
them were present; and the European consuls in those places are a
different class of men from ours, as they are paid by salaries from
their respective governments, while ours, who receive no pay, are
generally natives of the place, who serve for the honour or some other
accidental advantage. We had, therefore, the best society in Odessa at
Mr. Baguet's, the American consul not being present, which, by-the-way,
I do not mean in a disrespectful sense, as Mr. Ralli seemed every way
deserving of all the benefits that the station gives.

In the evening the consul and myself took two or three turns on the
boulevards, and at about eleven I returned to my hotel. After what I
have said of this establishment, the reader will be surprised to learn
that, when I went to my room, I found there a bedstead, but no bed or
bedclothes. I supposed it was neglect, and ordered one to be prepared;
but, to my surprise, was told that there were no beds in the hotel. It
was kept exclusively for the rich seigneurs who always carry their own
beds with them. Luckily, the bedstead was not corded, but contained a
bottom of plain slabs of wood, about six or eight inches wide, and the
same distance apart, laid crosswise, so that lengthwise there was no
danger of falling through; and wrapping myself in my cloak, and putting
my carpet-bag under my head, I went to sleep.

Before breakfast the next morning I had learned the topography of
Odessa. To an American Russia is an interesting country. True, it is not
classic ground; but as for me, who had now travelled over the faded and
wornout kingdoms of the Old World, I was quite ready for something new.
Like our own, Russia is a new country, and in many respects resembles
ours. It is true that we began life differently. Russia has worked her
way to civilization from a state of absolute barbarism, while we sprang
into being with the advantage of all the lights of the Old World. Still
there are many subjects of comparison, and even of emulation, between
us; and nowhere in all Russia is there a more proper subject to begin
with than my first landing-place.

Odessa is situated in a small bay between the mouths of the Dnieper and
Dniester. Forty years ago it consisted of a few miserable fishermen's
huts on the shores of the Black Sea. In 1796 the Empress Catharine
resolved to built a city there; and the Turks being driven from the
dominion of the Black Sea, it became a place of resort and speculation
for the English, Austrians, Neapolitans, Dutch, Ragusans, and Greeks of
the Ionian republic. In eighteen hundred and two, two hundred and
eighty vessels arrived from Constantinople and the Mediterranean; and
the Duke de Richelieu, being appointed governor-general by Alexander,
laid out a city upon a gigantic scale, which, though at first its growth
was not commensurate with his expectations, now contains sixty thousand
inhabitants, and bids fair to realize the extravagant calculations of
its founder. Mr. Baguet and the gentlemen whom I met at his table were
of opinion that it is destined to be the greatest commercial city in
Russia, as the long winters and the closing of the Baltic with ice must
ever be a great disadvantage to St. Petersburgh; and the interior of the
country can as well be supplied from Odessa as from the northern
capital.

There is no country where cities have sprung up so fast and increased so
rapidly as in ours; and, altogether, perhaps nothing in the world can be
compared with our Buffalo, Rochester, Cincinnati, &c. But Odessa has
grown faster than any of these, and has nothing of the appearance of one
of our new cities. We are both young, and both marching with gigantic
strides to greatness, but we move by different roads; and the whole face
of the country, from the new city on the borders of the Black Sea to the
steppes of Siberia, shows a different order of government and a
different constitution of society. With us, a few individuals cut down
the trees of the forest, or settle themselves by the banks of a stream,
where they happen to find some local advantages, and build houses suited
to their necessities; others come and join them; and, by degrees, the
little settlement becomes a large city. But here a gigantic government,
endowed almost with creative powers, says, "Let there be a city," and
immediately commences the erection of large buildings. The rich
seigneurs follow the lead of government, and build hotels to let out in
apartments. The theatre, casino, and exchange at Odessa are perhaps
superior to any buildings in the United States. The city is situated on
an elevation about a hundred feet above the sea; a promenade three
quarters of a mile long, terminated at one end by the exchange, and at
the other by the palace of the governor, is laid out in front along the
margin of the sea, bounded on one side by an abrupt precipice, and
adorned with trees, shrubs, flowers, statues, and busts, like the garden
of the Tuileries, the Borghese Villa, or the Villa Recali at Naples. On
the other side is a long range of hotels built of stone, running the
whole length of the boulevards, some of them with façades after the best
models in Italy. A broad street runs through the centre of the city,
terminating with a semicircular enlargement at the boulevards, and in
the centre of this stands a large equestrian statue erected to the Duke
de Richelieu; and parallel and at right angles are wide streets lined
with large buildings, according to the most approved plans of modern
architecture. The custom which the people have of taking apartments in
hotels causes the erection of large buildings, which add much to the
general appearance of the city; while with us, the universal disposition
of every man to have a house to himself, conduces to the building of
small houses, and, consequently, detracts from general effect. The city,
as yet, is not generally paved, and is, consequently, so dusty, that
every man is obliged to wear a light cloak to save his dress.
Paving-stone is brought from Trieste and Malta, and is very expensive.

About two o'clock Mr. Ralli, our consul, called upon me. Mr. Ralli is a
Greek of Scio. He left his native island when a boy; has visited every
port in Europe as a merchant, and lived for the last eight years in
Odessa. He has several brothers in England, Trieste, and some of the
Greek islands, and all are connected in business. When Mr. Rhind, who
negotiated our treaty with the Porte, left Odessa, he authorized Mr.
Ralli to transact whatever consular business might be required, and on
his recommendation Mr. Ralli afterward received a regular appointment as
consul. Mr. Rhind, by-the-way, expected a great trade from opening the
Black Sea to American bottoms; but he was wrong in his anticipations,
and there have been but two American vessels there since the treaty. Mr.
Ralli is rich and respected, being vice-president of the commercial
board, and very proud of the honour of the American consulate, as it
gives him a position among the dignitaries of the place, enables him to
wear a uniform and sword on public occasions, and yields him other
privileges which are gratifying, at least, if not intrinsically
valuable.

No traveller can pass through Odessa without having to acknowledge the
politeness of Count Woronzow, the governor of the Crimea, one of the
richest seigneurs in Russia, and one of the pillars of the throne. At
the suggestion of Mr. Ralli, I accompanied him to the palace and was
presented. The palace is a magnificent building, and the interior
exhibits a combination of wealth and taste. The walls are hung with
Italian paintings, and, for interior ornaments and finish, the palace is
far superior to those in Italy; the knobs of the doors are of amber, and
the doors of the dining-room from the old imperial palace at St.
Petersburgh. The count is a military-looking man of about fifty, six
feet high, with sallow complexion and gray hair. His father married an
English lady of the Sidney family, and his sister married the Earl of
Pembroke. He is a soldier in bearing and appearance, held a high rank
during the French invasion of Russia, and distinguished himself
particularly at Borodino; in rank and power he is the fourth military
officer in the empire. He possesses immense wealth in all parts of
Russia, particularly in the Crimea; and his wife's mother, after
Demidoff and Scheremetieff, is the richest subject in the whole empire.
He speaks English remarkably well, and, after a few commonplaces, with
his characteristic politeness to strangers, invited me to dine at the
palace the next day. I was obliged to decline, and he himself suggested
the reason, that probably I was engaged with my countryman, Mr. Sontag
(of whom more anon), whom the count referred to as his old friend,
adding that he would not interfere with the pleasure of a meeting
between two countrymen so far from home, and asked me for the day after,
or any other day I pleased. I apologized on the ground of my intended
departure, and took my leave.

My proposed travelling companion had committed to me the whole
arrangements for our journey, or, more properly, had given me the whole
trouble of making them; and, accompanied by one of Mr. Ralli's clerks, I
visited all the carriage repositories to purchase a vehicle, after which
I accompanied Mr. Ralli to his country-house to dine. He occupied a
pretty little place a few versts from Odessa, with a large fruit and
ornamental garden. Mr. Ralli's lady is also a native of Greece, with
much of the cleverness and _spirituelle_ character of the educated
Greeks. One of her _bons mots_ current in Odessa is, that her husband is
consul for the other world. A young Italian, with a very pretty wife,
dined with us, and, after dinner and a stroll through the garden, we
walked over to Mr. Perseani's, the father of our Russian secretary;
another walk in the garden with a party of ladies, tea, and I got back
to Odessa in time for a walk on the boulevards and the opera.

Before my attention was turned to Odessa, I should as soon have thought
of an opera-house at Chicago as there; but I already found, what
impressed itself more forcibly upon me at every step, that Russia is a
country of anomalies. The new city on the Black Sea contains many French
and Italian residents, who are willing to give all that is not necessary
for food and clothing for the opera; the Russians themselves are
passionately fond of musical and theatrical entertainments, and
government makes up all deficiencies. The interior of the theatre
corresponds with the beauty of its exterior. All the decorations are in
good taste, and the Corinthian columns, running from the foot to the
top, particularly beautiful. The opera was the Barber of Seville; the
company in _full_ undress, and so barbarous as to pay attention to the
performance. I came out at about ten o'clock, and, after a turn or two
on the boulevards, took an icecream at the café of the Hotel de
Petersbourgh. This hotel is beautifully situated on one corner of the
main street, fronting the boulevards, and opposite the statue of the
Duke de Richelieu; and looking from the window of the café, furnished
and fitted up in a style superior to most in Paris, upon the crowd still
thronging the boulevards, I could hardly believe that I was really on
the borders of the Black Sea.

Having purchased a carriage and made all my arrangements for starting, I
expected to pass this day with an unusual degree of satisfaction, and I
was not disappointed. I have mentioned incidentally the name of a
countryman resident in Odessa; and, being so far from home, I felt a
yearning toward an American. In France or Italy I seldom had this
feeling, for there Americans congregate in crowds; but in Greece and
Turkey I always rejoiced to meet a compatriot; and when, on my arrival
at Odessa, before going into the lazaretto, the captain told me that
there was an American residing there, high in character and office, who
had been twenty years in Russia, I requested him to present my
compliments, and say that, if he had not forgotten his fatherland, a
countryman languishing in the lazaretto would be happy to see him
through the gratings of his prison-house. I afterward regretted having
sent this message, as I heard from other sources that he was a
prominent man, and during the whole term of my quarantine I never heard
from him personally. I was most agreeably disappointed, however, when,
on the first day of my release, I met him at dinner at the Spanish
consul's. He had been to the Crimea with Count Woronzow; had only
returned that morning, and had never heard of my being there until
invited to meet me at dinner. I had wronged him by my distrust; for,
though twenty years an exile, his heart beat as true as when he left our
shores. Who can shake off the feeling that binds him to his native land?
Not hardships nor disgrace at home; not favour nor success abroad; not
even time, can drive from his mind the land of his birth or the friends
of his youthful days.

General Sontag was a native of Philadelphia; had been in our navy, and
served as sailing-master on board the Wasp; became dissatisfied from
some cause which he did not mention, left our navy, entered the Russian,
and came round to the Black Sea as captain of a frigate; was transferred
to the land service, and, in the campaign of 1814, entered Paris with
the allied armies as colonel of a regiment. In this campaign he formed a
friendship with Count Woronzow, which exists in full force at this day.
He left the army with the rank of brigadier-general. By the influence of
Count Woronzow, he was appointed inspector of the port of Odessa, in
which office he stood next in rank to the Governor of the Crimea, and,
in fact, on one occasion, during the absence of Count Woronzow, lived in
the palace and acted as governor for eight months. He married a lady of
rank, with an estate and several hundred slaves at Moscow; wears two or
three ribands at his buttonhole, badges of different orders; has gone
through the routine of offices and honours up to the grade of grand
counsellor of the empire; and a letter addressed to him under the title
of "his excellency" will come to the right hands. He was then living at
his country place, about eight versts from Odessa, and asked me to go
out and pass the next day with him. I was strongly tempted, but, in
order that I might have the full benefit of it, postponed the pleasure
until I had completed my arrangements for travelling. The next day
General Sontag called upon me, but I did not see him; and this morning,
accompanied by Mr. Baguet the younger, I rode out to his place. The land
about Odessa is a dead level, the road was excessively dry, and we were
begrimed with dust when we arrived. General Sontag was waiting for us,
and, in the true spirit of an American farmer at home, proposed taking
us over his grounds. His farm is his hobby; it contains about six
hundred acres, and we walked all over it. His crop was wheat, and,
although I am no great judge of these matters, I think I never saw
finer. He showed me a field of very good wheat, which had not been sowed
in three years, but produced by the fallen seed of the previous crops.
We compared it with our Genesee wheat, and to me it was an interesting
circumstance to find an American cultivating land on the Black Sea, and
comparing it with the products of our Genesee flats, with which he was
perfectly familiar.

One thing particularly struck me, though, as an American, perhaps I
ought not to have been so sensitive. A large number of men were at work
in the field, and they were all slaves. Such is the force of education
and habit, that I have seen hundreds of black slaves without a
sensation; but it struck rudely upon me to see white men slaves to an
American, and he one whose father had been a soldier of the revolution,
and had fought to sustain the great principle that "all men are by
nature free and equal." Mr. Sontag told me that he valued his farm at
about six thousand dollars, on which he could live well, have a bottle
of Crimea wine, and another every day for a friend, and lay up one
thousand dollars a year; but I afterward heard that he was a complete
enthusiast on the subject of his farm; a bad manager, and that he really
knew nothing of its expense or profit.

Returning to the house, we found Madame Sontag ready to receive us. She
is an authoress of great literary reputation, and of such character
that, while the emperor was prosecuting the Turkish war in person, and
the empress remained at Odessa, the young archduchesses were placed
under her charge. At dinner she talked with much interest of America,
and expressed a hope, though not much expectation, of one day visiting
it. But General Sontag himself, surrounded as he is by Russian
connexions, is all American. Pointing to the riband on his buttonhole,
he said he was entitled to one order which he should value above all
others; that his father had been a soldier of the revolution, and member
of the Cincinnati Society, and that in Russia the decoration of that
order would be to him the proudest badge of honour that an American
could wear. After dining we retired into a little room fitted up as a
library, which he calls America, furnished with all the standard
American books, Irving, Paulding, Cooper, &c., engravings of
distinguished Americans, maps, charts, canal and railroad reports, &c.;
and his daughter, a lovely little girl and only child, has been taught
to speak her father's tongue and love her father's land. In honour of me
she played on the piano "Hail Columbia" and "Yankee Doodle," and the
day wore away too soon. We took tea on the piazza, and at parting I
received from him a letter to his agent on his estate near Moscow, and
from Madame Sontag one which carried me into the imperial household,
being directed to Monsieur l'Intendant du Prince héritiere,
Petersbourgh. A few weeks ago I received from him a letter, in which he
says, "the visit of one of my countrymen is so great a treat, that I can
assure you, you are never forgotten by any one of my little family; and
when my daughter wishes to make me smile, she is sure to succeed if she
sits down to her piano and plays 'Hail Columbia' or 'Yankee Doodle;'
this brings to mind Mr. ----, Mr. ----, Mr. ----, and Mr. ----, who have
passed through this city; to me alone it brings to mind my country,
parents, friends, youth, and a world of things and ideas past, never to
return. Should any of our countrymen be coming this way, do not forget
to inform them that in Odessa lives one who will be glad to see them;"
and I say now to any of my countrymen whom chance may throw upon the
shores of the Black Sea, that if he would receive so far from home the
welcome of a true-hearted American, General Sontag will be glad to
render it.

It was still early in the evening when I returned to the city. It was
moonlight, and I walked immediately to the boulevards. I have not spoken
as I ought to have done of this beautiful promenade, on which I walked
every evening under the light of a splendid moon. The boulevards are
bounded on one side by the precipitous shore of the sea; are three
quarters of a mile in length, with rows of trees on each side, gravel
walks and statues, and terminated at one end by the exchange, and at the
other by the palace of Count Woronzow. At this season of the year it
was the promenade of all the beauty and fashion of Odessa, from an hour
or two before dark until midnight. This evening the moon was brighter,
and the crowd was greater and gayer than usual. The great number of
officers, with their dashing uniforms, the clashing of their swords, and
rattling of their spurs, added to the effect; and woman never looks so
interesting as when leaning on the arm of a soldier. Even in Italy or
Greece I have seldom seen a finer moonlight scene than the columns of
the exchange through the vista of trees lining the boulevards. I
expected to leave the next day, and I lingered till a late hour. I
strolled up and down the promenade, alone among thousands. I sat down
upon a bench, and looked for the last time on the Black Sea, the stormy
Euxine, quiet in the moonbeams, and glittering like a lake of burnished
silver. By degrees the gay throng disappeared; one after another, party
after party withdrew; a few straggling couples, seeming all the world to
each other, still lingered, like me, unable to tear themselves away. It
was the hour and the place for poetry and feeling. A young officer and a
lady were the last to leave; they passed by me, but did not notice me;
they had lost all outward perceptions; and as, in passing for the last
time, she raised her head for a moment, and the moon shone full upon her
face, I saw there an expression that spoke of heaven. I followed them as
they went out, murmured involuntarily "Happy dog," whistled "Heighho,
says Thimble," and went to my hotel to bed.

END OF VOL. I.

List of Corrections:

p. iii, Preface: "Egypt, Arabia Petræ, and the Holy Land." was changed
to "Egypt, Arabia Petræa, and the Holy Land."

p. 14: "that we coud" was changed to "that we could."

p. 87: "friends in this county" was changed to "friends in this
country."

p. 90: "but we connot" was changed to "but we cannot."

p. 99: "Gate of the Lyons" was changed to "Gate of the Lions" as in
the rest of the book.

p. 130: "to favour such a suiter" was changed to "to favour such a
suitor."

p. 174: "it is confirmed by poetry, hat" was changed to "it is
confirmed by poetry, that."

p. 183: "the jackall's cry was heard" was changed to "the jackal's cry
was heard."

p. 184: "cartainly whip them" was changed to "certainly whip them."

p. 233: "threade our way" was changed to "threaded our way."

p. 234: "Cachmere shawls" was changed to "Cashmere shawls."

p. 244: "the Phase, the Dneiper, and the Danube" was changed to "the
Phase, the Dnieper, and the Danube."

p. 258: "the mouths of the Dneiper and Dneister" was changed to "the
mouths of the Dnieper and Dniester."

p. 268: "quiet in the moonbeans" was changed to "quiet in the
moonbeams."

Errata:

The summary in the table of contents is not always consistent with the
summary at the beginning of each chapter. The original has been
retained.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland, Vol. I (of 2)" ***

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