CHAPTER V.

THE ISLES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN.

Remember, as the great Dr. Johnson remarks, how life consists not of a series of illustrious actions or elegant enjoyments; the greater part of our time passes in compliance with necessities in the performance of daily duties, in the procurement of petty pleasures; and we are well or ill at ease as the main stream of life glides on smoothly, or is ruffled by small obstacles and frequent interruptions. This is emphatically true as regards life at sea. But as we steam along we see much to attract and excite in the isles of the Mediterranean, that diversify the travel all the way from Marseilles to Jaffa. It is said that there are eighty ports in the Mediterranean, and that into all of them Lord Brassey can take his yacht without a pilot. Alas! I am permitted to tarry at none of them.

As we sail out of the Bay of Naples we pass Capri—a rocky island, where there is scarce a yard of level ground—dear to Englishmen and artists. The highest point of Capri is about 1,960 feet above the sea. The traveller will find there several hotels. Roman remains abound, and Tiberius, the drunken and dissolute, had twelve palaces there. There he was in no fear of unwelcomeintrusion, and gave himself up to shameless and unnatural lusts; while his worthy lieutenant, Sejanus, carried on a series of persecutions against all who stood in any relation to the imperial family, or excited the suspicions of the tyrant by freedom of speech, independence of character, or position, or popularity. The famous Blue Grotto of Capri is on the northern side, near the landing. In the great war with France, Sir Hudson Lowe—the same General who had subsequently charge of Bonaparte at St. Helena—had to surrender the island to Murat, after a fortnight’s siege, and had the mortification of seeing reinforcements arrive just after the treaty was signed. Leaving Capri, the Gulf of Salerno opens; Pæstum, with its temples, lying on the southern bight of the gulf. Then follows the elevated headland of Cape Palinure—named after Palinurus, the pilot of Æneas, whose tomb is marked by a tower on the cliff some eight miles northward, thus fulfilling the Sibyl’s promise in the ‘Æneid,’

‘And Palinurus’ name the place shall bear.’

We next get a peep at the now active volcano of Stromboli, and the Lipari Islands to the northward. On these islands, the Insulæ-Eoliæ, also the Vulcaniæ of the ancients, Æolus held the winds enclosed in caverns, letting them blow and howl as it seemed good in his sight. There, too, Vulcan forged the bolts of Jove.

From Naples we steer for Sicily, once, though only for a short time, prosperous under British rule, when we took possession of it in the name of the King of Naples, after he was driven away from Italy by thesoldiers of France. Garibaldi handed it over to United Italy. Sicily is a country which is almost unknown to tourists, though in his youth Mr. Gladstone visited the island and wrote: ‘After Etna, the temples are the great charm and attraction of Sicily. I do not know whether there is any one, if taken alone, which exceeds in interest and beauty that of Neptune at Pæstum, but they have the advantage of number and variety as well as of interesting position.’ We pass Catania, which had the most celebrated University in Italy. The present town is comparatively new; many of its more ancient remains are covered with lava; among them the theatre, from which it is probable Alcibiades addressed the people inb.c.415. What memories rose up before us as we steamed along the Straits of Messina! It was from Syracuse that St. Paul sailed away to Reggio, on the coast of Italy, and all the parsons on board pull out their Testaments and compare notes. I trow I know more of the Greeks, and Romans, and Carthaginians, who shed so much blood, and waged so many desolating wars in these now peaceful regions. The town was founded by the Greeks nearly 3,000 years ago. All the nations seem at one time to have held Sicily—Romans, Greeks, Moors, Turks, and Normans. There are some of us who can yet remember how Cicero thundered against Verres for his misgovernment of Sicily. It was to Sicily that Æschylus retired to die after Sophocles had borne away the prize from him for his tragedy. The pet of the Athenian mob, the gay and graceful Alcibiades, fought against the Sicilians in vain. At that time they must have been a more intelligent people than they are now. Take, for instance, their appreciation ofEuripides. Of all the poets, writes old Plutarch, he was the man with whom the Sicilians were most in love. From every stranger that landed in their island they gained every small specimen or portion of his works, and communicated it with pleasure to each other. It is said that on one occasion a number of Athenians, upon their return home defeated, went to Euripides and thanked him for teaching their masters what they remembered of his poems; and others were rewarded when they were wandering about after the battle, for singing a few of his verses. Nor is this to be wondered at, since they tell us that when a ship from Cannes, which happened to be pursued by pirates, was going to take shelter in one of their ports, the Sicilians at first refused to receive her. Upon asking the crew whether they knew any of the verses of Euripides, and being answered in the affirmative, they released both them and their vessel. We are a cultured people. The Americans, according to their own ideas, are yet more so. Yet it is evident that the Sicilians were far before us in their admiration of poetic genius. Alas! Pompey the Great, as we still call him, gave the Sicilians a different lesson when he summoned the people of Messina before him, who refused to obey his summons, arguing that they stood excused by an ancient privilege granted them by the Romans. His reply was, and it was worthy of the present Emperor of Germany, ‘Will you never have done citing laws and privileges to men who wear swords?’ Another lesson Sicily teaches us is how much readier the world is to remember its oppressors than its benefactors. We all have a vivid impression of Dionysius, the Tyrant of Syracuse, yet how few of usare familiar with the fame of Dion the Patriot, who was the pupil of Plato when the philosopher dwelt for a time in Syracuse. It is to the credit of the Sicilians that they were a grateful people. When Timoleon died they gave him a public funeral, and instituted games in his honour, ‘as the man who destroyed tyrants, subdued barbarians, repeopled great cities which lay desolate, and restored the Sicilians their laws and privileges.’

Gradually we make our way through the Straits, sailing between Scylla and Charybdis, which for the modern traveller has no terrors. Our last view of Sicily gives us a fine glimpse of Etna, with the crater into which Empedocles threw himself, 400b.c.Men are immortalized as much by their follies as by their virtues. As we onward press we get a glimpse of Candia, with the snowy peaks of Mount Ida, and Gavodo, or Goro, supposed to be the Clauda of St. Paul’s voyage to the westward. What associations rise as we see Cephalonia, Zante, Corfu!—all looking dry and bare in the scorching sun. We manage to make our way, though with some difficulty, through the Canal of Corinth, a work which I fear can never pay, as it is not large enough for the big steamers which now plough these waters. Everywhere islands, or rather rocks, diversify the scene, and every day we have more radiant sunsets and sunrises than you can realize in a Northern clime. To sail on this summer sea is indeed a treat. No wonder old Ulysses loved to wander among these isles, and to leave Penelope to do her knitting and to look after her maids at home. I regret that I cannot have a peep at Crete and Cyprus, the most famous islandsin the Mediterranean, and we pass over the far-famed bay of Salamis almost unconsciously.

The Corinth Canal (From a photograph by Fradelle and Young)

It is not my privilege to sail from one of the historic isles of the Mediterranean to another, nor do I know that in all cases it would be safe. In many cases besides Corsica and Sicily the traveller has to look to his ways. There are brigands to be met with still and as we travelled we heard of a British officer who had just been made captive as he wandered about in search of a day’s shooting. As you may well suppose, I gave the brigands a wide berth. I am quite content with being fleeced by guides and hotel-keepers. When I was in Australia, I was amused to learn thatthe last of the bushrangers had sailed to America to carry on a hotel. I fear that in many parts of the world the two callings have much in common. I believe the British pay no taxes—at any rate, they do not in Jerusalem—and this is one reason why we meet with such swarms of shady Greeks who claim to be British subjects. In this part of the world theCivis Romanus sumof old Palmerston seems to me in danger of being carried a deal too far. Not that I am a Little Englander; I am, in fact, very much the reverse.

Over these waters sailed the hardy mariners of ancient Greece in search of the Golden Fleece, and the brave Theseus, as he went to do battle with the monster Minos, who demanded a yearly tribute of Athenian maids. We all went on deck to have a look at Patmos, where the Apostle John wrote that wondrous dream, the Revelation, and viewed with interest the white convent on the island which still bears his name.

In the Sea of Marmora we pass the Princes Islands, four of which are inhabited. In one of them is the grave of Sir Edward Barton, the first resident British Ambassador in Turkey. He was sent by Queen Elizabeth to the Sultan Mahommed III., and died in 1507. Another of them, Plati, was purchased by Sir H. Bulwer while Ambassador to Constantinople. He built a castle on it, which is now falling into ruins, and later sold the island to the ex-Khedive of Egypt, to whose family it still belongs. Steaming south, we pass Alexandria Troas, which was twice visited by St. Paul. On the first occasion he came down from Mysia and went to Macedonia; on the second, on his return from Greece, he had an interview with a largebody of fellow-workers. It was there he restored Eutychus, who had fallen from an upper window in his sleep.

Next we pass the ancient island of Lesbos, one of the most beautiful in the Ægean Sea. Islands are around us everywhere. There is no end to them. The most thickly populated of them is Chio; another is Cos, of which we see the chief town, the birthplace of Hippocrates, the great physician. Then we pass Rhodes, famous for its renowned knights, who did battle with the ever-advancing Turk, of whom Luther had such fear, and its grand Colossus overthrown and broken in pieces by an earthquake fifty-six years after its erection,b.c.224; and then we leave the lovely Mediterranean at Jaffa, where, according to Greek mythology, Andromeda was chained to the rock and delivered by Perseus, and where the prophet Jonah embarked when he tried to escape the command of God to go and warn Nineveh of its impending fate. Of course I went to the house where St. Peter lived, the dwelling of Simon the tanner, a very dreary, tumbledown old place, which required a good deal of climbing, rather trying in that sultry clime. And here I leave that wonderful Mediterranean over which the navies of all the world in all ages have swept.

‘Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee—Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?Thy waters washed them power while they were free,And many a tyrant since; their shores obeyThe stranger, slave, or savage; their decayHas dried up realms to deserts: not so thou;Unchangeable save to thy wild waves’ play—Time writes no wrinkles on thine azure brow—Such as Creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now.’

ABOUT ATHENS.

For the first time in my life, I realize the fact that the Mediterranean is a lake—calm and blue as the eyes we love. What astonishes me is the absence of life in these waters. All is barren as that dreary sail across the Indian Ocean from Ceylon to West Australia. Really, if it were not for the photographers, who are always at work on board, we should be rather dull. It is really wonderful the number of amateur photographers who have come out in theMidnight Sun, and are daily having recourse to their art; and sometimes the consequences are ludicrous. For instance, we have a considerable number of respectable married people on board. Amongst them are a young couple whose experience of matrimonial felicity has been, I suspect, somewhat of the shortest. One morning they were ‘far from the madding crowd,’ indulging in little familiarities, such as leaning on one another’s shoulders—quite proper, as we must all admit, but rather suited for private than public life. Well, a photographer had his eye on them, and straightway made them his victims. There they were, large and fully recognisable. His praiseworthyattempt was greeted with a roar of laughter, of which the victims, far away (the artist was on the upper deck), had not the remotest idea. Let me add the moral: let me beg the newly-married ones to beware of the photographers. More numerous than the photographers are the ladies and gentlemen who spend their mornings in writing their diaries—if with a view to publication, a sad look-out.

In due time we reach Attica, and are landed at the Piræus, which is busy now as when Themistocles planned the harbour and Pericles planted its walls, five miles in length. The town has quite a modern look; nothing of its ancient glory remains. Its modern history dates from 1834. A modern lighthouse marks the site of the tomb of Themistocles. A railway, made in 1869, now connects the Piræus with Athens, and it grows apace. In old times there was rarely to be seen any boat in the harbour. In 1871 the population was only 11,000; in 1890 it had grown to 36,000, About 6,000 vessels of over two and a half millions of tonnage, one half of which is in Greek bottoms, enter the harbour annually. As a town, it consists chiefly of commercial buildings and unpretending private residences. It has, however, an arsenal, a military and naval school, several handsome churches for the orthodox members of the Greek Church, an interesting museum of antiquities, and a gymnasium. Trains run to Athens through the whole day until midnight. We land in a homely quarter of the town. ‘It is in the spring,’ writes Edmond About, ‘one sees Attica in her glory, when the air is so clear and transparent that it seems as if one had only to put forth one’s hand to touch the furthest mountains; whenit carries sounds so faithfully that one can hear the bleating of flocks half a mile away, and the cries of great eagles, which are lost to sight in the immensity of the skies.’

I find Athens hot and dusty—a fine white dust, which makes everything look desolate. I get hold of a plan of Athens, showing me how to make the most of six days, but as I have not that time to spare, one’s first thoughts turn naturally to the Acropolis, a rocky plateau of crystallized limestone, rising to about 200 feet. Romans, Goths, Byzantines, and Turks have done their best to make Athens a heap of ruins. It was well that Lord Elgin did so much to preserve some of the choicest relics of Athens by bringing them to England and sending them to the British Museum. Had he not done so, they would have been inevitably destroyed by the unspeakable Turk, a fact deeply to be deplored.

One night we had an amusing illustration of the qualification of the fair sex for the right to rule over man. There was a concert in the smoking-room, the finest apartment in the ship. Amongst the performers were some ladies, and a good many were auditors. Suddenly a large rat made its appearance, when all the ladies, shrieking, fled. I may not be equal to the New Woman—of course she is far above me—but, at any rate, I am not afraid to face a rat. Fancy a rat appearing in the House of Commons with a lady speaker on her legs, and a Government of ladies seated gracefully and in the loveliest of toilettes! The result would be appalling and disastrous.

The country through which we passed was quite dried up, and quite prepared me for the tasteless beefand skinny fowl of which I was to partake afterwards at the Hôtel Grand Bretagne, where they charged me two francs for a cigar; and where, when I remonstrated, I was told that the taxes were so high that they could not afford to let me have one for less. There are a great many trees about, but they have all a dwarfed and dried-up appearance. Far off rises the great Acropolis; you may see it from the steps of the hotel, and the ruins on its top. The life of the streets amuses me. It is incessant and ever varying. The soldier is conspicuous, as he is everywhere on the Continent; priests in black robes and peculiar black hats are plentiful, grave and black-bearded, though I am told that in reality they have little hold on the people of Athens. I have been in one of the churches, very dark, and with a lot of ornamentation; and quite a number of people—very old ones—came and crossed themselves, after the Greek fashion, before a picture just inside the door. Ladies are to be seen, few of them with any particular personal charm, but all in the latest fashions of Paris; and there come the girls with pigtails. I see one of the French illustrated newspapers everywhere. Among the daily papers published in Athens are theOra(Hour), thePlinghensia(Regeneration),Neai Ideai(New Idea),Aion(Era),Toia(Morning), andTelegrafui(The Telegram). The most curious people you see are the men from the country, with black waistcoats, white petticoats—I can give them no other name—dark hose, and antique-looking shoes turned up at the toes and decorated—why, I know not—with enormous tufts. The living objects I most pity are the forlorn, half-starved donkeys, loaded fore and aftwith luggage, while in the centre, on his saddle, is seated his hard-hearted proprietor. Some of the shops are fine, but few of the houses are lofty—the most striking being modern buildings, built on the plan to admit as much air as possible, and to exclude the light. But you see no beggars in the streets, and that is a good sign. Greece has, as you know, the most democratic Government of any. The King, who is not very popular, reigns, but does not govern. The real power is in the hands of the Legislative Chamber—there is no Upper House—consisting of 150 members, all paid for their services, and elected by means of universal suffrage and the ballot every four years. The population of Athens is about 160,000, with the addition of 3,000 Armenian refugees who have found there a city of refuge. Education is free and compulsory, reaching from the lowest strata to the University, so that every lad of talent has a chance. If democracy can make a people happy and content and prosperous, the Greeks ought to be content. There must be a good many wealthy men at Athens, however, whom the democracy have wisely spared. It is not right to kill the goose that lays the golden egg, as is desired by some of our Socialists.

Modern Greece, with the exception of America, is the most republican Government in existence; at any rate, it is ahead of England in this respect. We want, or, rather, some people do, who do not know any better, to agitate for payment of members. I object because I have seen the mischief of paid members in all our colonies, and because when I part with my scanty cash I like to have value for my money; and as I know the average M.P., I think he is dear at any price. The menin office are bitterly opposed by the men who languish in the cold shade of Opposition, and that really seems the only line of cleavage. For instance, if a Minister proposes that a certain work should be done by a certain number of horses, the Opposition argue that oxen should be used, and so the battle rages, for the modern Greek, degenerate though he is, is still as fond of talk and windy declamation as any long-winded and ambitious M.P. at home. Ministers, though appointed by the King, are amenable to the Chamber, but under this system we do not hear of the great Parliament, such as we have at home or in Italy or France.

For administrative purposes Greece is divided into sixteen monarchies, governed by municipalities, who alone have the power to levy rates and taxes. These monarchies are divided into eparchies and domarchies, the later under the control of the mayor, elected by the people. Thus in Greece alone, in the Old World, we have government of the people and for the people. For purposes of justice there are local courts; five Courts of Appeal, and a Supreme Court at Athens. In matters of education, again, Greece is far ahead of us. We want to connect the people with the Universities, so that the poorest lad may have his chance. In Greece this result is obtained. Ample provision is made for the elementary schools, leading from the lowest strata of society up to the Universities, free and compulsory—not that the latter provision needs to be enforced, as naturally there is a great desire for education all over the land. The Greek Church is the established one, but any undue zeal on the part of the priest is held in check both by law and the spirit ofreligious toleration. Among her subjects Greece reckons as many as 25,000 Moslems.

Temple Of Victory. (From a photograph by Fradelle and Young)

Passing out of the Piræus, to our right we notice a monument to the memory of one of the wild heroes of Grecian Independence, whose insolent followers were a great trouble to our Lord Byron during his fatal sojourn at Missolonghi. In due time we arrive within sight of the Temple of Theseus and the other wellknown landmarks familiar to the cultivated reader. Nevertheless, the approach to Athens is not very interesting, as we enter through one of its most homely quarters. The principal modern institutions are the Polytechnic School, divided into three branches—the School of Fine Art, the Industrial School, and the Holiday School, where on Sundays and feast-days instruction is given in writing, elementary drawing, etc.; there is also a School of Telegraphy. In the same neighbourhood is also to be found the Academy of Science; next to the Academy is the University, adorned with statues of the famous men who helped to make modern Greece. The classes at the University are practically free, and the number of students attending is generally between 3,000 and 4,000. The library in connection with the University has 100,000 volumes.

It is impossible to do justice to the activity of the life in these parts; there are many steamers in the harbour—I saw two steam away one morning. Naples seems a very sleepy place compared to the Piræus. Little white boats, with leg-of-mutton sails, skim the blue waters of the harbour all day long, and the men are lean and dark, and wonderfully active, a great contrast to our English sailors. Once upon a time, coming from New York, we called off Portland Bill for a pilot. It was midnight, and dark as Erebus, but we all sat up waiting for the pilot, to hear the English news. Suddenly there climbed up the ship’s side, and stood on the deck in the full glare of light, two awful living mountains of flesh, as fat as beer and bacon could make them—a couple of English pilots. We had some skinny American ladies on board, and when they saw these men they uttered quite an appalling shriek.They had never seen such specimens of humanity before. I own I felt really ashamed of my fellow-countrymen, and asked myself why on earth men should make themselves such guys. Happily, in Australia I lost a couple of stone, and I have been mercifully preserved from laying on flesh ever since. Flesh is the great source of human depravity. With Falstaff, I hold the more of it the more frailty.

The Parthenon. (From a photograph by Fradelle and Young)

And now let me return to Athens, the Acropolis of which I see in all its glory, and on which by night lights gleam that you can see in the harbour, crowning the belt of bright lamps which by night glorify the whole front of the town. They show you Mars’ Hill,where Paul preached the unknown God; the porch of the Erechtheum, sacred to the olive-tree, brought to Greece by Athene; and the Parthenon, which still attests the genius of Phidias. Of Athens it may be said:

‘Her shores are those whence many a mighty bardCaught inspiration glorious in their beams;Her hills the same that heroes died to guard,Her vales that fostered Art’s divinest dreams.’

Modern Athens is bright and cheerful, the shops gay and lofty, with well-known Greek names. The latter remark also applies to the streets. The hotels are magnificent. The Hôtel d’Angleterre is well spoken of, and the dragoman Apostoles will be found an intelligent servant, who will arrange for the traveller who is disposed to make an excursion in the Morea for food, lodging, mules or horses at a reasonable rate. The Hôtel Grand Bretagne, just opposite the palace—and a far finer building to look at—is about as good a hotel as I was ever in. The rooms seem awfully dark as you enter from the glare of the ever-shining sun, but the rooms are lofty, well ventilated, and everywhere you have marble floors and marble columns, and the feeding is good, considering what a parched-up land Greece is, and how dried-up its beef and skinny its poultry. I have seen cheaper hotels in Athens, such as the Hôtel des Iles Ionienic, the proprietor of which, a Greek from Corfu, strongly recommended it to me; but on the whole, in such a place as Athens, I should think it preferable to pay a little more for the comfort of a first-class hotel, even though it may make one indifferent to the ‘Laurels’ or the ‘Cedars’ of his own native land.

How to live rationally is an art the majority of Englishmen have not yet acquired. I leave Athens with regret; its people are all industrious. At any rate, there are no beggars in its streets; and if this be the result of its democratic Government, so much the better for the coming democracy, which, whether we like it or not, is sure to rule at home. Here the Government is popular, and the people are content. Manufactures are almost unknown. They have a woollen factory at Athens, and a cotton-mill in the Piræus, and there must be a busy agricultural population, as a good deal of the land between the Piræus and the capital is laid out in market-gardens. I am troubled as I think of our great cities, with their vices and slums. I hold, with the poet, God made the country and man the town.

It is a chequered history, that of Athens. Once it was occupied by the Goths. The Romans fortified it; but the ancient walls, which had been strengthened by Sylla, were unequal to its defence, and the barbarians became masters of the noble seats of the Muses and the Arts. Zosimus tells us that the walls of Athens were guarded by the goddess Minerva, with her formidable ægis, and by the angry phantom of Achilles, and that the conqueror was dismayed by the presence of the hostile gods of Greece. Yet, nevertheless, Alaric a second time mastered the city by means of his barbarian troops. It is wonderful that any remains of the Athens of its prime exist. As it is, it requires a good deal of enthusiasm to ‘do’ its ruins, with which photography has long made the world familiar. The glory of the Parthenon, however, remains. Gibbon tells us in the sack of Athens the Goths had collectedall the libraries, and were about to set fire to them, when one of the chiefs, of more refined policy than his brethren, dissuaded them from the design by the profound observation that as long as the Greeks were exercised in the study of books they would never apply themselves to the exercise of arms. But, as Gibbon writes, the Gothic arms were less fatal to the schools of Athens than the establishment of a new religion, whose masters resolved every question into an article of faith, and condemned the infidel to eternal flames. For centuries Athens had flourished by means of her schools. After the settlement of the Roman Empire, it was filled with scholars from every part of the known world, even including students from Britain. In the suburbs of the city tradition still lingered of the Academy of the Platonists, the Lycæum of the Peripatetics, the Portico of the Stoics, and the Garden of Epicurus. The Attic schools of rhetoric and philosophy maintained their reputation from the Peloponnesian war to the reign of Justinian. It was he who suppressed the school which had given so many sages to mankind, and whose influences have quickened and invigorated the human intellect ever since. The art of oratory may soon be held to be almost a doubtful boon—at any rate, so far as senates and parliaments are concerned. It was not so when the eloquence of Demosthenes

‘shook the arsenal,And fulmined over Greece.’

Some of my fellow-passengers made their way to Eleusis, but they came back disappointed, and covered with dust. It was enough for me to study the life of the streets—full of soldiers and black-robed priests.

The traveller who, remembering the long period of Turkish sway, counts on receiving an Oriental impression from the aspect of Athens is doomed to disappointment. Even the national garb is fast disappearing. It may still be worn by a few elderly Athenians. These, and a peasant here and there selling milk or cheese, recall the day when their dress was the national one. The wide blue trousers of the Ægean islanders are not less rare, nor is there much chance of seeing them at the Piræus, among the craft from the various islands moored along the quays. The uglier and cheaper product of the slop-shop has replaced the picturesque drapery of the olden time.

Sooner or later Athens is sure to become a winter resort not less favoured than any on the Mediterranean, and the permanent home of many foreigners. The opinion thus confidently expressed is strengthened by the fact that few who have lived for some length of time within its gates pass out of them without regret, or fail to re-enter them with pleasure. At any rate, so writes a learned American.

A gentleman has written explaining that Greece is bankrupt because she is so small. He says that out of 5,000,000 Greeks who rose in 1821 against the Turk, less than 1,000,000 were allowed to form part of the Hellenic kingdom. The obvious reply to this is, Why don’t they go and live in Greece if they really want to? Nobody forces them to live elsewhere, and they can hardly be waiting till Constantinople, Asia Minor and Cyprus are added to King George’s kingdom. The truth is that in business Greek would rather not meet Greek; there is more money in meeting somebody else. The rich Greeks will always be found outside Greece.

CONSTANTINOPLE.

I am in Constantinople, founded 658b.c.by Byza, King of Megara, after whom it was called Byzantium. After some hundreds of years it fell into the hands of the Romans, who, like the Scotch, kept everything they could lay their hands on; and then came Constantine the Great, whose mother, some people say, lived in East Anglia, who enlarged and beautified the city, built the Hippodrome (one of the wonders of the place), and would have made it the capital of his enormous empire. No one can blame the Emperor for preferring Constantinople to Rome.

The city soon became worthy to be the seat of empire. It commanded from its seven hills the opposite shores of Asia and Europe. The climate was healthy, the soil fertile, and the harbour capacious and secure. The Bosphorus and the Hellespont were its two gates, which could always be shut against a hostile fleet. A hundred years after its foundation, a writer, quoted by Gibbon, describes it as possessing a school of learning, a circus, two theatres, eight public and a hundred and fifty-three private baths, fifty-two porticos, five granaries, eight aqueducts, four spacious halls for the meetingsof the senate and courts of justice, fourteen churches, fourteen palaces, and four thousand three hundred private houses, which from their size and beauty deserved to be distinguished from the multitude of plebeian buildings. Successive wars and invasions impaired the wealth and the magnificence of the city. Of the time of Constantine little remains but the ruins of the Hippodrome. The Christian Church of St. Sophia, which he erected to the Eternal Wisdom, and from the pulpit of which Gregory of Nazianzen and Chrysostom the golden-mouthed thundered, was burnt in the reign of Justinian, and his Church of St. Sophia is now a Turkish mosque. The city was the seat and centre of the controversies originated in Alexandria as to the nature of the Trinity, and its rival factions, the Greens and the Blues, were ever ready to engage in bloody and disastrous conflict. As a rule, a man’s zeal is according to his ignorance, and at Constantinople the meanest mechanics spent most of their time in discussing mysteries of which the acutest intellects can never even form an adequate idea, and which no human creed can properly define and express. The Crusaders, who knew little of these matters, seem to have been quite awestruck when they made their way to Constantinople. ‘That such a city could be in the world,’ writes one of the old chroniclers, ‘they had never conceived, and they were never weary of staring at the high walls and towers with which it was entirely compassed; the rich palaces and lofty churches, of which there were so many that no one could have believed it if he had not seen with his own eyes that city—the queen of all cities.’

There are few places naturally so picturesque—no citywhere the suburbs are so charming. One never wearies of Scutari, Gallipoli, washed by the splendid waters of the Sea of Marmora, the Bosphorus, or those of that magnificent harbour, the Golden Horn, which extends eight miles, and affords an anchorage for a fleet of twelve hundred vessels. Indeed, whether viewed from sea or land, or from such a wonderful standpoint as the marble tower of the Seraskierat, Constantinople on its seven hills, divided as it were between Europe and Asia, presents a marvellous display of scenic beauty. You gaze on stately white palaces, surrounded by domes, towers, cupolas, standing amidst tier above tier of many-coloured dwellings, surrounded on all sides by graceful masses of dark cypresses and sombre pines. High above all rises the grand marble mosque of St. Sophia, resplendent with mosaics, and sending up heavenwards its lofty minarets, whence five times a day the cry of the muezzin calls the world to prayer. As you look and admire, you feel, with the poet,

‘That every prospect pleases,And only man is vile’—

that is, ever since the Turk has been there. And thus it appears that Constantinople has been, socially and politically, a centre of abominations. It was in 1453 that Mahomet II. took it as his own, and it is there that the unspeakable Turk has ever since remained, and mainly in consequence of English diplomacy and the prodigal expenditure of English treasure and blood. The climax was reached in the days of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe—the Great Elchi, as he was termed. He insisted on reforms, and the Sultan granted them. He insisted that all religions should be equal in the eye of the law, and the precious boon was at once declared.A busy street in Constantinople. (From a photograph)Under the pressure of the Great Elchi, the Sultan issued a proclamation, stating his desire of renewing and enlarging the numerous improvements suggested in his institutions, with a view of making them worthy of the place which his empire held among civilized nations. He was anxious, he said, to promote the happiness of his people, who in his sight were all equal and equally dear. ‘Every distinction or designation tending to make any class of subjects of my empire inferior to any other class on account of their religion, language, or race shall be for ever effaced.’ No one was to be hindered in future on account of his religious creed; no one was to be compelled to change his religion. Such was the spirit of the famoushatti Humayunof 1856. Then came the Treaty of Paris, to destroy the influence of England in the East. The French cared nothing for Turkish reform, and have cared nothing ever since. Bulgarian atrocities, murder and massacre in Cyprus, murder and massacre on a larger scale in Armenia or wherever Armenians are gathered together—of these things the gay world of Paris takes little heed, except when an occasion offers to sneer at John Bull. What cares La Belle France, so long as it has its boulevards and theatres, for the deadly sufferings of any nationality? When did it ever fight for men and women dying by the thousand—ay, tens of thousands, under the despotic sway of a Sultan Abdul Hamid? France does not fight; its aim is to sneer at others and to glorify itself, to make better people as heartless, as cynical, as frivolous as itself. And are we much better—we, whose people, and nobles, and courtiers, and statesmen, and princes, have just done throwing themselves under the feet ofA Mosque on the Bosphorus. (From a photograph by Frith and Co., Reigate)the Czar? Yes, but John Bull can act when he has a mind—that is, when he has his inferiors to deal with. It was beautiful when we brought Greece on her knees over the Don Pacifico affair! How bitterly we made China pay for her attack on theArrow! How we settled the would-be Sultan of Zanzibar! How we have smitten the Dervishes hip and thigh! When I was in Ceylon, I had an interesting interview with Arabi Pasha. I left him hoping, and that is what we all do as regards Turkish affairs—hoping for what never comes.

In the Dardanelles we make our first acquaintance with the Turk. He arrives in a small steamer, with a crew of men wearing the red fez, and at the stern of his boat floats the red flag of Turkey, bearing the crescent. He gives us permission to pursue our way past the forts on either side at the mouth and along the Dardanelles, at the entrance to which point are lying off on our right the far-famed plains of windy Troy. I see also a couple of ironclads, but of what nationality I cannot exactly make out. We are soon out of the Dardanelles, and at Gallipoli, the last town on the European side, and we enter the Sea of Marmora. In current language, Constantinople includes Stamboul, Galata, and its suburbs, which stretch up both sides of the Bosphorus. Galata, the mercantile and shipping quarter, occupies the point and slopes at the right-hand side of the Golden Horn.

Constantinople looks best at a distance. It is true here that distance lends enchantment to the view. Outside it glitters with magnificence. Inside it is foul and beastly, with pavements detestable to walk along or drive, with ruins at every corner, and with refuseThe Quay, Constantinople. (From a photograph by Fradelle and Young)lying to fester in the blazing sun all day long—certainly a remarkable illustration of what Lord Palmerston affirmed, that dirt was only matter in the wrong place. If you drive you are choked with dust, and the streets are by no means broad enough for the constant business and bustle. Enter the mosques, and you are astonished at their grandeur and the air of desolation and neglect all round. On the waters you miss the gay caique, now superseded by the steam-ferries, ever vomiting clouds of sulphurous smoke. In the city you see the tramcar, a very shabby one, doing a roaring trade. Down by the harbour you see the police, well armed and in small detachments, carefully guarding the streets. The men, with the exception of the red fez, mostly wear the European costume. The women you see in the streets are old and ugly, and, happily, veiled, so that you see nothing of their ugliness but the nose and eyes. Some of the little urchins and girls are very bright-looking, but I fancy they are mostly Greeks. The Turkish boy of the middle class seemed to me very heavy, but, however that may be, he develops into a fine man, with a grand dark face and powerful nose, and looks especially well when on his Arab steed—small, but active and strong, as if he were born to drive everyone before him. Alas! in his little shop he seems very listless and apathetic, but the man in the street is very pertinacious, and I have just bought an elegant walking-stick for half a crown, after being asked four shillings, which I hold to be the cheapest bargain I have made for some time.

We are quite mistaken in England as to the safety of walking the streets in Constantinople. I heard of a row last night, but by day the streets are quite assecure as they are in London. One thing that astonishes me is the utter ignorance of the people of what is going on outside respecting Turkish affairs, and the action, if any, of the diplomatists. You never hear a word on the subject. To sell seems to be the only aim of the Turk. The shops are prodigious. In London their owners would be a great middle class, and form an enlightened public opinion. Here they do nothing of the kind, and there is not a street that has a decent pavement nor a corner that is not a dunghill. There seems to be no attempt at improvement. The dogs—very much like Australian dingoes—bark and bite all day and howl all night. Confusion and decay seem to reign paramount. Now and then you come to an open space—as at the old slave-market, the mosques, and the Hippodrome, where a few trees, chiefly acacias, manage to live, and then you plunge into Holywell Street as it existed half a century back, and all is darkness and dirt again.

Constantinople seems to live chiefly on corn imported from Roumelia and Bulgaria; but they say they are going to open up Asia Minor by means of railways, and the wheat-grower there will then have his chance. There are few liquor-shops, but many for the sale of lemon-and-water and grapes and melons. In many a shop I see Sunlight Soap and the biscuits of Huntley and Palmer and Peek and Frean. The donkeys and horses have an awful time of it as they go along the narrow streets, with panniers on each side, which appear to get in everyone’s way. Then comes a rickety waggon, drawn by two big oxen, which seem as if they must grind the pedestrian to powder. Then follows the porter, perspiring and bending under hisheavy load, and the aged crone, more or less veiled, as if she had—which she has not, unhappily—a glimpse of female charm to display. Now and then you meet a priest with his red-and-white turban and long brown robe, and if you make your way into a mosque—and they are all worth visiting—there, in a little wooden recess, seated cross-legged on an Indian mat, you will find a priest or devout layman by himself, repeating verses of the Koran. The mosques are grotesque outside, but inspiring from their size inside.

Constantinople is not the place to come to on a hot November day, and the commercial port is, I hold, utterly unfit for shipping. We have a good deal of diarrhoea on board, nor can you wonder, when you remember that into this one spot flows all the filth and sewage of Galata. It is worse than Naples; it is worse than Athens, and that is saying a good deal. Coleridge’s Cologne, with its numerous stenches, is nothing to it. If there be any truth in sanitary science, there must be an awful waste of life in these parts. Here we hear not a whisper of the Turkish crisis, or of the driving out of the Turk, ‘bag and baggage,’ as Lord Stratford de Redcliffe wrote fifty years before Mr. Gladstone adopted the celebrated phrase. Be that as it may, Constantinople gives you an idea of a densely-populated city. It is with real difficulty that you make your way anywhere. The fat official Turk, who dines in some gorgeous palace—and the place is full of them—and drives in his brougham and pair, may have an easy time of it; but the majority of the inhabitants, in their narrow shops and darkened houses, must have a bad time of it. I sigh for the wings of a dove, that I may fly away and be at rest. Under this pestiferousatmosphere and bright, blazing sun, it is impossible to do anything but sleep; but that is not easy in one’s small cabin, floating on this wide waste of sewage. There seems nothing to amuse the people. In the course of my peregrinations I met with but one minstrel, and he was far away. Next to the mosques, the coolest place I have yet visited is the new museum, with aGalata Bridge, Constantinople. (From a photograph by Fradelle and Young)fine collection of Greek and Roman and Egyptian antiquities; but I am no friend to a hurried visit to a museum, which leaves the mind rather confused and uninformed. As yet I have made no attempt to penetrate into the mysteries of the harem. For one thing, I am rather past that sort of thing. But if I may judge from what I have seen outside the harem, there can be but little to tempt one to enter within; andwith the poet I exclaim, ‘Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.’

I fancy we are most of us tired of Constantinople. To me it is a place where a little sight-seeing goes a long way. Our gallant captain, on the contrary, tells me that he could put in three months here very well. As it is, there are about 2,000 English here, to say nothing of naturalized Greeks and Maltese. I suppose Constantinople is not a bad place for a short residence. The hotels are good, and in some you may have a bedroom for four francs a day. Provisions are not dear, but house-rent is very expensive. The population of the place is dense, at which I wonder, as Constantinople seems to me the most unhealthy city I have ever seen. The only nuisances are the guides, who will persist in following you everywhere, and whose knowledge of English and of the things you really want to know is very limited. For instance, I passed two obelisks one day. I asked my guide about them. ‘They come from Egypt,’ was his reply. I could have told him as much myself.

If you need rest, seek it not in Constantinople, with its noisy crowds by day and its noisy dogs by night; seek it not in its narrow streets, where horses and asses and big bullocks, dragging along the most rickety of waggons, are ever to be seen; seek it not as you drive along its uneven and disgracefully-paved streets. The mosques are cool and spacious—there you may rest; but if there is a service, you are not permitted to remain unless you are a Mohammedan. One advantage of the mosques is that there is generally a large open space attached to them, where people can wash themselves and also hold a market. People seem toAn old street, Constantinople. (From a photograph by Fradelle and Young)do much as they like, as they talk and smoke and play cards, and indulge in coffee or lemon-and-water. I have never yet seen a drunken man or—what is worse—a drunken woman, and yet an English lady, a clergyman’s wife, told me that she only went on shore once, and was so shocked that she resolved never to set foot in the place again. The people were so degraded; the poor porters were so overburdened; and, then, they were all such awful idolaters. I presume the lady knows nothing of parts of London where worse sights are to be seen every day.

The Bosphorus is beautiful beyond description. It beats the Rhine, it beats the American Hudson; indeed, it is the grandest panorama in the world. At its back rise the green wooded hills, and the front is lined with pleasant villas and palaces—white or yellow, built in Turkish fashion, with innumerable windows everywhere. There must be great wealth in the district to build and support such places. Everywhere there is a great appearance of religion. Go into a mosque any hour you will, and you see a priest or layman sitting in a quiet corner, fenced with a wooden rail, cross-legged, repeating the Koran. One of the oddest sights I saw in the grand Mosque of St. Sophia was that of an old-fashioned London clock. One of my troubles as I explored the mosque—the floor of which is lined with Indian matting—was to keep on my Turkish slippers. An attendant who followed me had to stoop down every minute to put them on, that I might not reveal the deck-shoes which I wore inside. A gentleman who had visited the mosque told me that on one occasion, when he took off a pair of new boots there which he was wearing, he never saw them again.

It is wonderful how cheap provisions are: beef, threepence a pound; bread, a halfpenny; grapes, a halfpenny; fowls for sevenpence; and mountains of melons everywhere. There is free education, and an abundant supply of schools. The labouring classes are well employed. The English here are chiefly merchants or agents or engineers. On our way back we pass that favourite resort of the Turkish holiday-makers—the Valley of Sweet Waters—and have a good view of the hospital at Scutari, built by Florence Nightingale—now utilized as barracks—and of the monuments in front of the cemetery in memory of the British officers and soldiers who died during the Crimean War.

It is a relief to us all to get back into the Dardanelles and sail over the spot where Xerxes built his famous bridge, the narrow strait across which Leander swam nightly to visit his lady-love—a feat performed by our great poet Byron at a later age—and wander in fancy as we again catch sight of the plains of Troy, the spot where the Greek hero Protesilaus first struck the Trojan strand, and thus gave occasion to our Wordsworth to write his immortal poem—a poem that will be read and admired when all the puny poets of the present age are dead and forgotten. Out in the Ægean Sea the weather is almost cool and delightfully refreshing, just like a fine morning in spring at home. The first isle of any importance we make is Tenedos, behind which, on the mainland, lies Troas, visited by the Apostle Paul. To the north lies Besika Bay, where once the French and English fleets assembled prior to their passage of the Dardanelles, and where the British fleet, under Admiral Hornby, lay in 1887–88 during the Russo-Turkish War. Next we reach theancient Lectum, the most westernly point of Asia, and get a glimpse of the beautiful island of Mitylene, the ancient Lesbos. Mitylene, on the east coast, is prettily situated, and does a considerable trade. There are few remains of the ancient city. The island has 115,000 inhabitants, mostly Greeks.

SMYRNA.

I write now from one of the most ancient cities in the world. There is a wonderful lot of ancient history in these parts. The mind quite staggers under the ever-accumulating load of facts and figures and legends. The Æolians, who founded on this site the first Greek city, claimed it as the birthplace of Homer. It was there that his poetry flourished; then, under the successors of Alexander, it became celebrated for its schools of science and medicine. Christianity early made its way into Smyrna, which has enjoyed the reputation of being one of the Seven Churches of Asia alluded to in Revelation. It was there that Polycarp suffered martyrdom, and it is there they still show you, or profess to show you, his tomb. Defended by the Knights of Rhodes, Smyrna fell when Timur, the terrible Mogul, appeared before it and put all that breathed to the sword. As it was, I felt satisfied and charmed with modern Smyrna, and did not climb the hill behind on which stands the ruins of a castle, and where brigands still lie in wait for the unwary traveller. Nor did I take the train to Ephesus, a run of nearly two hours, to wander under the hot sun and amidst therough winds to see what remains, amidst bushes and rocks and cornfields, of ancient Ephesus—notwithstanding the fact that there Christian synods have been held, and that in a cave adjoining slept those marvellous Seven Sleepers; that there stood the temple of the goddess Diana, whose worshippers the great Apostle of the Gentiles woke up to cry excitedly for the craft by which they lived. It is a scene of desolation, which certainly does not repay the ordinary tourist the trouble of a visit.

But I revelled in Smyrna—one of the brightest, cleanest, and most prosperous cities under Turkish sway. Its white houses, chiefly hotels and restaurants and theatres, line the bay, with dense shipping in the forefront, while the mountains behind, up the slopes of which modern Smyrna is gradually planting herself, act as guard and shelter. At the time of my visit there stretched across the bay quite an imposing display of ironclads of all nations—American, English, Italian, French—and it made me shudder to think of them bombarding this scene of life and gaiety and spreading terror amongst its hard-working people. A tramway runs along the whole front of the city for about a couple of miles, and, as you stand thinking of the wonders of modern civilization, you hear a bell tinkle, and see half a dozen camels laden with sacks of grain striding past, generally led by a man on a donkey. Sometimes the donkey had no rider, and yet the patient camel followed all the same. It was intensely amusing: the contrast between the little donkey leading and the big camel behind. It set me thinking of the many parallel passages in modern history—of parties, Churches, States, led by donkeys. Smyrna hasan enormous bazaar, into which it is easier to find one’s way than to get out. It has fine mosques and handsome Greek churches. It shelters the ships and people of all nations, but my chief delight was to watch the string of camels as they ever came and went. Even in the narrow passages of the bazaar there were the camels, and it was all you could do to get out of the way of these grand animals, for such they were.

The Gate of Persecution, near Ephesus. (From a photograph by Fradelle and Young)

One place that I visited much interested me. It was the Sailors’ Rest on the quay, a fine room with a library and reading-room, where the sailors come and go, and where they are supplied with refreshments of a non-intoxicating character, carried on in connection with the Greek Evangelical Alliance, founded in Smyrna in 1883. Depression in business, and consequentpoverty and other causes, such as the declining number of British merchants who come to Smyrna, ousted, I presume, by more enterprising rivals, and troubles in the interior, have hindered the work, which, however, is successfully carried on. The average attendance last year was: Sunday morning service, 83; afternoon, 59; Tuesday prayer-meeting, 41; Gospel service at the Rest, 50. At the Sunday-school the average attendance has been about 60. Owing to the shifting population of Smyrna, many of the church members have become scattered in many lands. The bitterest enemies of the work are the members of the Orthodox Greek Church, who have no sympathy with an Evangelical Alliance of any kind, and care not a rap for the union of the Churches. As an illustration, take the following: ‘In 1895 it was expected that the official permit for the building of a chapel on a site assigned by Government would be granted to the Evangelicals. In fact, in the middle of January permission was granted for the opening of the school, but the local authorities, desiring to avoid any possible outbreak on the part of ‘the Orthodox,’ tried to bring about a friendly compromise. It was all in vain, the Orthodox declaring that they would listen to no terms unless the Evangelicals were entirely thrust out from the central quarter of the town, and that they would never allow the chapel to be built or the site prepared for it. Thus foiled, the Evangelicals opened their school, but ‘the Orthodox’ attacked the building with stones, defacing it almost entirely, and quite destroying all the furniture within. The result was that the Evangelicals had to commence their labours anew elsewhere. After two months’ labour the ire of theOrthodox was again aroused; they drove out the workmen, pulled down part of the walls, and finally remained masters of the situation. It is true that fifteen of the Orthodox were imprisoned, but the Evangelicals were advised to leave the situation also, and to remove to some other site more acceptable to their opponents. This advice the Evangelicals refused to accept, and, after a long delay, by the personal efforts and goodwill of the new Turkish Governor the building was restored. Orthodoxy seemed to be a sad stumbling-block in the way of good work everywhere. The Sailors’ Rest at Smyrna may be much aided by British Christians, both by presents of books or by pecuniary contributions. During the last year it seems that 229 visits have been paid to ships, 64 bags of books sent out, 20 pledges taken. I fear there is a good deal of drunkenness in Smyrna. Seven thousand six hundred visits have been made in the year by sailors to the Rest, 797 have attended the meetings, 676 Bibles, Testaments, and portions have been given away, and many were the letters sent home by sailors from the Rest. It seems to me that it might be kept open a little later at night with advantage, as I find it is the fashion to keep many of the drinking-shops open all night. The work among the Greeks has been reviving, and it is regarded as hopeful. The meetings are well attended, and especially so the Wednesday evening meeting in the Corner Room at the Rest. This meeting is described as the fishing-net of the Greek work, as many of those who became regular attendants at the other services held in the American Chapel began at the Rest. At Smyrna our American fellow-passengers hear the result of the Presidentialcontest in America, and greatly rejoice. Their country is saved—at any rate, this time. Local lines of steamers run from Smyrna to Messina and Beirut, touching at all the important coast towns and at several of the islands, at which we have a peep, such as Cos, the birthplace of Hippocrates; Halicarnassus, where Herodotus was born, and where stood the famous mausoleum, one of the wonders of the world; and Rhodes, far-famed. But we may not tarry even in order to gratify such a laudable curiosity; no, not even at Cyprus, which has prospered so much under English rule. It is enough for us to have explored Smyrna, a city which in every way, as regards cleanliness in the streets and the absence of abominable smells, is a great improvement on Constantinople. It has a population of nearly half a million, of which less than one-fourth is Moslem, and more than half Greek. There are large Armenian and Jewish colonies, that of the Jews, of course, being the most squalid, unhealthy and debased. The town is governed by a municipality. Europeans are under the jurisdiction of their consuls. Its gas lights beamed on us brilliantly as we steamed out in the dark into the open sea. The one nuisance of Smyrna are the boys, who go to learn English at the schools taught by the missionaries, and these persistently pester you to be taken on as guides. The professional guides are nuisance enough, but these boys are infinitely worse.

JAFFA TO JERUSALEM.

You see nothing of Jerusalem till you get inside the city, and to enjoy a visit requires a greater enthusiasm than any to which I can lay claim. We were safely landed at Jaffa, which by this time ought to have a more decent landing-place; thence, after a glance at the house where Simon the Tanner carried on business, I made my way—along tortuous roads, more or less blocked with stones and rubbish, and more or less exposed to a burning sun—to the station, whence we were to start for Jerusalem, a hot ride of nearly four hours in railway-carriages of very second-rate quality. The land about Jaffa is fertile and well cultivated; fig-trees and olive-trees and orange-groves are abundant, and at Jaffa the chief business seemed to be packing them in boxes for export. At one particular spot our conductor told us that it was there that Samson set the cornfields of the Philistines on fire. Certainly the ground seemed dry and baked up enough. Then Arithmea was reached. On our way we got our first sight of a native village, built of mud huts, into which it seemed difficult to find an entrance. A Kaffir village is infinitely to be preferred. The scene of desolationwas complete. On the neighbouring rocks nothing was to be seen but flocks of goats. A little fairer scene opened on us as we passed the neat German colony that has settled down here, almost under the shadow of the walls of Jerusalem. Then the terminus is gained, and we are whirled in a cloud of dust, in rickety carriages, driven by their hoarsely-shouting drivers at full gallop, all of us white as millers, being clothed with dust. I wash at Howard’s Hotel, swallow a cup of tea, and, as we do not dine till six, make my way into Jerusalem by the Jaffa Gate. A little of Jerusalem goes a long way. It is dark and stifling, swarming with people and camels and asses, and noisy beyond description. A sort of Rag Fair, only with a few touches of the East, such as a veiled woman, or a stately Turk in turban and flowing robes, or a black-coated, black-bearded Greek priest, or a low row of shopkeepers, sitting patiently in their dark and tiny shops, thrown in. You must keep moving, or you will be run over by a donkey or a camel, for, as the country round Jerusalem grows nothing, the necessaries of life have all to be brought from a distance. My respected countrymen and countrywomen are in a state of gush all the while, not to be wondered at when you think of the Jerusalem of David, and Solomon, and Jesus Christ. As it is in reality, I own I see very little to gush about. I reach the Via Dolorosa—there is no trace of Christ there; I pass the Church of the Sepulchre and the mosque which marks the site where Solomon built his Temple. I think of the royal Psalmist who here poured forth the wailings of his heart in language which has formed the penitential chant of all the ages. But if I would see the Christ I must get out of thiscity, all crammed with lies and living upon lies. I muse by myself in the Garden of Gethsemane; I climb the Mount of Olives. It is outside the city, away fromJerusalem: via Dolorosa and Pontius Pilate’s Houseits old and new churches, that I see the living Christ and Calvary, and feel how true it is that

‘Each soul redeemed from sin and deathMust know its Calvary.’

I have had enough of Jerusalem. My fellow-travellers leave me to go to Jericho. I have no wish to be sent to Jericho, and prefer to remain under the grateful shelter of my hotel, just outside the Jaffa Gate. What strikes me most is the prosperity of the place. It is growing fast, in spite of Turkish rule. The people are robbed by the tax-collectors; nevertheless, the place gains, and the population outside the city walls is quite as great as that within. One reason, of course, is that wealthy Christians in England and America spend large sums of money in keeping up proselytizing establishments here, and in erecting fine buildings for the same end. Of course we have a Bishop here, but he is High Church, and seems, from all I hear, more inclined to bridge over the gulf between his Church and the Greek than to promote general and undenominational Christian work. The number of poor Jews is enormous. They come here from all parts of the world to die in the Sacred City, and have many charities established on their behalf. The Britisher has this advantage—that he pays no taxes. The Jew is not permitted to hold a bit of land unless he has been a resident here five years. The Turk holds Jerusalem to be a sacred city only second to Mecca. No wonder, then, that the nations have fought bitterly for the possession of its so-called sacred shrines; no wonder that Christians from all parts of the world hasten to Jerusalem, and that you meet in the streets and shops and hotels such a mixture of men and women—brought by excursion-parties from London—as, perhaps, you have never seen before, and, perchance, may wish never to see again. I suppose it has ever been so. Those old Crusaders must have been rather a mixed lot. As it is,View from St. Stephen’s Gate, with Russian Church and Garden of Gethsemanethe Russian Church seems most in evidence. It has spent, apparently, a great deal of money in building purposes. Its new church, half-way up the Mount of Olives, is one of the finest buildings to be seen outside the walls. The Russian is wily; he knows what he is about—at any rate, better than many of his rivals in the race for empire.

I think most of my party are getting tired of Jerusalem—even the clergy, of whom we have many. Exertion of any kind is painful on these dusty highways and under this blazing sun. There has been no rain for six months, and the Jews in the synagogue are praying for it daily, and yet it seems as far off as ever. One thing that is really enjoyable is the cool splendour of these cloudless skies by night. I have seen the moon rise in many lands, but never—no, not even under the Southern Cross—a moon so full, so fair, so bright, as that of Judæa, as it throws its silvery light over old walls and peasants’ huts, on hill and dale—I may not say ancient ruins, for all is new outside Jerusalem, and as regards most of the city a similar remark may be made. For Saracen and Roman have devastated and destroyed entirely the real Jerusalem, which is now only being disinterred by the labours of the agents of the Palestine Exploration Fund, of whom Dr. Bliss is the chief.

The Jews preponderate everywhere, apparently poor and depressed. The real Turk, sleek and well robed, is an imposing figure, but the dragomans—chiefly Greeks, or of the Greek Church—are active and intelligent, and very ready to use their English, of which, apparently, they have but an imperfect knowledge. The Jews speak the common dialect of the country, but aretaught Hebrew in the many schools established for their benefit. The food displayed in their cook-shops is, however, by no means tempting, and nowhere, unless it be at such an international hotel as that of Chevalier Howard, is the commissariat department very strong. But we have clean, cool, delightful bedrooms. And Mr. Chevalier himself is a remarkably intelligent and active man, and offers the traveller facilities for excursions such as he can find nowhere else. When one thinks of Palestine and the place it fills in the world’s history, it is hard to realize what a small extent of country it contains. Its length is about 200 miles, and its average breadth 75 miles. On one side is the Mediterranean Sea, and on the other the desert plain of Arabia. A mountain range runs through it from north to south. Its chief rivers are the Jordan, the Litany, the Abana, and the Pharpar. I fancy it is better to come here in the spring than in the autumn.

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