“Look! on the Ægæan a city standsBuilt nobly; pure the air and light the soil:Athens—the eye of Greece, mother of artsAnd eloquence; native to famous wits,Or hospitable, in her sweet recessCity or suburban, studious walks or shades.See, there the olive groves of Academe,Plato’s retirement, where the attic birdTrills her thick-warbled notes the summer long.There, flowery hill, Hymettus, with the soundOf bees’ industrious murmurs, oft invitesTo studious musing; there Ilissus rollsHis whispering stream; within the walls there viewThe schools of ancient sages, his who bredGreat Alexander to subdue the world!”
“Look! on the Ægæan a city standsBuilt nobly; pure the air and light the soil:Athens—the eye of Greece, mother of artsAnd eloquence; native to famous wits,Or hospitable, in her sweet recessCity or suburban, studious walks or shades.See, there the olive groves of Academe,Plato’s retirement, where the attic birdTrills her thick-warbled notes the summer long.There, flowery hill, Hymettus, with the soundOf bees’ industrious murmurs, oft invitesTo studious musing; there Ilissus rollsHis whispering stream; within the walls there viewThe schools of ancient sages, his who bredGreat Alexander to subdue the world!”
“Look! on the Ægæan a city standsBuilt nobly; pure the air and light the soil:Athens—the eye of Greece, mother of artsAnd eloquence; native to famous wits,Or hospitable, in her sweet recessCity or suburban, studious walks or shades.See, there the olive groves of Academe,Plato’s retirement, where the attic birdTrills her thick-warbled notes the summer long.There, flowery hill, Hymettus, with the soundOf bees’ industrious murmurs, oft invitesTo studious musing; there Ilissus rollsHis whispering stream; within the walls there viewThe schools of ancient sages, his who bredGreat Alexander to subdue the world!”
“Look! on the Ægæan a city stands
Built nobly; pure the air and light the soil:
Athens—the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence; native to famous wits,
Or hospitable, in her sweet recess
City or suburban, studious walks or shades.
See, there the olive groves of Academe,
Plato’s retirement, where the attic bird
Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long.
There, flowery hill, Hymettus, with the sound
Of bees’ industrious murmurs, oft invites
To studious musing; there Ilissus rolls
His whispering stream; within the walls there view
The schools of ancient sages, his who bred
Great Alexander to subdue the world!”
LETTER XXVI.
The Piræus—The Sacra Via—Ruins of Eleusis—Gigantic Medallion—Costume of the Athenian Women—The Tomb of Themistocles—The Temple of Minerva—Autographs.
The Piræus—The Sacra Via—Ruins of Eleusis—Gigantic Medallion—Costume of the Athenian Women—The Tomb of Themistocles—The Temple of Minerva—Autographs.
Piræus.—With a basket of ham and claret in the stern-sheets, a cool awning over our heads, and twelve men at the oars, such as the coxswain of Themistocles’ galley might have sighed for, we pulled away from the ship at an early hour, for Eleusis. The conqueror of Salamis delayed the battle for the ten o’clock breeze, and as nature (which should be calledheinstead ofshe, for her constancy) still ruffles the Ægæan at the same hour, we had a calm sea through the strait, where once lay the “ships by thousands.”
We soon rounded the point, and shot along under the
“Rocky browWhich looks o’er sea-born Salamis.”
“Rocky browWhich looks o’er sea-born Salamis.”
“Rocky browWhich looks o’er sea-born Salamis.”
“Rocky brow
Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis.”
It is a bare, bold precipice, a little back from the sea, and commands an entire view of the strait. Here sat Xerxes, “on his throne of gold,[11]with many secretaries about him to write down the particulars of the action.” The Athenians owed their victory to the wisdom of Themistocles, who managed to draw the Persians into the strait (scarce a cannon shot across just here), where only a small part of their immense fleet could act at one time. The wind, as the wily Greek had foreseen, rose at the same time, and rendered the lofty-built Persian ships unmanageable; while the Athenian galleys, cut low to the water, were easily brought into action in the most advantageous position. It is impossible to look upon this beautiful and lovely spot and imagine the stirring picture it presented. The wild sea-bird knows no lonelier place. Yet on that rock once sat the son of Darius, with his royal purple floating to the wind, and, below him, within these rocky limits, lay “one thousand two hundred ships-of-war, and two thousand transports,” while behind him on the shores of the Piræus, were encamped “seven hundred thousand foot, and four hundred thousand horse,”—“amounting,” says Potter, in his notes, “with the retinue of women and servants that attended the Asiatic princes in their military expeditions, to more than five millions.” How like a king must the royal Persian have felt, when
“He counted them at break of day!”
“He counted them at break of day!”
“He counted them at break of day!”
“He counted them at break of day!”
With an hour or two of fast pulling, we opened into the broad bay of Eleusis. The first Sabbath after the creation could not have been more absolutely silent. Megara was away on the left, Eleusis before us at the distance of four or five miles, and the broad plains where agriculture was first taught by Triptolemus, the poetical home of Ceres, lay an utter desert in the sunshine. Behind us, between the mountains, descended theSacra Via, by which the procession came to Athens to celebrate the “Eleusinian mysteries”—a road of five or six miles, lined, in the time of Pericles; with temples and tombs. I could half fancy the scene, as it was presented to the eyes of the invading Macedonians—when the procession of priests and virgins, accompanied by the whole population of Athens, wound down into the plain, guarded by the shining spears of the army of Alcibiades. It is still doubtful, I believe, whether these imposing ceremonies were the pure observances of a lofty and sincere superstition, or the orgies of licentious saturnalia.
We landed at Eleusis, and were immediately surrounded by a crowd of people, as simple and curious in their manners, and resembling somewhat in their dress and complexion, the Indians of our country. The ruins of a great city lay about us, and their huts were built promiscuously among them. Magnificent fragments of columns and blocks of marble interrupted the path through the village, and between two of the houses lay, half buried, a gigantic medallion of Pentelic marble, representing, in alto-rilievo, the body and head of a warrior in full armour. A hundred men would move it with difficulty. Commodore Patterson attempted it six years ago, in the “Constitution,” but his launch was found unequal to its weight.
The people here gathered more closely round the ladies of our party, examining their dress with childish curiosity. They were doubtless the first females ever seen at Eleusis in European costume. One of the ladies happening to pull off her glove, there was a general cry of astonishment. The brown kid had clearly been taken as the colour of the hand. Some curiosity was then shown to see their faces, which were covered with thick green veils, as a protection against the sun. The sight of their complexion (in any country remarkable for a dazzling whiteness) completed the astonishment of these children of Ceres.
We, on our part, were scarcely less amused by their costumes in turn. Over the petticoat was worn a loose jacket of white cloth reaching to the knee, and open in front—its edges and sleeves wrought very tastefully with red cord. The head-dress was composed entirely ofmoney. A fillet of gold sequins was first put,à la feronière, around the forehead, and a close cap, with a throat-piece like the gorget of a helmet, fitted the skull exactly, stitched with coins of all values, folded over each other according to their sizes, like scales. The hair was then braided and fell down the back, loaded also with money. Of the fifty or sixty women we saw, I should think one half had money on her head to the amount of from one to two hundred dollars. They suffered us to examine them with perfect good-humour. The greater proportion of pieces wereparas, a small and thin Turkish coin of very small value. Among the larger pieces were dollars of all nations, five-franc pieces, Sicilian piastres, Tuscan colonati, Venetian swansicas, &c. &c. I doubted much whether they were not the collection of some piratical caique. There is no possibility of either spending or getting money within many miles of Eleusis, and it seemed to be looked upon as an ornament which they had come too lightly by to know its use.
We walked over the foundations of several large temples with the remains of their splendour lying unvalued about them, and at a mile from the village came to the “well of Proserpine,” whence, say the poets, the ravished daughter of Ceres emerged from the infernal regions on her visit to her mother. The modern Eleusinians know it only as a well of the purest water.
On our return, we stopped at the southern point of the Piræus, to see the tomb of Themistocles. We were directed to it by thirteen or fourteen frusta of enormous columns, which once formed the monument to his memory. They buried him close to the edge of the sea, opposite Salamis. The continual beat of the waves for so many hundred years has worn away the promontory, and his sarcophagus, which was laid in a grave cut in the solid rock, is now filled by every swell from the Ægæan. The old hero was brought back from his exile to be gloriously buried. He could not lie better for the repose of his spirit (if it returned with his bones from Argos). The sea on which he beat the haughty Persians with his handful of galleys, sends every wave to his feet. The hollows in the rock around his grave are full of snowy salt left by the evaporation. You might scrape up a bushel within six feet of him. It seems a natural tribute to his memory.[12]
On a high and lonely rock, stretching out into the midst of the sea, stands a solitary temple. As far as the eye can reach, along the coast of Attica and to the distant isles, there is no sign of human habitation. There it stands, lifted into the blue sky of Greece, like the unreal “fabric of a vision.”
Cape Colonna and its “temple of Minerva,” were familiar to my memory, but my imagination had pictured nothing half so beautiful. As we approached it from the sea, it seemed so strangely out of place, even for a ruin, so far removed from what had ever been the haunt of man, that I scarce credited my eyes. We could soon count them—thirteen columns of sparkling marble, glittering in the sun. The sea-air keeps them spotlessly white, and, till you approach them nearly, they have the appearance of a structure, from its freshness, still in the sculptor’s hands.
The boat was lowered, and the ship lay off-and-on while we landed near the rocks where Falconer was shipwrecked, and mounted to the Temple. The summit of the promontory is strewn with the remains of the fallen columns, and their smooth surfaces are thickly inscribed with the names of travellers. Among others, I noticed Byron’s and Hobhouse’s, and that of the agreeable author of “A Year in Spain.” Byron, by the way, mentions having narrowly escaped robbery here, by a band of Mainote pirates. He was surprised swimming off the point, by an English vessel containing some ladies of his acquaintance. He concludes the “Isles of Greece” beautifully with an allusion to it by its ancient name:—
“Place me on Sunium’s marble steep,” &c.
“Place me on Sunium’s marble steep,” &c.
“Place me on Sunium’s marble steep,” &c.
“Place me on Sunium’s marble steep,” &c.
The view from the summit is one of the finest in all Greece. The isle where Plato was sold as a slave, and where Aristides and Demosthenes passed their days in exile, stretches along the west; the wide Ægæan, sprinkled with here and there a solitary rock, herbless, but beautiful in its veil of mist, spreads away from its feet to the southern line of the horizon, and crossing each other almost imperceptibly on the light winds of this summer sea, the red-sailed caique of Greece, the merchantmen from the Dardanelles, and the heavy men-of-war of England and France, cruising wherever the wind blows fairest, are seen like broad-winged and solitary birds, lying low with spread pinions upon the waters. The place touched me. I shall remember it with an affection.
There is a small island close to Sunium, which was fortified by one of the heroes of the Iliad on his return from Troy—why, heaven only knows. It was here, too, that Phrontes, the pilot of Menelaus, died and was buried.
We returned on board after an absence of two hours from the ship, and are steering now straight for the Dardanelles. The plains of Marathon are but a few hours north of our course, and I pass them unwillingly; but what is there one would not see? Greece lies behind, and I have realised one of my dearest dreams in rambling over its ruins. Travel is an appetite that “grows by what it feeds on.”
[11]
So says Phanodemus, quoted by Plutarch. The commentators upon the tragedy of Æschylus on this subject, say it was a “silver chair,” and that it “was afterwards placed in the Temple of Minerva, at Athens, with the golden-hilted cimeter of Mardonius.”
[12]
Langhorne says in his note on Plutarch, “There is the genuineattic saltin most of the retorts and observations of themselves. His wit seems to have been equal to his military and political capacity.”
LETTER XXVII.
Mytilene—The Tomb of Achilles—Turkish Burying Ground—Lost Reputation of the Scamander—Asiatic Sunsets—Visit to a Turkish Bey—The Castles of the Dardanelles—Turkish Bath and its consequences.
Mytilene—The Tomb of Achilles—Turkish Burying Ground—Lost Reputation of the Scamander—Asiatic Sunsets—Visit to a Turkish Bey—The Castles of the Dardanelles—Turkish Bath and its consequences.
Lesbos to windward. A caique, crowded with people, is running across our bow, all hands singing a wild chorus (perhaps the “Lesboum Carmen,”) most merrily. The island is now called Mytilene, said to be the greenest and most fertile of the Mediterranean. The Lesbian wine is still good, but they have had no poetesses since Sappho. Cause and effect have quarrelled, one would think.
Tenedos on the lee. The tomb of Achilles is distinguishable with the glass on the coast of Asia. The column which Alexander “crowned and anointed and danced around naked,” in honour of the hero’s ghost, stands above it no longer. The Macedonian wept over Achilles, says the school-book, and envied him the blind bard who had sung his deeds. He would have dried his tears if he had known that hispas seulwould be remembered as long.
Tenedos seems a pretty island as we near it. It was here that the Greeks hid, to persuade the Trojans that they had abandoned the siege, while the wooden horse was wheeled into Troy. The site of the city of Priam is visible as we get nearer the coast of Asia. Mount Ida and the marshy valley of the Scamander are appearing beyond Cape Sigæum, and we shall anchor in an hour between Europe and Asia, in the mouth of the rapid Dardanelles. The wind is not strong enough to stem the current that sets down like a mill-race from the Sea of Marmora.
Went ashore on the Asian side for a ramble. We landed at the strong Turkish castle that, with another on the European side, defends the Strait, and passing under their bristling batteries, entered the small Turkish town in the rear. Our appearance excited a great deal of curiosity. The Turks, who were sitting cross-legged on the broad benches extending like a tailor’s board, in front of the cafés, stopped smoking as we passed, and the women, wrapping up their own faces more closely, approached the ladies of our party, and lifted their veils to look at them with the freedom of our friends at Eleusis. We came unaware upon two squalid wretches of women in turning a corner, who pulled their ragged shawls over their heads with looks of the greatest resentment at having exposed their faces to us.
A few minutes’ walk brought us outside of the town. An extensive Turkish grave-yard lay on the left. Between fig-trees and blackberry bushes it was a green spot, and the low tombstones of the men, crowned each with a turban carved in marble of the shape befitting the sleepers rank, peered above the grass like a congregation sitting in a uniform head-dress at a field-preaching. Had it not been for the female graves, which were marked with a slab like ours, and here and there the tombstone of a Greek, carved after the antique, in the shape of a beautiful shell, the effect of an assemblagesur l’herbewould have been ludicrously perfect.
We walked on to the Scamander. A ricketty bridge gave us a passage, toll free, to the other side, where we sat round the rim of a marble well, and ate delicious grapes, stolen for us by a Turkish boy from a near vineyard. Six or seven camels were feeding on the uninclosed plain, picking a mouthful and then lifting their long, snaky necks into the air to swallow; a stray horseman, with the head of his bridle decked with red tassels and his knees up to his chin, scoured the bridle path to the mountains; and three devilish looking buffaloes scratched their hides and rolled up their fiendish green eyes under a bramble-hedge near the river.Voila!a scene in Asia.
The poets lie, or the Scamander is as treacherous as Macassar. Venus bathed in its waters before contending for the prize of beauty adjudged to her on this very Mount Ida that I see covered with brown grass in the distance. Her hair became “flowing gold” in the lavation. My friends compliment me upon no change after a similar experiment. My long locks (run riot with a four months’ cruise) are as dingy and untractable as ever, and, except in the increased brownness of a Mediterranean complexion, the cracked glass in the state-room of my friend the lieutenant gave me no encouragement of a change. It is soft water, and runs over fine white sand; but the fountain of Callirhoe, at Athens (she was the daughter of the Scamander, and like most daughters, is much more attractive than her papa), is softer and clearer. Perhaps the loss of the Scamander’s virtues is attributable to the cessation of the tribute paid to the god in Helen’s time.
The twilights in this part of the world are unparalleled—but I have described twilights and sunsets in Greece and Italy till I am ashamed to write the words. Each one comes as if there never had been and never were to be another, and the adventures of the day, however stirring, are half forgotten in its glory, and seem in comparison, unworthy of description; but one look at the terms that might describe it, written on paper, uncharms even the remembrance. You must come to Asia andfeelsunsets. You cannot get them by paying postage.
At anchor, waiting for a wind. Called to day on the Bey Effendi, commander of the two castles, “Europe” and “Asia,” between which we lie. A pokerish-looking dwarf, with ragged beard and high turban, and a tall Turk, who I am sure never smiled since he was born, kicked off their slippers at the threshold, and ushered us into a chamber on the second story. It was a luxurious little room, lined completely with cushions, the muslin-covered pillows of down leaving only a place for the door. The divan was as broad as a bed, and, save the difficulty of rising from it, it was perfect as a lounge. A ceiling of inlaid woods, embrowned with smoke, windows of small panes fantastically set, and a place lower than the floor for the attendant to stand and leave their slippers, were all that was peculiar else.
The Bey entered in a few minutes, with a pipe-bearer, an interpreter, and three or four attendants. He was a young man, about twenty, and excessively handsome. A clear, olive complexion, a moustache of silky black, a thin, aquiline nose, with almost transparent nostrils, cheeks and chin rounded into a perfect oval, and mouth and eyes expressive of the most resolute firmness, and at the same time, girlishly beautiful, completed the picture of the finest-looking fellow I have seen within my recollection. His person was very slight, and his feet and hands small, and particularly well shaped. Like most of his countrymen of later years, his dress was half European, and much less becoming, of course, than the turban and trowser. Pantaloons, rather loose, a light fawn-coloured short jacket, a red cap, with a blue tassel, and stockings, without shoes, were enough to give him the appearance of a dandy half through his toilet. He entered with an indolent step, bowed, without smiling, and throwing one of his feet under him, sunk down upon the divan, and beckoned for his pipe. The Turk in attendance kicked off his slippers, and gave him the long tube with its amber mouth-piece, setting the bowl into a basin in the centre of the room. The Bey put it to his handsome lips, and drew till the smoke mounted to the ceiling, and then handed it, with a graceful gesture, to the commodore.
The conversation went on through two interpretations. The Bey’s interpreter spoke Greek and Turkish, and the ship’s pilot, who accompanied us, spoke Greek and English, and the usual expressions of good feeling, and offers of mutual service, were thus passed between the puffs of the pipe with sufficient facility. The dwarf soon entered with coffee. The small gilded cups had about the capacity of a goodwife’s thimble, and were covered with gold tops to retain the aroma. The fragrance of the rich berry filled the room. We acknowledged, at once, the superiority of the Turkish manner of preparing it. It is excessively strong, and drunk without milk.
I looked into every corner while the attendants were removing the cups, but could see no trace of abook. Ten or twelve guns, with stocks inlaid with pearl and silver, two or three pair of gold-handled pistols, and a superb Turkish cimetar and belt, hung upon the walls, but there was no other furniture. We rose, after a half hour’s visit, and were bowed out by the handsome Effendi, coldly and politely. As we passed under the walls of the castle, on the way to the boat, we saw six or seven women, probably a part of his harem, peeping from the embrasures of one of the bastions. Their heads were wrapped in white, one eye only left visible. It was easy to imagine them Zuleikas after having seen their master.
Went ashore at Castle Europe, with one or two of the officers, to take a bath. An old Turk, sitting upon his hams, at the entrance, pointed to the low door at his side, without looking at us, and we descended, by a step or two, into a vaulted hall, with a large, circular ottoman in the centre, and a very broad divan all around. Two tall young Mussulmans, with only turbans and waistcloths to conceal their natural proportions, assisted us to undress, and led us into a stone room, several degrees warmer than the first. We walked about here for a few minutes, and as we began to perspire, were taken into another, filled with hot vapour, and, for the first moment or two, almost intolerable. It was shaped like a dome, with twenty or thirty small windows at the top, several basins at the sides into which hot water was pouring, and a raised stone platform in the centre, upon which we were all requested, by gestures, to lie upon our backs. The perspiration, by this time, was pouring from us like rain. I lay down with the others, and a Turk, a dark-skinned, fine-looking fellow, drew on a mitten of rough grass cloth, and laying one hand upon my breast to hold me steady, commenced rubbing me without water, violently. The skin peeled off under the friction, and I thought he must have rubbed into the flesh repeatedly. Nothing but curiosity to go through the regular operation of a Turkish bath prevented my crying out “Enough!” He rubbed away, turning me from side to side, till the rough glove passed smoothly all over my body and limbs, and then handing me a pair of wooden slippers, suffered me to rise. I walked about for a few minutes, looking with surprise at the rolls of skin he had taken from me, and feeling almost transparent as the hot air blew upon me.
In a few minutes my Mussulman beckoned to me to follow him to a smaller room, where he seated me on a stone beside a fount of hot water. He then made some thick soap-suds in a basin, and, with a handful of fine flax, soaped and rubbed me all over again, and a few dashes of the hot water, from a wooden saucer, completed the bath.
The next room, which had seemed so warm on our entrance, was now quite chilly. We remained here until we were dry, and then returned to the hall in which our clothes were left, where beds were prepared on the divans, and we were covered in warm cloths, and left to our repose. The disposition to sleep was almost irresistible. We rose in a short time, and went to the coffee-house opposite, when a cup of strong coffee, and a hookah smoked through a highly ornamented glass bubbling with water, refreshed us deliciously.
I have had ever since a feeling of suppleness and lightness, which is like wings growing at my feet. It is certainly a very great luxury, though, unquestionably, most enervating as a habit.
LETTER XXVIII.
A Turkish Pic-Nic, on the plain of Troy—Fingersv.Forks—Trieste—The Boschetto—Graceful freedom of Italian Manners—A Rural Fête—Fireworks—Amateur Musicians.
A Turkish Pic-Nic, on the plain of Troy—Fingersv.Forks—Trieste—The Boschetto—Graceful freedom of Italian Manners—A Rural Fête—Fireworks—Amateur Musicians.
Dardanelles.—The oddest invitation I ever had in my life was from a Turkish Bey to afête champètre, on the ruins of Troy! We have just returned, full of wassail and pillaw, by the light of an Asian moon.
The morning was such a one as you would expect in the country where mornings were first made. The sun was clear, but the breeze was fresh, and as we sat on the Bey’s soft divans, taking coffee before starting, I turned my cheek to the open window, and confessed the blessing of existence.
We were sixteen, from the ship, and our boat was attended by his interpreter, the general of his troops, the governor of Bournabashi (the name of the Turkish town near Troy), and a host of attendants on foot and horseback. His cook had been sent forward at daylight with the provisions.
The handsome Bey came to the door, and helped to mount us upon his own horses, and we rode on, with the whole population of the village assembled to see our departure. We forded the Scamander, near the town, and pushed on at a hard gallop over the plain. The Bey soon overtook us upon a fleet grey mare, caparisoned with red trappings, holding an umbrella over his head, which he courteously offered to the commodore on coming up. We followed a grass path, without hill or stone, for nine or ten miles, and after having passed one or two hamlets, with their open threshing-floors, and crossed the Simois, with the water to our saddle-girths, we left a slight rising ground by a sudden turn, and descended to a cluster of trees, where the Turks sprang from their horses, and made signs for us to dismount.
It was one of nature’s drawing-rooms. Thickets of brush and willows enclosed a fountain, whose clear waters were confined in a tank, formed of marble slabs, from the neighbouring ruins. A spreading tree above, and soft meadow-grass to its very tip, left nothing to wish but friends and a quiet mind to perfect its beauty. The cook’s fires were smoking in the thicket, the horses were grazing without saddle or bridle in the pasture below, and we laid down upon the soft Turkish carpets, spread beneath the trees, and reposed from our fatigues for an hour.
The interpreter came when the sun had slanted a little across the trees, and invited us to the Bey’s gardens, hard by. A path, overshadowed with wild brush, led us round the little meadow to a gate, close to the fountain-head of the Scamander. One of the common cottages of the country stood upon the left, and in front of it a large arbour, covered with a grape-vine, was under-laid with cushions and carpets. Here we reclined, and coffee was brought us with baskets of grapes, figs, quinces, and pomegranates, the Bey and his officers waiting on us themselves with amusing assiduity. The people of the house, meantime, were sent to the fields for green corn, which was roasted for us, and this with nuts, wine, and conversation, and a ramble to the source of the Simois, which bursts from a cleft in the rock very beautifully, whiled away the hours till dinner.
About four o’clock we returned to the fountain. A white muslin cloth was laid upon the grass between the edge and the overshadowing tree, and all around it were spread the carpets upon which we were to recline while eating. Wine and melons were cooling in the tank, and plates of honey and grapes, and new-made butter (a great luxury in the Archipelago), stood on the marble rim. The dinner might have fed Priam’s army. Half a lamb, turkeys, and chickens, were the principal meats, but there was, besides, “a rabble rout” of made dishes, peculiar to the country, of ingredients at which I could not hazard even a conjecture.
We crooked our legs under us with some awkwardness, and producing our knives and forks (which we had brought with the advice of the interpreter), commenced, somewhat abated in appetite by too liberal a lunch. The Bey and his officers sitting upright with, their feet under them, pinched off bits of meat dexterously with the thumb and forefinger, passing from one to the other a dish of rice, with a large spoon, which all used indiscriminately. It is odd that eating with the fingers seemed only disgusting to me in the Bey. His European dress probably made the peculiarity more glaring. The fat old governor who sat beside me was greased to the elbows, and his long grey beard was studded with rice and drops of gravy to his girdle. He rose when the meats were removed, and waddled off to the stream below, where a wash in the clean water made him once more a presentable person.
It is a Turkish custom to rise and retire while the dishes are changing, and after a little ramble through the meadow, we returned to a lavish spread of fruits and honey, which concluded the repast.
It is doubted where Troy stood. The reputed site is a rising ground, near the fountain of Bournabashi, to which we strolled after dinner. We found nothing but quantities of fragments of columns, believed by antiquaries to be the ruins of a city that sprung up and died long since Troy.
We mounted and rode home by a round moon, whose light filled the air like a dust of phosphoric silver. The plains were in a glow with it. Our Indian summer nights, beautiful as they are, give you no idea of an Asian moon.
The Bey’s rooms were lit, and we took coffee with him once more, and, fatigued with pleasure and excitement, got to our boats, and pulled up against the arrowy current of the Dardanelles to the frigate.
A long, narrow valley, with precipitous sides, commences directly at the gate of Trieste, and follows a small stream into the mountains of Friuli. It is a very sweet, green place, and studded on both sides with cottages and kitchen-gardens, which supply the city with flowers and vegetables. The right hand slope is called the Boschetto, and is laid out with pretty avenues of beech and elm as a public walk, while, at every few steps, stands a bowling-alley or drinking arbour, and here and there a trim little restaurant, just large enough for a rural party. It is perhaps a mile and a half in length, and one grand café in the centre, usually tempts the better class of promenaders into the expense of an ice.
It was a Sunday afternoon, and all Trieste was pouring out to the Boschetto. I had come ashore with one of the officers, and we fell into the tide. Few spots in the world are so variously peopled as this thriving seaport, and we encountered every style of dress and feature. The greater part were Jewesses. How instantly the most common observer distinguishes them in a crowd! The clear sallow skin, the sharp black eye and broad eyebrow, the aquiline nose, the small person, the slow, cautious step of the old, and the quick, restless one of the young, the ambitious ornaments, and the look of cunning, which nothing but the highest degree of education does away, mark the race with the definiteness of another species.
We strolled on to the end of the walk, amused constantly with the family groups sitting under the trees with their simple repast of a fritata and a mug of beer, perfectly unconscious of the presence of the crowd. There was something pastoral and contented in the scene that took my fancy. Almost all the female promenaders were without bonnets, and the mixture of the Greek style of head-dress with the Parisian coiffure, had a charming effect. There was just enough of fashion to take off the vulgarity.
We coquetted along, smiled upon by here and there a group that had visited the ship, and on our return sat down at a table in front of the café, surrounded by some hundreds of people of all classes, conversing and eating ices. I thought as I glanced about me, how oddly such a scene would look in America. In the broad part of an open walk, the whole town passing and repassing, sat elegantly dressed ladies, with their husbands or lovers, mothers with their daughters, and occasionally a group of modest girls alone, eating or drinking with as little embarrassment as at home, and preserving toward each other that courtesy of deportment which in these classes of society can result only from being so much in public.
Under the next tree to us sat an excessively pretty woman with two gentlemen, probably her husband and cavalier. I touched my hat to them as we seated ourselves, and this common courtesy of the country was returned with smiles that put us instantly upon the footing of a half acquaintance. A caress to the lady’s greyhound, and an apology for smoking, produced a little conversation, and when they rose to leave us, the compliments of the evening were exchanged with a cordiality that in America would scarce follow an acquaintance of months. I mention it as an every-day instance of the kind-hearted and open manners of Europe. It is what makes these countries so agreeable to the stranger and the traveller. Every café, on a second visit, seems like a home.
We were at a rural fête last night, given by a wealthy merchant of Trieste, at his villa in the neighbourhood. We found the company assembled on a terraced observatory, crowning a summer-house, watching the sunset over one of the sweetest landscapes in the world. We were at the head of a valley, broken at the edge of the Adriatic by the city, and beyond spread the golden waters of the gulf toward Venice, headed in on the right by the long chain of the Friuli. The country around was green and fertile, and small white villas peeped out everywhere from the foliage, evidences of the prosperous commerce of the town. We watched the warm colours out of the sky, and the party having by this time assembled, we walked through the long gardens to a house open with long windows from the ceiling to the floor, and furnished only with the light and luxurious arrangement of summer.
Music is the life of all amusement within the reach of Italy, and the waltzing was mingled with performances on the piano (and very wonderful ones to me) by an Italian count and his friend, a German. They played duets in a style I have seldom heard even by professors.
The supper was fantastically rural. The table was spread under a large tree, from the branches of which was trailed a vine, by a square frame of lattice-work in the proportions of a pretty saloon. The lamps were hung in coloured lanterns among the branches, and the trunk of the tree passed through the centre of the table hollowed to receive it. The supper was sumptuously splendid, and the effect of the party within, seen from the grounds about, through the arched and vine-concealed doors, was the most picturesque imaginable.
A waltz or two followed, and we were about calling for our horses, when the whole place was illuminated with a discharge of fireworks. Every description of odd figures was described in flame during the hour they detained us, and the bright glare on the trees, and the figures of the party strolling up and down the gravelled walks, was admirably beautiful.
They do these things so prettily here! We were invited out on the morning of the same day, and expected nothing but a drive and a cup of tea, and we found an entertainment worthy of a king. The simplicity and frankness with which we were received, and the unpretendingness of the manner of introducing the amusements of the evening, might have been lessons in politeness to nobles.
A drive to town by starlight, and a pull off to the ship in the cool and refreshing night air, concluded a day of pure pleasure. It has been my good fortune of late to number many such.
LETTER XXIX.
The Dardanelles—Visit from the Pacha—His Delight at hearing the Piano—Turkish Fountains—Caravan of Mules laden with Grapes—Turkish Mode of Living—Houses, Cafés, and Women—The Mosque and the Muezzin—American Consul of the Dardanelles, another “Caleb Quotem.”
The Dardanelles—Visit from the Pacha—His Delight at hearing the Piano—Turkish Fountains—Caravan of Mules laden with Grapes—Turkish Mode of Living—Houses, Cafés, and Women—The Mosque and the Muezzin—American Consul of the Dardanelles, another “Caleb Quotem.”
Coast of Asia.—We have lain in the mouth of the Dardanelles sixteen mortal days, waiting for a wind. Like Don Juan (who passed here on his way to Constantinople)—
“Another time we might have liked to see ’em,But now are not much pleased with Cape Sigæum.”
“Another time we might have liked to see ’em,But now are not much pleased with Cape Sigæum.”
“Another time we might have liked to see ’em,But now are not much pleased with Cape Sigæum.”
“Another time we might have liked to see ’em,
But now are not much pleased with Cape Sigæum.”
An occasional trip with the boats to the watering-place, a Turkish bath, and a stroll in the bazaar of the town behind the castle, gazing with a glass at the tombs of Ajax and Achilles, and the long, undulating shores of Asia, eating often and sleeping much, are the only appliances to our philosophy. One cannot always be thinking of Hero and Leander, though he lie in the Hellespont.
A merchant-brig from Smyrna is anchored just astern of us, waiting like ourselves for this eternal northeaster to blow itself out. She has forty or fifty passengers for Constantinople, among whom are the wife of an American merchant (a Greek lady), and Mr. Schauffler, a missionary, in whom I recognised a quondam fellow-student. They were nearly starved on board the brig, as she was provisioned but for a few days, and the commodore has courteously offered them a passage in the frigate. Fifty or sixty sail lie below Castle Europe, in the same predicament. With the “cap of King Erricus,” this cruising, pleasant as it is, would be a thought pleasanter to my fancy.
Still wind-bound. The angel that
“Looked o’er my almanacAnd crossed out my ill-days,”
“Looked o’er my almanacAnd crossed out my ill-days,”
“Looked o’er my almanacAnd crossed out my ill-days,”
“Looked o’er my almanac
And crossed out my ill-days,”
suffered a week or so to escape him here. Not that the ship is not pleasant enough, and the climate deserving of its Sybarite fame, and the sunsets and stars as much brighter than those of the rest of the world, as Byron has described them to be (videletter to Leigh Hunt), but life has run in so deep a current with me of late, that the absence of incident seems like water without wine. The agreeable stir of travel, the incomplete adventure, the change of costumes and scenery, the busy calls upon the curiosity and the imagination, have become, in a manner, very breath to me. Hitherto upon the cruise, we have scarce ever been more than one or two days at a time out of port. Elba, Sicily, Naples, Vienna, the Ionian Isles, and the various ports of Greece have come and gone so rapidly, and so entirely without exertion of my own, that I seem to have lived in a magic panorama. After dinner on one day I visit a city here, and the day or two after, lounging and reading and sleeping meanwhile quietly at home, I find myself rising from table, hundreds of miles farther to the north or east, and another famous city before me, having taken no care, and felt no motion, nor encountered danger or fatigue. A summer cruise in the Mediterranean is certainly the perfection of sight-seeing. With a sea as smooth as a river, and cities of interest, classical and mercantile, everywhere on the lee, I can conceive of no class of persons to whom it would not be delightful. A company of pleasure, in a private vessel, would see all Greece and Italy with less trouble and expense than is common on a trip to the lakes.
“All hands up anchor!” The dog-vane points at last to Constantinople. The capstan is manned, the sails loosed, the quarter-master at the wheel, and the wind freshens every moment from the “sweet south.” “Heave round merrily!” The anchor is dragged in by this rushing Hellespont, and holds on as if the bridge of Xerxes were tangled about the flukes. “Up she comes at last,” and, yielding to her broad canvass, the gallant frigate begins to make headway against the current. There is nothing in the whole world of senseless matter, so like a breathing creature as a ship! The energy of her motion, the beauty of her shape and contrivance, and the ease with which she is managed by the one mind upon her quarter-deck, to whose voice she is as obedient as the courser to the rein, inspire me with daily admiration. I have been four months a guest in this noble man-of-war, and to this hour, I never set my foot on her deck without a feeling of fresh wonder. And then Cooper’s novels read in a ward-room as grapes eat in Tuscany. It were missing one of the golden leaves of a life not to have thumbed them on a cruise.
The wind has headed us off again, and we have dropped anchor just below the castles of the Dardanelles. We have made but eight miles, but we have new scenery from the ports, and that is something to a weary eye. I was as tired of “the shores of Ilion” as ever was Ulysses. The hills about our present anchorage are green and boldly marked, and the frowning castles above us give that addition to the landscape which is alone wanting on the Hudson. Sestos and Abydos are six or seven miles up the stream. The Asian shore (I should have thought it a pretty circumstance, once, to be able to set foot either in Europe or Asia in five minutes) is enlivened by numbers of small vessels, tracking up with buffaloes, against wind and tide. And here we lie, says the old pilot, without hope till the moon changes. The “ficklemoon,” quotha! I wish my friends were half as constant!
The Pacha of the Dardanelles has honoured us with a visit. He came in a long caique, pulled by twenty stout rascals, his Excellency of “two tails” sitting on a rich carpet on the bottom of the boat, with his boy of a year old in the same uniform as himself, and his suite of pipe and slipper-bearers, dwarf and executioner, sitting cross-legged about him. He was received with the guard and all the honour due to his rank. His face is that of a cold, haughty, and resolute, but well-born man, and his son is like him. He looked at everything attentively, without expressing any surprise, till he came to the pianoforte, which one of the ladies played to his undisguised delight. It was the first he had ever seen. He inquired, through his interpreter, if she had not been all her life in learning.
The poet says, “The seasons of the year come in like masquers.” To one who had made their acquaintance in New-England, most of the months would literally passincog.in Italy. But here is honest October, the same merry old gentleman, though I meet him in Asia, and I remember him, last year, at the baths of Lucca, as unchanged as here. It has been a clear, bright, invigorating day, with a vitality in the air as rousing to the spirits as a blast from the “horn of Astolpho.” I can remember just such a day ten years ago. It is odd how a little sunshine will cling to the memory when loves and hates that, in their time, convulsed the very soul, are so easily forgotten.
We heard yesterday that there was a Turkish village seven or eight miles in the mountains on the Asian side, and, as a variety to the promenade on the quarter-deck, a ramble was proposed to it.
We landed, this morning, on the bold shore of the Dardanelles, and, climbing up the face of a sand-hill, struck across a broad plain, through bush and brier, for a mile. On the edge of a ravine we found a pretty road, half-hedged over with oak and hemlock, and a mounted Turk, whom we met soon after, with a gun across his pummel, and a goose looking from his saddle-bag, directed us to follow it till we reached the village.
It was a beautiful path, flecked with the shade of leaves of all the variety of eastern trees, and refreshed with a fountain at every mile. About half way we stopped at a spring welling from a rock, under a large fig-tree, from which the water poured, as clear as crystal, into seven tanks, and one after the other rippling away from the last into a wild thicket, whence a stripe of brighter green marked its course down the mountain. It was a spot worthy of Tempé. We seated ourselves on the rim of the rocky basin, and, with a drink of bright water, and a half hour’s repose, re-commenced our ascent, blessing the nymph of the fount, like true pilgrims of the East.
A few steps beyond we met a caravan of the pacha’s tithe-gatherers, with mules laden with grapes; the turbaned and showily-armed drivers, as they came winding down the dell, produced the picturesque effect of a theatrical ballet. They laid their hands on their breasts, with grave courtesy, as they approached, and we helped ourselves to the ripe, blushing clusters, as the panniers went by, with Arcadian freedom.
We reached the summit of the ridge a little before noon, and turned our faces back for a moment to catch the cool wind from the Hellespont. The Dardanelles came winding out from the hills, just above Abydos, and sweeping past the upper castles of Europe and Asia, rushed down by Tenedos into the Archipelago. Perhaps twenty miles of its course lay within our view. Its colours were borrowed from the divine sky above, and the rainbow is scarce more varied or brighter. The changing purple and blue of the mid-stream, specked with white crests, the chrysoprase green of the shallows, and the dyes of the various depths along the shore, gave it the appearance of a vein of transparent marble, inlaid through the valley. The frigate looked like a child’s boat on its bosom. To our left, the tombs of Ajax and Achilles were just distinguishable in the plains of the Scamander, and Troy (if Troy ever stood) stood back from the sea, and the blue-wreathed isles of the Archipelago bounded the reach of the eye. It was a view that might “cure a month’s grief in a day.”
We descended now into a kind of cradle valley, yellow with rich vineyards. It was alive with people gathering in the grapes. The creaking wagons filled the road, and shouts and laughter rang over the mountain-sides merrily. The scene would have been Italian, but for the turbans peering out everywhere from the leaves, and those diabolical-looking buffaloes in the wagons. The village was a mile or two before us, and we loitered on, entering here and there a vineyard, where the only thing evidently grudged us was our peep at the women. They scattered like deer as we stepped over the walls.
Near the village we found a grave Turk, of whom one of the officers made some inquiries, which were a part of our errand to the mountains. It may spoil the sentiment of my description, but, in addition to the poetry of the ramble, we were to purchase beef for the mess. His bullocks were out at grass (feeding in pastoral security, poor things!), and he invited us to his house, while he sent his boy to drive them in. I recognised them, when they came, as two handsome steers, which had completed the beauty of an open glade, in the centre of a clump of forest trees, on our route. The pleasure they have afforded to the eye will be repeated upon the palate—a double destiny not accorded to all beautiful creatures.
Our host led us up a flight of rough stone steps to the second story of his house, where an old woman sat upon her heels, rolling out paste, and a younger one nursed a little Turk at her bosom. They had, like every man, woman, or child I have seen in this country, superb eyes and noses. No chisel could improve the meanest of them in these features. Our friend’s wife seemed ashamed to be caught with her face uncovered, but she offered us cushions on the floor before she retired, and her husband followed up her courtesy with his pipe.
We went thence to the café, where a bubbling hookah, a cup of coffee, and a divan, refreshed us a little from our fatigues. While the rest of the party were lingering over their pipes, I took a turn through the village in search of the house of the Aga. After strolling up and down the crooked streets for half an hour, a pretty female figure, closely enveloped in her veil, and showing, as she ran across the street, a dainty pair of feet in small yellow slippers, attracted me into the open court of the best-looking house in the village. The lady had disappeared, but a curious-looking carriage, lined with rich Turkey carpeting and cushions, and covered with red curtains, made to draw close in front, stood in the centre of the court. I was going up to examine it, when an old man, with a beard to his girdle, and an uncommonly rich turban, stepped from the house and motioned me angrily away. A large wolf-dog, which he held by the collar, added emphasis to his command, and I retreated directly. A giggle and several female voices from the closely-latticed window, rather aggravated the mortification. I had intruded on the premises of the Aga, a high offence in Turkey, when a woman is in the case.
It was “deep i’ the afternoon,” when we arrived at the beach, and made signal for a boat. We were on board as the sky kindled with the warm colours of an Asian sunset—a daily offset to our wearisome detention which goes far to keep me in temper. My fear is that the commodore’s patience is not “so good a continuer” as this “vento maledetto,” as the pilot calls it, and in such a case I lose Constantinople most provokingly.
Walked to the Upper Castle Asia, some eight miles above our anchorage. This is the main town on the Dardanelles, and contains forty or fifty thousand inhabitants. Sestos and Abydos are a mile or two farther up the Strait.
We kept along the beach for an hour or two, passing occasionally a Turk on horseback, till we were stopped by a small and shallow creek without a bridge, just on the skirts of the town. A woman with one eye peeping from her veil, dressed in a tunic of fine blue cloth, stood at the head of a large drove of camels on the other side, and a beggar with one eye, smoked his pipe on the sand at a little distance. The water was knee-deep, and we were hesitating on the brink, when the beggar offered to carry us across on his back—a task he accomplished (there were six of us) without taking his pipe from his mouth.
I tried in vain to get a peep at the camel-driver’s wife or daughter, but she seemed jealous of showing even her eyebrow, and I followed on to the town. The Turks live differently from every other people, I believe. You walk through their town and see every individual in it, except perhaps the women of the pacha. Their houses are square boxes, the front side of which lifts on a hinge in the day-time, exposing the whole interior, with its occupants squatted in the corners or on the broad platform where their trades are followed. They are scarce larger than boxes in the theatre, and the roof projects into the middle of the street, meeting that of the opposite neighbour, so that the pavement between is always dark and cool. The three or four Turkish towns I have seen, have the appearance of cabins thrown up hastily after a fire. You would not suppose they were intended to last more than a month at the farthest.
We roved through the narrow streets an hour or more, admiring the fine bearded old Turks, smoking cross-legged in the cafés, the slipper-makers with their gay morocco wares in goodly rows around them, the wily Jews with their high caps and caftans (looking, crouched among their merchandise, like the “venders of old bottles and abominable lies,” as they are drawn in the plays of Queen Elizabeth’s time), the muffled and gliding spectres of the Moslem women, and the livelier-footed Greek girls, in their velvet jackets and braided hair, and by this time we were kindly disposed to our dinners.
On our way to the consul’s, where we were to dine, we passed a mosque. The minaret (a tall peaked tower, about of the shape and proportions of a pencil-case) commanded a view down the principal streets; and a stout fellow, with a sharp clear voice, leaned over the balustrade at the top, crying out the invitation to prayer in a long drawling sing-song, that must have been audible on the other side of the Hellespont. Open porches, supported by a paling, extended all around the church, and the floors were filled with kneeling Turks, with their pistols and ataghans lying beside them. I had never seen so picturesque a congregation. The slippers were left in hundreds at the threshold, and the bare and muscular feet and legs, half concealed by the full trowsers, supported as earnest a troop of worshippers as ever bent forehead to the ground. I left them rising from a flat prostration, and hurried after my companions to dinner.
Our consul of the Dardanelles is an American. He is absent just now, in search of a runaway female slave of the sultan’s; and his wife, a gracious Italian, full of movement and hospitality, does the honours of his house in his absence. He is a physician as well as consul and slave-catcher, and the presents of a hand-organ, a French clock, and a bronze standish, rather prove him to be a favourite with the “brother of the sun.”
We were smoking the hookah after dinner, when an intelligent-looking man, of fifty or so, came in to pay us a visit. He is at present an exile from Constantinople, by order of the Grand Seignior, because a brother physician, his friend, failed in an attempt to cure one of the favourites of the imperial harem! This is what might be called “sympathy upon compulsion.” It is unnecessary, one would think, to make friendship more dangerous than common human treachery renders it already.