'%V * m ^ ntifh r- I wii m (A rfM 5^ JVAYNE S. VUCINICH h^ GEISEL LIBRARY ONlVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DitGC LA JOLLA, CAUFOR^aA 2iA BACKSHEESH! Life and Adventures ORIENT. DESCRIPTIVE AND HUMOROUS SKETCHES OF SIGHTS AND SCENES OVER THE ATLANTIC, DOWN THE DANUBE, THROUGH THE CRIMEA ; IN TURKEY, GREECE, ASIA-MINOR, SYRIA, PALESTINE, AND EGYPT ; UP THE NILE, IN NUBIA, AND EQUATORIAL AFRICA, ETC., ETC. Embellished with nearly Two Hundred and Fifty Illustrations, including Forty-Eight full page Engravings, principally executed in London, Paris, and New York, from Photographs and original Sketches. With fine Steel-Plate Portrait of the Author. By THOMAS W. KNOX, Author of "Camp-Fire and Cotton Field," "Overland through Asia," "Underground," etc HARTFORD, CONN.: A. D. WORTHINGTON & Cc, PUBLISHERS. Chicago, Cincinnati, and St. Louis: A. G. Nettleton & Co. San FRANasco: A. L. Bancroft & Co. 1875- Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, ^y A. D. WORTHINGTON & CO., In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. AUTHOR'S PREFACE. The following pages are the result of a peaceful crusade to the East, undertaken for purposes of pleasure and profit. The author has en- deavored to combine the humorous features of the journey with the store of useful knowledge that should be the result of a tour through the Orient. He trusts that he has so combined them that both will be satisfactory, and that the reader will be amused while seeking instruction and instructed while seeking amusement. There is a story of an honest old Quaker resident of Philadelphia, who sent his son to make the tour of Europe. The young man deter- mined to see all that could be seen, and gave his whole mind to the search for enjoyment. When he returned from his travels his father said : "John, thou hast been absent a twelvemonth and past, and thou hast drawn on me for eighteen thousand dollars. John, that is a great deal of money for thee to spend in one year." "I know it, father," was the young man's response, "but I have had lots of fun for that money." In return for the labor and fatigue incident to Oriental travel, the author believes that he found an ample reward in the entertainment and information which the journey afforded. The author is glad to avail himself of this opportunity to express the gratification he feels at seeing his book so profusely and artistically illustrated. In this department of the work the publishers have dis- played their enterprise and liberality in such a creditable manner, as to justly entitle them, not only to the author's grateful acknowledg- ments, but to the hearty thanks of all who may read his book. He would also return his thanks to the artists and engravers, who have so skilfully designed and executed the illustrations, many of which were drawn and engraved in London and Paris, expressly for this vol- ume. Finally he would thank most cordially the many gentlemen in the various countries he visited who gave him the benefit of their personal experience and observation. Their names are too numerous to be included in this preface, and their nationalities comprise nearly all the civilized countries of the globe. T. W. K. Principally designed, or reproduced from pJiotographs, by Karl Giradet, C. Faguet, Frank Beard, James C. Beard, Arthnr Lmnley, L. Hopkins, and other eminent artists, and viostly engraoed by Messrs. MoUer, Pannemaker, Laplante, Ousmand, Qauchard, and other noted engravers of Paris; by W. J. Palmer, and the London Plustra- iion Company, of London; and by Charles Speigle, of New York. Page. Steel-Plate Portrait of the Author Frontispiece. The Slm-y-Teller of the Desert— Vnll Page To face Frontispiece. Head Piece v Head Piece ix Tail Piece xxxi Head Piece ji Steamer Day 34 The Judge's First Day at Sea 35 The Judge's Second Day at Sea 36 The Race 39 The Judge 4° A Practical Joke 44 Head Piece 48 Fraternizing 5° Eternal Friendship 51 Proot of the Affray • 5* Avenging an Insult 54 " I must have a Duel" Si An Imperial Wine Cellar 60 Head Piece 6j " Salt by Yer" 68 The Snoring Match 69 The Doubter 7' A Turkish " Hamal " 7» Tail Piece 77 Head Piece 78 Among the Fleas 79 A Toilet in Public •. 82 '•Natives of the Country" 85 Precautionary Measures 86 " She is a Jewess" 89 The Palace Tshiragan 91 Head Piece 95 Shirking the Cemetery 97 " Fresh Paiut" 100 (iv) LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. V Page. j6. Driving a Bargain 104 J7. A Night at Baidar 106 j8. Caught in the Act 108 39. Tail Piece 109 40. Head Piece no 41. Putting in his " Best Licks " lit 4z. "Backsheesh" iij 4J. An Impressive Scene 116 44. Constantinople from the Tower of Gclata—'PuW Page 116 45. Head Piece izj 46. A Street in Constantinople 114 47. Strategy iz6 48. The Reconnoitre iZ9 49. The Retreat ijo JO. A Damas-cussed Dog iji 51. Stowing the Sandwiches i jz 52. Admiring the Mosque ijz Si. A Sudden Attack 132 54. The Pursuit ijj 55. A Hopeless Chase ijj 56. " Retrospection" 134 57. Tail Piece 135 58. Head Piece 135 59. A Sedan Chair i}6 60. A Turkish Beauty 137 6r. An Importunate Moslem 143 62. Extorting " Backsheesh" 144 63. Head Piece 145 64. End of the Fast and Beginning of the Feast 146 65. " Good-Bye, my Friend, Good-Bye" 148 66. A Turkish " Cavass" 149 67. Head Piece 1 53 68. Moslems at Prayer 154 69. "Bismillah" 155 70. The "Duplicate" 157 71. Muezzin announcing the Hour of Prayer 158 72. An Oriental Boot Jack 160 73. Fartha, or Opening Chapter of the Koran 163 74. Tailpiece 105 75. Head Piece 166 76. A Whirling Dervish 170 77. Effect of too much Whirling 171 78. Howling as a Profession J73 7g. Homcepathic Treatment 175 80. Head Piece 177 81. Some of the Brothers of Far- Away Moses 178 82. Interviewing a Purser 184 83. Head Piece 187 84. Head Piece 197 85. View of Athens and the Acropolis 199 86. The Decline of Greece 101 87. Greek Priest of Modern Times 204 88. "Doing" the Ruins 206 89. Tail Piece an 90. Head Piece 213 91. Sending Up the Ear of a Victim 217 92. Head Piece 225 93. Pickling the "Doubter" 229 94. " Backsheesh !"" Backsheesh 1 " 231 no. III. 119. 120. vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 95. Head Piece 256 96. Inspecting ttie Crew 241 97. Bad "Baclcshecsli."— "It was Counterfeit" 243 98. St. Jean D' Acre— Full Page 249 99. A Tricliy Beast 254 100. Beyrout and tlie Mountains of Lebanon— TPull Page 257 loi. "MonDieul Is this the Party for Damascus ? " 262 102. Head Piece 264 loj. The Cedars of Lebanon-Vnll Page 265 104. Cedar of Lebanon 270 105. Great Stone at Baalbek 272 106. Potlal of the Temple of the Sun at Baalbek— VnU Page 275 107. Court of a House in Damascus 279 108. Moslem Women Weeping at a Tomb 282 109. Syrian Jew with Phylactery 285 A Money Changer in the Bazaar 288 Flat Roofed Houses— Damascus 291 112. Abd-el-Kader 293 113. We "Strip to ze buff" 296 114. " You will have all ze luxuries" — 296 115. We Enter "Ze Bain Beautiful " 297 116. One of the Luxuries 297 117. Softening the Asperities 298 118. A Hot One 298 " What is Curlew ? " 305 A Bedouin Encampment 308 121. A Bedouin of the Desert 309 122. The Terror of the Desert on his Arabian Charger 311 123. Biivu of Palmyra— VuW Page 31S 1Z4. SeS?wi— Full Page 3«9 125. Mount Carmel—'P-a.W Page 3^3 126. An Inhabited Boot, 325 127. Ploughing in Syria, 332 128. All that remains of Capernaum, 334 129. "Backsheesh! O Howadji!" 335 ijo. The Sea of Tiberias— VnW Page 337 131. Magdala, 339 132. Unhorsing the " Doubter," 342 133. iVazare^/i— Full Page 345 134. Jews of Nazareth— V a\\ Va.^e. 349 135. A Syrian Water Bearer, 353 136. Jerusalem and Surrounding Country— VaW Page 359 137. Sidon-VnlX Page 365 138. Tyre, 368 139. Tail Piece, 369 140. <7«^«— Full Page 371 141. Our Dragoman, Ali Soloman, 374 141. "Backsheesh," 376 143. Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives— VnW Page 377 144. Remains of an Ancient Arch, Showing a Portion of the Haram Wall, 3S0 145. A Street in Jerusalem, 381 146. Arched Street and Fountain, Jerusalem, 382 147. Principal Street of Jerusalem— VnVl Page 383 148. The Golden Gate, Jerusalem, 386 149. Interior of the Golden Gate, 387 150. Site of the Temple, Jerusalem, 3S8 151. Ancient Signet Ring, 389 152. Ancient Signet Ring, 3S9 153. Exploring the Substructions, 390 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Vll P«Be. 154. Underground—Beneath the City of Jerusalem— VnW Page jgi ijy. The Valley of Jehoshaphat, jgj 156. Wailing Place of the Jews, Jerusalem, 394 157. Walls of the Church of tM Presentation— V u.\\ Page 395 158. BethlehetJi-Full Page 399 159. Chu/ch of the Xativiti/, Bethlehem— Vull Page 40S 160. Monastery of Mar Saba— Vull Page 409 161 . A Formidable Escort, 414 162. Bathing Place of the Pilgritns on the Jordan— VvM. Page 4«7 i6j. The "Doubter's" Mishap 410 164. The Mount of Olives— VviW VSLS^ 413 165. Pool of Hezekiuh 4^6 166. West Door, Church of the Holy Sepulchre 4^7 167. Church of tM Iloly Sepulchre— Full Page 4^9 168. The Fountain of the Virtjiu, 4J3 i6g. "'Doubter'— Sixpence," 4J6 170. Jafl'a Orange Seller, 438 171. Tail Piece, 439 172. Water Bearers at the Railway Station, Cairo, 447 173. Praying in the Streets of oairo, 448 174. Cairo— Pull Page • • 449 175. Massacre of the Mamalukes-VvLii. Page 455 176. Ismail Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, 458 177. A Tough One, 459 178. Head Piece 4^8 179. Tombs of the Sultans— Cairo— VvlW Page 469 j8o. " O Ye Thirsty," 47* 181. Children Bread Sellers in the Streets of Cairo, 473 182. Mosque of the Sultan Hassan, at Cairo— Full Page 475 185. Young Street Arabs of Cairo, 477 184. Shoe Peddler in the Bazaar, 479 185. Latticed Windows— Cairo, 480 186. An Auctioneer in the Bazaars, 485 187. A Syce, 489 188. Donkey Drivers of Cairo— VvlW Page 49' 189. Not up to the Dodge, 494 190. An Egyptian Eunuch 49^ 191. An Arab School— VvlW Page S°3 192. Ceremony of the Doseh 5'° 193. A Shadoof for Drawing Water from the iVi/e— Full Page 515 194. Climbing the Pyramid, S'8 195. The Ascent of the Judge S^° 196. An Arab Feat, 5^* 197. The Sphinx and the Great Pyramid of Gizeh—VnW Page 5^3 198. A Nile Boat 53° 199. The Serapeum— Memphis— Vu\l Page "7 200. Landing/ Place at Beni-Soef— Full Page 545 201. Sugar Cane Seller at Minieh, 54° 202. An Inconvenient Position ^'^ 203. Stout- rpper Egypt— Full Page '" 204. "Nargeeleh." '^^ 205. Siout Egg Merchant, ^'^ 206. Egyptian Gamblers, ""^ 207. " Aoz. Eh ?" ; ^^ 208. " Dusting " for " Backsheesh," ^^ 209. An Egyptian Ghawazee, '^ 210. Ghawazeeand Musicians, '7' •211. An Egyptian Musician, '7* ^12. Egyptian Water Can-iers Filling their Jars— Full Page 575 VIU LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Page, 21 J. Euins of the Temple of Denderah, Upper Egypt— VvlVI. Page 579 ZI4. Entrance to the Temjie of Luxor— VnW Page 587 215. The Memnonium and the Ruined Statue— WuW Page 59j 216. Sitting Colossi, 595 217. A Fresh One, 599 218. Interior of a Harem— VuW Page 6oi 219. A Murderous Assault, 607 220. A Nubian Belle, 609 221. A Nubian Lady 610 222. An Egyptian Sakkieh, for Draining Water frmn the NUe—HviW. Page 611 22}. An Affectionate Beast 61} 224. Luxuries of Camel Riding 615 225. Egyptian God Osiris 617 226. Egj-ptiau Goddess Isis 618 227. Island of Phila;, or Sacred Island— Vull Page 619 228. Sacred Lotus of the Egyptians— VnW Page 627 129. Modern Egyptian Gristmill 6}o 2JO. A Nubian Warrior 632 2JI. Pajjyrus of the Egyptians— VnW Page 633 232. Biting the Dust '. 641 2}}. Women of Cairo— Full Page 65 j 234. Bread Seller in the Streets of Cairo 659 135. A Lady of the Harem 662. 2j6. An Egyptian Barber 665 237. Alexandria— VnW Page 671 238. Court of a House in Egypt, 673 239. A Bedouin Encampment near Cairo, 67J 240. The Madonna Tree, 676 241. Boot Blacks of Cairo, 6yg 242. Mosque of Sultan Berkook, and Fountain of Ismail Pasha, at Cairo, 682 243. Modern Egj'ptian Oven, 683 244. Palace of the Viceroy, near Alexandna—V\k\\ Page 689 CONTENTS. CHAPTER I STEAMER LIFE ON THE ATLANTIC. Leaving Home— Our Pilgrimage Begun— Sights and Scenes on Deck—" Life on the Ocean Wave "—Out at Sea— The Traveller's Little World— Feeling Queer Inside !— Delights of Sea-Sickness— Reminiscences of a Jolly Old Boy— What Became of the Judge— Bringing up his Liver !— Too Big for his Berth— Sleeping in a Second-Hand Coffin— A Race with a Lemon— The Leg of Mutton Dance— Eccentric Conduct of a Boiled Turkey— Too Much Sauce !— "Dressing " the Judge's Trowsers— Alone at Sea— A Funny Conspiracy— Fate of a Timid Man— Confidence Betrayed— The Young Man from the Country— His Wisdom and his Woes— Drinking Petroleum —The Judge Turns Joker— Who Owns the Ocean Steamers, 3J CHAPTER II. SCENES IN VIENNA.— DOWN THE DANUBE. On English Ground— The Road to the East— Life in the Austrian Capital- Fun and Festivity— Visit to the Big Beer-Garden— Effects of Champagne- Animated Conversation— How Twenty Thousand Dollars were Spent — The Man with the Torn Vest— Headaches at a Discount— Yankees in a Row— A Pugnacious Russian— " Quits," but not Satisfied— Challenging an (ix) CONTENTS. American— The Fashionable World— Down the Danube— Scenes on the River— How Austrian Cigars are Made— An Imperial Tobacco Dealer— The Battle of Wagram— Castle of Presburg— We Enter Hungary— An Evening in a Wine Cellar— Want of a Little Soap— Night Scene on the Danube, CHAPTER III. LIFE AMONG THE MAGYARS. A City of Renown— Overwhelmed by the Floods— Lying in Clover — What I Sawin the Hungarian Capital— "The Poor Folks' Bath"— Rather Warm Quarters— Life Among the Magyars— The "Miffs" of an Imperial Couple— Her Majesty's Choice— A Model Captain— Charles Matthews and the Bow- ery Boy— Facts and Fancies of a Snoring Match— The "Judge" and the -" Doubter "—The Man who Wouldn't Believe— Who were the "Hamals," and What They Did— People in Strange Garments— Baggy Breeches versus Slop— The Fortress of Belgrade— Servia, and What I Saw of Its People— The Assassination of Prince Miloch— Rather Bad for Poetry, - - - 63 CHAPTER IV. NEARING THE ORIENT.— "BACKSHEESH !" Among the Fleas— The Mystery of the Bedclothes— A Cool Explanation-^ Under the Spray— What Became of the Dragon— A Queer Story about Flies— What Is an " Araba?"— Conversation without Words— Changing Shirts in Public — The Iron Gate — Scene at the Custom-House — Official Obstinacy — The " Sick Man "—Scenes in the Orient — The Mysteries of the Quarantine— How we Dodged the Turks— The Turk and his Rosary— Pity the Poor Israelite !— Why an Unlucky Jewess was Whipped— The Secret of the Turkish Loan— How the Money is Spent— Ten Million Dollars Gone!— What is "Backsheesh?" 78 CHAPTERV. THROUGH THE CRIMEA.— IN AND AROUND SEVASTOPOL. A Visit to the Crimea — The Porter with the Big Books — The Danger of Si- beria — Our Entry into Sevastopol — Terrible Reminiscences of the Crimean CONTENTS. XI "War — How we Shirked the Cemetery — The Great Dock- Yard of Sevasto- pol — We Visit a Remarkable Gunboat — What we Saw Below-Deck — The Story that our Landlord Told — An Enterprising Tartar — The "Doubter" Offers an Opinion — How the "Judge" Stole a Newspaper — Adventures by the Way — The " Doubter " gets into Trouble — We Fly to the Rescue — Eccentricities of a Selfish Man — We Rise and Depart, ■ ■ - - 93 CHAPTER \^I. ACROSS THE BLACK SEA. A Visit to a Russian Police Office — Smith, and What he Did — A Bad Lot of Passports — A Race after a Governor in a Drosky — -More " Backsheesh" — Delicate Administration of a Bribe — An Obliging Subordinate — Attempt at a Swindle — Scraping an Acquaintance — High Life on the Black Sea — Muscovite Ladies — Sunrise on the Euxine — Worshipping the Sun — Stam- boul — Passing Quarantine — On the Bosphorus — A Magnificent Spectacle — The Castle of Europe — Palaces and Villas — Domes and Minarets — The Golden Horn — In Front of Constantinople — Rapacity of Boatmen — Turk- ish Thieves— Streets of the City, CHAPTER VIT. CONSTANTINOPLE.— THE CITY OF DOGS. Human Camels — Canine Colors — The Dogs of Istamboul — Their Appearance and Moral Character — How the Turks Regard Them — "Inshallah" — Con- stantinopolitan Dogsologies — An Oriental Dog-Fight — Sagacious Brutes — Cultivating Canine Society — "Standing Treat" among the Curs — Four- Footed Campaigns — Dog-Districts — The Hostile Armies — A Brilliant Strategic Move — Charge of the Light (Dog) Brigade — Advance of the Chefde Garbage— The "Army of the West" in Retreat — The "Doubt- er's " Mishap — Full Details of a Coat's Detailing — An Israelite in whom there wa J Guile — No More Sandwiches for Me, Sir-r-r, - - - - 123 Xii CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. TURKISH CURIOSITY SHOPS.— SIGHTS AND SCENES IN THE BAZAARS. Locomotion in Constantinople — Horses, Donkeys, Shanks' Mare and Sedan Chairs— Turkish Street Cars — Women in Public — The Veiled Queens of Seraglios — The Drugs of the Orient — Henna and its Uses — Ottar of Roses, Musk and Bergamot — Shawls and Silks of Price — The Treasures of Ormus and of Ind — The Workers in Precious Metals — Vases of Gold and Platters of Silver — An Aureole of Gems — Loot for Soldiers and Swag for Burglars — The Weapons of Ancient Islam — Blades of Damascus and Swords of Mecca — A Wonderful Collection — Old Clothes and New Truck — A Seedy Moslem Swindler — An Exorbitant " Backsheesh " — What Happened to the Judge — A Dispenser of Justice in the Lockup, 135, CHAPTER IX. LIFE IN THE HAREM.— MYSTERIES OF THE SERAGLIO. The Great Moslem Fast — Nights of Feasting and Days of Fasting — The In- junction of Mahomet — The Ravenous Mussulman — An Hotel Swindle— A Stranger and they Took Him In—" Too Thin, Too Thin"— Greek Wine- Going Out in a Blaze of Glory — Thunder, Smoke, and Flame — The Ap- proach of the Sultan — How he Looked — A Peep at the Ladies of the Harem — The Veiled Queens — The Sultan's Mother — The Empress Eugenie at the Seraglio — Insult Offered to Eugenie — A Queen in Tears — A Ques- tion of Court Etiquette — Murdering Christians, 145; CHAPTER X. THE MOSQUES.— FAITH AND SUPERSTITIONS OF THE MUSSULMANS. Among the Mosques — Their Special Uses — Greek Burglars, their Capture and Execution — A " Firman," What Is It — A Turkish Dragoman — A Relic CONTENTS. XIU of Ancient Byzantium — Its Name and Origin — Taking a Portrait — Turkish Superstitions — Worshipping in St. Sophia — Moslem Fanatics — Counting The Minarets— What Came of a Wet Pair of Boots— The Judge in a Tight Place— The " Doubter " Commits Sacrilege — Uncovering a Sarcophagus — Attacked by the Priests— Barefooted Worshippers— Teachings of the Koran— Cleanliness and Temperance— Why Turkish Women Do Not Go to the Mosques— Why Good Mussulmans Never Get Drunk, - - - 153 CHAPTER XI. WHIRLING AND HOWLING DERVISHES.— WHO AND WHAT THEY ARE. The Dervishes of Constantinople, What Are They ?— How they Live and What they Do— Unclean and Devout Beggars— Where they Bury their Dead —Opening their Circus— Removing the "Doubter's" Boots— An Amusing Situation— Clearing the Floor — Human Top-Spinning— Dropping into Jelly-Bags- A Pliable Lot of Living Corpses— The Howling Dervishes— Where and How they Live— A House Full of Madmen— A Shrieking Chant— "La Hah il Allah "—Stirring Up the Wild Beasts— Spectators Joining in the Chorus— Horrible Superstitious Rites— Treading on Sick Children— Reaching Paradise by Bodily Tortures— A Sad Disappointment —The Founder of the Sect, and who he Was— Pulling Teeth as a Proof of Sanctity, 166 CHAPTER XII. GOOD-BYE, CONSTANTINOPLE !— ADVENTURES BY THE WAY. Tar-Away Moses, the Famous Guide— His Numerous Brothers— His Shop in the Great Bazaar— An Evening at the " Foreign Club"— Dreaming of Poly- glots and the Tower of Babel— More " Backsheesh "—Passing the Custom- House— How they Protect Home Manufactures— Standing Up for One's Own Country— " Honesty ish te Besht Bolicy"— Borrowing Money at Twenty per Cent.— The Start from Constantinople— A Hint to Travellers- Sleeping in Public on the Stage— Interviewing the Purser— A Satisfactory Arrangement— Baron Bruck and his Career— Unwelcome Intruders— ■Classic Ground — One Trifling Peculiarity, ^77 Xiv CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIII. SYRA, THE MARBLE ISLAND.— LIFE IN AN ATHENIAN HOTEL. In sif'ht of Syra — Active Trade in one Fish — A town all Built of Marble — The " Doubter" Expresses his Sentiments — Gustave's Adventure — Walk- ing on One's Ear— " A little more beer, boy !" —The Pirates' Retreat- Extraordinary Politeness in a Cafi — A lesson for American Barkeepers — In the Stamboul's Cabin — " Blowing great guns" — A Tale of a Tub — Honey and Marble — Standing in the City of Demosthenes— The Battle of the Rival Hotels — Profanity in an Unknown Tongue — Out-generaling Inn-keepers — Tricks on Travellers — Useful Knowledge for Foreign Travel, - • - 187 CHAPTER XIV. ATHENS, ANCIENT AND MODERN.— SIGHTS AND SCENES IN THE GRECIAN CAPITAL. First Impressions of Athens — Opinion of the " Doubter" — " Not Worth Dam- ming" — The Oldest Inhabitant of Athens — Celebrated Ruins — Reminis- cences of Greek Grammar — A " Big Injun" on Greek — Drinking Beer on Sacred Soil— A Toper-graphical Survey — The Acropolis — What Is It .' — The Temple of Jupiter Olympus — Seven Hundred Years in Building — A Young Englishman in -a Scrape — Sunset from the Acropolis — Byron's Glorieus Lines— The Parthenon and its Surroundings — Foundations of the Ancient Citadel — Excavations of Antiquarians — Greek Art — An Im- portant Discovery — The Line of Beauty, 197 CHAPTER XV. ROUND ABOUT ATHENS.— THE COUNTRY OF THE BRIGANDS. Mars' Hill, the Place where St. Paul Preached on the Unknown God — The Prison of Socrates — The Country of the Brigands — Escorted by Greek Sol- CONTENTS. XV diers — Captures by the Brigands — How they Treat Captives — Extorting Ransoms — Buying Coins and Relics — Swindling Travellers — Among the Ruins — Strange Contrasts — "Chafifing" the Guide — Position of the Per- sian "and Grecian Hosts — Xerxes' Throne — "The King Sate on the Rocky Brow " — Making the Ascent by Proxy — " I No Go ze Mountain " — The Battle of Marathon — A Survivor of the Battle — How the Victory was Won, 213 CHAPTER XVI. THE GLORY OF ATHENS.— ITS SIGHTS, SCENES, RUINS, AND RELICS. The Opera at Athens — Handsome Greeks — The King and Queen — A Lovely Trio — Losing a Heart — Byron's "Maid of Athens" — How She Looked — Her House and History — The Acropolis by Moonlight — Waking the Guard— A Sham Permit— "Backsheesh "—The Parthenon by Night — Greek Gypsies — Among the Curiosity Shops — Dr. Schliemann and his Trojan Discoveries — The Gold and Silver Vases of King Priam — Where they were Found — Relics of the Sack of Troy — Curious Workmanship — Some Account of the Excavations — We Leave Athens — A Queer Steamer — " Pay or Go to Prison " — End of Our Steamship Adventure, - - 225 CHAPTER XVII. ADVENTURES IN QUARANTINE.— RHODES AND ITS MARVELS. Missing our Steamer — A Serious Dilemma — A Study of Faces — Making a Row and What Came of It — Under the Yellow Flag — Adventures of a Quarantined Traveller — Escaping the V\a.gvit—Mal-de-Mer—K Laughable Incident — Getting on our Sea-Legs— Custom-House Troubles — The Po- tency of "Backsheesh" — Oriental Fashions in New York — "Doing "a Custom-House Inspector— A Curious Tradition— The "Lamb" as a Trade Mark— The Temple of Diana— One of the "Seven Wonders"— Singular Discoveries — A Horde of Scoundrels — The Island of Rhodes — The Colos- sus—A Wonderful City— The Knights of St. John— Their Exploits— Sur- rendering to the Turks, 236 XVI CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVIII. SYRIA, THE LAND OF THE SUN.— DRAGOMEN, GUIDES, AND COURIERS. A Rough Night on Shipboard— A Sea-Sick Turk— What he Said — Rum and Petroleum — Meditations on Turkish Hash — The Camel, his Tricks and Uses — A Knowing Brute— How he Shirks a Burden — George Smith, the Ass}Tian Savan — Beyrout — Its Antiquities and Wonders — Going on Shore — The Dragoman and his Office — Eastern Guides and their Character — Travelling on Horseback in Syria — The Road to Damascus — An Unex- pected Trouble — Paying Fare by Weight — Disadvantages of a Heavy " Party " — A Trial of Wits — Waking up the Judge — Telling White Lies — The " Doubter's " Predicament, 252 CHAPTER XIX. THE GROVES OF LEBANON.— A NIGHT AMONG THE ARABS. The " Sights " of Beyrout — Excursion to Dog River — An Obstinate Carriage- Owner — How he was " Euchred " — Moral of this Incident — Off for Damascus — Ascending Mt. Lebanon — An Arab Driver — Cultivating " Kalil ", our Jehu — The Cedars of Lebanon — A Grove as Old as Solomon's Temple— A Wonderful Old City— The Temple of the Sun— Mystery of Tadmor — Cyclopean Masonry — Monstrous Monoliths — Their Dimensions — The "Doubter's" Doubts and their Solution — Sleeping in an Arab House — What we Saw There — Divans as Couches — A Dangerous Valley — The .Hobber's Haunt, 264 CHAPTER XX. DAMASCUS.— THE GARDEN CITY OF THE EAST. Dimitri and his Hotel — Court-Yards and Fountain — How People Live in Damascus — Parlors, Bed-Rooms and Boudoirs — A Bet and its Decision — CONTENTS. XVll The "Doubter and his Donkey" — The Street called " Straight " — Bab- Shurky — Spots Famous in History — Shaking Hands across a Street — Scene of St. Paul's Conversion — The Window of Escape — Tombs of Moham- med's Wives — The " Doubter " Figuring on Probabilities — An Unexpected Upset — Visiting the Leper's Hospital — A Frightful Spectacle — The Great Mosque — View from the Minaret — The Bazaars and Curiosity Shops — Making a Trade — A Case of Fraud, 278 CHAPTER XXI. SYRIAN LIFE.— DEALERS IN HUMAN FLESH.— WE TRY "ZE LUXURIES OF ZE BATH." In the Slave-Market — A Dealer in Human Flesh — A Stealthy Trade — Ex- amining Female Slaves — Serfdom in Syria — Inbide Views of a Syrian Household — Jewish Houses — An Oriental Song — Smoking with the Ladies — Syrian Customs — A Famous Arab Chief— Visiting Abd-el-Kader's House — The City of the Caliphs — Taking a Bath — Mohammed and his Trowsers — A New Species of Cushion — The Bath-House — Disrobing — Securing our Valuables — M slem Honesty — Sitting Down in a Hot Place — Gustave's Misadventure — Undergoing a Shampoo — Rubbed to a Jelly — The Couch of Repose — A Delicious Sensation — "All ze Luxuries," .... 290 CHAPTER XXII. TRAVELLING IN A CARAVAN.— SIGHTS ON THE WAY. Turning our Faces Eastward — The Land of the Sun — Palmyra, Bagdad, and Babylon — The Desert in Summer and Winter — A Dangerous Road — The Robbers of the Wilderness — Ruins in the Desert — A City of Wonders — The Haunts of the Bedouins — Engaging an Escort — The Start for Pal- myra — On a Dromedary's Back — The Environs of Damascus — A Bed on the Sand — " Every One to his Taste " — A Knavish Gove-rnor — Winking at Robbery — In the Desert — On the great Caravan Track — Caravansaries, What Are they ? — The High Road to India— An Arab Fountain, - ■• 300 2 XVlil CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXIII. TENT-LIFE AMONG THE BEDOUINS.— THE WARRIORS OF THE DESERT. Among the Bedouins — A Genuine Son of the Desert — High-Toned Robbers — A Sample of Bedouin Hospitality — Etiquette in an Arab Encampment — A Case of Insult — Tent-Life and its Freedom — A Nation of Cavalry- War- riors — Bedouin Dress, Manners and Customs — Their Horses and Weapons — A Singular Custom — A Caricature Steed and his Rider — Arab Scare- Crows — On the Road to Palmyra — A Mountain of Ruirs — The Grand Colonnade — The Temple of the Sun — A Building Half a Mile in Circum- ference — An Earthquake, and What It Did — Tne City of the Caliphs, - 307 CHAPTER XXIV. ADVENTURES IN THE MOUNTAINS OF SYRIA. 'Doing" Syria — The " Short " and the " Long " Route — How to Choose Them — Engaging a Dragoman — Farewell to Damascus — Preying on Trav- ellers — The Wonderful Rivers of Syria — Crossing the Desert — A Picture of Deso ation — Scene of St. Paul's Conversion — A Striking Contrast — Ancient Ruins and Modern Hovels — A Night with the Bedouins — A Hard Road to Travel — A Glorious View — The " Doubter's " Mischance — The Lizard in the Boot — A Ludicrous Scene — Gustave's New Joke — Mollifying a Native — The Massacre at Hasbeiya — Treacherv of a Turkish Colonel — Scene of Christ's Labors — In the Holy Land, 318 CHAPTER XXV. " FROM DAN TO BEERSHEBA"— JOURNEYING THROUGH THE HOLY LAND. Our First Morning in Palestine— Breaking Camp at Banias— " From Dan to Beersheba "—Explanation of the Phrase— The Cup of the Hills— The CONTENTS. XIX Golden Calf of Jeroboam — Story of Vishnu and his Idol — An Incident and its Moral — The Battle-fields of Joshua — A Singular Species of Plough — The " Doubter " in a Quandary — Joseph's Pit — The Sea of Galilee — Fish- ing with Poisoned Bait — Capernaum and its Ruins — Scene of Christ's Miracles — The Birthplace of Mary Magdalen — A Horde of Beggars — A Pitiful Spectacle — The Robber's Cave — Herod and his Strategy — The Jews of Tiberias — A Seedy Crowd — Ruins of the Ancient City — The Spot where Christ Fed the Multitude, 329 CHAPTER XXVI. IN THE HEART OF PALESTINE. Bathing in the Sea of Galilee — Standing on Holy Ground — How the" Doubt- er " was Unhorsed — A Second Absalom — Lunching on the Summit of Tabor — Saracenic Vengeance — A Reminiscence of the Crusades — A Mag- nificent Sight — Discussing "Backsheesh" with the Natives — The "Doubter" as a Cashier — The Grotto of the Holy Family— Mary's House — The House of Loretto — The Story of the Miracle — The Monk and the " Doubter " — Dean Stanley's Explanation — Joseph's Tool Chest — The " Doubter's " Demand — The Witch of Endor " At Home " — Blood-Revenge — A Pertinacious Feud — Saul and the Witch, 341 CHAPTER XXVII. THE LAND OF THE PHILISTINES.— SAMARIA AND ITS PEOPLE. The City of Nain — "Spoiling the Egyptians" — Ruins of an old Philistine City — Curious Strategy — The Torches in Pitchers — Kleber and the Turks — Ahab's Palace — Tropical Picture — A Crusader's Church — More " Back- sheesh " — The Samaritans of To-day — The Mount of Blessings and the Mount of Cursings — A Despised People — A Strange Religious Belief — A Parchment Thirty-five Centuries Old— Jacob's Well — Its Present Appear- ance — The Tomb of Joseph— The Scene of Jacob's Dream— The Philis- tines' Raid, 355 XX CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXVIII. FROM DAMASCUS TO JAFFA.-IXCIDENTS OF THE TRIP. Once More in Damascus— Taking the " Short Route"— Starting for Beyrout— The Fountains of Damascus — Rain-Storm in the Anti-Lebanon — Stora and its Model Hotel — Poetical Fancies — A Compliment to Mine Host — The "Doubter" as a Rhvmist — Climbing Mount Lebanon — Tropic Suns and Arctic Snows — View from the Summit — A Vision of Fairy-Land — Coming Down on the Double-Quick — In Sight of the Mediterranean— Taking Ship for Jaffa — Sidon to a Modern Tourist — Tyre— Jaffa — A Dangerous Road- stead, 362 CHAPTER XXIX. ENGAGING A DRAGOMAN.— OUR START FOR JERUSALEM. Views-ot Jaffa — A Queer-Looking City — The Oldest Inhabited Town in the World — The Massacre of Jaffa — A Stain upon the Memory of Napoleon — A Contract with a Dragoman — A Close Margin — The Value of Credentials An Honest Arab— Getting into Saddle — An American Colony — Their Ger- man Successors — The Fruits of the Country — Generous Conduct of the "Doubter" — On the Road to Jerusalem — A Night at Ramleh — In a Rus- sian Convent — The Gauntlet of Beggars — The Pest of the Road — Begging as a Fine Art — The " Gate of the Glen" — Among the Mountain Passes — In Sight of the Holy City, 370 CHAPTER XXX. THE LIONS OF JERUSALEM.— THE TEMPLE, THE SEPUL- CHRE, AND THE HOLY OF HOLIES. First Sights in Jerusalem — Appearance of the .Streets — What the "Doubter" Thought — A Change of Opinion — The Tower of David — The Street of David — Church of the Holy Sepulchre — Scenes Around It — Palace of the CONTENTS. XXI Knights of St. Juhn — Via Dolorosa — Damascus Gate — Walls of the Holy City — Visiting the Temple — The Ilarem and Mosque of Omar — Visiting the Substructions — A Tiiple Veneration — Place of Wailing — The Quarries — Remains of an Ancienc Bridge, 381 CHAPTER XXXI. AMONG THE MONKS. From the Gates of Jerusalem to Bethlehem — A Touching Incident — Tent- Life at Bethlehem — The Milk Grotto — Its Miraculous Character — The . •" Doubter"' Expresses Himself — The Oldest Christian Church in the World — Quarrelsome Monks — A Deadly Fight — Remarkable Conduct of the " Doubter " — Pious Pilgrims — A Christmas Festival — A Corpulent and Hospitable Monk — A Wearisome Ceremony — The Monks in Costume — The Women of Bethlehem — A Bevy of Beauties — Under Guard — Armenian Soldiers — Travelling to Saba — Among the Monks — A Curious Convent — Armed against the Bedouins, 398 CHAPTER XXXII. AMONG THE BEDOUINS.— TRAVELLING UNDER ESCORT, AND LIVING IN TENTS. Sleeping under Tents — A Bedouin Encampment — A howl for " Backsheesh" — A Queer Crowd — An Illusion Dispelled — An Eccentric "Rooster" — Our Guard — A Little bit of Humbug — " Going for" the " Doubter" — A Case of Blackmail — On Guard against Robbers — A Protection from the Sheik — Thievery as a Profciion — Waters without Life — A Curious Bath — A Flood of Gold — The " Doubter" in a Rain Storm — A Dangerous Ford — A Nocturnal Mishap — An Atrocious Robbery — The " Doubter " once more in Trouble — A Turkish Escort — Falling among Thieves — The Judge's Opinion on Shrinkage — The " Doubter" in the Role of a Mummy, 413 Xxii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE HOLY SEPULCHRE, AND SHRINE OF THE CITY OF DAVID. A Snow-storm in Jerusalem— The " Doubter's " Opinion of Gum-Shoes— Kicked by a Vicious Horse— An Obliging Moslem— A Guard of Turks- Bloodthirsty Christians— An Extraordinary Shrine— The Angel's Seat— The Quarrels of the Greek and Latin Monks— A Spot of Marvels— The Soil Pressed by the Feet of Christ— Strange Traditions— The Discovery of the True Cross— The Spot where Peter Denied his Lord— The Scene of the Last Supper— What a Wealthy Jew Did— The Man who was his own Father— The " Good Thief "—Extracting Sixpence from the " Doubter "— A Pertinacious Guide— Trying to Elude Pursuit— A Claim for Damages- Loading Up with Oranges— Talking in Four Languages, - - - - 425 CHAPTER XXXIV. THE LAND OF PHARAOH.— THROUGH THE EGYPTIAN DESERT. In Sight of Egypt— A Light-house looming through the Fog— On the Soil of the Pharaohs — An Invasion of Boatmen — Scenes in the Streets of Port Said— Encore de " B.-icksheesh "—The Great Suez Canal— Negotiations with a Cobbler— A Ludicrous Situation— A Bootless Customer— Egyptian Jugglers— Going through the Market— A Disagreeable Spectacle — A Pocket Steamer— Drinking to Absent Friends— On the " Raging Canawl " — Sleeping on Deck— A Sunrise in the Desert— On the Summit of the Isthmus — An Onslaught by Arab Baggage-smashers, .... 440 CHAPTER XXXV. IN AND AROUND THE CITY OF THE CALIPHS. A Costly Breakfast— Ismailia— The Palace of the Khedive— On an Egyptian Railroad Train— Rolling Through the Desert— The Delta of the Nile, CONTENTS. Xxiii What Is It ? — The Garden of Egypt — Cairo — The Mighty Pyramids — Life at an Egyptian Hotel — Sights of the Capital — Cairo of To-Day — Occidental Progress and Oriental Conservatism — Burglaries and Other Modern Improvements — Cosmopolitan Costumes — A Harem Taking an Airing —A Daring Robbery — The Battle-Field of the Pyramids — Slaughter of the Mamelukes — Singular Escape of Emir Bey, 446 CHAPTER XXXVI. AN INTERVIEW WITH THE KHEDIVE.— LIFE IN THE CITY OF THE NILE. The Khedive, who is he ? — A Hard-worked Pasha — His Personal Habits — My Interview with Him — Adventures of an Old Hat — Arranging Ourselves for a Royal Reception — An Eastern Monarch in a European Dress — An Unimpeachable Costume — A Fluent Talker — Bedouin Reporters — A Car- riage from the Harem — Two Pair of Bright Eyes — Unveiling the Women — A Talk with a Couple of Pigmies — A Nation of Dwarf- Warriors — My Impressions of the Khedive, 4^7 CHAPTER XXXVII. STREET LIFE IN CAIRO. Cairo, Old and New— A Visit to the Ancient City— The Nilometer, what is it ? Measuring the Rise of the Nile — Moses in the Bulrushes — Tombs of the Caliphs— An Egyptian Funeral — Curious Customs — "Crowding the Mourners " — Water-carriers and their Ways — A Noisy Tobacco-vender — Glimpses of the Arabian Nights — Among the Bazaars — Street Scenes in Cairo — A Cavalcade of Donkeys — Hoaxing a Donkey-boy — Amusing Spec- tacle—Putting Up a Ride at Auction— An Arab Story — A Nation of Liars, and why ?— Mosques of Cairo — Stones from the Great Pyramid, - - 468 XXIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE BAZAARS OF CAIRO.— EGYPTIAN CURIOSITY SHOPS. More about the Bazaars — How they Sell Goods in Cairo — Furniture, Fleas, and Filth — Trading in Pipe-stems and Coffee-pots — A Queer Collection of Bric-a-Brac — Driving Close Bargains — A Specimen of Yankee Shrewdness — A Miniature Blacksmith Shop— 'A Cloud of Perfumes — Gems, Guns, and Damascus Blades — An Arabian Auction — At the Egyptian Opera — The Dancing Girls of Cairo — The Ladies from the Harem — A Scanty Costume — The Ballet of the " Prodigal Son " — The Ladies of the Opera and their Life, 478 CHAPTER XXXIX. ADVENTURES WITH A DONKEY.— A DAY AT THE RACES. A " Syce ;" v,hat is he ? — A Man with a Queer Dress and L^rge Calves — A Gorgeous Turnout — An Escort of Eunuchs — Veiled Beauties — A Flirtation and it Consequences — The Tale of a Dropped Handkerchief — The Donkey as a National Beast — A Tricky Brute and an Agile Driver — An Upset in the Mud — Astonishing the Natives — A Specimen of Arabic Wit — Going to the Races — The Grand Stand — A Dromedary Race — An Aristocratic Camel — The Arrival of the Khedive — Starting Up the Dromedaries — Cutting an Empress, CHAPTER XL. THE PASHA AND HIS PRIESTS— EGYPTIAN LANGUAGE — SCHOOLS AND RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES. Egypt and her Relations with Turkey — The Army and Navy — Egyptian His- tory Boiled Down — The Reigning Family — Wonderful Relics— Mohammed Ali as a Ruler — The Pasha and the Priests — Ordering a Wedding — Married CONTENTS. XXV on Short Notice — Gratifying the Empress Eugenie — An Arab School-room — A College with Nine Thousand Students — A Jaw-Breaking Language — How to Indite an Epistle in Arabic — The Caravan to Mecca — Going on a Pilgrimage — A Horrible Ceremony — Trampling on Dervishes — The " Bride of the Nile " — Extraordinary Customs, 490 CHAPTER XLI. THE GREAT PYRAMIDS— IX THE KINGS' BURIAL CHAMBERS. A Visit to the great Pyramids — A Fellah not a Fellow — Sakkiehs and Shadoofs — A File of Camels and Donkeys — A Striking Spectacle — A Horde of Arabs — Troublesome Customers — The great Pyramid — How we Climbed It — A Giant Stairway — Dimensions Extraordinary — The Lost Arts — Standing on the Summit — The Judge's Predicament — Arab Cormorants — What we Saw from the Top of the great Pyramid — Wonderful Contrasts — Performance of an Arabian Acrobat — A Race down the Pyramid Stairs — A Perilous Descent — Penetrating the Interior— The King's Chamber — A Dusty Re- ceptacle of Colfins — The Spiiinx — A Mysterious Statue, - - - - 513 CHAPTER XLII. A VOYAGE UP THE NILE.— THE MYSTERIES OF EGYPTIAN ART AND \YORSHIP. Up the Nile in a Sail-Boat — Starting for the Cataracts — Advantages of a Dragoman — A Tricky Lot — Frauds on Travellers — Our Party — Rather Cosmopolitan — Getting Ahead of Mr. Cook — Our Little Game, and How it W^orked — A Bath with Spectators — Decidedly Cool— Getting Aground — A Picturesque Landscape — Last Glimpse of the Pyramids — Spending Night on Shore — Among the Ruins of Memphis— The Wonders of Egyptian XXVi CONTENTS. Art — What Marriette Bey Discovered— Laying Bare a Mysterious Sepul- chre—Ancient Egyptian Worship — Sacred Bulls and Beetles — A History Written in Stone— Bricks Made by the Israelites, 529 CHAPTER XLIII. LIFE ON THE BANKS OF THE NILE.— COPTS, JUGGLERS, AND THIEVES.— AMUSING EXPERIENCES. Through an Arab Village— Creating a Sensation— The "Doubter" Alarmed —The Professor Perpetrates a Hoax — The Egyptian Saratoga— An Oriental Post-office— A Queer Town — Specimens of Ancient Art— A Wooden Statue Three Thousand Years Old— A Coptic Convent—" Backsheesh, Howadji ! "—Carrying Money in their Mouths— Sturdy Beggars— An Expert Swimmer— The Copts, who are they ? Skilful Swindlers— Sugar Mills on the Banks of the Nile— Egyptian Jugglers— A Snake-Charmer— Adroit Thieves — A Melancholy Experience in Donkey-riding, .... 542 CHAPTER XLIV. ADVENTURES IN UPPER EGYPT.— FUN AND FROLIC WITH THE NATIVES. Siout, the Capital of Upper Egypt— The Pasha's Palace— An Egyptian Market Day — A Swift Boat— Going the rounds on a Donkey— Town Scenes— The Bazaars — Buying a Donkey — Tinkers, Peddlers, and Cobblers at work — A Curiosity Shop— Three Card Monte in the Land of the Pharaohs— Fighting the Tiger— The Prof essor takes a Hand — An Ignominious Defeat— A Dole- ful Tale— A River where the Wind is always Fair— The Temple and Tablet of Abydos — " Backsheesh" as a Medicine — Arab Villages in an Inundation — The Garden of the Valley— Fun with the Natives— A constant resource foraPractical Joker— Scrambling for Money — A Severe Joke, - - - 554 CONTENTS. XXVli CHAPTER XLV. THE DANCING GIRLS OF KENEH.— THE TREASURES OF DENDERAH. The Dates and Dancing Girls of Keneh — The Alma and the Ghawazee — The Dalilahs of Cairo — Going to the Dance Hall — An Outlandish Orchestra — The Drapery of the Dancers — The Cairo Wriggle — Curious Posturing — A Weird Scene - Dress and Undress — Miracles of Motion — A Fute at the German Consulate — Models for Painters and Sculptors — Arab and Nubian Nymphs — The Temple of Denderah — History Hewn in Stone — Cleopatra and her Portrait — The Fatal Asp — A Bit of Doggerel — The Coins of Old Egypt — The Professor's Bargain — Digging for Treasure — Arrival at Luxor — Taking in Strangers, - 568 CHAPTER XLVI. LUXOR, THE CITY OF GIANTS —AMONG THE MUMMIES OF ANCIENT THEBES. Luxor on the Site of Ancient Thebes — A City with a Hundred Gates — En- joying a Consul's Hospitality — An American Citizen of African Descent — A Dignified Rhinoceros — Karnak — A City of Wonders — Promenading in an Avenue of Sphinxes — A Gigantic Temple — Monster Obelisks — A Story in Stone — A Statue Weighing Nine Hundred Tons — The Sitting Colossi — A Singing Statue — Mysteries of Priestcraft — Lunching in the Tomb of Rameses — A Wonderful Treasure — How They Made Mummies — A Curious Process — The "Doubter" and the Mummy Sellers — The Judge Comes to Grief, 585 CHAPTER XLVII. A VISIT TO A HAREM IN UPPER EGYPT.— LIFE AMONG THE NUBIANS. A Visit to a Harem — Among the Daughters of the Nile — How they Looked and What was Done — Painted Eyelids — The Use of Henna — A Minute XXViii CONTENTS. Inspection of Garments— Mustapha Agar "At Home"— Arab Astonish- ment—A Dinner a rArabe—Frngcxs, vs. Forks— An Array of Queer Dishes — Novel Refreshment— Dancing Girls— Truck and Decker at Luxor — More "Ghawazee," Pipes and Coffee- "A Love of a Donkey"— Song of Arabs— Arab Cruelty— A Nation of Stoics— Endurance of Pain — Among the Nubians— Ostriches, Arrows and Battle-Axes— A Nubian Dress — A Very Small Dressmaker's Bill— A Scanty Wardrobe, - - - - 600 CHAPTER XLVIII. CAMEL-RIDING.- ADVENTURES AMONG THE NUBIANS. How they made the Royal Coffins— Splitting Blocks of Stones with Wooden Wedges— An Ingenious Device— A Ride on a Camel— A Beas-t indulging in Familiarities— Lunching on Trowsers— Mounting in the Saddle— Curious. Sensation — An Interesting Brute — A Camel Solo — Sitting in a Dish — Camel-Riding in a Gymnastic Point of View— Secondary Effects— Nubian Ferry-Boats— P. T. and his Paint-Pot— Labors of an Enthusiastic Amer- ican—Mr. Tucker on his Travels— "A Human Donkey" — Visifng the Cataract — Paving Toll to a Sheik— The Professor and his Camel — Croco- diles of the Nile — Starting Back to Cairo, 612 CHAPTER XLIX. IN THE SLAVE COUNTRY.— SIR SAMUEL W. BAKER'S EXPEDITION. The Egyptian Slave Trade — How carried on — An Army of Kidnappers — A Slave King— Frightful Scenes— Sir Samuel Baker's Expedition— A Shrewd Move— Breech-loaders as Civilizing Agents- A Missionary Outfit —Starting for the Slave Country— Reluctant Allies— The " Forty Thieves" — Running against a Snag — The Sacred Egyptian Flower — The Lotos- Eaters, Who were They ?— The New York Lotophagi— The Papyrus or Vegetable Pnper—Capturing a Cargo of Slaves— The Plague of Flies—A few more "likely Niggers"— Marr>ing by Wholesale— A Fight with the Natives— The Result of the Expedition, 623 CONTENTS. XXIX CHAPTER L. SUNSET IN THE ORIENT.— VOYAGING DOWN THE NILE. An Egyptian Sunset — A Gorgeous Spectacle — The Sky that bends above the Nile — Singular Atmospheric Phenomena — A Picture for an Artist — Shadows from History — Napoleon and the Pyramids— Our Voyage Back to Cairo — Scenes by the Way — "Cook's Tourists" — An Amusing Sight — Night-Fall oa the Nile — A Flame of Rockets — " What does it Mean ?" — The Marriage of the Khedive's Son — Feminine Disappointment — Jumping Ashore — Aboard of Donkeys — Gustave's Somersault — Practical Sympathy — In the Pasha's Garden— A Magnificent Sight— The Wedding Pageant- Elbowing an Arab Crowd— A Pyrotechnic Shower, 637 CHAPTER LT. THE WEDDING OF THE KHEDIVE'S SON.— ENJOYING A MONARCH'S HOSPITALITY. High Jinks in the Egyptian Capital — Dancing Horses— Arabian Blooded Steeds— Treading the " Light Fantastic Toe " — Bedouin Riders — The Mys- terious Cage — Egyptian Prima Donnas — A Spice of the Arabian Nights — A Silken Palace — Headquarters of the Khedive — Thoughtless Intruders upon Royalty — A Glimpse of the Princes Royal — The Heir of the Throne of Egypt — His Appearance, Dress, and Character — A Cordial Invitation — Partaking of the Khedive's Hospitality — A Turkish Cumcd) — A Free Lunch — End of the Festival, 644 CHAPTER LII. WOMEN AMONG THE MOHAMMEDANS.— LIFE IN THE HAREM. Polygamy Among the Turks and Arabs— A Full-Stocked Harem— Unveiling theWomen— Romantic Adventure— A Brief Flirtation— The "Light of the XXX CONTENTS. Harem "—Love at First Sight— How Egyptian Women Dress— Some Hints to the Ladies — Wearing Trowsers— Robes, Caftans, and Teaked Shoes- Rainbow Colors— How they Dress their Hair— Crowned with Coins — A Walking Jewelry Shop— The Pretty Egyptienne Orange Girl— Street Costume— Paris Fashions in the Khedive's Harem — Beauties Riding Donkeys Man Fashion — How they Go Shopping — Animated Bales of Dry Goods— Black Eyes in a Bundle of Silks— Marriage Brokers— How they Dispose of their Daughters in the East — A Turkish Courtship — A Donkey Driver Gives an Opinion— The Wedding and the Honeymoon — Divorces in Egypt — An Easy Process — Many-Wived Men, 650 CHAPTER LI 1 1. WINTER ON THE NILE.— THE KHAMSEEN AND ITS EFFECTS. —BEDOUIN LIFE. Winter in Egypt — A soft and balmy air — A Rainstorm on the Nile — An Asy- lum for Invalids — The Month of Flowers — The "Khamseen," What is it? — A blast as from a Furnace — Singular effects of the South Wind — A Sun like Copper and a Sky like Brass — A cloud of Sand — Eating Dirt — Fleeing from the Khamseen — How the Laboring Classes Live — Hungry but not Cold — Oriental Houses — An Excursion to Heliopolis — Habits of the Bedouins — A Fastidious People — Life in a Bedouin Encampment — Among the Obelisks — How they were brought Five Hundred Miles — The Madonna-Tree, 667 CHAPTER LIV. LAST DAYS IN EGYPT. The Last Stroll around the Mooskee — Talking to the Donkey-Boys and Drago- men — A Queer Lot — A Pertinacious Customer — The Judge's Expedient— A Little Humbug — Rich American Tourists "in a Horn"— The Drago- CONTENTS. XXXI man's Salutation "Sing Sing !" — Getting Rid of a Nuisance — Buying Keep- sakes — Out of the Desert into a Garden — Curiosities for Farmers — A Mohammedan Festival— Curious Sights — Snake Charmers— How they do it— Music-Loving Reptiles— On an Egyptian Railroad— Pompey's Pillar— A Ludicrous Accident — Alexandria, its Sights and Scenes— Climbing Pompey's Pillar— A Daring Sailor — An Arab Swindle— Going on Board the Steamer — Farewell to Egypt, 678 BACKSHEESH. "B AC K S H E E S H." CHAPTER I. STEAMER-LIFE ON THE ATLANTIC. Leaving Home — Our Pilgrimage Begun — Sights and Scenes on Deck — "Life on the Ocean Wave " — Out at Sea — The Traveller's Little World — Feeling Queer Inside ! — Delights of Sea-sickness — Reminiscences of a Jolly Old Boy — What became of the Judge — Bringing up his Liver ! — Too Big for his Berth — Sleeping in a Second-hand Coffin — A Race with a Lemon — The Leg of Mut- ton Dance — Eccentric Conduct of a Boiled Turkey — Too Much Sauce ! — "Dress- ing " the Judge's Trowsers — Alone at Sea — A Funny Conspiracy — Fate of a Timid Man — Confidence Betrayed— The Young Man from the Country — His Wisdom and his Woes — Drinking Petroleum — The Judge Turns Joker — Who Owns the Ocean Steamers. NEVER have I sailed out of New- York harbor on a finer day than when, in the spring of 1873, I started on that pilgrim- age of which this book is to be the record. It was late in April, the sky was clear, and the atmosphere had that balmy softness which we find in the tropics much oftcner than in more northern latitudes. Looking up the Hudson and down the widening estuary toward Staten Island, one could see a delicate haze that skirted the horizon and faintly mellowed the lines that otherwise might have presented a suggestion of harsh- 3 34 " MY NATIVE LAND, GOOD-BYE " ! ness. The picturesque life of the harbor was at its fullest activity ; ocean and river steamers were moving here and there, and white-winged ships coming home from long voyages or going out to battle with the winds and waves, were in the grasp of powerful tugs that fumed and fretted as they ploughed the waters with their helpless charges. Thousands of smaller craft dotted and stippled the beautiful bay which is the pride and glory of the commercial metropolis of America ; and the forest of masts hanging over the wharves at the city's edge spread its leafless limbs in liberal profusion. STEAMER DAY. There was the usual crowd of friends to bid farewell to oui passengers ; and the parting cheer, as we steamed out from our dock, rang in our ears long after the spire of Trinity had disap- peared, and the protruding front of Castle Garden had been lost in the distance. There was only the gentlest breeze to ruffle the water as we pushed oceanward and caught sight of the blue line of sea and sky that formed the eastern horizon. We watched the sun declining in the west, bringing the Highlands of Neversink into bold relief ; our steady progress left the land each moment more and more indistinct, till, at last, day and land faded A STORM AT SEA. 35 away together. We were out on the ocean, and the world was become to us small indeed. An Atlantic trip is not considered in these days a very serious affair. There are persons who persist in speaking of the ocean as a ferry, with no more terror than the North or East River. It may be a good joke to call it a ferry, but it is rather a solemn joke when you have been at sea a couple of weeks and have experienced a few gales. The day we sailed the water was as smooth as a mill-pond, and it remained so for about thirty-six hours. In the room next to me there was a judge from New Jersey ; a jolly, good-natured old boy, whose face was a pleasure to contemplate. The first day out, he told me he was agreeably surprised with the ocean, and that he should have brought his wife along if he had supposed it would be so comfortable. " People do exaggerate so," said he, " that you never know what to believe. They have told me that the ocean was ter- ribly rough, and that I should be very sick ; but I see it was all a mistake Why, I have seen it worse than this going from New York to Staten Isl- and." I assured the Judge that some of the passengers might have been lying to him, and that the ocean was very much slandered. Next day it came on to blow, and by midnight we were tossing as if a lot of ^ 11 ^ ^1 1- • • THE judge's first DAY AT SEA. giants had put the ship in a •" blanket and were having some first-class fun. She rocked and pitched magnificently, and a liberal portion of the passengers were laid out with inal-du-mer. And the Judge ! I paid him a visit when the storm was at its worst, and his condition was such as to rouse in my breast min- gled sentiments of pleasure and sorrow. He was lying on the sofa, and his right hand convulsively clutched a basin into which he was pouring the contents of his stomach. 36 DELIGHTS OF SEASICKNESS. " What a fool a man is to come to sea," he gasped in the in- tervals of his wretchedness. " I was an idiot not to have gone travelling in Pennsylvania, instead of coming out here. I would give a thousand dollars to be safe back in New York." I endeavored to console him, but he would not be comforted. While I poured soothing words into his ear, and brandy down his throat, the ship gave an extra lurch that brought a fresh dis- charge from the Judge's mouth. Something dark and solid fell into the basin, and as the Judge contemplated it, his face assumed an expression of horror. " I will be hanged," said he, " if I have not thrown up a piece of my liver ; just look at it ; everything inside of me will be up next. In fif- teen minutes you can look for my toe-nails." He sank back fainting, but brightened up a little when I told him that what he sup- posed to be his liver was nothing more than a piece of corned beef which he swallowed at dinner and his stomach had failed to digest. He grew better next day, but persisted in declaring the ocean a humbug, and said that when he once got back, nothing should tempt him to come abroad again. People are differently affected by the ocean. Some are never sea-sick, while others can never go on the water without being laid up. I have known persons who kept their rooms an entire voyage ; they went below when leaving land on one side, and did not come out again till it was sighted on the other. Women are the weaker vessels, when it comes to an ocean experience, how- ever strong they may be in domestic griefs and family jars. In sea-sickness, they fall much sooner than men, and are slower to recover their appetites. Children recover more quickly than adults, and sometimes they are well and running about long be- THE judge's second DAY AT SEA. A PRESCRIPTION FOR VOYAGERS. 37 fore their parents are able to get away, with a cup of tea or a cracker. To those who contemplate going to sea, I have a piece of ad- vice to offer that may save them the pangs of the marine malady. The night before you are to sail, take a blue pill — ten grains — just before going to bed, and when you get up in the morning take, the first thing, a dose of citrate of magnesia. Then eat your breakfast and go on board, and I will wager four to one, that you will not be sea-sick a moment, though the water may be as rough as an Arkansas traveller's manners. The above prescription was given to me several years ago, and I have rigidly followed it every time I have gone to sea since I received it. It has saved me from sea-sickness, and it has been of equal value to many others, to whom I have given it. I have published it several times for the benefit of the human race, and I think it worth giving again. Sea-sickness is a dreadful feeling, and anything that can be expected to prevent it is worth trying. I remember the first time I was sea- sick, I wanted to be thrown overboard, and didn't care what became of me. If the ship had sunk beneath me I should have been glad instead of sorry ; and if the captain had threatened to tie me up and give me forty lashes, I should not have made the slightest opposition to the execution of his threat. If the Koh-i-noor diamond had been lying ten yards from me, and had been offered me on condition that I should pick it up, I couldn't have stirred an inch to get it. The death of a maiden aunt, from whom I had great expectations, would have failed to elate me, and the refusal of my hand by an heiress to a million would have caused me no regret. Nothing can bring perfect despair so readily as sea-sickness, and make its victim ready and willing to die. Somebody has said that in the first hour of his sea-sickness he feared he should die ; but in tlie second hour he was afraid he should not ; and that is pretty nearly the experience of every sufferer. You have heard of the man who wanted to thrash the fellow who wrote " A Life on the Ocean Wave." I think there were several on board our ship who agreed with him, and would bear a hand to assist him. Somebody has written — and his head was not unlevel — 38 ACROBATIC PERFORMANCES BETWEEN DECKS. " The praises of the Ocean grand, 'Tis very well to sing on land ; 'Tis very fine to hear them carolled By Thomas Campbell or Childe Harold — But sad indeed to see that Ocean, From east to west, in wild commotion." Though I did not suffer from sea-sickness, I did not escape considerable annoyance and discomfort. Anybody who knows me can testify that I am not a dwarf, that I stand over six feet, and have a proportionate breadth of beam. My berth was about an inch shorter than its occupant, and when I tried to He fiat on my back I took up all the width of it. I couldn't straighten out, because the berth was too short ; I couldn't lie on my side through fear of being rocked out ; and I couldn't lie face down, for the same reason that I couldn't lie face up. Taken for all in all, the room was the most uncomfortable I ever slept in on board ship. When I went into my "little bed," I felt as though I was in a second-hand cofifin, originally made for a smaller man, and I dreamed of this state of things so often that I considered the night had gone wrong without such a slumbering fancy. The rolling of the ship made it awkward to put on my clothes and perform other toilet duties ; and if I went through preparations for breakfast without a tumble or two, I considered myself lucky. One morning the steward brought me a lemon. It is a very good practice at sea to swallow the juice of a lemon half an hour before breakfast, in order to clear the stomach and remove any tendencies to biliousness. He put the lemon on my sofa, and I crawled out of bed just as he retreated and closed the door. Well ; the ship made a lurch and sent me head foremost upon the sofa, as though I had been shot from a mortar. With some difficulty I picked myself up, and braced long enough to get a tumbler and make ready to squeeze the lemon. Just as I reached for it the ship went the other way, and the lemon rolled from the sofa and under the berth. I went on hands and knees in a hum- ble attitude to reach for it; over went the ship just as I extended my arm under the berth ; my body followed my arm, and my legs followed my body, and it was no easy matter to get up again. While I was getting to rights, the old craft lurched the other A RACE WITH A LEMON. 39 way, and my lemon shot across the floor like a rat pursued by a terrier, and took up a hiding-place again under the sofa. Then I went for it with the same result as before. Just as I put my hand upon it there was a movement in the lemon-market, and the article I was pursu- ing traversed the floor and sought the farthest corner under the berth once more. About five minutes we kept up that circus ; some- times I was ahead, and some- times the lemon, and both were pretty well exhausted by the time the race was over. At last I took him on the fly, and made a short i^i- i-'^'-t" stop ; lost my balance and went down in a corner among my clothes. Then I gathered myself together and managed to cut the lemon open and to squeeze it. I lost half the juice in a lurch of the ship, just as I raised the glass to my lips ; and in my hurry to save what was left I swallowed seeds enough to start a respectable lemon orchard. I think an artist could have made a series of interesting sketches had he witnessed the race between the lemon and me. Dinner has a good deal of fear in it if the ship happens to be rolling nicely. Racks are put on the tables to keep things from falling off, and sometimes the rocking is so bad that even the racks are not altogether satisfactory. In front of you is a rack just wide enough to hold your plate, and, when you are taking soup, the edge of it is just even with the rack. If the ship makes up her mind she can tip your plate so that the soup will flow out into your lap, and after doing that she will tilt the other way and leave the side next to you quite dry. Your tumbler will assert the correctness of its name in more ways than one, unless it is very firmly placed and wedged in where it cannot fetch away. The best way at such times is to hold your soup-plate in your hand and fasten your tumbler in the rack where the glasses are kept. Sometimes a joint of meat or a boiled turkey will leap 40 KILLING TIME WHILE CONVALESCENT. from its plate and go off the table as easily as a live turkey could make the same movement. My friend, the Judge, caught a tur- key in his lap one day, and his trowsers were so covered with oyster sauce that they might have been served up without seri- ous trouble. A New York matron was likewise honored with a visit of a leg of mutton, and I narrowly escaped from a dish of blanc mange that seemed determined to pay me a complimentary call. The desk where I used to write had a remarkable tendency to change its angle at every moment, and if my old desk in New York were to conduct itself thus, I should ask what it had been drinking. Day after day we steamed along, sometimes getting a little assistance from our sails, but more frequently depending upon steam alone. Out of New York we were accompanied by a Ger- man steamer, but we soon lost sight of her in consequence of a divergence in our courses. Almost every day we saw steam- ers and sailing-ships, and some- times we had three or four of THE "JUDGE." them in sight. We were directly on the track between the great ports of England and America, and the wonder is, not that we saw so many vessels, but that so few of them came in sight. Our engines were not stopped after we left NewYork till we arrived at Oueenstown, where our mails and some of our passengers were landed. Time hangs heavily on one's hands at sea. The first day out you are uneasy, if you are not sea-sick ; you try to read and you can't ; you sit in one place awhile, then in another, then in an- other ; and then you go somewhere else. You get over a page at a time ; you shut and open your book a dozen times in an hour, and are as discontented as a weaning calf. You sit down to games of cards, but don't feel like playing ; you go forward and aft, and aft and forward, and really don't know what to do WITS AND WAGS ON SHIPBOAKu. 4I with yourself. If the weather is fair you go on deck, and then you go below ; and then on deck again. You wish yourself on shore, and you fall to counting the hours that must elapse before the voyage will end. You don't feel like making the acquaint- ance of anybody, and nobody wants to make yours ; and so the day goes on till you turn into your bunk and try to sleep. In the morning you rise feeling about as amiable as a bear with a sore head, though your nerves are more quiet than they were. Then you begin to make acquaintances, and in a couple of days the passengers know each other pretty fairly ; enough, at any rate, for all practical purposes. By the fourth day you have the peculiarities of everybody down to a dot ; and about this time the spirit of mischief prevails. There are sure to be some waggish passengers ready for any kind of fun, and sometimes they are rather merciless in it. If there is a timid man on board they talk accident to him, and if there is a credulous man on board they fill him with yarns of the most frightful character. There was a youth on board from one of the eastern states, and he was constantly in fear lest the ship should sink. Two of the wags talked of accident till his hair stood on end and he dared not go to bed at night. At the table where the Judge and I were seated, there were two superannuated English- men who had been to New-York to visit some friends, and were going home without seeing anything in America outside Manhattan Island. I fear they had strange opinions of our coun- try before they got back. They listened to the talk, and were evidently taking notes of what they heard. Their information may be known by the fol- lowing sample. While we were at lunch one day the conversation happened to turn on petroleum. The Judge addressing one of the jokers who was known as "the Major," said very gravely : " That was a singu- lar practice during the war, giving each man a pint of crude pe- troleum to drink before going into battle." " Yes ;" the Major replied, " but it paid very well at first, as the men fought like tigers in consequence. But we had to abandon it before the end of the war." " Really now, you don't mean that your soldiers drank that abominable stuff .''" said one of the astonished Britons. 42 A CASE OF SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION. " Oh, yes," said the Judge, his solemnity increasing, " they grew very fond of it, and many of them deserted when they were deprived of it." " Why was it given up .^" asked Briton number two. " It was found," the Major explained, " that many of the men died of spontaneous combustion in consequence of drinking this stuff. In the case of smokers it was specially dangerous, as a man's breath might take fire while he was lighting his pipe. One of our best regiments — the 49th Buffaloes — was almost an- nihilated by petroleum. It was during the ' Seven Days' Fight ' near Richmond. They had been in action continuously, and, for more than a week, quadruple rations of petroleum were served to them, so that they were saturated with it. On the last day of the battle, as they were drawn up in line for inspection, one of the men struck a match just for fun. His breath caught, and so did that of the man on each side of him. In half a mniute the flame ran along the line, and in less time than it takes me to tell it, half the regiment were on fire. Some had presence of mind to fall on their faces when they saw the flash, and these were the only ones that were saved." " Dear me ! how strange !" " Yes ;" the Major added, " and sometimes prisoners in the hands of the enemy were set on fire by the inhuman officers who wished to witness their terrible sufferings. We found the use of petroleum as a beverage was in various ways an injury to the army, so we gave it up." This wonderful story was heard with apparent confidence by our fellow travellers, and I have no doubt that it was told round British firesides in perfect good faith. The Judge and his friends talked of snow-storms a hundred feet deep, of potatoes in South Carolina as large as flour-barrels, of oysters in Texas that sing and play the piano, and of a horse in Cincinnati that could swear and chew tobacco. Wonderful adventures in all parts of the land were minutely described, and if the voyage had lasted a week longer, and the stories could all be collected and published, they could give Baron Munchausen several points and beat him. The wags described bloody encounters of men in the West, and left the impression that anywhere beyond the Hudson River a VICTIMIZING A PASSENGER. 43 person who by accident brushes against the elbow of another is shot down immediately. In the same spirit of mischief they tortured the timid youth till he did not know what he was about. He was not so good a subject as one with whom I crossed the Atlantic some years before ; but he did very well. The principal joke played upon him was to talk of accidents when he was at hand. The other man of whom I speak — the one of several years ago — was the victim of a regular conspiracy. Some of the pas- sengers arranged to talk in his presence of nothing but accidents ; no matter what topic they were discussing, when he came near they shifted to accidents at once. When they ran out of true stories they resorted to fiction, and the fiction was worse by far than the fact. He — the victim — used to remain up until sent down below by the officers, and he generally slept with a life preserver beside him. One day when some boxes and cans were being thrown overboard, his tormentors got up a story that the barometer had been falling about an inch an hour, and that a terrible gale was expected. The Captain feared that we could not live through it, and had thrown out these sealed boxes, containing duplicates of the government dispatches and other important papers, in the hope that some more fortunate vessel might find them, in case we were destroyed. Jack, as we called him, was in the greatest terror. He went below, and remained shut in his cabin for the rest of the day and evening. As no gale came, it was explained that we passed it and just avoided its track, and they pointed out a line of dark clouds on the horizon as the probable course of the gale. He was satisfied and became more cheerful, though his general ter- ror did not cease. When we approached the end of our voyage it was night, and it became necessary to throw up a rocket. The officer then in charge of the deck said to the jokers : " If you want some fun with your friend, get him forward near the smoke-stack, and as close as possible to the steam-pipe. When the engine stops they will instantly let off steam, and just as it starts I will send up a couple of rockets." 44 THE VICISSITUDES OF "JACK." They got Jack forward and engaged him in conversation. His back was about two feet from the pipe, and the same distance from the rockets. The steam was shut off from the engine and turned into the pipe with a tremendous roar. At the same in- stant the rockets let go with a tremendous crash that anybody who has stood near a flying rocket can appreciate, and the crowd gave a yell that would have excited the envy of a band of Indians. Jack made one bound aft, and his friends had to run after him lest he would jump over- board. He went into his cabin and didnot come out for an hour or more. But when he did reappear, he was freshly alarmed. The steamer had been stopped for a sounding, and that noisy piece of machinery — the donkey engine — was put in operation to haul in the lead-line. All was still, until suddenly the 'lonkey engine started with its clatter. Jack was dozing at the time, and the noise roused him. He knew that something was wrong, and with nothing on but his shirt he darted to the deck. It took some time to quiet him and persuade him to go where his scanty costume would be more approriate. A PRACTICAL JOKE. Necessarily the space on an ocean-steamer is very much re- stricted. The ordinary sleeping-rooms are about six feet square, or at most six feet by seven ; and in this space two, or some- times three or four, persons are expected to spend their nights and keep their superfluous garments and light baggage. When HOW TO "GO IT ALONE, 45 there are few -passengers each can have a room to himself ; but when there is anything like a "rush," there must be more or less doubling up. Steamship agents will give you a room to yourself on payment of half an extra fare, and many persons avail them- selves of the opportunity. Others who desire seclusion, but suffer from shallowness of purse, prefer to make friends with the purser or chief steward, and thereby secure what they wish for. No general rule can be laid down for this, and I leave each man to act for himself. Once, when I crossed the Atlantic, I exulted in finding myself alone in a room well situated in the middle of the ship. While I was rejoicing about the matter, I was thrown into consterna- tion by the steward, who entered and said : " There is a young man in the room close by the screw, and he doesn't like it, and is going to ask the captain to put him in with you." " William," said I solemnly — for his name was William — " Wil- liam, you know how delighted I should be to have him here. But, William, do you know that I have fits, nightmare, delirium tremens, small-pox and several other maladies, and that I am the most ill-natured man on board the ship .-' And do you know, William, that I have half a sovereign for you if that adolescent gentleman stays away .'' " William smiled, said nothing, stuck his tongue in his cheek and departed. Ten minutes later he returned, bringing a broad grin on his face as a prefix to the information : " The young feller will stay where he is, sir, and I hope you'll remember the half-sov' at the end of the voyage." What William said about me to the occupant of the room near the screw, I am unable to say ; but I observed that the youth shunned my society, and consequently fear that he had formed an unfavorable opinion. But I gave the promised money to the steward " satis peur et sans repj'oche." The dangers of the Atlantic voyage are of little moment, and no more to be dreaded than those of a journey by rail from New York to San Francisco. I refer to the unavoidable dangers, such as gales, collisions with wrecks and similar accidents that human foresight cannot prevent. Accidents like the loss of the Atlantic 46 A STORY OF ACCIDENTS. and the Schiller, and similar disasters, are to be attributed to the bad management, either of the company, or of the ship's officers, or of both, and do not come under the head of unavoidable cala- mities. With good management on all sides, and proper inspec- tion of ships, a journey across the ocean is as safe as a rail journey of the same length, and in some respects more so. I have been assured by men familiar with the history of steam navigation that the casualties are not more numerous in propor- tion to the numbers travelling, than on American railways. The reason why an accident on the water is more dreadful than on land is twofold. In the first place, the number of persons killed or wounded in a railway accident is always a small percentage of those on the train. Take Carr's Rock, Angola, Richmond Switch, or any other terrible disaster by rail, and the number killed was a great deal smaller than the number of those who escaped unhurt. But a marine accident may destroy the life of every one on board the ship. This has been the case on several occasions. The steamers President, City of Glasgow, Pacific, City of Boston, Tempest, United Kingdom, Ismailia, and Trojan were lost at sea, and never heard from. Two steamers on the American, and one, I believe, on the English coast, were wrecked with all on board ; and one steamer was wrecked near Moville, from which only a single man escaped. Most of these steamers were lost on their eastward trips, when their passenger lists were much smaller than if they had been going westward. Another thing that makes an ocean accident terrible, is the difficulty of escape. If you are overturned in a railway car, you fall upon solid earth, but in an accident on the ocean, you have nothing but water to stand upon — a very poor support indeed. The boats of a steamship are not sufficient to hold her pas- sengers and crew, as a general thing, and in case of an accident on a westward trip, when the steerage is crowded with emigrants, the loss of life may be enormous. On board the steamer which carried me over the Atlantic there were eight boats, with a capa- city altogether of not more than four hundred persons, under the most favorable circumstances, supposing all of them launched and the weather fine. On her westward trips she frequently carries twelve hundred steerage passengers, and her crew and AMERICAN VERSUS FOREIGN LINES. 47 cabin passenger list would probably bring the complement up to very nearly fourteen hundred. In case the steamer sinks at sea, there would be a thousand persons who could not possibly find places in the boats ! There is not a ship carrying emigrants that has boat room enough for half her passengers on a west- ward trip, and I doubt if any of them could even carry away a fourth of their complement. When your ship goes down at sea you may consider yourself fortunate if you do not go down with her. It is a burning shame that nearly all the steam lines crossing the Atlantic, are in the hands of other nationalities than ours. It is not generally known that two of the English lines are mainly owned in New York, only enough of the stock being held abroad to enable the ships to sail under the British flag. The reason of this is that our laws discriminate against our own people, and in favor of other nations ; the taxes and other restric- tions are such, that an American line cannot be run so as to compete successfully with a foreign one, and consequently, American capital seeking investment in steamships for the Atlantic service, is very likely to go under a foreign flag ! Isn't this pitiful } There are occasional spasmodic efforts for the establish- ment of an American line between New York and Liverpool, but they have never lasted long. As I write these pages there is an American line from Philadelphia that seems to promise well. It has good ships and is said to be well equipped and managed. I sincerely hope it will have a long and successful career, but if it does it will be different from any of the numer- ous "lines" that have had their headquarters in New York. CHAPTER II. SCENES IN VIENNA— DOWN THE DANUBE. On English Ground — The Road to the East — Life in the Austrian Capital — Fun and Festivity — Visit to the Big Beer-Garden — Effects of Champagne — Ani- mated Conversation — How Twenty Thousand Dollars were Spent — The Man with the Torn Vest — Headaches at a Discount — Yankees in a Row — A Pugna- cious Russian — " Quits " but not Satisfied — Challenging an American — The Fash- ionable World — Down the Danube — Scenes f n the River — How Austrian Cigars are made — An Imperial Tobacco Dealer — The Battle of Wagram — Castle of Presburg — We Enter Hungary — An Evening in a Wine Cellar — Want of a Lit- tle Soap — Night Scene on the Danube. AS this book is intended to describe a journey in the Orient, we will leave our steamer at Liverpool, and with one bound plant our feet in Vienna. This is the last great city on the road to the East ; she has twice enjoyed the honors of a Turkish siege, and is the capital of a country which fronts upon the land of the Moslem. So much has been written about Vienna that I shall refrain from giving a description of the city and its people, and shall content myself with remarking that I found it, next to Paris, the most attractive place on the Continent. I have been several times in Vienna, and at different seasons of the year, but have never found it otherwise than gay and attractive. My longest visit there was in the memorable year of the Exposition, when Vienna was crowded with people from all parts of the globe, and the mingling of nationalities made many curious scenes. (48) THE BEER-GARDENS OF VIENNA. 49 The city government of Vienna endeavored to make the place as attractive as possible, and did a great many things to make the time pass pleasantly. There were balls and parties innumer- able ; music and beer halls were open by the hundred ; and every few days there was a special entertainment to the strangers con- nected with the Exposition. The first of these affairs that I attended was given one evening in the Stadt Park. The Stadt Park would be in English the City Park, Public Gardens, or any thing else you might choose to call a large park or garden be- longing to the city, and used for festivals on a grand scale, and for a general place of recreation for the public. Near the entrance is a large building somewhat resembling a palace on a small scale ; when I first saw it I asked a friend what it was, and was greatly disappointed at his answer. I supposed it was an art gallery, imperial pavilion, or department bureau, and was naturally somewhat surprised to learn that it was a beer saloon and restaurant. You can understand that a festival which illu- minated these grounds, and wound up the illumination with a display of fireworks, was a thing not to be sneezed at. It cost the city of Vienna about twenty thousand dollars to give this "blow- out," and they had the worth of the money. I do not think any of it went to the Aldermen and Burgomaster, as is sometimes the case in America, when cities get up grand displays in honor of distinguished guests. Not only did the city furnish lights, fireworks, and music, but it furnished an excellent supper washed down with champagne, white and red wines, beer, tea, coffee, and — in a few instances — with water. The effect of these things was interesting to behold. The international juries contained representatives from nearly all the civilized nations of the globe, and when the champagne had warmed their tongues there was a chattering that would have done honor to the cage of monkeys that used to ornament the Jardin Des Plantes in Paris before the war sent the friends of Dr. Darwin to the cooking pot. In the beginning of the festival all were trying to talk in German or in French, but as the cham- pagne did its work and heads began to whirl, the language of the country was forgotten, and everybody was rattling away in his own tongue. Here would be a group in which were half a dozen 4 50 SCIENCE AND CHAMPAGNE. men, of as many nationalities, and each would be talking in his own language as though his salvation depended on his getting through as many words as possible in a given time. All would be jabbering away for dear life, and all at once ; and close by them, and all around them, would be groups of the same sort, fraternizing in the same way. At every step you might find an Englishman, a Frenchman, or a German endeavoring to explain to an Italian, a Spaniard, or a Chinese, the relations between the solar plexus, and the, atomic theory as applied to the construction of cart wheels. The FRATERNIZING. amount of science evolved on that evening was frightful to con- template, as nearly every man was science-sharp in some way or other, and your genuine man of genius is pretty certain to be- come more and more talkative the more he gets drunk. There was an immense amount of international fraternizing ; and if all the . The Danube was at its lowest, otherwise we should have saved this land travel, and could have passed the upper Iron Gate by water. As it was, we looked upon the rapids and whirlpools, and on the rocks scattered here and there in the channel, and were not altogether sorry to be on land. At one place the channel for boats is only seventy feet wide at low water, and the current is very swift. The name Iron Gate comes from the Turkish, Demi- Kapour, and is intended to mean a hindrance to navigation, rather than a narrow passage barred with a formidable door. The right bank in this locality is simply magnificent. The moun- tains are steep and rugged, their summits covered with trees, and their sides presenting enormous masses of grey rocks, capri- ciously veined with red porphyry, and here and there showing deep crevices that appear to be the mouths of caverns. After three hours of this sort of travel we were transferred to a small steamer where we managed to get an apology for din- 6 82 CHANGING SHIRTS IN PUBLIC. ner, and where, when the little cabin was full of men and women, a Hungarian passenger with an enormous mustache and a loud voice opened his valise, removed his coat and vest, and coolly proceeded to change his shirt. He was not at all abashed to display his back and shoulders to the party, but went on with his toilet very much as if in a room by himself. Nobody in- terfered with him, and af- ter he had finished his change he was the best dressed man on the boat, as he could boast a clean shirt while the rest of us were dusty with our ride from Drenkova. From time to time the Danube in this part of its course expands into large basins like mountain lakes. One of these is particularly beautiful as it seems to be completely enclosed and reveals no passage for the river. By and by, as the steamer moves along, an opening is discovered and we enter a deep gorge with steep mountain walls two thousand feet high on either hand and with a width to the river from wall to wall in one place of only two hundred yards. The noise of the wheels is echoed and re-echoed from side to side, and the scene forcibly recalled to me the prettiest and wildest portion of the Saguenay in Canada, the Rhine near the Seven Mountains, and the Amoor in the Hingan defile. We are in the defile of the Cazan (Turkish for Caldron) the grandest part of the whole Danube from Ratisbon to Galatz. Everybody is moved to expressions of admiration, all save the " Doubter," who declares that the Danube disappoints him and is a wearisome and uninteresting stream. We land at Orsova (pronounced Orchova) to pass once more into carriages and go beyond the Lower Iron Gate. Picturesque Wallachians surround us, with their immense hats of wool and A TOILET IN PUBLIC. SCENE AT THE CUSTOM HOUSE, 83 their boots of red leather. We halt a moment at a little brook which has the Austrian custom-house on one side and the Rou- manian on the other ; a Roumanian official examines our tickets, and allows us to pass without examination. Speaking of the custom house reminds me of a funny incident. When I entered Servia at Belgrade I had in my trunk a box of Austrian cigars which I bought in Pesth. Coming out of Bel- grade and going on board the steamer I had the same cigars ; the Austrian customs-official insisted that all cigars brongJit into Austria must pay duty, and he demanded a tax on mine in spite of the fact that the cigars came originally from Austria and were only going again into the country of their manufacture. Luckily their weight was less than the quantity allowed to each traveler, otherwise he would have compelled me to pay the tariff. He would listen to nothing except the letter of the law. The Lower Iron Gate is less picturesque than the Upper, The mountains fall away from the river, and the stream spreads out over a rocky bed about fourteen hundred yards wide and a mile in length. The river falls about twelve feet in a mile and a half, and is filled with whirlpools and rapids, with everywhere a swift current broken into waves that dash over the deck of the steamer in the season when the high waters prevent the passage of boats. Below the rapids the river becomes practicable, and there is no other natural obstacle to navigation below this point and the sea. At a little distance below the Iron Gate we found the steamer that was to carry us down the Danube, and we were speedily in- stalled in her comfortable cabin, once more and much to our de- light we found ourselves on an " accelerated " boat, though it proved less agreeable than the Franz yosef. Before we leave the Iron Gate let us have a little gossip on the question of the Danube. From the days of the Romans there has been talk of a canal around the Lower Iron Gate ; and on the right bank of the river and near the Servian village of Sip, there were traces of the work begun by the Emperor Trajan to this end. In modern times the subject has been discussed, surveys have been made and estimates completed for a series of canals that should carry 84 THE "SICK MAN.' boats around both the Iron Gates and render the Danube naviga- ble for its entire length. The money could be raised without difficulty, but there is an obstacle to the work in the shape of the political objections of Turkey. No matter on what basis the en- terprise is proposed, Turkey has always set her face against it ; the " Sick Man" is fearful that a canal round these falls would still further impair his health and therefore he says " No," and repeats it with emphasis. Time and again the subject has been discussed at Vienna and Constantinople, and always with the same results — Turkey's opposition. On one occasion Austria announced that nolens volens the ca- nal would be made, and thereupon Turkey stood up on her ear — she cannot stand easily on her feet — and threatened to go to war when the first spade full of dirt was lifted, and on more than one occasion Turkey has proposed to close the Danube to commerce by sealing up its mouth and permitting nothing but fish and water to pass either way. I am not sure that she did not want to pre- vent the ascent or descent of the fish through fear that they would carry something contraband. Turkey is a goose and doesn't know the necessities of the nineteenth century. She ought to close business as a nation and sell out to somebody of decent intelligence. It was near sunset when we went on board the steamer below the second Iron Gate. We had made five changes in the day ; large boat to four-wheeled one, four wheeler to carriages, car- riages to boat, boat to carriages at Orsova, and carriages to boat again. We steamed on during the night, and in the morning when I went on deck I had my first view of Turkey. As there were no houses in sight at my first glimpse I did not think it very different from any other country, but as soon as we sighted a town, and the domes and minarets of the mosques came into view, the scene was changed. Northward lay the great jDlain of Bulgaria, while to the south was Bosnia, a province of the Otto- man empire. The southern bank was more hilly and broken than the northern, and villages were more numerous there. They looked pretty at a distance, but when you approached them nearly, the beauty vanished. The first Turkish town I saw was the reverse of attractive, and the picture grew no better very fast, as we descended the river. NATIVES OF THE COUNTRY FLEAS, RATS, AND DOGS. 8$ The streets, as I saw them from the boat, were dirty, and there were piles of rubbish just above the landing. The people on shore were as dirty as the streets, and I speedily made up my mind not to ask for a consular appointment to any of the Turk- ish towns on the Lower Danube. We didn't want to go ashore very much, and we couldn't have gone very much if we had wanted to. There had been some cholera in Austria in the summer, and the Turkish government had established a quarantine against the Upper Danube. Had we chosen to land at Widin or any of the Turkish towns where the boat stopped we should have been taken with a pair of tongs and led into the quarantine station. We should have been smoked, and scorched, and physicked, and poulticed, and dosed for eleven days in a shed with a flimsy roof and flimsier sides. "NATIVES OF THE COUNTRY, and with no floor, and with no companions beyond natives of the country, fleas, rats, and stray dogs. If we had survived it, we should have been let off at the end of that time to see the next poor wretch put through, and if we had fallen sick under the treatment we should have been sent to the hospital, which is about three times as bad as the quarantine. Altogether the quarantine was not seductive from an aesthetic point of view, and I determined to keep out of it. If any reader of this volume ever has the choice between a kettle of boiling oil and a Turkish quar- antine I advise him to take the oil. At all the landings where we stopped the officials made a great fuss to keep the loafers back, for fear they would take the chol- Z6 ONE WAY OF DISINFECTING. era. We had no passengers for these landings, but we generally had letters, papers, and merchandise. Letters and papers were received with a stick or a pair of tongs and thrown into a tin box, which a boy instantly carried off to a sulphur fire, where its con- tents could be disinfected. Tlien, and not till then, could they be safely handled. Merchandise was piled on the dock, but what disposition was made of it I could not learn. I bought a paper of cigarette tobacco from a boy on shore. He tossed the pack- age on board and I then threw him half a franc. Before touching PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES. it he pushed it into a puddle of water, and after working it about for a while, ventured to grasp it with his dirty fingers. Cholera couldn't get through the encrusted skins of these fel- lows much quicker than a mouse could go through the side of a teapot, and as for the passengers and crew of the steamer, we were anything but a sickly lot. Yet they were fearful that we should do them harm, as much as though they were chickens and we were hawks and eagles. We kept on our way without many incidents of importance, or rather without any, or I should record them. We met a steamboat flying the Turkish flag and steering clear of us ; and we passed a A FOLLOWER OF THE PROPHET. 8/ Turkish gunboat tied up to one of the banks, but with steam up. At every Turkish landing we went through the farce of the tongs, but at the northern landings we had none of it. Piles of wheat were lying on the northern bank, and generally there were groups of picturesque Wallachians around them. We met Greek brigs and schooners ascending the river to bring away this wheat, and at a few places we saw these vessels lying at the shore. Their crews were a brigandish-looking lot with red caps, baggy trow- sers, and a general resemblance to the stage robbers in Fra Diavolo. Further down the Danube we met more of these vessels : I counted over sixty in sight at one time, and there were three or four times that number at Braila or near there. A large part of the commerce of the Black Sea is in the hands of Greek merchants, and they are said to be very enterprising. At Galatz and Braila there are many Greek houses and agencies. Some of the older estabhshments are accounted very wealthy. So nearly do they monopolize business that the language of commerce at Galatz is said to be Greek with a mixture of Italian. It was the month of Ramadan, or time of fasting, with the Mos- lems. No good and faithful follower of the prophet is allowed to eat or drink between the rising and the setting of the sun. A gun is fired at sunrise and another at sunset, and between those discharges of artillery the fast is strictly observed. We had a priest or " Iman" on board our steamer, a fellow with a white tur- ban and a long cloak or " caftan," and with a pleasing face fringed with a dark beard. He observed the fast strictly and neither ate nor drank from sunrise to sunset, but he made up for his absti- nence to some extent by a free use of his narghileh or water pipe. He occupied a seat in the smoking room, a sort of divan where he could double one foot beneath him and rest almost motionless for hours. He carried in his left hand a string of beads, which he slowly told off with the fingers, a habit somewhat analogous to the Roman Catholic custom of counting the beads while say- ing prayers. With the Moslems this bead business has no religious significance, but is merely a pastime. Once I found him on deck saying his prayers, which he did with many genu- 88 ROUMANIA. flexions, bows, and prostrations. He was required to keep his face turned towards Mecca while praying, and as the boat was just then taking a somewhat tortuous course, I am afraid he did not make a strict compHance with the law. At night during Ramadan the mosques are.lighted and present a brilliant appearance. There is a double row of lights on each minaret, round the railing of the platform where the muezzin stands when he calls the people to prayer, and the effect is quite pretty. It was nine o'clock at night when we reached Bucharest, the capital of Roumania, so that there was not much to be seen en route. But I was able to collect some information about the country, and as it is one of the Danubian principalities and forms an interrogation point of the " Eastern Question," we will make a brief examination of its condition. The principality of Roumania is formed by the union of the ancient provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia. It contains about six thousand square leagues of territory, and five million inhabit- ants. Four millions of the latter belong to the Greek Church, and the rest are Armenians, Roman Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Gen- tiles, Moslems, and a hundred thousand or so don't know what they are nor what they belong to. Then there are inhabitants who belong somewhere else, such as Germans, Hungarians, Greeks, English, French, Russians, and some who are ashamed to own the nations of their birth, for reasons best known to them- selves. The various sects and nationalities get along quite well together, with the exception of the Jews, who have a very hard time. They have been whipped and otherwise tortured on account of their opinions or as a cloak to robbery, and until quite recently it was not unusual to hear of the banishment or massacre of all the Jewish inhabitants of a village, town, or district. A better senti- ment, or rather a less barbarous one, seems to prevail within the last year or two, and it is to be hoped that the persecutions are at an end or soon will be. As an illustration of the treatment of the Jews, a gentleman told me that one day in Bucharest he heard screams issuing from a yard at the back of the hotel where he was lodged. He "SHE IS A JEWESS. 89 went to the window and saw a girl of eighteen or twenty tied to a stake. Her clothing was stripped from her shoulders and a strong man was whipping her while two others stood by. The gentleman asked what she had done, and was told " She is a Jew- ess ! " No other cause was alleged, and the men appeared sur- prised when the stranger wished to know what crime she had committed. " SHE IS A JEWESS." The government of Roumania is very much like that of Servia, a constitutional principality which is independent, except that it pays a yearly tribute to Turkey. Servia pays twenty-five thou- sand pounds, and Roumania twice that amount. A member of the Hohenzollern family, under the title of Prince Charles of Roumania, occupies the throne, and his hereditary right is guar- anteed by th® Sultan, while the independence of Roumania is guaranteed by the seven powers that signed the treaty of Paris — Austria, France, England, Italy, Prussia, Russia, and Turkey. The constitutional rights of the people are like those of Servia, but the finances are not in as good condition, for the reason that the goverment has created debts in order to construct railways, and make other internal improvements. The network of rail- ways already finished and now constructing is very good, and when QO THE SECRET OF THE TURKISH LOAN. united with the Austrian system, the resources of Roumania will be rapidly developed. The standing army has about twenty-five thousand men, and the militia includes every able bodied citizen. In case of war one hundred thousand men could be put in the field in a very short time. It must be a great consolation to Servia and Roumania that they are able to make so much trouble as they do, or rather that so much trouble is made about them. They are the bases of the " Eastern Question," and if it were not for these two princi- palities, the ministers of foreign affairs in Turkey, Russia, and Austria would have their labor reduced one half, if not more. The correspondence that has passed between those governments concerning the principalities, is nearly as voluminous as that about the Alabama claims ; in the past five centuries the princi- palities have been the cause or the object of about a dozen wars, and very likely will be the cause of fresh wars in time to come. It is generally believed that Prussia and Italy don't care a pin what Austria and Russia do with the East, and I fancy that if England and France could only get their^ money back, they wouldn't care so much as they did at the time of the Crimean war. I suspect they have found out they made a mistake in backing up Turkey, and would like to get out of it gracefully. I once championed a fellow who had been badly treated by his neighbor — at least that was Ids story — and was in need of pecu- niary and other aid. I defended him morally and physically, and more especially I loaned him money to buy a set of tools, and to clothe himself and family until he could earn money enough to repay me. Well, what did he do } He bought a gold watch and chain with the money, when all the time he had a good silver watch, and then came round for more cash. Turkey has been borrowing money in Europe, and some of her loans have been guaranteed by France and England. Nearly all the money has been wasted ; a very little has gone for the construction of railways, but most of it has been put into palaces, diamonds for the women of the seraglio, ships of war, mosques, and the like, and every day there are thousands of pounds wasted on senseless displays. HOW THE MONEY IS SPENT. 91 Here is a specimen case. They built an imperial palace known as the Palace Tshiragan, when they had already palaces enough for a dozen of Sultans. The Sultan moved into the building when it was finished — it cost two million pounds ster- ling, or about ten million dollars in gold — and he lived there just two days ! Then he moved out because he had an unpleasant dream, and the palace will never again be occupied. It stands THE PALACE Tbll I RAGAN. idle, empty, and beautiful on the banks of the Bosphorus, and will stand thus till destroyed. A couple of years ago the Sultan commanded that a conserv- atory should be erected in his garden. Glass and other mate- rials were ordered from Europe, and hundreds of men were set at work. It was finished at a cost of over a million of dollars, and His Majesty went to see it. The old idiot — I wish to be respectful as he is a Sultan — was not in a good temper for some reason, and determined not be pleased. He raised his languid eyes to the roof of the building and then turned away. "I don't like it," he said ; "destroy it! " And before night every piece of glass was broken, and the beautiful conservatory was leveled. Q2 WHAT IS " BACKSHEESH "' ? This is the way the Sultan and his government have been using the money borrowed at a high rate of interest; and they are now borrowing money at high interest to pay tJiat interest. This thing will go on until Turkey can borrow no more money, and then the whole concern will collapse. When she can't bor- row any more, the probabilities are, she will stop the interest on her present debt and give herself no trouble about the principal. Turkey, as a nation, is very much like a great many of her sub- jects. Every traveller in the East will tell you that he is con- stantly appealed to to give " backsheesh " — i. e. a gratuity — not only by those who have served him, but by those who have ren- dered no service whatever, and do not expect to. From the time you enter the Orient till the time you leave it, that word is dinned into your ears so continually that it seems like one prolonged echo. As the natives, young or old, masculine, feminine, or neuter (the latter are the guardians of the harems), appeal thus to the individual foreigner, so Turkey as a nation squats or stands before other nations, and takes up the perpetual demand for " backsheesh." The foreigner, when first entering the Orient, generally submits to the appeal, and gives of his abundance ; but he soon finds that begging is universal, and that the purse of Fortunatus would soon touch bottom. So he becomes prudent, especially as the Oriental is never satisfied. Whether you give copper, silver,' or gold, by the piece or by the handful, is all the same, the begging or rather the demanding continues. The nations and moneyed men of Europe are learning the habits of the Turk, and emulating the example of prudent travel- lers. Turkey is about at the end of her borrowing, and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire is one of the near possibilities. Russia is patiently waiting ; Austria is waiting ; Prussia is wait- ing ; and the other nations are waiting for the dissolving view which will enable them to reconstruct the map of Europe. None of them are likely to take any measures to hurry "the sick man " to his end, as he is going in that direction with a rapidity that ought to be satisfactory to the on-lookers. Through fleets of ships and steamers we threaded our way from Galatz and along a tortuous channel through a forest of reeds, till we passed Selino, and were tossing on the waters of the IMack sea, with the prow of our steamer towards Odessa. CHAPTER V. THROUGH THE CRIMEA— IN AND AROUND SEVASTOPOL. A Visit to the Crimea — The Porter with the Big Books — The Danger of Siberia — Our Entry into Sevastopol — Terrible Reminiscences of the Crimean War — How we shirked the Cemetery — The Great Dock- Yard of Sevastopol — We Visit a Remarkable Gunboat —What we saw Below-Deck — The Story that our Landlord Told — An Enterprising Tartar — The "Doubter" offers an opinion — How the "Judge" stole a Newspaper — Adventures by the Way — The "Doubter" gets into Trouble — We Fly to the Rescue — Eccentricities of a Selfish Man — We Rise and Depart. WE went to Odessa, as I said, solely to escape the quarantine on entering Turkey. Being there — less than two hundred miles from Sevastopol — we could not resist the temptation to pay a flying visit to the Crimea. We reached Odessa in the morning, and found that a steamer left at two o'clock in the afternoon for the ports of the Crimea, and as soon as we had passed the formalities of the Custom-House and the police — no trifling matters — we went to the steamer in question. And, by the way, they put us through very cautiously, and also very politely, when we entered the empire. Three officers of the police, followed by a porter with an arm- ful of big books, came on board the Metternich, the steamer from Galatz, as soon as she entered the port. They took seats at the cabin table, spread out the passports which had been collected by the purser of the steamer, and then began work. They disposed of two or three persons, and then came to my case. " Have you ever been in Russia before .-'" said one of the offi- cials in French. (93) 94 A SUSPICIOUS OFFICER. " Yes," I answered. " When was the last time ?" "In 1867." " Where were you ?" and he looked at me very attentively. " In a great many places," I answered. " In Moscow, Peters- burg, Warsaw, Kazan, and in Eastern and Western Siberia. " Ah, you have been in Siberia !" said the official, and he and the others pricked up their ears. " No7is verrojts,''^ he continued, and he picked up one of the big books and turned to the initial of my name. " Possibly I may have to report your arrival at once," he remarked, as he scanned page after page of the volume. When he had finished that, he went for another, and altogether he looked through four or five books. "There is nothing against you," he said, as he finished the ex- amination, and, with a smile worthy of a diplomate of the highest rank, he signed my passport and handed it over, with the wish that I might enjoy my trip to the Crimea, and have bo7i voyage partoiit, and he was kind enough to attend next to the passports of my companions, as we had no time to spare in getting to the Crimean steamer. " The Russian Company of Navigation and Commerce," to which I entrusted myself for the journey to Sevastopol — they call it Sev-as-to-pol there — is a big concern. It has eighty-four steamers, varying all the way from one hundred to thirty-six hun- dred tons each ; nine of them are of the largest class of ocean steamers, and two-thirds of the rest are none of them less than nine hundred tuns. The large steamers run from Odessa to Lon- don, to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, to the Red Sea, and the ports of the Indian Ocean. The other steamers navigate the Black Sea and the adjacent waters, including several rivers that flow into that sea and the sea of Azof. I expected to find their boats dirty and badly managed ; on the contrary, I found them clean and comfortable, with good service in the cabin and good management on deck. The advertised time of the Crimea boat to leave Odessa is two o'clock in the afternoon, and it was not more than five minutes past two when our lines were cast off. I am told that the time REMINISCENCES OF THE CRIMEAN WAR. 95 table of the company is strictly kept, except of course, in case of unforseen accident. The company was organized after the Crimean war, and has de- veloped a great business. The repair-shops are at Sevastopol, but very little building is done there. All or nearly all the large steamers were built in England. The officers are generally ap- pointed from the navy, and their pay is higher than in the regu- lar service. On one of the steamers I encountered an officer, whose acquaintance I had made in the Okhotsk Sea several years before. " I am out of the government employ," he said, " having served my full term. I am commanding one of this company's largest steamers now ; the service is harder, but I get much bet- ter pay than my rank in the navy would bring me." The steamer carried us along toward Eupatoria, and I was up when we steamed into the bay, where the English made their first descent upon the Crimea. There are no docks or piers ; nothing but a semi-circular beach, like a bit of yellow lace on the end of a sleeve to a lady's dress, and an irregular double fringe of houses beyond it. Ships anchor in the bay, and are un- loaded by lighters. Our passengers were taken ashore in boats, and the freight and baggage were unceremoniously dumped into a huge launch. Heavy boxes and barrels were placed atop of trunks and valises, and there was a general mess of things. It was at Eupatoria, on Thursday, September 14th, 1854, that the allied army landed in the Crimea. The place, the day, and the occasion will remain for ever memorable in French, English, and Russian history. Fifty thousand soldiers of the allied army were that day landed on Russian soil ; of that fifty thousand nearly all are now in their last sleep. They perished in the bat- tles of the Alma, the Tchernaya, and Inkermann ; they fell in the trenches during the siege of Sevastopol ; or worn out with privation and exposure, or sviffering from wounds and disease, crept on board the transports at Balaklava and were borne away to die in the hospitals of Scutari or in their own native lands. In one year from that memorable landing at Eupatoria the fifty thousand had become ten thousand ; and when the bugles sang truce and the flag of peace fluttered over the shattered walls and smoking ruins of Sevastopol, there was scarce a vestige remain- 0,6 THE BATTLE GROUNDS AROUND SEVASTOPOL. ing of the Grand Army of the Orient, that had sailed so proudly . from the shores of France and England and assembled on Turk- ish soil to prepare for the descent into the Crimea. Death spared neither rank nor condition. Of all the officers and soldiers whose hearts beat high on that day as they saw the tri-color and the red cross waving over the gravelly beach at Eupatoria, very few are now alive. There had been a fog in the morning, and occasional spittings and spatterings of rain, but it cleared up soon after we left Eu- patoria, and the coast of the Crimea, with serrated mountains cutting the sky, and with steppes of sand and white rock here and there, came out clear and distinct beyond the dark waters of the Euxine Sea. Gloriously bright was the sun when a Russian officer pointed to a distant promontory and told me that there was Sevastopol ; and deep blue was the sky, with not a patch of cloud to mar it, when we headed our prow toward Fort Constan- tine, and pushed steadily and fearlessly into the port which so long resisted the assaults of the allied armies of England and France. Away to the left lay the valley of the Alma, and also on our left, but nearer to us, the Inkermann pyramid was visible to mark the field of Inkermann's battle. White specks of marble near the pyramid marked the resting-place of England's gallant dead, and not far distant was the cemetery where lay the soldiers who fell there for the glory of France. In front, beyond the harbor, was the tawny mound of the Malakoff, with ugly seams and ridges over all its surface ; beyond it were the Redan and the Mamelon Vert, and away to the right was the famous Bastion du Mat. The white walls of the marine barracks and arsenal filled much of the centre of the picture, far too much for Russian eyes, when it is remembered that they were the walls of ruins. Forts Constantine and Nicholas are passed; no gun speaks from their walls, and not a soldier is visible to note our entrance. The shattered and ruined walls of these forts have disappeared ; the present fortresses are new, or at any rate they have under- gone a vast amount of repairing since the day the allies left Se- vastopol after their work of destruction was finished. We steamed up to the stone pier, where a dense crowd was gathered to meet us — in the foreground the officials of the port, 'DOING SEVASTOPOL. 97 behind them the well-dressed part of the community, and further away the wide-mouthed and sheepskin-coated peasantry of Rus- sia. Our guide-book had told us of a good hotel a couple of hundred yards from the landing, and as soon as we could get ashore we went to it at a respectable pace. A crowd of hack- men sought to entrap us into riding, but we disdained their offers. We found the hotel, and after selecting rooms and fixing the price, we proceeded to " do " Sevastopol. " Get us a guide at once and a carriage for three," I said to the German-Russian landlord, who spoke English, French, or any other language that you might choose to try him in. He sent a messenger to bring what we wanted and then asked where we wished to go. I told him we wished to see all that we could that afternoon, and leave in the morning for Yalta. He men- tioned the Malakoff, Redan, Inkermann, and other points, including the cemetery, and I in- terrupted him with : " Never mind the cemetery ; send us somewhere else." " Oh, then you are Americans," he exclaimed ; " every Eng- lishman goes at once to the cemetery, and it is the first thing he asks for; but an American always says:'D — n the cemetery; take me somewhere else.'" A moment later he apologized for his intimation that my coun- trymen were universally profane ; but reiterated his assertion that every Englishman visiting Sevastopol goes at once to the cemetery, while every American prefers to do something else. I can well understand this. So many English were buried there, that every British visitor is sure to have occasion to look SHIRKING THE CEMETERY. 98 WHY RUSSIA WAS DEFEATED. after the grave of a relative or friend ; or, at all events, he has been requested to look out the burial-place of somebody and re- port its condition. Few Americans are likely to have anything more than ordinary curiosity to attract them to the cemetery at Sevastopol. In a little while the carriage and guide were ready, and we started. The guide was a Greek — he may have been a Greek brigand — who had not been long in Sevastopol, and didn't know enough about the place to hurt himself to any alarming extent. He spoke English fairly, but not over elegantly, and was, on the whole, satisfactory. We drove off along the street leading upward from the hotel, and in the direction of the Malakoff and other fortresses of the days of the war. We were soon on the edge of the bluff over- looking the southern harbor, and could gaze down almost per- pendicularly on the ships at anchor there. As we looked toward the end of the harbor, we discovered just beyond it a new build- ing, and I asked what it was. " That is the railway station," was the guide's reply. " The government is building a railway from Sevastopol to connect with the line from the Sea of Azof to Moscow and St. Petersburg. They have surveyed all the line, and a good deal of it is finished. They are going to lay the track all round this harbor, so that ships can be loaded right from the trains and the trains from .the ships." I looked and saw the grading ready for the rails on both sides of the harbor and sweeping round the hill-side toward Inker- mann. Had this railway existed twenty years ago the allies would have failed to capture Sevastopol. It was their primitive mode of transportation more than anything else that caused Russia's defeat. She learned then the importance of railways, and has since been putting her knowledge into practice. We climbed to the top of the Malakoff, where a single Rus- sian soldier holds peaceful possession of what thousands were once unable to defend. From the summit of the casemate we looked over the field, traced the lines of the contending armies, and then turned toward Inkermann and the defenses in that direction. The ground all round is cut and torn with rifle-pits, A PICTURE OF DESOLATION. 99 trenches, approaches, and defenses, and is a picture of desolation. Sevastopol is a mass of ruins ; its inhabited dwellings are not a tenth the number of the fallen or falling walls, and you can ride or walk through whole squares of what were once rows of hand- some edifices, but are now nothing but heaps of stones. It is more like Pompeii than any modern city I have ever seen. Sevastopol must have been beautiful twenty years ago ; she is the reverse of beautiful now, and I do not wonder that the Rus- sian who walks through her half silent and almost deserted streets vows with compressed lips and low^ering brow that Se- vastopol must be avenged. She is majestic in her ruins. One feels her greatness, or what it must have been, at every step he takes ; and no one can call Russia a barbarous nation when he looks at the remains of her dockyards, which were her pride and glory. To destroy these docks required months of labor on the part of French and English engineers. What must have been the labor to create them ! There had been much talk about a new kind of gunboat then at Sevastopol, and by the kindness of Admiral Popoff, the in- ventor of the system, I was permitted to visit and examine the Novgorod, as the pioneer vessel is called. She was built at Ni- colayeff, on the River Bug, and was brought to Sevastopol to be finished. Another boat of the same class, but larger, to be called the Popofka was under construction, and intended to be followed by several others. The Novgorod is something like our mon- itors, though with a difference. When the original Monitor came out we were told to imagine a cheese-box on a raft ; in the present instance you may imagine a" cheese-box without any raft. The Novgorod is circular, and about a hundred feet in diameter ; her sides where they rise above the water are perpendicular, but they do not rise very high — not more than a couple of feet. From the edge toward the centre there is a gentle incline, and this incline is covered with small cleats of wood to enable one to preserve his foothold. About twenty-five feet from the edge there is a circular wall of iron, fifteen inches thick, forming a turret like that of one of our monitors. This turret is fixed and made as firm as possible ; inside of it is a movable turret, con- taining the guns, and pierced with two holes, through which the ICX) WE VISIT A REMARKABLE GUNBOAT. guns are to be discharged. The turret is firmly fastened to the platform which sustains the guns, and it can be raised or lowered at will by means of machinery. The guns are eleven-inch breech-loaders, and are very well finished ; the carriages are of an improved pattern, and altogether the turret and its contents are highly creditable to their designers and makers. Workmen were busy both in and out of the boat, and there was an unsatisfactory lot of fresh paint on nearly every- thing, so that it was necessary to be cautious in one's move- ments. In spite of all my at- tention I found myself some- what soiled at the end of my journey, and on returning to the hotel I underwent a vigor- ous application of turpentine. Like our monitors, the Nov- gorod is not abundantly sup- plied with internal space for machinery, coal, ammunition, stores, and crew, though there is more of it than one might at first suppose. Her circular shape gives her an advantage in this respect, and it is really sur- prising how much room you find where you expect so little. As you descend into the engine room — her engines were made by Bird of St. Petersburg-^you find the machinery stowed so compactly and everywhere around you, that you begin to think she is all machinery inside like a watch, but when you are taken thence into the places where coal and provisions are stored, you change your mind. The quarters for the crew are cramped, as in all ships of war, and occupy about the same space relative to the officers' quarters as on our monitors. The captain's room is quite spacious and neatly finished and furnished, and the other officers have nothing to complain of. In the captain's room was a model of the boat, and I studied it attentively to ascertain the shape of the craft below the water line. The boat does not pre- " FRESH PAINT." PREPARATIONS FOR FIGHTING. lOI serve its circular form all the way down, or rather I should say- that the circular form is maintained above the water and an elongated one below. Take an apple and cut the lower two-thirds of it so as to give it the general shape of a ship below the water line, and you have the idea of the general external shape of the Novgorod. She has a bow and stern like any other ship, but neither of them is very sharp. If you look for fine lines like those of a clipper sailer or of a fast steamship, you will be disappointed, as the Novgorod is not designed for speed, nor as a general thing, for attack. They claim that she can steam nine knots an hour, but her steaming qualities have never been fairly tested. She is intended for coast and harbor defence, and is made of light draft, ten or twelve feet, so that she can lie out of the reach of deep- draft ships. She has six screws, three on each side of her rud- der, and by working the triplets in opposite directions she can be turned in her own length, or rather in her own diameter. The space below deck is lighted by means of a grated flooring inside the turret, by openings in the deck. Hatchways at several points permit of ingress and egress, and are so arranged that they can be closed whenever necessary. So much for the general description of the boat. Now we come to the fighting business. When her coal and stores are all on board, she will be sunk within a couple of feet of the water — that is to say, the perpendicular side of the boat will rise about two feet above the surface. In this condition she can steam to her destination under about the same conditions of safety as those attending our monitors. Looked at from a dis- tance she will appear like a tea-saucer, on an enormous scale, turned bottom upward, and having an old fashioned pill-box in the centre. In ordinary times she has a pair of smoke-stacks, one on each side of her turret, but these are made telescopic and will be lowered out of sight when she goes into action. Then she has ventilators which also disappear, and she has a tempo- rary steering house on deck that disappears likewise. In action she is steered from the inside in accordance with signals given by an officer in a reasonably secure little lookout box in front of the turret. In fact, all the deck apparatus except the turret, is made I02 READY FOR THE BATTLE. to disappear entirely in time of battle, and the gunboat is as plain as the wardrobe of a country clergyman on a small salary which is not promptly paid. Nothing is visible when the boat goes into battle but the sloping deck and the turret above it. Indeed there is not much of the deck visible, as the boat takes in water enough to sink her down, so that all the perpendicular side and some of her sloping portion is below the surface. The fixed turret stands up in the centre, and inside of it is the movable turret containing the guns. This is kept lowered until the moment for firing ; then the ma- chinery turns it round in the required direction, and raises it so that the holes for the muzzles of the guns come above the edge of the fixed turret. The guns are run out till their muzzles are even with the outside of the port-holes, and when the proper aim is obtained, they are fired and instantly lowered, or they may be kept in place and reloaded, according to the will of the com- mander. They are handled, so to speak, by machinery, a couple of rods in the hands of their captain performing all the work of aiming, one rod serving to raise and depress their muzzles, and another to move the turret horizontally. Steam has been brought into satisfactory subjection in the Novgorod. The turret is controlled and the guns are operated by steam ; steam propels the boat, and may be made to steer it. Very little hand labor is required, and the boat may carry fewer men than other war-ships of her capacity. She is built through- out in the strongest manner, and her constructors are very proud of her. For harbor and coast defence they claim great advantages over the old style of war ships, and I was told that it was the intention of the government to build a considerable number of ships of the Novgorod pattern. They were to be stationed at the ports of the Black Sea, and along the Baltic, and it was thought they could made things lively for a blockading squadron. • The Novgorod was of a hundred and the Popofka a hundred and twenty-five feet diameter ; whether the others would be of greater or less size I am unable to say. Other ships of war are to be constructed on the Black sea, and in course of time the Russians hope to bring their Black Sea fleet up to something THE ROOM WHERE KINGLAKE WROTE. 10$ like its old standard. The arsenal at Sevastopol is theoretically the property of the Russian Company of Navigation and Com- merce, and contains their repair shops, but practically it is the property of the government, and will be more and more so as time rolls on. We spent the evening in the hotel and on the cliff overlooking the harbor, and tried to imagine the scenes of twenty years ago. "The rocket's red glare and bombs bursting in air" have ceased over Sevastopol — let us hope for ever — and all was calm as though the spot had never known the horrors of war. The loquacious landlord told us many stories of the siege, and of the fortunes of Sevastopol before and since the war. " Now we are to have bet- ter times," he said ; " the railway will be completed next year, and we shall then have a line of steamers direct to Constantinople. Capitalists are coming here to start business, and we shall hope for commercial activity. The government has determined that Sevastopol shall rise again, and we feel sure that it will rise." Before the war the city had little short of thirty thousand inhab- itants. Now it has about five thousand, but the number is slowly increasing. With a revival of business and a restoration of the naval dockyard, Sevastopol will resume its old activity and impor- tance and become again the mistress of the Euxine. Her har- bor is one of the finest in the world, and her geographical posi- tion renders it of great value. The landlord escorted me to my room, and as he set the drip- ping and guttering candle on a rickety table, his loquacity con- tinued : " This," said he, " is the room that was occupied by Kinglake, when he came here to study the siege of Sevastopol. He was a good fellow, and, when he left, he gave my daughter a new sov- ereign and she has kept it ever since. Of course you have read his history of the war .'' Many officers who come here say he has made some mistakes, but no man can be expected to get every- thing right." I went to sleep and dreamed of assaults on the Malakoff and Redan, and of the morning when the grey regiments which were Russia's pride and glory burst through the pall of fog, and fell upon the unexpecting allies in their camp at Inkermann. Clash 104 A TARTAR "jEHU. of Steel, roll of musketry, and the diapason of artillery resounded through the night and made my slumber unrefreshing. I recalled the time when the whole civilized world turned its eyes upon the Crimea, and with what an electric thrill was received the an- nouncement " Sevastopol has fallen ! " And here in the city, where for many months the sounds of war were heard almost without cessation, all was now the stillness of a long peace. Wak- ing, I could hardly realize that I was in Sevastopol. Sleeping, I lived again in the midst of the strife, and participated in the ex- citing events that have found a place in history. DRIVING A BARGAIN. In the morning we set out for Yalta in a carriage which we hired of an enterprising Tartar who demanded his pay in advance. He demanded and we refused, and the more he wanted his money on the spot the more he didn't get it. In a discussion between Capital and Labor the former generally has the best of it, and the result of our discussion proved no exception to the rule. Labor was compelled to accept our terms and receive its pay when the work was done, but it required a good half-hour to bring Labor to terms. We were entrusted to the care of a good natured but rather stupid driver, and to three horses harnessed abreast and full of energy. We trotted out of the ruin-lined streets, and soon left out of sight the most famous city of south- ern Russia. The day was beautiful — a sort of a hazy Indian-summer sky — and if we had ordered the weather to suit us it could not have DEEDS OF GLORY. 10$ been more delightful. We drove through the field of Balaklava. How few there are now living of those who made Balaklava famous ? We made a brief halt at the edge of the plain where the im- mortal Light Brigade rode to glory and the grave, and pressed unflinchingly forward as the pitiless iron from Russian batteries tore through their ranks, and covered the ground with dead and dying heroes. One of our party recited Tennyson's well-known poem on this event, and I think we all felt, down to the depths of our hearts, the full force of the closing lines : " Honor the brave and bold ; Long shall the tale be told, Yea, when our babes are old, How they rode onward. When can their glory fade .-' O ! the wild charge they made, Honor the Light Brigade, Noble Six Hundred ! " We visited the little village of Balaklava, and in a Russian row- boat paddled in the miniature land-locked harbor and out to its en- trance, where we danced on the waves that rolled inward from the sea. Then we drove to Baidar, a miserable village, where we supped on tea, eggs, and bread, and breakfasted on eggs, bread, and tea — nothing else — and slept on beds of the most impromptu charac- ter. I covered myself with my overcoat and travelling shawl, the Judge solaced himself with a table-cloth and a fish-net, while the " Doubter" was kept warm by a late copy of the London Times in addition to his overcoat. It was a rough night, and we were off early in the morning, as, indeed, anybody would be with such accommodations. If you want to get a man up in good season, put him to sleep on a pile of rocks, or a bed that dates from the Silurian period, with the chief qualities of roughness and solidity. The "Doubter" averred his belief that there was not so bad a hotel in all Russia as the one he occupied in Baidar ; and ever afterwards when we wished to get him into a regular cast-iron passion we had only to refer to his night's lodging in the interior of the Crimea. And I really think that he was unfairly treated, as the Judge afterward made confession of having taken away io6 KEEPING WARM UNDER DIFFICULTIES. the full sheet of the Times soon after they retired, thus leaving the "Doubter" nothing but "the supplement." An hour after leaving Baidar we passed through a stone gate- way, and came out upon the sea. Or, rather, we came out upon the edge of a mountain, and looked down more than a thousand feet upon the waters kissed by the rising sun, and broken into little billows just touched with crests of foam by a gentle breeze from the east. Away on the horizon and below our line of sight lay a stratum of white clouds, and in the far distance to the left the wind and sun were chasing away the remains of the darkness of the November night, and near at hand on the ri£;ht and left A NIGHT AT BAIDAR. lay the mountains with great, rugged tops, round which half a dozen eagles were whirling and occasionally disappearing in the floating masses of light clouds. Down below, toward the upper part of the peninsula, the mountains sloped away but so slightly as to make us wonder how we would find a passage among them. I have become familiar with a good deal of scenery in the past twenty years, but I know few things that can surpass this first view of the sea on the road from Sevastopol to Yalta. The scene bursts suddenly upon you. At one minute you are among the hills and forests and sparsely scattered fields, where you have been travelling ever since you left Balaklava, and you are voting the V PICTURESQUE SCENERY. 10/ whole thing a trifle monotonous. You pass through the gate- way, which is arched and bastioned like a small fortress, and what a change in the picture ! You are in a narrow road, with scarcely sufficient standing place for the carriage and horses ; the crag at your left seems ready to topple over and cover you, and as you look up a thousand or twelve hundred feet along its gray sides, you perceive deep and irregular fissures in which, here and there, trees are clinging quite safe from the woodman's axe, and forming a secure resting for the eagles that circle about them. Their prevailing grey color is diversified by the tints peculiar to volcanic rocks everywhere, and they cut the sky with a sharp and jagged outline whose every angle is rendered more distinct by the great elevation to which the mountains rise above you. This mountain-chain stretches about thirtv miles along the coast ; it stands bold and upright from the sea above Balaklava, but gradually trends away from the water until, at Yalta, it is more than five miles distant. Here, at the Baidar-gate, the strip of land is nearly a mile wide, but as you look down the dizzy distance you could solemnly aver that the width is not more than a hundred yards. The strip of land shelves rapidly, and is dotted with patches of forest, rough boulders, and the general debris of the mountain-chain, and stippled and streaked with little rivulets that trickle onward toward the sea. There are sharp ridges and deep ravines, bar- ren patches and woody dells ; the whole forming a favorite resort of the game-birds and the beasts that make this region an at- tractive one for the hunter. Here and there you see a house nestling and crouching in a lovely valley, and as you proceed on your way you find the houses and villas becoming every hour more and more numerous. The high cliffs shelter the land from northerly winds, and as the sun pours full and strong over the sea, a climate of peculiar warmth is developed that gives this part of the Crimea a fertility of almost tropical luxuriance. The productions of this region are of wonderful variety and excellence. We whirled down and along the front of the mountains, hour after hour, and with new combinations of land and ocean con- stantly presented to our eyes. We halted at Alupka, where is the palace of Prince Woronzoff, and at the hotel we had a com- io8 ECCENTRICITIES OF A SELFISH MAN. fortable meal, which our morning ride had prepared us to enjoy. We washed it down with the excellent wine of the Crimea, bear- ing the Woronzoff brand, and grown in the vineyards that dot all the hill-sides in the last dozen miles of our drive. After a two hours' halt we were on the road again, and passing the palace of Livadia, the summer residence of the Emperor, and one of the prettiest spots in the world, we reached Yalta an hour before sunset, having made one of the most delightful rides that can fall to the lot of the traveller. Yalta is the Long Branch or Newport o^ Southern Russia, and many persons go there to spend the summer and autumn. The situation is charming and the climate delicious ; the Em- peror has a palace close at hand, and as he spends every autumn there, it is no wonder that Yalta has become fashionable. The principal street along the sea-shore has a fringe of hotels, and so great was the rush at the time of our visit, that there was a dif- ficulty in obtaining rooms. Prices were high, and from a con- templation of the bill of fare, I should think the hotel-keepers were anxious to make a fortune in a short time and retire from business. Picturesque Russians and Crim-Tartars wan- der through the streets, making a marked con- trast to the fashionables from Odessa and Mos- cow. In the market the "Doubter" got into trouble by handling and tasting some fruit, and was compelled to buy it in order to get out of the scrape. He had an in- ordinate passion for handling everything (ex- cept his own money when bills were to be paid) and this propensity served sometimes to increase our annoyances, and occasionally our expenses. At a church in Odessa he broke a part of the fixtures on cauc;ht in the act. 'SMELLING, TASTING, AND FEELING, 109 the altar because he insisted upon picking them up, and he only escaped trmible by pretending not to understand what was said to him. He didn't rely much on his senses of hearing and seeing, but when it came to smelling, tasting, and feeling — par- ticularly the latter — he was on hand. He wasn't satisfied with seeing a picture but he must feel it and smell it, and not;^ till then did he believe in its existence. The same was the case with nearly everything else that could be touched ; and when he saw things in a show-case he wanted them opened for his amuse- ment and manipulation. During his journey in the East he felt nearly everything within his reach, except an impulse of generosity, and with that he had no desire to become acquainted. We rose early in Yalta, and were off for Odessa, where we arrived without accident or delay. \, CHAPTER VI. ACROSS THE BLACK SEA. A Visit to a Russian Police Office — Smith, and what he did — A bad lot of passports — A race after a Governor in a Drosky — More Backsheesh — Delicate administra- tion of a bribe — An obliging subordinate — Attempt at a swindle — Scraping an acquaintance — High life on the Black Sea — Muscovite ladies — Sunrise on the Euxine — Worshipping the Sun — Stamboul — Passing Quarantine — On the Bospho- rus — A magnificent spectacle — The Castle of Europe — Palaces and Villas — Domes and Minarets — The Golden Horn — In front of Constantinople — Rapacity of Boatmen — Turkish Thieves — Streets of the City. THERE is nothing very interesting about Odessa, for the rea- son that it is a place of no antiquity. At the end of the last century it was a Tartar village bearing the name of Hadji Bey, and containing a dozen houses and a small fortress of Turkish construction. Now it is a grand city with one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, and having an ex- tensive commerce. Ships of all nations lie at its wharves, and you see English, French, American, and nearly all other foreign names among the merchants established there. Its greatest ex- port-commerce is in wheat, which goes from Odessa to all parts of the Mediterranean and also to England. The Black Sea wheat formerly found a market in America, but we have changed all that with our immense grain production in the West and California. It was no small matter to get out of Russia. I sent the pass- ports of our party to the police-bureau on Thursday — two days before the time set for our departure — and was told that they were en regie for the journey to Constantinople. Saturday morn- 1(1 10) SMITH, AND WHAT HE DID. Ill ing I paid a visit of politeness to the Americaa consul, Mr. Smith, and just as I was leaving him he asked if he could be of any service. " Thank you," I replied, " I know of nothing you can do for me except to follow me with your good wishes. I don't want to borrow any money nor obtain an introduction to any official." " Have you arranged your passports ?" " O, yes," I answered with a confident smile. " I have trav- elled too much to neglect any of the formalities. The clerk of the hotel sent our passports to the police and had the proper visas attached." " As I spoke I took my passport from my pocket, and handed it over with an air of triumph. He unfolded the document and examined it. His turn wa-s to smile now, and he " smole." " All wrong, my dear sir," he said, " there is no visa for de- parture ; nothing but the visa fojir eu^rer a.nd the visa de sejoicr." Here was a pretty caldron of piscatorial products. It was one o'clock, and the steamer was to sail at four ; it was Saturday afternoon, and the police-bureau closed at twelve o'clock on the last day of the week. " I will endeavor to get you out of your trouble," said the kind hearted Smith — I wish all Smiths were like him and the world would then be much better off than it is — " we will jump into a drosky and do some fast driving ; and as I know the Governor and the Police-Master I think the matter can be fixed." We hired a drosky and told the driver to put in his best licks and he might expect something to get drunk on. This appeal to the noble sentiments of an isvoshchik's heart roused his ambi- tion and he put in the " licks" aforesaid, with a whip weighing about three pounds in the handle and two in the lash. We went forward as if impelled by the boot of His Brimstonic Majesty, and as the narrow drosky bounded from side to side the two pas- sengers had hard work to hold on. We were soon at the Governor's, and entered a room filled with a crowd of all sorts of people, some dirty, some dirtier, and some dirtiest, and a few looking clean and respectable. The Consul gave his name and rank to a soldier who disappeared 112 AN AMIABLE RUSSIAN. through a narrow doorway and soon returned to escort us into the gubernatorial presence. The governor was a well-proportioned man of fifty-five or sixty years, with white hair, a clean-shaven face, and regular, pleasing features. He was in civilian dress, and his manners were easy and unaffected like those of the higher class of Russians gener- ally. In his presence one might easily forget the official in the kind and courteous gentleman. If he had an iron hand, it was most skillfully covered with velvet. Napoleon said, " Scratch a Russian and you will find a Tartar." That may be so, but it is PUTTING IN HIS "BEST LICKS." unnecessary to indulge in scratching when the Russian is as amiable as we generally find him. It is like removing the paint from a beautiful picture to get at the rough canvas. The case was stated to His Excellency, and we obtained a note requesting the police to attend to the matter and put the pass- ports in order, if there was no objection. " I shall be at the steamer," said the Governor, " as my sister is to be one of the passengers, and should there be any trouble, please tell me." We bowed ourselves out and were off. The Turkish consulate was close at hand, and so we halted there and obtained the visa to enter the Ottoman Empire, not BLARNEY AND BACKSHEESH. "3 necessary, but a good thing to have. It might be compared to some of the quack medicines of the present day — warranted not to harm the patient even if they do not benefit him. At the police-bureau the chief was absent, but his second in command happened to be in. He spoke French fluently, and when I had told him that it was no fault of mine, but the care- lessness or downright dishonesty of the hotel-clerk that had brought us into trouble, he said he would see what could be done. The office was technically " closed," but the Consul had influence enough to gain admission, and I had faith that blarney and "back- sheesh," especially the latter, would do the rest. We were referred to a subordinate, a seedy and decayed party who looked as if he had a large family and proportionately small pay. I thought here was a case of putting something where it would do the most good, and intimated as much to the Consul. " Yes, that will be right," replied Smith ; " do as you please, but I must not know about it." While the subordinate was intimating that office hours were over and he could do nothing, I handed him the three passports and with them as many roubles. As his fingers closed on them he smiled sweetly,and no doubt thought of his fam- ily and the comforts this honestly earned money would pro- cure for them. He opened one of the passports, and with an exclamation that amounted to "Really I did not understand how it was," sat down at his desk. In a quarter of an hour the passports were all en regie; I was 8 "backsheesh." 114 '^'^ ATTEMPTED SWINDLE, happy, Smith was happy, and the subordinate was happy. We went to the hotel, where the Consul took a parting glass of wine with us, received our thanks and we his blessing. Then we paid our bill and went to the steamer. I am unable to say whether the clerk of the hotel was grossly careless or dishonest. Had we gone on board with our passports as he returned them to us, we should have been liable to deten- tion until the next steamer, three days later. In that case the hotel might have profited by our enforced delay, and I have a strong suspicion that the fellow had an eye to business and de- liberately deceived us. I expressed my opinion of the whole affair, and we did not part friends. The steamer sailed exactly thirty-five seconds after her adver- tised time, an example of promptness worthy of imitation. She was an English-built ship, belonging to the Russian Company of Navigation and Commerce, and rejoiced in the name of Elborus. Officers and crew were Russian, with the possible exception of the chief engineer. We had a motley crowd of passengers in the cabin. We were three Americans, and there was a fourth — a native of the land of the free — a woman whose talkative power was sufficient to bore a tunnel through Mount Washington, and whose mission was lit- erature and matrimony. She was en route to Constantinople to marry a Turk, but I afterwards learned that she changed her mind and married a Greek. Then there were two or three Englishmen travelling for pleasure, several Swiss, German, and French merchants and commercial travellers, all of them chatty and most of them agreeable, and there were half a dozen Russians, mostly of the gentler sex. We had not been many hours at sea before a majority of the passengers were on speaking terms, and even endeavoring to make the time pass pleasantly. There was no distinction of age or sex in conversation ; everybody was polite, and nobody took offence at being addressed without the formality of an introduc- tion. Nowhere in the world will you find travellers more civil to each other than on the steamers which plough the waters of the Orient. Among the Russian passengers were three ladies (mother and daughters) from St. Petersburgh, sister and nieces of the Governor RUSSIAN VERSUS AMERICAN SOCIETY. II5 of Odessa. The younger of the daughters was a Lady of Honor at the court of the Empress, and the family evidently belonged to the haute noblesse of Russia. If anybody fancies that the high society of Russia is at all " stuck up," like some of our American aristocrats, he would have been enlightened very materially had he made the voyage with that party. There was no forwardness or pertness on the part of the young ladies, neither was there any frigid reserve or maiivaise honte. They conversed easily and with perfect self- possession, and when one of the passengers produced a variety of mechanical puzzles for the amusement of the party, they readily joined in the sport. If they were brought up at boarding and finishing schools I must admit that the Russian educational establishments are more successful in their work than the major- ity of their American and English rivals. The deck was crowded with third-class passengers, the majority of them being Russian pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. Two priests were with them, and they held frequent service, in which all the members of their flock joined. One of these services, which I happened to witness, was peculiarly impressive. The after saloon was on a level with the main deck, and conse- quently its roof, which formed our promenade, looked down upon the humbler part of the ship. The first morning out, I rose with the dawn and went above. The sea was calm and smooth almost to glassiness ; there was not a breath of wind nor the least feather of cloud or fog. Most of the stars had been paled by the light of the coming day ; only a few were twinkling here and there as if struggling to maintain their existence as long as it were possi- ble. They slowly faded and disappeared as the gleam of gold on the eastern horizon spread outward and upward, and betokened the approach of the sun. By-and-by a rim of fire appeared, and each moment grew larger till at last the full circle of light and heat was revealed above the sea. It was sunrise on the water, duller and tamer perhaps than in the midst of high waves, fierce winds, and fleecy clouds, but still a sunrise of great beauty. A few minutes after I went on deck the pilgrims assembled for service. The priests read the prayers in full, sonorous tones, and the people bowed or knelt in unison, in accordance with the ii6 ENTERING THE BOSPHORUS, formula of the Graico-Russian Church. With their faces tow- ards the east, they seemed to be sahiting the rising sun, and it would have needed little play of imagination to picture them as pagan fire-worshippers instead of devout followers of Christ. The sun slowly rose while the service was in progress, and when the prayers were concluded his entire disk was above the horizon. A scene of worship more impressive than this it has rarely been my fortune to witness. In good weather a steamer of ordinary speed can make the run from Odessa to Constantinople in about forty hours. At daylight AN IMPRESSIVE SCENE. on the second morning we were at the entrance of the Bosphorus, but it was still so dark that we could see little more than the lighthouses and a very dim outline of the forts that command the passage. Just inside the entrance we cast anchor and waited for the visit of the health officer. Until this was obtained we could go no farther, and hold no communication with the shore. The quarantine regulations in the Orient are very rigid, and the least violation of them subjects the offender to severe penalties. The health officer came at six o'clock, and after a brief inspec- tion granted us a clean bill of health. Then we might have gone ON THE BOSPHORUS. 11/ on, but a tantalizing fog made its appearance and delayed us an hour or more. Then it lifted a little and soon shut down, and it kept lifting and shutting alternately, so that we anchored twice afterwards ; drifted some of the time, and moved very slowly for the rest of our way. It was a disappointment to nearly all of us, for we had great anxiety to see the shores of the Bosphorus, about whose beauty we had heard so much. We had now and then a slight glimpse — all the more aggravating — but did not get a fair view of the shores until we were in sight of the great city. Some days later, when the sky was clear and the air soft, I made a journey on the Bosphorus, as I was determined not to miss it. The length of the Bosphorus from the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmora is a little more than twenty miles, as a ship runs through ; the shores are longer owing to their sinuosity. The strait is supposed to have been formed by an earthquake, as there is a similarity in the rocks of the two shores, and further- more, there are on each side seven promontories corresponding to as many bays opposite. Its width at the narrowest point is about six hundred yards, and it enlarges in places to eight hun- dred, a thousand, fifteen hundred, two thousand, and twenty-five hundred yards. In the Gulfs of Bey-Kos and Buyuk-Dere it is more than three thousand yards wide. The pen may give the figures that indicate the distances and heights, and depths, but no pen can give an adequate description of the pictures presented by the shores of the Bosphorus. As we enter from the Black Sea we pass between the two castles, the one of Europe and the other of Asia. The hills are steep and rugged, and appear capable of easy defence ; as we move along we have a succession of crags and rocks and forests ; of villages, chateaux, and palaces in such profusion that we should be wearied were it not for the great beauty of the scene. For several miles the Asiatic side is but thinly inhabited, and the shore appears almost in its primitive condition. There is little else than mountains and gorges, lonely valleys, deep set and secluded, forests of varying colors fringing the cliffs and climbing the sloping sides of the hills, and below them the dark water in which the whole picture is at times reflected. Il8 A CHARMING PLEASURE RESORT. On the European side the tableau is much the same for only a mile or so. Then begins a succession of edifices that show how- much the progress of settlement has clung to the northern shore. Village after village, palace after palace, follow in such rapid succession that it is difficult to imagine them little else than a continuous line, which they indeed become, long before the towers and domes and minarets of the city come into sight. The irre- gularity of the shores adds to the picturesque effect ; were they straight like the banks of an artificial canal, much of their beauty would be lost. The real luxury of architecture on the Bosphorus, as we ap- proach from the Black Sea, begins at Buyuk-Dere. This place has been called the most charming pleasure resort in the world. I am hardly prepared to endorse that opinion, but am willing to say it is one of the prettiest I have ever seen. Several of the foreign embassies have their summer residences here, and their palaces are quite prominent ; the rich merchants of Constan- tinople dwell there in considerable numbers, and have fitted up their houses with very little regard for expense. The houses skirt the shore, and some of them climb the hills in terraces ; there are groves of trees and a fine promenade near the water, so that the combined effect is very pretty. From here, as we go on, there is an uninterrupted succession of villages and palaces, whose names would be almost meaningless, but whose beauty as we view them from the water can never be forgotten. By-and-by the fringe of villages becomes larger and deeper, and we are told that Constantinople is in sight. Its hills rise steeply so that the houses seem tost and in terraces ; their vary- ing colors appear as numerous as those of the kaleidoscope, and the domes and minarets that crown many of the elevations give the picture an emphatically oriental tinge. We are in front of the entrance to the Golden Horn with Pera and Golata on our right, and Stamboul, with its Seraglio Point, crowned with the dome of Santa Sophia on our left. Beyond are the waves of the Sea of Marmora, and as we look over them the Isles of the Princes rise between us and the horizon. The harbor is dotted with shipping, and scores of restless steamers dart to and fro with their cargoes of passengers. Hun- mk \ ?^ BESET BY RIVER-THIEVES. 121 dreds of caiques and other row boats are visible, and as our steamer drops her anchor, they throng around her in great num- bers. The boatmen shout and gesticulate and push and fight, until they give us a fair indication of what the tower of Babel might have been just before the suspension of work on that edifice. Occasionally one of them falls into the water, but he is soon out again and shouting as wildly as ever. Evidently we shall not lack conveyance to the shore. The boatmen are a heterogeneous lot. They are Turks, Arabs, Maltese, Greeks, Italians, French, and Syrians, and there are many who would be unable, and others unwilling, to state their nationality. They are a picturesque crowd of thieves, most of them wearing the oriental dress, speaking a jargon of Italian and Greek and Turk- ish, with now and then one who has picked up a little English. They are difficult to manage, and not unfrequently, when they are out of sight of the police, indulge in robbing solitar)' pas- sengers who engage them for journeys up and down the shores of the Bosphorus. After running the gauntlet of the custom-house at Constanti- nople, we are at liberty to make our way to the hotels. All hotels are in the Pera quarter, on the east side of the Golden Horn, and there are always several runners for each establish- ment that board the steamer as soon as her anchor is down, and are ready to carry passengers and their baggage to the hostel- ries. No matter what hotel you intend to patronize, you are conducted up the steep hill, on whose elongated top the Grand Rue de Pera is situated. You find that the street is very narrow and very dirty, even though a prolonged residence in New York may have given you modified notions about the ordinary condition of metropolitan highways and byways. There are pools and patches of mud that would have a slimy consistency if it were not frequently stirred by the feet of men and horses ; and there are frequent heaps of filth that have waited so long for the scavenger that they have ceased to hope for his coming, and have settled down into the calm resignation of deep despair. The pavement is un- even and in very bad condition ; it appears to have been wholly neglected since it was first laid down, and will probably continue to be neglected for vears to come. 122 "whatever is, is right." The Moslem rarely repairs anything, as he believes that he is interfering with the work of God if he attempts to stop the pro- gress of decay. He builds a house, a mosque, or a bridge — he erects a monument to the memory of his father or brother — he plants a tree and fences a field, and then rests content. The edifice may crumble, the monument may fall, or the tree may wither ; he rolls his eyes to heaven and exclaims : " Inshallah" — as God wills it — his duty is ended. Of course there are exceptions to the rule. Self-interest sometimes overcomes religious scruples in the East as well as elsewhere, and the Moslem will shrewdly conclude that the will of God requires him to preserve the gifts that Heaven has be- stowed. CHAPTER VII. CONSTANTINOPLE— THE CITY OF DOGS. Human Camels — Canine Colors — The Dogs of Istamboul — Their Appearance and Moral Character — How the Turks regard theiri — " Inshallah " — Constantinopoli- tan Dogsologies — An Oriental Dog-fight — Sagacious Brutes — Cultivating Canine Society — " Standing Treat " among the Curs — Four-footed Campaigns — Dog- Districts — The Hostile Armies — A Brilliant Strateg'c Move — Charge of the Light (Dog) Brigade — Advance of the Chef de Garbage — The " Army of the West " in Retreat — The "Doubter's" Mishap — Full Details of a Coat's Detailing — An Is- raelite in whom there was Guile — No More Sandwiches for Me, Sir-r-r ! OUR baggage is on the backs of hamals or porters, and we follow it and them like mourners at a funeral. The first objects to attract our attention are some ill-condi- tioned curs of low degree, full-blooded curs, with not a particle of respectability about them except in very rare cases. They are nearly all of the nondescript sort which the ruralist designates as " yaller dog," without reference to his color. Yellow is the prevailing hue ; but there are black, brown, white, and spotted dogs among them, and one of my friends avers that he has seen green, red, blue, and pink dogs over in Stamboul. But I fear he had tarried too long in a certain cafe there, and partaken of the cup which necessarily inebriates while it cheers. There is a good deal of wolfishness about these dogs both in habits and appearance. They have no home, they live in the streets, and hunt for their living wherever there is a chance to find anything. You see them lying in the open street, on the pavement where men and horses are passing, or on the narrow strip of sidewalk, as if the place belonged to them. Under very favorable circumstances they crouch in doorways, but in so doing (123) 124 POOR DOG TRAY. they render themselves liable to be kicked soundly whenever an occupant of the premises happens along. When they lie in the street men and horses generally step over or around them ; I say generally, as neither men nor horses are very particular, and you not unfrequently hear a prolonged yelp or howl from some un- fortunate cur whose leg, tail, or body, has received the impress of a human or equine foot. You see dogs with frightful wounds received from horse shoes, and others with huge scars where such wounds have been healed. In the Grand Rue de Pera and other streets where carriages can circulate, the sleeping dogs are occa- sionally run over and either wounded or killed. A STRLET IN COiNSTANTlNOPLE. I was one day an unwilling Vv^itness of one of these occurrences. Within a yard of where I stood a carriage-wheel passed over a dog, lacerating him in such a way that he died in a few minutes. But while he lived his howling was fearful to hear, and it rang in my ears long after the poor brute had ceased to breathe. The Turks in general care little about the sufferings of the dogs, or in fact of any living thing. Now and then, one of them shows a little kindness to the animals, allows them to sleep in his doorway, and sometimes feeds them with any refuse food he has at hand. The Christian inhabitants of the place arc more amiably disposed towards the brutes, and frequently kill them in order to end their misery. THE CITY S SCAVENGERS. 125 There have been several raids upon the dogs in the Pera quarter, but the animals are so numerous and the opposition of the Turks is so great, that the numbers are not much dimin- ished. Though the Turks consider the dog an unclean beast and have no love for him, they have a great aversion to taking life on the principle I have before mentioned of non-interference with the will of God. " If God wished the dogs to die," said a Turk one day, in dis- cussing the question, " he would sweep them off by a pesti- lence. Inshallah ! they shall live." A practical reason for maintaining these dogs in Constantino- ple is that they are excellent scavengers. In this respect they are regarded exactly as are the buzzards that abound in some of our southern cities. Wherever you see a fresh garbage heap in Constantinople there you will see a group of dogs. They are engaged in making a living, and they turn over all parts of the heap in search of something edible. Nothing comes amiss. A crust of bread, a bit of meat, a bone, fleshless or otherwise, is immediately seized and appropriated. I used to watch the dogs when thus foraging, and was surprised to observe their apparent friendliness. When one found anything he ate it without being disturbed by his companions; but he never lingered long over it. Sometimes one would seize hold of a large bone and another would attach himself at the same mo- ment to the opposite end. Then began a discussion of growls, snorts, and bites, and very often the whole party would go in and there would be a general scrimmage, in which the dogs would be in a struggling heap, doggedly clinging to the bone of contention. One afternoon I happened to witness a fight of this sort in which half a dozen dogs were engaged. There was one little fellow in the lot, and while his big friends were quarreling at a lively rate he slipped in beneath the belly of the largest and came out in the same way, bringing the bone and making off with it. So intent were they upon their unpleasantness that they did not ob- serve the abstraction until little dog and big bone were out of sight around the corner. They looked around an instant with their noses in the air and then struck up another chorus of growls 126 CANINE GRATITUDE. interrupted with bites and tussles. Then they appeared content and returned to their scientific investigations in the heap of gar- bage, pawing, scratching, and turning it over industriously for everything capable of mastication. To my mind a whole bundle of morals was bound up in the incident, but I forbear to thrust them upon my readers. These dogs know and remember their friends as readily as do the members of the canine race in other parts of the globe, and numberless are the anecdotes of their sagacity related by old res- idents at Constantinople. A stranger walking the Grand Rue de Pera will frequently be accompanied a block or so by a stray _ dog who will wag his ^ ^ ■^ ^ \ ili,,,i. ,f tail and look plead- ingly in the stranger's face as if to say •''^^^■li " Please give me some- "^^ thing to eat." These demonstrations will be liveliest in the vicinity of an open-front cook- shop, such as are so common throughout the "city of dogs," and if you stop and buy something for the poor brute he will man- ifest his gratitude in the various doggish ways with which we are all familiar. He will remember you and the next time you walk that street and block, he will be on hand to welcome you. One day a couple of dogs thus pleaded for me to stand treat and I obliged them by stopping at a cook-shop and buying a few pennies worth of the pancaky productions of which the lower class of Turks are so fond. That evening I was calling on some friends at the Hotel de France and returned rather late to my quarters in the Hotel de Byzance. Two or three hundred yards from my destination two dogs came to my side and after a few demonstrations of welcome traveled along with a dignified air and did not leave me until I entered the doorway of the hotel. STRATEGY. FIGHTING FOR THEIR COUNTRY. 12/ At that hour the cook-shops had long been closed and the manner of the brutes did not indicate that they expected to be paid for taking me home. Next day they met me again and were prompt to recognize me, and I returned their recognition by again standing treat at the cook shop. That night they were again on hand to escort me, and when a third dog approached they drove him away. In the day time they were suppliants but at night they were guardians, and I was told that if any man had ventured to attack me there was little doubt that they would have done good service with their teeth. We kept up our acquaintance — the dogs and I. — as long as I remained in Constantinople. I have always entertained great respect for the dog, and this experience increased rather than di- minished it. Have any of us ever lived, when we were boys, in a large city, and have we ever been " licked" by the boys of a neighboring street for the terrible crime of venturing out of our own territory.-* And furthermore have we ever joined in " licking" some other boy who had the audacity to venture from his street into ours. Well, what boys do in American cities, the dogs do in Turkey. They divide Constantinople into districts, and they know their own districts as well as " the gal knew her dad." Each group of dogs has its own territory and they are also on good terms with each other. But let a cur from the next dogship venture over the boundary he is in trouble at once. The whole crowd, Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart and all the other big and little dogs go for him, and give it to him tooth and nail He is rolled over in the mud and bitten and bruised, and if he gets back to his own ground with a whole skin he may thank his dog-stars. I have frequently seen these discussions and observed how carefully the boundary is defined, and how common cause is made against the intruder. He is driven back to and over the frontier, and there the pursuit is supposed to end. But if the pursuers in the excess of their zeal venture across the line they are attacked by the combined forces of the district they have in- vaded, and a grand battle is occasionally the result. The vigor with which the dogs of the district assert their common rights, the patriotic zeal of even the most insignificant and contemptible 128 THE SWILL-BOX BRIGADE. curs when called upon to defend the common weal, and the apti- tude which the dogs display for the discussion of diplomatic niceties and fine distinctions, call for the respectful considera- tion and study of the diplomats and scientists of the Western world. One day I was sitting with a friend in front of a cafe which was situated on a street corner. The small street intersecting the larger one happened to be the boundary of two of the dog principalities, and we observed that the four-footed inhabitants of each realm frequently came down to the street, but did not ven- ture into it, as it was a sort of neutral zone, which neither might occupy. Let us call the principalities East and West for convenience in telling what happened. Both armies had been gathered at the boundary and sep- arated only by the narrow street. They snarled and growled and made rcconnoissances in force, but neither ventured across. The army of the East was the more numerous and contained larger and more healthy soldiers than that of the West ; there was mischief in their eyes and mud on their feet, and they felt that they could " chaw up" the dogs of the West if they had a chance. And how should they do it when it was contrary to their moral principles to invade a country with which they were nominally at peace ? The army of the East retired from the frontier and disappeared round the next corner where there was doubtless a camp of in- struction — a sort of Chalons-sur-Marne. The army of the West also retired and moved toward its own interior ; it stacked arms in the vicinity of a swill-box in front of a restaurant, and waited for somebody to overturn the box, on which their hopes and hunger were centered. Unconscious of danger, they did not preserve good order, and nearly half their forces straggled away where a baggy-breeched and dirty Turk had just deposited a basketful of kitchen garbage. With tail in air, mouth wide open, and thoughts intent upon their hurried banquet, for one fateful mo- ment they lost sight of stratagems and only dwelt on spoils This was the military situation at 3.15 p. m. About 3.18 p. m. a cavalry regiment (one dog) debouched from the street leading THE ATTACK THE ROUT THE PURSUIT. 129 to the fortified camp of the Army of the East. Halting a moment to observe the situation, — it had only one eye to observe with — and its tail had been detailed to service elsewhere — it gave the order to advance and — obeyed it. With no shout of defiance, without champ of bit or clank of saber, but " all in silence deep, unbroken," it pressed forward at the pas de charge and crossed the frontier. Leaping the Rubicon — a narrow mud puddle — it was on the sacred soil of the West. This gallant Light Brigade — noble six hundred ounces of dog- flesh — did not slacken speed for an instant, but pushed onward with head and stump of tail up, to within point blank range of the swill-box. It was not perceived by the Army of the West until it was within a couple of yards of the commissary depot ; there a shot from a picket gave the alarm and the fHiHH^^HHI?^^-^*-'^r:ij^- ^^- "^ Army of the West fell into line at once. The swill-box divi- sion made a bayonet charge at the auda- cious invader, who turned and with de- pending caudal stump legged it for his native land. The reser\^e at the garbage heap ad- vanced in double quick time and things looked rather lively for the invader. Swift was the flight and swift the pursuit. The pursuers halted not at the frontier, but in the impetuosity of youth and anger at the insolence of the enemy's cavalry, they pushed straight on after the flying foe. The cavalry sounded its trumpet as it jumped the Rubicon, and just as it reached the corner leading to the fortified camp, the whole army of the East came to its support. Wasn't the army of the West up a tree about this time .■• THE RECONNOITRE. 130 "father of all dogs. The battle was short, sharp, and decisive. The army of the West was "licked" out of its boots, and with shattered battalions and wide gaps in its ranks it came limping and howling home, leaving the ground covered with a debris of ears and tails They lade ^^\i^. hak THE RETREAT. at the frontier whither they were pursued, but only stopped long enough to intimate that they would get even some- time. Whether they have ever done so history does not record. The despatches from our ambassador at the court of His Maj- esty, the Sultan, made no mention of the matter, and a sim- ilar remissness has been observed in the reports of Sir Henry Elliott to the British Government. The dog in the Orient is considered an unclean and disrepu- table beast, and one of the worst epithets applicable to living things is the terra " dog." The Moslem was once accustomed to speak of "christian dogs" whenever he had occasion to allude to people of the Occident, just as the Chinese are to this day in the habit of designating them as ''fajtkzuci," "foreign devils." Some- times a delicate allusion is made to the maternal descent from the canine race, where the speaker wishes to lay it on fine, and if he wants to be especially choice and emphatic, he would de- nounce an offending Occidental, as " Father of all dogs." Donkey drivers all through the Orient urge their beasts for- ward by shouting, " Enipchy, ya kelb" (go on you dog,) but the donkeys do not appear to mind it. I was repeatedly impressed with the similarity of Arab and Russian drivers, as the epithet Kelb which the former apply to their donkeys and camels, has exactly the meaning of "sabaka" which the Russian yemshik yells out to his horse.. THE "KNOWING BRUTES OF DAMASCUS. 131 The dogs of Constantinople are so accustomed to the sight of people in European dress, that they do not pretend to attack them, for the simple reason that they would have a larger con- tract on hand than they could conveniently fill. But the case is different in places less frequented by foreigners. In Damascus, when our party made the tour of the walls, the dogs annoyed us greatly by hanging around and keeping up a very loud and angry barking. They did not bite anybody, though they came very near, and certainly manifested a strong desire for dental practice. They were knowing brutes, those Damascus dogs ; one of our party afterward called them Damas-cussed dogs ; but we re- proved him and threat- ened expulsion if he ever did so again. The joke might have been al- lowed in Kit Burns' dog- pit, but was quite out of place in a respectable party making the tour of the Holy Land. When they barked and howled around us, we made threatening demonstra- tions with our canes and umbrellas, but the ani- mals didn't scare worth "■ a cent. They were par- ticularly fascinated with the " Doubter," but they soon knew the range of his umbrella, and how to keep out of its reach. But when our guide picked up a stone and let it fly they fell back. Whenever they came too near, a stone would send them back and a volley would put their ranks in disorder. Even the motion to pick up a stone would start them ; the Arabs around Damascus can hurl these missiles with great violence and are good shots, and the dogs know it. Several times our guide made splendid shots, taking the dogs fairly in the sides with stones the size of a respectable fist, or a more respectable piece of chalk, 9 A DAMAS-CUSSED DOG. 132 THE "DOUBTER AND HIS COAT-TAILS. STOWING THE SANDWICHES. and sending the offenders off with a chorus of yelps that were a warning to their fellows. One morning when we were start- ing out for a long forenoon's walk, in Constantinople, the "Doubter" was sceptical about the possibility of getting anything to eat on the way, . and so took the precaution to provide himself with a couple of ham sand- wiches, which he stowed- away in the rear pocket of his coat, and thereby hangs a tale In one place we passed a group of dogs that looked up inquir- ingly, but showed no fight or other ugliness. As we went by them the largest of the pack, a lank beast about the size of a full grown donkey, sniffed the morning air and the sand- wiches in the "Doubter's" coat-tails. With hair bristling on his back, and with tail and ears erect the Ponto of the Orient came up behind us, and I could see what he wanted. As the "Doubter" spoke nothing but Eng- lish, I passed the word in French to the rest of the party to keep his attention fixed on something, while I encouraged the dog. They dropped at once to the joke, and be- came very busy in examining the dome of a mosque that loomed up before them. Ponto or Ishmael.or whatever his canine name was, came bravely and hungrily forward. A ham sandwich was evidently a luxury the brute had not enjoyed for many a day, and his appetite was now fairly aroused. I pointed to the coat-tails where were enshrined the savory sandwiches, and intimated by signs ADMIRING THE MOSQUE. A SUDDEN ATTACK. A SUDDEN ATTACK. 133 THE PURSUIT. an-. that it was all right, and the best dog might win. Ponto's nose came within two inches of the prize, and took a fresh and satisfying sniff and then — There was a ripping and tearing of broadcloth ; the "Doubter" fell back- wards from the effect of the shock, and then — there was more ripping. Ponto was hungry and the Infidel Christian had brought him some- thing to eat. As the novelists say "all this passed quicker than I can write it." other rip, and all was over. I was so dumb-struck with aston- ishment that I couldn't interfere till Ponto had detailed the "Doubter's" coat. As he fled I raised a shout and a terrible outcry that made him run all the faster. Away he went like a pirate-ship in a fog, and in two minutes he was hull down among the sand hills. " Stop him ! stop him ! " yelled the "Doubter," but the brute couldn't understand dently he was not a stop-watch dog. "There's a coat ruined," continued the "Doubter," "I've only had it four years, and gave twenty dollars for it. What shall I do ? what shall I do .? " " Cut off the other tail and make a jacket of it. Come to-morrow with sandwiches in the other pocket and the dog will do it for you." " Hire an Arab to hunt up the tail." " Cut off the dog's tail and sew it on instead. The coat won't look any worse than it did before." A HOPELESS CHASE. English, and evi- RETROSPECTION. 134 REPAIRING DAMAGES. "Tell the Consul about it, and have him demand satisfaction of the government." These and other irreverent remarks were let off in tlie pauses of our laughter, and I am bound to say that the " Doubter" didn't enjoy any part of the joke. He was unhappy all day, and more unhappy when he visited next morning the clothing shop of an Israelite, in whom there was guile enough to set up a whole Tammany Ring, and have ten per cent, to spare. While he tried on a coat, and was dubious about the fit, the polite Jew declared: " Ah, mein Gott, zat coat, he fit you like ze skin on a dog ; like, shoost like, ze skin on one big dog ! " And the " Doubter" again waxed wroth, and took in high dudg- ,eon this apparently personal indignity. When he paid his bill at the hotel he was again angry, for among the items was the following : " Extra — two sandwiches, two francs." He vowed he would not pay, but we all insisted that the charge was just, and he finally paid, and was cross for a week afterward. But he never again took ham sandwiches for a lunch in Constan- tinople. CHAPTER VIII TURKISH CURIOSITY SHOPS— SIGHTS AND SCENES IN THE BAZAARS. Locomotion in Constantinople — Horses, Donkeys, Shank's Mare and Sedan Chairs Turkish Street Cars— Women in Public — The Veiled Queens of Seraglios — The Drugs of the Orient — Henna and its Uses— Ottar of Roses, Musk and Berga- mot — Shawls and Silks of price — The Treasures of Ormus and of Ind — The Workers in Precious Metals — Vases of Gold and Platters of Silver — An Aureole of Gems — Loot for Soldiers and Swag for Burglars — The Weapons of Ancient Islam — Blades of Damascus and Swords of Mecca — A Wonderful Collection — Old Clothes and New Truck — A Seedy Moslem Swindler — An Exorbitant "Back- sheesh" — What happened to the Judge — A Dispenser of Justice in the Lockup. DOUBTLESS one of the most attractive features of Constan- tinople in the eyes of a stranger is a visit to the bazaars. To reach there from Pera, where all the hotels are situated, it is necessary to descend the steep hill to Golata and cross the Golden Horn to Stamboul. You can go on foot, on horseback, in a carriage, or in a sedan chair ; on foot is the least expensive and is the method employed by the majority of visitors as it fur- nishes an opportunity for a leisurely survey of the route which is always interesting, providing the rain is not falling and the sun is; not pouring down an intense heat. Saddle horses are to be found all over the city, and you can hire them by the day or hour or by the course from one place to another. A man accompanies the horses, and no matter how fast you may ride, he will keep close to the animal's heels with- out apparent fatigue. Carriages are a comparatively recent feature of Constantino- ple ; they are decidedly expensive, and as they jolt along over (135) T-,6 SEDAN-CHAIRS AND STREET CARS. the rough pavements you are shaken up in a way to make Dys- pepsia turn pale in the face. The sedan chair is borne by two men and is not an uncomfort- able mode of locomotion ; all things considered it is the most agreeable if one does not wish to go on foot, and has an aver- sion to a violent shak- ing up. The sedan chair waiting at the door of the theatres near the conclusion of the performance presents a curious spectacle, and re- minds you of the stories of London two hundred years ago when chairs and link boys were the mode. Omnibusses and street cars are in use. The latter are divided into three compartments, first, second, and women's. The first class has leather cushions on the seat, and are generally dirty ; the second class has no cushions on the seats and are generally dirtier. In the women's compartment no man is allowed to enter; the women sit there in silence and seclusion after the Turkish custom, and each wears the veil. "" The veil of the Turkish women of fashion is of the thinnest gauze ; it allows the full outline of the features to be distinctly seen, and if the wearer is pretty you are sure to know it. And between you and me many who are not altogether pretty are made so by the veil which softens the hard outlines and tempers any excess of color. The street car dropped us at the point indicated by our guide, and we entered the bazaar through a gateway possessing an arch- itectural feature worthy of notice. The first place we visited was A SEDAN CHAIR. A PLACE OF A THOUSAND ODORS. 137 che bazaar of drugs, and as we entered it a thousand peculiar odors saluted our nostrils ; some of them possessing great pun- gency and power of penetration. For a minute or so the odor was almost intoxicating ; it was much like that which we experi- ence in America on entering a drug and perfumery establishment on a large scale. The street or passage-way is quite narrow and on either side r(0:v^.^; A TURKISH BEAUTY. are small shops with open fronts. The floor of the shop is about three feet above the ground, and is so arranged that the merchant squatted within can use the front part of the floor as a counter for the display of his wares For storage purposes there were shelves, and the merchant could reach whatever was wanted without rising from his place. On the projecting platform at either side of the shop, there were 138 COSTLY PERFUMES. sacks of henna — used for coloring a great many things, the eye- brows and finger-nails of women included — and there were other sacks containing dates and various kinds of nuts. Drugs of un- known names and quantities were exhibited, and in many respects each shop appeared very much like its neighbor. Immediately on entering we find ourselves in the place set apart for perfumery, and if we wish to purchase ottar of rose, musk, essence of bergamot, oil of sandal wood, or any of that kind of goods, now is our chance. The merchants here seem to think that the chief end of foreign man and especially woman is to buy ottar of rose, and you are offered the article in all sorts of flasks and bottles They have a curious looking bottle, shaped like one's finger but longer in proportion to its width, which holds only a few drops of the precious liquid. Each man assures you that his is the only genuine article of the kind in the city, and that you will be cheated if you go else- where. You are allowed to smell of the merchandise, and by way of convincing you of the genuineness of what they offer, they show you a small bottle of the counterfeit with the assur- ance that they never sell it and only keep it to show. There is more humbug and nonsense in the purchase and sale of ottar of rose than in anything else that is dealt in, in the Ori- ent. Every guide can take you to the only merchant in the city who sells the genuine article, and no two guides take you to the same merchant. You can buy the stuff anywhere from one to twenty dollars an ounce ; the price you pay is only limited by your willingness to pay it, and the amount of money that your guide and the mer- chants {who are invariably "in cahoots") think they can squeeze out of you. You can just as well buy for five dollars an ounce as for twenty ; the genuine article, unadulterated in any way, is worth fifty dollars an ounce at the place of manufacture, and as the Orient demands large profits, you should expect to pay a hundred dollars for it in Constantinople. You can set it down as a certainty that no stranger can pos- sibly buy the genuine ottar ot rose in the bazaars of Constantino- ple or Cairo. Near these perfume bazaars are the shops where you can buy all sorts of Oriental luxuries in the shape of shawls and silks.. WONDERS OF THE "GRAND BAZAAR. 1 39 sandal and rosewood, Persian mirrors framed in fine paintings, articles of ivory, or ebony, or pearl, little odds and ends of fila- gree work ; in fact, an endless variety of things of more or less value. The merchants are not so ready to show their goods as those we have just passed, for the reason that the articles may be dam- aged by much handling, and customers are not very easy to ob- tain. If you show a disposition to trade, they will accommodate you; but they do not rush to strip their shelves at your approach. We did not want to buy drugs, and so we went rather hastily through this bazaar to visit the " Grand Bazaar," as it is generally known among foreigners as well as natives. Do not imagine that it is a single house ; it is so in one sense, and in another is far from it. It is a sort of city within a city ; it has streets, lanes, alleys, and squares, which are all roofed over, so that you might walk upon the housetops from one side of the bazaar to the other. Light is admitted through holes in the street roofs, some of them open and others covered with glass. There is not light enough to go around and give a good supply to everybody, and sometimes you have to strain your eyes to see distinctly, and then you don't. A good many of the shop-keepers in America are up to the same dodge ; if you don't believe it, just enter a ready-made clothing store in New York or Boston, and observe in what part of the establishment they endeavor to fit you. Further on you find the shops where the silks of Broussa are sold, an article for which Constantinople has long been famous. There are two kinds of Broussa goods, one entirely of silk and the other half silk and half linen ; the latter is much the cheaper of the two, and greatly in demand for dresses after the European model. The merchants endeavor to tempt the masculine visitor with dressing-gown and wrappers of Broussa silks, and then with slippers and other articles which would make a sensation at home. There is a great supply of ready-made clothing of the Turkish pattern, especially for children ; and you could rig out a small boy there in a very short time with garments that fit him exactly, from slippers up to head dress. And so you go on. You can wander for hours in the bazaars, days will not exhaust their treasures, and I think I should be 140 AN AUREOLE OF GEMS. content to spend my odd moments there for at least half a year. The whole wealth of Ormus and of Ind seems to be stored there ; and the eyes are frequently dazzled by some object of great value, whose existence is almost an enigma, and its uses still more so. You pass from the centre of one trade to that of another ; now you are among the rows of shops where are sold the curiously-shaped shoes of the Orient. Thousands and thou- sands of shoes are exposed there, and you think if all Turkey should become by some miracle barefoot to-morrow morning, it could be newly shod before nightfall from this bazaar alone. You enter the bazaar of the workers in gold and silver, and there you see enough of the precious metal to pay the national debt of any reasonably economical country, or at all events, to go far in that direction. You enter the bazaar of precious stones and see the light flashing and sparkling from thousands of dia- monds of " purest ray serene," and should you show a desire to purchase, they will bring forth from dusty and iron-bound cof- fers tens and hundreds of thousands of other diamonds, larger and more brilliant than those which hang or lie in the show- cases. Collars, ear-drops, rings, and pins of diamonds and other precious stones are on exhibition, and many of them, in spite of their oriental mounting in semi-barbaric taste, are of great beauty. The wealth stored here is something incredible. The loot of the place would make many and many a fortune, and enable the robbers to live comfortably and honestly for the rest of their days. One of the most interesting places is the Arms Bazaar. It is not exactly what its name indicates, as it contains a great many things besides weapons of war or the chase. In the other ba- zaars you find an attempt now and then to conform to Occidental taste, but here everything is Oriental. You can find here every sort of weapon which the Orient has known in the past ten or twenty centuries. There are swords of Damascus, of a fineness unknown to the best steel of the present day, and which may have flashed in the hands of Saladin or Haroun-al-Raschid. There are knives and lances that are said to have pierced through coats of mail, and whose handles are crusted and covered with THE DEALERS IN HUMAN FLESH. 141 pearls and precious stones. There are spears, hatchets, lances, sabres, curious old match-locks, with barrels of immense length — all the weapons of the Islam of the past and going back to the time when Mohammed, at Mecca, believed himself commissioned from heaven to reform the world. Saddles and housings, sparkling with precious stones, are placed where the light falling from the vaulted roof will show them to the best advantage ; and as you look around you see thousands of objects covered with jewels and with barbaric pearl and gold. There are garments lined with costly furs, or embroi- dered in the most elaborate manner, and there are articles of fur- niture of fabulous value. So great is the wealth contained in the Arms Bazaar that no fire is allowed there under any circumstances. Smoking is pro- hibited ; the place where a Turk forbids himself to smoke must be sacred in the highest degree. There are bazaars where they sell pipes of all kinds, and where you buy all kinds of tin-ware. There are book bazaars, seed .bazaars, glass bazaars, and so on through a long list. And there is a second-hand bazaar, where you can buy anything from a set of false teeth to a suit of clothes. It is a wonderful mass of stuff, not altogether inviting ; as you walk around, you have suspicions of plague, cholera, and other diseases of the Orient, and are not altogether sorry to get away. To most vis- itors to this place, the request " please not handle " would be quite superfluous, as they have no wish to form a v«rv intimate acquaintance with the articles exposed for sale. Ikit the Turk never puts up a notice of this sort, and seems quite indifferent on the subject. We inquired for the slave bazaar, and were told it no longer existed. A few years ago there was such a bazaar near the mosque of Mohammed II, where negro children were sold, and occasionally one could find an adult, man or woman, to be disposed of. The bazaar for white slaves is also gone, but the commerce is still carried on clandestinely. The business is conducted by Circas- sians established in the Pera quarter ; they claim that the girls sold by them, come voluntarily to Constantinople, and the prices they demand is simply to cover the expense of importation. 142 A QUEER CALENDAR. It was the month of Ramadan, or Ramazan, when I arrived at Constantinople. There may be some ignorant wretch who doesn't know what Ramadan is. Well, the Mohammedan year is divided into twelve months, composed alternately of twenty-nine and thirty days, or three hundred and fifty-four days in all. Consequently the year begins sometimes in the spring, sometimes in the summer, and so on, with a constant variation. This may seem absurd to our notions, but on second thought we see that it gives every month a fair show, and is really a very just system. Suppose we had the same kind of year, we could have Jan- uary begin, once in a while, in August, and March could have a chance to set up for September. May could not put on airs over November, because they would change places from time to time, and December could be in haying time, just as often as it is the period for skating. Think of planting potatoes in November and cutting ice in August, of eating your Christmas dinner and going a Maying in October ! Mohammed had a level head after all. Ramadan is the most sacred month in the year, and every. Moslem is directed to fast every day during that month. From sunrise to sunset he must abstain from eating, drinking, smoking, and smelling perfumes, and from all indulgence of a worldly character The Prophet neglected to prohibit his followers from taking presents or swindling their customers during this month ; at all events, I found them entertaining the most extraordinary notions of the value of their services, and asking about four times the real worth of what they had to sell and what I wanted to buy. The first afternoon we were in Constantinople we went to the Tower of Golata, which overlooks the city ; there were six of us, and we went without a guide. We climbed the steps until we reached the platform, where the police authorities keep a detach- ment constantly on the lookout for fires, and I may here remark, by the way, that their vigilance is well rewarded, as they have more fires, and very destructive ones they are, in Constantinople than in any other city of its size on the face of the globe. When we reached this platform a seedy Turk approached us and asked what we wanted. THE JUDGE UNDER LOCK AND KEY. 143 " Can we go to the top ? " I asked in French, as he was more likely to understand that language than any other with which I was familiar. The seedy Moslem extended his hand and uttered, " back- sheesh ! " in a very imperative tone. I o-ave him a franc, and he then counted six on his fingers, and intimated that he wanted six francs for the party. I paid no more attention to him, and continued up the stairs to the top, calling on the ^C^^'lt *f^r 1^^''^.A. S M rest to follow. We re- mained there an hour or more studying the beauti- ful, or as the French would say, bizarre picture which included the whole of Con- stantinople, the Golden Horn, Scutari, with much of the Asiatic side and por- tions of the Bosphorus and Sea of Marmora. We watched the sun go down, and when his rays had ceased to gild the domes and minarets of Stamboul we were ready to descend. The Judge had gone down before the sun, as he was not much on sight-seeing, and had spied a Greek beer-shop near the foot of the tower, and intimated that he would sit down in front of it and wait for us. When the rest of us went down our seedy Turk was on the lookout, and demanded more francs ; he wanted five and I gave him one, and intimated that I would break his Osmanli skull if he didn't shut up. We were more numerous than he, and he didn't trouble us farther, except by howling "backsheesh" as long as we were within hearing. And what do you suppose the Judge told us when we joined him } That scoundrelly Oriental had locked the door on the Judge and refused to let him descend until he paid the five francs, which A^f IMPORTUNATE MOSLEM. 144 A MOSLEM SWINDLE. he afterward demanded of us, and the good-natured ex-dispenser of justice actually paid the fellow three francs, and then grew wrathy and threatened to break the door if it was not opened. The Turk saw he meant business, and then unlocked the door, not without a final demand, which he repeated while our friend descended. We learned at the hotel that half a franc would have been a sufficient "back- sheesh " for the whole party. Had we paid that and no more when we entered, the fellow would have seen that we knew the price, and would have made no further demand. But my gift of a franc — double the proper fee — coupled with my question showed him that we were a lot of modest idiots who might be swindled. It was our first experience with the Moslem, and you can wager that we learned a good lesson from it. Now, this happened in the month of Ramadan, and that Turk was keeping the fast with religious exactness. Yet we shouldn't have been swindled any more by a Christian hackman m New York or Chicago, unless we had given the hackman an equal chance. EXTORTING " BACKSHEESH. CHAPTER IX. FASTING AND FEASTING— THE SULTAN AND HIS COURT. The Great Moslem Fast— Nights of Feasting and Days of Fasting— The Injunction of Mahomet— The Ravenous Mussulman — An Hotel Swindle — A Stranger and They Took Him In— " Too Thin, too Thin"— Greek Wine— Going Out in a Blaze of Glory— Thunder, Smoke, and Flame— The Approach of the Sultan— How He Looked— A Peep at the Ladies of the Harem — The Veiled Queens— The Sultan's Mother— The Empress Eugenie at the Seraglio— Insult Offered to Eugenie— A Queen in Tears — A Question of Court Etiquette — Murdering Christians. WHEN the month of Ramadan falls in winter, and the days are short and cool, the fast is not very severe, especially for the wealthier class who are not obliged to work. But in summer, with heat and long days, the fast becomes a serious matter for all parties, especially for the poorer class who must attend to their daily avocations. The rich Moslems lie around their houses in a semi-comatose condition ; some of them sit up all night eating, drinking, and smoking, and devote the day to digestion and sleep ; thus they rob the fast of its terrors, and I am told that many of them do not hesitate to take an occa- sional bite during the day, but they take it very privately and in the strictest confidence. The fast comes heaviest on the poorer classes, and especially the abstinence from drinking. Think of being at work out of doors in a July day fourteen hours or so, and not a drop of water or any other liquid passing your lips ! Men frequently faint under such circumstances, and sometimes their health is seriously im- paired. (145) 140 FASTING AND FEASTING, Should a Turk faint from fasting and you endeavored to revive him by pouring coffee or water down his throat, it is an even chance that he would berate you soundly when he came to him- self, for attempting to make him abandon the faith of his child- hood, and embrace that of the Christian dog. The Prophet enjoined his followers not to crowd this fasting business too much ; soldiers in time of war are not required to keep the fast, nor persons who are sick or on a journey. It is even stated in the Koran that nobody should keep the fast unless perfectly healthy and able to do so, and that he should not neg- lect necessary labor to keep it. But if he does not fast during END OF THE FAST AND BEGINNING OF THE FEAST. Ramadan, he must do so an equal number of days in the rest of the year. In Constantinople a gun is fired at sunrise and another at sunset, and between these gun-fires the fast is in full force. As evening approaches every body gets ready for business, and is determined that no time shall be lost. Fires are lighted, food is cooked and placed on the table, and coffee is poured out. As the sun touches the horizon the dinner party sits (or squats) at the table, and when the gun booms out there is from one side of the Ottoman capital to the other a simultaneous extension of right hands to clutch something edible, and convey it to the "TAKING IN STRANGERS I47 gaping Moslem mouths, i You can almost hear the rush of wind caused by that synchronous movement, and if the force employed could be utilized by wheels and belts, it would be found suffi- cient for the propulsion of a cotton factory of the largest calibre. Things went on this way day after day during Ramadan, and wherever we went among the Turks, near the sunset hour, we witnessed the same scenes. The mosques were brilliantly illuminated both externally and internally ; the rows of lamps hung round the upper galleries of the minarets presented a curious appearance, as the minaret would generally be quite invisible in the darkness, so that the rows of light would appear to be suspended high \\p in the air. The people assembled for daily prayers, instead of weekly ones, and there was a general appearance of piety all around, coupled with an intense desire to make the most out of the "stranger within the gates " Even the Christian residents seemed to have caught the infec- tion — the proprietor of the Hotel d'Angleterre " raised " on us about four hours after we had settled into our quarters, and we had a row by way of diversion. When we went there from the steamer we arranged to have everything, rooms, attendance, lights, and wine at dinner, for twenty francs per diem ; when we were gathered at the table we were told that wine would be extra — the manager was sorry, but they had made a mistake in telling us wine was included. He would not yield, and next morning we packed our baggage and went to the rival house. When he found that we were leaving, he came down. We might have wine free, he would give us the best rooms in the house, he would eat dirt, any dirt we might select, and in any quantity, if we would only stay. But "it was no go," or rather it was a go on our part, and we patronized the Hotel de Byzance, where, for sixteen francs, we had everything as good as at the other house, and wine included. The wine proved to be ornamental rather than useful ; it was a Greek article, with the £-ou^ of nitric acid and oak bark, and brave must be the man who would drink it. Should I visit that hotel a decade hence, I expect to find the same decanter of wine, that stood by my plate during my stay. 10 148 A VINOUS FAREWELL. The day I left I grasped the decanter affectionately and gave it a farewell kiss. " Good bye, my friend, good bye," I gently murmured, " we shall meet again some time, let us fervently hope. I am a frail mortal and may not last many years, but you have enduring qualities that should preserve you a century or two. Don't /i!i|Mir''1ttf|1T'Mlf '"'''^^ °" me' when I am '"^^'^ III' II J*B I / II iNipillifi faraway; if anything, you are too sour already." The decanter was too full for utterance. A tear stood in its eye, though it may have been a drop re- maining from the effort of the waiter to tone the wine down with water, so that the stuff would be drinka- ble. Ramadan closed in a blaze of glory. The ships of the Turkish squadron were gorgeously dressed in flags, and many English and ^^^i French residents hung out "GooD-HYK, MY FRIEND, GOOD-BYE." t^cir natloual staudards. From the ships and the forts all round came the booming of artil- lery — not in occasional spattering shots, but in a salvo that seemed to shake the city, and check the flow of the waters through the Posphorus. The fast was over and the Moslem was happy. Next day was the feast of Bairam, and the Sultan was to pray in the mosque of Samt Sophia. Of course we went to see him arrive at the mosque, and we had to rise disagreeably early in order to be promptly on the ground. From the Stamboul end of the bridge over the Golden Horn there was a double hedge of infantry and cavalry all the way to the mosque. We took positions near the entrance to the Seraglio Park, where we could have a front view of the carriages as they THE SULTAN S PAGEANT. 149 approached, and then a side view as they turned to enter the gate. The aphorism that great minds think ahke was well ver- ified on that occasion, as we found some two or three thousand people holding similar views to ours, and a front place seemed hopeless. A TURKISH "CAVASS." The police were very civil, and the " cavass," or police officer on duty in front of our party, kept the population from crowding us in conveniently close. The " cavass" was arrayed in gorgeous style, and a franc slipped into his hand proved a good investment ; where he had before used words he now used a stick, and soon IJO GAZING AT THE GRAND TURK. convinced the multitude that it had no rights which he or we were bound to respect. We had front places, and the fellow even brought a couple of bricks on which the lady of our party could stand and thus preserve her feet from the dampness of the earth. We were close to the gate and had a good position. On the opposite side of the gate there was a crowd of women, principally Turkish ; we intimated that we would like to stand there, but the force of politeness and "backsheesh" could no farther go. Our laHy might join the feminine group, but as for the rest of us it was out of the question. No man was allowed to intrude there ; to Christian and Moslem, Jew and Pagan, the place was forbidden, and two policemen were there to enforce obedience. By and by there was a commotion, and a squadron of cavalry came trotting up the street and into the gate. Close behind them came carriages containing officers of the Sultan's cabinet, and behind them in the most gorgeous carriage of all, was the Sultan Abdul-Aziz, the head of the Ottoman Empire. He rode alone, etiquette forbidding that he should be accom- panied by any one, even by a minister of State. He is a stout, in fact more than stout, individual, with a heavy face, rather devoid of expression. I saw him seven years before in Paris ; then his cropped and full beard was black ; but as I looked at it, on that morning of Bairam I found that it was well sprinkled with grey. Unless the Sultan renews his youth at some Ponce de Leon fount of hair dye he will be a respectable old grey-beard before many years, provided he is not gathered too soon to his Osmanli Fathers. He was born on the 9th of February, 1830, and so you can easily calculate his age — just as easily as he can do it. He sits erect and with an air of dignity ; evidently he knows that people are looking at him, and he ought to be on his good behavior. He is in a gaudy uniform, which my hasty glance does not allow me to include in detail, and his fez is bright, and has evidently been sent out that morning and freshly ironed. He is evidently proud of his fez and gives his whole mind to it. The Sultan is a devout Moslem, and goes to church, or mosque, with exemplary regularity. Every Friday he leaves his palace about eleven o'clock and goes to one of the mosques, never to GLIMPSES OF THE HAREM. I5I the same one twice in succession, and very often he changes his mind an hour or so before he sets oiit. He generally goes on horseback, and sometimes in a caique, and rarely in a carriage. He never goes back by the way he came, and he never returns on the horse that brought him, a second horse being sent, for his homeward ride. The same plan is followed when he goes in caique or carriage, a second being taken for his return journey. I asked the reason of this, and was told that it was the custom, and that the Sultan had certain superstitions which those around him found it well to humor. Before the Sultan's cortege came in sight several carriages containing women were driven rapidly through the gate, and others came after His Majesty had entered. These were the ladies of the Imperial Harem, all dressed in their best clothes, and all wearing the yashmak, or veil. They were all pretty, or, at any rate, their veils made them appear so, if they were not. The Turkish veil is very thin, — so much so that it distinctly reveals the outline of the face and softens any tendency to harsh- ness. It appears more like a slice cut from a cumulus cloud than like a real tangible substance that costs money. The Sultan's mother was in one of the carriages ; a dignified old lady, whose beauty has evidently gone back on her, as she wears a veil thicker than those of the Sultan's wives, either full rank or brevet. She is a true believer of the old school ; she believes most emphatically in the impurity of the Christian dogs, though she is open to reason sometimes when her son takes her in hand. When Eugenie, Empress of the French, visited Constantino- ple, she was received by the Sultan with high honor as the representative of His (then) Majesty, Louis Napoleon. She was presented to the Sultan's mother, and when the introduction was pronounced Eugenie stepped gracefully forward and kissed the old lady. The O. L. was taken by surprise, and did not know what was coming till the smack of affection had touched her forehead, She was on her ear instantly, and with a howl of anger and con- tempt pushed Eugenie from her, and then turned on her heel and stalked out of the room. AN IMPERIAL BUTCHER. 152 The situation was an awful one. Eugenie's Spanish blood rose to about 211^ Fahrenheit, and it was a struggle for her to keep it from passing the boiling point. But as Empress of the French, she had a position to sustain and she managed to keep her temper till she reached her apartments in the palace assigned to her. It is said that she had a good cry when she got there, and, moreover made it lively for her attendants. Next day there was an attempt to patch up the row ; Eugenie was informed of the cause of the strange conduct of the Sultan's mother, and assured that it was not at all personal, but a matter of religion. They wanted her to be introduced again, and it was stipulated that the Turkish lady should kiss the French one, and try in a general way to make herself agreeable. But Eugenie had had enough and declined another interview. The fanaticism of the Moslems concerning the touch or pres- ence of the infidel has largely disappeared in Constantinople. Down to the Crimean war there was much of it, and many places were forbidden to the Occidental. But the British and French soldiers went where they pleased, and when the barriers were thus broken they were not likely to be restored. The Janizaries used to consider it rather meritorious than otherwise to stab Christians, while peaceably walking the streets, and other Mos- lems followed their example. But that is a thing of the past, as the Sultan Mahmoud, in the interest of civilization and hu- manity, butchered the Janizaries and thus opened the way to progress and reform. There are still some parts of Islam, where the life of an infidel would not be safe, but their limits are nar- rowing every year. The Bairam festival after Ramadan lasts three days, and is not unlike our Christmas. The master of a house gives each servant a suit of clothes or some other presents, and the working people generally go round to call on those from whom they may hope to extract gifts. Everybody goes to the mosque to say his prayers, and friends who meet there indulge in a good deal of em- bracing and kissing. They visit each others' houses and have a good time generally, and altogether the festival of Bairam puts the city in a very picturesque condition. CHAPTER X. THE MOSQUES— FAITH AND SUPERSTITIONS OF THE MUSSUL- MANS. Among the Mosques — Their Special Uses — Greek Burglars, their Capture and Exe- cution — A " Firman," What is it — A Turkish Dragoman — A Relic of Ancient Byzantium — Its Name and Origin — Taking a Portrait — Turkish Superstitions — Worshipping in St. Sophia — Moslem Fanatics — Counting the Minarets — What came of a Wet Pair of Boots — The Judge in a Tight Place — The " Doubter " commits Sacrilege — Uncovering a Sarcophagus — Attacked by the Priests — Bare- footed Worshippers — Teachings of the Koran — Cleanliness and Temperance — Why Turkish Women do not go to the Mosques — Why good Mussulmans never get Drunk. OIGHT-SEEING in the capital of Turkey would be incom- v3 plete if it did not include the mosques. Mosques are to the Orient what churches are to the" Occident, and are used for the same purpose — the assemblage of the faithful for religious wor- ship. The Moslem goes to the mosque to say his prayers, when he can do so conveniently, especially on Friday, which holds the same place in Mohammedan countries that Sunday does in ours. But the purpose of the mosque goes somewhat beyond that of the church in Christian lands, and in some respects sets an ex- ample worthy of our attention. The church in our country is for worship only, and when not used for devotional purposes, its doors are closed or only opened for the visits of the curious. In the Orient the mosque affords a refuge to the houseless poor, and this is particularly the case in Damascus and Cairo, where the Moslem faith has been longer at home than in Constantinople. Most of the mosques have large court yards attached, and a (>53) 154 THE GLORY OF MOSQUES. portion of these yards is roofed over to afford protection against the sun and rain. A visitor nearly always finds groups of people sitting there, many of them at work, with as much ease and com- fort as though in their own homes Tradesmen who have no MOSLEMS AT PRAYER. shops of their own frequently bring their work to the mosque, so that you nearly always find numbers of them engaged in sewing, spinning, or other light occupations. This is particularly the case in the afternoon ; and not unfrequently the mosque, at such times, or rather the court yard of it, presents a very lively ap- pearance. A TURKISH EXECUTION. 155 Groups of children may be seen playing in the court yard, but they do not play as noisily as do most of the Occidental juven- iles, and consequently their sports are not so annoying as one might be led to expect. In the mosque itself you frequently see bales and boxes piled up as in a warehouse ; these are the pro- perty of persons who have gone on a journey — particularly on a pilgrimage to Mecca — and have sent their valuables to the safest place they know. Articles sometimes lie there for years, and the owners feel entirely assured against loss. A Moslem would never steal from a holy edifice, and an infidel thief would run a great risk if he attempted it. " BISMILLAH." A few years ago some Greek and Italian scoundrels "put up a job" to plunder one of the mosques at Constantinople. They were weeks at work, perfecting their plans, and managed to get their plunder safe on board a schooner which was waiting in the sea of Marmora, a mile or two from shore. They sailed away in triumph, but the electric telegraph, which has brought so many scoundrels to justice, caused them to be overhauled at the Dar- danelles. The schooner was captured and brought back to Constantino- ple ; the property was returned to the mosque, and the enterpris- 156 THE ORIGIN OF ST. SOPHIA. ing gentlemen who removed it without authority received the polite attentions of a Turkish headsman. Not only they, but the entire crew of the schooner down to the cook and cabin boy — also a cat and two kittens — were decapitated, without fear or favor. " Bismillah !" (in the name of God) shouted the executioner each time he swung his sword. " Inshallah !" (God is willing) responded the attendant, as he gathered up the heads one by one and stowed them away in a sack. The mosques of Constantinople are the finest in all Islam ; they crown the summits of the hills of Stamboul, and are the most prominent objects in the picture, as one regards the city from the Bosphorus. To visit them, one must be provided with a "firman" or passport, and to obtain this document the article of " backsheesh " is required. A request must come from the embassy or consulate of the visitor's nation, and with this request and the payment of a sum equal to two dollars for each person of the party, there is no further trouble. Our polite Consul-general, Mr. Goodenow, greatly facilitated our efforts by sending his dragoman with ours to obtain the " firman ; " the consular dragoman is a personage of great importance, all through the East, and often advances the transaction of business with the government bureaux. The passport thus obtained is good, not for one alone, but for all the principal mosques. The most interesting and best known of the mosques is that of Saint Sophia, as it is erroneously called. It was not called so after any canonized woman named Sophia, but in honor of divine wisdom, Aj/a Sofia. It was thus consecrated by its founder, Con- stantine, in the early part of the fourth century, and when the Turks captured it a thousand years later, they retained the title, and call it Aya Sofia at the present day. The Turks have endeavored to remove the evidences of its former Christian character, but have not altogether succeeded. In many places one can see the cross and other emblems of the western religion, and in some instances the faces of men and angels have not been entirely obliterated. Mohammedanism forbids the making of any graven or pictorial image, and for this A MOSLEM SUPERSTITION. 157 reason, it is very difficult to induce an orthodox believer, uncor- rupted by occidental heresies, to sit for his portrait. The belief is that the person who makes a representation of any living thing, will be confronted with it at the day of judg- ment, and ordered to endow it with life. Failing to do this, he will be condemned to a locality I need not mention. I once endeavored to induce an Arab to stand in a certain position while I made a sketch of him. He declined, and ex- plained through an inter- preter, that a duplicate of himself would make things rather inconven- ient at the day of judg- ment, as there might be a difficulty in proving which was which. I tried to convince him that it would be all right, as my lack of artistic ability would be sure to save him. After looking through my sketch-book h e gained confidence, and was wil- ling to take the risk for two francs. We com- promised on one franc, and when I finished the picture he surveyed it and delicately hinted, that he was entirely safe from harm on the score of that duplicate. Most of the Moslem residents of the cities visited by Euro- peans, have got over any qualms of conscience about pictorial representations, but they still decorate their mosques after the traditional manner. There are no representations of living things on the walls ; nothing but texts from the Koran and attempts at architectural elegance about the arches and pillars. We left our hotel after an early breakfast, as it was necessary to pay our visit before the noon prayers, and we had several mosques to go through. To describe them all would be tedious ; THE "duplicate." 158 MUEZZINS AND MINARETS. it was a trifle so to go through them, and therefore I will let down gently. We had a long walk and were elbowed by a great many Turks, especially while crossing the bridge between Pera and Stamboul, and followed by a goodly number of beggars. The Turkish beggar is generally a fanatical Moslem who would not pollute himself by contact with the infidel ; he would starve rather than eat a dinner with a Christian, and as to taking a drink with him, it would be quite out of the question. But when it comes to money he makes no distinc- tion, and will receive a Frank franc as readily as a Turkish one. The mosques of Suleiman II., Ah- med I. and Moham- med the Conqueror, (by whom Constan- tinople was captured in 1453,) are magnifi- cent edifices, each with a grand dome in the centre, and a smaller dome at each corner. The arrowy minarets rise around each mosque and add to the picturesque effect ; their practi- cal use is like that of a bell tower, as from the gallery near the summit the Muezzin chants the call for the people to come to prayer. No bells are allowed in the minarets, nor in fact in all Constantinople, as their sound is offensive to Moslem ears. The mosque of Ahmed has six minarets ; up to the time of its construction the mosque of the Kaaba at Mecca was the only MUEZZIN ANNOUNCING THE HOUR OF PRAYER. BAREFOOTED WORSHIPPERS. 159 one with six minarets, and as it was the hoUest of all places in Islam, it was considered rather " off color " for Ahmed to put an equal number on his own edifice. He compromised the matter by ordering another minaret for the Kaaba, and paying the bills for its construction, and thus it happens that this mosque has seven instead of six minarets. This same mosque, the Ahmediah, is in the middle of a large yard planted with trees, and affording a very pleasant shade from the heat of the day. The interior of the mosque is simple, but magnificent ; the vast central dome is upheld by four immense pillars, each more than thirty feet in diameter, and cut on the outside so as to resemble a bundle of columns. There are half domes opening into the central one, and there are numerous pillars of marble and granite, sustaining arches at the sides and ends of the building. The absence of any decorations, save the texts from the Koran and the names of God, give an aspect of severity to the interior, especially when one has become familiar with the profuse adornments of Italian churches. The founders of mosques generally, but not always, intend them for their own burial places. What is left of Ahmed I., and I fancy there isn't much left now, is laid away, not in the mosque itself, but in a tomb close at hand, and forming a sort of adjunct to the grand building. We had to take off our shoes on entering it, just as we did on entering the mosque, and all the other mosques ; we brought along our slippers to wear in these excursions, and our guide walking ahead with six pairs under his arm, might have been easily taken for a second-hand dealer in foot gear. The Judge, the heavy man of the party, had wet his feet a little, and as his boots were very tight, he had hard work to doff and don them at each halting place. He sat on the pavement in front of a mosque, while the guide undertook to remove the refractory boots. They stuck faster at each change, and toward the last it became necessary to hold him, or have him sit astride a post during the operation. Other- wise the guide pulled him all around the yard as a country doctor does a patient when extracting an obstinate tooth. We feared it would be necessary for all of us to sit on him, or i6o UNCOVERING A SARCOPHAGUS. AN ORIENTAL BOUT-JACK. pile stones on him while the guide pulled, but happily this did not become necessary. The oft-repeated dragging around on the rough ground was detrimental to the trowsers of the Judge, and he was obliged to have them half-soled before he again wore them. When we were at the tomb of Ahmed, which contained a sarcophagus, covered with magnificent and costly shawls, and was surmounted with the turban of the de- funct Sultan, our sceptical comrade, the " Doubter," ex- pressed a suspicion that the ruins of Ahmed were not in the box. "These people are all liars," said he, " and I don't believe there ever was such a man." We tried to convince him that it was all right, and as he had paid for entering, he was at liberty to believe what he pleased. "Tell the man to open the place up," said the "Doubter" to our guide, " and let us see what there is inside." The guide tried to inform him, that such a proceeding would be contrary to custom, but the " Doubter" was obstinate and determined to have things his own way. " I am bound to find out for myself," he continued, and suiting the action to the word, he endeavored to lift one of the shawls that covered the sarcophagus. The moment his purpose became evident, the custodians seized his hands, and half a dozen Moslems who had been stand- ing round made a vigorous forward movement. They would have ejected him in a moment, had not our guide interfered, and possibly they would have brained him. It is a serious matter to touch things in a mosque, and this experience taught the " Doubter" a lesson which he remembered at least an hour. WORSHIPPING IN ST. SOPHIA. l6l We visited the tombs of several Turkish Sultans, and finally reached the mosque of Saint Sophia, a little before noon, so as to make a hasty survey of the lower part of the edifice before the people assembled for prayer. I will not attempt a detailed description, as it would be very long, and interesting only to an architect. Suffice it to say, that the church was originally very nearly a square — two hundred and fifty feet by two hundred and twenty- five — and the height of the cupola is about two hundred feet. Since it was dedicated to the worship of Mohammed, minarets have been built around it, and some of the external features have been changed. There are numerous columns of porphyry, black and white marble, Egyptian and other granite, and alabaster, and various colored stones. The abundance of columns, the galleries at the side, and the richness of the interior generally, form quite a contrast to the plainness of the other mosques, and one would hardly need be told that he is in an an- cient church of Christendom. The mosaics which represented biblical subjects, have been covered in part, but to so slight an extent that their richness is fully perceptible. Thus, for example, the four Cherubim in the base of the cupola are clearly visible, all except the faces, which are concealed by patches of cloth of gold. The same is the case with other mosaics where figures are delineated. All mosques are built so that the miJirab or altar placed against one of the walls shall be nearest to Mecca, and the worshippers, while looking toward this altar, shall be looking toward the Holy City. Strips of carpet are laid upon the matting which covers the floor, and on these strips the worshippers kneel, so that they are in rows exactly as if seated in the pews of a church. Saint Sophia was not properly placed for Mohammedan worship, and consequently the viihrab is at one side and the strips of carpet are stretched diagonally, so that they materially mar the archi- tectural effect of the building. It is also injured by numerous ostrich eggs, which are suspended by long wires or cords, and by Moslem chandeliers, which do not harmonize with the walls and pillars of the edifice. ( l62 CLEANLINESS AKIN TO GODLINESS. As the hour of prayer approached we mounted the gallery to look at the assembled congregation. By twelve o'clock the mosque was fairly filled — the worshippers in lines or files on the strip of carpet, reminding one of a regiment of infantry, in col- umns of companies. Each man brought his shoes in his left hand with the soles placed against each other, and as he took his position in one of the lines, he laid his shoes in front of him on the open space between his strip of carpet and the next one. Rich and poor prayed side by side, and were all considered equal in the sight of God. Occasionally there was a person with a prayer- carpet of his own, which had been brought and spread by a servant, but these instances were not numerous. The prophet is entitled to much consideration for some of his enactments which we find in the Koran. Cleanliness is enjoined upon the worshipper, and in compliance with this injunction the Moslems wash their hands and arms before prayers ; and if water cannot be had for this purpose, they make use of sand. This is the custom before the daily prayers. On Friday (the Moslem Sunday), the true believer takes a bath and becomes so clean that he might be used for a dinner- plate on an emergency. There is always a fountain in the court yard of the mosque, and , here, those whose feet and hands are not clean proceed to wash themselves before entering the sacred building. The floor of the mosque is scrupulously clean, and the removal of shoes or boots is required, not as a religious observance, as many suppose, but in order that no dirt may be left on the matting. You can wear your boots in a mosque, provided you have large slippers to go over them, or if you wear overshoes and remove them at the door. Sometimes the custodians have large slippers which you can hire, and sometimes they tie your feet in napkins, allowing you to retain your boots. " The congregation was a masculine one ; the Koran does not prohibit women from entering the mosque or attending prayers there, but says it is better for them to pray in private. It also hints that the devotional feelings of the men are likely to be re- duced, if women are near them during the public service, and that it is far better that there should be no such distraction. WOMEN WITHOUT SOULS. 1 63 Mohammed knew what he was about, and understood human weaknesses when he wrote the Koran, and prescribed the formulas of his rehgion. There "is an erroneous behef among the Western nations that Mohammed denied women the possession of souls. The Koran, in several places, promises paradise to all true believers, whether male or female, and enjoins women to be faithful and obedient to the laws of the Prophet. But as Moslem women are secluded on earth, the natural inference is that they will not occupy a high social position hereafter. The lioiiris, or spiritual wives, which are promised to the believers, render women of no future consequence in the eyes of a masculine Moslem, and hence it is not likely that he cares a straw whether his wives of this earth go to Paradise or stay away from it. The prayers were recited by an Iman or priest, who stood on the top of the pulpit, in company with other priests. From my position I was not able to see clearly all that was done at the pulpit, but I could see that the prayers were quite analogous to the mass of the Catholic church, and included readings, chant- ings and responses, with frequent bowings and genuflections on. the part of the people. The congregation moved as a unit; when one man bowed, all bowed ; when he knelt, all knelt ; when he prostrated himself, the rest did likewise. The service was an impressive one in every respect, and the most casual ob- server could not fail to see that every worshipper felt the solem- nity of the place and occasion. ■ — The following illustration is an txSiCt facsimile of the opening chapter of the Koran. .f?>. \ e ,^^j\jSi\ ^ > )^ ^0^ J>^V.^ W^ V\^ ^-r^-^^JH^ V5^^ V(yc. CLwvJti \ (Jlij\ ]s>\j^ "^ FARTH\, OR OPENING CHAPTER OF THE KORAN. II 164 A PRAYER FROM THE KORAN. This has been anglicized by Rod well as follows : 1 Bismillahi' rahmani' rraheem 2 El-hamdoo lillahi rabi'lalameen 3 Arrahamani' raheem 4 Maliki yowmi-d-deen 5 Eyaka naboodoo waeyaka nestdeen 6 Ihdina' ssirat almostakeem 7 Sirat alezeena anamta aleihim, gheiri-'lmoghdoobi aleihim wala' daleen. Ameen. Burton made a rhyming translation of the same, which I here- with give. 1 In the Name of Allah, the Merciful the Compassionate ! 2 Praise be to Allah who the three worlds made, 3 The Merciful the Compassionate. 4 The King of the day of Fate. 5 Thee alone do we worship and of thee alone do we ask aid, 6 Guide us to the path that is straight — 7 The path of those to whom thy love is great, Not those on whom is hate. Nor they that deviate. Amen. And now let me say a word to the Infidel, and show him how much he gains or loses by not being a Moslem. The first article of faith is : "There is no God but God." In chapter 112 of the Koran, his unity is set forth thus : "Say he is God, one God, God is the Eternal. He begetteth not, nor is he begotten ; and there is none equal unto him." The Moslems believe that Christ was the Messiah, and brought the gospel upon the earth; they do not call him the Son of God — but simply a prophet or apostle. They believe he was taken up to Heaven after having accomplished his mission, and that he will come again on earth to establish the Moslem religion. The second article of faith is : " Mohammed is the Prophet of God." The Moslems acknowledge six prophets — Adam, Noah, Abra- ham, Moses, Christ, and Mohammed — and that each brought a system of revealed religion. They claim that each system was a true one, but was abrogated by that which followed it. Consequently, Christianity was the true faith from the begin- THE INJUNCTIONS OF MAHOMET. l6$ ning of our era down to the time of Mohammed, except when it was corrupted by the beHef that Christ was the Son of God. They beheve in the existence of angels and good and evil genii, in the immortality of the soul, in resurrection and judg- ment, in future rewards and punishments, in the balance of good and evil works, and in a bridge formed of the edge of a sword over the centre of hell. All must cross this bridge ; the good pass safely over and enter Paradise, but the wicked fall from its centre. The Moslem faith is much weakened in those parts of the Orient that have had familiar intercourse with the Occident Temperance is enjoined by the Koran, but there are thousands of Moslems in Turkey and Egypt who drink wine and spirits without hesitation. As the Moslem becomes civilized and en- lightened, he generally proceeds to get drunk ; and the more he is instructed in the ways of Christianity, the drunker he becomes. Of course, there are many exceptions ; but they only prove the correctness of the rule, and our missionaries in the Orient must deeply lament that the injunction to sobriety is less severe in Christianity than in the religion it seeks to displace. CHAPTER XI. WHIRLING AND HOWLING DERVISHES— WHO AND WHAT THEY ARE. The Dervishes of Constantinople, What are They ? — How They Live and What They Do — Unclean and Devout Beggars — Where They Bury their Dead — Open- ing their Circus — Removing the " Doubter's " Boots — An Amusing Situation-., Clearing the Floor — Human Top-Spinning — Dropping into Jelly-bags — A Pliable Lot of Living Corpses — The Howling Dervishes — Where and How they Live — A House Full of Madmen — A Shrieking Chant — " La Hah il Allah " — Stirring up the Wild Beasts — Spectators Joining in the Chorus — Horrible Superstitious Rites — Treading on Sick Children — Reaching Paradise by Bodily Tortures — A Sad Disappointment — The Founder of the Sect and Who He Was — Pulling Teeth as a Proof of Sanctity. ONE of the stock-sights of Constantinople is the performances of the dervishes, which can be witnessed every Friday throughout the year. The dervishes are to Islam what the bare-footed friars are to Christendom ; they are men whose lives are devoted to holiness and idleness in unequal portions, and they subsist upon charity or from the endowment of theif mosques. Most of the orders of dervishes in Constantinople, Damascus, and Cairo, have comfortable homes and very little to do ; the members say their prayers daily, and devote an hour to their peculiar worship on Friday, and beyond this they do very little. But there are many dervishes not as well off, who are obliged to work or beg in order to make an honest living, and they greatly resemble Christian monks, in preferring beggary to labor. They argue that they have more time to devote to religious observances (i66) A VISIT TO THE " WHIRLERS." 167 in the former case than in the latter, and therefore it is the duty of the less pious public to support them in idleness. But the public does not always see it in this light, and hence the der- vishes sometimes find begging unprofitable, and are forced into respectable occupations. The dervishes are a lazy and uncleanly set. They profess to live a life of abstinence, but I was told of cases where they have been known to drink rum with great de- votion. The most noted of the dervishes are the Whirling and Howl- ing sects ; sometimes the former are called Dancers, and the latter Singers, but it is a libel upon dancing and singing to call them so. The performance of the Whirling Dervishes resembles dancing about as much as a frog resembles a prairie chicken ; the Howling Dervishes could give a pack of wolves seventy-five points in the game and beat them easily, and their devotional exercises resemble singing as much as the noise of a monster tin-shop resembles the opera of Trovatore, as rendered at the London and Paris opera houses. My first visit to these gentry was at the convent of the Whirling Dervishes. It is situated on the hill of Pera, close by the prin- cipal hotels, thus affording an agreeable contrast to our excur- sions among the mosques and bazaars, which requires a long walk to Stamboul. The convent covers quite an area, and has a neat garden and several cosy buildings. I was told that the convent owns several surrounding buildings, and that the income from these furnishes a very good revenue, on which the dervishes live comfortably. In the garden in front of the building there are the tombs of several " ex-whirlers," and I was told that it is the practice of the monks to bury their dead on their own premises, instead of sending them to the Mount Auburn of Constantinople. These dervishes are a decent lot of fellows, much less fan- atical than the " howlers," and always ready to allow strangers to attend their circus, on condition that they leave their boots at the door and behave themselves, while the curtain is up. Our party of half-a-dozen went there rather ahead of time, and was obliged to wait in the front yard for the opening of the hall. Some of the dervishes were around there and treated us just as they treated the fence or the gate posts. They said nothing 1 68 OPENING THE DANCE. to US nor we to them, except that our guide made a feeble effort to ascertain when the affair would begin. By the time the doors were opened the party of spectators numbered thirty or more — all strangers like ourselves. There was the usual trouble in removing boots, and the " Doubter " was obliged to call a couple of Turkish loafers to assist him in getting his feet in order, for admission. He caused considerable delay, and it was suggested that for the future he had better leave his boots at home, and set up for a monk of the bare-footed order. When we were properly un-booted we were allowed to pass the doorway and stand in the interior of the convent. The building is quite plain ; the part that we saw was circular, and consisted of a space in the centre for sacred waltzes, with a floor carefully polished, and waxed to such an extent that it lacked very little to render it useful as a mirror. Around this arena there was a low balustrade, and between this balustrade and the walls was the station of the spectators. Our party of foreigners was allowed about a quarter of the space surrounding the ring, another portion was assigned to the musicians, while the remain- der was devoted to Moslem spectators! Above this floor was a gallery supported by graceful columns ; a part of the gallery was assigned to Moslem women, and there was a loge or box for the Sultan whenever he chooses to honor the dervishes with his presence. At one corner is a little box for women, furnished with gratings for them to peep through. The ornamentation of the ball room was as simple as that of the mosques — no pictures nor statuary, but only texts from the Koran, some of them highly illuminated. On the left hung a large board, like a table of laws ; to what use it could be put was a puzzle. Lamps are hung all around the building. To the right of the place of worship, under a projecting roof, and of an octagonal form, is a marble fountain, of fine execution. Here devout Mos- lems perform their ablutions, before entering the main theatre. We waited some time, and it was no easy matter to wait, as we had to rest like the party at a public dinner when somebody proposes the memory of Washington — standing and in silence. After a while a solemn old fellow wearing a hat an inch thick and shaped like a sugar-loaf, entered the ring and squatted on a A PROFESSOR OF GYRATIONS. 1 69 small carpet which was spread just opposite the entrance. As soon as he was seated, the rest of the party, to the number of twenty-five or thirty, made their entt'ee and bowed very low be- fore the first comer. He was sheik, or chief of the lot ; the rest were the rank and file — the common fellows who were obliged to wait his orders. They did not come in with a rush, but very slowly, one and two at a time, so that they consumed at least a quarter of an hour in getting into their places. In bowing to the sheik they bent their bodies so that their backs became horizontal, and I longed for a spirit-level that I might ascertain if these fellows were on the square. Each of them wore a sugar-loaf hat like that of the boss, and like his, made of coarse felt of a reddish grey color. Each was wrapped in a long cloak of dark blue cloth, and as they stood in their places, they held these cloaks tightly around them. Later — after the service began, they threw aside these robes and revealed a long skirt of the same color, and not unlike a hoopless petticoat in its general appearance. The skirt was wide at the base, but gathered closely at the waist, and the part above the waist was by no means a bad fit. The pra3'ers began with the sheik in the centre, and there were many prostrations, bows and genuflections before they were ended. Then there was a chant, which was taken up by the orchestra, in which the only instruments were flutes and light drums or darboiikas. The music was not at all disagreeable, but, like all Oriental melody, had a good deal of monotony mingled with its plaintiveness. Up to the opening of the music, the dervishes were standing in the arena, and as it began, they closed their eyes, and seemed to be indulging in a species of intoxication. In a few minutes one of them began to turn mechanically, and at the same time opened and extended his arms with the palm of his left hand turned upward, while that of the right was down- ward. Scarcely was he under way before another, and then another set his engines in motion, and in a few minutes the whole party was under a full head of steam. They whirled so rapidly that the centrifugal force caused their skirts to expand and stand out I/O WHIRLING ON THE DOUBLE-QUICK. at a sharp angle to the perpendicular, just as you have seen the dress of a fashionable woman extend itself during an exciting waltz. Sometimes they reminded me of so many pieces of machinery — their skirts forming a sort of cone. These dervishes perform the double feat of whirl- ing round and moving on- wards at the same time. Occasionally they revolve for awhile with both arms extended, like windmills. Half of fthem appear to have their eyes closed, and to be dancing in a sort of drunken ecstacy, but some- how they did not run against each other, and the performance went on in good order. The chief whirled a little while with the rest, and then he moved about in the group urging the slow ones to whirl fast- er, and occasionally hurry- ing up the musicians, by beating time with his hands to a somewhat quicker measure. After a while he halted the music a couple of minutes, and the "whirlers" slowed down to half speed and wiped off the perspiration. Several of the "whirlers" now drove back the surrounding crowd with sticks, and for about two minutes I thought there was a lively prospect of a first-class row. The halt did not long continue. The chief gave a signal and the music began again as lively as " St. Patrick's Day in the Morning," for it was in double quick time, and made warm work for the gentlemen engaged. The whirling was now in dead earnest, and made the skirts expand like those of the premiere danseuse executing 2. pas seul, when she revolves across the stage A WHIRLING DERVISH. DERVISHES REDUCED TO JELLY. 171 in her fi^iale which is to secure her the thundering plaudits of the audience. They whirled. And whirled. And they kept on whirling. And they whirled some more. And they kept it up until the brains of the spectators were in a whirl, and some of them (spectators, not brains) had their money's worth and went away. After a while one of the der\-ishes threw up the sponge (fig- uratively), by sinking down on the floor in a state of exhaustion and perspiration. He w^as as pliable as a jelly-fish, and the attendants who came to his relief handled him with care through an appar- ent fear that he would drop to pieces. Soon another fell, and then a third, and then a fourth, and then the chief gave the signal for stopping the roulette. The dervishes had been on the whirl nearly twenty minutes, and were quite ready to finish the game. Towards the end I noticed that the toes of some of them were terribly cramped, and the veins of their feet swollen like drum cords. They gathered up their morning wrappers, and after bowing profoundly to their chief, walked slowly from the room. This was the end of the affair, and we returned to the outer door where we mounted our boots, paid our "backsheesh" and departed^ None of these dervishes were corpulent, but whether from accident or design I am unable to say. They were all of a lean and hungry build, and all were pale in the face except one, who EFFECT OF TOO MUCH WHIRLING. 172 A QUEER SUGGESTION. was a negro, and couldn't have paled however much he wished to. Their exercise is not calculated to develop obesity, and if one should grow fat he would be obliged to change his profession, as he couldn't keep up with the rest without killing himself with overwork. Their faces were not prepossessing as a general thing ; some had a pleasing cast of features, but the majority were of an aspect decidedly forbidding. Before we left the place I told our guide that I could give the chief a hint which might be of service to him. " Tell the sheik that we have machinery in America which we use for drying clothes in large laundries. The clothes are put into a cylinder which revolves above five thousand times a minute, and throws the moisture out by the centrifugal force." " Yes, but that no good would be for ze dervish. He dry his clothes just like somebody else, and no have much clothes to dry." "Not for his clothes," I replied, "but for the service we have just attended. Let them erect such a machine in their ball-room, and have it large enough to hold all the worshippers. Put them inside and start the engine, and they could do more whirling in fifteen minutes than they can do in a week in the old fashioned way." " I think ze Moslem no like such machine, but I speak to ze sheik next time I see him. How much cost one machine .-' " I went on to explain its cost and advantages to the innocent guide, who did not suspect that he was being hoaxed. Whether he spoke to the dervishes about it or not, I am unable to say, but at all events he never made any report of the matter to me. The " Howling Dervishes" are another sort of devotees. Their convent where I visited them was more like a mosque than was that of the Whirlers, as it was much larger and had a high roof. The walls were bare of ornament, except of inscriptions from the Koran ; on the side, where stood the altar, there was a lot of im- plements of warfare, including spears, arrows, old matchlocks, swords and various other odds and ends, all of an ancient appear- ance. We went through the usual process of leaving our boots at the door, but we were not obliged to stand during the per- formance. A polite attendant brought chairs enough for seating all the strangers, and thus made us comfortable. HOWLING DERVISHES. 173 There were about fifty worshippers, and they stood in a semi- circle, with their chief inside. He began a low chant which in- cluded one of the chapters of the Koran, and was joined in the chant by the rest of the party. At each verse they threw their heads forward, with a jerk, and immediately threw them backwards. The chant was very soon concluded, and without any pause the chief started the formula, "LA Hah! il Alla ! " Now we began to understand why these pious individuals were called "howlers," The sound that they produced was more like the noise of a menagerie, when the keeper stirs up the beasts. HOWLING AS A PROFESSION. than like the tones of the human voice. It was a rough and rather prolonged bark and howl, in which the word Allah ! was all that could be understood. The movement of the head became an inclination of the whole body from the hips upward ; at one instant the men were bent nearly double, and at the next they had their heads thrown forward, so that their faces were hori- zontal, and there seemed a probability that the worshippers would fall backward. They had removed their turbans, as no head-dress could stand this wild motion, unless glued or nailed on. Many of them wore their hair long, and the masses of chevehtre swung in the air like 174 A DISAGREEABLE SPECTACLE. SO many dirty mops, from which a kitchen-maid is endeavoring to shake the superfluous water. The noise became frightful, and several ladies of the visiting party, as well as some of the gentlemen, had their money's worth in a very little while. Every minute or two some of the dervishes fell exhausted to the floor ; two foamed at the mouth and became wildly insane, so that it was necessary for others to hold them, or carry them out of the room. There were several negroes in the room, and I observed that they howled the worst and were first to become frenzied. They raved like mad men, and indeed they were for a time furiously mad. I am sure Bedlam would be considered a quiet and well- behaved place, in comparison with the mosque of the " Howling Dervishes." There were fifty or more IMoslem spectators, and some of those on -lookers became so excited that they joined in the service and soon were as frenzied as the rest. Among them was a soldier — a negro — who had not been five minutes in the charmed circle before he fell writhing to the floor, and foamed at the mouth, as though he had swallowed an entire soda fountain. The spectacle is far more disagreeable than that of the whirl- ing dervishes. You want to go away, and you are held there by a strange fascination ; you cannot imagine how things can be any worse than they are five minutes after the howling has begun, and yet yovi know perfectly well that it will be much worse before the end. You feel that you have had enough and you want to go, and then you feel that you ought to stay, as you will miss some of the fun by leaving. I don't know a place where one is more swayed by conflicting emotions than while assisting at the devotional exercises of these gentlemen. I think an American or Englishman feels very much as did the tender-hearted Romans (if there were any), at the gladiatorial combats in the Coliseum, or at the matinees, where the Christians " on the half-shell" were served up to tigers that had been on short rations for a fortnight. Civilization in its advance into the Orient has robbed these dervish-entertainments of some of their interesting features. DANCING ON SICK CHILDREN. 175 While the howling was going on, people used to bring sick per- sons, particularly children, and place them on a sheepskin spread on the floor inside the semi-circle. The chief stood upon these invalids and danced about on them, and this homoeopathic treat- ment was supposed to do the patients much good. If they re- covered, it was natural enough that their cure should be consid- ered miraculous ; if they died it was in accordance with the will of God, and the dervishes could not be blamed for an occasional failure. Then they used to wrap barbed chains around themselves, or around any person who had an inquiring turn of mind and wished to make an experiment. They took down some of the swords and spears, and stuck the points into their arms and legs without manifesting any pain. In fact, they practiced a variety of tortures, or w^hat seemed so to the infidel spec- tator. When I went to the show that day, I was expecting a delightful time, as I had been reading a book in which all these entertainments were de- ' scribed. Soon after we entered the mosque, an officer with a couple of policemen at his side, came into the room and took his place against the wall, and inside the semi-circle, which was just then forming. "What is that officer here for.''" I inquired of the guide. " He comes to regulate the behavior of the dervishes. To see that they do not tread on sick children, as they used to do, and to prevent the devotees from lacerating themseh'es." "And shall we have no tortures to-day .-'" " None at all. The government forbids it." Imagine my disappoinment. I had expected to lunch full of horrors, without returning to the hotel, and here I was cut down HOMCEOPATHIC TREATMENT. 176 EYELESS MUSSULMANS. to seeing a lot of grown men make temporary maniacs of them- selves, and to hear the worst human howling that ever saluted my ears. All the beautiful pictures that my fancy had painted of seeing sick children trodden under the feet of the priests, and pious devotees cutting themselves with swords and spears, had quite vanished and would never be realized. The age of sentiment is gone. Shall we ever welcome its return ? The Oriental governments are slow to move, but they do move after all. Moslem fanaticism is every year diminishing, and many of its cruelties are brought to an end. Occidental civili- zation in its aggressive course has accomplished much, and will do more as time rolls on. Most of these sects are not held in great esteem by the people, though there are many Moslems who believe that the whirling, howling, and other performances of these gentry, are caused by divine inspiration, and consequently should be held in reverence. The Turkish government has on several occasions contem- plated the suppression of some of the orders of dervishes, par- ticularly those that possess considerable wealth. There are persons uncharitable enough to suppose that this contemplated suppression is induced by the fact that the property of the der- vishes would revert to the government in case the sects were discontinued. Some of the sects have a great deal of fasting and prayer, and make their ceremonies interesting by the addition of various bodily tortures. It is said that a sect was founded in the first century of the Hegira by a holy man named Uvies. Among other farewells to worldly pleasures, he required his followers to draw all their teeth, in remembrance of the Prophet's loss of two teeth at a battle on behalf of Islam, Painless dentistry was not then in vogue, as nobody had discovered chloroform, ether, or laughing gas. Uvies did not get very far with his sect, and it expired soon after his death. Another pious Moslem tried to start a sect of dervishes in which every member should have his eyes put out during the ceremony of initiation. He was obliged to be chief and all hands, as he never found anybody to join his order. The devout Mohammedans couldn't see it. CHAPTER XII. ON THE BOSPHORUS.— AMONG THE ISLES OF GREECE. Far- Away Moses, the Famous Guide — His Numerous Brothers — His Shop in the Great Bazaar — An Evening at the " Foreign Club ' — Dreaming of Polyglots and the Tower of Babel — More "Backsheesh" — Passing the Custom House — How they Protect Home Manufactures — Standing Up for One's Own Country — " Honesty ish te Besht Bolicy'"— Borrowing Money at Twenty per cent. — The Start from Constantinople— A hint to Travelers— Sleeping in Public on the Stage— Inter- viewing the Purser — A Satisfactory Arrangement — Baron Bruck and his Career — Unwelcome Intruders — Classic Ground— One Trifling Peculiarity. 1HAD " done" the sights of Constantinople — bazaars, mosques, dogs, dervishes and other things — and was ready to depart. I had even "done" and been " done" by Far- Away Moses, the famous guide whom Mark Twain has sent down to posterity, and had bought several articles in his shop. Moses is guide and merchant, and when he is not attending to business in the one branch he is attending to it in the other. He is a dignified Oriental with a Jewish cast of features, and he bows in a way that Mr. Turveydrop would envy. He has a shop — one shop — in the Great Bazaar, but a stranger might sup- pose that he owned half of Constantinople. The guides and runners are on the lookout for Americans and are always ready to take them to the shop of Far- A way Moses. The joke of the matter is that they take them somewhere else, where they can get a larger commission on purchases, and invaria- bly tell you that it is the shop of the venerable F. A. M., Esq. If you are familiar with the features of Moses, they tell you he is just out but you can trade quite as well with his brother who is (177) 178 FAR-AWAY MOSES. on hand to accommodate you. But if you have not met the orig- inal you are introduced to some English-speaking Turk, Jew, or Christian who affectionately inquires after Mark Twain and hopes he is well and happy. I think about seven dozen " brothers of Far-Away Moses" were pointed out to me, and they resembled him, each other, and themselves, about as much g^^^n^'^^iS^"^ as a cup of coffee resembles a row of mixed drinks in an American bar room. Moses admits that like the friend of Toodles " he . had a brother" but he denies fra- ternal relations with all the "brothers" that hang about the bazaars and hotels. Moses narrates an expe- rience of his mercantile life such as we sometimes hear of in America. He shipped a lot of goods to Vienna at the time of the Exposition, and on these goods he fig- ured a handsome profit on his mental slate. They were sent by steamer to Trieste, and thence by rail to Vienna. On ar- ival the boxes were found to contain old iron, straw, and pieces of wood, and Moses was in great grief, for the original lot had cost him about six hundred pounds sterling. He tried to recover, but the two companies — steamboat and railway — played " Spenlow and Jorkins" on him most admirably. Each said that the robbery must have occurred while the boxes were in charge of the other concern, and after much trouble Moses received nothing by way of indemnity. Neither company would pay a centime until the locality of the robbery had been proved, and as this could not be shown, there was no payment. And to add to the loss he could not even recover the freight charges, which he had paid in full before removing the boxes from the railway station and discovering his loss. SOME OF THE BROTHERS OF FAR-AWAY MOSES. A CLUB-COSMOPOLITAN. 1/9 It rained cats and dogs for two days before I left, and, as Turk- ish sight-seeing requires fair weather, I was kept imprisoned most of that time in the hotel. Our Consul-General, Mr. Good- enow, kindly introduced me to the Foreign Club and enabled me to break the monotony of the evenings with a few hours in the luxurious house where the association has its home. To judge by the appearance of the club, its cuisine, and other things, the foreigners in Constantinople know how to live well, and are de- termined to practice what they know. The club includes many nationalities — English, French, Amer- ican, German, Russian, Italian, Greek, Spanish, Swiss, and others, — in its membership, and a visit to its rooms gives one an idea of the cosmopolitan character of the population of the Queen City of the Orient. Turks are not excluded, a Turkish gentle- man being just as eligible to membership as any other. Diplo- mates, merchants, bankers, government officials, gentlemen of fortune with nothing to do, and the other miscellaneous charac- ters that make up a club in a large city, were pointed out to me among the members that dined and lounged in the club-house. French was the prevailing language, but you would hear enough of other tongues in the course of an evening to make you dream all night of the Tower of Babel, and the unhappy gentle- men that found it a losing speculation. On the morning of our departure the weather cleared up, and we had the satisfaction of bidding farewell to Constantinople un- der a bright sky and in the glow of a warm sunshine. Our bag- gage was piled on the backs of some able-bodied porters, and we followed it and them down the hill of Pera, in the same solemn procession as we first mounted it. The Custom House was lenient in consequence of a " back- sheesh" of two francs, and the odds and ends that we had bought in the city were not disturbed. Two of our party had laid in a liberal supply of Broussa silks and other specialties of Constantinople, and consequently they did not want the officials to be inquisitive. They thought they got off cheap at two francs, and I think they did. And here is a good place to say something about the export duty on Turkish manufactures. 12 l80 A HINT FROM AN EMBASSADOR. The English, as we all know, are very earnest in advancing free trade ; they have it, and want everybody else to enjoy its blessings. Whether their theories are right or wrong I do not propose to discuss, as I am not writing a book on political econ- omy. England believes emphatically in free trade — free export and free import — and every Englishman would tell you that a tax on manufactured exports would be the very thing to cripple home industries. I have been informed, whether with absolute truth I cannot say, but I believe my authority was good, that the Turkish ex- port tax was imposed in consequence of the advice of the then British Minister at Constantinople. The Turkish cabinet sought his advice as to the best means of encouraging manufacture in the Ottoman empire and making them a source of revenue. "Nothing simpler," replied His Excellency the British Minis- ter ; " put a tax on your exports ; make all your manufactures ex- ported to foreign countries pay a tax, say, of ten per cent, and you will make a handsome revenue for the treasury, and enable the manufacturer to realize such a profit as to stimulate your home industries to a wonderful extent. The protection and en- couragement of home enterprise is the first duty of every gov- ernment. England keeps a careful watch over her manufactur- ing interests and does everything to stimulate them, and you can see the result in the immense prosperity of our island." The embassador was faithful to the land he represented ; he wasn't going to make an ass of himself by telling the Turks any- thing that would tend to the injury of British commerce. If man- ufacturing industry was developed in Turkey, it would very likely interfere, in some branches, with Birmingham or Manchester, and this is what no true English representative would wish. I like to see a man stand up for his country and his friends. If you are a lawyer or bootmaker, a doctor or blacksmith, in a country village with just business enough for one, you don't want a rival setting up there, and if any young fellow wants to know how to start in your trade and is determined to try, it is neces- sary to lie to him and put him on the wrong track, in order to be just to yourself and your family. " Honesty ish de best bolicy," said a clear headed German once upon: a time, " but it keeps a man tam poor." TURKISH COMMODITIES. l8l When your advice is asked by your neighbor, don't fly away with the notion that you want to do him any good. Remember that charity and all other noble sentiments should begin at home, and be careful not to advise him to anything that will interfere with yourself. Turkish manufactures have been for some time in a languish- ing condition. In the early part of the present century Turkey had several important industrial centres ; the most noted of them were Bagdad, Aleppo, Dierbeker, Broussa, Smyrna, Scutari, and Tournovo. Aleppo alone had forty thousand weavers engaged in making goods of silk or cotton, either mixed or single, and in producing cloth of silk or gold thread, for which Aleppo was famous. The city now has scarcely a fifth of her former number of weavers ; and in the other places, where there were extensive manufacturers, the business has fallen off iii about equal propor- tion. Improved machinery in England and France, and the heavy taxes on manufactures, have caused the decline ; and though the government has sought to revive Turkish industry, it has not yet succeeded. The export trade of Turkey consists mainly of raw materials, such as wool, silk, cotton, tobacco, wheat, drugs, dyes, opium, honey, and sponges. The principal manufactured exports are carpets and red cloths. The value of the imports is about double that of the exports, and much of the raw stuff sent out of Turkey comes back in the shape of manufactured goods. And this state of affairs is steadily increasing. Turkey has become so far civilized that she has saddled her- self with a stupendous debt, borrowing the money in Europe, at enormous rates of interest, and then borrowing the money to pay that interest with. She has about as much prospect of paying it as the President of the Fat Men's Association has of learnins: to fly and setting up for a carrier pigeon. She has miserable roads all through the interior of the country, and only within a few years has she given any attention to building railways. She has lots of palaces, and an immense fleet of iron-clads ; and when any luxury is wanted she always finds the money to buy it. When I was in Constantinople the further construction of the railway, that is intended to connect with the Austrian system, was l82 BIG BILLS FOR IRON-CLADS. Stopped for the want of funds. " The government is very hard pressed just now for money," said one of the officials, " and our docks and railways must wait." A week later the same gentleman met me and volunteered this important information : " Six hundred sea-coast breech-loading cannon have been or- dered from Krupp, the great fabricant of artillery, and the money for them is to be deposited in Paris within the next two months." Krupp does not make breech-loading cannon for nothing, and he generally has the money down before he makes them. Turkey can find money enough when she wants palaces and ships of war, but she can't afford railways and docks. Remem- ber, there are no docks at Constantinople where a sea-going ship can lie. They, want them, but cannot afford the expense. Now that I have had my growl, we will go on as if nothing had happened. We were rowed out to the steamer which lay at anchor, with steam up, and was announced to sail at ten o'clock. For some reason the departure was delayed until nearly eleven, and in consequence of this detention there was a row between the captain and chief engineer. The latter was responsible for the consumption of coal ; he had been told that the steamer would sail at ten, and it was not fair to burn up his coal while lying at anchor. The captain replied that he would sail when he got ready. Engineer threatened to report to the management — captain told him to mind his own business — and there were several other re- marks of a lively character. As soon as the engineer retired below, the captain hustled some of his friends over the side, and the steamer sailed. The threat to report to the management had its effect. Memorandum for travellers in the Orient : When you feel that any imposition has been practised on you by any high attache of a steamship, don't make a noisy row about it, but go quietly to the one who has offended you, and in calm and dignified tones ask him to give you the name and address of his managing director. Give him a card on which to write it, thank him politely for the address and walk away. In less than TRICKS ON TRAVELLERS, 1 83 ten minutes you will obtain what you previously wanted, and quite likely more than you expected. The captains do not like to have complaints going to the management, and will do any- thing in reason to avoid it. To illustrate : — I one day took passage on a steamer, and was on board half an hour before she sailed. I went at once to the purser's office, paid my fare, and asked for a room. Purser said I could not have a room, but must sleep on a sofa in the cabin. Now, if there is one thing that I dislike more than another, it is to sleep in public on the stage in presence of a crowded audi- ence. I want a room to myself when it can be had, as I know that while sleeping I appear best alone. And I always secure my passage early for this very reason. In the present instance, I had visited the office of the company in a vain effort to secure a place. The agent told me the tickets were sold only by the purser. On the back of my ticket was the announcement that no room could be secured until paid for. I waited around the office, and after the boat left the port, half-a-dozen men, of the same nationality as the purser, came and paid their fare, and were assigned to rooms. Then I went to the office and complained of unjust treatment ; the purser said he could do nothing for me, and unless I was careful, I wouldn't have so much as a sofa in the cabin, I went to the captain and complained, and the captain referred my case to the purser. Then I returned to the purser, and put on a calm exterior, though I felt inside as explosive as an overcharged soda-fountain. " Will you be so kind," I said, " as to give me the address of the managing director of this company .''" " Why do you want it .''" " I have occasion to write him a letter on business of the com- pany." " What business .-'" " A mere trifle. Never mind what it is. It will interest him, and be beneficial to the company." " The name of the managing director is " " Please write it on the back of this card," and I gave him my personal card, on which to inscribe the name. 1 84 AN EMBARRASSED PURSER. The purser turned red, pale, blue, green, yellow, pink, crimson, ultra-marine, and scarlet ; he could have sold his face at a high price just then to a maker of kaleidoscopes. He began writing, stopped, began again, and altogether was at least two minutes in writing the name and postal direction. When he had finished I took the card, stowed it away in my pocket, and retired to the deck, where I proceeded to solace myself with a cigar and a study of the receding shores. Two minutes after I reached the deck, I saw the purser and captain in deep consultation near the wheel-house. Two min- utes later the purser, cap in hand, came to me, and said to me IMI k\ IE\\ IiNG A lUKbER that one of the reserved rooms had not been claimed, and was at my disposal. Would I condescend to look at it ? I condescended, and descended to the cabin. The room was comfortable, and all my fancy had painted it. I was mollified, thanked the purser for his politeness, ordered the steward to bring my baggage, and was speedily installed in the apartment. The purser could not have been more civil to the governor of the Fejee Islands than he was to me during the rest of the voyage. We steamed out of the harbor of Constantinople towards the Sea of Marmora. First vanished the shipping in the Golden Horn, and the never-ceasing stream of people crossing the bridge of boats. Then the irregular terraces of many-colored houses in Pera and GOOD-BYE, CONSTANTINOPLE ! 1 85 Golata were lost to sight, though to memory dear ; and then our eyes Hngered on Stamboul with its mosque-crowned hills, and the Seraglio palace with its surroundings of groves jutting into the widening mouth of the Bosphorus. The sunlight played on the roofs, and domes, and minarets of Stamboul, and brightened the hills that formed the back-ground of the picture. Long time the city remained in view, but at last it became a jagged strip of white in the horizon, then a scarcely perceptible streak like a sandy beach by the sea shore, and then it was lost to sight altogether. I repeat what I have said elsewhere, that by far the best ap- proach to Constantinople is by the Black Sea, and not from the Sea of Marmora ; not only as concerns the city itself, but with reference to the charming panorama of the Bosphorus, which be- comes more and more brilliant each mile that we advance, until at last the anchor drops at the entrance of the Golden Horn, and we stand in front of the Queen of the Orient. The steamer that carried us belonged to the Austrian Lloyds (Lloyd Austriaco). The company has a fleet of some forty steamers engaged in the navigation of the Mediterranean and adjoining seas, and it has its headquarters at Trieste. In 1833 one Baron Bruck estabhshed at Trieste a reading: room and marine exchange similar to the celebrated Lloyd's at London and from which he took the name. The members of the exchange became a powerful company for commercial and indus- trial purposes. In 1836, it estabhshed a newspaper which still exists ; in 1837, it started a line of steamers ; and in 1849, an institution devoted to printing and art. It has become a most important association and exerts a powerful influence upon the politics and finance of the Austrian Empire. Its founder became the Austrian minis- ter of finance, but owing to certain jealousies he was removed in i860. His mortification at his downfall terminated in suicide. To travel on the ships of this company costs on the average about twelve dollars a day (gold), inclusive of passage, room, and meals. Wine is charged extra, and the steward expects a finan- cial remembrance when you bid him farewell. 1 86 "the isles of Greece!" The servant who has attended you at table is likewise on hand when money is visible, and is generally more civil then than at other times. During most of the day the mountains on the coast of the Sea of Marmora were in sight but too far away to be little more than outlines. We passed the Dardanelles at night, while all of us were in our bunks, which proved to be the happy hunting grounds of many members of the well-known sporting family, Cimex lec- tularins. We were not greatly refreshed by our slumber, and passed a unanimous vote that the next time we were obliged to travel on that line we would seek passage on another steamer. Morning found us running among the islands of the Greek Archipelago, and there was not an hour of the entire day when we did not have some of them in sight. They had a bleak, bar- ren appearance, as they contained scarcely any trees on the sides visible to us, and the slopes of the rocky shores were very steep. There were not many indications of inhabitants, but now and then we could see villages near the water or perched high up the sides of the mountains, where it evidently required a great deal of glue to make them stick. I am somewhat confused as to the names of the islands we passed and cannot attempt to give them all. I will only venture on Lemnos, Skyros, Andros, Tinos, and Kuthnos, and I won't be very sure about these. There were Delos and Naxos, Me- los and Kimolos, Mykonos and Paros and there were more 'oses if anybody wants them. We were not a very large party and there were more islands than enough to go around. And then there were some other islands that like the lion in the boy's pic- ture book, couldn't get any prophet Daniel. The Greek Archipelago is scattered around promiscuously; it would have been vastly more convenient if the islands had been set up in rows like potato-hills, but I suppose they would not have been so picturesque as they are in their present arrange- ment. I observed one geographical peculiarity and made a note of it, that every island, without regard to size or position, was sur- rounded by water. CHAPTER XIII. SYRA, THE MARBLE ISLAND.— LIFE AT AN ATHENIAN HOTEL. In sight of Syra— Active Trade in one Fish— A town all built of Marble— The " Doubter" expresses his sentiments— Gustave's Adventure — Walking on One's Ear— "A little more beer, boy !" —The Pirates' Retreat— Extraordinary politeness in a cafe — A lesson for American Barkeepers — In the Stamboul's Cabin — " Blow- ing great guns" — A tale of a Tub — Honey and Marble — Standing in the city of De- mosthenes — The battle of the rival hotels — Profanity in an unknown tongue — Out- generaling Inn-keepers— Tricks on Travelers — Useful knowledge for Foreign Travel. A LITTLE before sunset we were drenched by a shower, and through the rifts of the heavy clouds, I caught sight of the Island of Syra, the most important of the insular possessions of Greece. We entered the port and dropped anchor, a hundred yards from the Stamboid, an old paddle steamer which was to convey us to the Piraeus. Though we had bought tickets through to the latter port we found that we must make the transfer at our own expense, it be- ing the rule of the company that all landings, embarkations, and transfers are at passenger's expense. We waited till the rain ceased and then bargained with a boat- man to take us to the other ship ; the transfer was an unpleasant one as the boat danced uneasily on the water and a fresh shower gave us a very fair drenching while we were en route. The " Doubter" got the worst of it, and was so thoroughly soaked and (187) l88 A PISCATORIAL SPECULATION. frightened that he determined to stay and keep ship, while the rest of us went on shore to spend the evening in town. What befell us there will be told subsequently. Syra is not a large island, its greatest length being little over fourteen miles and its width in the broadest part about six. Homer mentions and describes it as the country of Eumaeus, the faithful servant of Ulysses, and the character of the island corres- ponds to-day with the account given by the " blind old man of Scio's rocky isle." The city which bears the name of the island is the most im- portant commercial point in all Greece. Its population is said to be not far from thirty thousand ; they are emphatically a com- mercial people, and when not employed in legitimate trade with outsiders, they speculate with each other. While loitering on the quay I saw a man sell a fish to another, the latter sold it to a third and the trade went on till the fish had changed hands four or five times. Whether the price was increased by each trans- action I am unable to say, but am inclined to think it was not likely to be reduced. Later in the day I saw a smaller fish — it may have been the old one worn down by manipulation — passing about with a good deal of activity. If he could have taken a commission each time he changed hands he could have amassed a handsome fortune and set up for a " big fisJi' before the end of the season. As I had come from Constantinople where the streets are in a condition of wretchedness, as regards pavement and dirt, the streets of Syra seemed to me wonderfully clean. There are im- mense quarries of marble just back of the town, and marble is one of the articles of export. Marble is cheaper in Syra than granite or brick. The houses are built of marble, the streets paved with it, and the quay and the wall that bound it are made of marble. You see marble everywhere, and after a time you be- gin to wish they would throw in some other stone by way of va- riety. The streets are paved v/ith broad blocks and in many places these blocks are so smooth that one is in danger of slipping un- less he treads carefully. The gutters are in the middle of the streets instead of at the sides, and every few yards there is a grated hole where the water runs into the sewers. A DELUGE IN SYRA. 1 89 I could not see the necessity of having these holes so numer- ous until I learned by actual experience how the rain fell. It came down suddenly, as if the clerk of the weather had called all hands and put them to work upsetting a row of buckets right over Syra. It didn't rain, it poured and more than poured ; the heaviest shower I ever saw in New York was the mildest premonitory sprinkle, compared to. the rain at Syra. The sewer-holes had all they could attend to, and it was then that you perceived the wis- dom of putting the gutters in the middle of the streets, and also the wisdom of having no cellar doors on a level with the side- walk. Under the present arrangement there might be, (and quite likely such is the case,) a foot or so of water in the street, without doing damage to anybody, except to the unlucky pedes- trian. There is a public square in Syra paved with marble and set out with rows of trees and beggars. The latter are less station- ary than the trees, and not half as pretty ; I did not see any fruit growing upon either. Viewed from the water, Syra has the appearance of half an amphitheatre, as the steepness of the hill causes the houses to rise in irregular terraces ; there is a depression in the hill-side, so that the general effect reminds you of the tier of boxes in an opera house when you look at them from the stage. This is the new town of modern Syra. To reach ancient Syra, you have a great deal of climbing to do, as it is a long way up the hill-side, directly above the new town. I was satisfied to do it by proxy, as I had a " game foot " that complained when I exercised it vigorously. The judge and I sat in a cafe, while the rest of our party climbed the hill and came back all red and weary and thirsty. Their calls for beer were Uke the howls of a lion in the wilderness. The "Doubter" declared that he had his doubts about the island being fourteen miles long, but he was ready to swear that it was not less than ten miles high. This is what Gustave said about old Syra, and I must rely on him, as I know nothing about it myself : " You cross a deep ravine, and then you come to a stairway all 190 THIRSTY TRAVELLERS. of marble, and so hot under the sunshine, that it would melt the lid off a copper tea-kettle in the time you could hold a red hot nail in your ear without feeling it. Then we went through a lot of zig-zag streets, and then more of them, and then some more stairs and zig-zags. The stones were slippery and dangerous, especially in coming down, and two or three times I felt myself walking on a part of my body which is not ordinarily employed for pedestrian purposes. Well, we got to the top of the hill at last, and were at the church of St. George. I was tired and foot-sore, but I think I was amply paid for the fatigue and trouble. The view was mag- nificent, and included the whole panorama of the Cyclades. {Garcon, encore de la bier, sil vous plait) The guide pointed out Tinos and Mykonos, Nicaria, and Samos, and also Great and Little Delos. Off in the distance were Naxos, Paros, and Anti- paros, and they tried to point out Siphnos and Milos through a hollow in the mountain to the south of us. Down in front of us there was a beautiful view — I wouldn't have missed it for a great deal, and I wouldn't go up there again for twice as much as I would have missed it for. {Garcon, encore de la bier. Coinme jai soif ! )" We had landed at the quay in front of the custom house on the evening of our arrival, and as the rain fell by little fits and starts, we didn't wander around very much, but made our way to the best ca/e in the place. It overlooked the public square, and had rows of seats on the sidewalk, which was protected by a roof impervious to water. While we sat there, a member of our party discovered an ac- quaintance among the coffee-drinkers at another table, and speedily there was a fusilade of congratulations in the accent and language of Northern Germany. Then we were introduced all around, and all around, too, we had fresh glasses of beer. Our new acquaintance was a German, whose business had lo- cated him at Syra, and the indications were that he was well satisfied with it. At all events, he stood treat with a liberality worthy of a Californian, and made us feel that we owned the entire island and all its contents. The quay of Syra is an ani- mated place, as it contains many shops and stalls, where you can buy anything from a fish up to a marine engine. GREEK BOATMEN IN COSTUME. I9I The Greek boatmen are a picturesque race, with a costume that seems to be a compromise between the Occident and the Orient. Their uniform is multiform, and you are puzzled to know which is which. Most of the boatmen and sailors wear trowsers with consider- able bagginess, and a sort of loose jacket over the shoulders. On their heads they wear red caps like the Turkish fez, but with the top falling to one side, where it is kept down by a long tassel. In character they are not over-trustworthy, and they have the reputation of being ready to turn to piracy whenever it will pay better than honest work. In times past their reputation was worse than at present, and they were at one period the terror of Oriental waters. Steam cruisers put an end to their piracy, as it has to that of many enterprising mariners elsewhere. In our first evening in Syra we saw a couple of fights, but they possessed no interest, as the disputants were separated be- fore they had time to disembowel each other. Two of the de- scendants of Homer and Ulysses were drunk in the cafe ; under ordinary circumstances they would have been allowed to stay there, but the proprietor felt himself honored by our visit, and determined to eject his friends and regular patrons. He in- formed them that they had been sent for, and as the night was dark he would allow one of the waiters to escort them. They fell into the trap, and were quietly taken out, and the waiter re- turned after walking a couple of blocks and leaving them in a low drinking shop where they wished to slake their thirst. The whole business was managed very adroitly, and showed how much better it is for a head bar-keeper to tell a lie than to indulge in brute violence, in which he might break some of his furniture. On this evening we did nothing in the sight-seeing line be- yond the visit to the cafe and the public square, the journey to Old Syra being made on our return from Greece. We returned about nine o'clock to the quay, and were taken on board the Stamboul, which had her steam up for departure. Half-a-dozen other steamers were in port, and there were thirty or more sail- ino- ships, so that the harbor presented a reasonably lively appear- ance. The terraces of lights in the town and extending to and 192 A STORM ON THE /EGEAN SEA. through Old Syra had a curious effect, and made the city resem- ble an illuminated mountain. The light-houses, which mark the entrance of the harbor, were each sending out a clear flame, the rain had ceased, and the stars were beaming clear and distinct in the sky. Although in the harbor, the steamer was pitching and rolling about, and we had experienced a very lively tossing on our way from shore to ship. A regular vent du diable was blowing out- side, and things indicated that we should have all we wanted when we got into it and were plowing our way towards the Piraeus. Half a dozen passengers were sitting at the cabin table and contemplating a bottle of Scotch whisky, which they discussed in a polyglot of languages. Two who were drunk imagined themselves sober, and two who were sober, imagined themselves drunk, so that there was a very mixed condition of things. Smoking was forbidden in the cabin, but as there was only one lady passenger, and she had retired, and moreover belonged to our party, and had a smoking husband, we lighted cigars and made ourselves comfortable before going to bed. Just as I entered my bunk I heard the anchor chain coming in, and soon we were out on the open waters. We went along nicely for a while, till we had passed the shelter of the Island of Syros and then we caught it. Our course lay between the islands of Thermia and Zea, in the direction of Cape Sunium, which forms the extremity of the Peninsula of Attica. All night long we tossed, and the timbers of the ship creaked so that you couldn't hear yourself snore. Sometimes we didn't make two miles an hour, and I could hear the other passengers, in momentary intervals of creaking, groaning and falling to pieces in the agonies of inal-dc-mcr. In the morning the captain said it was one of the roughest nights he had ever known in those waters. "Had I not felt," said he, "the greatest confidence in my ship, and known that she was perfectly staunch and strong, I should have turned back after passing the Island of Syra, and learning the strength of the wind." And yet the Stamboul was an old tub, with a quarter of a century on her head, and barnacles on her bottom. IN SIGHT OF THE ACROPOLIS. I93 Let no one despise an old tub hereafter. I would give more now for the one in which Dionysius — no it was Diogenes — used to live, than for the best modern article of the same sort from the hands of the most skillful cooper that breathes, as I could sell it for more money. When I went on deck in the morning Mount Olympus was in sight, and we could see the classic shores of Greece (expression claimed as original and secured by two patents). They were not over-cheerful in appearance, but the leaden sky, and the cold wind that was then blowing, had doubtless much to do with their aspect. Mount Olympus was less lofty than I expected to find it, and greatly disappointed me, but I felt better afterwards, when I learned that the real mountain chain which bears that name, is on the Morean peninsula and between Thessaly and Macedonia. The mountain which was pointed out to me was a small affair opposite to Mount Keratia ; between the two is a small village called Olympus, and inhabited by a few Greeks, and a great many fleas. Next we saw a long mountain with a wooded summit, and were told it was Mount Hymettus of history. This was something like a mountain and it stretched away in a ridge toward the north, where Pentelicus lay in the dim distance. In a little while we saw a sharp conical hill that marked the position of Athens, and for a short time we had the Acropolis in sight. The shore of Greece, as we skirted it, had a rough and rather barren appear- ance, and seemed to be indented with many small bays. Not a ship, not a fishing boat even, was in sight, and our steamer ap- peared to have everything to herself. Certainly our first view of Greece was not calculated to inspire us with enthusiasm. We rounded a promontory and entered the Piraeus, the port of Athens. It is a nice little pocket edition of a harbor well sheltered and with good anchorage. Ships of war might find a refuge there, but unfortunately it could not hold many of them. The town is quite modern, and also quite interesting ; nobody stops there any longer than he is obliged to, and when travellers are delayed there by the detention of a steamer, there is generally a great deal of growling. A swarm of boats came out to the ship, and as soon as the 194 THE RIVAL HOTELS. quarantine officers had examined the health bill, and admitted us 10 pratique, there was a rush of boatmen, dragomen, guides, hotel runners, and the like, so that the deck was speedily cov- ered. On an average there must have been six and a half of these gentry to each passenger. We passed the Custom House with the usual formalities, (a bribe of two francs,) and turned our attention to the hotel runners, and standing on the soil where Homer sang and Den*osthenes pronounced his orations, we drove the closest bargain which we had yet made. Four runners from as many hotels were after us, and we put ourselves up at auction to the lowest bidder, just as they used to sell out the paupers in that respectable town in New England where I was born and bred, and instructed in the mysteries of orthography and penny-tossing. They began at fifteen francs per day for each person, including wine, candles, and service. The Hotel d' Angleterre would take us for fourteen. The Hotel des Etraiigers would go one better ; we should be taken in at thirteen francs. The other two hotels dropped out of the competition and went to the rear, and so we had it out between the pair that I have named. The runners appeared to be personal enemies, and covered each other with epithets that were delightful to hear, as we didn't know what they meant. It is a great pleasure to hear one blackguard abuse another, in a language of which you are entirely ignorant. You run no risk of being shocked by the coarseness of the phrases, and can quite resign yourself to a con- templation of the gestures and emphasis with which the terse little speeches are delivered. If I could find the man who offer- ed a reward for the invention of a new pleasure, I would name the above amusement and humbly ask for the money. We whiled away a half hour in this way very pleasantly and profitably ; all the Greek profanity that those runners vented on each other didn't cost us a cent ; in fact we made money by it, as we lowered the prices of the hotels at Athens to a satisfactory figure. For ten francs per day each person, we were to have rooms only one flight up, and each room should have a balcony. We were to be roomed, fed, wined, candled, washed, combed, and attended, for that paltry amount, and we were to have all the OUTGENERALING A LANDLORD. I95 candles we wanted. Moreover they were to make no charges for lunches when we went on excursions ; this is a point on which hotels in the Orient generally lay it on thick in the way of extras. We had brought them down to their lowest terms, and almost felt ashamed of ourselves after we had done it. We started for Athens with the question still undecided in the hope that we might get a better offer before arriving there. On the way up we developed a new dodge. "I've an idea," I said to my German friends; "suppose we divide the party." " You go to the Angleterre, and we Americans will go to the Etrangcrs. The hotels are close together, so that we can talk across from the windows, and we will then play the houses against each other." •'Very good," replied Charley, "just the thing. Evidently the competition between them is exceedingly bitter, and they are ready to cut each other's throats." So it was agreed that we were to divide. We did not leave the carriages until the proprietors had ratified the agreements made by their runners, and we did not allow the baggage taken out till we had seen and accepted the rooms. At the Hotel des Etrangers they were sorry, very sorry, but they had only one room with a balcony, and that was on the the second floor. "Very well, then," I said, "we will see what our friends can do at the other hotel," and I turned to go to the carriage where I had left the Judge to look after the " Doubter," and the other baggage. " Stop, gentlemen," said the proprietor ; "I give you nice back rooms on first floor." " That will never do," I replied, as I placed my hand on the carriage door. " I just thinks," said the proprietor, " I have single one balcony room on first floor mit two beds." " Never ! we want three rooms with balconies on first floor," and I opened the carriage door. " You sell have two rooms mit three beds." " Never ! that will not do," and I entered the carriage, and told the driver to drive on. 13 1^6 travellers' strategy. " Oh, gentlemens, I just thinks ; stop — one gentleman go away zis night and you have ze three rooms as you want. Dat is all right." We entered and took possession, and the landlord was all po- liteness. Our German friends had almost identically the same perform- ance at the Hotel d' Angleterre, and with the same result. The rivalry of these two hotels was of a bitterness rarely seen in cities ; it resembled the hostility of two country boys when both are sweet on the same girl. No servant of one establish- ment was allowed to enter the other, and when we sent messa- ges requiring answers, the bearer was obliged to wait outside the front door, while the porter of that house took the missive up stairs and brought the response. The rival proprietors were not on speaking terms, and the guides and runners were constantly at war. During the whole of our stay we played upon their jealousies to the best of our abilities. When we wanted to hire carriages for drives around the city or in its vicinity we put the business in competition and reduced the rates nearly one-half. We thus obtained carriages for twelve francs where twenty was the regu- lar price, and for fifteen francs where they ordinarily demanded twenty-five. No matter what we wanted, we always said, " We will see what our friends at the other house can do." That always brought them to terms. It is not often that a traveller profits by the quarrels of inn- keepers. These gentry are much more likely to resemble in their discords, the operations of the two sides of a pair of shears, — they cut not themselves but what's between them. CH APTE R XIV. ATHENS ANCIENT AND MODERN— SIGHTS AND SCENES IN THE GRECIAN CAPITAL. First Impressions of Athens— Opinion of the " Doubter"—" Not Worth Damming" — The Oldest Inhabitant of Athens— Celebrated Ruins— Reminiscences of Greek Grammar — A "Big Injun" on Greek— Drinking beer on sacred so 1— A toper- graphical survey— The Acropolis-What is it ?— The Temple of Jupiter Olympus- Seven Hundred years in Building — A young Englishman in a scrape— Sunset from the Acropolis — Byron's glorious lines— The Parthenon and its su-roundings— Foundations of the Ancient Citadel — Excavations of antiquarians — Greek Art An important discovery — The line of beauty. THE first view of Athens gives a stranger a favorable impres- sion ; the city stands in a plain, at the foot of Mount Lyca- bettus and the Acropolis, and is between the river Cephissus on one side and the Elissus on the other. Considered as rivers these streams are of very little conse- quence and hardly worth mentioning, but regarded as brooks they are entitled to some respect. The Greeks call them rivers and I suppose they ought to know what they are about. It is with some hesitation I venture to suggest that if the Elis- sus and Cephissus were united, it would take about sixteen mil- lion of these combined streams to equal the Mississippi. The " Doubter" said he didn't believe that a man in search of a mill- site would consider either of th^sc Athenian torrents worth dam- ming. The oldest inhabitant of Athens is dead, and his death occur- red according to the historians, about thirty-four hundred years ago, or to be particular about dates, in 1643 before the Chris- (197) 198 OLD NAMES FOR NEW STREETS. tian Era. A gentleman named Cecrops came there from Egypt and founded a city which he called Cecropia. ■ I enquired about Cecrops and learned, much to my regret, that he is no longer alive. Had he been in Athens I would have paid him my respects. I will not attempt to write the history of Athens, for a variety of reasons, any one of which would be sufificient, and as two or three at least will occur to every reader, I refrain from mention- ing them. At present the city has something less than fifty thousand in- habitants, and possesses very little of the grandeur for which it was once famous. The most attractiv^e features about it are its ruins, and every visitor is much more interested in the Acropolis and other re- mains of ancient Greece than in the modern city. But I must admit that Athens has considerable beauty and is well worth a visit, apart from the historic associations that cluster around it. There is a pretty little palace where the royal family resides, and it is surrounded by gardens arranged with considerable taste, and forming very agreeable promenades. In the square in front of the palace a band plays twice a week on pleasant afternoons and on these occasions most of the fashionables, and many of the unfashionables, of Athens come out for an airing, and to see and be seen. The balconies of our rooms overlooked this square, so that we could see the people and hear the music without the ne- cessity of walking. The principal street in Athens is named Hermes, and you are reminded that you are in Greece when you attempt to spell out the names of the highways and by-ways. The characters are so nearly identical with the Ancient Greek that I found my school- day studies quite convenient. When in my adolescence I spent considerable time over Anthon's Greek Grammar, and over the Iliad and Odyssey of a party by the Jiame of Homer, I used to ask, and sometimes with a good (Jeal of petulance : " What is the use of wasting time over this stuff when I might be skating or playing leap-frog V And my good-natured old teacher would explain that it was the most useful employment for a young man that could be advised, and I would one day see the advantage of it, and rejoice that I A LESSON IN GREEK. 199 had made my head ache over Alpha and Omega. I wanted to study French and German but he always told me that the mod- ern languages were abominations, the works of a party of brim- stony memory, and I should bring ruin and disgrace upon my- self if I had anything to do with them. So I shunned those paths of wickedness until I reached the years of — misunderstand- ings, and devoted my young and happy days to Greek and Latin. 200 THE JUDGE IN A SENTIMENTAL MOOD. For a long time I have had Httle to do with those dead lan- guages, and I couldn't conjugate a Greek or Latin verb to-day, if my life depended on the result. But I see it all now, and my three or four years of Greek were of immense advantage to me when I was in Athens. It never took me more than a minute to spell out the name of a street ; the names were painted in Greek letters, and I remem- bered the shape of them. When the Judge and I were hunting for a beer shop I was the Big Injun of the party. The Judge did not know any more about Greek, than a cow does about quadratic equations, and he was obliged to ask me to tell him the names of the streets. And the way I rattled off Hermes, Eolus, Minerva, Adrian, and the like, would have done credit to a deaf and dumb asylum. Didn't I rejoice that I was familiar with Greek, and able to save the trouble of asking somebody to direct us to our destination ? The Judge appreciated the situation and said, "What a splen- did thing it is to know something ! If I should ever be a husband, and a father, and the results of my paternity should be boys, I would have them study Greek. They may come to Athens some time and find it convenient in going about the streets. A good map of the city would cost fifty cents, and they will be able to save all that expenditure." There were tears in his eyes as he spoke, for we were in front of the beer-shop and found it closed. Happily there was another establishment for the sale of malt liquors, and as it was only two blocks away, I was able to get my friend where he could rest and be comfortable. " Alas for the decline of Greece," he muttered as he brought the glass to his lips, and drew a long breath with beer in it ; "Once she had her Homer, her Demosthenes, her Lycurgus, her Epaminondas ; on yonder hill St. Paul preached to the Athenians his famous discourse on the unknown God ; here Socrates taught his philosophy ; fromArgos the mighty Agamem- non and his company of warriors sailed for the siege of Troy, and hung like a bull-dog to a coat-tail for ten long and weary years ; here Sculpture became the study of a whole people, and Art A TOPER-GRAPHICAL SURVEY. 20 1 reached the highest point of development known to ancient times ; here were fought those battles between Greeks and Per- sians, that will live and ring through all history, and on yonder bay that shines so placidly in the afternoon sun, the fleet of Xerxes was destroyed. " And what have we to-day } "The monuments of Ancient Greece are in ruins ; the city has has dwindled so that it would hardly form i , j It/// a constituency for a ' custom-house col- lector ; and the beer, just taste it; the beer is entirely unfit to drink." The beer was very bad, and it turned out that the bottle had been opened the day before for a customer, who concluded to take a cigar instead. We had another bottle with better success, but on the whole were not in- clined to praise the Athenian beverage. The Judge made a / Trio — Losing a Heart — Byron's "Maid of Athens " — How She Looked — Her House and History — The Acropolis by Moonlight — Waking the Guard — A Sham Permit — " Backsheesh " — The Parthenon by Night — Greek Gypsies — Among the Curiosity Shops — Dr. Schliemann and his Trojan Discoveries — The Gold and Silver Vases of King Priam — Where They Were Found — Relics of the Sack of Troy — Curious Workmanship — Some Account of the Excavations — We Leave Athens — A Queer Steamer — " Pay or Go to Prison " — End of Our Steamship Adventure. THE Opera was in fashion at Athens, at the time of our visit, and all went there on the second evening of our stay in the city. The theatre is rather small and the company not first-class, but on the whole the house and the performance were quite as good as one could expect for a city of the population of the Greek capital. Both chorus and orchestra were small, and not very well trained, and the scenery was evidently made to do duty in a great many ways. In my eyes the chief attractions were the people in the audi- ence, and I did not pay very close attention to the performance. Here and there you could see the national costume, but the great majority of those present were attired « la Paris, or rather in the French costumes of fashions a year or two old. The national costume is worn only by the pallicares, who claim to be the descendants of the original Greeks, and they show a great deal of pride of descent. Here is a description of the dress of a pallicare of Athens, A muslin shirt with a broad collar, but without a cravat ; (225) 226 AN ATHENIAN OPERA. Stockings of goodly length and gaiters buttoned up to the knee, not unlike the shooting gaiters of England and America. Then comes a full skirt, generally of some white material, gathered in plaits at the waist, and reaching to the knee or just below it; then a small vest without sleeves, and another richly embroidered, and with open sleeves. There are garters of colored silk, and a belt of the same mate- rial, but the latter is generally concealed by a broad belt of leather, which sustains a tobacco pouch, a handkerchief, a purse, and, according to the old custom, a pair of pistols, though the latter are usually left at home. On the head is worn a red cap, something after the Turkish pattern, but larger at the top, and having a blue tassel. The women of the same class wear a long skirt of silk, or some cheaper material, according to their finan- cial ability, with a velvet jacket open in front ; and for a head- dress they wear a red cap like that of the men, but with a larger top. It bends over to the ear, and appears as if it were ready to fall off. Sometimes they omit the cap, and wear a large braid of hair twisted around the head. It is not the natural growth, but of the kind known in America as "store hair ;" it belongs to the wearer either by inheritance or purchase. I looked among the audience for pretty faces, but saw only a few. One box contained three women who would be called hand- some in any part of the world, but they turned out to be Alban- ians, and not of the true Greek race. The other pretty ones were few and far between, and on the whole I was fully prepared to endorse the assertion of Edmond About, that the Greek men are much handsomer than the women. In the afternoon promenades, when the band played in the public square, I had no better luck in my search for beauty than in the opera house. The prettiest women are oftener seen in the rural districts and in the islands than at Athens, and the pen- insula of the Morea is said to contain the best specimens of feminine beauty. The king and queen were in their box ; they are regular at- tendants upon the opera, and the king is said to pay a portion of the subsidy out of his private purse. They are a young and not ill-looking couple, and were dressed in ordinary evening costume, as if out for a dinner or a party. GRECIAN BELLES. 22/ He is tall and thin, and she has a tendency to stoutness, and both are blondes, the king being Danish (son of the King of Denmark), and the queen being Russian (daughter of the Grand Duke Constantine, and niece of the Emperor Alexander II). They present a marked contrast in physiognomy to the dark- skinned and black-haired Greeks, and the most unobser\^ant stranger would never take them for natives of the country. The succession to the throne appears to be well secured, as the royal pair have three children, and are yet very far from old age. And while on this subject, let me say that in Egypt, a few months later, I saw three sisters that were the perfection of beauty, the admiration of the foreign men in Cairo, and the envy of all foreign women. They were daughters of a Greek merch- ant living at Alexandria, and were the belles of the foreign popu- lation of that city. I could have lost my heart to any one of the trio, but no favorable opportunity offered, and consequently I left the Orient heart whole. Now, for a little information about the population and govern- ment. Those who do not wish it, may go on till they find some- thing more interesting. The population of the kingdom, includ- ing the Ionian and other islands, is less than a million and a half, according to the last census. The government is a constitu- tional and hereditary monarchy, and the constitution guarantees to the citizens equality before the law, personal and religious liberty, freedom of the press, public instruction, and the abolition of confiscation and the penalty of death for political offenders. For purposes of government, the country is divided into thirteen departments, fifty-nine districts, and three hundred and fifty-two communes. The prefets of the departments, and sotis-prcfets of districts, are nominated by the king, subject to approval by the chamber of deputies. The communal chiefs and councils are elected by the people over whom they are to preside. The system of justice is based on the Code Napoleon, and the code of commerce is likewise on the French plan. Criminal matters are subject to trial by jury, and the same is the case with certain civil affairs. In general, the courts appear to be well organized, but the judges are so badly paid that some 15 228 THE NATION OF PELOPONNESUS. of them cannot support their families and be respectable without taking an occasional bribe. The religion of Greece is of the kind known as the Greek Church, and almost identical with that of Russia. In Syra and other islands of the Archipelago, there are many Catholics. There is only one completed railway in all Greece, and it has the enormous length of four miles. Carriage roads are not numerous, and most of them are bad ; consequently it is hardly necessary to say that the interior of the country is not much developed. Agriculture is in a primitive stage, and the soil, which does not lack fertility, has very little opportunity to show what it can do. Commerce is more prosperous than agriculture, and most of the wealth of Greece is engaged in it. Most of the commerce of the Levant is in the hands of Greeks, and there are many merch- ants of that nationality established in other countries. Most of them have an affectionate remembrance for their native land, and frequently make heavy donations in its behalf. Of course the country must have an army and navy. The for- mer includes about fifteen thousand soldiers of all arms and an enormous number of officers ; there are seventy generals in the army, and a proportionate number of other grades. The navy has an equally large staff of officers ; it has about thirty-five ships, mounting one hundred and ninety guns. The finances are in that deplorable condition described by Mr. Micawber, when he alluded to the practice of allowing expendi- tures to exceed the income. The annual revenue of Greece is about a million of francs less than the expenses. A minister of finance of ability would be a great blessing to the country. I could give a few more solid chunks of wisdom, but I forbear out of pity for the reader. My head is an ant-hill of figures, but I shall proceed to seal up the outlets, and keep the units and tens in their place. I can tell you the number of square miles in Greece, the height of her mountains, and depth of her rivers, the age of the young- est child in the country, and what the king had for dinner one day ; I could even give the number of hairs on the back of a sea turtle, and the price of a bottle of wine, for which you pay ten francs, but I forbear. THE " MAID OF ATHENS. 229 One afternoon, while we were wandering about Athens and its suburbs, our guide pointed to a low house of most unpretending appearance, and enjoined us to "look at ze house." We looked, and asked if there was anything remarkable about it. " That is ze house of ze * Maid of Athens' of ze Lord Byron." Of course we took a second look at the house, and as we did so, we saw at one of the windows the face of an old, very old woman. "Ah, zere is ze Maid of Athens herself. She look out and see us. You will go in ze house .-'" We held a short consultation and decided that we, a party of strangers without introductions in any form, had no \ right to thrust ourselves into her house and presence. The "Doubter" was the only one who thought it would be the proper thing to rap at the door and say we wanted to see the lady. We walked on, and he followed us protesting that he wanted to see her, but we paid no heed to his words. While walking side- wise with his eyes fixed upon the house he slipped and fell into a large pool of mud, and the incident changed the currents of his thoughts so that he said no more about the woman whom Byron has made famous throughout the English reading world. The Maid of Athens of the well known poem, — " Zoe mou sas agapo" — was twice married, and, at the time of my visit to Athens, was far advanced in her second widowhood. I was told that her second husband was an Englishman, a Mr. Black, and that she was left at his death with very slender means of support. A sub- PICKLING THE " DOUBTER." 230 THE ACROPOLIS BY MOONLIGHT. scription was raised for her in England so that the last years of her life were passed in tolerable comfort. I heard in London, just previous to my return to America, that she died in the sum- mer of 1874, and that the little house where she lived is now oc- cupied by her sister. Whether the Maid of Athens was ever as beautiful as Byron represented her, I am unable to say. When I saw her it was more than fifty years after the penning of the poem, and fifty years, you know, will make great changes in the features and forms of the best of us. The face I saw at the window was old, withered, and wrinkled; it was not an unpleasant face, but age and sorrow had obliterated all the beauty which may have shone there half a century ago. The moon reached the full while we were in Athens, and we embraced the opportunity to see the Acropolis by moonlight. In theory it is necessary to have a permit from the authorities to go there at night, but a friend hinted to us that nothing of the kind was necessary. We followed his directions and this was the result. It was nine o'clock and later when we went there and rapped at the gate. We rapped loudly, waited awhile and then rapped again. The whole establishment of guards was evidently sound asleep, as all our rapping brought no response. Then we rattled the gate, threw stones on the roof of the hut, shouted and made a noise generally. No response. Then more rattling and rapping, — more stone throwing and shouting and with the same result as before. Finally I put my face to the bars of the gate and at the very tip-top and summit of my voice shouted the magic word, "BACKSHEESH!!" Instantly there was a sound of feet and voices in the hut, and half a minute later a guard came to the gate and said something in Greek which I did not understand. Then I passed him a franc which his fingers closed upon, and I showed him another with an intimation that he would receive it after we had seen the Acropolis. THE "OPEN SESAME. 231 That guard wasn't an idiot ; money he understood, but it was also necessary that we should have a written permit, and he so insinuated. I gave him the first piece of paper I could find in my pocket — I think it was my wine bill on the steamer from Constantinople ; he looked at it by the moonlight, nodded, said " bono," and opened the gate without further delay. " I;ACK.SlU.Ki,H " BACKSHEESH It is impossible to describe the Acropolis by moonlight, just as impossible as it is to forget it. I never attempt what I know I cannot do and therefore I leave the picture to the reader's im- agination. And I would say to anybody who is going to Athens, be sure and time your visit so as to be there near the full moon, and on no account fail to spend an hour or two of a clear night in the Parthenon and among the temples that surround it. I think the grandeur and majesty of the place are better felt at that time than in the broad light of day. The softening effects of the rays of the moon are nowhere more perfectly shown than in the ruins of the Parthenon. I have seen the Coliseum at Rome, and the temple of Karnak in Egypt by moonlight, and must give the palm of merit to the Acropolis. These are built of 232 A CARAVAN OF GYPSIES. grey or yellowish stone which absorbs some of the rays and gives a certain somberness to the picture. But the Parthenon is of white marble, so that the moonbeams light up the entire scene with a warmth and distinctness that almost rival the effect of the morning sun. One day just outside of Athens we saw a small caravan of Greek gypsies. They were not a large party, some twenty per- sons in all, of both sexes, and the usual variety of ages. They were dressed in a costume that seemed a compromise between the Greek and Turkish, and some of their garments were in rags. The men had a proud, haughty air, as if the country belonged to them and they carried nothing but their rifles and other weapons. The women were not so fortunate, as all of them had burdens ; the foremost person in the caravan was a woman who bore on her back a cask that might hold eight or ten gallons, and, by the way she bent forward I judged that the cask was pretty well filled. She was leading a string of ponies and each pony had a good sup- ply of baggage on his back ; behind this group there was another woman leading another lot of beasts of burden. Some of the women and two of the men were mounted on horses ; the women seemed to be stowed with other baggage be- cause they were too weak to walk, but the men were riding for the sake of personal comfort and not from necessity. A dozen sheep were in the rear of the ponies, and were kept from straying by some of the men and by two or three wolfish looking dogs. Some of the pack horses had coops of chickens among their loads, and on one of the packs a couple of hens were standing erect and appearing to enjoy their afternoon ride. Altogether the caval- cade was quite picturesque and I regretted that I had no time to make a sketch of it. We devoted an afternoon to the old curiosity shops of Athens, of which there is a goodly number. Vases, coins, statuettes and all sorts of antiquities — many of them modern — were shown to us and we made a few purchases. Some of the jewelry was ex- quisite and showed that the gold workers of ancient times were quite as skillful as their modern brethren. Dr. Schliemann, who has made himself famous by excavations on the site of ancient Troy, was then in Athens, and through the AN ANCIENT TREASURE CHEST. 233 influence of a friend I obtained an opportunity to examine his very interesting collection. He had a great number of vases and other specimens of pottery which he obtained at Troy from ex- cavations at depths varying from twenty to a hundred and fifty feet. A few of the vases bear inscriptions, but thus far no one has been able to decipher them, and the forms of most of the ar- ticles discovered, show that they belong to a very remote period. There is a difference of opinion among the savans concerning the antiquity of the articles discovered by Dr. Schliemann, and as I know a great deal less about the subject than they do I do not propose to take sides. The enterprising explorer was full of courtesy and left his desk to accompany me for an hour or more through his collection. He reserved the greatest curiosities till the last. After showing me many vases, cinerary urns, weapons, and implements of stone and copper, sculptures on granite, and other things which were stored in a shed adjoining his house, he led me to his study to inspect a collection of photographs which he made at Troy. While I was looking at these he unlocked a cabinet and brought out a number of gold dishes, vases, neck- laces, and rings, and placed them on the table. " Here," said the Doctor, his eye kindling with delight as he spoke, " here is the treasure from the palace of King Priam. In my excavations, I came upon the foundations of the palace, and one morning my wife and I, while my workmen were at break- fast, managed to hit upon the locality of the treasure chest. You observe that some of these things appear to have been subjected to great heat, &c., and partially melted. This was done, I pre- sume, at the burning of the palace, after its capture by the Greeks, and these articles had escaped discovery at the time the place was sacked. The heavy masses of debris that fell upon them served as their protection, and they lay undiscovered through the thousands of years that have passed since the siege of Troy. " Some of the scientists dispute my claim that these things belonged to Priam, but for myself I have no doubt of it. I think you can be entirely confident that you are examining and hand- ling dishes that have been touched by that celebrated king." 234 RELICS DISCOVERED BY DR. SCHLIEMANN. I need not say that I was greatly interested in the collection, and that I lingered over it as long as politeness would allow me to do so. One of the most interesting things I saw was a necklace and head-dress of pure gold — the workmanship was exquisite, and there were upwards of five hundred separate pieces in the two articles. The style of the head-dress and necklace was like that we see on pictures of Assyrian kings, and the ornaments were, doubtless, the property of some high personage. The pieces had been carefully put together by the doctor, and he showed me photographs of them, taken before his laborious task began and after it was finished. I should add that the excavations at Troy were made by Dr. Schliemann, at his own expense and under his personal super- vision. He had many difficulties to contend with, including the opposition of the Turkish government and the thievish propensi- ties of his workmen. They robbed him at all opportunities, and it was recently ascertained that by far the larger part of the gold vases and other valuables from the ruins of the palace were con- cealed by the workmen, and their discovery was quite unknown to him. The Doctor was accompanied by his wife, who assisted him in every way in her power ; but it was impossible for them to be everywhere at once, and to supervise excavations going on in half a dozen places simultaneously. When we were ready for departure we packed our baggage and drove to the Piraeus, where we had a choice of two steamers to Syra. One was the Stamboul, our old acquaintance, on which we had passed a very rough night ; the other was a Greek steamer, and we determined to inspect her. A very brief inspection of her cabin was enough for us. The captain looked as if he hadn't washed himself since he was born, and the steward appeared never to have been guilty of such an act. The rooms had very little bedding, and the little that they possessed was so dirty that it had evidently been used for the door-matting of a well-patronized bar room in muddy weather, and had afterwards served as the flooring of a pig-pen. COMING "DOWN WITH THE DUST. 235 The steward spoke nothing but Greek, and he had no assist- ant ; as near as we could make out, he was steward, head-waiter, chambermaid, assistant-waiter, cabin boy, cook, and forecastle attendant — anything you might happen to want. We were not long in deciding how we should travel. The StamboiU was not all that fancy paints a passenger ship, but she was infinitely preferable to the Mavrocoiipolo, or whatever her outlandish name was. This Greek steamer had the monopoly of the passenger trade between Syra and the Piraeus, and the other lines were not al- lowed to sell tickets for that route. When we came to Greece, we bought tickets from Constantinople to the Piraeus, and had no trouble ; we now wanted to buy one to Syra by the Austrian Lloyd line, where we were to change to a ship of the Messagerics Maritime s (French). But we couldn't do anything of the kind, and the only way we could get around it was to buy third-class tickets to Chio (the first port beyond Syra), and then pay to the steward on board the Stainboiil the difference between first and third-class prices. Was there ever a law so carefully drawn that sombody could not devise a plan to get around it .'' The company bit us pretty badly — the fleas helped them a little — as we found that we had to pay very dearly for our con- nivance at violation ot the Greek law. This was the way of it. We bought third-class tickets to Chio and went on board, where we paid the steward the difference between first and third- class. In first-class fare, where tickets are bought at the agencies, meals and rooms are included. But after paying full rates, we were told that we had only secured the privileges of the cabin, and must pay extra for meals and berths. We called for the captain, and protested that it was a swindle. He shrugged his shoulders, showed us the regulations, and said we must pay. If we didn't he must put us in prison at Syra. We thought the prison might be something like the cabin of the Greek steamer, and we paid the bill with the rapidity of a well-trained flash of lightnmg. But we didn't change our opinion on the subject, and to this hour we think that the directors of the Austrian Lloyds are I pause, as there may be an international law of libel. CHAPTER XVII. ADVENTURES IN QUARANTINE.— RHODES AND ITS MARVELS. Missing our Steamer — A Serious Dilemma — A Study of Faces — Making a Row and What Came of It — Under the Yellow Flag — Adventures of a Quarantined Tra- veller — Escaping the Plague — Mal-de-Mer — A Laughable Incident — Getting on Our Sea- Legs — Custom House Troubles — The Potency of "Backsheesh" — Ori- ental Fashions in New York — " Doing " a Custom House Inspector — A Curious Tradition — The " Lamb" as a Trade Mark — The Temple of Diana — One of the " Seven Wonders " — Singular Discoveries — A Horde of Scoundrels — The Island of Rhodes— The Colossus— A Wonderful City— The Knights of St. John— Their Exploits — Surrendering to the Turks. WHEN I went on deck the morning after our departure from the Piraeus, the steamer was at anchor in the harbor of Syra. We expected to catch the French steamer that was to sail that afternoon for Smyrna and the Syrian coast, and I looked around for the Tibrc, which was her name. She was nowhere in sight, and a boatman who wanted a job was kind enough to inform me that she had come and gone twelve hours before. Here was a pretty caldron of piscatorial productions. As the rest of our party made their appearance up the cabin stairs I broke the dreadful news to them, and made a careful study of their features as they received it. If there had been any pro- fane persons in our number, I think a swearing band could have been organized without much difficulty. Weren't wc on our ears and didn't we go to the office of the company and make a row } (236) DAYS IN QUARANTINE. 237 We had a printed time-table and demanded why the steamer sailed before her advertised time. The agent explained that he was very sorry, but the fact was the steamer did not touch at Naples on account of the quarantine there, and therefore she had reached Syra twenty-four hours ahead of time. There was no- thing for her to do at Syra and no reason why she should wait, and so he had let her go. We demanded a special steamer to take us to Smyrna, in season to overtake the Tibre, but the agent wouldn't give it. We could hire one for one thousand dollars, but that was paying rather high for our passage, and we demurred. The only thing left for us was to take a small steamer of the Austrian Lloyd's that was to leave next day and might get us to Smyrna in season to catch the Tibrc. The agent telegraphed the state of the case to the agent at Smyrna, and away we went for the other boat. There she lay in the harbor, a little, old, paddle steamer, named the Wien, a wooden craft that had been running a quarter of a century. She did not look inviting externally. We wanted to go aboard and take a look at her cabins, but here was a diffi- culty. A yellow flag floated from her topmast. She was in quarantine, and if we once set foot on her we could not go ashore again in Syra. She had come from Trieste by way of Italy, and there was a five days' quarantine in Greece against all ships from Italy. So we waited until about the time of her departure. She was stopping for the steamer with the mails from Trieste, and there were no less than four steamers in port waiting the same mails. We took a lounge around the public square of Syra, and drank beer and coffee at a restaurant ; then we took another lounge and more beer and coffee, and then we took a couple of carriages and drove to the interior of the Island, where there were some pretty orange groves and some very attractive country seats. Then we came back and drank some beer and coffee, and went on the steamboat — the steamer that brought us from the Piraeus — to sleep. Next morning we started for the same sort of excitements as on the day before, and just as we started, we saw the Trieste 238 A DELICATE OPERATION. Steamer poking her nose around a headland and steaming toward the harbor. Then we gave up our projects, and prepared to transfer ourselves to the Wieu. She lay near the entrance to the harbor, and an ugly wind was blowing straight into the entrance. The wind wasn't much for a steamer, though she rocked about considerably, but it was altogether different with a row boat, such as we engaged to trans- fer us. We made a contract for two boats, one for us and one for our baggage, for the sanitary reasons of the quarantine. The boat with our baggage was towed alongside by a rope about thirty feet long, and then a couple of men descended from the steamer and put the baggage on board. Then the boat was towed away again, and nobody could enter it until a plentiful supply of salt water had been thrown over it. As for ourselves, we had gingerly work to get on board. Our boat went to the steamer's gangway, and was held under it by means of hooks and ropes, but she was not allowed to touch it. The waves were short and choppy, and we had to watch our chances and jump one by one upon the gangway. The instant we touched it we were in quarantine, and so was everything about us. We got on board without accident, and then came the work of paying. The price had been fixed beforehand, and the boatman wanted his pay at starting, but we were firm in re- fusing. This was in accordance with our inflexible rule never to pay boatmen, hackmen, ci id oume gciiiis, until their services were ended. But there was reason in the request of the boatmen on this oc- casion, and we might have relaxed enough to pay him before getting on board the steamer. Had we paid in the boat he could have received the money directly from our hands without any nonsense. When we were all on board, one of our party went to the foot of the gangway and held out the stipulated napoleon. We and all our napoleons were infected the instant we came on board, and the boatman was obliged to receive his in a tin cup of salt water. And if the party who paid him had dropped over- board while leaning down, and the boatman had rescued him, the boat and all it contained would have gone into quarantine the "rocked in the cradle of the deep." 239 prescribed number of days. Such an event has occurred several times in Syra and other ports. In time of quarantine a man must be very careful about his movements. The Wieu got away from Syra about four in the afternoon, and put out into a very rough sea. The lady of our party went to bed immediately, her husband didn't feel very well, and two others of the party were as cheerful as a pair of chickens that have been caught in a thunder shower. The fifth member of the crowd knew he wouldn't be seasick, but had no appetite worth mentioning, and I was left alone in my glory, to pace the deck or go below, as I pleased. I haven't been seasick for a reasonable number of years, and didn't want to begin again at that time and place. I have a sus- picion that I take a malicious delight in showing how well I can be when others around me are covering the sea with maledictions, and furnishing pleasure and undigested food to the fishes that follow in the wake of the ship. To give an illustration of the way I can stand the rolling of the " deep and dark blue ocean," let me relate one incident. Several years ago I went on board a steamer at Civita Vecchia, for Genoa. When we left Leghorn there were about sixty pas- sengers, as happy as though they had just returned from a wed- ding or a circus. When we got out to sea we struck into a Mediterranean squall, such as sometimes blows the strings out of a pair of laced gaiters, or shaves the hair from the back of a bull dog. Those passengers went below to study the interior construction of the ship. Among them was an Englishman, who told me he had made four voyages to China, and hadn't been seasick since he was a boy. 1 was the only passenger that didn't go below, and I eat my dinner alone and with an appetite that would terrify the keeper of a boarding house. My English friend was much disordered about the stomach, and when we got to Genoa it was all he could do to get himself on shore. I took care of his wife and carried her down the gangAvay and up again on shore, and was as polite as I knew how, and it was entire dis- interestedness on my part, as I had never met her before, and her husband was a big fellow who could fight if he wanted to, 240 GETTING A PAIR OF SEA-LEGS. and, moreover, seasickness had given her a bedraggled appear- ance that was not calculated to incite love making to any alarm- ing extent. She looked as though somebody had run her through a patent clothes wringer and forgotten to shake her out afterwards. As soon as the Wien had left the harbor of Syra and got out to sea, she tossed about in a very lively way, and it was no joke to walk along her deck without falling. One needed to have as many legs as a spider or a caterpillar to keep himself straight, and when you were below deck, the creaking of the timbers was something surprising. " As long as she creaks she holds," is an old maxim of the mar- iners, and if it be true, there was never a holdinger ship than the Wie7i. We passed Samos and Naxos and other islands of the .^gean Sea, and when the moon came out I propped and chocked myself into a corner on deck, and devoted the time to thinking about the siege of Troy and a dozen other things connected with the his- tory of Greece. Particularly did I think of the gold and silver things I had seen in Dr. Schliemann's collection at Athens, things that were said to have come from the treasury chest of old King Priam, the same venerable oyster that fought Agamemnon and the other Kings of Greece. They are dead now, every mother's son of them, and it was a pleasure while looking at Priam's personal property, to know " that the old fellow couldn't come in to carry it off, and that no wan- dering heir" could set up a Tichbome claim to it. I read a great deal about Priam when I went to school ; a man named Homer wrote something about him, and I got up quite an interest in Priam, and particularly in a young lady that they called Helen. Because somebody stole, or, as the pickpockets say, "raised" Helen, Troy was besieged and destroyed with all its palaces and other good houses. * We reached Smyrna about noon the day after leaving Syra, and found the Tibre at anchor. There was a delay in leaving the Wien, a vexatious delay, of nearly an hour, just when time was very precious. The formalities of the Turkish ports are not SWEARING IN ALL LANGUAGES. 241 to be gone through in a hurry, as we found to our cost. The doctor of the ship was rowed off to the health office to report everything correct. Then the Doctor of the Port, a Turkish offi- cial, with a good deal of bombast about him, was rowed out in his boat. The crew of the Wien was ordered to form in line at the ship's side, where the Doctor could see them. He surveyed them as carefully as he could at a distance of twenty feet, and without coming on board he pronounced the ship all right, and admitted her to pratique. And then what a scramble among the boatmen, and what a scene of confusion ! INSPECTING THE CREW. There was shouting in all the languages of the Levant, and there was an amount of crowding and pushing that ought to have thrown half of the boatmen into the water. They swore at each other, or at least the accent of what they said was very much like the accent of swearing in other lands, and they clambered up the sides of the ship like so many monkeys. We had taken time by the forelock by engaging a boatman and closing a bargain with him while waiting ior pratique, as we thought it would save a few minutes, and was easier to do when the boats and men were ten or fifteen yards distant, than when the latter were crowding the 242 "selling" a customs-inspector. deck. We were to be taken to the Tibre with our baggage, then to shore, and then back to the Tibre again for a franc each. On our way to the Tibre we were intercepted by a boat of the Custom House ; the official was smoking his pipe in the rear of his craft, and just gave a glance at our baggage, as if to note the number of pieces ; he then extended his hand and pronounced the word "backsheesh!" I, as paymaster of the party, gave him a franc, he waved his hand to indicate that we were a numerous party and were liber- ally supplied with baggage. I added a franc, he nodded assent as his fingers closed on it, and the "formalites de la doiiane' were finished. I unhesitatingly assert that the Orient has the most pleasing Custom House arrangements I have ever seen. No trouble, no overhauling of baggage, no exhibition of your unwashed linen to a crowd of staring idlers, and no rumaging around generally in the places you desire should not be rumaged at all. A little "backsheesh" to the official and everything is satisfactory. In Liverpool or New York, and likewise on the continent, you can sometimes buy your way through, but you often hit the wrong man, and then there is a row. You may attempt to bribe an honest man, (generally a very newly appointed official,) and then you come off badly. In Turkey you cannot make any such mistake, as the whole Custom House staff is on the make, and will take your bribes without hesitation. I observe with pleasure, that our officials in America are learn- ing something from the sleepy Orientals. On my last trip home one of my fellow passengers had a lot of stuff that was liable to duty, and he determined to get it through, if possible, free of charge. So he packed his trunk, putting these things on the bottom and a lot of old clothes on top. Then he spread open a ten dollar greenback and laid it upon the old clothes, slightly securing it with a pin. When his trunk was opened for examination my friend turned away so that the in- spector might not be troubled with his presence. The examination lasted about a quarter of a minute. The in- spector closed the trunk with the remark that such a lot of old clothes wasn't worth carrying around; the passenger departed " DOING " SMYRNA. 243 for his hotel and when there and in the silence and solitude of his room he opened the trunk. And behold, the pin that held the greenback was gone ! And the greenback was gone likewise ! What became of that greenback my friend never knew. He suggests that the pin, being of English manufacture, was liable to confiscation and the officer only did his duty in seizing it. In the hurry of removing the pin the greenback may have adhered to it and passed into the pocket of the officer without attracting his attention. When he emptied his pockets that night he was doubtless as- tonished at finding the greenback, and still more when he examined it and found that it was counter- feit. We had less than two hours on shore, and there- fore saw very little of Smyrna. We walked or rather ran through the bazaars, not stopping to buy any anything, but threading our way among Turks, Arabs, Levantines, camels, donkeys, boxes, ,, „ ,^ ■' BAD "backsheesh." — " IT W.\S COUNTERFEIT." bales, filth, and other Oriental things. The pavements were rough, and in many places they were muddy and slippery, and by the time we got back to the landing we were thoroughly tired. It had been our intention to make a journey to the ruins of Ephesus during the two days' stay of the Tibrc, but this was out of the question. Though Smyrna has enjoyed the advantages of commerce for a very long time, there is still a great deal of prejudice among her people. Here is a story which was told me in illustration of this assertion : 16 244 ^ CURIOUS TRADITION. Some years ago, an English merchant sent a cargo of goods to Smyrna, and among the articles were a hundred pigs of block tin. The rest of the cargo passed the custom house without trouble, but the tin could not be landed, and the ship, at its departure, brought the metal away. And why ? Because of the trade mark upon it. The smelters of this par- ticular lot had adopted the figure of a lamb as their trade-mark, and stamped it on each piece of tin. It happened that when the Crusaders went to Asia Minor, the banners of some of the di- visions of their army were ornamented with the picture of a lamb. Consequently, the lamb became unpopular, and has continued so to this day. The tin in question was re-cast without the representation of the hated animal, and sent again to Smyrna, where it was received without hesitation. It was a great disappointment to us that we could not go to Ephesus, the seat of one of the " seven churches of Asia," and a place of great historical interest. A railway runs there from Smyrna, so that the journey can be made with comparative ease. There is a considerable amount of walking and donkey-riding after one gets there, and the accommodations are not altogether palatial. Ephesus was one of the cities which claimed the honor of being the birth-place of Homer, and it had a reputatian for a variety of things that do it very little good now. The greatest lion of Ephesus was the Temple of Diana, which was accounted one of the seven wonders of the world ; Diana was accounted nearly as great a wonder, in some respects, but she would be of very little consequence at the present time. The temple at Ephesus was said to be four hundred and twen- ty-five feet long by half that distance in width. Its roof was supported by one hundred and twenty-eight columns, each sixty feet high, and altogether the edifice was the largest of all the Greek temples, as it occupied four times the area of the Parthe- non. Like the latter temple, it contained a statue of gold and ivory, and there was a vast amount of wealth about the building. The roof was set on fire one night by an incendiary named Erostratus, (whether John, Charles, or William, I am unable to A CITY OF SCOUNDRELS. 245 say,) who lost his head in consequence. He died happy, and avowed that he had no other object than to immortalize his name. Hence came the declaration — " The daring youth that fired th' Ephesian dome, Outlives in fame the pious fool who raised it." The city and temple disappeared during the Middle ages, and at the beginning of the present century the site was marked only by heaps of rubbish, and by the Turkish village of Aya Soolook. In the past twenty years, excavations have been made there at various times, and are still going on. The foundations of the temple have been discovered, and many interesting sculptures brought to light. Ephesus at one time granted the right of asylum, and was known as a city of refuge. Any scoundrel who had offended the laws and found things too hot for him at home, was all right in Ephesus ; and the result was that the city was overrun with criminals to such an extent, that the respectable inhabitants asked the Emperor Au- gustus to abolish this right of asylum, which he did. Society was in the condition of that of Texas before her admission to the Union, and before she had any laws to keep rascals in check. There used to be a couplet, to which our most South-western State was said to owe its name : " When every other land rejects us, This is the land that freely takes us." Possibly the thieves, murderers, bounty-jumpers, and Tam- many officials of the olden time used to say: " When law from the land would efface us. We'll pack up our trunks for Ephesus." Neat, isn't it .? Well, the Judge got that up just as we were sailing out of Smyrna. We were on board the Tibre half an hour before her time of sailing. As we steamed out of the harbor, and the lovely bay on which the city stands, we had a most beautiful sunset, full of 246 LAST VIEW OF SMYRNA. bright colors, in strong contrast to the dark and rugged hills that form the setting of the bay. The general features of Smyrna are not unlike those of Naples, when looked at from a distance of half a dozen miles. The harbor is one of the safest along this whole coast, and its trade appears to be quite prosperous. There is much wealth at Smyrna, and a great many foreigners are set- tled there in business. The population is estimated at one hun- dred and fifty thousand, of which the Turks and Arabs number a little more than half. Then there are forty thousand Greeks and Italians, fifteen thousand Jews, ten thousand Armenians, and about five thousand Europeans of various nationalities. There are mosques, churches, and synagogues among the places of worship, and the commercial character of the population imbues them with a great deal of liberality in religious matters. A splendid quay was in course of construction at the time of my visit, and when it is finished the maritime importance of Smyrna will be greatly increased. The stone for this quay was made on the spot, from the sand of the harbor, in the same way as the artificial stone that forms the breakwater at Port Said, in Egypt. There are three lines of steamers engaged in the coasting trade of Syria and Palestine — the French, the Austrian, and the Russian. The French steamers run each way every fifteen days, the Russian every two weeks, and the Austrian three times a month. They touch at most of the ports, and make their voyages very leisurely. As a general , thing, they run from one port to the next in the night, and rest there during the day. Take our steamer for an illustration. She left Smyrna just before sunset ; at noon next day she was at Rhodes, where she lay till sunset, and then moved on. At breakfast next day she was at Messina, and staid there till night, and so it went on, past Alexandretta (the port of Aleppo), Lat- akia, Tripoli, and Beyrout. It was a very pleasant way of mak- ing the journey, as we were at sea during the night, and could spend the day on shore, each time at a new place. The routes of the different lines vary somewhat, but all of them touch at Bey- rout and Jaffa. We went on shore at Rhodes, and wandered among its palm trees, over its curious walls, and up the famous street of the THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES. 24/ knights, where the armorial emblems over the doors are still in place, left there by the Turkish conquerors in honor of the Knights of St. John, and their gallant defense of the place before their surrender. The defence of Rhodes forms one of the brightest pages of history, a page that should never be soiled and never be effaced. The site of the Colossus of Rhodes was pointed out; it was on one of the bends of the land that form the harbor ; the story that it stood across the entrance, and that ships sailed be- tween its legs, is a beautiful fiction, more astonishing than true. There are few places in Europe that have such a mediaeval ap- pearance as this city of Rhodes ; its walls and towers, and the ancient appearance of its houses, carry the visitor half a dozen centuries backward more easily than do most places in the track of the tourist. And the life there had a lazy, careless way about it, quite in keeping with the mural structures. People were loung- ing at the water's edge, some in the cafes, and some under the palm trees in front of them. Nobody was in a hurry about any- thing, and even the servants of the cafes had caught the conta- gion, and moved around as listlessly as though they had been ap- pointed to their own executions, and were trying to make as much delay as possible. There was little rivalry among the boatmen, and they good natnredly assisted each other in getting to or from the little dock where we landed. Rhodes is the ancient Rhodes (a rose), and the name belongs both to the island and the city. The latter has a population of about ten thousand, and of these there are six thousand Turks, while the rest are Jews and Greeks. The city is built in the form of an amphitheatre, upon the bay that makes the harbor, but unfortunately the depth of water is not . sufficient to afford anchorage for ocean going steamers. It was a warm, still, clear afternoon when we were there, and the town as we approached it had a very quiet and lazy appearance. The walls and towers, the work of the Knights of St John, carried us back to the middle ages, and it seemed as if Rhodes had gone to sleep half a millennium ago and nobody had disturbed her since Strabo described the ancient city of Rhodes as a place of great magnificence, with many public edifices that were profusely adorned with works of art. There were said to have been three 248 A QUAINT OLD CITY. thousand statues in the city, and altogether it must have been a wonderful place. At present there are few remains of anything prior to the occupation by the Knights of St. John in the early part of the fourteenth century. One of the brightest pages in the history of the Crusades and the events connected with them, is that whereon is written the chronicles of the Knights of St. John. At the time of the first crusade the institution was in high favor with the crusaders, many of whom joined it and bestowed their fortunes upon it. Up to that time it had been merely a secular in- stitution, but its chief determined to organize it as a religious body whose members took the vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty, and were to devote their lives to the aid of the poor and sick in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. In the twelfth century the institution added another vow to those above mentioned, — that of bearing arms in defense of re- ligion. The order thus assumed a military character and rapidly rose in wealth and power. In some of the Saracenic wars the knights performed deeds of great valor, and several battles were won by them. In the thirteenth century they were driven from the Holy Land, in consequence of the reverses suffered by the crusaders, particularly in the battle near St. Jean d' Acre. After this they established themselves at Cypress. Here they assumed a naval character, as their ships carried pilgrims to and frorn the Holy Land, and had frequent sea fights with the Turks. In A. D. 1309 they seized Rhodes, which had been a resort of Moslem pirates, and fortified it in the manner we see it at the present day. They were several times assailed by the Turks, but repulsed every assault and made several expeditions into Asia Minor. Their numbers were steadily recruited from the no- bility of Europe, and one time nearly all the best families of France, Spain, and Italy were represented among the Knights of St. John. In A. D. 1522 the Sultan Solyman the Magnificent, besieged them with an army twenty thousand strong ; they held out for six months — their whole strength was less than six thousand men — they were at length forced to surrender. But their defence had been so heroic that the Turks allowed them to retire with the honors of war, carrying their arms and standards EXPLOITS OF THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN. 251 and even some of their cannon. The Turkish fleet dipped its flags and fired a salute, as the Knights with tearful eyes sailed away from the island which their order had held for more than two centuries. It is recorded that the commander, Phillipe de r Isle Adam, was the last to leave the island and that he turned and kissed his hand toward Rhodes as his ship sailed away. The trumpet that was blown at Rhodes to give the signal of the re- tirement of the Knights is preserved at Malta, and I had the pleasure of examining it several months after my visit to the scene of the heroic defence. After temporary sojourns in Candia, Sicily, and Italy, the Knights, in A. D. 1530, were established at Malta where they built a strong fortress which resisted several sieges by the Turks. They remained at Malta until 1798, when Napoleon, on his way to Egypt, seized the Island and virtually put an end to the existence of the order. i?^^ CHAPTER XVIII. SYRIA, THE LAND OF THE SUN.— DRAGOMEN, GUIDES, AND COURIERS. A Rough Night on Shipboard — A Sea-sick Turk — What he said— Rum and Petro- leum — Meditations on Turkish Hash — The Camel, his tricks and uses — A Know- ing Brute — How he shirks a burden — George Smith, the Assyrian Savan — Beyrout — Its Antiquities and Wonders — Going on Shore — The Dragoman and his office — Eastern Guides and their Character — Travelling on Horseback in Syria — The road to Damascus — An unexpected trouble — Paying fare by Weight — Disadvantages of a heavy "party" — A trial of Wits— Waking up the Judge— Tellin J White Lies — The " Doubter's " Predicament. IT grew rough in the night, after we left Rhodes, and the Tibre tossed about in a very lively way. There was a Turk in the state room on one side of me, and an Armenian woman in the room on the other side. The Turk rolled about very uneasily ; the springs of his bed were rather noisy, and I could hear them creak every time he turned over. I venture to say that he turned in his bed not far from 243,654 times in the night ; not that I counted them, but only guessed. Every time the ship gave a lurch he shouted "Allah!" and between times he cleared his stomach or his conscience of everything that had rested there in the last ten years. As for the Armenienne, she took out her share in groaning, and she did that so well as to entitle her to the first place at an Irish wake. Had she asked me for a diploma, I could have given her one that would have made her fortune, but she didn't put in an appearance till she came out to leave the ship at Alexan- (252 RUM AND PETROLEUM. 253 dretta. She wanted to say her prayers, but was too weak to do so, though she shouted " Constantine" as often as the Turk said "Allah." As for the Turk, he stuck to his employment with most commendable zeal. Between the two, I didn't get much sleep during the night, and was glad when morning came and the steamer anchored at Mersina. It was too rough to go on shore with comfort, and there was nothing to see after getting there, as the place is small and has no special distinguishing features. Next morning we were at Alexandretta, the port of Aleppo, and there we went on shore. Almost the first object that caught my eye, as I stepped on shore, was a barrel of New England rum, with the name of the Boston manufacturer carefully stencilled on its head. In nearly every part of the world where I have been, I have found that the enterprise of Massachusetts has sent its rum, a harbinger of civ- ilization, that must puzzle the heathen in their efforts to under- stand the principles of Christianity. A barrel of petroleum was just beyond it, another bearer of light from the New World to the nations wrapped in darkness. Our poetic fancies, on the juxtaposition of these gifts of America to the old world, were cut short by our entrance to the bazaars, a series of low sheds with a street between them, little more than a couple of yards wide. Merchants were squatted in their shops, with their goods piled all round them ; shop, goods, and merchant, all included, rarely occupied a space more than eight feet square. • The official known in American stores as a floor-walker would be entirely superfluous here ; he might as well try to walk in the cage of a canary bird as in an Oriental shop. The customer stands in the street, or sits on the low bench that forms the front of the shop ; a party as large as ours — half- a-dozen — blocked the street and made it inconvenient for others to get around or for ourselves to see anything. Then there were camels, dogs, and donkeys moving about, and you had to look sharp to prevent being run over. There was a restaurant a little larger than the rest of the shops, but still very small ; and there was a butcher's shop, where 254 TRICKS OF A CAMEL. a couple of men, with large knives, were making mutton-hash for native consumption. The hash was rolled around on a large block, and cut with knives at every turn, and frequently the knife came so near the fingers of the operator as to endanger them. With ordinary carelessness, there ought to be about two per cent, of fingers in a lot of hash after its preparation is complete. Outside the town we visited a group of camels. These patient beasts have a dingy hide, with thin hair, and their appearance is so ungainly that I should think they would be ^ ashamed of themselves. I would give something to know what is a camel's idea of beauty ; it must be something quite out of the ordinary run. A little distance away, they re- semble large turkeys, and, with heads stretched out when they trot, you would take them for the aforesaid turk'eys hunting after grasshoppers. A lot of the beasts were being loaded for the in- terior, and I was interested in watching the operation. The camel is made to kneel, and then a quantity of old blan- kets is spread on his hump, on which to place the saddle. This is formed of a few sticks joined together, much like the ordinary mule saddle, only somewhat larger. The freight to be carried is fastened to this saddle by means of ropes, and the Arabs have a very keen eye for balancing the boxes and barrels that make up a camel's load. My pity was roused for a camel that made half- a-dozen ineffectual efforts to rise after he was loaded, and was only brought to his feet by the assistance of one man pounding A TRICKY BEAST. A CARAVAN TO NINEVEH. 255 him and three others hfting at the load. But a gentleman of our party was familiar with the camel, and said : " The chances are two to one that the distress of the beast is a sham. They are up to all that sort of trick when being loaded, as they sometimes secure a diminution of their cargoes by play- ing it sharp. I have seen an old camel sold by putting a lot of empty boxes on him. They weighed very little, and yet he tried half-a-dozen times to rise, and couldn't, until he was cudgeled. The whining and groaning of the camel is a good deal of a fraud. You have seen western pack-mules in America do the same thing." Sagacious beast the camel ! If the Hindostanee doctrine of metempsychosis is correct, I wonder what sort of spirits enter the bodies of .the ship of the desert .'' We saw the camel-train move out on the road to Aleppo, ninety miles distant, and we walked a mile or so upon the road. Two passengers who were bound for Nineveh and Bagdad, on the Euphrates, left us here, and we saw them off on their jour- ney. One of them was Mr. George Smith, who was making re- searches at Nineveh for the British Museum and the London Daily Telegraph conjointly. He expected to be twenty-five days making the journey to Nineveh, and said it was possible that bad weather might make his route somewhat longer. He made some valuable discoveries in his first explorations there, and hoped to make many more. I am sure all the passengers of the Tibre wished him every pos- sible success. While I am writing these pages, his book on his explorations has been published in London, and is receiving the praises of the scientific world. Camels and palm trees, ancient ruins, stray dogs, Arabs, water- pots, and other things, gave the road to Aleppo an Oriental ap- pearance, and the temptation to push forward to the great desert and away to the eastward was by no means a light one. But this was not to be undertaken ; we returned to the steamer, and were borne away towards Beyrout, where, three days later, after stopping at two unimportant points, we landed and set our faces toward Damascus. 256 MT. LEBANON, FROM BEYROUT. Beyrout presents a pretty appearance from the water. The land on either side sweeps gracefully around to form a bay, and at the end of this bay the city is nestled. Back of it is the famous Mount Lebanon, from which were brought the cedars used in the construction of the Temple at Jerusalem ; the sides of the mountain are steep, but not precipitous, and the summit is frequently covered with clouds. Seen from the city, the mountain has a bleak, barren appear- ance, owing to the masses of white limestone cropping out at frequent intervals and reflecting the sunlight to such an extent as to give it the name by which it is known, " the White Moun- tain." The sides of the mountain are cultivated in terraces, and the front walls of these terraces frequently consist of the solid limestone rocks. As one looks up the mountain, he sees only the faces of these terraces, the verdure which they sustain being out of sight. The old town of Beyrout is very old, and its streets are narrow and very often rough and dirty. The new town, or rather the new part of the town, has wide streets and is sufficiently well paved to allow carriages and carts to move about ; the pavement is excellent for Syria, but would have been considered very poor in an American city. The population is now about sixty thou- sand, which is three times what it was thirty years ago ; it is a mixed population of Moslems, Christians, and Jews — about as mixed as that of Constantinople or Cairo. Business is active, and the city has a very pronounced air of prosperity. Antiquities and curious sights for the ordinary tourist are few in number and not very interesting. There are Roman, Assy- rian, and Arabic remains, in the shape of tablets sculptured on the rocky walls of the Nahr-el-Kelb or Dog River, about half an hour's drive from Beyrout ; and there are a few traces in the town itself of the Roman occupation. All of them can be seen in a short time, and to a stranger who has come straight from America, without stopping, they would doubtless be interesting. But where you have done Rome and Athens, and half the cities of Europe and Asia, you won't linger long over the antiquities of Beyrout. But all this time, while I have been droning about Beyrout and Mount Lebanon, I have kept you waiting at the gangway of the GUIDES rs. DRAGOMEN. 259 Steamer. Well, you have the consolation of knowing that you have put in the time while waiting for the ship to undergo the quarantine formalities and obtain pratique. A crowd of dragomen and guides invaded the steamer as soon as they had permission to come on board, and were very ener- getic in endeavors to secure our patronage. They presented cre- dentials that, would have entitled them to anything short of can- onization, and to read their credentials you would consider them the best and most honest men in the world. We selected the guide belonging to the hotel which we had determined to patronize, and repelled as best we could all the others, by telling them we had no need of their services, and should not take them. We obtained a boat, with a little bargain- ing, and went on shore, where a dense crowd of Arab porters were in attendance. Two francs of " backsheesh " took us through the custom house, and we followed guides and porters to the hotel, and were followed by a guard of honor of about a dozen dragomen, very much as an organ-grinder is accompanied by a troop of small boys. While we were coming on shore there was a row between the guide of the hotel, and the dragomen belonging to the same es- tablishment, in consequence of the former trying to fasten him- self upon us, for the journey to Damascus, The latter requested the guide to stick to his business, and imperatively told him to mind his place and keep it. Some of my readers may ask the difference between the two positions, and for their benefit I will venture an explanation. A guide is a necessary evil of European or Oriental travel, particularly the latter ; you can get along in Europe without a guide, unless you are pressed greatly for time and want to see things in the shortest possible limit, but in Oriental cities you will find a guide indispensable, at least for the first two or three days of your stay, until you get the run of the place. The " guide" belongs to the city and its surroundings ; he is called guide in the Orient, and valet de place or covunissionaire in Eu- rope, In Europe he generally knows something of the history of the city, where he shows you about and can tell you of the curiosi- ties, the date of the construction of the cathedral, palaces, etcetera. 260 " GOING IT BLIND." But in the Orient you must not expect anything of the kind ; you must rely upon your guide book for all historical informa- tion, and as a general thing, must indicate to the guide the differ- ent places you wish to visit. His services generally consist in taking you to those places, and in acting as your interpreter. As for knowledge beyond his day and generation he has none. For example, a local guide in Venice will take you to the Doge's palace, or the church of St. Mark, and tell you the date of con- struction, the name of the builder, the uses of each portion, and will go on step by step till he has delivered a sort of lyceum lec- ture, which he has carefully learned, has delivered a great many times before and expects to deliver as often as he can get an en- gagement for an indefinite number of years to come. In Con- stantinople you wish to visit the Mosque of St. Sophia ; the guide will get the necessary ticket and take you there, and the most you can expect of him, after you get inside, is to tell you which is the floor and which is the roof. Sometimes he is not equal even to that effort of intellect. In Europe there is the travelling courier ; he is engaged by peo- ple willing to pay for luxuries, goes with them from city to city, looks after their baggage, makes most of their bargains, acts as their interpreter, and frequently as a local guide, and is supposed to know the continent and its belongings pretty thoroughly. The dragoman is to the Orient what the courier is to Europe. The difference is caused by the difference of the two regions. In Europe you travel by rail and steamer ; in the Orient there are no railways, and in all Syria and Palestine, with the exception of the one between Beyrout and Damascus, there is not a car- riage road. You must travel on horseback, must sleep in tents, while between the cities, and must have a regular camp equipage. The dragoman makes it his business to attend to all this. He supplies your parties with horses, tents, food, and everything else at a fixed price per day, and when in the cities he supplies you with a local guide, but never acts as one himself. He is to the guide what the horse is to the donkey, or a general to a captain, and he frequently puts on airs enough to set up a windmill. I hope I have made a clear enough explanation of the difference between the two. TRAVELLING BY WEIGHT. 26l From Beyrout to Damascus there is an excellent road, equal to the best turnpikes of America, and the diligence roads of Eu- rope. It was constructed by a French company under a charter or firman from the Sultan, and is a triumph of engineering skill. Twice a day there is a diligence each way over the road ; the morning departure is at four A. M., and the evening at six P. M. The time from Beyrout to Damascus fourteen and one-half hours and from Damascus to Beyrout thirteen and one-half, owing to the difference of elevation. We went at once to the office of the company, where we were politely received, and after considerable talk, and an examination of the diligences, we hired a special carriage, which was to take our party of six to Damascus and back, stopping midway long enough to allow us to visit Baalbek. The entire cost, including the halt en ro-nte, and at Damascus, was about sixteen dollars (gold) for each person, certainly not an unreasonable price. But we came near having to pay more, and it happened this way. We conducted our negotiations in the outer office, and when we had settled the whole matter, paid the money and received the ticket there arose a question about some trivial matter which the agent said he would refer to the manager. The manager's office was across the hall, and as the agent entered it, he beck- oned for us to follow. We sauntered in, one after the other, and on entering found manager and agent settling the question we had raised. The manager raised his eyes as we entered. They rested upon us for an instant and then he started back as though some- body had drawn a revolver upon him. " Mon Dien f he exclaimed, " and is this the party for Damas- cus .''" " Certainement, vionsiejir," replied the agent, waving his hand toward us, whereat we bowed to the manager. There was the joortly form of the judge in the foreground. He weighed two hundred and thirty pounds, avoirdupois, net, before breakfast, and a great deal more after a square meal. Then came my slender frame of six feet one, with correspond- ing breadth of beam and depth of hold. 262 INTERVIEWING THE MANAGER. Gustave was as tall as I but not equal to me in diameter. He happened, however, to be wearing one of my overcoats so that he bulged very respectably. Charley and the "Doubter" were in the rear. They were fair to middling in size but the manager didn't see them, his eyes be- ing wholly filled with the foremost trio, and if he had been a young widow on a hunt for a husband he couldn't have watched us more eagerly. " Ah, Mon Dieit, Mon Dicu f continued the manager ; " we can never carry this jDarty on single tickets. And where is the sixth ?" 'mon DIEU ! IS THIS THE PARTY FOR DAMASCUS?" " Madame is at the hotel," I replied, " she is so small that we call her the baby. You should see her. Elle est tres petite, tres jolie, et ireschai'mante." My endeavor to divert his attention by an appeal to a French- man's admiration for a pretty woman (many persons not of French birth are troubled the same way) was of no avail. He measured our heavy trio and returned to the charge by assert- ing : DISPOSING OF THE " DOUBTER." 263 "It is impossible to take you for that price. We calculated upon two horses for the carriage and we must have three. What enormous men you are." The judge now found tongue and repelled the insinuation that he was enonne. " You think I am large, eh } You should see my partner. He always rides in two carriages, and once when he slipped on the icy sidewalk, the people for half a mile around thought it was an earthquake." " Pardon, lilonsietir',' I added, " Son Excellence, Monsieur le j'uge,'' and I waved my hand in the direction of my friend, " is not as heavy as you may think. He is nothing but a big bag of wind, as you would find if you should stick a fork into him " This raised a laugh in which the manager joined. The judge retorted on me with a remark which personal respect impels me to keep back from this narrative. It was sufficient to raise another laugh, and under the diversion thus created we got the manager into good humor. We brought him around all right, but I firmly believe it would have cost us more if he had seen us before the ticket had been paid for and delivered. As we bowed out of the room the judge was in the rear and caught the manager's remark to the agent. '' Mon Dietc ! Us so7it enormes.'' The " Doubter," not knowing French, was standing by during the conversation without the faintest idea of what was occurring. He looked on with an expression similar to that of a pig contem- plating a railway train, and when we got outside he asked what it was all about. " Something very serious," said the judge. " The manager objected to so much weight, and wanted you to remain behind. We tried to compromise with him, but it was of no use, and )-ou are to stay in Beyrout till we return." Then the " Doubter" exploded, said he wouldn't stay, and fur- thermore, he believed the judge was not telling him the truth ; his doubts were so strong on the subject, that when we reached the hotel he hired an English-speaking dragoman to accompany him to the stage company's office and learn the exact state of the case. 17 CHAPTER XIX. THE GROVES OF LEBANON.— A NIGHT AMONG THE ARABS. The "Sights" of Beyrout — Excursion to Dog River — An Obstinate Carriage-Owner — How he was " Euchred " — Moral of this Incident — Off for Damascus — Ascend- ing Mt. Lebanon — An Arab Driver — Cultivating "Kalil," our Jehu — The Cedars of Lebanon — A Grove as Old as Solomon's Temple — A Wonderful Old City — The Temple of the Sun — Mystery of Tadmor — Cyclopean Masonry — Monstrous Monoliths — Their Dimensions — The " Doubter's " Doubts and their Solution — Sleeping in an Arab House — What We Saw There — Divans as Couches — A Dangerous Valley — The Robber's Haunt. AFTER we had lunched we went out to see the town, and then we hired carriages for a drive to Dog River, which we were told would require a couple of hours. We were to pay six francs each carriage "for two hours to Dog River," and when we were seated the owner of the stable demanded the money in advance. We wouldn't pay. He threatened to unharness the horses, and actually began. We told him he must take us out of the carriages, and we lighted our cigars, and settled back for a comfortable rest. A crowd collected to see the fun. The owner swore that it was always the rule to pay in advance, and we replied that there was no rule without one exception. He said he must take the money, as he could not trust his drivers, and we invited him to occupy the box till the end of the excursion, and then take his pay. The upshot of the matter was that he finally told the drivers to go ahead, and they went. Dog River was reached in twenty minute.s, and then the joke (264) KALIL, THE ARAB DRIVER. 26/ was apparent. We would have been there and back in an hour or less had we paid in advance, and there would have been no such thing as redress. We kept the carriages two hours and took a drive of a couple of miles on the Damascus road to a pretty grove of pines. Then we returned to town just inside of the stipulated time and handed over the pay to the drivers only when we were deposited at the door of the hotel. Moral : Be cautious about paying a hackman in advance. We are told and believe that the horse is a noble animal — why is it that nearly every one who associates with him is a scoun- drel .'' A horse jockey is never held up as a pattern of honesty ; the race track is the scene of much that is wicked, and as for hackmen, their rascality is the next thing to an axiom — a self- evident proposition. Our carriage was at the hotel door at nine in the morning of the day after our arrival at Beyrout, and as soon as we could stow ourselves away we were off. There was a comfortable space for five, but rather close work for six, and it was absolutely necessary that one should ride outside with the driver. I undertook the task, and by a scientific arrangement of baggage built up a comfortable seat. We started, and I went to cultivating the acquaintance of the driver. He spoke a little French, so that he could manage to under- stand me, but his strong point in the way of language was Arabic. He was as black as — well, one of the blackest men I ever saw — as black as the character of a candidate for office, when his oppo- nent takes a turn at him. His lips were curly and his hair was thick — you can read the other way if you like — and he couldn't be excited into a smile by any ordinary means. The only thing I could do to induce him to grin was to attempt to sing. He thought my singing rather funny, but, as it frightened the horses, he begged me to desist. He was a skilful driver, and his name, Kalil, a name about as common in that country as George or Charles with us. We rattled out of Beyrout past the forest of pines to which the European residents sometimes drive on a pleasant afternoon. A rain during the night had moistened the road, and at several 268 CLIMBING MOUNT LEBANON. places where the laborers were repairing it, the carriage was a heavy load for the horses. These, by the way, were three in number, strong, sleek, well kept horses, that knew their work and performed it. Hardly were we out of the city before we began ascending Mount Lebanon, and the ascent is by no means an easy matter. The summit of the mountain where the road crosses it is five thousand six hundred feet above the sea level ; as the crow flies, it is not more than seven miles from this summit to Beyrout, but as you follow the road it is nearly twenty miles. We were not fitted with wings for flying, and consequently we stuck to the road which the company provided for us. It was slow work for the horses, and, to ease the load, the lightest and most enterprising of us left the carriage and walked. The road is of excellent construction and reflects great credit upon the engineer who made the surveys and laid it out. The cost must have been something very great, and I was not sur- prised to learn that the investment had never paid well, in spite of the apparently good business of the company. In addition to the two dilige7ices each way daily, the company sends a daily freight train of fifteen wagons ; whether there is anything or nothing for them to carry, it is all the same — the wagons start at a fixed time, and are allowed three days for the journey, from one city to the other. There is a large station for freight in each of the terminal cities, and at reasonably regular intervals along the road there are wayside stations with stables of good size, and with quarters for the station-keeper and attendants. The stables, stock, wagons, carriages, and all other property of the company, ap- peared to be well kept, and without any meanness of manage- ment, and the discipline of the men was very strict. I had reason to find it out in a practical way. I have done a good deal of staging and posting in various parts of the world, and have learned that it is generally a good plan to get on friendly terms with drivers, no matter what their nationality, color, or previous condition of servitude may be. In pursuance of this plan, I cultivated Mr. Kalil, the gentleman of Nubian origin, who conducted our atelage. I gave him a cigar as soon as we started, and he thanked me by touching his hand "STANDING TREAT." 269 to his breast, his Hps, and his forehead — this is a VArabe — and when we pulled up at a wayside cabaret to tighten some of the straps, I " stood treat " with a glass of arrack, which he swal- lowed without a grimace. Then I intimated that if he would put us through lively, and never mind killing a horse or two, he could consider me good for a liberal "backsheesh." He shook his head and showed me the way bill, and I saw the company knew its business. The drivers are required to go between the stations at a cer- tain speed, and they must not exceed it, neither must they fall short, unless from unavoidable reasons. If they go too fast they are corrected ; I do not know exactly how, but from the customs of the country, I should imagine that for a slight offense a driv- er's pay would be stopped, and he would be pounded a few days with a hammer, a scythe, or a trace chain, till he died. For a more serious offense he would be treated with severity propor- tionate to the enormity of his conduct. The time of arrival and departure at each station is noted on the way bill by the station master, so that there is no chance to cut under in any way. I observed the station master examining the horses' feet as soon as the animals were delivered to him and then making notes on his book. I thought this a strange pro- ceeding until I learned that the horses were numbered on the hooves, the number being neatly cut with an engraving tool, or burned in with an iron. The company allows none but its own teams on the road, ex- cept on payment of a heavy toll ; the old bridle road or track is in sight most of the way, and we saw many pack trains of camels, mules, donkeys, and horses threading their way through the mud, while we were rolling on a macadamized track. In no instance did we see a pack train on the modern road. Away to the north, over a rough and difficult road, are the famous Cedars of Lebanon. They are in a valley which is dominated by the high peaks of the range, and stand on a little hill or knoll, so that they are vis- ible from a considerable distance. The grove is not large — one can walk quite around it in half an hour — and contains not far from four hundred trees of all 2/0 THE CEDARS OF LEBANON. sizes. The old and gnarled trees are in the centre, while the younger ones form the outside of the grove. Not more than a dozen can claim any great antiquity, but there are thirty or forty others that vary from three to live feet in diameter — the largest of the trees, and supposed to be one of the oldest, is more than forty feet in circumference. The trees have been much defaced and broken by visitors, some of whom would no doubt carry away the whole of Mount Lebanon if it could be packed in a travelling trunk. Though there are other cedar groves in Syria, the one here mentioned is the most important, for the reason that it is sup- posed to have fur- nished the timber for Solomon's Temple, as recorded in the Old Testament. Cedar CEDAR OF LEBANON. trccswcre doubtlcss very abundant in the palmy days of Jerusalem ; at present they are very scarce, and if the natives and other barbarians continue to destroy their limbs and build fires in the grove, as they do in these days, these famous trees will soon live only in history. Up, up we went along the sides of Mount Lebanon, the air growing cooler as we rose, and a violent hail-storm dropping upon us. It was warm when we left Beyrout, and I mounted my box without an overcoat. Soon it grew cool, and I donned a light one ; an hour later, I abandoned the light for a heavy one ; next I spread my shawl in front of me, and next I wrapped a silk ker- chief around my neck. We made our second change of horses after passing the sum- mit, and then began the descent. THE WONDERS OF BAALBEK. 2/1 Now we had speed ; we wound down and down, as we had wound up and up, but we went three or four times as fast. Far away at our feet lay a plain — the plains of Buka. Two hours from the summit, we were at Sto'ra, a wayside station, where we passed the night, and were most kindly treated by the keepers — a Greek man married to an Italian woman, once a danseitse at La Scala, Milan. Next morning before day, we were up and off for Baalbek, which lies about twenty miles away to the left of the road. It had rained in the night, and the soil was soft and sticky, making slow work for our horses. The mud clung to their feet and formed huge balls, and we could only advance at a walk. The saddles were unused to us and we to them, and we hurt them a good deal. When we dismounted at Baalbek, every one of the party walked like Falstaff's recruits, wide between the legs, as though accustomed to the gyves, and some of us were inclined to stand while at meals. We had no time to waste, and after lunch proceeded to do the ruins. We found them all that fancy and travellers have painted them. They are grander and loftier than anything at Rome or Athens, and the architecture is of a most beautiful and delicate pattern. The temple in its glory must have been something majestic, and I have seen few things among the ruins and edifices of Europe and Asia more striking to the eye or more beautiful in general effect than the court and colonnades of the Temple of the Sun. But the wonder of Baalbek is in the stones used in its construc- tion. Hewn stones, twelve, fifteen, and twenty feet long, and proportionately wide and high, are frequent in the walls and substructures. You grow weary of saying : " There's one !" " Look at this !" " and this!" "and this !" You wander down in the under-ground passages, and the size of the stones, placed as precisely as bricks in a wall of a building of to-day, fairly astounds you; you come out, and look on the wall of the temple, and you find stones twenty-four, twenty-eight, and thirty feet long, and proportionally wide and high. You see stones of this sort away up in the air at the tip of the columns, and you wonder how they got there. In the western wall are three great stones, one of them sixty- 272 GIGANTIC STONES. four feet long, another sixty-three feet eight inches, and another sixty-three feet ; they are thirteen feet high and thirteen feet thick. They are twenty feet above ground, properly placed in position, and they were brought from the quarries nearly a mile away. And in the quarries, is another stone of the same sort sixty-eight feet long, but not quite de- tached from the rock below. Don't drop the subject now but pace off sixty- three feet in your garden or back yard or some other man's yard or garden ; then w pace off thirteen feet and then look up thirteen feet on the side of the house ■^ and then imagine a hewn stone as large, and after ^ }'ou have done it you will just begin to imagine these stones as we saw them. During our evening halt at Stora one of us read aloud from the guide book the description of Baalbek. When we came to the measurement of the stones' the " Doubter " explained : " Is anybody fool enough to believe such nonsense ? We tried to argue with him that possibly the stones were of that size, but he closed the argument as he did most arguments by saying: " I know better." On our way to Baalbek we saw the stone in the quarry and asked what he thought of it. A " VEREE GREAT " LIAR ! 273 " That is nothing," he replied, " they haven't moved it." When we saw the three stones in the wall and measured their length and height he said they were joined together. He could find no joint and finally insisted that they were only thin slabs fastened to the walls, and to this day he insists that he knows they are nothing like what they are represented to be. He vowed not to speak of them when he reached home for fear he would not be believed. He always kept the hotel bills so that he could prove that he had been to the places we visited. "The ' Doubter must be a veree great, what you call in Eng- lish, liar, at home," said our fair German companion one day, "if he thinks people not believe him without his hotel bills." The " Doubter" after all was a source of amusement to us at odd times, in spite of his high rank as a nuisance, and we finally concluded that it was well to have him along on the same prin- ciple that the Romans used to receive a victorious general with shouts of applause and triumphal honors and at the same time kept a slave at his side to call him opprobrious names and con- tinually remind him that he was mortal. The ancient Egyptian also set our party an example in the same way as they used to put a skeleton in one of the chairs at a public or private festivity so that the guests might remember what they were coming to. We slept that night in an Arab house at Baalbek. Our beds were on divans or couches. W^e were tended by Arab man-ser- vants and maid-servants and were bitten by Arab fleas. The rooms of every Arab's house contain divans that extend along the end furthest from the door and sometimes along one of the sides. They consist usually of benches or frames not quite as high as the seat of a chair and about three and a half feet wide and are covered with mattresses that render them agreeable to sit or re- cline upon We found them quite comfortable after our hard day's travel, though perhaps a trifle too hard for American natives. In the poorer houses these divans are of the same ma- terial as the floor — solid earth — covered with a mat of straw. Most of the Arab houses are extremely dirty and abound in vermin. The one we occupied was quite neat and well kept, and 274 A NIGHT IN AN ARAB HOUSE. the dragoman who accompanied us from Stora expressed sur- prise at our discovery of fleas. But we did not mind them as we were too weary to be bothered about trifles, and fleas are fa- miliar acquaintances to a person who has travelled in Italy, Rus- sia, and Turkey. Travelling, like poverty, acquaints one with a great many varieties of bed-fellows. We were up long before day ; we breakfasted by candle light, and before the sun tipped the summits of the Lebanon range with golden color, we were on horseback and away. Through the gray dawn we took the last look at the tall columns of the Temple of the Sun standing as they have stood for centuries and may stand for centuries to come. Shall the edifices which we erect ever become like those of Baalbek, shrouded in a veil of mystery well nigh impenetrable, and fill so little place in the page of history that future ages shall not know who built them and what was their purpose .-• Little, very little, is known of Baalbek ; her foundation and her founders are unrevealed mysteries, and of her glory and pro- gress and decline we have only the most meagre information. That the city is very ancient there can be no doubt ; that her edifices are among the wonders of the world we have the evidence before us. We rode down the plain of Buka as we had ascended it the day before. A little after eleven o'clock we flung ourselves or rather dropped ungracefully from our saddles and greeted the swarthy Kalil who had come out a short distance with the car- riage to meet us. Kalil and the horses soon took us to Stora where we dined and then packed ourselves in the carriage to con- tinue our journey to Damascus^ We crossed the flat plain at a gallop and then entered a long valley leading up the range which is over against Lebanon. This valley is known as the Wady Harir ; then we cross a plain and after leaving this we enter a narrow winding glen, the Wady il Kurn, or " Valley of the Horn." This pass is one of the wildest in the Anti-Lebanon ; it is three miles long and was once very dangerous on account of the robbers that infested it. The sides are rough and but slightly wooded and the bottom is evi- dently at certain seasons of the year the bed of a torrent. IN SIGHT OF DAMASCUS. 277 Night came on and shrouded everything around us in black- ness ; there was an extra touch of darkness to it as there was no moon and there were thick clouds between us and the stars. We could see little more than what was revealed by our lamps and that little soon became monotonous. We crossed the plain of Dinas and entered the gorge of the Abana, the river which is the pride of Damascus, and has always occupied a prominent place in her history. "Are not Pharpar and Abana," said Xaaman, the leper, "rivers of Damascus better than all the rivers of Syria?" Following the Abana we at length beheld the lights of Da- mascus, and at nine o'clock entered the city and were deposited at the door of the only hotel it contains. CHAPTER XX. DAMASCUS— THE GARDEN CITY OF THE EAST. Dimitri and his hotel— Court-yards and fountain— How people live in Damascus — Parlors, bed-rooms and boudoirs — A bet and its decision — The " Doubter and his Donkey"— The Street called " Straight"— Bab-Shurky— Spots famous in history —Shaking hands across a Street— Scene of St. Paul's conversion— The Window of escape— Tombs of Mohammed's Wives— The " Doubter" figuring on probabilities — An unexpected upset— Visiting the lepers' hospital— A frightful spectacle— The Great Mosque— View from the Minaret — The Bazaars and Curiosity Shops — Mak- ing a trade — A case of Fraud. THE hotel at Damascus is kept by a Greek named Dimitri, who has been familiar with Syria for a great many years, and was in his younger days a dragoman. His house is spacious, and more comfortable than I had ex- pected to find it, and in appearance is the most Oriental of all the hotels I have seen in the East. You enter by a low, nar- row doorway, and passing a short vestibule find yourself in a marble paved court open to the sky, and possessing a fine fountain. When I say a fine fountain, I mean that it is so from an Orien- tal point of view — i. e., there is a broad tank, with stone sides, where the water is kept constantly changing by means of a two inch supply-pipe, and an equally large waste pipe. To the right of the fountain there is a recess about twenty feet square, where are divans and chairs in abundance. Beyond the fountain on the opposite side of the court is the parlor or saloon. It is entered by an ordinary door, and you find inside a marble floor as long as the room is wide, — about six feet (278) HOW I LOST THE WINE. 279 in width, — and having a fountain in the centre. The rest of the apartment on each side of the marble floor is elevated about two feet and has steps leading up to it. The spaces thus elevated are richly carpeted and have divans on three sides. They have in Dimitri's hotel a few chairs in front of the divans ; but these are rather out of place, and are only kept there out of deference to the foreign patrons. The roof is high, and the highest part of it all is in the centre. We have reason to know about it, as we got into a discussion while waiting for dinner, and two of the party risked a bottle of cham- pagne on the result. COURT OF A HOUSE IN DAMASCUS. One said the roof was thirty feet above the marble floor, and the other thought it was twenty-nine and a half. The nearest was to win, and Dimitri sent for a pole and ladders and we meas- ured it. The result was twenty-nine feet ten and one-quarter inches, and I lost the wine. I have been thus particular in describing the court, fountain, and saloon of Dimitri's Hotel for the reason that it will answer for any well-to-do house in Damascus, with the exception of the chairs, which should not be introduced there. " Take away the chairs," said Dimitri, " and my house is Ori- 280 TAKING "ADVICE AND DONKEYS." ental, but with them here, it is not. The instant chairs are intro- duced the Oriental character is gone." I should have added that his court contains several orange and other tropical trees ; on some of the former the oranges were ripening, and were plucked and offered to us. The height of the roof of the saloon may seem considerable, but we were told that it is frequently ten or twelve feet more, and before leaving the city I saw some parlors which had I think forty feet of distance between floor and roof. Next morning we took a guide and started out for the sights. " The weather is fine to-day," said the guide ; " you had better take donkeys, and see what we have to see of the outside of the town. To-morrow it may rain, and we can then see the bazaars, mosques, and houses." We took his advice and donkeys, and' started at once. He led us through crowded streets to the gates, or rather to one of the gates, and then we proceeded to make a circuit of Damascus. Our starting point was Bab-Shurkey or the East Gate It is a picturesque piece of architecture somewhat dilapidated, but containing traces of its former glory. Here was once a magnifi- cent Roman portal with a central and two side arches which were walled up more than eight hundred years ago. This gate is at the end of the " street called Straight," by which St. Paul entered the city, and from the top of the gate one can look along the street until it is lost in a confusion of buildings. It is not straight as we use the word, but is enough so for Oriental notions. In the Roman period, and down to the Mohammedan conquest, there was a wide avenue where this street now is ; it was about a hundred feet wide and was divided by Corinthian columns into three parts corresponding to the three arches of the gate. They have been distinctly traced in several localities. As you look down there now you see a narrow lane with uneven rows of buildings on either side ; the projecting windows almost touch each other, and in some localities they are less than a foot apart. Hand-shaking and osculation would be easy across the streets, and elopements and intrigues are facilitated by the proximity of opposite dwellings. WHERE ST. PAUL WAS CONVERTED. 281 We went near the wall outside of the city, and were shown sev- eral of the local curiosities. We passed a projecting tower of early Saracenic masonry, and near it our attention was called to an old gateway, which has been walled up more than 700 years. This is the reputed scene of Paul's escape from Da- mascus. The window was shown until within the past twenty years, when some changes in the wall removed it. In front of the gate we were shown the tomb of George, the porter who aided St. Paul in his escape, and was martyred in consequence. Our guide was a Christian Arab, and spoke of the place with great veneration, as do all the native Christians. Be- yond this is the Christian cemetery, which was desecrated by the Moslems at the time of the massacre of i860. Some of the tombs were opened and the bones were scattered about ; after- ward some of those wounded in the massacre were thrown alive into the pit. The scene of St. Paul's conversion is located here. Not far away is the foreign cemetery ; among those buried there is the accomplished historian, H. T. Buckle. The guide called our attention to the houses upon the wall of the city ; it was from a house of this sort that Paul was let down in a basket, and one can readily see that it was easy for Rahab, who dwelt upon the town wall of Jericho, to let " down the spies" by a cord through the window. On several occasions in time of war, these houses have been removed, but they have speedily re-appeared on the return of peace. The walls of the city were no doubt of some importance formerly, and are still a sufficient defense against Bedouin cav- alry, but they would be of no consequence to-day. Modern ar- tillery would make short work of them, and there are places where a battery of ordinary field guns could destroy them in a few hours. The city has outgrown the walls in several localities, and it is said that a third of the inhabitants are extra-mural. The popula- tion of Damascus is estimated at about one hundred and fifty thousand. Twenty thousand of these are Christians and six thousand Jews. The remainder are Moslems, and many of them are of the most fanatical character. 282 MOSLEM GRAVES. We halt at the Mohammedan cemetery of Bab-es- Saghir, an area of undulating ground, covered with a forest of tombstones, and little whitewashed mounds of brick, in shape resembling a house roof. These are the graves, and each has a head stone with an inscription in Arabic, and beside it, is a cavity for water, generally containing a green branch of myrtle. Had we been MOSLEM WOMEN WEEPING AT A TOMB. there on a Friday we should have seen crowds of Moslem w(;men weepmg over the graves of relatives or friends, and after the cer- emony had ended they would have fallen to chatting pleasantly, as if their visit were not a matter of grief. We saw the tombs of three of Mohammed's wives, and of Fatimah, his grand-daugh- BATTLE OF THE JACKASSES. 283 ter, and we were shown other graves, and tombs containing the remains of Moslem warriors, statesmen, and historians. The " Doubter" did not beheve that Mohammed's wives were buried there, and refused to dismount and enter the cemetery. When we returned to the gate we found him prostrate m the dirt, and just rising with the help of the donkey drivers. It seemed that his beast resented the notion of standing patiently for a man to sit on him, and after making a remonstrance in donkey fash- ion, he ended by turning a somersault that unseated the "Doubter." The latter jackass described a sort of cruciform parabola and at the end of his gyrations found himself sitting down lengthwise, and with his back uppermost. Several new constellations and solar systems were flying around his excited skull and his doubts as to the character of this planet were stronger than ever. " I don't believe," said he, as soon as his mouth was cleared of the dust that encumbered it, "I don't believe that there is any- thing around here worth seeing. We had better go back to the hotel and stay there." " Nonsense," replied one of us, " Damascus is the most inter- esting city of the East, within our reach ; one of the oldest cities and one that has undergone very little change in two thousand years." " I know better than that," said the " Doubter," " nobody be- lieves this city is two thousand, or even one thousand years old." I came to his help just then and told him he was right ; that the city was founded in 1811 by a colony of Arabs from New Jersey, and was never heard of by the civilized world until De- cember, 1847, when it was discovered by an Englishman named Smith. Somehow my information did not please him, and he was sullen all the rest of the day. Later on I found what it was to be dropped from a donkey. I was dismounting, and the beast evidently wanted me to be quick about it. Just as I leaned forward to swing my right leg over, the donkey dropped his head and shoulders and gave me a most beautiful fall. I went down among other donkeys and in the dust of the street, but I flatter myself that I did it gracefully. A dozen Arabs were standing around but not one of them smiled while all my companions let themselves out into laughter. I told 18 284 A VISIT TO THE GREAT MOSQUE. them it was not polite to laugh at the unfortunate, but that didn't appear to check them. We visited the house of Ananias, the High Priest, all the points connected with St. Paul's stay in Damascus, and then we went to the Mosques. Before doing this it was necessary to visit the American Con- sul or Vice Consul, and obtain a permit. The Consul is a native of the country, a polite, affable gentleman, speaking English quite well, and showing a desire to serve the citizens and the interests of the country he represents. He lives in a fine house of recent construction ; his house was burned in the massacre of i860, and he narrowly escaped assassination. He received us in the style of .the Orient, with coffee and pipes, and made us welcome to Damascus. He sent at once for the desired permit and sent his janissary to accompany us in our visit to the mosque. Before going to the mosque we went to the site of the house of Naaman, the leper ; a leper-hospital now occupies the spot. And speaking of lepers, we afterwards went to the leper-hospital and saw half a dozen of the victims of this dreadful disease. Some were blind, some had the face, some the arms, and some the legs, much swollen, and the face and hands of one were cov- ered with scales. Under the edges of these scales the flesh was raw and inflamed, and we were told that some of the patients in the hospital were masses of sores. The Great Mosque occupies a quadrangle one hundred and sixty-three yards long by one hundred and eight wide. Part of this quadrangle is a court surrounded by cloisters resting on stone pillars ; the rest of the space is occupied by the mosque, which is four hundred and thirty-one feet by one hundred and eight. We removed our boots and put on our slippers before entering the building. The interior is divided into three aisles by two ranges of Corinthian pillars, which support round arches. In the centre is a dome one hundred and twenty feet high by fifty feet in diameter, and standing on four massive pillars. The floor is of stone and covered with soft carpets, and here and there on the carpets, were the Moslems at their prayers. Our attention was particularly attracted by one devout old Jew, who wore a phylac- tery upon his forehead and who appeared to be utterly uncon- A MOSLEM TRADITION. 285 scious of what was going on around him. On the eastern side of the mosque there is an elaborately carved Keebbek, or shrine, and below it is a cave, in which the head of John the Baptist is said to be preserved in a casket of gold. There are three minarets to the mosque ; the most important is the minaret of Jesus, at the south-eastern angle, and two hun- dred and fifty feet high. There is a Moslem tradition that when SYiUAN JEW WITH PHYLACTERY. Jesus comes to judge the world, He will descend on this minaret, enter the mosque, and call before him men of every sect and nationality. We climbed to the top of one of the minarets, and obtained from it a fine view of the city. Mosques, bazaars, houses, mud walls and flat roofs, remains ot Roman and Saracenic columns, streets and court-yards, formed the scene before us. Further off were the gardens, the olive and orange groves of Damascus ; the Abana sparkled in the sunlight 286 THE OLDEST CITY IN THE WORLD, like a band or thread of silver ; the barren hills beyond formed a sharp contrast to the fertile plain ; and away in the distance we could distinguish a belt of desert. Another mosque, whose min- aret is covered with blue encaustic tiles, attracted our attention, and we longed to visit it. To our disappointment we learned that admission was then impossible. A visitor to Damascus should take advantage of the first clear afternoon, to proceed at a late hour to the Salahiyeh hills, so as to look upon the city at sunset. The road is pleasant and pic- turesque, and leads gently upward beyond a village that lies between the hill and the city. An hour's ride brings one to a point where the whole plain is spread out like a map at the spec- tator's feet. Embowered in gardens and tinted by the lights that varied every moment, Damascus looked to us as much like an earthly paradise as anything in the Orient. Away to the east was the range of Anti-Lebanon ; to the north was the plain, with a strip of desert, and to the south the plain stretched away and broke into the hills in the distance. We could trace out the shape of the city, and follow with the eye the direction of its principal streets ; the tall minarets and bright domes of the mosques formed salient features of the landscapes, and altogether the. scene was thoroughly Oriental. It was from this hill that Mohammed looked and pronounced Damascus the most beautiful city of the world, and promised the most dutiful of his attendants, that they should be appointed to dwell there. Thus we looked upon the city which is doubtless the oldest in the world. More than three thousand years it has flourished ; more than thirty centuries it has stood there a city — the beautiful city of the plain. Nations have appeared and vanished. King- doms and empires and republics have risen and fallen, but Damascus has stood unchanged. Thrones have crumbled, dynas- ties have come and gone. Statesmen and poets and scholars have lived their brief period of existence, brief and insignificant in the centuries that have rolled over Damascus. Saracen, Roman, Moslem, and Christian have besieged the city ; twice it has been the center of empires, and many times it has been the seat of power that was felt far away. Though never formally A SAUNTER THROUGH THE BAZAARS. 28/ occupied by Christians, it was one of the early centers of Christianity, and for nearly three centuries this was the predomi- nant religion. And later in its history the armies of the Mohammedan empire went forth from Damascus, spreading the religion of the Prophet to Spain on the one hand, and to Hindos- tan on the other. Damascus was then the seat of an empire the greatest on the globe, extending from the Himalayas to the Atlantic. Wealth was poured into her coffers, and she became the richest as well as the mightiest capital. Though she has de- clined she has not fallen, and presents to-day a picture of serene and well-deserved prosperity. Damascus without the bazaars would be Hamlet without Ham- let. Here you see the Orient in its perfection. Instead of shops scattered through the city, as in the West, all trades, or rather all the persons in one trade, are brought together. The bazaars of Damascus have had a world-wide celebrity for centuries, and there are none in the East better than they. You can buy there anything you want, from a slave to a cigarette, and from a sewing needle to 2. pariire of diamonds. You can wander for hours and days in the bazaars ; in the slipper bazaar, the tobacco bazaar, the seed bazaar, the mercers' bazaar, the tailors' bazaar, the clog bazaar, the silversmiths' bazaar, the spice bazaar, the book bazaar, the old clo' bazaar, the iron bazaar, the pipe bazaar, and other bazaars to the number of a dozen or more. There is a general similarity in the bazaars, so far as the exter- nals are concerned ; the shops are little pens, from four or six to ten feet square, where the merchant sits or squats on the floor, and the customer sits on the little bench in front. The front of the shop is entirely open during the day ; it can be shut at night, but the locks by which it is held are of a very primitive and very flimsy pattern. If the owner wishes to go away in the day time he spreads a net in front during his absence, and this is his card to say he is "out." The merchant does not press you to buv. and he generally seems not to care whether you buy or not. In the slipper bazaar you pass shop after shop where Oriental slippers of all patterns and values are sold ; in the tailors' bazaar you find shop after shop where tailors are at work upon Oriental garments, and so you go on through one bazaar after another. 288 ORIENTAL MERCHANTS. Part of the street called Straight is occupied by bazaars, a.nd there is a network of them on both sides of it. In the silversmith's bazaar each man occupies a space about six feet square, in a sort of large hall, with low roof and many- supporting pillars ; this space contains both work-room and sales- room. Most of the work is done to order, but each shop has a ii^*-' A MONEY CHANGER IN THE BAZAAR. few articles for sale, such as ear and nose drops, rings and brooches, generally contained in a locked show-case, a foot square, and the same in height ; the shop-keepers exhibited their goods, but did not press them for sale ; many of them stopped work to stare at us, while others stuck to their business with Oriental indifference. A small anvil, a few hammers, pliers and rollers, and a small fire of charcoal, kept in flame by a bellows of goat- DRIVING A BARGAIN. 289 skin, comprise the whole outfit of a workman. The entire ar- rangement could be stowed in a good-sized hat. In the arms bazaar there are all sorts of odds and ends of cimeters, matchlocks, sabres, pistols, lances, and the like. The famous Damascus blades were offered to us, but they were not of that fine temper that permits you to tie one of them into a knot, and so we did not buy. An antiquarian would be at home in this bazaar, and find many things to suit his fancy. We went to the silk bazaar, as one of our party wanted to buy some kerchiefs, and after looking around we went out of the bazaar into a Khan, or caravansary. This was a court, with a fountain in the center. A double story of little rooms opened into this court, and on the upper floor was a silk merchant we wished to find. The bargaining was conducted a V Orient. We had coffee and cigarettes, and then the silks were shown. The merchant wanted twenty francs, the buyer would give six. Neither could do better, but they slowly unbent so that at the end of half an hour the prices were fifteen selling and ten buy- ing. Then we bade the merchant good-bye, and departed. We returned in an hour, and then the negotiations went on ; the seller stuck at thirteen, and the buyer at eleven and a half, and finally, after at least an hour of talk and the assurance of the merchant that the kerchiefs cost him more than that, a bargain was closed at twelve. The coup de grace was given when the buyer showed the money in bright Napoleons, and rattled them before the other's eyes. The silk merchant wanted to sell something more, and sent his partner or attendant to bring a piece of goods from another room. The piece came, the wrapping was removed, and behold ! there appeared on the end of the roll a ticket with the name of a French factory at Lyons. Much of the silk sold in Constantinople, Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo, and Bagdad, as Oriental, is from French looms. I have been repeatedly told so by the merchants, and also by an agent of one of the houses especially devoted to Oriental fabrics. It requires an expert to distinguish the native silks from the French ones. CHAPTER XXI. SYRIAN LIFE— DEALERS IN HUMAN FLESH— WE TRY "ZE LUXU- RIES OF ZE BATH." In the Slave-Market — A Dealer in Human Flesh — A Stealthy Trade — Examining Female Slaves — Serfdom in Syria — Inside Views of a Syrian Household — Jewish Houses — An Oriental Song — Smoking with the Ladies — Syrian Customs — A famous Arab Chief — Visiting Abd-el-Kader's house — The City of the Caliphs- Taking a Bath — Mohammed and his Trowsers — A new Species of Cushion — The Bath-house — Disrobing — Securing our Valuables — Moslem Honesty — Sitting down in a Hot Place — Gustave's Misadventure — Undergoing a Shampoo — Rubbed to a Jelly — The Couch of Repose — A Delicious Sensation — "All ze luxuries." WHILE we were walking through the bazaars, the guide casually pointed out the slave-market, and of course we entered. Our way led into a court yard, with a fountain in the center and a mosque at our side ; off at one corner was the en- trance to the slave-dealers' apartments. The merchant, a mild-mannered Moslem, was in the court yard, and had with him a black boy, a eunuch, for which he wanted thirty pounds. We followed the dealer up a narrow staircase to a locked room which he opened. Four negro women were there, two sitting and two lying upon the floor, which was spread with rugs and blankets ; the youngest may have been sixteen and the oldest thirty. The dealer said something in Arabic, whereupon the women rose and stood in a row facing us, where they were joined by the boy. All kept their heads turned away, but now and then darted furtive glances at us. We did not buy, and after giving the dealer a couple of francs as " backsheesh," we returned to the street. (290) DEALING IN HUMAN FLESH ! 291 In Damascus the slave trade is open. In Cairo and Constan- tinople it flourishes by stealth. In neither of the last two cities are strangers permitted to see it, but in Damascus there is no such concealment. The trade is not extensive, and is mainly confined to supplying servants for private houses. The trafific in beautiful women for the harems is nearly a thing of the past, and so is the general trade in slaves for heavy labor in large numbers. As far as I can learn, there was never a slave trade and slave employment half as extensive in the Orient as that which flourished in the United States less than twenty years ago. FLAT ROOFED HOUSES — DAMASCUS. Slaves in the East are a family possession, and are not reckoned as a specific item of wealth. We had been told not to fail to see some of the private houses of Damascus, as they are specially famous for their elegance. To wander about the city you would not suppose that it has many rich interiors, but you find on investigation that mud walls fre- quently lead to something rich inside. Judge not by appear- ances in Damascus. We entered some of the Moslem court yards, but were not allowed to see the inside of the houses. We saw some Christian houses richly adorned and decorated, but they will all come within the general description at the beginning of the preceding chapter. 292 AN ENTERTAINMENT AT A JEWISH HOUSE. There were many luxurious houses of Christian natives de- stroyed in 1 860, and few of these have been built. The Chris- tian quarter still bears the marks of Moslem hate, in the large areas that lie in ruins. The whole Christian quarter was burned, and about two thousand five hundred Christians were massacred. Despite the protection now extended to them by foreign pow- ers, the Christians of Damascus do not feel safe, and are con- stantly dreading a fresh outbreak of hostilities. Two Jewish houses that we visited had evidently cost a great deal of money; the dining room of one is finished in marble carving around the entire wall, and the cost of this one apart- ment was said to be ten thousand pounds. In one of the Jewish houses, the hostess invited us to seats in the room where herself, the ladies of her household, and a couple of visitors were squatted on divans and smoking nargilehs. They were much surprised that the lady of our party didn't smoke, and they wanted to stain her nails with henna and paint her eye-lashes. One of the lady visitors was a cantatrice, the Patti or Nilsson of Damascus, and at the request of the hostess we were favored with a song. Her voice was a sort of rough falsetto, and there was little melody or rhythm about the song when considered from a European point of view. How tastes differ! Such a song would not be listened to in Europe or America, except from curiosity ; and the song of Patti would, doubtless, be of no con- sequence in Damascus, Our guide told us that this lady has sung herself rich, and that she frequently receives twenty or thirty pounds for an evening's entertainment. We passed a very pleasant hour in this house, and shall long hold it in remembrance. I don't believe we should have enjoyed it half as well if the master had been at home, as I have a strong suspicion that we should not have been invited to drink coffee and smoke with the ladies. We wished to visit the house of the famous Abd-el-Kader, but found it impossible. Twenty years ago, this man filled a prom- inent place in history, but he is now nearly forgotten. He was born in 1807 in Algeria ; he was descended from a long line of Emirs ; his father was noted for the wisdom and liberality of his rule over the Algerian province of Oran. ABD-EL-KADER. 293 When the French occupied Algiers, Abd-el-Kader was one of their fiercest opponents, and from 1831 to 1847 he maintained an active warfare, interrupted by a few brief truces. In the last mentioned year he was captured and taken to France, but was soon released, on condition that he should not return to Algiers, nor take arms in any way against the French. The terms of the contract have been faithfully kept, and he has ever since been on the best terms with France. He resided for some years in Constantinople, and then moved to Damascus, where he spends the greater part of his time. He continues to wear the Algerian dress, and his dark hair and beard make a striking contrast to his snow-white garments Those who have met him say that he is a thoroughly courteous and highly polished gentleman, and in looks and bearing he is " every inch a king." Damascus is the most thoroughly Oriental in character of all the cities now in easy reach of the traveler. Constantinople and Cairo have each a large foreign population, and can number their Franks by thousands, but Damascus has less than a hundred of them, including missionaries, merchants, and nondescript Occi- dentals, who have wandered there by chance. The houses, ba- zaars, mosques and baths are to-day what they were five hundred years ago, and the Moslem is so averse to progress, that there is no great probability of any important change for five hundred years to come. As you wander through the streets of Damascus or stand in ARD-EL-KADER. 294 WE ARE "EARLY BIRDS. . its crowded market places, you are carried back to the days of Haroun-al-Raschid, and gaze upon the pictures that became fam- ihar to you in your boyhood perusal of the Arabian Nights. You forget the Present, you are Hving in the Past, and, full of bewilderment, you scan the title page of your note-book to make sure that you really tread the earth in the latter half of the nine- teenth century. I had missed the Turkish bath in Constantinople ; I could have taken one any morning and therefore postponed it until too late. In Damascus I determined not to be so negligent, and ac- cordingly arranged to try the Oriental bath on the second day of my stay, Gustave agreed to go with me, and we consulted our guide about the time and place. Imagine our astonishment when Mohammed informed us : " You must get up at five o'clock in ze morning and I takes you to ze bestest bath in Damas. Ze bath shut up at seven o'clock, and you get no bath then afterwards." This was early rising for us, but when you are in Damascus you must follow the custom of the Damascus blades. If, as the proverb says, the early child has the worms, there must be an immense demand in Damascus for vermifuge and that sort of thing. We couldn't do any sight-seeing in the evening, for the reason that there was no sight-seeing to see. Shops, cafes, and all other public establishments, were closed at sunset or a little later ; there were no street lamps, and the facilities for getting about were very limited. We stayed in the hotel in the evening, and went to bed at an hour we would have been ashamed to acknowledge at home. The people that went to bed at such an inhumanly early hour must rise in good season. They do this not from any ex- pectation of health or wealth, as promised by the old couplet, but simply for the reason that they couldn't endure to be in bed more than eight or nine hours at a stretch ; besides an Arab couch is not the most comfortable thing in the world, and doubtless has something to do with the matutinal habits of the people. It is said that the eastern shore of the Mediterranean is called the Levant, for the reason that the sun rises there. The natives rise before the sun, and to them rather than to the glorious orb of day is due the name by which the region is known. "WE PREPARE FOR " ZE BESTEST BATH. 295 Promptly at five in the morning Mohammed was at our door and we rose. Day was just beginning to dawn when we emerged from the hotel and started along the narrow streets that led to the bath-house. We kept close to Mohammed's heels, and nar- rowly missed stepping on the seat of his trowsers whenever he slackened his pace. The fellow's "breeks" were about the bag- giest pair it was ever my lot to gaze upon ; he must have bought them when cloth was cheap and the merchant willing to measure him with a fox-skin without counting the tail as anything. When he stood up, the amj^le part of his trowsers just missed the ground by an inch or so, and when he walked the depending mass of cloth swung unsteadily like a pendulum that has been on a spree. When he went over any little inequality the garment dragged, and sometimes it caught and held the wearer fast. When he sat down he gathered the trowsers under him and formed a sort of cushion that was comfortable to rest upon. It was then that we realized the design of the artist, and admitted that the inventor of the Turkish trowsers knew what he was about. A good many people were astir, and more than once we caromed against the plodding Orientals and caused them to utter what sounded like imprecations on the Christian dogs that had ventured to affront them. At length Mohammed brought himself to a halt and said : " Here, gentlemen, is ze bath ; ze best good bath in Damas. You bathe here so good as never was afterward before." The building was a low one, of stone, with a roof in which two or three domes were set like enormous kettles inverted. Light was admitted through circular windows, or bull's-eyes, like the cabin windows of an ocean steamer, let into the don^e at intervals none too frequent. In the vestibule we encountered a sort of door-keeper, to whom Mohammed said something in the lan- guage of the country, and then passed on to the first room of the bath. " Here is ze bain beautiful. You shall know soon how he is good." With that Mohammed selected a couple of attendants whose entire wardrobe was not worth fifty cents each. It consisted of 296 WE STRIP TO " ZE BUFF. a small tuft of hair on the crown of the head, the rest of the skull being closely shaven, and of a piece of cloth about the loins. I fell to the lot of a dark-skinned gentleman any way from twenty-five to forty years old, and with a muscular develop- ment about the arms that would have done honor to a pugilist. He assisted me to disrobe, but was not very ex- pert about it, being unfamiliar with the wardrobe of the Occi- dent. " You will have ze bain avec all ze luxuries, — ze caf^, ze chi- book, ze everyting," said Mo- hammed in a tone of inquiry. " Certainly, mon cher de- scendant of the Prophet," I replied, " and you will do us the with us. Order baths for three, and you yourself dis- encumber your corporosity of those habiliments and show us how to Orientalize." " Pardon, gentlemens, but I no speak German ; only English, French, Italian, Greek, Turk, and Arab. I no understand what you says. Speak ze English, please." " Well then ; peel — strip cff your clothes and go in." " Ah ! zat is bono," replied Mohammed, and beckoning to a third attendant, he was soon in the costume of the Apollo Belvidere. My attendant, as soon as he had stripped me, folded my clothes into a bundle, tied them up in a small sheet, and laid the package away on a divan at the side of the room. WE " STRIP TO ZE BUFF. honor to go through the viotilin 'YOU WILL HAVE ALL ZE LUXURIES.' AND ENTER " ZE BAIN BEAUTIFUL. 297 WE ENTER "ZE BAIX BEAUTIFUL." I asked Mohammed if everything was safe, as we had our watches and some, though not mucli, money. We had given our letters of credit and the most of our coin to our friends before retiring the night previous, as we thought some acci- dent might happen if we left things around loose in the bath-house. " All tings is safe here," explained our guide. " Zare is no Christians but you in ze house. All ze rest is Moslem, and all tings is safe." Thus reassured, we sub- mitted to the situation. When they had removed our clothing they dressed us in towels around the loins and wrapped wet cloths about our heads. Then they mounted us on wooden clogs that were difficult to keep in place, and which I kicked off in the next room whither my attendant led me. The place was gloomy and full of steam, and the tempera- ture anything but agree- able. It was heated by a furnace under the floor, and the heat was carried around and made even by means of pipes and flues in the wall. While we stood un- certain what to do, two or three buckets of water were dashed over us. I was not expecting it, and the shock of the water striking me in the breast was sufficient to knock me down. I fell against Mohammed and he against his attendant, and we ONE OF THE LUXURIES. 298 WE ENJOY "ZE BATH. all went into a heap. Mohammed was fat and rather flabby, so that he broke my fall in the most satisfactory manner. It hurt him somewhat, but that made no difference, as we hired him by the day and paid his expenses. In one corner a lot of fellows were sitting on the floor and softening the as- perities- of the bath by sing- ing an Arab air. Moham- med said they were soldiers, but there wasn't one of them with any more uni- form than we wore, and certainly ours was very scanty. We looked and listened, perspired and waited, and just as the SOFTENING THE ASPERITIES. placc began to seem com- fortable the attendants led us into another room compared to which the first was a refriger- ator. It was frightfully hot and took away the breath, and if I had considered myself a free moral agent I would have backed out. Gustave thought he would sit down, and seeing a block of marble through the steamy atmosphere, he went for it. Before the attendant knew what he was about Gustave had taken a seat. My duty to the moral and religious public re- quires the omission of the remarks of my friend im- mediately subsequent to his assumption of the sitting posture. They were made in German, English, and French, and were brief and emphatic. A HOT ONE. AND "ALL ZE LUXURIES. 299 What he supposed to be a block of stone proved to be a mar- ble tub filled with water. The temperature was sufficiently ele- vated to cause him to howl with pain, but it did no real damage. We squatted in a group on the floor after lifting Gustave from his tub, and there we sat puffing and perspiring for some ten min- utes or more. Then my attendant laid me on a stone bench and put me through what is called the " shampoo." He squeezed, and rubbed and pulled and pounded till I was as limp as a boned turkey and possessed as much consistency as a jelly fish. I expected to spread out and run over the sides of the bench and I took a glance downward to see if there was danger of running off through the waste pipes. I called faintly to Mo- hammed, and heard a husky " Monsieur" in response. " Have the goodness," I said, " to ask this gentleman to put me in a sack if he wants to rub me any more. Any sack with small meshes will do, but I want it tight enough to keep me together. " And Mohammed," I added, " if there is a rolling mill or a wire-drawing establishment handy he could facilitate matters by running me through it, and then" — A bucket of hot water was poured over me, and some of it en- tering my mouth put an end to my appeals for mercy. I was soon let off and taken into the first room, where several buckets of water each cooler than its predecessor were thrown over me. Then I was wiped dry, and a cool dry turban was wrapped around my head, and I was clothed in a white garment, and laid away on a divan. Blankets were wrapped around me, and coffee and a chibook were brought. Gustave was similarly mummified and placed near me, and Mohammed was stowed away on the opposite side of the room. We reclined there smoking and sipping coffee, sipping coffee and smoking, talking and drowsing, drowsing and talking, for nearly an hour. Coffee was never more delicious than then, and I solemnly aver that I never had more enjoyment of a pipe. The long stem of the chibook allows the smoke to cool before it reaches the mouth, and there was a delicate flavor to the tobacco that adapted it to the listless condition of mind and limp condition of body which follows the bath. We dressed, paid our " backsheesh," and departed happy in mind and body over " ze bestest good bath in Damas." 19 CHAPTER XXII TRAVELING IN A CARAVAN— SIGHTS ON THE WAY. Turning our faces eastward — The land of the Sun — PalmvTa, Bagdad, and Babylon — The desert in summer and winter — A dangerous road — The Robbers of the Wil- derness — Ruins in the Desert — A city of wonders — The haunts of the Bedouins — Engaging an escort — The start for Palmyra — On a Dromedary's back — The en- virons of Damascus — A bed on the sand — "Everyone to his taste"— A knav- ish Governor — Winking at Robbery — In the Desert — On the great caravan track — Caravansaries, what are they ? — The high road to India — An Arab fountairu HOW I longed, when at Damascus, to push further into Asia, Before me lay the land of the Arabian nights — the valley of the Euphrates and of the Tigris ; beyond the horizon my im- agination pictured the battlemented walls of Bagdad, her white domes and arrowy minarets shining among the waving palms. I walked her streets once trodden by the feet of Haroun-al-Ras- chid and made familiar in the stories that w^ere written in his time and — if we may believe our tradition — for his entertainment. I fancied myself upon the site of Babylon or of Nineveh, and amid the crumbled ruins of those once powerful cities that rep- resented the grandeur and greatness of the ancient East. I followed the story of Xenophon in the retreat of the Ten Thousand, and stood upon the ground where Alexander marched to the glory that made him The Great. I was upon the thresh- old — yes, I had passed the portals — of that part of the East which has suffered least from the progress and enterprise of the Occident. With longing eyes I looked beyond the rising sun and wished, oh, how I wished, that I might go on and on till I should 300 ANYTHING BUT MURDER. 3OI tread the soil of Ormuz or of Ind, and feel upon my brow the spice- laden breezes of fair Cathay. But fate was inexorable and many things conspired to prevent my further progress. We had arranged to keep together till we reached Egypt ; the rest of the party were pressed for time and had determined upon Damascus as the Ultima Thule of their journey. The season was not favorable for an overland excur- sion as we might be caught in winter storms in the desert, and furthermore the robbers were more dangerous then than in the summer. From Damascus it is customary to travel with a cara- van under a heavy escort, and there would be no caravan for sev- eral months. The authorities will sometimes give an escort and be responsible for the safety of the traveller, but such an outfit costs heavily and requires a very long purse. Arrangements can be made to ride with the fortnightly mail from Damascus to Bag- dad, but there are various objections to this mode of journeying. I thought over all the obstacles in my way and concluded that it was best to keep with our party and go on to Palestine and Egypt. Among the reasons which impelled me to this decision was the fact that I had neither time nor money enough to go farther East, and besides I should be cut off from the society of the " Doubter." I might get along without money by setting up as a dervish and begging my way, but could existence be possi- ble without our skeptic .-' Consequently I must go to Egvpt. Even Palmyra had to be given up, and, sighing, I turned my face to the west. But I fell in with a French traveller, who had come overland from Bagdad and spent a day at Palmyra, and I listened with boyish interest to his account of what he saw there. It is no small matter to reach Palmyra, for the reason that it stands in the midst of desolate wastes, which are the possession or at all events the " backsheeshing " ground of the most lawless of the Bedouin Arabs They have no conscientious scruples about robbery ; the only point in their favor is that they are averse to shedding blood, and unless he offers resistance, the traveller can feel as certain about saving his life as he is of losing his property. They may strip him of everything and leave him naked, on foot, and without food or drink in the middle of the desert, but they have qualms of conscience about murder, though 302 BEDOUIN SHEIKS, WHAT ARE THEY ? quite willing their victim should starve or roast to death. Those who assert that the Bedouins are heartless and cruel, should take note of the above fact, and make an ample apology if they have hitherto said anything uncomplimentary about these plundering blackguards. It is absolutely necessary to have an escort in going to Pal- myra, and one can be found among the Bedouin sheiks, loafing around Damascus. Under their convoy the traveller can con- sider himself secure ; they are pretty honorable in this respect, and after getting a heavy " backsheesh " for safe conduct, they carry out their contracts, though they expect an additional " backsheesh " on their return and the delivery of the traveller to himself, in good order and condition. It is better to leave money and valu- ables in Damascus, taking only enough coin along to pay trifling expenses, and leaving the compensation of escort and dragoman at the banker's or consulate. If you are going overland to Bag- dad, carry your money in drafts and circular notes, and not in gold. The Bedouin has a sharp eye for money, and much coin is sure to attract it. The Palmyra journey s^iould be made with camels or drome- daries, for the reason that there are long stretches without water. Horses may be ridden, but there must be one or more camels at any rate to carry water for them. The sheiks always prefer to take no horses, as they can thereby make the journey more quickly, and consequently cheaper. Well, let us suppose we are going to Palmyra. We have com- pleted all our arrangements, agreed upon the price to be paid, and how to pay it, have arrayed ourselves in Oriental garments, mounted our dromedaries, and filed out of the city. There may be a difificulty in obtaining a sufficient number of dromedaries for the start, and in that case we ride horses to Kuryetien, about two days' journey from Damascus. There the sheik will have the necessary animals assembled and waiting our arrival. We strike away to the northeastward, going at first along a paved road and among the groves and gardens for which the country around Damascus is famous. We meet crowds of people on their way to town, and accompanied by camels and donkeys bearing the produce of the farms. In some seasons of the year EVERY MAN TO HIS TASTE. 303 we will meet long strings of camels, which have come from Bag- dad, laden with dates, silks, leather goods, and other merchandise from that city ; there may be dozens of these in a single party, and sometimes there may be hundreds of them. The drivers are brown, and not over clean ; water has been a scarce article among them, and the rivers of Damascus are to their eyes a most welcome sight. One would think that the privations of the desert would inspire no great love for the arid waste, and yet these wild Arabs are so attached to it that they make their stay in the city as brief as possible, and the moment their business is ended they hasten back to their wanderings in the wilderness. " Give me a pillow of snow," said a Laplander, breathing his last in a Southern clime, " and I shall die happy." " Give me my bed of sand in the desert," says the Bedouin Arab, " and I shall sleep in peace." Every man to his own liking. Tastes are different all the world over. Ten or twelve miles from Damascus, we leave the groves and shady gardens, and emerge upon a plain irrigated by the waters of the Barada. The plain is cultivated, though generally desti- tute of arboreal productions, and here and there are the little clumps of trees where the houses of the farmers are embowered. We passed some villages in the groves ; we see a little hamlet on the plain to our right, but evidently we were not likely to find a dense population. Now we leave the plain and ascend a some- what rugged path along a barren and rounded mountain which attains an elevation of nearly two thousand feet above the valley of the Barada. In an hour or so we reach the pass, and at the ruin of an old caravansary we look down upon a plain which stretches away like an ocean and fills the eastern horizon. Five villages are in sight ; they are the homes of the people that cultivate portions of this plain. Wheat and barley are the principal products of the plain, and they find a market in Damas- cus. The inhabitants are peaceable, but their frequent encoun- ters with Bedouin plunderers have made them acquainted with the use of weapons, and give them a rather warlike appearance. They dress much like the Bedouins, and a stranger finds it diffi- cult to distinguish one from the other. 304 A NIGHT WITH THE BEDOUINS. The first night of the journey is usually spent at Jerud, a large village, which is the capital of the province and the dwell- ing place of a Turkish agha or petty governor. He has a com- pany of cavalry at his command to resist the Bedouin Arabs, and not unfrequently has occasion to use them. It is hinted that he sometimes shuts his eyes while a foray is in progress, and begins the pursuit when the plunderers have reached a secure distance. Of course the robbers are expected to do the square thing under such circumstances, and make an honorable division of the spoils. But we should not listen to such calumnies, as we expect to stop over night in the governor's house, and as long as we are under his roof we receive every hospitality. The assemblage is a mixed one, as there are Arabs from half-a-dozen tribes spending the night there, and we are expected to show no haughtiness in any way. The man who goes around with his nose in the air will run the risk of a snub from some of his fellow-guests. Out of Jerud we go in the morning at a pretty early hour, and very soon we are in the Desert. We have left the fertile country behind us, and before and around we have the treeless and deso- late waste. We are in a wide valley bounded by bleak and bar- ren hills whose sides present an unvarying panorama of grey rocks and earth. The ground is not sandy, but is covered with fragments of limestone and flint, and now and then we see a little tuft of coarse grass struggling to maintain an existence, and evidently doubtful about keeping it up. Birds and beasts are rare ; in fact there is no inducement for them to stay there. When speaking of birds in such a locality, I am reminded of the story of a traveller at an unpromising place somewhere in Utah or Nevada. He entered the dining- room of the only hotel and asked for breakfast. " Can give you beefsteak, fried ham, and curlew," said the land- lord, whose beard resembled an inverted sage-bush, and whose belt revealed a bowie-knife and revolver. And he added, "The curlew is very good." " What is curlew .'' " said the wayfarer. "It is a bird that we shoot round here." " Has it got any wings .''" " Yes." THE GREAT CARAVAN ROUTE. 305 "And can it fly ?" " You bet it can fly ! " " Then bring me some beefsteak," said the traveller, emphati- cally. " I want nothing to do with a bird that would stay in this miserable country when he could fly away from it. No curlew in mine, if you please." Three or four miles from Jerud we pass a village where there is a fountain, and then for nearly thirty miles the road follows the desert valley as before. A hot sky above, bleak mountains on either hand, before us an undulating plain, shut in by these mountains, and beneath our feet the gravelly, flinty, verdure- less soil, and our caravan slowly winding onward, form the scene presented to our eyes. Can we be- lieve that this route has had an existence for cen- turies ? Thousands and thou- sands of years — history does not tell us for how long — this way has been trodden by the feet of patient camels and less patient men. It was the caravan route from Damascus to the opulent East. Ages and ages ago began and flourished a commerce now greatly decayed ; as we look from the backs of our beasts of burden we see here and there the ruins of castles and caravansaries which once formed the halting places of the merchants when night overtook them, protected them against robbers, and in turn, perhaps, pro- tected the robbers and sent out predatory bands for purposes of plunder. Once this was the great road to India and Far Cathay, long before the sea routes were known, and when navigation was in its most primitive state. Steam and sail and the mariner's WHAT IS CURLEW ?" 306 GIRDLED BY ARABS. compass have laid a destroying hand on the caravan traffic, and in place of the myriad trains of camels that once moved along this mountain-girdled valley we find now but a comparatively thin thread of commerce. The world is a world of progress. We reach Kuryetein, a large village occupied by Moslems and Christians in the proportion of two to one. It is in the same valley we have traversed all the way from Jerud, which continues to Palmyra, forty miles further on. Here is an oasis in the Desert; a fountain bursts from the end of a low spur which juts out of the mountain range and touches one end of the village. It is quite possible that the man who declared it remarkable that great rivers run by large cities might insist that there is a foun- tain near Kuryetein and dispute our assertion that Kuryetein is near a large fountain ; but we wont be particular about words, as we are to stop here over night and want to have a peaceful time of it, to prepare us for the fatigues of to-morrow. The water from the fountain is carried in little canals by a very careful system of irrigation over a considerable extent of ground, and creates fertility in what would otherwise be a barren waste. Kuryetein is in the country of the Bedouins, and these Arabs frequently come and camp near the village on account of the water that constantly flows there. They bring their flocks and herds and constitute themselves a general nuisance, as they are not particular about camping grounds and take the first place they can find, without much regard for the owner's rights. If I were obliged to live in a village situated as this is, and under all its disadvantages, I would move away at once. The broken columns and large stones, hewn and squared, lying around, indicate beyond a doubt that a city of importance once stood here, but the most diligent inquirer can learn nothing of the inhabitants concerning the place. It stood there as far back as they can remember, and that is all they know about it. •i^^. CHAPTER XXIII. TENT-LIFE AMONG THE BEDOUINS.— THE WARRIORS OF THE DESERT. Among the Bedouins — A Genuine Son of the Desert — High-toned Robbers — A Sam- ple of Bedouin Hospitality — Etiquette in an Arab ICncampmtnt — A Ca^e of In- sult — Tent-life and its Freedom — A Nation of Cavalry-Warriors — Bedouin Dres-s, Manners and Customs — Their Horses and Weapons — A Singular Custom — A Caricature Steed and his Rider — Arab Scare-Crows — On the Road to Palmyra — A Mountain of Ruins — The Grand Colonnade — The Temple of the Sun — A Build- ing Half a Mile in Circumference — An Earthquake, and what it did — The City of the Caliphs. w: E are sure to see some of the real Bedouins of the Desert during our stay here, and this will be a good place to learn something about them. The real, untamed Bedouin differs from the shabby counter- feit we see around Jerusalem and Beyrout as a five dollar gold piece differs from a bogus cent. The real Bedouin rides a fine horse (which is almost always a mare), and he gets himself up in a style sufficiently gorgeous to be a partial compensation to the traveller for being robbed by him. He is a dignified, high- toned thief, and transacts business on the square; he is never impolite, even when plundering you, and his hospitality is un- bounded. When you go to a Bedouin encampment you must stop at the first tent ; if you pass it by for a better looking one you will offer the owner an affront he cannot easily forget, and ten to one he will come around and ask you to step out on the sidewalk and and have a little pugilism a la Bcdoiiiji. They wisely put the (307) 308 A BEDOUIN CAMP. Sheik's tent nearest the roadway, and consequently the stranger naturally comes into his hands and becomes his guest. They do all in their power to make the visitor comfortable, and treat him always to the best the place affords. He has the full and free run of the village, can go to the opera or circus without paying a cent, and can run up as large a bill as he chooses at any of the bars and restaurants. He pays nothing for carriages, morning papers, cocktails and cigars, and the street cars ; hospitals and rat pits are always open to him. For a real free-and-easy to a stranger, nothing can beat a Bedouin encampment. A BEDOUIN ENCAMPMENT. A gentleman who has seen much of the Bedouins between Damascus and Palmyra speaks of them as follows : " The Amazeh are probably the most powerful of all the Arab tribes. They scour the Desert, from the Euphrates to the borders of Syria, and from Aleppo to the plain of Nejd — in winter emigrating to the Euphrates, and sometimes spreading over Meso- potamia ; in spring they come up like "locusts for multitude" along the frontier of Syria. They can bring into the field ten thousand horsemen and nearly ninety thousand camel riders, and PICTURESQUE COSTUMES. 309 they are lords of a district forty thousand square miles in area. They are divided into four great tribes, which are not unfrequently at war, though they call themselves brothers. " Their dress consists of an under garment of calico, gray or blue, reaching to the midleg, and fastened round the waist with a leathern girdle. The sleeves are wide and have very long, pend- ant points. Over this is thrown the abba or loose cloak of goat's A BEDOUIN OF THE DESERT. hair, having, usually, broad, vertical stripes of white and brown. On the head is the cafia or silk kerchief, held in place by a cord of camel's hair. The sheiks are distinguished by a short scarlet pelisse lined with fur or sheepskin, and they wear large boots of red leather while the common people generally walk barefoot. " The women are almost all handsome when young, and in form 310 THE DESERT WARRIORS. and feature many of them are models. But they have bad tem- pers, are oppressed with hard work from their youth, and soon lose all their freshness and beauty. Their dress is very simple, consisting of a wide loose robe of blue calico, fastened round the neck and sweeping the ground. On the head is a large black veil usually of silk but seldom used to cover the face. They are fond of ornaments ; rings, ear-rings, bracelets and anklets of glass, copper, silver and gold are worn in great abundance. Five or six bracelets are often found on a single dark arm while rings of all shapes and sizes cover the fingers. " The principal weapon of the Bedouin is a lance, about twelve feet long and steel pointed, and the opposite end contains an iron spike for fixing it in the ground. In a charge the lance is held above the head and just before striking it is shaken so as to make it quiver from end to end. All the horsemen carry swords and some of them carry pistols and daggers. The Bedouins have a novel mode of warfare with dromedaries each carrying two men. The foremost of these men has a short spear and a club or mace at his saddle bow and the other carries a matchlock. " They seldom fight pitched battles. Guerrilla warfare is their forte. To fall upon the enemy suddenly, sweep off a large amount of booty and get back to their own territory again, ere rescue or reprisal can be effected, is the Arab style. Plun- dering parties often go a distance of eight or ten days' journey. Every warrior rides his mare but has a companion mounted on a dromedary to carry provisions and water. The latter remain at a rendezvous while the horsemen make the attack. In their forays the Bedouins never kill an unresisting foe unless tempted by blood-revenge." The real Bedouin is not a large personage. He is rarely taller than five feet and seven or eight inches, and is not inclined to corpulence. He appears taller than he really is by reason of his erectness, and he has a light, elastic step and performs every movement with ease and grace. His features are sharp, his nose aquiline, his eyes dark, deep set and generally lustrous, his beard thin and short and his hair long and worn in greasy plaits down each side of the face. The complexion is a dark olive, but it varies considerably among different tribes. A MOST WONDERFUL BEAST. 311 The Bedouins of Jerusalem and most other parts of Palestine are a burlesque upon the sons of the Desert. The " Doubter" called them sons of thieves, or something of the sort, and for once we agreed with him. The first one that was pointed out to me was enough to make a chicken laugh or a mule sing. He was mounted on a horse that looked as if he had walked out of a bone-boiling factory by mistake and was waiting to go back again and take his turn. His ^___^^^^^ . ^^ (the horse's) pet hold ^ ^ appeared to be in wait- ^ ing, and certainly his general style indicated that he could put the time in that way better than in any other un- less it were in dying. As for speed he couldn't pass any other horse, short of a dead one, except by going the other way, and I have a strong belief that a dead horse would have given him a rea- sonably lively trial. He was all over knobs like an Irish blackthorn and the "Doubter" took him at first for a lot of oyster shells nailed against a gar- den gate. He drank through his left eye or rather the socket for it, and then his upper lip curled over in a sort of a hook that was very conven- ient in picking up anything ; one ear hung forward and the other aft ; his tail had been originally " set up" but it had broken and lopped half way so that it doubled back on itself in a manner remarkable to behold. ^^ THE TERROR OF THE DESERT ON HIS ARAIUAN CHARGER. 312 A CHEAP-JOHN BEDOUIN. The rider was as great a burlesque as the horse. He looked like a last year's scarecrow, coming home from a drunk, and in gazing upon his looped and windowed raggedness you experienced a desire to move him to the nearest cornfield, run a bean pole through him, and set him up on a stump. As a work of art, he was worthy a place among the pictures and statuary in the cap- itol at Washington, and it was fortunate that none of our aesthetic Congressmen could have a chance at him. He carried a spear and tried to wave it at an imaginary foe, but before he got it in the air the point fell out and disconcerted him. We turned away to hide our tears — and smiles. A regiment of oil derricks would be about as serviceable as one composed of these fellows, so far as fighting qualities are concerned. If I am ever robbed I hope it will not be by one of these cheap-John Bedouins. I should feel as badly as a man I once knew who was telling me of an ac- cident from which he was limpingly recovering. " To think," said he, " that I should have been ten years at sea, and four years in the army in the field, with never a scratch, and then be run over by a swill-wagon and have my leg broken." In the forty miles and more from Kuryetein to Palmyra there is not a drop of water, and the journey is generally made in one day with a single brief halt. The valley is the same and varies from four to eight miles in width, and the features of the land- scape are the same as before. By and by the mountains shut in upon the valley and leave only a narrow and crooked pass. We enter this and suddenly the whole mass of ruins upon the site of Palmyra are spread be- fore our wondering eyes. The scene is wild, strange, grand, and gloomy. Ruins heaped on ruins, rows and rows of columns with great irregular gaps where Time and man have performed the work of destruction ; huge pillars rising singly and in groups, scattered masses of enor- mous stones, broken arches and gateways and porticos, walls of immense strength encircling what was once the city, and in the back ground the great Temple of the Sun, these form the pic- ture. Baalbek is humble in our minds as we look at Palmyra. No other ruin in Syria can compare with this. As we rode along the dreary stretch from Kuryetein to Palmyra we tried THE TEMPLE OF THE SUN. 313 to imagine the spectacle that was to be revealed to us, but our imagination fell far short of the realit}'. We forget our fa- tigue and as our camel kneels we dismount and stand lost in ad- miration and amazement. The greatest of all the ruins in Palmyra is that of the Temple of the Sun. The edifice was originally a square court, measuring seven hundred and forty feet on each of the four sides, and its walls were seventy feet high. Near the centre of this court was the temple, composed of Corinthian columns, which supported an entablature elaborately sculptured and revealing a high state of art. The work here is quite equal to that at Baalbek, and the resemblance in many points is remarkable. The temple is much defaced, as it has been used both as a fortress and a mosque, and in the latter instance the pious Moslems sought to remove as much as possible the indications of a pagan origin. Time has been more kind than man ; the clear air of the Desert has pre- served the sculptures wherever man left them untouched, and many of them are now as clear and sharp as when the architect pronounced his work complete, and stood in triumph at the en- trance of the once magnificent portico. Remember that the col- umns of the temple were almost seventy feet high, and that inside the court nearly a hundred columns still remain standing ! About three hundred yards from the temple is the entrance to the grand colonnade, which originally consisted of four rows of columns, extending from one end of the city to the other, a dis- tance of nearly an English mile. The columns were each nearly sixty feet high, including base and capital, and of the fifteen hun- dred that originally composed it, nine-tenths have fallen. It is thought that Palmyra has at some time suffered from an earth- quake, as in some places whole ranges of columns are thrown down in such a way as to indicate that their fall was simul- taneous. No one knows when this work was erected, but from certain marks on the stones, it is attributed to the time of the Emperor Hadrian. The temple and the colonnade are the great wonders of Palmyra, and I will not detract from them by attempting a description of the other ruins inclosed within the walls or scattered amonir the hills that surround the site of this won- 314 THE LAND OF THE "ARABIAN NIGHTS." derful city. Let us fix our attention on the two objects I have named. Palmyra, or Tadmor, owes its origin to Solomon, King of Is- rael. In his time the route of travel and commerce to and from the East lay in this direction, and he determined to found a city which should protect it. He, therefore, as recorded in I Kings ix. 18, built Tadmor in the wilderness. For nearly a thousand years subsequent to the time of King Solomon, the name of Tadmor does not appear, but it became noticeable about the beginning of the Christian Era. After its submission to the Emperor Hadrian, its greatness increased rap- idly ; then it underwent a series of varying fortunes, until about the beginning of the fourth century, when the time of its grandeur came to an end, and its decline and fall were rapid. In the twelfth century it had a population of more than four thou- sand ; now the only inhabitants of Palmyra are a few dozens of dirty and sullen Arabs, who live in hovels erected in the court yard of the Temple of the Sun. We spend a day at Palmyra, wandering among its ruins and musing upon Solomon, and Hadrian, and Zenobia, whose very names are unknown to the people now dwelling there. Early the next morning we resume our seats in the saddle and return to Damascus. F"rom Palmyra one can travel to Bagdad by way of Mossool, and I met several gentlemen who had made the journey. It is a fatiguing one and must be made partly in the saddle and partly on a raft, unless the traveller is fortunate enough to find a boat at Mossool. The shores of the river are somewhat monotonous, and the principal incidents of the route are the danger of an upset. Bagdad is well known to us from the recurrence of its name so frequently in the Arabian Nights. A British official who visited it a few years ago, says that it covers an enormous space for an Oriental city. Its population is estimated at about eighty thousand. The chief part of it consists of Arabs and Turks, but there is a large colony of Persians and other Orientals, as well as a fair number of Christians, and a few Jews. The town proper is on one side of the Tigris, which is spanned by a bridge of boats, but the fine houses are scattered on both A STRANGE DISEASE. 31/ banks. For a third of the year the climate of Bagdad is delight- ful, another third it is a trifle too warm for comfort, but can be endured, and for the remaining third it is so hot that it could give points to the inside of a smelting furnace and then beat it. At this time the inhabitants take shelter in their cellars, and anybody who has a refrigerator to sleep in is considered for- tunate. They bake their bread by putting the dough on a plat- ter and setting it in the sun, and when they want to roast a tur- key or a joint of mutton, they put it on the housetop for a quarter of an hour about noon. I haven't the documents for all the above statements, but know a man who will prepare them if paid in advance. There is a curious disease in this part of the world, and its ravages extend through the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris, and as far west as Aleppo. In Bagdad it is called the date- mark, and further west is known as the Aleppo button. It is a sore, obstinate and annoying, but painless, and appears on any part of the body just as a boil does in Christian countries, It stays twelve months, and then heals of its own accord, leaving a scar which stays for life. At first this scar is the color of a date, but it fades out in a few years, and resembles the rest of the skin. Everybody must have it once, and only once ; the disease is impartial, as it shows no distinction between natives and foreign- ers who have not taken out their papers of naturalization. The gentleman who is my authority says he knew an officer in the British army, in whom the date-mark made its appearance while he was travelling from Bagdad to India. It remained untouched, and then an English doctor attempted to cure it. He cauterized it ever}'^ day for four weeks, and at the end of that time the sore dried up and healed. Everything went on well for a month, and then the sore reappeared — not in the old spot, but in four other places, where it remained five months and then vanished. 20 li^^fe^-^r^^ CHAPTER XXIV. ADVENTURES IN THE MOUNTAINS OF SYRIA. "Doing" Syria — The "Short" and the "Long" Route — How to Choose Them — Engaging a Dragoman — Farewell to Damascus — Preying on Trave lers — The Wonderful Rivers of Syria — Cross'ng the Desert — A Picture of Desolation — Scene of St. Paul's Conversion — .V Striking Contrast — Ancient Ruins and Modern Hovels — A Night with the Bedouins — A Hard Road to Travel — A Glorious View — The "Doubter's" Mischance — The Lizard in the Boot — A Ludicrous Scene — Gustave's New Joke — Mollifying a Native — The Massacre at Hasbeiya — Treachery of a Turkish Colonel — Scene of Christ's Labors — In the Holy Land. THE " short route " of Syria and Palestine is to land at Bey- rout , proceed to Damascus, by way cf ]\Iount Lebanon, and then return to Beyrout. There one takes ship to Jaffa, whence he visits Jerusalem and the country around it, and returns to Jaffa to sail away to Egypt or some other country. The " long route " is to land at Beyrout and proceed to Damas- cus, as before. From Damascus one goes overland by Tiberias to Jerusalem, and, after seeing the Holy City and surrounding country, takes ship at Jaffa. This route may be reversed by landing at Jaffa and taking ship at Beyrout. From Damascus to Jerusalem, by the " long route," is a horse- back journey of seventeen days. It may be shortened by rapid travel, and extended to any limit ; if you hire the dragoman and his outfit by the day, the longer you make the time the better he will be pleased. The spring is the best time of the year for making this excur- sion, as it comes between the period of " the early and the latter There are no carriage roads in this part of the country, (318) rain. WORLDLY-MINDED SYRIANS. 319 and the traveller must make up his mind to the discomforts of a saddle and to lodging in a tent. A dragoman will undertake to supply him with everything — horses, tents, food, bedding, and all — for a stipulated price, which varies with the size of the party, the time of year, and various other circumstances. I shall have more to say on this subject in another place, and will jump at once into the saddle without wasting time upon preliminaries. The long route was impracticable for our party at the time we were in Syria, but I gave it a very careful study, and from the sources at my command obtained the fullest information concern- ing it. Let us undertake a journey by this ancient way, and we will carry the " Doubter " along with us. He can't be spared. We leave Damascus by the Salahiyeh suburb, passing along a paved road and making a gentle ascent that gives us a good view of the city every time we choose to turn our heads. Some of the houses in this suburb are quite good, and we are not surprised to learn that many of the merchants of Damascus make their resi- dence here. As we reach the end of the large village we pass some ruined mosques and tombs, but we have seen so many of these things that our attention is hardly attracted by them. The Mos- lems of the past must have been more devout than are their de- scendants of to-day, as they built a great many edifices for reli- gious and memorial purposes, to which very little attention is paid at present The Syrian Moslem does not seem to care for the antique any more than does his Turkish brother ; there may be exceptions, but I think the rule holds good. For the ruins of Baalbek and Palmyra, the Syrian has no veneration except for their money-making qualities ; the few people that live near them are not attracted to either spot by any love for it, but solely because it is a good place for " backsheesh." Take away the tourist and his gold and silver and the natives would move else- where. I am the more severe on these worldly-minded Syrians, who remain unmoved in the face of the stupendous remains of a past age when I contrast them with the guides and runners, hackmen and peddlers, hotel-keepers and hotel-waiters, who assemble at Niagara and similar places in America. At Palmyra, or at the Pyramids, the Arabs pester you for " backsheesh," and greatly 320 SKIRTING THE DESERT. mar your interest and pleasure. But at Niagara did any one ever hear of such conduct on the part of the men who make their living there .'* The noble qualities of the American (generally a naturalized one), come out strongly at Niagara ; the beauty and sublimity of the cataract never fail to impress the resident with the sense of his duties to his fellow-man, and while the Arab will endeavor to make you pay ten times what you ought, his Niagara prototype is satisfied with five times, provided he knows he cannot possibly lie you out of any more. I have been at Niagara and Long Branch, the White Mountains and the Yosemite Valley, and thus speak knowingly. And whenever an Arab endeavored to defraud me I thought how much better things were at the fashionable resorts in my own country, and derived much conso- lation from the reflection. We take a last view of Damascus from a point where the road crosses a hill about five hundred feet above the city, and nearly two miles away. We see the valley of the Abana in all its love- liness, and realize how much is due to this river and its never- failing waters. We can fully understand the pride with which the native of Damascus contemplates this perennial stream and do not wonder at the reply of Naaman, when told to wash in Jordan. The river is made all the more lovely by its fringe of trees and the wide-spreading gardens where it flows, and the greenness of the foliage is rendered all the more apparent when we contrast it with the barren hills around. The river, divided here and there into several streams, foams and ripples through the glen that leads it down from the mountains to the plain below. Our road lies along this glen, and we suddenly leave it and emerge upon the plain of Dimas. The change is quite abrupt, from the rich verdure of the valley to the sterility of the Desert, for this plain is really a desert in miniature. The soil is hard and dry, more like flint than earth, and, if you happen to traverse it in summer, you find the heat is intense It happened to be raining when I crossed this plain, and moreover, it was in the winter, so that I escaped the sensation of undergoing a torture by roasting. It is difficult to realize that such a barren waste can exist so near such a charming city as Damascus. The plain is about ten miles across, and from one THE "doubter" as A MULE. 321 side to the other there is not a green thing to be seen, unless the traveller may consider himself one. After crossing the plain of Dimas we enter the mountains, where we find a few pleasant valleys and ravines, and have some rugged scenery that is not disagreeable. From one of the passes the guide points out another road, which leads more to the east- ward, and where the scene of Saul's conversion is located. There seems to be some difference of opinion about the exact locality, and I suspect that nobody knows the real state of things. The tradition which locates the conversion there dates back to the time of the Crusades. Some authorities make the scene of the conversion almost under the walls of Damascus, and others within a mile or two of that place. It all depends upon what is meant by " near Damascus." If we were at San Francisco, and speaking of Albany, we might say " it is near New York," but should hardly use the expression if we were at Trenton or Hart- ford. However, it makes no difference about the conversion ; we know it happened on the road from Jerusalem, and was near Damascus, so that a mile or two is of no consequence. We pass several villages and wind among the hills, and in some of the villages, or near them, we find the remains of temples jvhich were doubtless magnificent in their time. They are sup- posed to have been dedicated to the worship of the sun, though their history and origin are unknown. We are in front of the mountain of Hermon, known here as Jebelesh-Sheik, and it is observable that in several places the temples are made to face it, leading to the supposition that the mountain was an object of veneration and worship. We pass the night in our camp, at the little village of Rasheiya ; we are not in the village, but near enough to enable the beggars and the lame, halt, and blind to find us without trouble and ask for " backsheesh," which they are sure to do. The white top of Mount Hermon rises above us, and we look upon it with longing eyes. Who will join me in climbing it .? We will divide the party for a day. We will put the " Doubter " with the rest of the mules and send them around to Hasbeiya, where they can wait till we get down on the other side of Her- mon. We will start before daybreak, climb the mountain, and, 3-2 CLIMBING MT. HERMON. by making sharp work of it, can get down to camp in season for a late supper. We shall feel as tired as though we had been run through a rolling mill ; climbing Mount Hermon is serious busi- ness, and a thing to do once. Nobody would undertake it a sec- ond time, for the mere pleasure of the trip. Hermon is, with one exception, the highest mountain in Syria, Lebanon being the most elevated. Its summit, or rather its high- est summit, for it has three peaks, is about ten thousand feet above the sea level, and for the greater part of the year is covered with snow. In fact the snow remains there the entire year, as there are certain ravines and valleys where it never disappears completely, but lies in sloping streaks visible at a great distance. The mountain is of gray limestone, like Lebanon, and as one looks up its sides there is an aspect of almost complete barren- ness. The central peak is entirely destitute of vegetation, with the exception of a few thorny bushes that seem to cling there in utter hopelessness. The view from the summit is magnificent, and well repays us for our trouble. On the north we have the ranges of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, with the valley of Bukaa between them. To the east is the plain of Arabia, spreading out like an ocean, and dotted here and there with ranges and clusters of hills that look not unlike islands. Southward is the Sea of Galilee, and beyond it we can trace the deep valley of the Jordan till it is lost in the distance and shut in by the mountains of Gilead and Samaria. We can see the sunlight playing on the waters of the blue Medi- terranean in the west, and trace the coast line, with all its sinu- osities, from Mount Carmel to Tyre and Sidon. At our feet and all below us the mountains and valleys, rivers and ravines, are traceable, and as we turn around the points of compass from north back to north again, a beautiful panorama is revealed to us. On one of the summits of Hermon there are the ruins of a small temple ; they are on the very top and near the edge of a cliff, and the character of the work indicates great antiquity. Their history is unknown. But careful students of the Bible have connected them with certain passages which seem to show that the temples were used for purposes of idolatry. We descend and rejoin our companions at Hasbeiya, where we THE LIZARD IN THE "DOUBTERS BOOT. 325 find the " Doubter" in trouble with a native. He took off his boots to cool his feet after getting into camp, and while the boots were lying on the ground a lizard crept into one of them and nestled down into the toe. When he attempted to don them again the lizard was in the way, and the old fellow danced around as if he had been educated for an organ grinder's monkey. The nimbleness and desperate energy of his movements, as he vainly endeavored, in his excited state, to pull off his boot, was a per- formance that the astonished natives had never before witnessed. He tugged and twisted, and hopped about on one leg, in a very expert and fantastic style. Finally he removed the boot and out came the lizard, one of those harmless, pretty little things that arc found all through Syria. One of the natives had /'"^ \ witnessed his contortions, and on seeing the very slight cause for it the impudent aboriginal laughed. This was very wrong for him to do, and also very rare, for the Syr- ians are a solemn race and about as little inclined to risibility as an Indian. The " Doubter " accused the native of putting the lizard into the boot and called the dragoman to translate the accusation. Na- tive denied the charge and wanted " backsheesh" as a salve to his wounded honor. The " Doubter" wouldn't give it, and thus is the situation when we arrive from Mount Hermon. " Go away, boy, go away," he repeats in the intervals of the demand for " backsheesh." The boy does not heed the remark and grows more importunate as he sees we do not take sides with the " Doubter." " Isn't this Hasbeiya }" Gustave says, with a twinkle in his eye. I nod and speak assent. " You must give him something at once," says Gustave, turning to the skeptic. " This place is the most dangerous in AN INHABITED BOOT. 326 BLEEDING THE " DOUBTER." all Syria. The majority of the inhabitants are Chretiens, and will murder you on the slightest provocation. If that boy goes away unpaid, after you have doubted his honor, he will bring down a dozen or more armed men and your life won't be worth three centimes." The " Doubter" is incredulous, but there is enough in Gus- tave's statement to alarm him, and we see that he changes color. After a moment's hesitation he suggests that Gustave had better pay the boy and send him away if the place is so very dangerous. " That will never do," responds Gustave, " yoti have committed the offense and it is you they will be after. Do you see those men in front of that house } They know something is wrong. Give the boy half a franc and send him away." The " Doubter" reluctantly draws half a franc from his pocket and places it in the boy's hand. He is suspicious that he has been hoaxed, but he has some regard for his continued stay on this planet and is willing to pay a small sum. But rather than give a franc he would take the chances. ' One must draw a line somewhere, you know. Before i860 Hasbeiya contained a population of about five thousand, four-fifths of them Christians. It was the scene of one of the most terrible massacres of that year. The town stands in a glen, and is surrounded on three sides by high hills which are terraced and covered with vineyards, and fig and olive trees. In a secure place on a rocky ridge is a strong building formerly the palace of a local chieftain, and capable of resisting any attack with small arms. In i860 it had a garrison of two hundred sold- iers commanded by a Turkish colonel, and when the Christians were attacked by the Druzes they appealed to the Colonel for protection. He gave them a written guarantee of safety on con- dition that they should come into the palace and surrender their weapons, which they did. They were then kept for seven days in the palace and at the end of that time the colonel ordered the gates thrown open. The Druzes were admitted, and the Chris- tians to the number of a thousand were massacred. The sold- iers of the garrison did not join in the massacre, but they pre- vented the Christians fleeing or seeking concealment, and in some instances pushed them forward to be killed. The Colonel END OF THE DRUZE MASSACRE. 32/ was afterward tried, condemned and shot, at Damascus, by order of the British Commissioner, Lord Dufferin. He (the Colonel) insisted that he was acting under authority of his superiors, and the belief is very pre^'alent that the whole series of massacres ' was covertly ordered from Constantinople. From Hasbeiya we take an early start and ride to Banias through a rough and picturesque country, fairly wooded for Syria and containing frequent olive groves. We pass a lot of villages, each looking so much like the other that it is not worth while to try to make much distinction between them. We pass near one of the sources of the Jordan, a fountain that has flowed with- out cessation for unknown thousands of years, and will probably flow on for thousands of years to come. One of the villages on the route contains the tomb or one of the tombs, of NimroJ, the mighty hunter. Very little is left of it — about as much as there is of Nimrod himself. Banias, better known as Cesarea-Philippi, is picturesquely sit- uated. A mountain crowned by a ruined castle overlooks a broad terrace which commands a fine view of mountain and plain. The ruins of the city and the huts of the modern town are situated on this terrace, and the spot reflects creditably on the man who chose it. I don't think he is around now, as he performed his work a good while before King Solomon was thought of. The time of the foundation is unknown, but it is certain that a city stood here at a very early date. The name Banias comes from Panias or Panium ; the Greek settlers in Syria established here a temple to the worship of the God Pan and from the establishment of the temple a city grew up. The ruins are of considerable extent, and comprise among other things a citadel, inclosing a quadrangle of four acres or more within massive walls. The modern village is within this citadel, and contains forty or fifty huts and houses built with flat roofs, like nearly all houses in Syria. How are the mighty fal- len ! The walls of the city have suffered from earthquakes and vandalism, but more especially from the roots of plants and trees that have forced the stones apart. The same is the case with the castle that overlooks the town at an elevation of quite a thousand feet. 228 AT THE FOUNTAIN OF THE JORDAN. ^ A Steep path leads up to the castle and it requires an hour of toilsome climbing to reach the top of the hill. The castle has a curious shape ; it is about a thousand feet long by two hundred broad, and narrows considerably in the centre, so that it looks like two castles side by side. Many of the stones composing the walls are of great size, for such an elevation ; they are frequently ten or twelve feet long, and accurately hewn and dressed. One can spend hours in the castle studying its construction and look- ing out upon the beautiful panorama that greets the eye from its walls. Antiquarians and archaeologists are at variance concern- ing this castle ; some of them give it an existence from a period long before the Christian Era, while others think it is not more than twelve or fifteen hundred years old. The city did not become prominent in history until the time of Herod the Great. Josephus relates that " Herod having ac- companied Caesar to the sea and returned home erected to him a beautiful temple of white marble near the palace called Panmm. This is a fine cave in a mountain under which there is a great cavity in the earth, abrupt, deep and full of water. Over it hangs a vast mountain ; and under the cavern rise the springs of the river Jordan. Herod adorned this place, which was already a remarkable one, still farther by the erection of this temple which he dedicated to Caesar." The description is accurate. The temple is gone, but there are Greek inscriptions and sculptured niches on the face of the cliff which were made at the time the temple was erected. The great fountain which forms the principal source of the Jordan bursts from the side of the cliff through a cavern, now partially choked with rough rocks and fragments of ancient buildings. The waters roll and break through a rocky channel as they begin their course down the deep ravine which leaids them on and on till they are swallowed in the dark and gloomy bosom of the Dead Sea. Hermon, the high mountain, is in front of us, and its triple summit stands cold and majestic now as it stood in the days that were made memorable by the recorded miracles of Christ. CHAPTER XXV. " FROM DAN TO BEERSHEBA."— JOURNEYING THROUGH THE HOLY LAND. Our first morning in Palestine— Breaking Camp at Banias — " From Dan to Beer- sheba "—Explanation of the phrase— The Cup of the Hills- The Golden Calf of Jeroboam— Story of Vishnu and his Idol— An Incident and its Moral — The Battle fields of Joshua — A singular species of Plough — The " Doubter " in a quandary— Joseph's Pit— The Sea of Galilee— Fishing with Poisoned Bait- Capernaum and its Ruins — Scene of Christ's Miracles — The Birthplace of Mary Magdalen— A horde of Beggars— A Pitiful Spectacle— The Robber's Cave- Herod and his Strategy— The Jews of Tiberias— A Seedy Crowd— Ruins of the Ancient City — The spot where Christ fed the Multitude. IN the morning we are roused by the voice of the dragoman or one of his servants, and have half an hour for dressing. We rise reluctantly, for we are still weary from the fatigues of yester- day, and how we do wish for just a few m mutes more. The " Doubter" pulls at the handle of the Judge's umbrella, under the impression that it is a bell-knob, and sleepily asks for a cocktail. But there is nothing of the kind to be had, and after grumbling at everybody and everything, he proceeds to his toilet and soon comes out with an appearance suggestive of an Italian brigand who has had a run of bad luck. While we are at breakfast, the men strike the tents and are off. They go straight to our camping place for the coming night, so that they will have everything ready by the time we arrive. One pack-horse and a servant with the lunch remains with us, and they and their burden come in very handy about noon. We have no trouble in getting up good appetites in this clear air of Palestine, though unfortunately it is a trifle too warm for com- (329) 330 A FEAT OF LEGERDEMAIN. fort. A rugged path, where the rocks threaten to give us some dangerous tumbles, brings us to Tell-el-Kady, about four miles from Banias. This place is better known as Dan. Who has not heard of going " from Dan to Beersheba ?" The latter place — Bir-es-seba, or "well of the covenant" — is on the southern border of Palestine, while Dan is on the northern. Consequently, " from Dan to Beersheba " means " from one end of the country to the other." The identity of the site cannot be doubted, as the place is clearly described in Biblical and other history, and the remains of the ancient city are here. There is a sort of cup-shaped mound here, in a plain, less than a hundred feet above it, and possibly a thousand yards across. The whole place is covered with a tangle of brushwood and weeds, and if we take the trouble to penetrate this thicket, we shall find hewn stones, broken columns, and other indications of the city that has passed away. There are some oak trees here, and one of them can boast of considerable size. It is one of the oaks of Bashan, and others can be seen on the mountain near us, and dotting in irregular patches various parts of the landscape. The oaks of Bashan are less famous now than they were three thousand years ago. History tells us that this was once a Phoenician settlement, under the name of Laish, and was captured by some Danites, who changed its name to Dan. They took things easily, and had a good time, and whenever there was a chance to make an honest penny by a little robbery, they were up to the scratch. Dan is mentioned in the first book of Kings (xii. 28-32) as one of the places where Jeroboam erected a golden calf. Jeroboam understood human nature, when he selected gold as the metal of which the calf should be made. Brass would have been just as bright, but it has its defects, and the chief one is a lack of intrinsic value. Vishnu once appeared in the guise of a beggar to a Brahmin who was superintending the erection and dedication of a temple in one of the sacred groves of India. The temple was complete, and the Brahmin was directing his fellows how to place the pedestal for the idol which he was just taking out of the box. He removed the straw and wrappings, and brought to A GOLDEN IDOL WITH DIAMOND EVES. 33 1 light an idol of common wood, with pieces of white porcelain for eyes. " Stop, O, Brahmin," said the beggar. " Erect not that wooden idol, for your temple will then be no more than others." " But make an idol of pure gold, and give it a pair of diamonds for eyes, and the whole world will come here to worship." The beggar waved his hand, and behold ! an idol such as he had described stood upon the pedestal. The Brahmin turned to thank the stranger, but he had disappeared. And that shrine has ever been the most sacred in all the land of India. The Brahmin sent the wooden idol back to the factory, and they accepted it at twenty per cent, off, less the freight and charges for repacking. And they sold it to a retail cigar dealer, who used it for a sign in front of his shop. The most interesting thing at Dan is the great fountain of the Jordan. It bursts out at the western base of the mound, and forms a small pond, and out of this pond flows the stream, the largest in all Syria from a single source. Less than an hour from Dan, over a stony and marshy plain, brings us to Ain Belat, another fountain, and there is another of the same sort not far away. There is nothing particularly inter- esting here, and so we go on to Ain Mellahah, where we find the tents waiting for us near an old mill that stands by the spring. Lake Huleh, a sheet of water about three miles by four, is close at hand, but it has no intrinsic attractions. All around the lake is a marshy ground, spreading out on the North into a plain, that has some claims to fertility. The Bed- ouins cultivate it after a fashion, and some speculators have bought ground there and leased it out to the natives. Syrian agriculture is of a very primitive kind. They use, in this country, the root of a tree for a plough, and they do little more than scratch the soil. An American plough, either 'breaker' or 'subsoil,' would drive the natives into confluent hysterics, and the sight of a steam-plough turning half a dozen furrows at once would strike them dead with astonishment. The first time the " Doubter" saw one of these Syrian scrap- ers, he asked what it was. When we told him it was a plough, ^-,2 THE " DOUBTER ON A PLOUGH. he said he knew better, and we needn't try to " play it on him." Then we thought it might be a horse-rake or a wheel-barrow, possibly a brake to attach to a fiery saddle-horse to keep him from descending a hill too fast. Then we concluded it might be a pillow or a tooth-pick, and finally a part of the equipment of a lunatic asylum. The " Doubter " at length concluded it was a weapon of warfare, and with this wise conclusion he dropped the subject. PLOUGHING IN SYRIA. Our forenoon's ride from this camp is a dreary one. We have five hours of it, or nearly that period, in a wild country overlook- ing the valley of the Jordan on the left, and having no attractions of its own. It is a scene of desolation. There were no trees — scarcely is there any vegetation, and the only inhabitants are people who live somewhere else. The hot, dry landscape is un- forbidding in every feature, and only the historic character of the country rewards us for our trouble. We come to a wretched Khan, which is said to contain the pit into which Joseph was thrown before he was sold by his brethren. The authenticity of the story rests only upon tradition, and there are two or three other places in the country which claim to be the real, original, Joseph's pit. They show us the hole, which is cer- tainly capable of containing a man. The " Doubter " does not JOSEPHS PIT AND THE BOWERY BOV. 333 believe it is the real pit, because he cannot see the footprints of the fellows that flung their brother in. Some one tells the story of the New York boot-black, who was induced one day to go to Sunday school. The teacher told the story of Joseph and asked : "What did Joseph's brethren put him in the pit for?" " I know," said the gamin, with a confident air. " Then tell us." "Fifteen cents !" shouted the young vagabond. He was a frequenter of the old Bowery Theater, and familiar with the prices at that establishment. But we are in haste to go on ; for before us is the Sea of Galilee, shimmering under the scorching rays of a Syrian sun. It lies deep-set in a basin of rough, barren mountains, and its surface, as we first look upon it, is very far below us. If any of us have pictured a lake, surrounded with luxuriant fields and shady groves, its waves kissing the feet of waving palms, and reflecting the rich foliage of the tropics, we are doomed to disappointment. It is a scene of desolation, akin to that revealed when we look from the bleak hills beyond Bethlehem, and cast our vision downward to the Dead Sea. The country must have undergone a great change in the past two thousand years, as we cannot understand how it could support the population that history accords to it. The lake is oval in shape, and about thirteen miles long by six in width, and where there were many boats in Christ's time, there are now only two. These are devoted more to the ferriage of travellers and their excursions to points of interest along the shores, than to the fisheries. A favorite mode of catching fish at the present time is to poison them with bread crumbs soaked in corrosive sublimate. The fish die, and rise to the surface, whence they are gathered and taken to the market of Tiberias for sale. The natives do not mind any little trifle like this, but foreigners should be cautious about the fish that they eat. All around the shore of the lake is historic ground. We reach it at Capernaum, or rather at one of the three points claimed to be the site of that city, and known by the modern name of Khan Minyeh. It has, perhaps, the best claims to recognition, but I shall not attempt to say that it is or is not the real place. 334 THE BEGGARS OF MAGDALA. The ruins are not extensive, and can be seen in a short time. Traces of foundations and walls of buildings can be found here and there among the brushwood, and now and then a broken column or capital rewards the search of the explorer. Proceeding along the western bank of the lake, we reach Mag- dala, the birth-place of Mary Magdalene. The shore of the lake in this part is quite fertile, but the fertility is not utilized, except to a very slight degree. Game is not unknown here, but the varie- ties are not numerous. Quails are abundant, and so are turtle doves. " The voice of the turtle is heard in the land," is sure to ALL THAT REMAINS OF CAPERNAUM. be repeated by some one of the party as we ride through the tangle of thistles, weeds, and brushwood that lines the way from Capernaum to Magdala. In itself, and without its historic associations, Magdala is of very little consequence. It contains about twenty houses, of the Syrian pattern, flat-roofed, and not over-pleasing in appearance. There are ruins of houses of a more pretentious character, and the indications are general that there was once a town here, of some consequence. The inhabitants come out of their squalid dwellings and beg for anything we choose to give. Money, old clothes, defaulted railway bonds, State bonds, shares in a petroleum company, cold meat, bound volumes of newspaper files, and anything else can WE ASK THEM FOR " BACKSHEESH. 335 be included in the word " backsheesh." It is a generic, not a specific, term, and those who continually din into your ears the supplication, "Backsheesh, O Howadji !" are not at all particular about what they receive. It is a good dodge to get the first innings on them once in a while. When you catch sight of a •' BACKSHEESH ! O HOWADJI ! " native approaching you, it is morally certain that he intends to beg. Take the bull by the horns, approach /a'm and ask for "backsheesh." He will generally see the point, though he does not always do so. We have time to take a little run to some curious caves that lie in a cliff about half an hour's ride from Magdala. A steep and 21 336 GEN. herod's little game. narrow path leads to them, and while we are climbing it we see how easily the caves could be defended. Their origin and his- tory are unknown, and they were evidently the work, not of one, but of several generations. They are mentioned by Josephus as fortified caverns, belonging to the city of Arbela, whose ruins are close at hand. At various periods they have been the resort of bandits, and probably would be so at present if the bandit business was at all profitable. Herod the Great had an unpleas- antness with some free-booting gentlemen who dwelt in these caves. They made things disagreeable for travellers and others, and would not divide with the King, and so he sent an army to teach them better manners and bring their heads home in carpet- sacks. But the fellows defended their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor so desperately, and had so good a place to de- fend them in, that the army couldn't gain a point on them. But Gen. Herod knew a thing or two, and after scratching his head awhile over the problem, he sent for his carpenters and blacksmiths and ordered them to get their tools ready and then come before him at five o'clock the next morning. They came, they saw, (each carpenter had one,) and they con- curred with him. "Go," said the general to the carpenters, "and make some boxes of strong plank, about six feet square and four feet high. Make them as strong as you would a travelling trunk for a thousand- mile journey on an American railway." Then turning to the blacksmiths he said: "And you, sons of Vulcan, get up lots of ox-chains, strong enough to support these boxes with a thousand pounds in each." "A thousand pounds, in sovereigns, will weigh more than the same amount in five-pun notes," said the boss blacksmith, mus- ingly. " Does Your Majesty pay gold or paper ?" " A thousand pounds avoirdupois, you idiot," replied the King. The blacksmith apologized, and whispered to his neighbor that he thought it would turn out so, as the King was hard up, and couldn't raise five hundred guineas in a month unless he stole them. The boxes were made, and the ferblantiers and diarpentiers wondered what the king could be about. When they were ready, A MASSACRE OF ROBBERS. 339 he put a dozen infantry men with plenty of carbines and revolv- ers and supplies of provisions and ammunition into each box, and lowered the whole lot of them simultaneously down the face of the cliff above the canals. Thus the soldiers were enabled to make it nasty for the robbers. They killed most of them, and what they didn't kill they flung over the face of the precipice. We will not go back to Magdala, as there is a shorter route to Tiberias, which is our next point of interest. As our cavalcade enters the town, the inhabitants turn out to greet us, and we hear a word we think we have heard before — " backsheesh." The people differ materially from those of Magdala and Capernaum, MAGDALA- in being more numerous ; in other respects there is a marked similarity. They wear the same amount of dirt, rags, and sore eyes, and an ophthalmist could make a fortune here, provided he could get rich by practicing without fees. There are about two thousand inhabitants, one-third of them Jews, and they are a very seedy and unhappy lot of Israelites. I presume that those who are born in Tiberias want to die there, and to look at them one would think that they ought to wish to die as soon as pos- sible. Tiberias is a sacred place for the Jews, as they believe that the Messiah will rise from the sea of Galilee, and after land- ing in the city will proceed to the summit of Mount Safed, which 240 WHAT AN EARTHQUAKE DID. is not far away. Comparatively few of the Jews speak Arabic ; they are divided into two sects, one of Russian and the other of Spanish origin, so that they use the languages of the countries whence they or their ancestors came. They are not on the best of terms with their neighbors, and live in a part of the town as- signed to them. Tiberias once had a wall ; the remains of it are there yet, and it was in tolerable condition until about forty years ago, when an earthquake played the mischief with it and left it full of great gaps and cracks that are anything but pleasing. Your earth- quake, a real, first-class one, is a consummation not devoutly to be wished. The ancient city is scattered promiscuously along the shore of the lake, but there isn't enough of it to make more than half-a- dozen hog-yards. The modern town has absorbed nearly all that was worth absorbing. There is a Latin convent at Tiberias, with a church attached to it, which is regarded with veneration by many Christian pilgrims. Like Jerusalem, Tiberias is a sacred spot for both Christian and Jew, and thousands of Jews consider it a bless- ing to be buried there, and it certainly would be a blessing to bury those that we see in Tiberias. It was at one time their chief residence in Palestine, and was their most prominent city for more than three hundred years. Tiberias has been in the hands of Jews, Persians, Arabs, and Crusaders, and has had the usual misfortunes of Oriental towns There are some warm baths near Tiberias, and they are highly recommended to strangers. The natives never patronize these baths or any other. The only time a Syrian washes himself is when he gets caught in a shower, without an umbrella, and can't find any shelter, or get home. All around the lake there are historic spots. Days could be spent in a study of the places whose names have been made familiar to us by a perusal of the Old and New Testaments. CHAPTER XXVI. IN THE HEART OF PALESTINE. Bathing in the Sea of Galilee — Standing on holy ground — How the " Doubter " was unhorsed — A second Absalom — Lunching on the summit of Tabor — Saracenic Vengeance — A Reminiscence of the Crusades — A magnificent Sight — Discussing " Backsheesh " with the natives— The " Doubter " as a Cashier— The Grotto of the Holy Family— Mary's house— The house of Loretto — The story of the Miracle — The Monk and the " Doubter "—Dean Stanley's explanation— Joseph's Tool Chest— The "Doubter's" demand— The Witch of Endor "at home "—Blood- Revenge — A pertinacious feud — Saul and the Witch. WE have bathed in the Sea of Galilee and played with the pebbles on its sandy beach ; we have visited places named in Holy Writ, and henceforth their mention will have for us an additional charm. And now we will fold our tents like the Arabs, (or let the Arabs fold them for us,) and as silently steal away. Our faces are turned towards Jerusalem. Our horses toil slowly up the ascent — a long and weary one — which leads from the shore of the sea of Galilee. At Tiberias we are six hundred feet below the level of the Mediterranean. The plain which we are now approaching is five hundred feet above us, and consequently we must make an elevation of eleven hundred feet to gain it. The way is rough in many places, and we wonder how it has been allowed to remain so in all the thousands of years that it has been in use. As we emerge from the deep basin which encloses the lake we see before us a mountain, like a huge mound or tumulus, rising out of the plain and dominating it in all directions. It is Mouot (340 342 THE " DOUBTER S MISHAP. Tabor, and beyond it is the plai^ of Esdraelon. Between us and the base of the mountain lies an undulating plateau over which we find an easier road than the one we have just been climbing. We are on the great route of the caravans, between Egypt and Damascus, and the first objects of interest are the ruins of " The Merchants' Caravansary," or — in the language of the country — Khan-et-Tiijar ; one of the pashas of Damascus built it about three hundred years ago, for the protection of the cara- vans which were often troubled by robbers in those days, but the buildings long ago ceased to be of any use, and have been allowed to go to decay. They are worth an examination, as specimens of modern Saracenic architecture, and this is all. We press forward toward Mount Tabor, and in an hour or more are at its base. W( ascend by a diffi- cult path that winds among oaks and thickets of thorn bushes, and are brought to occasional halts by the slipping of sad- dles and other slight mishaps. The "Doubter" comes to grief while passing under an oak from which he has attempted to pluck a stick to serve as a whip. His hand has caught in the branches, his horse does not stop to ask what is the matter, and the next instant horse and rider have parted com- pany. The horse goes on as if nothing had happened, and the " Doubter," after hanging an instant, and reminding the per- UMIORSING THE "DOUBTER. THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT TABOR- 343 son next behind him of the misfortune of Absalom, drops into the path below. The horse is caught by some one in advance ; the " Doubter" is picked up and put together and after swallow- ing a dose of brandy is lifted into his saddle and enjoined to let the oak limbs alone in future. He bends so low for the rest of the ride, that his nose almost touches the mane of his steed. He is determined not to get into trouble again. We reach the summit — fourteen hundred feet above the sea — and dismount from our panting horses. Lunch is served under one of the oak trees that invites us to rest beneath its foliage, and we endeavor to make ourselves comfortable. After lunch we de- vote a couple of hours to a ramble around the spot ; we might camp here, but we prefer to pass the night at Nazareth, whither our camp was moved when we started from Tiberias. We now find that Tabor is not circular in shape, but oval, the greatest measurement being from East to West. The summit is slightly rounded and is about a thousand yards long by half that in width. There are many ruins on the summit, or rather masses of ruins ; the principal thing to attract the attention is a massive wall, or the remains of one, which enclose the most of* the space. It was evidently a stronghold in its time, and was defended by bastions and towers, and gateways, one of which is still standing. There are the foundations of houses, some of them of considerable size, and we have no hesitation in accept- ing the statement that a strong and important town once stood here. There are cisterns hewn in the solid rock, and they have continued their uses down to the present time. We are permit- ted to slake our thirst with water, drawn from one of these cis- terns — cisterns from which men have drank in all ages, from the days of Moses to the present time. Barak drank here when he assembled the hosts of Napthali to attack Sisera, the captain of Jabin's army ; Joshua and Gideon may have stood by this very well ; here stood the Crusaders when they advanced upon Jeru- salem, and here a few years later Saladin may have rested, as he exulted over the victory that expelled the hated Christian from the land. If we are imaginative, we can picture a kaleidoscope of warriors, who fill the pages of sacred and profane history and stalk before us like the line of Banquo's Kings, which the witches 344 A MAGNIFICENT VIEW. revealed to Macbeth, and if, like the " Doubter," we are unimag- inative and do not believe, or care for anything, we will eat our cold chicken and boiled eggs, and say nothing. The best view of this part of Palestine is obtained from Mount Tabor. The plain of Esdraelon is before us, or rather below us, and we can contemplate its undulations, its stipples of villages, its dark dots of trees, its ravines and its bright verdure — if the season is propitious — as we contemplate from our easy chair the figures upon our carpet. On the East we see the valley of the Jordan and the mountains of Gilead, rising like a long and rug- ged wall from the deep clift where the river flows. Hermon and the range of Lebanon fill the north and the ruin-crowned summit of Safed — the holy mount of the Jews where was " the city set upon the hill," is full before us. In the West is Mount Carmel, the scene of Elijah s sacrifice — reverenced alike by Jew, Christian, and Moslem through all ages down to the present day. No other place disputes the honor, and Carmel is destined to possess it for all time to come. South of us we have the mountain of Little Hermon, with the villages of Nain and Endor and other villages not far away. On the plain below were fought the battles of Barak and Sisera, and the guide points out the spot where the hosts were assembled. In another direction he points out the scene of the battle of Hattin where, nearly seven hundred years ago, the Crusaders were defeated, and their hold upon Palestine was broken. Both armies were in full force ; that of the Christians was led by the King of Jerusalem, and that of the Moslems by the great Saladin. The Christian army came to this plain and encamped there with- out water and greatly fatigued by their march. The Moslem army attacked them at dawn, and all day the battle continued. At its end the Christians had been overpowered with a loss of thirty thousand men. The remnant of the army fled to Acre, but the King was captured, together with the Grand Master of the Temp- lars and Raynauld of Chatillon. Saladin had threatened to put to death, with his own hand, this Raynauld through whose treachery the war had been brought on. He treated the other captives with the respect which their rank deserved, but showed the utmost contempt for Raynauld, FEASTS AND FESTIVALS OF THE MONKS. 347 towards whom he kept his word Raynauld was executed ; the other prisoners were liberated and allowed honorable escort out of the country. Saladin was a noble old warrior, and he had the instincts of a gentleman, though he never wore a dress-coat and kid gloves, and did not understand how to dance the German or escort a lady to the opera. Mount Tabor disputes with Hermon the honor of the Trans- figuration. The tradition which locates it here dates from the fourth century, and was then generally believed. Churches and convents were erected on the summit of Tabor, and many pil- grimages were made there, and when the Crusaders came to Palestine they established a monastery there, and gave its abbot the authority of a bishop. The Greek monks come here in pro- cession from Nazareth, on the occasion of the Feast of the Vir- gin, and the Latin monks have a festival, once a year, in honor of the Transfiguration. The exact location which the monks give for the miraculous event is near the southeastern angle of the fortifications, where a vault has been fitted up as an altar. We descend from Tabor in the direction of Nazareth, and a ride of two hours from the summit brings us to our camp. The road is crooked and narrow, and winds among forests of oaks and tangles of brush, until within a mile or more of Nazareth, when we get among bare hills. A little out of our way is the dirty village of Deburich, on the site of Dabareth, which is mentioned twice in the Old Testament. There is nothing attractive about the place ; it has the repulsive features of most of the Syrian villages, and you wonder how the natives manage to live, or even wish to do so. They discuss the " backsheesh " question with us, and we have the whole perambulating mass of dirt, rags, and sores adhering to us from the moment we enter the place until we are a quarter of a mile away. We set them upon the " Doubter," by giving them to understand that he is the cashier of the party, but unfortunately they don't stick to him long enough to give the rest of us any peace. There are several objects of interest here connected with the life of Christ. The guide takes us to the Virgin's Fountain, and to the church and convent erected over the grotto which is said to have been the dwelling place of the Holy Family. The town 348 SYRIAN VAGABONDS. is situated in some ravines and along some ridges on the side of a hill overlooking the plain of Esdraelon, and the buildings ap- pear to have been dropped down higgledy-piggledy, without any regard for regularity. The houses are better than those of many Syrian villages, as they are built of stone and are kept clean in all the places where dirt cannot accumulate. But they are re- pulsive enough inside, and one needs a pair of stilts to enable him to walk through the streets without soiling his boots. The population is variously estimated — no census is ever taken — at from three to four thousand. Only about seven hun- dred of these are Moslems ; the rest are Christians of three or four kinds, with the addition of a few Jews, who must be very unhappy among so many people of a different faith. But, taken altogether, the inhabitants are not a pleasing lot, and as you look at them, you do not wonder that the question was once asked, " Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ?" Nazareth was unknown in history until the Annunciation. The event has been commemorated by the erection of a Latin convent, where a Greek church once stood over the site of the house of Mary. The convent is of considerable extent, and has a massive ex- terior, followed by equal massiveness within. The church is about seventy feet square in its interior dimensions, and the roof is supported by strong piers, which are covered, as are also the walls, with paintings representing scriptural scenes. A flight of steps, fifteen in number, leads down to the chapel beneath the church, and in this chapel the scene of the Annunciation is located. You first enter a vestibule about twenty-five feet by ten, and from this we enter the sanctum, which is of about the same di- mensions. It contains a marble altar and a marble slab, with a cross upon it, which marks the spot where the Virgin stood at the time of the Annunciation. They show us a marble column cut in two, one part apparently suspended from the roof and the other a little way below it, and resting on the floor. The monks solemnly tell us, that the invading infidels cut through this col- umn, in the hope of bringing down the roof, but a miracle inter- posed to uphold the column and has kept it there to this day. JKWS OF NAZARKTH. THE HOUSE OF LORETTO. 351 Then they take us into a grotto back of the altar and up a staircase into the Virgin's kitchen, which is only a small cave, and must have been a very poor sort of kitchen at best. The monks manifest much veneration for the Sacred Grotto, and pious people from Christian lands have made handsome donations for the support of the church at Nazareth. As the church stands over the site of the house of Mary, the " Doubter " demands to see the house. The guide tells him that it is gone, and while he is trying to make his statement understood, one of the English- speaking monks puts in a word : " You should understand," he says, " that the house is at Lo- retto, in Italy, and that Loretto is called the Nazareth of Italy. It is the house that was here once, the real house of the Virgin Mary." " Yes, but how did it get there .'*" asked the " Doubter." "Who moved it, and how was it done ? I don't believe you could move one of these stone houses all the way to Italy." " Ah, there is the miracle, and I will tell you," says the monk, and he begins to rattle away as though he had committed the story to memory from a guide book. "The house stood here for hundreds of years, and then it hap- pened that the Moslems defeated the Christians in battle, and threatened to destroy everything in Nazareth. They were camped in the plain, and sent an army up here. Just as the army came to the edge of the town, some angels came down and took the house away. They carried it to Europe, and set it down on a hill near Fiume, in Dalmatia, and then, when it was found that the place wasn't safe, they took it away to Loretto, and there it is now." " Very strange," says the " Doubter," " very strange. And do they do this sort of thing often r " Not often," replies the monk. " You see it was a miracle ; and if they performed miracles every day they wouldn't be miracles." The "Doubter" says he doesn't believe a word of it, and turns away. The monk continues his account, and says : " There can be no doubt that the house is in Italy, and that it was moved by a miracle. It was known to be there more than 352 "Joseph's workshop." four hundred years ago, and the Pope, Leo X, told all about it in a papal bull, in the year 1518, and authenticated it so that there could be no chance for any body to disbelieve " Of course, there could be no chance after this. Dean Stanley thus explains this matter : "Nazareth was taken by Sultan Kalil in 1291, when he stormed the last refuge of the Crusaders in the neighboring city of Acre. From that time, not Nazareth only, but the whole of Palestine, was closed to the devotions of Europe. The Crusaders were ex- pelled from Asia, and in Europe the spirit of the Crusades was extinct. But the natural longing to see the scenes of the events of the sacred history — the superstitious craving to win for prayer the favor of consecrated localities — did not expire with the Cru- sades. Can we wonder that, under such circumstances, there should have arisen the feeling, the desire, the belief, that if Ma- homet could not go to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mahomet ? The House of Loretto is the petrifaction, so to speak, of the ' last sigh of the Crusades.' " From the Church of the Annunciation we are taken through some of the dirty streets and alleys, to Joseph's workshop — a modern building fitted up as a chapel and held by the Latin monks. The structure -is modern, but they show an old wall, or a fragment of it, in the interior, and this is quite sufficient. The " Doubter " asks for Joseph's tool-chest, and insists upon seeing it. They compromise the matter by bringing an axe of a very modern pattern, and bearing the word ' Birmingham ' on the helve. This might do for one of the faithful, but the " Doubter" won't swallow it, (not the axe, but the story,) in spite of the urgent assurance of the rest of us that it is all right. Then they take us to " the Table of Christ," where, according to tradition, our Saviour sat frequently with his disciples, both before and after the resurrection. It is only a table-shaped rock, about three feet high, and a chapel has been built over it. The rivalry between the Greek and Latin churches is very bitter, and the monks at Nazareth tell some hard stories about each other. Their traditions do not agree in many points, and they are very tenacious about them. Thus, the Greeks claim that the angel's first salutation to Mary was at the fountain, on LOVE-MAKING AT THE FOUNTAIN. 353 the eastern side of the village, where she went often to draw water. It is called the Fountain of the Virgin, and the Greeks have erected a church over it and called it the Church of the Annunciation. In order to be impartial to the Greeks and Latins, every traveller should visit both churches. The fountain is interesting, as affording a study of the habits of the people. The young women, and old ones too, come there A SYRIAN WATER BEARER. to draw water and gossip and make eyes at the young men, tell all the late scandals, discuss the fashions, and display their pride, envy, friendliness, humility, and all the other sentiments and emotions that can be exhibited at such a place. How the gossip- ing tongues must have wagged at this fountain eighteen hundred years ago! and didn't they criticise Mary and her family.-* The pretty, bare-footed girl who came daily to the fountain, to fill her jar, which she poised on her head before tripping gracefully home- 354 BLOOD-REVENGE. ward, little dreaming that she was to be the mother of one who should preach salvation to the world and found a religion to be embraced by all the civilized nations on the globe. But we will leave Nazareth and wend our way southward. We ride to Endor over a rough and rather dreary road, that winds over hills and through glens where robbers might waylay us, and where men have been waylaid on many occasions. In this part of the country murders are not infrequent, and are caused chiefly by feuds between tribes and families. Some of these feuds date back hundreds of years, and are based on the Scrip- tural theory of blood-revenge. Centuries ago there may have been a quarrel between two men, about some trivial matter, and the quarrel may have gone on till one of the men killed the other. Then a relative of the murdered man killed the murderer or one of his family, then this killing was avenged, then this, and then this ; so it has gone and will go on, until one family is anni- hilated, and possibly both, and very often the feud extends to the different tribes. It is for this reason so many men go about with guns and pistols and eye each other so cautiously. Nearly everybody, to use the vernacular of California, is " hunt- ing for a man," and sooner or later he finds him, or is found. It is rather respectable than otherwise to die with one's boots on, here, just as it used to be in Arizona ; and it is currently reported that when a man thinks he has had about enough of his native Syria, and has no row on his hands, he goes and kills somebody, so that this somebody's relatives will turn to and kill Jiim. He is thus able to accomplish two things — he can die like a gentleman, with the satisfaction of knowing that he has put somebody else out of the world in an equally gentlemanly way. And more- over, he bequeaths a legacy of blood-revenge to his descendants, that will give them something to occupy their minds with, and prevents the country becoming peopled too densely for comfort. Endor is an uninteresting village, of not more than twenty-five houses, and it is the same thing over again — dirt, rags, and wretchedness — such as we have seen all the way along. We have had enough of it — let us move on. CHAPTER XXVII. THE LAND OF THE PHILISTINES.— SAMARIA AND ITS PEOPLE. The City of Nain — " Spoiling the Egyptians " — Ruins of an old Philistine City — Curious Strategy — The Torches in Pitchers — Kleber and the Turks — Ahab's Palace — Tropical Picture — A Crusader's Church — More "Backsheesh" — The Samaritans of To-day — The Mount of Blessings and the Mount of Cursings — A Desp-sed People — A Strange Religious Belief — A Parchment Thirty-five Cen- turies Old— Jacob's Well — Its Present Appearance — The Tomb of Joseph — The Scene of Jacob's Dream — The Philistines' Raid. A RIDE of less than an hour from Endor takes us to Nain, the "City" of Christ's time, but now a small village. The ruins show that the place was once important, and the guides point out the old cemetery, at whose gate the miracle is located. As we ride on, we pass the valley of Jezreel, a fertile spot, which might be made productive in the hands of some other people than these lazy, shiftless Syrians. The inhabitants are a mixed lot, as they include, besides the regular hash of Moslems, Chris- tians, and Jews, a colony of Egyptians brought here by Ibrahim Pasha. These fellows were put here, because of the richness of the soil, and the stern old warrior thought he had given them a good thing. But they have an impression that it is more honor- able to steal than to work, and consequently make it rather dis- agreeable for their neighbors. The latter get even with them, by making occasional raids in return, and justifying themselves by some remark .or other about " spoiling the Egyptians." From what I can learn of their history, I think these Egyptians were pretty well spoiled before they came to Syria. (355) 356 CUTTING UP CHRISTIANS. By going a little out of way we can visit Beisan, the ancient Bethshean, whose ruins cover an area nearly three miles in cir- cumference. It was a city of temples ; four of these can be distinctly traced in one group, and others are scattered around promiscuously. Bethshean was of Phoenician origin, and was the principal abiding place of the Philistine god, Dagon. The citadel stood on the hill, overlooking the city, and on its walls the Philistines hung up the bodies of Saul and Jonathan. The " Doubter," on hearing this, looks for the bodies, and un- able to find them, refuses to believe any part of the story. Below the citadel is the theatre, semi-circular in shape, and nearly two hundred feet in diameter. Tradition says that Julian, the Apostate, used to give matinee performances here to his friends, at which he occasionally had a lot of Christians cut up. They were popular for a time, but the shrieks of the victims interfered so much with the conversation in the boxes and with peanut- selling in the galleries, that the show had to be given up. There is a large fountain — Ain-Jalud — in this valley, where Gideon is said to have fought his celebrated battle with theMidian- ites, described in the Old Testament, when he ordered his men to conceal their torches in pitchers, which they were to break when the proper signal was given. It was one of the best pieces of strategy on record, and was brilliantly successful. Several battles have been fought in this valley and in its neigh- borhood. The latest was that between the French and Turkish armies in 1799. Gen. Kleber had moved from Nazareth to attack the Turks, and was met by the enemy near the village of Fuleh. He formed his army into squares, with artillery at the angles, and in this way resisted the charges of cavalry for six long hours. He had three thousand men and the Turks were fifteen thousand strong, but the effective fire of the French held the enemy in check, in spite of their determined bravery. At the end of six hours, Napoleon arrived with fresh cavalry and infantry and at- tacked the Turks on flank and rear. Thus surrounded, the lat- ter became panic stricken, and retired in disorder, with heavy loss. It was the discipline of Kleber's division and its powers of con- tinued resistance, that gave the victory to the French. We soon arrive at the modern village of Sebustieh, which IN A CITY OF REFUGE. 357 Stands on the site of Samaria and has a population of four or five hundred Moslems, badly disposed towards strangers. The Crusaders built a church here and dedicated it to St. John, but it has been converted into a mosque, that cannot be entered without the use of the magical " backsheesh." And this has to be applied skillfully, to avoid offense ; a very good way is to take the keeper of the mosque into your confidence and do the " backsheesh" business through him Give him a fair allowance of piasters to distribute to the crowd after you have gone, and he will generally set his cudgel at work among them. He is an honorable man, and you can feel certain that he will faith- fully distribute the money — to himself. Samaria was a fine ciiy in its time, and the ruins that cover the hill confirm the accounts of the historians. Many of the stones of the old temples and colonnades have been built into the walls and terraces of the modern town so that the extent of the city is not perceptible to a casual observer. From Nazareth to Nablous, we cross the basin just described, and climb a long ascent to the crest of a ridge. Thence our road is through glens and over hills, but it is less rough than most of the routes we have heretofore traveled. Nablous is a city of about eight thousand inhabitants. This is the ancient Shechem, which was assigned to the Levites and made a city of refuge — a place where a man who had murdered anybody or otherwise shocked the fastidiousness of his neighbors, could live a virtuous and respectable life and be safe from harm. No extradition treaty could touch him, and he might hope in course of time, to become mayor or alderman in his new home, and have a finger in the city treasury. The authorities used to try the refugees who came there, and, in case of wilful murder, the fellows were delivered up to justice. But if the trials were anything like those of murderers in olden times, it was a pretty safe thing for a man to get into a city of refuge, as he could plead accident and insanity, especially the latter, and get off without trouble. Shechem, or Nablous, is chiefly interesting to-day as the resi- dence of the Samaritans ; there are considerably less than two hundred of them and they live now, as they did in Christ's time, and long before it, following the same occupations, obeying the 22 358 A STRANGE PEOPLE, same laws and worshipping after the ancient manner. We read in the New Testament that " the Jews have no deahngs with the Samaritans," and the statement applies at this day and hour as it did when these words were written. Down to a few centuries ago, there were colonies of Samari- tans in three or four of the Oriental cities, but they have all dis- appeared except this one at Nablous. They date from the As- syrian conquest of Israel and the carrying of the people into cap- tivity. They came from the East, to settle in the deserted cities, and added to their own religion some features of Jewish worship. Rejected by the Jews, they determined to have a temple of their own, and they erected it upon Mount Gerizim, one of the hills overlooking Shechem. They go there now, as they have always done, to celebrate the Feast of the Passover, and follow the mode prescribed in the twelfth Chapter of Exodus. Six lambs are roasted after the ancient method and eaten by the people, and no infidel Christian, Jew, or Moslem is allowed to touch any of the meat or any part of the culinary apparatus. They accept the first five books of the Bible as their gospel, but reject all others; they accept Moses as the only law-giver, believe that a Messiah is to come, believe in the resurrection of the body, and in a state of future rewards and punishments, and they keep all the feasts and fasts enjoined in the Pentateuch. They also keep the feast of Purim, on the ground that it celebrates the journey of Moses to Egypt to deliver the Israelites, and not as the Jews celebrate it for the release of their people by Queen Esther. What a strange people ! The only remaining adherents of a faith that was once wide spread through Syria — a link binding us to the mystic past, and carrying us back more than thirty cen- turies of time. They are born, they live, they think, they wor- ship, they die as their ancestors have done for more than a hun- dred generations. To them the present is a dream, the past the only reality. They have a synagogue, and by dint of energy and " back- sheesh," we may visit it. They show us the famous Samaritan Codex, the copy of the Pentateuch, which is said to be the oldest MS, copy in existence. It is on parchment, about fifteen inches wide and twenty-five yards long, and is much defaced and injured "doubter's" opinion of a parchment. 361 by time and handling. There has been much discussion concern- ing this parchment, and many pages have been written to prove or disprove its antiquity. The Samaritans claim that it is thirty-five hundred years old, and they give the name of the writer, but he is not there now to swear to the truth of the statement. As Ser- geant Buzfuz would say, " his is in itself suspicious." That it is very ancient there is no doubt, and the reader may take his choice as to date of manufacture. The " Doubter " says that he saw in the parchment the watermark " Eagle Mills" — Jones and Smith, encircling a flying eagle with a shield in his claws. But I don't believe him. We pass Gibeah, the ancient Geba, and next come to Bethel, now called Beitin, where Jacob lay down, as you see the Arabs lying now, with the earth for a bed and a stone for his pillow, and dreamed that he saw a ladder reaching to Heaven, and angels ascending and descending upon it. Abraham pitched his tent here, and here was buried Deborah, the nurse of Rachel, under an oak tree, which Jacob had chosen. We pass Ramah, a heap of ruins, in which a modern village is huddled. Its inhabitants have no higher object than the ex- tortion of " backsheesh " from travellers, and they keep up a steady din of supplications as long as we are in their vicinity. We pass out of the fertile country and come again among the lime- stone hills, the eternal hills " round about Jerusalem " We are looking anxiously for the Holy City, and finally, as the sun is sinking and the approaching night spreads the shadows over the glens and valleys, we climb the crest of Scopus and look away toward a rounded mountain, crowned with a monastery. This is the Mount of Olives ; nearer to us, and at its feet lies a city with grey walls and with domes and minarets rising above them. Do we need to be told that we are gazing upon Jerusa- lem } We halt a moment at the Damascus gate. From one of the Arabs that gather about us, let us borrow the Enchanted Carpet, which may have belonged to his ancestor, celebrated in the Arabian Nights. Seating ourselves upon it, we utter a wish to return to Damascus, and behold, in an instant we are once more in the court-yard of Dimitri's hotel. CHAPTER XXVIII. FROM DAMASCUS TO JAFFA.— INCIDENTS OF THE TRIP. Once More in Damascus — Taking the " Short Route " — Starting for Beyrout — The Fountains of Damascus — Rain-Storm in the Anti-Lebanon — Stora and its Mode* Hotel — Poetical Fancies — A Compliment to Mine Host — The "Doubter" as a Rhymist — Climbing Mount Lebanon — Tropic Suns and Arctic Snows — View from the Summit — A Vision of Fairy-Land — Coming Down on the Double-Quick — In Sight of the Mediterranean — Taking Ship for Jaffa — Sidon to a Modern Tourist — Tyre — Jaffa — A Dangerous Roadstead. WE have done with Damascus and the country beyond it ; we have studied the road to Palmyra and Bagdad, and the overland route to Jerusalem ; we have seen the bazaars, the fountains, the slave market, the mosques and the churches, and we have looked from the Salahiyeh hills when the setting sun was gilding the domes and towers of the city. Our carriage is waiting to bear us away to Beyrout, where we will " take ship for Jaffa," as did the men of Solomon many centuries ago. We started out of Damascus in a pouring rain, but we didn't think it would be much of a shower, and kept on. Just outside, we crossed a bridge over the Abana, or rather over one of its seven branches, and then followed the stream upward for a few miles. The Abana formerly flowed in a single stream; the founders of Damascus determined to utilize it for beautifying the city, and well did they perform their work. Here and there, as you ascend the stream, you see dams thrown across to direct first one portion and then another, and from these dams there are artificial canals, sometimes tunneled through the rock, and all (362) HOW TO KEEP A HOTEL. 363 leading toward the cluster of domes, and minarets, and roofs that mark the locality of the city. Through all parts of Damascus the Abana is carried in divi- sions and subdivisions, now in open channels and now in aque- ducts concealed beneath the street. Fountains foam and bubble at every street corner and sparkle in every dwelling ; water, clear, bright, and beautiful, is everywhere, and man or beast has no need to thirst. It is this abundance of water that has created much of the fame of Damascus and made it attractive in the eyes of travellers. Beyond Damascus is the desert, without water or verdure ; all around, east, west, north, and south, the country is rugged, and more or less barren. The traveller from Bagdad, from Mecca, from Aleppo, and from other points, has wandered over treeless wastes, where rock and sand are the only objects to greet his eye, and the only water to quench his thirst is the hot and brackish liquid carried in goat skins at his saddle bow. After long and weary days he arrives at Damascus, embowered in gardens, and at every step through her streets he sees a fountain. Is it any wonder that he con- siders Damascus as second only to Paradise ? The rain didn't stop, as we had expected. It kept coming steadily during the six hours— that seemed long enough for sixty — between Damascus and Stora. We warmed and dried ourselves as best we could before going to bed, but there was a good deal of moisture in our clothes when we got up in the morning. We didn't feel particularly gay, especially as the morning was cold and the rain was continuing, but there was nothing to do but to push on. The steamer was due at Beyrout that day, and would leave in the evening, and if we missed her we should be stuck there for ten days. We wrote in the visitors' book some complimentary things about the hotel at Stora before we went to bed in the evening. One was a macaronic verse, the first line English, the second French, the third German, and the fourth Spanish. This was the combined effort of the party ; then the Judge and I broke into verse as follows : " At Stora we, half dozen tourists, Have fared unexpectedly well, 364 DOGGEREL BY THE " DOUBTER. For hostess and host, we, as jurists. Declare they can keep a hotel." Then the " Doubter," remembering the hardships of his ride to and from Baalbek, broke out with a nursery rhyme Uke this : " We went up from Baalbek to Stora, And, riding, grew sorer and sorer. This rough land of the Prophet, If I ever get off it, Sure, I'll not come again, begorra !" We had suspected that the " Doubter" was of Hibernian origin, and now we knew it. He owned up and said that his an- cestors were among the Kings of Tipperary. But his poetic production did not find a place in the book, for the reason that it was not complimentary to the country, and did not reflect the opinions of the rest of the party. Up we went on the eastern slope of Mount Lebanon, the air growing colder, and the clouds enveloping us more and more densely as we ascended. I sat on the box and shivered, and vowed not to be caught again in such a scrape. By-and-by we were at the summit. There was an inch or so of snow on the road, and more on the rocks, and the wind was sharp enough to shave with. I was chattering like a magpie, and would have given something for a cup of hot tea, or something that would warm me. Kalil pointed to the sea, which just then appeared below us through a rift in the clouds, and its reflection in the warm sun- light was something pleasing to look upon. It was a long way down — fifty-six hundred feet — but we were good for it. Kalil turned down the brake a little, not enough to prevent the turning of the wheels, and not enough to keep back the horses, who went on at full speed. Now the air grew warmer, now the clouds broke away and fled over the mountain top, now the snow grew thinner and soon disappeared, now we could see Beyrout hovering like a bird over the land that skirts the bay, and looking bright and genial in the warm sunlight. The Mediter- ranean rippled and sparkled in the sunlight ; far out on the water we could see stipples of white sails, and here and there we could discover the long, dark streaks on the horizon that marked the path of a steamer. The waves broke over the rocky beach with BUYING THE HOLY LAND, 36/ an uneven surge, and a silver thread widening as it advanced its winding way among the rocks showed us where lay the river that reaches the sea just north of the city. Winter was left behind as we descended the mountain at a break-neck pace ; spring opened upon us, and soon the spring was succeeded by the warmth of summer. We were once more among the palm trees ; oranges and citrons twinkled on the branches that bore them, and reflected back the golden light of a Syrian sun. The dim lines on the water developed into waves ; the ships, at first faintly outlined, revealed all the details of spars and rigging, and the confused mass clinging to the land and marking the locality of Beyrout developed into the many colored domes, and towers, and roofs of an Oriental city ; and as we drew rein at the door of the hotel, close to the water's edge, we forgot our troubles, and breathed an atmosphere warm and in- vigorating as September. It was rather rough when we went on board the steamer which was to take us to Jaffa, and the wind increased during the night, so that by morning it was a respectable gale. The steamer was to start at daybreak, and stop at Caifa, half way to Jaffa, but the wind was so high that she didn't go. She started once, but the sea was so rough that the captain hesi- tated and came to anchor again. We contemplated Beyrout that day and part of the next, and we had a similar contempla- tion of Caifa. The agent came out in a boat, and said he could not get a single lighter to venture out, as there was a very heavy sea breaking on the shore. So without landing or receiving any freight, we departed ; some passengers went ashore, among them several who had tickets for Jaffa, but were fearful that they would not be able to land there. Among the deck passengers were several Jews who were coming to Palestine to settle and make their fortunes. The story that the Rothschilds had bought Palestine from Turkey, or rather had taken it, as a collateral for a loan which Turkey could not pay, was current among them. We passed between Beyrout and Caifa, the port of Saida, the ancient Sidon, which disputed with Tyre the mastery of the seas. It was once a great city ; now it is a dirty, ill-kept town, with a population of not more than eight or nine thousand, and 368 DESOLATION INCARNATE. with a commerce so insignificant that it docs not pay the steam- ers to call there. Where it formerly boasted an extensive fleet, it has not now a single vessel larger than a fishing boat ! We pass in front of Tyre, one of the oldest, as it was once one of the most powerful cities of the East. It has been many times destroyed and rebuilt, and a careful investigator can find .•-•,-a;«;. the remains of at least a dozen different cities either in its ruins or in the historic accounts. At present there are less than four thousand inhabitants, Christian and Moslem, in the proportion of half and half. Jaffa has always borne a bad reputation on the score of safety, as it has no port where ships can lie, and is not even protected by projecting headlands Its harbor is an open roadstead, and if A DANGEROUS KOADSTEAD. 369 the wind blows from the south or west, or any point of compass between them, boats cannot venture out on account of the heavy- surf. In summer the weather is generally favorable, but not al- ways so, while in winter it is about an even wager for or against communication between ship and shore. Our captain said that in some winters he had been able to land at Jaffa every trip, and in other winters he could not land at all. I heard of one man who wanted to go to Jerusalem, and had gone past Jaffa five times unable to land there. And I heard a dragoman say that he had gone to Jaffa nine times, and never failed to land each time. You see the difference between good and ill luck. If we had arrived on any of the previous eight days, we would have been unfortunate ; two steamers had gone past in that time, one of them with three hundred pilgrims for Jerusa- lem, which were carried to Port Said, and would be brought back from there. But the morning we sighted Jaffa the weather was propitious, and as we cast anchor the ship was soon sur- rounded by boats ready to take the passengers ashore. Wq lost no time, as we were fearful a wind might arise and detain us, and so we closed our bargain for transportation to land at the usual rate of one franc for each person, including our baggage. CHAPTER XXIX. ENGAGING A DRAGOMAN.— OUR START FOR JERUSALEM. Views of Jaffa — A queer-looking City — The Oldest Inhabited Town in the World — The Massacre of Jaffa — A Stain upon the Memory of Napoleon— A Contract with a Dragoman — A close margin — The value of Credentials — An honest Arab — Getting into Saddle — An American Colony — Their German Successors — The Fruits of the Country — Generous conduct of the " Doubter " — On the road to Jerusalem — A night at Ramleh — In a Russian Convent — The Gauntlet of Beg- gars — The Pest of the Road— Begging as a Fine Art — The " Gate of the Glen" — Among the Mountain Passes — In sight of the Holy City. JAFFA presents a curiously terraced appearance, when seen from the water, and its flat roofs and low arches show its Syrian character. There is a semi-circle of rough rocks that form a sort of harbor for small boats, and it requires good steer- ing to carry a boat through the entrance, only ten feet wide, without accident. The surf breaks violently when the wind is high, and makes a landing or embarkation dangerous. The town looks more beautiful a mile or two away than when close at hand. The landing place was dirty, and crowded with all sorts of un- clean Arabs, and the streets were crooked, narrow, and so full of mud and dirt as to make walking a serious matter. Tradition- ally, Jaffa is the oldest city in the world ; it is said to have existed before the flood, and it is likewise recorded as very old by history. It was one of the towns allotted to the tribe of Dan, and is mentioned as the landing-place of the rafts of cedar and pine from Lebanon for the construction of Solomon's temple. It was an important place at the time of the Crusades, but gradually dwindled in commercial and other consequence. Na- (370) A MODEL DRAGOMAN. 373 poleon caused it to be talked about at the beginning of the pres- ent century, by his massacre of the garrison of four thousand men, who had surrendered on condition that their Hves should be spared. We proceeded with our baggage to the German hotel, followed by a bodyguard of dragomen and guides similar to those that had escorted us at Beyrout, and animated with the same noble ambition to make contracts that should transfer money from our pockets to theirs. As soon as we were at the hotel we held an audience of dragomen, and finally selected one that seemed to answer our purpose. As a matter of precaution, we went with him to the German Consul — the American Consul was out of town — and bidding him wait at the door, we consulted the man of authority. He pronounced the dragoman good, and we closed with him, on the Consul's recommendation. He was to take us on a nine days' trip to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Mar Saba, the Dead Sea, Jordan, Jericho, and Ramleh, at an expense of twenty francs for each person per day. He was to provide all requisites for the journey ; three double tents — one for each two persons — servants, beds, food, English saddles, side saddle for the lady, saddle and pack horses, and to pay all hotel and convent expenses, and supply local guides in Jerusalem ; he was to provide sufficient escort when needed, and to pay all fees and " backsheesh " of every kind, except at the Mosque of Omar. The party was to be at liberty to change the route, and to stop whenever it chose. The horses were to be sound, strong, kind, and active, and if any of them were disabled, the dragoman was to provide suitable substitutes without extra charge. In case of dispute, the matter could be referred to the German or American Consul at Jaffa or Jeru- salem. While on the road, the food should consist of tea or coffee in the morning, with eggs, bread, and butter ; luncheon at noon, of chicken or cold meat, eggs, bread, cheese, and dessert ; and dinner as good as the hotel dinner. In Jerusalem the party could have choice of the Mediterranean and Damascus hotels. Ten napoleons were to be paid at starting, and the remainder, half in Jerusalem and half in Jaffa, on our return. 374 ALI SOLOMON, THE DRAGOMAN. All Solomon was the name of our dragoman, and I will do him the credit to say that we were entirely satisfied with him. He kept his contract more faithfully than we expected he would, and in some points exceeded its terms. I don't recommend him to anybody else, for fear he may have suffered a change of heart, and become a rascal ; men are very uncertain in this respect. I once had a servant whom I supposed to be honest enough to be a model for the rising genera- tion. He left my employ to seek fortune and turn an honest penny elsewhere, and I gave him a 'character' which a student of theology might envy. On the strength of my recommendation, he obtained a situation with a gentleman, whose milk of human kindness had not been curdled by experience. John was trusted with things in general, and re- quited the confidence by stealing a hundred dollars, and then steal- ing away. And no man, so far as I have heard, knoweth, to this day, the place of his sojourn. Since then, I have been cau- tious about commendations, and, for this reason, I will only say of Ali, that we were entirely satisfied with him, and believed him honest and faithful. If he robbed his OUR DRAGOMAN, ALI SOLOMON. ncxt customcrs of the filling of their back teeth, it is no affair of ours. We selected horses from a large number, and very good horses they were. About 2 o'clock we rode out of the German colony of Jaffa, which has bought the property formerly held by the American colony from Maine. The Germans are prospering, and promise well for the future. I was told that the Americans ONE OF THE "DOUBTEr's" STRONG POINTS. 375 might have prospered, if their affairs had been well managed, but that their leader was about the worst head that could have been chosen. Only four, I believe, of the American colonists remain there, three women and one man. One woman is in a state of poverty, but I was told that the rest were making a good living. The Germans havea good manager at their head, and all of them are industrious. They have a second village about two miles away from the one originally founded by the Americans. Through a street paved with mud and filth, and bordered by tents and booths, where oranges and other things edible — in theory or in practice — were exposed for sale, we moved toward the interior and away from the sea. Orange groves were on every side, and we appreciated the reputation of Jaffa for this excellent fruit. Even the "Doubter" was convinced of the excellence of the oranges, as he filled his pockets without expense, and became liberal enough to bestow an orange upon a small boy who held his horse and wanted a slight " backsheesh" in return. "I don't believe money is good for you," he said to the boy ; " you had better take an orange." The boy could have had all of this sort of thing that he wanted, and indicated an objection to receiving payment in fruit, but his objections were of no avail. One of the " Doubter's " strong points was in never paying at all for small services, or in paying in something that cost him nothing. His sympathy was roused for a poor woman in Jaffa, and as we finished dinner he took a large orange from the table and said : " I would like to give this to that poor woman over the way." We applauded his burst of generosity in giving away what belonged to the hotel, and didn't let him hear the last of it for a day or two. Outside of Jaffa, the road goes over a flat or undulating coun- try, evidently quite fertile, excepting at intervals, where it is too sandy for cultivation. For saddle horses the road is excellent ; it is intended for a carriage road, but has never been finished, though carriages do manage to get over it now and then, all the way to Jerusalem. The story goes, that when the Sultan vis- ited Paris in 1867, the Emperor told him that Eugenie wished to visit Jerusalem, but was unable to ride there on horseback. 376 PROFESSIONAL BEGGARS. " There shall be a good carriage road there in a year," said the Sultan, and he at once gave orders for its construction. But somehow it still remains in an unfinished condition, and the promise to complete it within a year is like many other promises of the Turkish ruler. The Russians have a convent at Ramleh, for the accommoda- tion of Russian pilgrims to Jerusalem, and there is also a Latin convent there, under the management of French and Italian monks. The Latin establishment is really a convent, or rather a monastery, but the Russian one is more like a hotel, as it is kept by a Russian family, whereas the Latin convent is really in the hands of holy men, clad in hood and cowl. Our d r ago - man rode ahead and ' BACKSHEESH ! " arranged that we should stop at the Russian convent, and sent a boy out to meet and guide us into the place. Along the road side, as we en- tered, there were a lot of beggars — twenty or more — drawn up, or rather squatted in line where they could assail us. Some were blind, some had lost their hands or their fingers, and each of them held up his mutilated stumps to attract attention. We were told some of them were lepers, but that the majority had been mutilated either by themselves or their parents in order to insure their success as beggars. One of our party gave a small coin to the worst looking of the mendi- cants, and immediately the whole crowd set in pursuit. If you give a gratuity in Syria, you are at once pursued by all the beggars in sight, including the one to whom you have made a donation, and nothing short of a blow with a cudgel will shake A SCHEME FOR GETTING RID OF BEGGARS. 379 them off. This systematic begging is apt to harden one's heart, especially when you find it impossible to satisfy the demands of an applicant. The government would do a charitable work if it would assemble the beggars of Ramleh into a close room and as- phyxiate them over a charcoal fire. They have been suppressed two or three times, but are sure to spring up again. We were up early, and for three hours had a road ver}- much like that of the day before. This ride brought us to the Bab-el- Wady, or Gate of the Glen, where there is a sort of hotel which furnishes everything for the traveller, except food, drink, and lodg- ing, and there is a room where you can sit at a rickety table in a rickety chair, and eat the provisions you have brought along. From this so-called hotel we moved up a glen or valley with the rocks on both sides of us, and the road making a steady as- cent. We were now among the rugged mountains that extend to and beyond Jerusalem, a dreary and almost sterile waste, whose every aspect is forbidding. I know of no mountain ride more dreary than that from Bab- el- Wady to Jerusalem. In nearly all other mountain chains I have ever seen, you have frequent glimpses of scenery that would partly reward for your toil, but here there is nothing of the kind. It is a succession of rough and rounded summits, too rocky for cultivation, and not broken enough to be picturesque. A few villages nestle in the glens, and there are occasional patches of olive trees, but the general aspect is one of unredeemed sterility. The road from Jaffa to Jerusalem is about thirty-six miles in length : travellers generally divide it by going to Ramleh — nine miles — the first day, and to Jerusalem the next. The ordinary time for a party unused to travel is twelve hours ; going up we made it in ten hours, and coming back we did it in seven and a half, which was very fair speed. We wound along the mountain road, and four hours after leav- ing Bab-el-Wady, the foremost of our cortege swung his hat from one of the rounded summits. " Jerusalem," said the dragoman, and at the word we pressed forward. There lay the Holy City, as it lay when the Crusaders came hither to wrest it from the hands of the Moslem, and as it has greeted the eyes of many a pious pilgrim in more modern days. 38o ARRIVAL AT JERUSALEM. Its towers and walls rose before us, while around were the ever- lasting hills of Israel. Tasso's lines describing the first view of the city by the Crusaders came involuntarily to my mind. Winged is each heart, and winged every heel, They fly, yet notice scarce how fast they fly, But by the time the dewless meads reveal The golden sun ascended in the sky, Lo ! towered Jerusalem salutes the eye. A thousand pointing fingers tell the tale, " Jerusalem !" a thousand voices cry ; "All hail, Jerusalem !" hill, down, and dale Catch the glad sound, and shout, " Jerusalem, all hail." The towered walls recalled the pictures of Jerusalem, with which the whole world is famihar, and we seemed to be entering REMAINS OF AN ANCIENT ARCH, SHOWING A PORTION OF THE HARAM WALL. a city that we had seen before. The Turkish soldiers at the gate made no opposition to our entrance. Formerly strangers were kept waiting at the gate until their passports had been sent to the police for examination, and sometimes the detentioji lasted two or three hours. A few steps inside the gate brought us to the door of the Mediterranean Hotel, where we dismounted and made our- selves at home. CHAPTER XXX. THE LIONS OF JERUSALEM.— THE TEMPLE, THE SEPULCHRE, AND THE HOLY OF HOLIES. First Sights in Jerusilem— Appearance of the streets— What the "Doubter" thought —A chancre of opinion— The Tower of David— The Street of David— Church of the Holy Sepulchre— Scenes around it— Palace of the Knights of St. John— Via Dolorosa— Damascus Gate— Walls of the Holy City— Vi.-— The " Doubter" once more in trouble— A Turkish escort— Falling among thieves— The Judge's opinion on shrinkage— The " Doubter" in the role of a mummy. WE slept in our tents pretty soundly, and when the dragoman roused us at six o'clock, we were not in a mood for getting up. We rose however, and took our breakfast without delay, and were off in good season. We went a short distance up the valley of the brook Kedron, and then crossed it, to turn away to the eastward. Just as we left the valley, we passed a Bedouin encampment. It consisted of half a dozen black tents, the reverse of attract- ive, in appearance, and not more than four feet high. A couple of camels stood near the tents, a dozen or more dogs, of a wolfish look, came out and barked at us, and as many dirty and half naked children, saluted us with the cry ''Hadji, backsheesh" "Eadji, backsheesh;' " Pilgrims, present ;" " Pilgrims, present." All travellers in this country are considered pilgrims, and hence the appellation they gave us. A single view of this encampment was enough to dispel any romantic notions we might have formed of the delights of a Be- (413) 414 A QUEER ROOSTER. douin life. There may be something very poetical in living with these dirty Arabs, but I beg to be excused. I had rather sleep in a comfortable bed, in a comfortable house, than in all the Bedouin tents in Syria. There is a great difference between romance and reality. You remember Moore's lines : " Will you come to the bower I have shaded for you ? Your bed shall be roses Bespangled with dew." Very nice aren't they .'' Well, a fellow once took the starch out of them by adding a line of reply : " Twould give me the rheumatiz and so it would you," which is about the size of it. All parties making this journey require an escort. We had one, and it consisted of one man. He was a picturesque looking rooster, with a bur- nous or cloak, that may have been new once, though I doubt it, and he kept a hand- kerchief tied around his forehead, H e would have been of great service in a fight ; his gun was of an antiquated pattern, and when he tested it in camp, he snapped it half a dozen times before it would go off. He was an inveterate A FORMIDABLE ESCORT. beggar of tobacco for cigarettes, and kept two of us reasonably busy to supply him. He took a great fancy to my tobacco pouch, and tried to inti- mate that I should give it to him, but I assumed an air of stu- pidity, and couldn't understand him. Twenty times in the course INSURING AGAINST ROBBERS. 415 of the day he renewed the topic, but always with the same result, and in spite of all his signs, I would not comprehend. Probably he set me down as the stupidest idiot he had ever met, and my dullness may have served to enliven his subsequent stories to his friends. He got after the " Doubter," but that worthy refused to talk with him as soon as he discovered that he couldn't talk, and that the Bedouin wanted to beg something. The region between Jerusalem and the Jordan and Dead Sea abounds in these rascals. They are shepherds and robbers, ac- cording to circumstances. We found them tending their flocks or loafing around their villages, and frequently they conversed with our escort. Had we been unaccompanied, one of the vil- lages that we passed would haye signaled to another, and we should have been plundered. We took the precaution to leave all our m.oney, letters of. credit, and everything of that sort, ex- cept our watches, with the keeper of our hotel in Jerusalem, so that we would not have been a very valuable prize, but at the same time it would have been inconvenient to be robbed. The Sheik of the tribe liv^es in Jerusalem, and it is to him that travellers look for protection. A party is going to the Dead Sea and Jordan, and is to start to-morrow by way of Bethlehem and Mar Saba. The dragoman notifies the Governor of Jerusalem, and the Governor notifies the Sheik, who sends an escort of one, two, or four, or it may be a dozen men. And, furthermore, the Sheik comes to the drago- man and receivesfrom him five francs for each traveller, as a sort of insurance tax. The Sheik is thus made responsible for any loss, and if we had been robbed while in the hands of the escort, the Governor would have made the Sheik shell out, to the extent of our loss. Not long before our visit, a traveller under escort was robbed of two thousand francs ; his loss was promptly made good to him on his return to Jerusalem. All travellers in the Bedouin country require an escort from the tribe of each region they pass through, and to go without such escort would be madness. Suddenly, while we were winding among the rough hills, we came out of a little gorge, and gazed upon a mass of rough, bil- lowy hills, spread and scattered below us, and looking bare and 4l6 BATHING IN THE DEAD SEA. white in the slanting rays of a December sun. To the left lay a plain, somewhat broken, and with a line of trees winding through it ; this was the valley of the Jordan, and the trees marked the course of the stream. To the right, shimmering and glistening in the sunlight, and broken at its edge into a fringe of foam, raised by the strong south wind, that was then blowing, lay the Dead Sea — that weird waste of water that buries the cities of the plain. Down, down, down, winding among the rocks and over little stretches of plain we made our way ; the hills that had been below rose around, and we rapidly approached the level of the plain, thirteen hundred feet below the waters of the Mediterra- nean. The distance was deceptive, and we were a long time in reaching the Dead Sea. , I had expected to find a scene of desolation, as some writers have said that no fish live in the waters of the Dead Sea, and no plant grows near it. It is true that there is no living thing in the Dead Sea ; the fish brought into it by the Jordan are instant- ly killed by the salt water, but the reeds and bushes grow as near this sea as they are ordinarily found near the ocean or any of its , arms. I found some within a hundred feet of it, and they seemed to be doing well. The vegetation is quite luxuriant in many places, notwithstanding the apparent lightness of the soil. We took a hasty bath in the Dead Sea, just long enough to test its buoyant qualities. The human body cannot sink in the dense water ; you float very much as a cork floats in ordinary water, and speedily lose all sense of danger from drowning. The water contains twenty-six per cent, of salt, and is. clear as the purest spring water. There is a wonderful bitterness in it, and a few drops in the mouth makes you feel as if you were trying to gulp down a drug store. After you have been a short time in the Dead Sea, you have a prickly sensation all over the body, and if you get some of the water in your eyes, you feel anything but cheerful. When we came out, the water stuck to us with a feeling like molasses, and until we reached the Jordan and luxuriated in its fresh water, we felt as sticky as so many postage stamps. An hour's gallop across the Jordan plain took us from the Dead Sea to the Jordan, which we reached at the bathing place A RIVER CROOKED AS VIRGINIA FEN'CE. 419 of the pilgrims. The water was of a dirty yellow, and the river was not more than eighty or a hundred feet wide ; the current is quite strong, and at the bathing place the bed is covered with rough stones, that made walking unpleasant to our bare and ten- der feet. Willow, tamarisk, and balsam trees fringe the banks, and in a little grove of these our lunch was prepared, while those of us who wanted to wash off the salt of the Dead Sea went to take a bath in the Jordan. I got rid of the sticky sensation, and emerged from the Jordan without much delay. The water was altogether too cold for comfort. In my younger days I thought the Jordan was something like the Mississippi, my impression being derived from the old hymn which says : " On Jordan's stormy banks I stand, And cast a wistful eye." Elsewhere the same hymn records that : " Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood Stand dressed in living green." The Stormy banks and swelling floods led me to imagine that the Jordan was a mile or two in width, and with waves like those of the ocean. What a difference between the imagination and the reality ! The Jordan is one of the most tortuous rivers in the world ; a map of it looks like a line of Virginia fence, only more so, and I have heard somebody say that the Jordan river is so crooked that you can't tell half the time which side you are on. An hour and a half took us to Riha, better known as the site of Gilgal, and by some said to be the place where Jericho once stood. It is now a miserable, village, one of the most forlorn in Palestine ; and the principal objects that we saw were dirty child- ren and dirtier adults, who all begged without distinction of age or sex, for " backsheesh." I attempted to take a sketch of a group of them, but they were evidently ashamed of themselves, and ran away. We dined well and retired early ; it rained nearly all night, and not only rained, but blew, and during the night I was wakened by the cold, wet canvas of the tent coming slap in my 420 THE "doubter" in A PICKLE. face. I dreamed something about trying to swim up Niagara in winter, and then I woke. We called the dragoman and servants, and set things to rights as well as we could, ^ — but the ground was so soft, that the tent pegs wouldn't hold well. We were a forlorn lot in the morning, and started off after breakfast, very much as if we were going to our own funerals. The stream was so swollen that we couldn't ford it with safety, and so we went up a mile or two and crossed by an ancient aque- duct, half full of water. The horses were driven through the stream, while we walked or were carried on men's backs along the aqueduct, which was a foot wide, with sides eighteen inches high, while the elevation was about fifty feet above the torrent. I removed my boots and waded over, as I thought it rather ticklish to be carried. The •' Doubter" was half way over, when his bearer, who knew his burden's views on the "back- sheesh" question^ doubted his ability to carry him further. The " Doubter," much to his disgust, was put down where the water of the aqueduct was deepest, and had to pass the rest of the day with wet feet. We climbed the hills along the way to Jerusalem, and at sev- eral points saw the remains of the old Roman road. The route has the same condition of safety that it had when a certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves. Robberies are not unfrequent, and the treatment of the victim is the same as it was eighteen hundred years ago. A couple of years ago, an English gentleman, on his way to the Jordan, fell into the hands of the Arabs, close to the ruined Khan, which is THE " doubter's" MISHAP. WASHING IN THE JORDAN. 421 said to be the site of tlie inn to whicli the good Samaritan car- ried the traveller whom he found by the wayside. The treat- ment of this Englishman is exactly described in these words : " They stripped him of his raiment and wounded him and de- parted, leaving him half dead." While in the valley of the Jordan, we saw no other traveller than ourselves. Had we happened there at Easter time, we might have witnessed an interesting spectacle. On Monday of Passion Week occurs the ceremony of the bathing of the Pilgrims. The devotees gather in Jerusalem to the number of several thousand, some of them having come hund- reds of leagues in order to be present on this occasion. In a disorderly array, they march out of the Holy City and down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. The Turkish governor of Jeru- salem sends an escort, under command of an officer, to protect the pilgrims from robbers, and also to preserve a sort of disci- pline among them, and prevent overcrowding and loss of life, at the banks of the Jordan. A camp, or rather a bivouac, is formed on the Plain of Gilgal, and long before daybreak on the following morning, the whole party is roused. The scene at this moment is said to be wildly picturesque, and strikingly similar to that which some authorities describe as pre- sented at the " baptism of John." Tom-toms are beaten, with no attempt at harmony, and thou- sands of torches flash out and lighten up the wide space covered by the bivouac. In a few moments the noise is hushed, and the torches are extinguished ; then the host moves in silence towards the river, to the spot where tradition has located the baptism of our Saviour. The departure from the bivouac is timed, so that the party shall reach the bathing place about dawn. The eastern horizon displays a belt of light that reveals the sharp outlines of the mountain of the Land of Moab, and the ruddy tinge increases as the Pilgrims descend into the fringe of foliage that masks the banks of the river. At the broad opening that marks the bathing place, they congregate and prepare to wash in Jordan. The whole river is speedily filled with people of both sexes and all ages ; the bath is not conducted according to Occidental 422 THE "doubter" AS A MUMMY, notions of etiquette. Prayers and blessings are uttered, and all are too intent upon the observance of their religious duty to pay any heed to ideas of propriety. The ceremony ended, the multitude returns to Jerusalem, and reaches the city about sunset. Many stragglers fall out by the way, and sometimes the Turkish escort is busy for two or three days, bringing in the last of them. The road is dreary, and there is very little upon it to keep up the traveller's interest. We found it especially so, as a drizzling rain came on when we were about half way. We passed Bethany and wound around the Mount of Olives, then past Gethsemane, and entered Jerusalem by the Bab-el- Asbat, or Gate of the Tribes. We were thoroughly benumbed and wet, and ill-natured ; and when our horses stopped at the door of the hotel, every one of us were so nearly frozen that we had to be assisted to dismount. We walked as so many mummies might walk, and with difficulty dragged ourselves to our rooms. We were cold and wet through, and not one of us had a change of clothes, all our heavy baggage being at Jaffa. What should we do .-' I proposed, going to bed, although it was two P. M., and send- ing my clothes to the kitchen to dry, and I was not long in undressing. Everybody else did the same ; all except the Judge, who was afraid his clothes would shrink so much that he couldn't get them on again. He didn't relish the idea of going naked about Jerusalem in that weather and riding bareback in the saddle to Jaffa, so he sat on the stove in the parlor for the rest of the day. Late in the afternoon we received our clothes from the kitchen, and were able to appear presentable at dinner time. But we all had a wrung out appearance, and were not over amiable. The " Doubter " borrowed a pair of trowsers from one of the waiters. They were very tight and very short, and made the old fellow resemble an animated mummy or the materialized spirit of a blacksmith's tongs. He had taken cold, and his teeth rattled so much that it was proposed to set him to music, and then sell him as a pair of castanets. CHAPTER XXXIII THE HOLY SEPULCHRE, AND SHRINE OF THE CITY OF DAVID' A Snow-Storm in Jerusalem — The " Doubter's " Opinion of Gum-Shoes — Kicked by a Vicious Horse — An Obliging Moslem — A Guard of Turks — Bloodthirsty Christians — An Extraordinary Shrine — The Angel's Seat — The Quarrels of the Greek and Latin Monks — A Spot of Marvels — The Soil Pressed by the Feet of Christ — Strange Traditions — The Discovery of the True Cross — The Spot where Peter Denied his Lord— The Scene of the Last Supper — What a Wealthy Jew Did — The Man who was his own Father — The "Good Thief" — Extracting Six- pence from the " Doubter" — A Pertinacious Guide — Trying to Elude Pursuit — A Claim for Damages — Loading Up with Oranges — Talking in Four Languages. AS we lay in bed all that afternoon at Jerusalem, the snow continued falling and the wind blew, so that the place was anything but cheerful. By sundown there were four inches of snow, the most — so the hotel-keeper said — that had been seen there in fifteen years. During the night it changed to rain, and in the morning the streets were as " sloshy" as could well be imagined. The pool of Hezekiah, just back of the hotel, con- tained a strange mixture of snow, ice, and water, and did not accord with the description of it as made by summer visitors. When I looked out in the morning, the mingled snow, mud, and water that filled the streets brought me back to my own dear New York, and I fancied that I was once more on Manhattan Island in a January thaw. The snow had ceased, but it was raining at intervals, and very hard when it did rain. We sent out and bought some gum over- shoes, all except the " Doubter." who didn't believe gum-shoes were good for anything, especially when they cost so much as in Jerusalem. Furthermore, the " Doubter" had incautiously ven- (425) 426 FIGHTING AT CHRIST S TOMB. tured too near the hoofs of an ill-mannered horse, and had been kicked by the latter to such an extent that he thought best to stay in his room. We started out to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and again found it closed. The different sects of Christians fight so much about the church that the key has to be kept by Moslems, as none of the Christians will allow the rest to hold it ! We held two or three consultations with as many sects of POOL OF HEZEKIAH. monks, and at last found that an order from the Armenian Patri- arch could, at that hour, procure the key from its Moslem holder, who, on the promise of " backsheesh," would consent to obey the request to open the church for us. At another hour, another patriarch would need to be consulted. Two of us started with our dragoman, and with some rebuffs we at length found the Armenian Patriarch, or rather his secre- tary. He sent a messenger with us to the Moslem key-holder, and the latter worthy, on promise of three francs, consented to A TURKISH GUARD. 427 abandon his pipe and accompany us. Thus we succeeded in get- ting the church open, but there were half a dozen fellows in the way, each of whom wanted " backsheesh." All this delay and annoyance comes from the quarrels of the Christians and their jealousy of one another. WEST DOOR, CHUKCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. As at Bethlehem, a Turkish guard is constantly maintained in the church where Christ is buried, to ' prevent His disciples shedding each other's blood ! What a spectacle is presented for the contemplation of the followers of Mohammed ! No wonder they look upon Christians with contempt. ^28 THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. The ponderous key was turned, and we entered the church. The door was closed behind us, to prevent the entrance of any person not belonging to our party. Immediately in front of the door is a marble slab, set in the pavement and inclosed by a low railing ; this is called the Stone of Unction, on which Christ's body was laid to be anointed. It is over the real stone, and completely covers it, as the guide explains, to prevent the latter being broken and worn by the numerous pilgrims that visit it. Further off is the spot where the Virgin Mary stood while the body of Christ lay on the Stone of Unction, and further on to the right is the rotunda, which contains, in its centre, the shrine after which the church is named — The Holy Sepulchre. The sepulchre is covered by a small building twenty-six feet by eighteen, of a style of architecture impossible to describe in writing. There is an entrance by a low door in the east end, and this brings you into the so-called Chapel of the Angel, for the reason that here sat the angel that rolled away the stone from the mouth of the sepulchre. A fragment of the stone is shown ; the Latin monks say, however, that the real stone was stolen by the Armenians, and is shown by them in the Armenian Chapel on Mount Zion. From this chapel we enter the sepulchre, a small vault about seven feet square, and having on one side the sepulchral couch, about two feet high, and covered with marble ; in fact, everything is of marble to such an extent that no part of the original rock can be seen, and it is hard to accept the assurances that the whole tomb is carved out of the solid rock. The couch of the sepulchre is used as an altar, and is carefully portioned off among the contending sects. I presume that any one of them would prefer to see the church and its contents utterly destroyed rather than any one of the others should obtain possession of it. Quarrels are not infrequent in the church over the right of pos- session or service, and on one occasion there was a scuffle, with a good deal of hair-pulling and rending of garments, in the sepulchre itself, between a Greek and a Latin monk. The Greek was the physical superior, and came off victorious. To enumerate,- in the shape of an itinerary, all the places we visited in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, would be to make THE THREE CROSSES. 431 a tedious narrative. It is rather curious that so many places have been found in the small space covered by the church and its annexes, and it is not at all wonderful that many Christians should be skeptical on the subject. There has been, and still is, a violent discussion as to the genuineness of relics and local- ities, and ponderous volumes have been written on both sides. Tradition and history assert that the Romans built a temple to Venus, on the hill where Christ died, and that a marble statue of the goddess was set up on the site of the cross, and a statue of Jupiter over the place of the Resurrection. In the fourth cen- tury the Emperor Constantine caused a removal of this temple, and the erection of a church over the spot. The Empress Helena, Constantine's mother, came to Palestine to search for the Cross and the Holy Sepulchre, and in her presence the dis- covery was made. We were shown the chair where she sat during the removal of the earth that covered the True Cross and the crosses of the two thieves. According to the tradition, the three crosses were found side by side, and it was impossible to tell which was the true one. A woman, sick of an incurable disease, was brought and laid upon two of them, without any effect ; when she was placed on the third, she rose and walked away in perfect health. Of course there could be no doubt after this, and the cross was declared genuine. It must have been of goodly size, as there is enough of it extant in churches and private collections to build a steam- boat. Whatever opinion there may be as to the genuine character of the relics and places exhibited, there is great interest attached to the spot, and the time spent in the church passes very rapidly. We were two hours in the church, where we thought we had been less than thirty minutes ; we had lingered over each place whose name had been made familiar to us in the Scriptures, and would have remained longer had not the time pressed us. Finally we left the church as we had entered, and after paying our guides the necessary "backsheesh," sent them away. The peddlers and beggars around the church redoubled their efforts and appeals, and kept a cordon around us till we reached the street. From the Holy Sepulchre we went to the Palace of Caiphas, on Mount Zion, which is in the hands of the Armenians. Ser- 25 432 A PERSEVERING JEW. vice was just ending in the church, and it had a strange appear- ance, in consequence of the Oriental costumes of the worshippers and the Oriental manners in which the service was performed. We were shown the stone that covered the mouth of the sepul- chre, the spot where Peter stood when he denied ever having known Christ, and the rock on which the cock stood and crowed at the time of Peter's denial. They also showed the prison where Christ was confined, so that we had two of these from which to select, the other being in the Church of the Sepulchre. Further along on Mount Zion we went to the Coenaculum, or scene of the Last Supper. The building is in the hands of the Moslems, and one of them, a dirty looking Arab, showed us up a flight of stairs and into the " supper room," where the supper is said to have taken place. At present the room is bare and dirty, and occupied by Moslems, who lounged around and begged for " backsheesh." There is nothing peculiar about its architec- ture and nothing intrinsically to give it the slightest interest. Under this building, Moslem, Christian, and Jewish traditions unite in locating the tomb of David, and also that of Solomon and other kings. The Moslems have a mosque there, and will permit no one to enter it far enough to reach the tomb. Once in a great while a special favor will be shown to a Jew by a Mohammedan friend, and he can get a slight glimpse of the interior ; but although the spot is particularly venerated by the Jews, the government will not open it to them. Several attempts have been made to buy the place, but unsuccessfully. The Latin monks once had possession of the buildings, but they lost it through bad management. A wealthy Jew of Con- stantinople was in Jerusalem, and asked to be permitted to visit David's tomb and say his prayers there. They refused this very natural and reasonable request, and the Jew went off. As soon as he reached Constantinople, he sought an interview with the Grand Vizier, and induced him to expel the Latin monks from the building that covered the spot. In a year or two he went back, armed with the necessary firman, that enabled him to say his prayers at the tomb of David, and thus relieve his conscience of any burden that may have been resting upon it in consequence " COOL SILOAM S SHADY RILL. 433 o£ any dubious transaction in old clothes, or in exorbitant inter- est for money he might have loaned. Passing out from the Coenaculum and descending to the Vale of Hinnom, we can visit the famous Pool of Siloah or Siloam ; and a walk of ten minutes or more further along the valley, will THE FOUNTAIN OF THE VIRGIN. bring us to the Fountain of the Virgin. Siloah's Pool is a basin or reservoir, about fifty feet by twenty, and not far from six yards deep. There is an underground passage between this pool and the Fountain of the Virgin, which has been explored by Dr. Robinson and others, and found to be very tortuous, and 434 "hark! from the tombs." so small, that one is obliged to crawl on hands and knees in order to pass through it. The Fountain of the Virgin is the more picturesque of the two. It is at the bottom of an artificial cave, and the stairway that leads down to the water has given it the name by which it is known to the Arabs, " The Fountain of the Mother of Stairs," and old tradition says that women accused of adultery were required to drink of the water from this fountain. If guilty, they died immediately ; but if innocent, they were unhurt. A remarkable feature of this fountain is the irregular flow of the water, which has been verified by many persons. Sometimes the water in the basin will rise twelve or fifteen inches in a few minutes, then become stationary, and in five or ten minutes more, it subsides to its ordinary depth. In some seasons this phenomenon occurs twice or thrice daily, while at other times the intermittent periods will be several days apart. This is doubtless what was meant in the New Testament, where it is said " an angel came down at certain seasons and troubled the water." The local belief is, that there is a dragon in the foun- tain ; the water flows when he sleeps, but stops when he is awake. From the Coenaculum we took a long walk to the tombs of the Kings — sepulchres hewn in the rock, and evidently of great antiquity. They have accommodations for about twenty per- sons, but are rather damp and uncomfortable. The hills all around Jerusalem are full of these tombs, cut in the solid rock. Most of them have a legendary history that assigns them to some Biblical character, but the authenticity of these histories is extremely doubtful. We managed to extract some amusement out of our guide, at Jerusalem, (a local professional, engaged by our dragoman,) but not so much as with the fellow who served us at Athens. He was so good natured, and showed so much readiness to do any- thing we wanted, that we hadn't the heart to annoy him If he had been less amiable he would have been much more to our liking. His use of the English language was our best hold, and his conversation rattled on with an utter disregard of the rela- tive positions of nouns and verbs. "doubter! sixpence!" 435 We asked how long he had been guide there, and he responded, " I guide have been thirty-four years. Before I was guide I was my father." Here was a case for Darwin. What the fellow wanted to say was, that his father was guide before him, and thinking we did not fully understand him, he went on : " Before I was born, I was guide ten years. Before my father little boy was, I was guide. Before I was old man, I die my father. My father I die before he was twelve years. I was forty years before my father was born." The mystery increased, and the more he explained the more he got things mixed. In the church of the Holy Sepulchre, when pointing out the historic spots, he did it somewhat in this wise : " Here is where was Jew man crucify Christ. He was two thief with him crucify ; one was bad thief and one good thief was. Here cross was for good thief." When we went to the mosque of Omar he offered to supply us with slippers for a sixpence each, and those of us who had left our own slippers at Jaffa consented at once to the arrange- ment. The " Doubter" was of the lot, but when it came to pay- ing, he had no change and wanted to cheat the man out of his due. He had a Turkish coin worth about a penny, and told the guide he must take that or nothing. While the " Doubter's" attention was taken up with some- thing, we told the guide to freeze to him and compel him to pay. We promised to support him in his efforts, and with this assur- ance he went ahead. He came up from behind and silently placed himself at the " Doubter's " side, and as he did so, extended his open hand before our companion's face. He suited his word to his action, and his action to his word, by saying in a mild tone : " ' Doubter ' — sixpence." There was no response. Half a minute later the request was repeated : " ' Doubter ' — sixpence ; for slippers, sixpence." The Turkish penny was again offered, and again refused, with : 436 THE GHOST AT THE FIRESIDE. " ' Doubter ' — sixpence." And so it went on for two hours, and I think the old miser was appealed to on the average, about once a minute. When- ever the guide lagged we urged him forward, and as he had right on his side and sixpence in his eye, he worked with a will. In vain did the " Doubter " order him away and appeal to the rest of us, to tell the guide to leave We made no interference, except to offer to lend the " Doubter" the sixpence, which he declined. The " Doubter " slammed the door in the guide's face, who then gave up the pursuit. " ' DOUBTER ' — SIXPENCE." I stopped him and developed a new plan. The guide remained on the sidewalk, in front of the hotel, and in a quarter of an hour the "Doubter" opened his door, peered out cautiously to see that the coast was clear, and then took his way to the parlor. He seated himself before the fire, and I gave the signal, and just as he remarked, " I'm glad that awful man has gone," the guide slipped in like the ghost of Banquo at Macbeth's feast. Again he extended his hand, and again he said : " ' Doubter ' — sixpence." AN INDIAN YELL. 437 The old fellow surrendered. He borrowed a sixpence and paid the guide, and the rest of us gave the man a couple of francs for his persistence. There was nothing now for us to do but to leave Jerusalem, and the next morning by ten o'clock we were set down at the door of the hotel at Jaffa, whence we had started nine days before. We paid oft our dragoman, and at his request wrote a certificate, set- ting forth that he had served us to our entire satisfaction, and that we were as contented with him as it would be possible to be with any dragoman. He suited us all, except the " Doubter," who wouldn't have been satisfied even if he had had the Sultan of Turkey for a dragoman. He tried to get a reduction on ac- count of the kicking he received from one of the horses, and was much chagrined when the dragoman, at our suggestion, pretended to misunderstand him, and said he did not make any extra charge for things of that kind. While we were busy talking about something or other, the sharp eyes of Madame discovered the steamer, and we gave an Indian yell of delight. Our baggage was ready, and soon we had it on the shoulders of porters and were off for the landing. The usual "backsheesh" took us through the Custom House, and the muscular arms of Arab boatmen swung us out of the little harbor of Jaffa and over the swelling waves of the Mediterranean. The ship was a full mile from shore, and it was a long pull and a strong pull to get us there. On board we found we were the only cabin passengers, and could have all the after part of the ship to ourselves. I have before stated that Jaffa is celebrated for its oranges, which are largely exported. As soon as the steamer anchored she was surrounded by boats loaded with boxes and baskets, the boxes being made with open sides and tops, so as to allow a free circu- lation of air. The boxes and baskets were hoisted in over the ship's side amid much confusion and a vast amount of talk. Italian, Russian, Arabic, and Turkish filled the air ; everybody talked at once, and you could hardly distinguish one sound from another. The liveliest scene was when a boat was emptied and dropped away, and another came in to take its place. There would be half a dozen boats struggling for position, and they would push and crowd at a frightful rate. The men of one 438 A DECK-PASSAGE. boat would deliberately push another boat back and crowd their own in, and of course this would rouse the ire of the ousted ones- The volleys of words would set up an Arabic dictionary. I don't know whether there was any profanity in what they said, but I fancy so. Now and then in the struggle some one would tumble into the water, but he was soon up again, and didn't seem to mind the wetting. JAFFA ORANGE SELLER. Deck passengers on a Levantine steamer generally appropri- ate a part of the deck that suits them, and stay there during the voyage. They spread their carpets and blankets where they find room and squat by day and sleep by night on the spot selected. Directly in front of the after cabin, a lot of deck passengers were thus installed, and when the crate-like boxes and the canvas cov- ered baskets were piled near and around them, they began to help ORANGE THIEVES. 439 themselves to oranges. Two fellows that were camped together would work in partnership. One would get near a basket, and would work cautiously until he had a hole large enough, then quietly withdrawing an orange, would pass it to his pal, who would conceal it behind his baggy breeches and flowing robes. The operation would go on until a peck or so had been taken, when another freshly arrived basket would be sought. Nine o'clock came, and we were still at the same work, and the decks were covered. Finally the captain said that no more could be taken, and half a dozen boats were sent back to land as fully loaded as they came. Steam began to blow from the pipes, in a few moments the screw was started, the anchor rose from its bed, and we were under way. Under a clear night sky of the Mediterranean, I sat on deck watching the bright stars above, the glittering waves below, and the phosphorescent gleaming track of the ship, as she plowed through the waters. The twinkling lamps of Jaffa faded into indistinctness and then went out, and, last of all, the staring light-house sank below the horizon and was hid from sight. We lost sight of Palestine. Our winter journey in the Holy Land was a thing of the past, to be a pleasant recollection for the future. CHAPTER XXXIV. THE LAND OF PHARAOH.— THROUGH THE EGYPTIAN DESERT. In Sight of Egypt — A light-house looming through the fog — On the soil of the Pha- raohs — An invasion of boatmen — Scenes in the streets of Port Said — Encore de "Backsheesh" — The great Suez canal — Negotiations with a cobbler — A ludicrous situation — A bootless customer — Egyptian jugglers — Going through the Market — A disagreeable spectacle — A pocket steamer — Drinking to absent friends — On the "paging canawl" — Sleeping on deck — A sunrise in the desert — On the summit of the Isthmus — An onslaught by Arab-baggage-smashers. 4 4 'THHERE it is ! There is the light-house !" J[ Half a dozen of us looked in the direction indicated, and saw a tall column that rose apparently out of the sea, as the fog and distance did not reveal the low coast of Egypt, nor the long jetty that has been thrown out to form a harbor. The steamer moved steadily onward, and in a little while there was a fringe of houses, and then a fringe of masts, then a long line, lighter than the sea in its color, swept away on either hand to mark the coast. In its center appeared the jetties, that form the outer harbor of Port Said. A small steamer came out to meet us, and from her a pilot came on board, to direct us between the jetties and into the inner harbor. These jetties, or moles, are of artificial stone, two-thirds sand, and one-third hydraulic lime, mixed in a frame and allowed to harden. Each block weighs twenty-two tons, and contains about three hundred and twenty-four cubic feet. The blocks are not piled regularly to form a well built wall, but are dropped in, hig- gedly-piggedly, like a lot of bricks dumped from a cart. This (440) A CITY OX A SAND-BAR. 44I has been found to be the best form of sea wall, as it breaks the force of the waves more completely than would a structure with a smooth front. The sand has settled in and filled up the cavi- ties below the water line ; at first it silted through, but an occa- sional use of the dredge kept the harbor in proper condition. The lighthouse is a magnificent structure of concrete, one hun- dred and sixty feet high, supporting a lantern twenty feet high, and flashing every three seconds with such intensity, as to be visible twenty miles. Three other lighthouses of similar con- struction have been placed in the interval — one hundred and twenty-five miles — between Port Said and Alexandria. The steamer entered the harbor, and before her anchor was down, her decks were invaded by the usual swarms of boatmen, on the lookout for a job. We were almost within jumping dis- tance of the shore, and had we possessed the strength and activ- ity of fleas, in proportion to our size, we should have made short work of going ashore. Not being thus gifted, we made the usual bargain for transportation to the land, and from the shore, through the Custom House, to the hotel. The customary " backsheesh" of two francs saved us from an inspection of our baggage, and we were soon at the hotel. I cannot speak very highly of this establishment ; there are two hotels that keep up a warm rivalry, and are first-class iii their prices, if in nothing else. Whichever hotel you patronize on visiting Port Said, you will wish you had gone to the other. Port Said is modern ; it was founded in 1859, '^'^^1 owes its ex- istence to the construction of the Suez Canal. Previous to that time, there was no town there, and not even a single house. Early in April, a small body of laborers landed there, and on the 25th of that month, M. de Lesseps, the projector of the canal, in the presence of a dozen Europeans and six or eight times that number of natives, removed the first spadeful of earth in the great enterprise, that was to open a water way from the Mediter- ranean to the Red Sea. A few huts had been erected on the site of the present city, which was named Port Said in honor of the then Viceroy. The spot was not an attractive one, nothing but a strip of sand without vegetation, and without a drop of fresh water. As the 442 A BOOTLESS TRAVELLER. works of the canal progressed, the town grew and presented a scene of great activity. It was said to be at one time the largest workshop in the world. It has lost this character since the ca- nal was completed, but is still a city of eight or ten thousand in- habitants, regularly laid out in streets and squares, and boasting a pretty and luxuriant garden. There is considerable activity in the streets, and the numer- ous shops, stores, churches, hotels, mosques, and the like give it a permanent and not unpleasing appearance. The business is all more or less connected with the canal, and will doubtless increase as the business of the great water-way increases. It does not take long to make a tourist's survey of a modern town in the land of antiquities, where nothing is considered old that does not date further back than the Christian era. Where you count centuries by the score, you will not pay much atten- tion to a decade, and grow enthusiastic over works where the mortar has scarcely settled, and paint, if there be any, is still wet. Our first effort in Port Said was to ascertain when we could leave it, and we found that this could not be done before mid- night. We could go on a small steamer as far as Ismailia and thence by rail to Cairo, and if we wished to take a detour to Suez, there was no law to prevent our going there. We sauntered around the city ; some of our party had their hair cut, some ate pastry in a cafe, some resorted to a beer gar- den in front of the hotel, and one, (myself,) took a seat by the side of a cobbler, whose stall was in the open air, while he mended one of my boots. Half a dozen Arabs stood around to look at me, as I crossed the bootless leg over the booted one and endeavored to appear pleased. The cobbler had about half finished the job, when he suddenly remembered that he must go to dinner. To this I objected until my boot was done. I had no wish to sit there while he dined, and possibly took an after-dinner nap of an hour or so, and after a slight wrangle I succeeded in convincing him that he had bet- ter finish the job before doing anything else. The Arab portion of Port Said is quite distinct from the Frank quarter, and is separated from it by a marsh, that can be EGYPTIAN JUGGLERS. 443 crossed over a rickety bridge or circumambulated by following the sea shore. We took a stroll there in the latter part of the afternoon, and found crowds of natives surrounding a few jugglers and mounte- banks, whose tricks were by no means extraordinary. I had a lot of Turkish coppers, which I had brought from Syria, and found altogether uncurrent here. To get rid of the coins I threw some to the jugglers and to a few beggars. None of them appeared to'be pleased to receive this money, and evidently they had been served the same trick by previous travellers. There was a part of the market where fish and vegetables were offered for sale, the venders having little stands about the size of dressing-tables, and not particularly clean or attractive. There were two or three restaurants where fried fish was wait- ing to be devoured, the restaurant, — cuisine and all, — occupying a space not more than eight feet square. Many of the natives were suffering from ophthalmia, and on the eyes of some of the children there were masses of flies eating away the oozing mat- ter and forming a disgusting spectacle I should say that one in twenty of those I saw there were blind of an eye, and one in fifty was altogether bereft of sight. We dined at the hotel and then slept until nearly eleven o'clock, as we knew there would be no sleeping accommodations on the boat. It was New Year's Eve, and some of the party proposed to celebrate the New Year, which would come in as we left Port Said, so we took a couple of bottles of champagne and some glasses to the steamer. It was about half-past eleven, when we left the hotel, and fol- lowed our baggage on the backs of the Arab porters to the landing. The boat was an insignificant affair, carrying the mail and having room for very little else. The cabin was not far from seven feet by twelve ; there were seats for about sixteen persons, and there was a small table in the centre, which was speedily piled up with baggage. Two or three native officials were there when we arrived, and they had done what we should have done had we been first. They had taken the best places, and were comfortably settled into the corners. As the clock struck 444 SLEEPING ON DECK. twelve, the ships in the harbor fired sakites and let off fireworks, and quite a quantity of rockets went up from the shore. We opene-d our champagne, and each drained a glass to friends at home, and a wi-sh that the end of the year might be as propitious as its commencement. Our steamer blew her whistle and swung out from the wharf, and in a few minutes we had passed out of the basin and were in the canal. Straight as a sun-beam the canal pushes away~from the sea coast, and then through the low desert. For nearly thirty miles it has no curve, but is as direct as it is possible for the engineer to lay it out. The banks were not very high in this part, as there was not a large quantity of earth to be dredged out, and from the deck of a large steamer one can look over a wide extent of marshy lake and swamp. As we were scarcely a foot above the water and in a small steam launch, we could not look over the bank, and were obliged to content ourselves with the contemplation of the sloping sides of the canal. They were very monotonous, even with the poetic addition of a full moon and clear sky. The night went on and so did we, but I fancy the night had much the best time of it. We could not lie down, and there was hardly room for us to sit inside. I secured a camp stool and got outside, making the end of the cabin serve as a rest for my back. Wrapped in my overcoat and plaid, I managed to keep warm, though with some difficulty, and after a time I felt sleepy, but dared not risk going to sleep there, through fear that I should fall overboard. Then I sat down, or rather reclined on deck, and, making a pillow erf an anchor, managed to get along comfortably. Every time I waked and looked out we were steaming along through the canal with the same interminable stretch of sand on either side. By-and-by there was a blush of light in the east, then there was daybreak and then there came sunrise. We grew better natured as we thawed out under the welcome rays of the sun, and felt the dryness vanishing from our lips, and a gradual disappearance of that general feeling of mussiness that you have after sitting up all night. The sands became warm in the glow of the morning, and everything that before had been sombre was now brilliant with flashing light. A RAVENOUS CROWD. 445 I do not often see the sun come up in these later years, never when I can avoid doing so ; but whenever I am caught with a sunrise on my hands, I think it is about the best thing out. A sunrise in the desert is rather an extra affair, and considerably "lays over" the ordinary one that we can see at home by staying up till the next day. We touched the dock at Ismailia in little more than seven hours from Port Said, and were glad enough to get on shore. A crowd of Arabs at the landing was as ravenous as a lot of young tigers ; we tried to keep them back with words and ges- tures, but to no purpose ; they seized our baggage, and would not put it down till we laid about them with our canes. There were a hundred of them, all vociferating and snatching for baggage at the same instant ; and I flatter myself that it was a triumph of genius over muscle when we succeeded in putting that baggage in a pile and making the fellows stand back, and tender proposals for its transport to the railway station We let the contract to the lowest bidder, who took the lot at four francs. The instant the bargain was closed, he and half the crowd fell upon the pile as if they had been wild beasts, and it disappeared like a pint of whiskey among a dozen backwoods- men. At the station, after we had paid the money agreed upon, they had an awful row dividing it, and there seemed to be at one time a brilliant prospect of a homicide. The history of the Suez canal enterprise was given to the world with great minuteness of detail, at the time of its open- ing in 1869, and I shall not attempt a description of it here. CHAPTER XXXV. IN AND AROUND THE CITY OF THE CALIPHS. A Costly Breakfast— Ismailia— The Palace of the Khedive— On an Egyptian Rail- road Train— Rolling Through the Desert— The Delta of the Nile, What Is It ? —The Garden of Egypt— Cairo— The Mighty Pyramids— Life at an Egyptian Hotel— Sights of the Capital— Cairo of To-Day— Occidental Progress and Orien- tal Conservatism— Burglaries and Other Modern Improvements— Cosmopolitan Costumes— A Harem Taking an Airing— A Daring Robber}-- The Battle-Field of the Pyramids— Slaughter of the Mamelukes— Singular Escape of Emir Bey. WE breakfasted at the only hotel in Ismailia, paying a fright- fully high price for the meal, and then we hastened to the railway station to take the train to Cairo. We had no time to look about the town, but the little we saw was pleasing. The houses were embowered in trees, and there were pretty gardens here and there, some of them very tastefully arranged. There was a broad avenue from the landing place to the railway station, and there is a well-built quay, more than a mile long. The Khedive has a palace here that looks, from a distance, like a comfortable and cozy residence, and there has lately sprung up a sea-bathing establishment on the shores of the lake. Port Said and Ismailia are the urban results of the canal ; the former is practical and the latter is both practical and beautiful. We waited at the station nearly an hour, the train being some- what late in coming from Suez. Finally it appeared and we en- tered it. The coaches were not attractive in the way of clean- liness and comfort, and we were rather more crowded than we liked to be. (446) IN SIGHT OF THE PYRAMIDS. 447 We moved off at a dignified pace, along the banks of the Sweetwater Canal, and with the desert stretching out around us. There is very little to be seen on the railway journey from Ismailia to Cairo. Part of the way we were in the desert, and a part of the way we skirted the rich delta of the Nile. We passed towns and villages in great number, and saw fields bright with verdure, although it was midwinter. Men were at work in the fields, with no abundance of clothing, and half-naked children were playing out- ^;^ of-doors as they _ ^ ^^ might play in New York in August. We made brief stoppages at half a dozen stations, pos- sibly at double that number, as I kept no reckoning, and about six hours after leaving Is- mailia we saw the Pyramids sharply outlined against the western sky, w^here the sun was setting, as they have stood outlined for more than forty centu- ries ; and as dusk had fallen and dark- ness was gathering around us, we rolled into the station at Cairo, and were speedily in the midst of a noisy crowd of the usual attendance upon arriving trains. Soon we ran all the gauntlets of the station and its surroundings, and Vv-cre quar- tered in the comfortable Hotel du Nil. It was after six o'clock in the evening when we reached the hotel, and we had just time to prepare for dinner when the bell announced that the meal was ready. It was the first of January, 26 WATER-BEARERS AT THE RAILWAY STATION, CAIRO. 448 VIEWS OF CAIRO. and the proprietor stood treat on the occasion, everybody being liberally supplied with champagne. The hotel seemed to promise well, and we went to bed contented and happy. Twenty years ago or more, Cairo was far more Oriental than it is to-day. There was no railway in Egypt, and travellers were not numerous. The few that came here were not sufficient to make much impression on the manners and habits of the people. The foreign population was small, and left nearly everything in the hands of the natives, and the for- iegners in the service of the gov- ernment were few and far between, and generally in irresponsible posi- tions. Mainteiiant on a change tout tela. Egypt has her network of rail- ways and her maritime canal ; she has telegraphs, she has steamboats, she has a navy, armed with rifled cannon, she has an army, many of whose officers have come from other lands, and whose soldiers are suppUed with breech-loading guns of the most approved patterns. The foreign quarter of Cairo con- tains inhabitants from all parts of Europe, and they can be counted by the thousand. The city can boast of parks and gardens of great beauty ; tall buildings of stone rise above the humble edifices of Arab architecture, and there are wide streets and boulevards, where the smooth pavement supports the wheels of elegant carriages of European manufac- ture, drawn by horses of great beauty and value. The costume of the Occident mingles with that of the Orient ; the Frank jostles against the native ; the church rises in sight of the mosque ; and the sound of Christian worship mingles with the voice of the Muezzin as he chants in the minaret the call PRAYING IN THE STREETS OF CAIRO. GLIMPSES OF A HAREM. 451 for the faithful to assemble at prayer. You may see a group of women, closely veiled and mounted on donkeys, under the escort of a tall eunuch, whose features and complexion mark his Nubian origin. It is the harem of a Moslem out for an airing, and you may seek in vain to penetrate the veils that cover the faces of the fair riders. Their baggy dresses are puffed out like balloons, as the breeze blows against them, and they are as much Oriental as though they had stepped from the pages of the Arabian Nights. The next minute there comes before you a handsome carriage, drawn by a pair of high-stepping horses, and containing a beau- tiful woman dressed in all the taste and elegance of Paris or New York. It is the wife, perhaps, of a resident foreigner, and you may see many carriages and many occupants in the course of your promenade. The procession on the donkeys makes way for the vehicle, and halts until it passes. Thus the customs of the Occident are invading the once dull and listless East. Cairo has grown rapidly in wealth and importance in the past score of years, particularly in the last decade. The Moslem is no longer supreme in commerce as of yore, and finds it useless to sit idly and wait for a customer, as once was his wont. The bustling habit of the European is becoming engrafted upon the country, and the railway and telegraph are teaching to the people the value of time and the disadvantages of the old modes of locomotion. Builders are busy in Cairo, and large edifices, on the plan of Paris, are completed, or in the process of erection. The new part of Cairo can boast of straight avenues, with lines of shade trees and with rows of well-built houses, from whose windows peep out women, whose unveiled faces show they are not of Moslem faith. While I was in Egypt, a gentleman arrived there after an absence of more than twenty years. He told me he could not recognize that part of Cairo beyond the Ezbekieh gardens. All was changed, and where once were open fields or waste places, there are now the streets and avenues of a city. There is a handsome bridge of iron across the Nile, and there is a broad and well-built carriage-road from Cairo to the foot of the great Pyramids at Gizeh. Steamboats are plying on the 452 CRACKING A CRIB. river, and factories rear their tall chimneys on the land. Rows and rows of shops are conducted by foreign capital and tended by foreign men. The streets are lighted with gas, and it is pro- posed to provide them with wooden pavement, like that which has found favor in many American cities. The post-office is efficiently managed, and so is the police — both of them on the European model. The temperance of the Orient may prevail among the original inhabitants, but the foreigners manage to get drunk with as much freedom as they would at home, and likewise to be arrested and fined. And so many Christians have found their way there, that crime can be no longer suppressed. While I was in Cairo there was a burglary that would have done honor to London or New York. A jewelry establishment was entered at night, and property to the value of six thousand pounds sterling was taken. The robbers entered by breaking a hole in a side wall, and they took away everything, except a quantity of clocks, that were evidently too cumbersome. Not a watch, not a piece of jewelry of any kind was left behind, and the fellows got clean away. Does not this sound like civilization ? Polygamy is growing unpopular, and the natives are becoming content to live with one wife each, according to the Western custom. And, still following the Western custom, they abuse her, and stay out late of nights, at the club or the theatre, or somewhere else, and are not over liberal in supplying her pecuniary wants. Slavery is not altogether suppressed, but is greatly restricted, and has no legal protection. Gambling houses abound, not only for native, but for foreign patronage, and to judge by the number of these places, the foreigners that come here are fond of com- bats with the tiger. I might name many other indications of the change that has come over Egypt, but the foregoing must suffice. One of our first excursions was to the Citadel. Its character is shown by its name ; it was built in 1 166, by Saladin, as a de- fence to the city, but the site was rather unwisely selected, as it is dominated by the Mokattam — a hill directly behind it — and has once been taken by batteries, stationed on the latter emi- nence. It is strong enough to resist an attack by small arms, LOOKING FROM THE CITADEL. 453 and some of its towers are quite massive and picturesque. It is quite extensive, and contains a palace and a mosque, the latter built almost entirely of alabaster. The interior of the mosque is particularly rich, in consequence of the material used in its con- struction, and the arches have a curious effect, quite impossible to describe in v^riting. The palace also abounds in the same ma- terial, and contains some very handsome rooms. But the great charm of the citadel is the view from the plat- form. One can look upon the Nile and a portion of its rich val- ley, and on nearly the whole city of Cairo. The roofs of the houses are below the feet of the observer, and there are only the highest minarets of the mosques to approach him in elevation. In the west are the Pyramids, standing in the edge of the desert, and looking more grand than when one sees them from the bank of the river. The best time for this view is at sunset, and if the air is clear there are few pictures anywhere in the world to surpass it. There is a wonderful contrast between the flat roofs and domes and minarets of the city, and the rich green of the open country beyond. Altogether the view from the Citadel at sunset is one that should not be missed by a visitor to Cairo, and once enjoyed it is not likely to be speedily forgotten. We were shown the spot where one of the Mamelukes saved himself, by jumping his horse over a wall and down upon a pile of rubbish thirty or more feet below. The horse was killed, but the rider was not hurt. Mohammed Ali found the Mamelukes troublesome, just as the Janizaries were in Constantinople, and he determined to get rid of them. He invited them to a banquet at the palace, and they came in their richest suits, and when they were all in the court- yard of the palace, his Albanian body guard opened fire upon them from the surrounding windows and from the crenelated walls. The gates had been shut, and there was no chance of escape, and all were slaughtered except Emir Bey, the one who saved himself in the way mentioned. This little incident oc- curred in 1 8 II, and put an end to the disturbances that the Mam- elukes frequently created. Mohammed Ali loved peace and quietness and was willing to 454 THE MAMELUKE MASSACRE. do anything in reason to secure them. The Mamelukes were constantly making trouble, and rendering the throne insecure ; in fact they had the power of saying who should or should not be the ruler of the land. Is there anything more natural, than that he should study how to get rid of them, and in such a way that his motives could not be questioned ? If he had asked them to come to his palace and be killed, there is every reason to believe they would have remained away ; at any rate some of them would have been fastidious, and declined his polite invitation, so that his scheme for bagging them all would have failed. It was much better to invite them to a banquet ; a man is much more likely to go to a good dinner, than to accept the honors of a butchery in which he is to occupy an objective place. Some men are so particular. Why didn't he poison them at the banquet, some one may ask. Poisoning isn't respectable, and besides, you always run a risk of changing glasses with somebody, and getting into your own stomach the arsenic you intended for his. Serv^ants are careless at dinner, and then you always have some guests, who don't drink and are quite likely to detest the particular kind of soup or pie where you have placed your medicine. Besides, when you poison a man, he has no time to prepare for death, while in a massacre like this he has lots of it. The Mamelukes that were not shot at the first fire had at least a quarter of a minute for preparation, as it would take quite that time to open the windows and level the rifles. Then you must add the period required for the bullets to go from the rifles to the Mamelukes, and altogether you will conclude that the time must have hung heavy on their hands. Those not killed at the first fire, had the additional time required for reloading, and you must remember, before condemn- ing Mohammed Ali for taking them unawares, that the rifles of that day were charged at the muzzle and were much slower to load than the Sharps, and Mansers, and Chassepots of our time. The more you study this massacre of the Mamelukes, the more you must admire Mohammed Ali for the way he managed it. He attended to the details, and did no bungling work. CHAPTER XXXVI. AN INTERVIEW WITH THE KHEDIVE.— LIFE IN THE CITY OF THE NILE. The Khedive, who is he ?— A hard-worked Tasha — His personal habits— My in- terview with him— Adventures of an old hat— Arranging ourselves for a royal reception — An eastern Monarch in a European dress— An unimpeachable cos- tume — A fluent talker— Bedouin Reporters— A carriage from the Harem— Two pair of bright eyes — Unveiling the women— A talk with a couple of pigmies— A nation of dwarf- warriors — My impressions of the Khedive. MOHAMMED Ali, the founder of the present ruling family of Egypt, was a man of great ability, but his energies were devoted to repairing the damages done by the misfortunes that preceded his reign, rather than to marking out new paths of pro- gress for Egypt. At the time of his death in 1848 the country was much the same as in the early part of the century. Under the rulers that succeeded him, particularly under Said Pasha, some progress was made ; but it was not until the pres- ent Viceroy, Ismail Pasha, ascended the throne, that Egypt be- gan her career of improvement. There were a few steamboats on the Lower Nile before his time, and the construction of the Suez canal had been begun, but the railway was practically un- known, and the cities and villages were in much the same condi- tion that they had been for a long time. Nearly all the great public works owe their origin to the present Khedive, Ismail Pa- sha, and he can point with pride to Egypt as she stands to-day. If anybody imagines that it is easy work to be king, he would change his mind, if he could, for a few weeks, make an exchange of places with Ismail Pasha. There is not, I was told, a more (457) 458 THE KHEDIVE AT HOME. industrious man in the country than the Khedive. He rises early, takes his bath and makes his toilet ; then he takes a light breakfast and sits down to work a little past seven o'clock, and sometimes before that hour. There are a lot of documents to examine, and questions to decide, which occupy him until eight o'clock, when his ministers arrive, and he holds counsel with them on matters connected with their different departments. Thus his time is consumed till near eleven o'clock or between ten and eleven, when he gives audiences to miscellaneous officials, to the foreign representatives and to strangers whom they have arranged to introduce to His Highness. This lasts until noon when he retires to break- fast and a rest of an hour or so ; then he generally takes a drive in his carriage, and very often has one of his ministers to accompany him, so that quite possibly he combines pleasure with bus- iness, by discussing affairs of state during the drive. The latter part of the day is passed according to cir- cumstances. Sometimes there will be more bureau duty and ministerial inter- views ; sometimes there are state dinners and court ceremonies, and sometimes an important matter will come up unexpectedly, so that business and ceremony are crowded close together. Sometimes he attends the opera in the evening, but this not often, and when he goes there he does not remain to the end. He retires early, so as to have plenty of rest, and he lives very carefully and regularly. He is said to be abstemious in matters of food and drink, for only by his regular habits could he preserve his health through so much hard work as he performs. Through the kindness of Mr. Beardsley, our diplomatic agent and Consul-General for Egypt, I had the pleasure, one day, of an interview with the Khedive. At a visit to the palace a few days ISMAIL PASHA, KHEDIVE OF EGYPT. TALE OF TWO HATS. 459 before, Mr. Beardsley had asked to present two of his fellow countrymen, Mr. Bayard Taylor and myself, and on the same evening he received notice that half-past ten on the day in question had been fixed for the reception. We were notified at once, and accordingly crowded our slender forms into our dress suits, brushed our stove-pipe hats into the best available appear- ance, and sallied forth from our hotel. Candor compels me to say that my hat was not new, and had passed through a variety of experiences by sea and land, in rain and dust, and in nu- merous mishaps that had creased, and in- dented, and thread- bared its once glossy skin and faultless shape. It had been new once, but since then I had transported it across Europe, summered it in Vienna, taken it down the Danube, into South- ern Russia, through the Crimea and carried it to Constantinople, Ath- ens, and Smyrna, into Syria and Palestine, and thence into Egypt. Don't you think that a hat which has been through so much would need a great deal of polishing to fit it for a vice-regal presentation .-' But it went through the ordeal gloriously, and as I kept it be- hind me most of the time, the Khedive never made — to me at least — any comment about it. As for Mr. Taylor — well, I may be revealing a secret and it may breed a quarrel between us, but candor again compels me to speak out. His hat wasn't his hat but another gentleman's, bor- rowed for the occasion, or if it wasn't it might have been. I never saw him wear it before, and it was much better than mine. A TOUGH ONE. 460 IN THE Khedive's presence. which was only fit to be seen when out of sight. Mr, Taylor ought to have been proud of that hat when he compared it with the one I carried, but if he was, he was too polite to hurt my feel- ings, and didn't manifest any haughtiness. Accompanied by Mr. Beardsley, we drove to the Abdeen Pal- ace, where the Khedive resides with his family, — a neat and sub- stantial looking edifice, in the western part of Cairo. As we en- tered the courtyard and drove to the door, the sentinels on duty presented arms, and we were met at the doorway by Murad Pasha, the Master of Ceremonies, who greeted us cordially and escorted us to the waiting room on the ground floor. Here we spent some fifteen minutes, — as we were ahead of time — in conversation with the Master of Ceremonies and with Ibrahim Pasha, nephew of the Khedive. The secretary and as- sistant secretary of the Khedive were present, and we were in- troduced to both. The time passed away rapidly, as all were fluent in P'rench and the conversation was not confined to par- ticular topics. Promptly at half-past ten we were ushered up one side of a double staircase, that turned and formed a single broad escalier, a dozen steps or so below the audience floor. Murad Pasha ac- companied us to the foot of the broad stairway, and thence we — the Consul-General and ourselves — proceeded alone. As I raised my eyes I saw the Khedive standing carelessly at the further side of the room ; when he caught site of our advancing column he stepped forward to meet us. He first greeted Mr. Beardsley, who followed the greeting by introducing Mr. Taylor with a few carefully chosen and appropriate words concerning him. Then came my turn, and while the Consul-General was making the in- troduction, the Khedive shook hands with us and welcomed us to his house. He then led the way to the audience room, a smaller parlor, overlooking the court yard. The reception hall, where he met us, was furnished in the French style, with large mirrors and Parisian furniture ; the audience parlor, whither we followed him, was similarly adorned in European style, with chairs and sofas covered with snow-white linen, and with a marble table in the centre. The walls were cov- ered with blue paper, figured with small flowers of a grayish tint, HOW HE LOOKED. 46 1 and the curtains and fixtures were in harmony with the walls. A tasteful chandelier above the table was filled with candles, ready for lighting, and on the table was a box of cigars, which, doubt- less, were equally ready for lighting. If we had gone there expecting to find the ruler of Egypt wearing baggy trowsers and a turban and smoking a nargileh, we should have been greatly disappointed. His dress is entirely European, with the single exception of the/^-c, or tarboosh, which covers his head. His coat and trowsers were of English cut ; the former was double-breasted, with silk trimmings on the lappels, and he wore it buttoned after the style of a morning or walking coat in London or New York. His shirt-front was almost entirely concealed by a black cravat or necktie, fastened at the crossing with a single pin of what appeared to be a ruby ; beyond this pin he wore no jewelry what- ever. His spotless white collar was turned down, and from the neatness of its fit and the careful polish it presented, I judge that he has a better laundress than I was able to find in Cairo. I was on the point of asking him to recommend me to her, but forebore, on the supposition that he might prefer to keep such a good washwoman to himself. The figure of the Khedive is not of the lean and hungry kind ; he appears to be about five feet nine in height, and is decidedly inclined to stoutness, without being ill-proportioned. Physically, he appears to have lived well, without any over- feeding. His face is full and broad, and he wears a closely- trimmed beard and moustache of a brownish hue. When in repose, his face is quite thoughtful, but as soon as he begins to talk it lightens up, and there is a constant play of animation over all his features. His brown eyes sparkle, and he accompanies his facial expression with frequent gestures of his hand§, quite in contrast to the solemn and stately manner which we associate with Oriental rulers. The Khedive took a seat in the corner of the room, and mo- tioned us to places near him, one on his right and two on his left, so that he could address all three without any necessity for a change of position beyond a very slight turning of the head. He began the conversation by asking Mr. Taylor if this was his 462 AN INTELLIGENT MONARCH. first visit to Egypt. The latter replied that he was there twenty- years ago and made a journey to the White Nile, " Ah, yes," said His Highness, " that was in the time of Abbas Pasha." Mr. Taylor bowed assent, and remarked the wonderful changes that had taken place since that time, and the great progress that he noticed all around, to which the Khedive made acknowledg- ment by a slight but graceful bow. There was a pause of a few seconds, which was broken by a question from Mr. Beardsley as to the latest intelligence from the upper country, where the Egyptian troops had a battle with the army of the King of Darfoor. " Nothing very recent," was the reply of the Khedive ; "nothing since the news two or three weeks ago of the battle in which the King was defeated. The report was that the King attacked our forces, and was defeated with heavy loss, but it must have been his son, as the King himself, le pauvre ^z^i^/^', is totally blind, and couldn't do much in leading an army. I am sure it must have been his son, though the dispatch did not say so." Conversation then went on, concerning Darfoor and its extent and resources. The Khedive spoke of the effort he was making for the suppression of the slave-trade, and said they had a force stationed there to watch the frontier and liberate the slaves which were being transported by caravans. " The Bedouins inform us," said he, " of the movements of the caravans, so that we have no difficulty in knowing where they are. We have told the Darfoorians that we do hot wish to inter- fere with them, only in stopping the slave trade, and we are on good terms with them, except in this one matter." He said, further, that the Darfoorian army had four cannon, and that in the recent battle the Egyptians took three of them. I asked him where they obtained the cannon, and he said, with a smile, that two of them were sent as a present from Said Pasha, the former Viceroy, to the King of Darfoor. These two guns were among the three captured ; the third was a very old and nearly useless piece that the Darfoorians bought, probably, from some of the traders to the sea-coast, and the other gun which they still retained was of the same sort. A GLIMPSE OF THE HAREM. 463 I asked v/hat kind of small arms the Darfoorians had, and he replied that, in addition to their lances and bows and arrows, they had flint-lock muskets, quite inadequate for coping with the breech-loading rifles with which his own army is equipped. After some further talk about the Darfoorians and the country of the Soudan, which Egypt has recently explored, and continues to explore, the conversation turned upon the pigmies, which had been brought from Central Africa. The Khedive gave us some interesting details about them, and recommended that we should go and see them at the Kast'-el-Nil barracks, where they were then kept. There was a brief conversation about the explora- tions of Livingstone, Schweinfurth.and Miani, and when it ended, the Khedive rose, and we did likewise. He accompanied us to the head of the staircase, gave each a farewell hand-shake, and said, in addition to the usual phrases of civility, "If I can be of any service to you, do not hesitate to inform me." We thanked him for his proffered kindness, bowed our adieux, and descended the stairway. At the foot we were met by the Master of Ceremonies, who accompanied us to the waiting-room, where we had left our overcoats, and subsequently accompanied us to our carriage. Our interview with the Khedive lasted about twenty minutes. He speaks French easily and correctly, and without any hesita- tion whatever. His manner throughout was easy and frank, and thoroughly pleasant, and such as to remove any embarrassment on the part of a visitor. There were touches of humor in his utterances, which cannot be rendered into English without losing their charm, and therefore I will not attempt to give them. From the Abdeen palace we drove to the barracks of Kasr-el- Nil to see the little men about whom His Highness had told us. Just as we left the palace, we met one of the harem carriages, containing two women, guarded by a couple of soldiers and the same number of eunuchs. The four were on splendid horses, the soldiers preceding and the eunuchs following the carriage. The blind of the carriage was down, and as the vehicle whisked rap- idly past us, I caught sight of a couple of veiled faces with flash- ing bright eyes, and with pretty features just visible beneath the thin gauze. 464 INTERVIEWING THE PIGMIES. It was a passing vision, a glimpse of a moment, that left no impression that could be retained. It is an impression which one receives quite often in Cairo, if he chooses to look toward the harem carriages when making their afternoon promenade. The family of the Khedive are more fortunate than that of any other Mohammedan ruler, as it can ride in carriages and see far more of out-door life than the royal ladies of other Eastern cities. The Khedive is no bigot, as many things indicate. I was told, though how truly I cannot say, that he is quite willing to allow his wives to appear unveiled after the European manner, and that probably they will do so before many years. I fancy that the prejudices of the women would be found stronger than his. Cus- tom of long standing declares that no modest woman goes with her face uncovered. To ask a Mohammedan woman to unveil her face in public, would be as bad as to request a fashionable belle of New York to walk along Fifth Avenue in the costume of the Black Crook. As we entered the parade ground of the barracks, we saw what appeared to be a couple of negro boys, playing at one side, and ascertained on inquiry, that they were the dwarfs or pigmies, for whom we were searching. We called them up and examined them closely, and they were certainly rare curiosities. There were only two, the taller said to be twenty and the shorter ten years old ; we measured their height, and found them respectively fort)^-six and forty-three inches in their shoes ; the younger, as he stood beside me, came not quite up to my hip. The eldest measured twenty-four inches around the chest and twenty-seven around the waist ; their abdomens protruded considerably, and their backs were quite hollow. This excessive protuberance of the abdomen is probably due to their vegetable diet, as the Khedive had told us that they lived, when at home, almost entirely on bananas and similar fruits. They stood quite erect, — I held a stick perpendicularly behind each of them, and found that when their heads touched it, their backs were more than two inches from it. Their necks are short, their limbs well formed, though they are somewhat bowed in the legs, and^ their feet are long and flat. Their heads are a curious study. The complexion is not the A NATION OF DWARFS. 465 deepest black of the negro of Nubia, but has rather a brownish hue ; their hair is woolly, and their noses are flat, as though broken in with a hammer. On looking down over the forehead of the elder, I could see the lips protruding beyond the nose ; and it appeared too, that the nostrils extended further than did the centre of the organ of smell. The lips are full and rounded, but less thick than those of the negro generally. Their faces were bright, and had a pleasing appearance, though not indicating a high intellect. Accompanying them was a " Dinka " negro, from the White Nile, and Mr. Taylor questioned him in Arabic about the pig- mies and their country. He said these men came from a region in the interior, and that it took the caravans a year and a half to' go there and return. Very little was known about the pigmies, beyond the fact that their country is quite extensive, and all the people are of diminutive size. The King was no larger than the taller of the two before us, and they are a warlike people, who fight very earnestly to prevent anybody visiting them. Their country is covered with jungle, and they conceal themselves in the thickets and send showers of arrows upon the invaders. We endeavored to get them to talk, but they would not. One of the soldiers told them to speak, but the elder turned away rather sullenly, and would not utter a word. The soldiers said their language was quite unlike Arabic, Nubian, or any other that they ever heard, and further said the pair talked a great deal and very rapidly, when playing together, The name of the elder was Tubal, and that of the younger Karrell. and they call their country " Takka-lakka-leeka." Dr. Schweinfurth, the distinguished German explorer, learned something about these people ; but it was the good fortune of Miani, an Italian, who had been a long time in Africa, to visit them and secure three specimens, two men and a woman, with whom he started for Europe. But he died while still in the wilds of Africa, and his papers and effects, including the three pigmies, were sent to Khartoum. There they were seized, to cover certain debts of Miani's to merchants in Khartoum, and the pigmies, who were supposed to be slaves, were thrown into prison, where the woman died. They were not kept there long, 466 HOW THEY LIVE. as the facts about them were speedily made known, and soon after their release from prison they were sent to Cairo. The Khedive showed a deep interest in the subject of the country of the dwarfs and its peculiar population, and quite probably the expeditions he has since sent into Central Africa were instructed to learn something more of them and to pene- trate the remote district if possible. During our conversation he called special attention to the fact, that a dwarf of any race has a head disproportionately large, and arms or legs disproportionately long or short. " But you will see," said he, " that these little men are perfectly formed, like a well-shaped adult, with the exception of the abdomen, which is due to their vegetable diet, and that the elder has hands and fingers like those of a person who has reached his full size." We looked for dwarfish peculiarities, but found none, and were quite of the opinion of others who have examined them, that they are a race of pigmies. From the Kasr-el-Nil we drove through the new part of Cairo, along the broad macadamized streets, and after dropping the Consul-General at his residence, returned to our hotel with the reflection that we had passed an agreeable, interesting, and in- structive forenoon. I was particularly struck with the thorough information of the Khedive, and the interest he manifested concerning the pigmies, and about Darfoor and other subjects of our conversation, and asked Mr. Beardsley if he was equally well informed about matters in general. " Equally so," was the reply. " I don't see how he manages to keep so well posted as he does ; he has a remarkably retentive memory about everything, whether of business or any other mat- ter. When I mention anything that we may have talked about weeks before, he remembers how it was left at that interview, and shows that it has by no means passed his mind." " He knows the course of European, Asiatic, and American politics ; understands the religious questions in England and France, and any other important topic ; has the run of affairs in Spain or other revolutionary countries, and is, in fact, "up" in all the news of the day. He must read a great deal when we think A PASHA OF THREE TAILS. 46/ he is at rest, and he must remember all that he reads. He attends personally to all the affairs of the country, and though he leaves the details to his ministers, there is no question, except of a very trivial nature, that is not submitted to him for decision. Any matter concerning the government in any way, goes through the department to which it belongs, but must always go before the Khedive before it can be decided." The title, Khedive, is a Persian one, equivalent to "viceroy," or, as some persons assert, to " king." The ruler I have been describing is the first occupant of the Egyptian throne to wear the title. He is addressed in conversation as " Your Highness," and is generally spoken of as " His Highness." The ministers of state and other high dignitaries in Egypt are known as " Ex- cellencies," and to address one of them without the prefix, " Votre Excellejtce" might give offence. They hold rank as pashas, and are nearly always gentlemen of liberal education and marked ability. " Pasha," like " Khedive," is of Persian origin ; it is of great antiquity, and was originally used to desig- nate the governor of a city or province. There are several grades of pashas, just as in our country there are several grades of generals. In some parts of the Orient the pasha, when he goes abroad, is preceded by an officer bearing a pole, from which is suspended the insignia of the great man's rank. If he is a first-class pasha, his rank is indicated by three horse tails, and he is called a pasha of three tails. Then there are pashas of two tails (much more common than cats with two tails), and there are also one-tailed pashas. Soon after I left Egypt, one of the high officials was removed and furnished with an indefinite leave of absence. A friend, writing me from Cairo, stated the case thus : " You may have heard of the change whereby the head of one of the departments has become a pasha of no tail whatever." Which was not a bad way of putting it. 27 CHAPTER XXXVII. STREET-LIFE IN CAIRO. Cairo, old and new — A visit to the ancient city — The Nilometer, What is it ? — Meas- uring the rise of the Nile — Moses in the Bulrushes — Tombs of the Caliphs — An Egyptian funeral — Curious customs — "Crowding the Mourners" — Water-carriers and their ways — A noisy tobacco-vender — Glimpses of the Arabian Nights — Among • the Bazaars — Street scenes in Cairo — A cavalcade of Donkeys — Hoaxing a Don- key-boy — Amusing spectacle — Putting up a rid* at auction — An Arab storv — A Nation of Liars and why ! — Mosques of Cairo — Stones from the Great Pyramid. CAIRO consists of two cities, the new and the old, and they are two or three miles apart. Old Cairo is on the bank of the river, near the island of Roda, and is quite picturesque, being full of narrow, crooked streets, where one must be very cautious to prevent being run over. The windows project so far over the street that they frequently touch, and it would be the easiest mat- ter in the world to go from one to another. The city was for- merly much more extensive than now, and many of its houses are in a ruinous condition. From old Cairo we went to the island of Roda to see the fa- mous Nilometer, where the rise of the river during the inunda- tion is recorded. It is nothing more than a deep pit or well, with a column in the center, marked with a graduated scale. This Nilometer is about a thousand years old. There is a more ancient one at the island of Elephantine, near the first cataract, and history records that there was one in use at the time of the Pharaohs. Near the present Nilometer is the spot said by tra- dition to be that where the infant Moses was found by Pharaoh's (468) iiil S^liiilSiKMllli MOSES' ARK AND THE SULTAn's TOMBS. 469 daughter. The island is quite pretty and is covered with fruit and other gardens. Outside the city, and close to the border of the desert, are the tombs of the Barghite Sultans, which are generally called, though erroneously, the tombs of the Caliphs. The real burying places of the Caliphs of Cairo are in the city, not far from the bazaars, and in the busiest part of this very busy capital. The Moslem awaits death with the utmost composure. When a learned or pious Moslem feels that he is about to die, he per- forms the ordinary ablution, as before prayer, that he may de- part from life in a state of bodily purity ; and he generally re- peats the profession of his faith. It is not uncommon for a Mos- lem on a military expedition, or during a long journey through the desert, to carry his grave linen with him. It often happens that a traveler in such circumstances has even to make his own grave ; completely overcome by fatigue or privation, or sinking under a fatal disease in the desert, when his companions, if he have any, cannot wait for his recovery or death, he performs the ablution, with water, if possible, or, if not with sand or dust which is allowable in such case, and then having made a trench in the sand as his grave^ lies down in it wrapped in his grave clothes, and covers himself with the exception of his face with thes and taken up in making the trench : thus he waits for death to re- lieve him, trusting to the wind to complete his burial. The ceremonies attendant upon death and burial are nearly the same in the cases of men and women. When the rattles in the throat, or other symptoms, show that a man is at the point of death, an attendant turns him round to place his face in the direction of Mecca, and closes his eyes. Many of the tombs of the Turkish grandees have marble tar- kecbchs which are canopied by cupolas supported by four col- umns of marble. There are numerous tombs of this description in the cemetery at Cairo We were rather disappointed in our visit to the tombs of the Sultans. They were originally very hand- some, but are now in a very ruinous condition , and they bid fair to be altogether destroyed before many years. There were two or three with lofty domes and minarets, quite like the mosques of Cairo. They were really intended as mosques, in connection with the 470 A FUNERAL PROCESSION. tombs, so as to furnish praying places for the faithful whenever they wished to pay respect to the dead. From the outside and at a little distance they present a fine effect, with their backing of sand-covered hills and the general surroundings of approaching desolation. Inside we found por- tions of the smaller walls torn away to be used in other buildings, and in one of the mosques, cows and donkeys were stabled. The windows were broken and ragged. The floors were dirty and the attendants were noisy Arabs, who seemed to have no other ob- ject in remaining there than the collection of " backsheesh," in which they were most persistent. At the cemetery near these tombs we saw a funeral procession and followed it, out of curiosity. Half a dozen men, some of them blind, and each resting a hand on the shoulder of another, led the way and chanted a melancholy air. Then came a man with a small coffin borne on his head, and behind him were half a dozen women and as many boys, the women closely veiled ac- cording to the custom of the country. The procession did not move in couples, according to the Oc- cidental custom ; there was no observance of regularity, except that the men were in front of the coffin and the women and boys behind it. They moved through the country to a spot where a grave had been opened ; near it the women stopped and sat down, and the bearers placed the coffin on the ground, a priest uttered a prayer, and then the man who had brought the cofP.n — a sort of oblong box, with a shawl over it — removed the shawl, and took from beneath it the corpse. It was that of a child about two years old, and was completely wrapped in cloth and bound around with cords, somewhat as one might wrap a bale of goods to keep it from falling apart. The man advanced to the edge of the grave, and placed the corpse in- side, with very little ceremony, or rather, with no ceremony at all. The women set up a mournful cry, and one of the men of the party approached us and told our guide that they wished us to retire. As soon as the request was translated, we walked away, feeling that we had been guilty of an intrusion. I saw several funeral processions in Cairo, and had previously seen them in Damascus, Smyrna, and other Oriental cities. At STRANGE BURIAL CUSTOMS. 4/1 all of them the custom was the same, the singers preceding the corpse and the mourners following it. The one here described was the burial of the child of a poor woman, and there was little display and little ceremony. Some of the processions that came under my notice were of considerable extent, the singers or chanters numbering from fifty to a hundred, and being accom- panied by mollahs or priests. The corpse, in such cases, was covered with rich shawls, and at the head of the coffin there was a small post to sustain the cap worn by the deceased. In the tombs of the wealthy these caps remain at the head of the coffin, and the visitor to the tombs of the various Sultans of Turkey will not fail to notice how in- variably the fez is placed at the head of him who once wore it. The coffin is supported on the shoulders of four bearers, and there is frequently a relay to take their places from time to time ; and there is a large following of friends of the deceased, some on foot, and some mounted on donkeys, and from time to time a sound of wailing rises from the mourning party. Some of the mourners are professionals hired for the occasion, while others belong to the family of the defunct. The crowd in the street does not suspend its avocations, or pay the slightest sign of respect for the procession, beyond making room for it to pass. And frequently persons in a hurry, and wishing to cross the line of procession, do so without ceremony. A stranger in Cairo sees a great deal to amuse him, and if he keeps his eyes open he can learn much that is new. The water of the wells in Cairo is slightly brackish, and many people obtain their livelihood by supplying the inhabitants with water from the Nile. The water seller, or carrier, has across his shoulders what appears to be a sack when carelessly observed, but proves on examination to be the skin of a pig or a goat. The skin has been taken off as near whole as possible and is then sewn up so that when filled with water it has the shape of the animal that once wore it. It is filled through the neck, which is not tied, but held in the hands of the bearer, who carries his burden across his back and sustains it in place by means of a strong strap. Some of these water skins have a long neck and a nozzle that points into the air like the muzzle of a rifle. The skin hangs on the 472 A POETICAL WATER CARRIER. bearer's back, and the spout is behind his shoulder ; in his hands he has a couple of brass cups, which he rattles to secure attention. When he finds a customer, he fills one of the cups through the nozzle, and the accuracy and skill he displays in the opera- tion evince long practice. As he walks along he calls out some- times, " Moie, moie ! " but more frequently some Arabic words that mean, " O, ye thirsty ! O, ye thirsty ! " and occasionally he adds something about the delights of a cup of cool, delicious water, and sounds the praises of the special lot that he carries. I was told by persons who understand the language, that there is much poetry in its every-day use, and the water carrier, as I have ^_._^^^^J just explained, is poet- ical in his appeals, ^ and so are the street M peddlers of all grades. --_ The venders of veg- fj: etables, of candy, of bread, and other edi- ^^ ; bles do not, as a general thing, name the articles they have for sale, but they address appeals to the hungry, allude to the tortures of hun- ger, and the pleasure of satisfying it. The seller of shoes appeals to the unshod, and beseeches them to go barefoot no longer. The seller of tobacco calls to those who smoke and love the fragrant Latakiah, or the invigorating Koranny. " O, ye man," " O, ye woman," " O, ye old man," is shouted by your donkey driver as he guides you through the crowded streets, and he changes it to *' O, ye people," when the number is so great that he cannot afford to address them in detail. "O, YE THIRSTY.' MUSICAL PEDDLERS. 473 "Backsheesh, O, Howadji," (a present, O, gentlemen), is the appeal of the beggar to the passing stranger. The dealer in fresh clover for donkeys' food chants, " From green fields I bring the odors of fresh verdure," and the squinting merchants in the Perfume Bazaar vaunt the praises of their wares in words that fill the Moslem mind with thoughts of Paradise, and bear it away from prosaic thoughts and duties of every-day life. CHILDREN BREAD-SELLERS IN THE STREETS OF CAIRO. Somebody has said that to find a Princess Scheherazade, you have only to scratch the back of your Cairene donkey boy, and with a slight encouragement he will begin to talk in the strain of the Arabian Nights. I found it so to some extent in my acquaintance with the Egyptian capital. Most of the donkey drivers that frequent the fronts of the hotels can speak I^nglish, and some of them quite well. They are as a class bright and 474 BORN LIARS. intelligent, and can be relied upon for information as to the cus- toms of the people. Their knowledge of localities is sufficient for all the purposes for which a guide is usually employed, and as soon as our party, in its collective capacity, were through with sight-seeing, we fell back upon the donkey boys, and dismissed our professional guide. Whether the Cairenes indulge to-day in stories like that of the Enchanted Horse, and Sinbad the Sailor, I am unable to say, but in the matter of scandal they are quite up to the Occidental mark. One of the donkey boys at the hotel told me a variety of incidents connected with the harems, and some of them are of a very apochryphal character. There is one peculiarity of the Arab that a stranger will not be long in detecting, and that is his readiness to answer each and every question you may put to him. Ask him something, and if he knows the answer he will generally give it ; if he does not know, he will reply with anything that his imagination sug- gests, and he does it as gravely as though he were expounding a text of the Koran. One day, I asked a donkey boy how much he would ask to take me to the Astor House. " Two shillin','' was the prompt reply. He hadn't the remotest idea where it was, but did not hesitate a moment to undertake to find it. So I asked him where it was. " I savez, I savez ; on the Esebekiah," he replied, and pushed his donkey around for me to enter the saddle Other boys came up, and I said I wished to go the Astor House and Tammany Hall. In half a minute the whole crowd was vociferating, and the price fell from two shillings to two francs, and then to one shil- ling. I was obliged to end the matter by hiring a donkey and going to the citadel. Every driver was ready to take me to the places I mentioned, and was confident he could find them. The Arabs have a story which they tell, to account for their tendency to falsehood. They say that His Satanic Majesty once came on earth with nine bags full of lies. He scattered the contents of one bag in Europe, and then started for Asia, Africa, and the Oriental Isles. MOSJ fairs throughout Egypt similar to the one at Tantah, but none of them succeed in bringing together such a large number of people. After leaving Tantah we crossed upon iron bridges the Rosetta and Damietta branches of the Nile, and sped along over a line of railway as straight as a sunbeam. There was not much engineer- ing work in building the road, nothing more than to lay down the track after the construction of a bed high enough to keep the rails above the height of the annual inundation. As we approach the coast the country becomes more marshy and unproductive, and the scenery is decidedly monotonous. For several miles the track is through a marsh, and on nearing Alexandria we catch sight, on our left hand, of Lake Mareotis, a shallow body of water much like Lake Lenzalah, through which the Suez Canal runs after leaving Port Said. We pass near the bank of the Mahmoodieh Canal, which con- nects Alexandria with the Nile, and was constructed by order of Mohammed Ali in less than a year's time. It cost about three hundred thousand pounds sterling, and employed a quarter of a million men, of whom twenty thousand died of plague, hunger, and cholera. The average width of the canal is about one hun- dred feet, and its total length is fifty miles — a reasonably gigantic operation for less than a twelvemonth. The canal was full of boats as we passed it ; we could not see them on account of the high bank, but their masts and sails were visible, and so we argued that the boats were there. Near Alex- andria the banks of the canal are bordered with pretty villas and gardens for some distance, and some of the villas are quite pic- turesque. It has become the fashion for wealthy Alexandrians to have their residences in this locality, and there is a watering- place and popular resort known as Ramleh about half an hour's ride from the city. The Viceroy has a palace there, and generally resides in it during a portion of the summer. Our train swept toward the city, passing in sight of Pompey's Pillar, and through a collection of houses that form a sort of industrial suburb. The station is at the extreme west of the town, and is sufficiently large for all practical purposes, and con- tained, at our arrival, the usual array of dragomen, porters, and 688 POMPEYS PILLAR. Other hangers-on. The streets are quite a contrast to those of Cairo, as they are paved with huge blocks of stone that have so worn away in places as to make them very rough, and quite un- pleasant for carriage-driving. The pavement was once excellent, but it has received no attention, and the dust indicates that it is very rarely swept. The dust flew about in clouds, and my com- panion said that when he was last here there were some heavy rains, and where we found dust, he had found a regular Slough of Despond of mud. I can well believe the mud must have been something frightful, and a ride through it upon a donkey would prove to be something serious. One of my acquaintances tells me of being pitched head fore- most into six or eight inches of it after putting on his best clothes and starting out to make a call, v/hich he indefinitely postponed and returned to his hotel, where he hung up to dry. He had the satisfaction — on the ground that misery loves company — of see- ing, while on the way back from his mishap, a gaudily-dressed French woman undergo a similar tumble where the mud was deeper. Her feathers, and flounces, and laces, and general finery were sadly bedraggled, and when she emerged, with the aid of a couple of Arabs, she resembled a canary bird that has passed through a street-sweeping machine. The city founded by and named for Alexander the Great con- tains very few traces of its former magnificence. Cleopatra's Needle and the so-called Pompey's Pillar are the stock sights ; the former is a granite shaft, covered with hieroglyphics, and is far inferior every way to the obelisks at Karnak and Luxor. More beautiful and better placed is the Pillar, standing on an elevation near the Mohammedan burying-ground, and consisting of a base, shaft, and capital, the whole nearly a hundred feet high, and the shaft alone seventy feet long and nearly ten feet in diameter. The shaft is a single piece of red granite, highly pol- ished and elegantly made, the workmanship being far better than that of base or capital. It is probable that a statue once stood on the pillar, and there are some old pictures of Alexandria in which the Pillar is represented with a statue upon it. There is no way of reaching the summit except by a considerable outlay for ropes and ladders, and also for the necessary labor of arranging 1 ALEXANDRIA, 69I them. It has been twice ascended in the present century, once by a party of English sailors, and once by an enterprising woman. In each instance a string was stretched over the capital by means of a kite ; the string was then used to draw up a stout cord, the cord to draw up a rope, and the rope to draw up a ladder. By the ladder the ascent is easy enough, but it requires a cool head and a sure grasp. A paragraph with the heading "Ancient Alexandria" might be about as brief as the famous chapter on the snakes of Ireland, Of the capital that contained a population of half a million, a library of I don't know how many thousand volumes, temples, palaces, and piles stupendous, there are little more than vestiges remaining. Here and there may be found a few relics ; walls and foundations of buildings may be traced in a few localities, and there are some mutilated statues and other fragments that have survived the touch of Decay's Effacing Fingers. From ancient times Alexandria steadily declined, so that at the end of the last century it had a population of six thousand ; dur- ing the French and English occupations it began to improve, but it made its greatest progress under Mohammed Ali. The successors of that prince have continued to foster it, and at the present day it is a busy, bustling city of nearly a quarter of a million inhabitants, of whom one-fourth are Europeans. There is an air of commerce everywhere, and when one arrives at the railway station and drives through the streets, he realizes that he is in a seaport long before he has caught sight of the sea, or of the forest of masts that rise in the harbor. Near the Great Square you can visit the bazaars or shops, where you will see a reproduction of the sights and scenes of Cairo. The Great Square is a sort of public park, filled with shade- trees and seats, and having in the centre an equestrian statue of Mohammed Ali. At each end there is a fountain, and around the square are buildings of a very substantial character, quite worthy of any great city of modern times. Everything is mod- ern. There is nothing to remind you of antiquity, and even the Arabs that cluster around the fountains are nearly all boys, and seem more modernized than their brethren at Cairo. 692 MISCHIEVOUS DONKEY-BOYS. As soon as we were quartered at the hotel, we went to the steamship ofifice to engage our passage, and having paid for our tickets, concluded it would be well to visit the ship and examine our quarters. We hired donkeys for a ride to the Marine, or landing-place, and away we cantered through the streets of the Arab quarter. There was a crowd of boatmen that wrangled a long time to secure us, and with such effect that we found a boat to take us to the ship and back again for sixpence each. The boatmen were mostly Arabs and Maltese, strong, active fellows, whose rowing abilities are much better than their man- ners. There are no docks or wharves to the harbor ; the ships must lie out and discharge their cargoes by means of lighters, and passengers must land and embark in small boats. The har- bor is good without being excellent ; the entrance is difficult and tortuous, and the sea frequently rolls in very uncomfortably. There is an outside harbor, where most of the foreign ships lie, as the inner one is rather shallow for them. The outer one is subject to winds and a heavy sea, but will be greatly improved when the new breakwater, now constructing, is finished. Hitherto the government has not cared to improve the entrance of the harbor, as a bad entrance is easier defended than a good one, but a better sentiment prevails at present, and the harbor is to be made as good as possible with a fair outlay of money. When we came back to the landing, we had a fair instance of the swindling tendencies of the Arab donkey-drivers. We had left our beasts there, and as we had not paid for them, we felt that there was no danger that the owners would take them away. The instant we touched the steps an urchin appeared, and behind him was another, each holding a donkey. " Your donkeys is gone," said the foremost, " and you is to ride back on this donkeys." We were about mounting in acceptance of this reasonable statement, but took the precaution to look around before doing so. Our own beasts and drivers were a little distance away, and the story of the boy who announced their departure, proved to be of the most piscatorial character. The boatmen and donkey- drivers of Alexandria have a worse reputation than those of any other Egyptian city. SITE OF THE ANCIENT PHAROS. 693 On the shore of the Eastern harbor there are several caf^s, so as to command the marine air and view. We sat a while in one of these on our return from the ship, and found the breeze very grateful and refreshing after our hot experience in Cairo and on the railway. From the covered balcony we could see Cleopatra's needle on the right, among a lot of houses, while away to the seaward rose the lighthouse which occupies the site of the ancient " Pharos," one of the earliest lighthouses known to mariners — the earliest in fact — and once known as one of the seven wonders of the world. Its name is perpetuated in the appellation of light- houses in the French and other languages, (phare,) and its cost at the time of its erection by Ptolemy Philadelphus was something very great. History says it was a square building, of white marble, several stories high, each story smaller than the one below it, and there was a road winding round it with so gentle a slope that chariots could be driven to the top. The fair, but imprudent Cleopatra, is said to have handled the ribbons over a pair of animals some- what better than omnibus horses, and driven them to the summit of the Pharos, where she rested a few moments, and then drove them down again. What a pity she did not break her neck in the descent, so as to save some of us an unpleasant bit of scandal and that horrid story of the asp. Much care and attention is bestowed upon the gardens, and one of them, belonging to a Greek resident, proved to be excep- tionally handsome. It was adorned with statues, and marble pavements, and in one corner there was a charming little Kios- que where four chairs around a table suggested a pleasant break- fast or lunch for the master and his family or friends. There are many of these gardens in and around Alexandria, and they con- tain a bewildering array of African and other plants. At the appointed hour we went on board the steamer, and to avoid trouble we made a contract with a fellow to transport our baggage from the hotel to the ship and ourselves with it. One condition of the contract was that our trunks were not to be opened at the Custom House ; I don't know how much " back- sheesh" he paid to the officials, but he had it arranged before- hand so that nothing was disturbed It is forbidden now to take 694 FAREWELL TO EGYPT. antiquities out of Egypt, and anything of the sort found in the trunk of a departing stranger is hable to confiscation. And behold us now on the deck of a Malta-bound steamer, pre- pared, when she lifts her anchor, to say good-bye to Egypt. Farewell to the land of the purest sky, and the most lovely winter climate that the world can boast ; to the temples and tombs that tell us of a people far back in the misty past — a peo- ple whose mechanical skill surpass that of all those who have followed them, and before whose monuments we stand with bowed and reverential heads ; and to the shrines of Isis and Osiris to whose mystic worship the most powerful nation of its time was devoted, and for whom the most gigantic temples were erected. And farewell to the Nile, that mysterious river whose sources are yet unknown, and on whose banks have been written through sixty centuries many important pages of the world's history. Mighty and brilliant empires have there risen and fallen ; great cities have flourished and disappeared. Persian and Greek and Roman have come and gone ; Pagan and Jew and Christian and Moslem have built their temples, and have seen the glory and decline of their religions ; on its sleepy waters floated the frail bark that held the infant Moses, and beside them rested the Holy family when it fled from Bethlehem that the Saviour child might escape the fury of Herod. Farewell to the desert with its glowing sands, and to the rich valley whose fertility six thousand years of assiduous cultivation have not been able to exhaust ; to waving palms and kneeling camels; to the city of the Caliphs, the Mamelukes, and the Khe- dive, where the bustle and activity of the Occident have not alto- gether changed the dignified mien or opened the eyes of the sleepy Oriental ; where he sits to-day as he sat in the time of Haroun Al-Raschid, and waits in his little shop till Heaven chooses to send a purchaser for his wares. To the land where Pharaoh ruled, and Cleopatra loved and died ; where Past and Present stand face to face, and where the opposing waves of Eastern and Western civilizations are met we utter a hearty good-bye. When shall we see you again ? FINIS.