John Stephens - Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland, Vol. 1 (of 2)

At midnight we were roused by the chant of the Greeks in the streets, on their way to the church. We turned out, and fell into a procession of five hundred people, making the streets as light as day with their torches. At the door of the church we found our host, sitting at a table with a parcel of wax tapers on one side and a box to receive money on the other. We each bought a taper and went in. After remaining there at least two hours, listening to a monotonous and unintelligible routine of prayers and chants, the priests came out of the holy doors, bearing aloft an image of our Saviour on the cross, ornamented with gold leaf, tassels, and festoons of artificial flowers; passed through the church, and out of the opposite door. The Greeks lighted their tapers and formed into a procession behind them, and we did the same. Immediately outside the door, up the staircase, and on each side of the corridor, allowing merely room enough for the procession to pass, were arranged the women, dressed in white, with long white veils, thrown back from their faces however, laid smooth over the tops of their heads, and hanging down to their feet. Nearly every woman, old or young, had a child in her arms. In fact, there seemed to be as great a mustering of children as of men and women, and, for aught that I could see, as much to the edification of the former as the latter. A continued chant was kept up during the movements of the procession, and perhaps for half an hour after the arrival of the priests at the courtyard, when it rose to a tremendous burst. The torches were waved in the air; a wild, unmeaning, and discordant scream or yell rang through the hollow cloisters, and half a dozen pistols, two or three muskets, and twenty or thirty crackers were fired. This was intended as a feu-de-joie, and was supposed to mark the precise moment of our Saviour's resurrection. In a few moments the phrensy seemed to pass away; the noise fell from a wild clamour to a slow chant, and the procession returned to the church. The scene was striking, particularly the part outside the church; the dead of night; the waving of torches; the women with their long white dresses, and the children in their arms, &c.; but, from beginning to end, there was nothing solemn in it.

Returned to the church, a priest came round with a picture of the Saviour risen; and, as far as I could make it out, holding in his hand the Greek flag, followed by another priest with a plate to receive contributions. He held out the picture to be kissed, then turned his hand to receive the same act of devotion, keeping his eye all the time upon the plate which followed to receive the offerings of the pious, as a sort of payment for the privilege of the kiss. His manner reminded me of the Dutch parson, who, immediately after pronouncing a couple man and wife, touching the bridegroom with his elbow, said, "And now where ish mine dollar?" I kissed the picture, dodged his knuckles, paid my money, and left the church. I had been there four hours, during which time, perhaps, more than a thousand persons had been completely absorbed in their religious ceremonies; and though beginning in the middle of the night, I have seen more yawning at the theatre or at an Italian opera than I saw there. They now began to disperse, though I remember I left a crowd of regular amateurs, at the head of whom were our sailors, still hanging round the desk of an exhorting priest, with an earnestness that showed a still craving appetite.

I do not wonder that the Turks look with contempt upon Christians, for they have constantly under their eyes the disgusting mummeries of the Greek church, and see nothing of the pure and sublime principles our religion inculcates. Still, however, there was something striking and interesting in the manner in which the Greeks in this Turkish town had kept themselves, as it were, a peculiar people, and, in spite of the brands of "dog" and "infidel," held fast to the religion they received from their fathers. There was nothing interesting about them as Greeks; they had taken no part with their countrymen in their glorious struggle for liberty; they were engaged in petty business, and bartered the precious chance of freedom once before them for base profits and ignoble ease; and even now were content to live in chains, and kiss the rod that smote them.

We returned to the house where we had slept; and, after coffee, in company with our host and his father, the priest, sat down to a meal, in which, for the first time in forty days, they ate meat. I had often remarked the religious observance of fast days among the common people in Greece. In travelling there I had more than once offered an egg to my guide on a fast day, but never could get one to accept anything that came so near to animal food, though, by a strange confusion of the principles of religious obligation, perhaps the same man would not have hesitated to commit murder if he had any inducement to do so. Mrs. Hill, at Athens, told me that, upon one occasion, a little girl in her school refused to eat a piece of cake because it was made with eggs.

At daylight I was lying on the floor looking through a crevice of the window-shutter at the door of the minaret, waiting for the muezzin's morning cry to prayer. At six o'clock I went out, and finding the wind still in the same quarter, without any apparent prospect of change, determined, at all hazards, to leave the vessel and go on by land. My friend and fellow-passenger was also very anxious to get to Smyrna, but would not accompany me, from an indefinite apprehension of plague, robbers, &c. I had heard so many of these rumours, all of which had proved to be unfounded, that I put no faith in any of them. I found a Turk who engaged to take me through in fourteen hours; and at seven o'clock I was in my saddle, charged with a dozen letters from captains, supercargoes, and passengers, whom I left behind waiting for a change of wind.

My Tartar was a big swarthy fellow, with an extent of beard and mustaches unusual even among his bearded countrymen. He was armed with a pair of enormous pistols and a yataghan, and was, altogether, a formidable fellow to look upon. But there was a something about him that I liked. There was a doggedness, a downright stubbornness that seemed honest. I knew nothing about him. I picked him up in the street, and took him in preference to others who offered, because he would not be beaten down in his price. When he saw me seated on my horse he stood by my side a little distance off, and looking at me without opening his lips, drew his belt tight around him, and adjusted his pistols and yataghan. His manner seemed to say that he took charge of me as a bale of goods, to be paid for on safe delivery, and that he would carry me through with fire and sword, if necessary. And now, said I, "Let fate do her worst;" I have a good horse under me, and in fourteen hours I shall be in Smyrna. "Blow winds and crack your cheeks;" I defy you.

My Tartar led off at a brisk trot, never opening his lips nor turning his head except occasionally to see how I followed him across a stream. At about ten o'clock he turned off from the horse-path into a piece of fine pasture, and, slipping the bridle off his horse, turned him loose to feed. He then did the same with mine, and, spreading my cloak on the ground for me to sit upon, sat down by my side and opened his wallet. His manner seemed to intimate a disposition to throw provisions into a common stock, no doubt expecting the gain to be on his side; but as I could only contribute a couple of rolls of bread which I bought as we rode through the town, I am inclined to think that he considered me rather a sponge.

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