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

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

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

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

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

****

CHAPTER IX.

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

( Another letter. )

My dear ****,

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

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

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

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

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