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 STORIED SEA 
 
 
 
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 SUSAN E. WALLACE 
 
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 R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY 
 
 
 
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 Copyright, 1883, 
 By James R. Osgood and Company. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 (JTamfrritige : 
 
 PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON, 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS. 
 
THE STORIED SEA 
 
"There it is, at last, — the long line of heavenly blue, and over it, far 
 away, the white-peaked lateen sails ; and there, close to the rail, beyond the 
 sand-hills, delicate wavelets are breaking forever on a yellow beach, each in 
 exactly the same place as the one which fell before. One glance shows us 
 children of the Atlantic that we are on a tideless sea. 
 
 " There it is, — the sacred sea. The sea of all civilization, and almost all 
 history, girdled by the fairest countries in the world ; set there that human 
 beings from all its shores might mingle with each other, and become humane, 
 — the sea of Egypt, of Palestine, of Greece, of Italy, of Byzant, of Marseilles, 
 and this Narbonnaise, 'more Roman than Rome herself,' to which we owe 
 the greater part of our own progress; the sea too of Algeria, and Carthage, 
 and Cyrene, and fair lands now desolate, surely not to be desolate forever, — 
 the sea of civilization. Not only to the Christian, nor to the classic scholar, 
 but to every man to whom the progress of his race from barbarism to 
 humanity is dear, should the Mediterranean Sea be one of the most august 
 and precious objects on this globe ; and the first sight of it should inspire 
 reverence and delight, as of coming home, — home to a rich inheritance, iu 
 which he has long believed by hearsay, but which he sees at last with his own 
 mortal corporal eyes." — Prose Idylls, Charles Kingsley. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 DDRESSED by the author to the be- 
 loved unseen reader who wrote asking 
 that these newspaper letters might be 
 collected into a book. 
 
 Through the courtesy of the editor of the 
 "New York Independent," I now have the 
 opportunity ; and it is a deep pleasure to think 
 that in this new dress I shall be recognized 
 and welcomed as an old acquaintance. As 
 indicated in my initial chapter, I have not 
 tri( j d to entertain the privileged few " who 
 have everything," but have sought to amuse 
 those whose recreations are not many, — the 
 poor and the sick, the sorry and the dissat- 
 isfied. This last is a pale procession, like the 
 
iv Preface. 
 
 innumerable company John saw, which no man 
 could number for multitude. In the summer 
 voyage, very precious to me, among my unseen 
 friends have been the bride in Nebraska who 
 denied herself butter for a season that she 
 might subscribe to the " Independent," and 
 the young girl in Vermont who wants to 
 know why she, who loves poetry so well, can- 
 not write it. Nor have I strained to be in- 
 structive. Schools and libraries are crammed 
 with useful knowledge, and the hackneyed 
 sights of the Elder World may be paved with 
 ponderous volumes of accurate description of 
 the "shining Orient." I have aimed only at 
 an easy familiarity of talk, such as we would 
 have together should we meet, as I hope we 
 may, some happy morning. The guide-book is 
 for the student of facts, — let me refer you to 
 Baedeker and Murray, — but these transient 
 pictures in water are for the gentle, patient 
 soul wanting rest from that weariness known 
 in our dear native land as mental culture. 
 
 Parting is sweet sorrow to lovers whisper- 
 ing in the starlit stillness of Italian nights, 
 
Preface. v 
 
 but not to us no longer young. In the shad- 
 ows of mature years wistfully we ask, When, 
 where, how, shall we meet again ? So it is 
 with feeling akin to pain I say good-by. The 
 reader, so often addressed as "dear,' 1 is not a 
 phantom or a shade, but a constant compan- 
 ion grown into an abiding presence. It is not 
 possible to dismiss such comradeship without 
 regret. To all w T ho have sent pleasant mes- 
 sages across the seas, peace and health! 
 
 SUSAN E. WALLACE. 
 Constantinople, May 1, 1883. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. On the Sea . . . 9 
 
 II. The Max of Destiny 21 
 
 III. Among the Brigands 33 
 
 IV. In and about Tunis 46 
 
 V. A Day in Carthage ....... 56 
 
 VI. About the Arabs 70 
 
 VII. Doing a Little Shopping 83 
 
 VIII. The Light of the Harem. — Part I. . 97 
 
 IX. The Light of the Harem. — Part II. 109 
 
 X. The Light of the Harem. — Part III. 123 
 
 XI. Byron ............ 135 
 
 XII. Classic Funerals 145 
 
viii Contents. 
 
 XIIL The American Girl: An Interlude. 
 
 Part 1 158 
 
 XIV. The American Girl: An Interlude. 
 
 Part II 175 
 
 XV. Something about Homer .... 187 
 
 XVI. About Smyrna. — Part 1 201 
 
 XVII. About Smyrna. — Part II. ... 214 
 
 XVIII. Postscript 228 
 
THE STORIED SEA. 
 
 I. 
 
 ON THE SEA. 
 
 T first I was wofully seasick. A violent 
 wind-storm came on, as we left Genoa, 
 and, after the rack of twent} T hours of 
 misery, I gathered together the wretched remains 
 of a body once fondly called my own and dragged 
 it up on deck, in the hope that favoring winds 
 might smooth the worn face to something less like 
 the tangled lines of a map of a railroad centre. 
 The " Fleur de Luce" is the flower of French 
 steamers, new and clean, tidy and bright; the 
 staterooms full of snug little contrivances, pockets 
 and shelves, for the comfort of passengers. The 
 captain, in fresh uniform, was an ancient mariner, 
 
10 The Storied Sea. 
 
 with frost}^ whiskers and a fruit-like bloom in his 
 cheeks; the very ideal of a commandant, and 
 wearing the sweet courtesy which makes his 
 nation the most attractive to the stranger of any 
 people in the world. He came, without introduc- 
 tion, to say he was charmed, " and every one on 
 board is, also, to see Madame on deck." Ma- 
 dame strove to frame a gracious answer, from 
 detached and faded recollections of Oilendorf, 
 rounding it with a ghastly but appreciative smile. 
 " As there are but two ladies in the ' Fleur de 
 Luce,' it would be a shame to have them ennuye 
 one moment." 
 
 He glanced admiringly at the fair, sweet face 
 beside me, and was repaid with a smile that was 
 better than others' speech, and a few timid words, 
 gently spoken, in Indiana French. The captain of 
 an American vessel would have smiled at English 
 so imperfectly worded ; but the Frenchman never 
 wounds one's amour propre. 
 
 "There!" exclaimed the dapper little man, 
 with a quick, energetic movement, which dis- 
 placed the Provence rose in his button-hole. 
 "Do you see that pale blue line?" 
 
 I looked down the gold-laced sleeve and sun- 
 burnt finger, in the direction pointed, and saw 
 nothing but a sky that would be dazzling were it 
 
On the Sea. 11 
 
 not so soft, and the sen, showing yet the dread 
 swell of the storm in its Hecks of foam. 
 
 u If Madame will have the goodness to look 
 through the glass, she will sight the Island of 
 Corsica." 
 
 I adjusted the lens to m} T failing vision, and 
 lo ! in faintest, dying hues the hills which the 
 man who shook the world with his armies must 
 have trodden when a boy. It was what the ge- 
 nial captain had intended, — a diversion, or, as the 
 French put it, a " distraction." My ills w T ere for- 
 gotten. I saw the birthplace of Napoleon. Re- 
 storing the glass to its owner, wdio bowed briskly 
 and as briskly walked away, 1113' next thought 
 was to take from ray capacious ulster pocket a 
 tin}' scratch-book, free of any memorandum, and 
 a new pencil, attached to it by a string of red 
 tape. Resting the book on my knee, I proceeded 
 to make an entry on what an old-time poet might 
 call its virgin page. 
 
 " Surely," said Thalia, looking up from cro- 
 chet, " you are not going to attempt anything 
 about the Mediterranean. Why, it has been 
 written over for four thousand years." 
 
 "Dear Thalia," I replied mildly, but with the 
 firmness becoming the advocate of universal suf- 
 frage, " there w T as once an artist whom the sons 
 
12 The Storied Sea. 
 
 of men named The Divine. He had painted a 
 hundred Madonnas, and one day he spread a can- 
 vas and poured magic colors on his palette for the 
 one hundred and first Holy Man 7 . Just then 
 the judicious friend, who is never far off, entered 
 the famous studio. ; What ! ' he exclaimed, as- 
 tonished. 6 Another Madonna ! ' Said Raphael, 
 with the rapt gaze which makes his face like the 
 face of the archangel whose name he bears, c if 
 all the artists of all the world should spend their 
 lives in painting the Blessed Virgin, they could 
 never exhaust her beauty.' So of this fairest of 
 seas." 
 
 "I understand," said Thalia, pettishly. "You 
 would add a story to the Tower of Babel." 
 
 It must be admitted travel is a hard strain on 
 the temper. Many a match has been broken off 
 and many a warm friend cooled in the ups and 
 downs of the most comfortable journeyings. We 
 two, usually in absolute harmony, were out of 
 tune. I, worn and haggard with seasickness ; 
 she gay and charming, insisting it was all non- 
 sense, in her pride of stomach looking with deep 
 contempt on the ignoble mind which basely yielded 
 to the spirits of the vasty deep. 
 
 "Thalia," I replied, in bitterness of soul, "wis- 
 dom will die with you. Suppose I should indulge 
 
On the Sea. 13 
 
 that lofty ambition you hint of, there are those 
 who might watch my struggles heavenward and 
 read the report with interest, — young people, 
 to whom this world is not worn out, in fact, is 
 something new, and life sweet and unspoiled." 
 
 Thalia is not so young as she once was, and I 
 touched her there, not intending it. 
 
 4 -You know," I said, taking courage while I 
 cut the fresh lead-pencil with an equally fresh 
 pocket-knife, "in our own dear native land there 
 are eighty thousand school-teachers." 
 
 " I know. Once I was in that noble army of 
 martyrs myself." 
 
 '•I remember. They are between the upper and 
 nether millstone ; underpaid and overworked ; 
 slaves of a system, part of a boasted machine 
 which stops not day nor night. They are mainly 
 women, young girls, with hungry minds and weaiy 
 bodies, and their best recreation is reading. On 
 chintz lounges, cheap and hard, they lay their 
 aching and breaking backs, and in short hours of 
 rest snatch up something to read which tells of 
 scenes unlike as possible to the dull grind of their 
 daily duty. The Mediterranean is not stale and 
 hackneyed to them. For them I sing" (loftily) ; 
 "not for women with health, wealth, ease, who in 
 evenings have only to sit in a too easy chair and 
 
14 The Storied Sea. 
 
 watch the firelight play on diamonds." And I 
 glanced at a superb solitaire following the crochet- 
 needle. 
 
 Thalia shook a cinder from her knitting and 
 was silent. I pursued my subject. "There are 
 young mothers rocking the cradle — of future sen- 
 ators, let us hope — who may like to hear the old 
 tales of the storied sea ; and farmers' boj^s, pos- 
 sible Presidents, ploughing in work so unconge- 
 nial that the Mississippi Valley is a valley of dry 
 bones to them, instead of a land flowing with 
 milk and honey, the glory of all lands. Why is it 
 that the humdrum clerk, chained to the counter of 
 a country ' store,' and the telegraph boj T , in the 
 railroad station of the out townships, revel in 
 tales of Buffalo Bill, the Scalp-Hunters of Bloody 
 Gulch, and the Sleuth-Hound of the Sierras?" 
 
 "I suppose," said Thalia, thoughtfully, "they 
 want a contrast." 
 
 "Precisely." I waved my scratch- book tri- 
 umphantly, and began quoting my paper before 
 the Indianapolis Culture Club. " There are thou- 
 sands of women who are living, and will die before 
 long, in narrow ruts, who long to see the world, 
 but cannot look be} T ond the limits of their own 
 State, except with others' eyes. Sunburnt, flat- 
 chested, high-shouldered farmers' wives, who, 
 
On the Sea. 15 
 
 from rosy youth to wrinkled age, vibrate between 
 nursery and kitchen ; patient women, with hard 
 hands and soft hearts, whose unwritten lives bear 
 a pathos unspeakable, — the}' have buried the early 
 wishes, hopelessly cherished, now ineffably dear, 
 like the memory of dead children. The passion- 
 ate longing has faded into a tender, lingering 
 regret. It has no sting, because women learn 
 readily to accept the inevitable ; but the trace of 
 that feeling will never be quite effaced. In their 
 half-hours of leisure the}' sit in the summer twi- 
 light, not lighting the lamps for fear of drawing 
 mosquitoes, and dream of a lost time in dim Ar- 
 cadian days, when they believed it possible they 
 too might hear the ; Miserere,' the music which 
 makes men tremble and women faint, and listen 
 to the curlew's cry above the blue Symplegades. 
 They have ' given up,' and know that the hour will 
 never come which brings them even so far as the 
 shades of Mammoth Cave or within the thrill of 
 the mighty voice of Niarara. Their biographies 
 are forever unwritten ; only the seer, looking be- 
 low the surface, can guess what still, deep cur- 
 rents ebb and flow beneath the moveless calm. 
 Xo wonder the insane asylums are recruited from 
 the farm-houses." 
 
 " No wonder," echoed Thalia, softly, laying 
 
16 The Storied Sea. 
 
 down her work and absently looking at the shore 
 of Ajaceio. " My mother was such a woman. 
 She brought up six riotous children in a daily 
 struggle to make both ends meet. That she did 
 not go crazy was because her strong will and 
 love of books carried her over the bridge from 
 which so many in those straits fall. She used 
 to read the foreign letters of the ' Post ' and 
 the New York ; Tribune,' sitting by the oven 
 door, as she browned the coffee and baked bread, 
 and never tired of Irving and the old travellers 
 and of hearing the missionaries talk. When we 
 children used to sing 'Jerusalem the Golden,' 
 how man}^ times I have heard her say, ' Oh, if 
 I could only see the City of David ! ' But she 
 died without the sight." 
 
 Tears started to the blue eyes, at which I 
 shook my head. " No tears for her, nvy dear. 
 The New Jerusalem is better than the Old. 
 Perhaps, if she were here, she might read what I 
 have to say about Olivet and Calvary." Thalia 
 nodded. " And then," to resume, " there are 
 pale sempstresses, like Maud Muller by the 
 spring, longing for something better than she 
 had known (another sentence from the afore- 
 named essay) ; for her I sing, and, besides, — and 
 this is the strongest plea for new letters on stale 
 
On the Sea. 1/ 
 
 subjects, — no two persons see eye to eve, and 
 there is freshness in every first view. Yon have 
 seen the ; Lady of Lyons ' ? " 
 
 "I have," said Thalia, brightening at the 
 recollection, — " in bridal beauty listening to the 
 voice of the charmer charming never so wisely, — 
 and I cried my handkerchief full when she said, 
 'Tell him for years I never nursed a thought that 
 was not his.' " And Thalia rose to her feet and 
 repeated in a little sing-song thal^lovely passage. 
 
 " I saw her, too, in her own Lyons." She 
 fell into a listening, pensive attitude. " It was 
 at the close of a long, hot dusty day, and down 
 by the river which rushes past the silk-weaver's 
 chimneys. She wore an absurd cap, made like a 
 boy's flutter-mill, which flapped in the wind over 
 her freckled forehead. My Pauline was tall and 
 broad, fat and busy, her cheeks tanned to a 
 dead-leaf brown. Her black stuff dress was 
 tucked up to the w^aist, "knowing legs shaped like 
 milestones and as sturdy." 
 
 u How }"ou do love to spoil things!" said 
 Thalia, indignantly. " I did not see her." 
 
 " Xo ; you were in a warm nap, maybe, dream- 
 ing of Pauline at McVicar's, where she appears 
 
 * As though the Spring had been a living thing 
 And wore her shape.' 
 2 
 
18 The Storied Sea. 
 
 I tell you of the Lady of Lyons as I saw 
 her, — the daughter of the dirty city, her foot, a 
 number six, on her native heath, and her hand in 
 the dye-tub." 
 
 44 Horrid woman ! Not in the dye? " 
 
 44 That is where the genuine Pauline appears 
 in the true picture ; all the rest are counterfeits. 
 Her elbows were streaked with various colors, 
 and she washed a skein of yarn in the stream 
 which colored her hands red as Lady Macbeth's. 
 They will never whiten. " 
 
 "How different truth is from poetry," said 
 Thalia, regretfully, " and how unlike the sympa- 
 thetic see ! " 
 
 44 You illustrate my text perfectl}\ Then I 
 have your consent to attempt a fleeting picture 
 in these water-colors, have I?" 
 
 44 Well " (reluctantly), 44 you may, under prom- 
 ise that you keep clear of that old hack." And 
 she gave the red -backed Baedeker a sharp hit 
 with the ivory needle. 
 
 4 c T promise, and you and the rest of. my friends 
 remember you hold the reserved right of not 
 reading what the latest pilgrim has to tell." 
 
 We lay back in our comfortable ship-chairs, 
 and the steamer held on toward the shining 
 shore. 
 
On the Sect. 19 
 
 " One thing more," said Thalia, lifting her 
 voice. "For pity's sake, don't copy the accu- 
 rate-figures traveller, who saw the Sphinx at 
 eleven o'clock. August 21, 1875, and climbed up a 
 ladder with 10,000 rounds and measured its nose, 
 and it was exactly five feet and six inches long." 
 
 "I shall avoid all accurate figures with the 
 utmost ease and pleasure, and also the style of 
 the deeper borer, who makes a journal in this 
 wise : — 
 
 " After a restless night, rose and looked out. 
 Weather rainy and cold. 
 
 tfc 'October 9. Bad weather still continues. 
 
 " ; October 10. Signs of clearing, but misty 
 and dull. 
 
 "'October 11. Bright but chilly. Will visit 
 the Hebrides to-morrow. 
 
 "' October 12. Fog came up and ruined the 
 day's excursion,' etc." 
 
 We laughed together, for the first time in two 
 days. "To thine own self be true, my Thalia, 
 and I will be to mine, and will submit every line 
 to your criticism." 
 
 •• Xo, no. Take any shape but that," she 
 cried, with tragic gesture, " and my firm nerves 
 shall never tremble. But here we are at 
 Ajaccio." 
 
20 The Storied Sea. 
 
 Dear reader, 3-011 do not know, you never can 
 know, till we change places, how glad I am to 
 catch yom friendly eyes again. The sights are 
 but half seen, the sounds but half heard, without 
 you. Your grace and favor have warmed my 
 heart, and your sympathy and kind words have 
 been to me golden harvests of garnered sheaves. 
 Let me hold your hand while we stumble along 
 the rugged mountain-side, and in the warm val- 
 le}'s, strewn with sculptured stones, each one a 
 history. Not on the sea alone, but in many 
 a narrow crossing, shall I sing, — 
 
 " Take, boatman, thrice thy fee, — 
 Take, I give it willingly; 
 For, invisible to thee, 
 Spirits twain have crossed with me." 
 
II. 
 
 THE MAX OF DESTINY. 
 
 HAVE seen the chapels, mosques, and 
 temples of the farthest East, the red 
 minarets of Cairo, and the vari-eolored 
 shades of the Alhambra ; but nothing has ever 
 touched me like the tomb of Napoleon, in Paris. 
 It is a perfect harmony, charming the eye as 
 exquisite music holds the ear. " The place of 
 his rest is glorious," I said, as I entered the 
 marble church of the Hotel des Invalides, shaped 
 like the dome of our own Capitol. The stillness 
 and coolness of the great chamber after the glare 
 of the white, hot streets was solemn and soothing 
 to the tired sense. The tombs of the faithful 
 Duroc and Bertrand passed, then we bent over 
 the marble balustrade and looked down in the 
 sparious circular crypt, with its awful sarcopha- 
 gas of black marble, which contains the lead 
 and cedar collins of St. Helena. It holds all 
 
22 The Storied Sea. 
 
 that is left of the Man of Destiny. A rush of 
 feeling came over me, as a strong wave bears 
 you off 3'our feet, and tears started to my eyes 
 with the mere sense of the beautiful. The twelve, 
 lamps, of Pompeiian bronze, lighted the space 
 and gilded chapel above. The tessellated pave- 
 ment was a crown of laurel, set with stripes ; 
 rays, forming a star, breaking from the wreath 
 which surrounds the monument. In that costly 
 pavement read the enchanted names : Kivoli, the 
 Pyramids, Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, 
 Wagram, Moscowa. They stir the blood, like 
 notes of the bugle calling to battle. The flags 
 from those fields are there, drooping shreds and 
 tatters of the splendid banners that flew but to 
 victor} 7 ; a pathetic histoiy. Descend the steps 
 and mark a slab of black marble above the stately 
 brass gate which closes the dark peristyle. On 
 it are engraved these words, from the Emperor's 
 will : — 
 
 " I DESIRE THAT MY ASHES MAY REST 
 
 ON THE BANKS OF THE SEINE, 
 
 AMONG THAT FRENCH NATION I LOVED SO WELL." 
 
 On each side the gate is a colossal brass statue. 
 One holds the globe, the other the imperial scep- 
 tre. They seem to guard the sleep of the 
 greatest modern captain and hold his fame in 
 
The Man of Destiny. 23 
 
 silent and eternal keeping. In the sword-room, 
 reached by a gate of gilt bronze, are sixty stand- 
 ards, the records of triumphant fields, the golden 
 crown given by the town of Cherbourg, the badges 
 and sword of Austerlitz. They appeal to French- 
 men yet with undiminished force, and even to the 
 stranger. 
 
 What a strange doom that of all that fighting 
 family only one, a remote descendant, should die 
 in battle ! Poor little Louis ! Unhappy Eugenie ! 
 It was hardly a battle, either ; a skirmish with 
 savages in a barbarian province, where the gentle 
 boy thought to win his spurs, and with them, 
 perhaps, the hand of an English princess. What 
 a tender souvenir was his will, and, oh ! what 
 towering hopes were laid away in his untimely 
 grave ! 
 
 The harbor of Ajaccio is a curve, graceful as a 
 bent bow. First it was but mist, vapor ; then 
 the quay ; then blue hills back of the town, which 
 lies close to the water's edge. Built of white 
 stone and glistening like snow in the noonday 
 sun, it had the air of neatness and thrift charac- 
 teristic of nearly all French towns, refreshing 
 the mind and imagination of the housekeeper. 
 One reason is, stone houses do not show age like 
 the pine boxes we live in, and last rift}' years as 
 
24 The Storied Sea. 
 
 well as one. We stopped an hour. The gentle- 
 men bought cigars, and the ladies bought apricots 
 of the natives, and olive-cheeked boys came 
 aboard and sang plaintive little airs to words we 
 could not understand, except " Savoy, Savoy," 
 keeping time with a poor old rack-o' -bones guitar. 
 They looked like pictures of improvvisatores, and 
 had a most poetic appearance, in spite of dirt. 
 I could not help noticing that each one wore a 
 seal-ring. 
 
 Yes, that was Ajaccio, and I had lived to see 
 with my own eyes the halcyon waves breaking 
 on the serene shore. If the boy be, indeed, 
 father of the man, the young Bonaparte must 
 have dreamed, like Joseph among his brethren 
 in the field of Shechem, that their sheaves bowed 
 obedience to his, that their stars paled before 
 his own. On this playground he must have 
 known himself superior to his narrow island 
 home and kindred, but could not have thought 
 himself a centre round which they should cluster, 
 an emperor making kings at a word and dis- 
 tributing crowns like ribbons and badges. 
 
 The fourth person in our party is the Anti- 
 quary, who has lately written an exhaustive 
 work (to the reader) on the Prehistoric Man. 
 He wore green goggles at sea, to guard his eyes, 
 
The Man of Destiny. 25 
 
 which are always red ; at their corners the 
 blackest bird that flies has set his footprints, and 
 digging Greek roots is not calculated to clear 
 them of wrinkle or color. He stood with us on 
 deck, watching the grouping in the pretty town. 
 u Now," he said, with the air of a man firing a 
 bomb, " we are near the land of one of the most 
 depraved men that ever breathed the breath of 
 life." 
 
 The missile struck as he had foreseen. 
 
 " He was a hero, and I gloiy in him," retorted 
 Thalia, with the freshness of unworn enthusiasm. 
 
 " You glory in one who would never glory in 
 you or an}' daughter of Eve," said Antiquary, 
 severely and aggressively. " Women were merely 
 a means of population to him ; and when he used 
 to ask, apropos of nothing, ' Madame, how many 
 sons have you?' he was only thinking how many 
 conscripts she could furnish for his thinning ranks. 
 With all his genius, he never was a gentleman. 
 Men were knives to him, women the forks, and 
 with them he carved the world up." 
 
 "How savage you are!" said Thalia, tartly. 
 " You know the}' always loved him." 
 
 "Yes, he was magnetic; he drew them by 
 some unknown attraction, — a secret power of 
 great men. It was partly his appearance. Like 
 
26 The Storied Sea. 
 
 Alcibiades, he was beautiful at every age. The 
 French portraits of him, from Itaty to Moscow, 
 are perfect pictures, and the bust made during 
 the campaign in Egypt, the property of the late 
 Mrs. Susan Bonaparte, of Baltimore, is the most 
 exquisite thing I ever saw in marble. It might 
 well stand for an ideal head of Poetry, Apollo, 
 Morning, and is entirely without the heaviness of 
 the later portraits. Even the dying figure, by 
 Nele, is more beautiful in death than any other 
 in perfect health." 
 
 " How about Josephine?" asked Thalia, with 
 a slight sneer on her pretty lips. 
 
 "Oh! she was a soft, cat-like Creole, pliant 
 as oil, who knew how to yield gracefully where 
 she could not control. The woman twice mar- 
 ried, who would have been twice divorced but 
 for the death of Beauharnais, is not such as 3011 
 love." And he bowed his antiquated bow. 
 
 " She loved him to the last." 
 
 4 'Yes, selfishness never fails to find its wor- 
 shippers, — in Dickens, for instance. The Bona- 
 partes were absorbents. The world was created 
 for them, and they divided it among themselves." 
 
 The Antiquar}^ is an elderly, not to say old, 
 bachelor, usually mild and softly spoken, now a 
 little warmed over his subject. He took off the 
 
The Man of Destiny. 27 
 
 goggles, breathed on them, and polished them by 
 rubbing with a scrap of chamois, kept for the 
 purpose in his watch-pocket. 
 
 " Napoleon should have died at "Waterloo," 
 he continued. ;i You know he practised pose 
 and drapery under Talma, and, with his sharp 
 e}'e for dramatic effect, should have seen the 
 grand theatric stroke in leading the Old Guard 
 in a dying charge ; but no. He poetically writes : 
 8 Since it is not permitted me to die in the field,' 
 etc. Had he dashed into the thick of the fight 
 that last day, I do believe Fate would have 
 accepted his death. What a glamour and daze 
 there was in the name of Napoleon forty years 
 ago ! Happily it is being blown away. Hum- 
 bug ! humbug ! The French are always after 
 striking effects." 
 
 "And lovely ones they make," said Thalia, 
 warmly. 
 
 4 'You remember," said the scoffer, without 
 heeding the interruption, " Danton's dying words 
 to Samson, the headsman: 'Thou wilt show my 
 head to the people. It is w^orth showing.' And 
 Mirabean, rousing from the dulness of death 
 at the sound of cannon : ' What, have we the 
 Achilles's funeral already?' modestly alluding to 
 self. Those Revolutionists always managed to 
 
28 The Storied Sea. 
 
 appear near the footlights at the front of the 
 stage, and strike a fine attitude as the curtain 
 fell to slow music. How much claptrap there is 
 in Paris — France, to be sure, to be sure ! " 
 
 Thalia turned away, and took up her Ollendorf, 
 applying herself to the study of that ridiculous 
 guide, philosopher, and friend of youth who 
 teaches language in wise questions and answers : 
 "Does the good Russian wish to buy the fine 
 looking-glass of the tailor's boy ; or that of the 
 sailors with the silver candlestick and pretty 
 umbrellas?" etc. 
 
 I heard the steady buzz, buzz ; but knew it 
 would not last long, for Thalia hates study. This 
 was only a pretence. She was vexed, and a 
 blood-spot glowed in each cheek, — " a rose in 
 the snow." Presently she laid down the book, 
 and, looking over the guard into the bright, trans- 
 parent water, she asked : u What do 3-011 suppose 
 would have happened had Bonaparte conquered 
 the Continent, as he hoped to do ? " 
 
 " He would have made Rome the centre, the 
 poor little Duke of Reichstadt his king and suc- 
 cessor, and would have lorded it like the latter- 
 day emperors of Rome. Possibly, to amuse the 
 people, he might have ordered the old soldiers to 
 be given to the lions of the circus, as they used 
 
The Man of Destiny. 29 
 
 to be thrown away, because fighting-men worn 
 out are useless, and after exhausting wars meat 
 is dear. He was none too good for that. Men 
 were, in his estimate, only cannon-balls, — useful 
 implements of war." 
 
 •• There must have been good in him," said 
 Thalia, excitedly, " T\ e never had a general 
 whose six brigadiers would follow him to exile in 
 an island where no one, foreign or native, was 
 ever known to live sixt} T years." And here she 
 took a scrap from the guide-book and read : " All 
 wept, but particularly Savaiy and a Polish offi- 
 cer, who had been exalted from the ranks by 
 Bonaparte. He clung to his master's knees ; 
 wrote a letter to Lord Keith entreating permis- 
 sion to accompany him, even in the most menial 
 capacity, — 
 
 ' All I ask is to divide 
 
 Every peril he must brave, 
 Sharing, by the hero's side, 
 
 His fall, his exile, and his grave.' " 
 
 "Good, if true," said Antiquary, dryly. "It 
 sounds mightily like French clap-trap." 
 
 "You are incorrigible, and I close this talk 
 with an appeal to the silent woman." 
 
 "This is not my funeral, Thalia, and I save 
 my tears for fresher graves." 
 
30 . The Storied Sea. 
 
 Antiquary walked to the prow, to watch the 
 dolphins pla} T , and Thalia picked up her Afghan 
 stripe again. She is a true golden blonde. You 
 do not see four such heads in a lifetime. But 
 little past her first youth, not over twenty-eight ; 
 the gold of her hair still untarnished ; her eyes 
 blue as wild violets, without a dash of gra} T or 
 brown ; clear pink and white skin ; little teeth, 
 white as milk, in a dimpled bab} T mouth, — such 
 is my Thalia; the widow of a rich, but honest 
 commission merchant of Chicago, lovely in her 
 mourning draperies as she never had been in her 
 day of blue ribbons, and not unlike the portrait 
 of Lady Hamilton, beloved of Nelson, which 
 hangs in the National Gallery, London. A woman 
 feminine in eveiy fibre, body and soul, who had 
 kept her pure childish beliefs, her cradle faitli 
 in men and God, to mature years ; one to be 
 adored because she herself was a worshipper, and 
 the most lovable person I have known, taking 
 her for all in all. She had her tempers, however, 
 as 3'ou will discover when you u get acquainted," 
 as we journey on. 
 
 " Willy always believed in Napoleon," she said 
 softly, as to herself. 
 
 And who was Willy? Her husband of seven 
 months, — killed, crushed under a grain elevator. 
 
The Man of Destiny. 31 
 
 In life, she had called him " Will," but a new 
 tenderness came to her voice when that mangled 
 corpse was brought home and she laid the pathetic 
 clay in the dust toward which it was drawn by 
 such mysterious kinship. 
 
 Reclining in her easy-chair, the light, fluffy 
 hair against the black shawl, Thalia was ver}- fair 
 to see, and I watched the blue eyes grow dreamy 
 and moist while she was bus3 T with memoiy. 
 The}' were with her heart, and that was far away. 
 Willy Benson's outer life was an every-da}' story. 
 Emphatically a working-man, his subordinates 
 called him a little hard, but the home side of his 
 heart was warm as June. Whatever business 
 troubles he had he bore alone. The heat and 
 dust of the warehouse were not for her ; the rain 
 must not dampen her feet nor the winds of 
 heaven visit her too roughly. His calm, earnest 
 way of loving had won her whole soul ; but not 
 at first sight, for she was another Portia, — 
 
 '•Her sunny locks 
 Hang on her temples like a golden fleece, 
 And many Jasons come in quest of her." 
 
 She loved him with the love which comes but 
 once in a lifetime, and her seven months of mar- 
 riage were the seven golden sheaves in the vision 
 
32 The Storied Sea. 
 
 of the patriarch, the seven shining lamps in the 
 most holy place. 
 
 Oh, blessed, transfiguring light, which falls 
 like the light which fell but once on Tabor ! Be 
 their earthly lives what they may, when the 
 beloved pass be}~ond the veil, eveiy earthly fault 
 is dropped with the outworn earthly garment, 
 and from out the shining cloud their far-reaching 
 voices come back, like the voices of those who 
 have learned of the angels. 
 
III. 
 
 AMONG THE BRIGANDS. 
 
 I 
 
 TACCIO used to be a great place for 
 brigands," I said, as we pushed out to 
 sea. 
 
 4 * They are pretty well rid of about this place," 
 said Antiquary, with the positive air of one who 
 knows, "and the outlaws of the Mediterranean 
 are now in force, organized and equipped, in Asia 
 Minor. When I was here, ten years ago, I heard 
 a story and read a paper, duly attested and sworn 
 t<> by a British subject, whose name you doubtless 
 saw in the New York papers of the time." 
 
 44 Let us have the story," said Thalia, delight- 
 edly. "I know it is just like ' Irving's Sketch 
 Book,' — three robbers, with belts full of pistols, 
 and red sashes, spring out of a thicket ; the trav- 
 eller is throttled, gagged, carried up the mountain 
 side and — " 
 
 3 
 
34 The Storied Sea. 
 
 " I thought I was to be the stoiy-teller. Par- 
 don the interruption ; but you allow imagination 
 to run away with you." 
 
 " True, O king ! But make it long and make 
 it romantic. On ship there is so much time, time, 
 time ! " She tapped the deck with the toe of her 
 little boot and waited attentively. 
 
 " 1 am sorry not to do that/' said the Anti- 
 quary ; u but, in touching a record witnessed and 
 sworn to, I must tell the tale as 't was told to 
 me. The hero was no longer young, and quite 
 bald," he continued, with an ironic smile and the 
 particularizing way of one who writes more than 
 he talks and is used to good listeners. " His 
 name was Johnson, and he had' a farm about the 
 size of Cincinnatus's, where the plough has been 
 standing in the midst of the furrow manj T cen- 
 turies. You ma} T have had some remote hint of 
 that ancient agricultural implement in your school 
 da}^s. It was not a great way from Sorrento. 
 One winter night — " 
 
 "I thought it was always summer in Italy," 
 struck in Thalia. 
 
 u The} 7 have wTetched, raw da}'s there, when 
 the orange-trees shiver with snow and the moun- 
 tain air is frosty and biting. Let me get on with 
 my yarn, or the gargon will clear the decks before 
 
Among tlic Brigands. 35 
 
 I am clone. This was a cold, snowy night. Mr. 
 Johnson was warm in his comfortable library, 
 when he was startled by shots rattling against 
 the iron shutters and blows against the door 
 below. The house was of brick ; the lower lioor 
 a granary, which had no interior communication 
 with the rest of the rooms. Mrs. Johnson hid in 
 her boudoir, and Mr. Johnson went upon the roof 
 and fired in the direction of the sound and flashes 
 of light. The brigands were under cover. He 
 wounded a few boards in the outhouse ; but 
 nothing else was hurt. Presently there was a 
 crash below, and smoke, bursting from the lower 
 windows, announced the robbers had got in and 
 were setting fire to the house. Nothing was left 
 the gallant Englishman (did I tell you this was a 
 British subject?) but to come down and surrender. 
 He knew he would not be harmed, nor would his 
 wife ; for all the brigands want is the ransom 
 which the}' have learned by experience England 
 is ready to advance for the lives of her officers. 
 Mr. Johnson found the lower floor in possession 
 of the gang, who saluted him with politeness and 
 assured him they had no intention of frightening 
 any one. The chief ordered the trembling ser- 
 vants to put out the fire of lighted straw, which 
 had been kindled on the stone floor and did no 
 
36 The Storied Sea, 
 
 damage. Thej T had left the forest, which is their 
 haunt, shortly after dark, sent their servant in 
 advance with meat to silence the w r atch-dogs, 
 and so won an easy victory. 
 
 " At the door was Mr. Johnson's own riding- 
 horse, saddled and bridled, and his wife's brown 
 mare waiting. The robber explained that he 
 took only the dark horses and had left the gray in 
 the stable because its color would show in the star- 
 light. Pie then ordered Mr. Johnson to go up- 
 stairs and bring Miladi, which was done. Before 
 mounting her horse, for whom the chief held the 
 stirrup, Mrs. Johnson asked leave to collect a 
 few trifles necessary for a lady's comfort on a 
 short journe}', giving her parole oThonneur she 
 w r ould make no signal, noise, or outcry. There 
 w T as no one to see if she did. The gallant outlaw 
 gave permission, and her valise of valuables was 
 taken in charge by the chief. As they after- 
 ward learned, the robbers were seven in number, 
 — four Algerines, three Greeks, one former!}' a 
 monk at Mount Athos. Strange to tell, he still 
 wore his old monastic habit and made the sign 
 of the cross before and after meals. From the 
 beginning, the Greeks have been a nation of 
 pirates, by sea and by land. The ancient heroes 
 were merely organized corsairs, ready to fight 
 
Among the Brigands. 37 
 
 each other, as they were the enemy in the plains 
 of Troy. Ajax was forever in a pout, sulking 
 about the camp ; and Achilles threatening to sail 
 off with his command, back to Greece. But this 
 is getting ahead of my story. 
 
 " The troops surrounded the prisoners by order 
 of the chief, Leonidas (the glorious old names 
 have never dropped out of Grecian memory), 
 struck into a sharp pace, and, after two hours of 
 absolute silence in the rugged road, the lad}' 
 complained of fatigue. The band halted in a 
 ruined tower, of Venetian work, and held a 
 whispered council. After lively disputes under 
 their breath (for the Greeks are nothing if not 
 wordy), Leonidas announced to Mrs. Johnson 
 that she was impedimenta — too great an incum- 
 brance for them to carry — and must return 
 home. She must tell no one what had happened 
 for two days (the servants had already been 
 warned), and at the end of that time she should 
 Bee the British authorities, and speedily arrange 
 a ransom. ' Else,' said the brigand, with an 
 ominous gesture across his throat, ' it will go 
 hard with our captive.' 
 
 •• -And must I ride back through this awful 
 I alone?' asked tbe timid lady. 
 • By no means/ rejoined the polite outlaw. 
 * Brother Basil will escort you.' 
 
38 The Storied Sea. 
 
 u ' And ma}- I say good-by to my husband 
 before I leave him, maybe forever?' she asked, 
 bursting into tears. 
 
 " 'It can do no harm; but be quick and be 
 still about it. I hate a crying woman. She 
 unsettles everything.' " 
 
 "It is all like a romance," said the pleased, 
 intent Thalia. 
 
 " Yes, Italy is a story-book. The very stones 
 in the streets are over- written with them. This 
 is no romance ; a plain, unvarnished tale under 
 oath, a deposition. 
 
 " The lady was conducted home in peace and 
 safet} r , and Brother Basil refreshed himself with 
 wine, bread, and grapes before starting back to 
 rejoin his comrades. 
 
 " In the gray of the morning the gang, with 
 Mr. Johnson, entered a cave, kindled a little 
 fire, cooked a kid, and made coffee. Then the 
 whole party slept, except one sentinel, relieved 
 every two hours. 
 
 u About noon the chief dictated a letter to the 
 British authorities at Eome. If the ransom w T as 
 not forthcoming in ten daj^s, the ears of the 
 prisoner would be sent in ; if not in eight, his 
 nose; if not in ten, his head. Besides the ran- 
 som demanded, eight thousand pounds sterling, 
 
Among the Brigands. 39 
 
 there must be two gold watches, with chains, 
 three amber cigar-holders, and four breeehloading 
 revolvers, silver-mounted, and of superior make 
 and finish. If pursued, the prisoner would be 
 killed instantly. The obedient captive wrote the 
 letter on the little pine table which served for the 
 dinner. It was scanned with the utmost care b} r 
 Leonidas, and then sent off by a peasant, sum- 
 moned by a sailor's whistle from the forest. 
 The prisoner was then blindfolded, and again the 
 mounted gang pressed up a rocky path, very 
 steep, as Johnson knew by the motion of the 
 horse. They halted by day and rode by night, 
 two days and nights. Then a second letter was 
 dictated. The chief had neglected to mention 
 in the former letter that if there was any bad 
 money in the bags the sum demanded for their 
 captive's ransom would be doubled. 
 
 "The final halt was made in a great cavern, 
 under a hill, used as a storehouse by the robbers, 
 where all sorts of spoil had accumulated. There 
 was a bed of good mattresses for the tired pris- 
 oner, and the men received guests and made 
 merry with wine and wassail, in which Brother 
 Basil gayly held his own, as the bottle went 
 merrily round." 
 
 Ci Did they treat poor Mr. Johnson cruelly?" 
 
40 The Storied Sea, 
 
 u Not at all. Their interest was to keep him 
 alive and well ; a dead man has no money value 
 among thieves. The chief remarked, in expla- 
 nation of their scant fare, that gentlemen of his 
 profession were hard up, the government officials 
 had grown so vigilant. However, the prisoner 
 alwa} T s had his plenty of bread, goat's flesh, and 
 wine, when the outlaws were on half rations. 
 He gradually grew into a sort of companionship 
 with the reformed monk." 
 
 " Reformed ! When, I pray to know." 
 u Entirely reformed," said Antiquary, pleased 
 with the feeble joke, " and he was a capital hand 
 at cards and the Roman game mora. The ten 
 days went by, twelve, twenty, still no friendly 
 messenger from the home authorities ; no white 
 flag, nor peasant bearing despatches with official 
 seal. Then a third letter was dictated. If the 
 ransom was not paid over at a certain time and 
 place, the captive would be flayed alive, or, as 
 they put it, make a jacket a la Franca ; that is, 
 the skin of the upper part of the body would be 
 removed, and the martyred Johnson roasted a la 
 broche. He now began to be seriously alarmed. 
 He had assurance that active and powerful friends 
 were busy ; but there might be some hitch in the 
 proceedings and he be killed. Besides, the gang 
 
Among the Brigands. 41 
 
 began to bo quarrelsome, and some of their brawls 
 were well-nigh fatal. As a rule, divisions of 
 spoils were made in absolute submission to the 
 chief; but one dispute warmed into a light, in 
 which blows were freely exchanged. It was 
 over the disposal of lockets, ladies' rings, and a 
 superb watch, set with diamonds. This last was 
 the special admiration of Brother Basil. 
 
 "The weather was bitter cold, and the wind 
 swept into the cavern, where fire was rarely 
 lighted by day, unless in foggy or snow}- weather. 
 The horses fared badly, without shelter and a 
 meagre allowance of hay. One day another 
 prisoner was brought in by the Algerines, badly 
 wounded and with one arm broken. He begged 
 hard for life, only life on any terms, and Johnson 
 added his entreaties ; but the man was shot and 
 hastily buried in a shallow pit." 
 
 "Poor fellow!" said the soft-hearted Thalia, 
 pityingly. 
 
 *• He was much the same stripe as his cap- 
 tors : all thieving cutthroats. I have seen these 
 fellows often about Smyrna and Rhodes. They 
 are handsome rascals, with keen, luminous eyes, 
 hair and beard so black as at first to give the 
 impression of being dyed, so utterly without 
 shading is it. Each one has his curious ring, 
 
42 The Storied Sea. 
 
 worn for some superstition (I do not know what), 
 and a quiet, observant way of watching, without 
 seeming to see anything, from under those jetty 
 e}'ebrows, which often meet across the forehead. 
 But this is a digression, as our friends the nov- 
 elists say. 
 
 " Every clay, at noon, the brigands had intelli- 
 gence of some sort. They knew well what was 
 going on in the cities, and the peasants of Italy 
 knew some illustrious prisoner was being held 
 for ransom. Any information given b} T them to 
 the Government spies and officials would be paid 
 for with the loss of all they had, if not of their 
 heads. Johnson had the great relief of hearing 
 the sailor's whistle several times a da} T , and 
 gathered that his friends were stirring and thor- 
 oughly in earnest. Scouts came in often, and, 
 from the bustle and debates in camp, he felt 
 sure his captivity was well-nigh ended. 
 
 "At last, the happy day came. The robbers, 
 with their captive, met a delegation of three 
 Englishmen at an appointed place in the forest. 
 The bags of money were unloaded from a mule ; 
 opened ; each piece counted and inspected, to 
 see there was no spurious coin and no marks 
 to give a clew to their whereabouts afterward. 
 
 " The watches and amber cio'ar-holders were 
 
Among the Brigands. 43 
 
 not forgotten in the exchange, and a Martini 
 rifle was ottered and rejected. 
 
 •• Leonidas wanted a Winchester ' with many 
 cartridges.' What a contrast these well-mounted, 
 
 well-armed bands are with the ragamuffins of 
 fifty years ago, who had nothing but blunder- 
 busses and dagger ! 
 
 " After some grumbling and much swearing, 
 the prisoner was delivered up to his friends. 
 While the money was being counted, the}' had 
 shaved him, cut his unkempt hair, and given him 
 a good breakfast of broiled kid and white bread. 
 Then Brother Basil graciously spread his fat 
 hand above Johnson's uneasy head and gave 
 him his blessing, shook hands with him, and, 
 in flattering terms, expressed his happiness at 
 having so long enjoyed the society of such a 
 distinguished prisoner, — one worth ten thousand 
 pounds to his country ; yes, and more too. 
 
 "The brigands returned six Napoleons, bor- 
 rowed of Johnson in the cave, and a revolver. 
 They also gave him the worst horse in their 
 forest stable, and the .captive of three months 
 rode away with his friends a sadder and a wiser 
 man." 
 
 4 * There is a sort of unreality about this 
 story," I said. 
 
44 The Storied Sea. 
 
 "I grant it," said Antiquary; " but if you 
 will read the newspapers of the Levant, }ou will 
 see there is not the least exaggeration, and that 
 the British Government has served notice on the 
 brigands of all nationalities that no more ransoms 
 will be paid." 
 
 ci A romantic tale." 
 
 u Yes ; but strictly true. I should have men- 
 tioned that the robbers brought frequent letters 
 from Mrs. Johnson to her husband, and he was 
 allowed to write open letters to her, which Leoni- 
 das gave to Brother Basil, as the best scholar 
 of the gang, to see if there was no concealed 
 writing or marks conve}ing secret intelligence. 
 They never ate meat on Fridays, were deeply 
 superstitious, and trembled and dropped on their 
 knees at the sound of thunder." 
 
 " Why do not the peasants inform on them? " 
 
 "As I told 3'ou, through fear of their own 
 fields and cottages. When the season is good, 
 the brigands make presents to the poorest, and 
 one has been known to pay the expense of 
 educating the eldest son of one of his humble 
 admirers ; for the lower classes have the deepest 
 admiration of all this bravado, and the desperadoes 
 are welcome in hut and bower to the contadina. 
 Many a time I 've seen them in the dance with 
 
Among the Brigands. 45 
 
 the pretty peasant girls, and the most noted are in 
 high favor with the simple creatures, given to 
 hero worship. Women are given to adoration 
 the world over, you know, and themselves cre- 
 ate the aura of the divinity before whom they 
 kneel." 
 
IV. 
 
 IN AND ABOUT TUNIS. 
 
 KNOW nothing more disappointing than 
 an olive grove. Its feathery, silver- 
 gray foliage has been described in many 
 books, and its associations with Gethsemane and 
 Calvary have given it a sacredness which pre- 
 pared me to salute it with becoming reverence. 
 An old chronicler writes that the tablet of the 
 title above our Saviour's cross they made of olive 
 because it betokens peace, "and the story of 
 Noah w T itnesseth that the dove brought the branch 
 of olive, and it betokened peace made between 
 God and man ; and so the Jews expected to have 
 peace when Christ was dead, for they said he 
 made discord and strife among them." 
 
 These exquisite lines of Ruskin had hung it 
 with poetiy as a halo and a glory : — 
 
 "I challenge the untravelled English reader to tell me 
 what an olive-tree is like. I know he cannot answer my 
 
In and about Tunis. 47 
 
 challenge. lie lias no more idea of an olive-tree than if 
 olive-trees grew only in the fixed stars. Let him meditate 
 a little on this one fact and consider its strangeness, and 
 what a wilful and constant closing of the eyes to the most 
 important truths it indicates on the. part of the modern 
 artist. Observe a want of perception, not of science. I 
 don't want painters to tell me any scientific facts about 
 olive-trees ; but it had been well for them to have felt and 
 seen the olive-tree ; to have loved it for Christ's sake, 
 partly also for the helmed Wisdom's sake, which was 
 to the heathen in some sort as that nobler Wisdom which 
 stood at God's eight hand when he founded the earth and 
 established the heavens. To have loved it even to the 
 hoary dimness of its delicate foliage, subdued and faint 
 of line, as if the ashes of the Gethsemane agony had been 
 cast upon it forever, and to have traced, line for line, the 
 gnarled writhings of its intricate branches and the pointed 
 fretwork of its light and narrow leaves inlaid on the blue 
 field of the sky, and the small rosy white stars of its 
 spring blossoming, and the beads of sable fruit scattered 
 by autumn along its topmost boughs, the right in Israel 
 of the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and, more 
 than all, the softness of the mantle, silver gray and tender, 
 like the down on a bird's breast, with which, far away, it 
 veils the undulation of the mountains, — these it had been 
 well for them to have seen and drawn, whatever they had 
 left unstudied in the gallery." 
 
 I saw scraggy, famished specimens in Southern 
 France, and said to myself : "It is too far west 
 for them here. I must wait till we reach the 
 Orient, and then I will see them, lush and juicy, 
 
48 The Storied Sea. 
 
 full of the familiar haile d* olive associated with 
 salads the world over.'* They are a low-limbed, 
 stunted race, gnarled and twisted in growth ; so 
 scrubby and rusty as to give the same impression 
 that scant fare and hard living give to the pinched 
 faces of a stunted race of men, — say the Irish 
 peasants. The first close acquaintance I had 
 with them was in North Africa, and I felt imposed 
 on, that such low-lived bushes had been held up 
 by poets and saints, who ought to have had the 
 truth before their eyes, as forming rich and 
 shady arcades of delicate leafage. They were 
 the genuine olive green, however, — the dull, 
 dark shade fashionable among ladies who affect 
 charming selections of color ; and the subdued 
 bronze green casts a sombre, dusky shadow. 
 But do not call those haggard, meagre, wrinkled 
 shrubs trees in the hearing of a Western woman, 
 used to the forest kings of the Mississippi 
 Valley, — the grand old beeches, with hoary 
 trunks, immovable against wind and storm as 
 columns of sculptured stone ; the oaks, dewy and 
 fresh at noon, their far-reaching branches, like 
 patriarchal hands, extended in blessing. 
 
 Tunis is not, as I had fancied it, built on the 
 site of ancient Carthage, but fullj^ two hours' ride 
 distant. I had a fond dream there of riding on 
 
In and about Tunis. 49 
 
 swift Arab steeds, shod with fire, such as sweep 
 with thing mane and tail through Oriental song 
 and romance ; but we .were obliged to content 
 ourselves with the scriptural ass. In the cool of 
 the morning (not that it was cool), we set out, 
 a merry party of four, on donkeys, each with its 
 attendant runner, who poked the wretched crea- 
 tures with sticks sharpened for the purpose. 
 The donkey gait is racking and tiresome, a 
 forlorn contrast to the anticipated Arabians, 
 gentle as a woman, easy as a cradle, fleet as the 
 wind ; but, then, what is experience but another 
 name for disappointment? The sun made glo- 
 rious a clear cut rocky range which bounds the 
 horizon ; and the bare, craggy Jebel Rasas, or 
 mountain of lead, did its best to look bright and 
 precious in the keen white light. It is the boldest 
 point in the Tunisian landscape which catches 
 the eye and holds it above the dull, widespread 
 monotony of color below. The name is not a 
 misnomer, for it was worked by the Carthagin- 
 ians two thousand years ago, and afterward by 
 the Romans ; and a few Arabs, in dingy turbans, 
 still picking and pretending to work at the 
 dark chambers in the mountain-side. 
 
 We left the walled city and passed unchallenged 
 the unkempt, ununiformed soldiers which con- 
 
 4 
 
50 The Storied Sea. 
 
 stitute the Bey's defenders, and were at once in 
 the open country, which had the peculiarity of 
 being destitute of roads, except one to the Bey's 
 Palace of the Bardo, about three miles off. We 
 ambled slowly along a bridle-path, through the 
 disappointing olive orchards, coated with dust, 
 moving Indian file and in Indian silence, for the 
 excursion was proving wofull3 T unlike our antici- 
 pations. Venerable aloe-trees, with their gigan- 
 tic flower-stems, fenced in worn-out patches of 
 ground, poorly cultivated, }^et showing the pome- 
 granate, with its fruit a glowing scarlet ball, and 
 purple figs, which should be more delicious than 
 the} T are, they look so luscious and inviting. Our 
 rough path of uneven clay at intervals brought 
 us near the Mediterranean bank ; and the clear, 
 exquisite tint of the sparkling sea enchanted the 
 sight with its restful blue. As the day advanced, 
 the sand-hills were like heaps of heated burnished 
 metal, and we all wished we had provided our- 
 selves with thick veils, or, better still, antiquarian 
 goggles. Gradually the poor huts and poorer 
 gardens disappeared, and we entered an open, 
 dreary, empty plain, marked by what might be 
 called a single trail. Our guide rode on ahead, 
 and, while we were tiying to recall and make 
 useful chapter and verse of the Punic wars, 
 
In and about Tunis. 51 
 
 he waved his hand, the vivacious Greek, and 
 shouted, " Carthago." The boys whipped up 
 the bony donkeys ; we reached Aristides, who 
 stood witli head uncovered while we looked about 
 us. There was no column, base, or capital, no 
 arch or cornice, frieze or foundation stone. As 
 the children say, there was " no nothing." Well 
 has Cato's menace been fulfilled: Delenda est 
 CartJiago. We had the sensation of one who 
 has run to a fire and found it put out before his 
 arrival. The ground was irregular and broken 
 with depressions here and there, but no ruins of 
 tli,' great city that for a hundred years rivalled 
 Rome, and with her disputed supremacy of the 
 seas from the islands of the Hellespont to the 
 Pillars of Hercules. Corners of brickwork pushed 
 out through the poor soil, spotted with splashes 
 of crumbling plaster, not of Dido's city, but ves- 
 tiges of the Roman Carthage built by Cresar 
 and Augustus and made the capital of Africa. 
 It was destroyed in G98 by the Arabs and left 
 not a wrack behind. 
 
 4 * Let us have a fire and make a cup of tea, 
 that there may be something in the place where 
 Carthage is not," said our leader. 
 
 ••The best thought advanced yet," said Thalia. 
 " But where shall we find a cooling shadow in 
 this weary land?" 
 
52 The Storied Sea. 
 
 We looked about. There was no rock, no 
 wall, no hill nor mound high enough to cast a 
 shade ; no tree, not even a despised olive or 
 famished fig, which lives on starvation. Our 
 well-kept raptures were not to be expended on 
 the site of the haught}* city, and we tamely 
 followed the guide into a cavernous hole, with 
 vaulted roof, the remains of the antique cisterns 
 of Carthage, where robbers burrow in winter. 
 The Bedouins had left ashes of old fires in tiny 
 heaps on the floor, and the arch above was smok}-, 
 showing long use. There was nothing to dis- 
 pute possession of the den, and one runawa}^ 
 scorpion was the sole tenant. An Arab bo}-, 
 with lean and hungry look, who had hung round 
 us all the way from Tunis, now appeared, holding 
 a few twigs of brushwood, which he fanned into 
 a cheerful blaze with a scrap of palm-leaf; and, 
 really, the sight of flame and smell of smoke were 
 the most welcome sight we had in this classic 
 spot. The fifth donkey, a scraggy little beast, 
 about the size of a Newfoundland dog, was 
 brought ; a Persian rug was unloaded from his 
 back ; various cans, boxes, and packages, and the 
 tea-caddy (which the traveller in the East soon 
 learns to love) were strewed over the floor. 
 That was a new experience, picnicking in the 
 
In and about Tunis. 53 
 
 water-tanks of Carthage ; and eggs, sardines, 
 bread, grapes, and sweet oranges made a feast 
 fit for the king. I doubt if our predecessors ever 
 enjoyed a noonday lunch half so much. Over- 
 head was a hillock rising above the subterranean 
 arch, perhaps twenty feet from the empty level. 
 On it or near it must have stood Hannibal, 
 Marius, Scipio, in the dim old historic years, 
 when the bare blank country was a crowded city^ 
 in the midst of the garden and granary, the rich 
 corn-lands of Africa. Here it was the lamenting 
 Dido invoked the three hundred gods, and said 
 to Sister Anna she was tired of the azure heaven 
 above. Here 
 
 " Beneath the sky 
 A lofty pile being built, of tarry pine 
 And ilex split, the queen hangs garlands round, 
 And crowns the pyre with funeral leaves, and lays 
 Thereon the robes and sword ; and on the couch 
 His effigy; well knowing what would come." 
 
 Unhappy queen ! ^Eneas was not worth her 
 tears even : but she gave him her life. It is 
 comforting to know she never existed, she who 
 appears more real to the traveller than the con- 
 querors who followed each other like dim phan- 
 fcoms of the past. 
 
 Said Antiquary, speaking as one having author- 
 
54 The Storied Sea. 
 
 ity : u The latter-day luxury and riot of Rome 
 came from the East. Gladiators had no part in 
 her exhibitions till the Punic wars, and, though 
 the Imperial City overturned Carthage and Cor- 
 inth, it was greatly influenced by them both. 
 The Carthaginians were from Tyre, the Shemitic 
 race. They were dreadful idolaters. " Moloch 
 was one of their chief gods." 
 
 " The Sunday-school Moloch?" asked Thalia. 
 
 " The same," replied Antiquary, with a wrin- 
 kled smile, which made him look like the dried- 
 apple dolls on sale at country church festivals. 
 " A brass statue, with hollow body, fire inside. 
 The arms, red-hot, received the child, who 
 struggled and fell into the coals beneath the 
 base. Sometimes, when battles failed, the gen- 
 erals did not scruple to offer prisoners, and even 
 their own soldiers, in sacrifice to the terrible 
 deity." 
 
 They deserved destruction," I said. 
 
 " Yes ; they were alwa}'S faithless and treach- 
 erous. The army was an army of mercenaries ; 
 the seamen, slaves chained to the oars, who 
 never left the galle3 T s. Their generals valued 
 men as ours do perfect machinery. The old 
 battles must have been murderous, for after the 
 battle of Cannae three bushels of rings were taken 
 
In and about Tunis. 55 
 
 from the frozen fingers of Roman knights and 
 sent by Hannibal home to Carthage." 
 
 Thalia reclined on the Persian rug at ease, 
 resting her back against a loose pile of brick- 
 work, and we disposed ourselves comfortably as 
 we might in the broken cistern which sheltered 
 from the noonday sun. " It is too hot to go out 
 yet. Tell me some story about this place," said 
 the beauty : " my mother tried to hire me to read 
 Rollin, but I never got beyond Egypt." 
 
 "The best thing that can be told of all that 
 tim2 is the stoiy of Regains. 'Tisan old tale 
 and often told, but never worn out. There was 
 no man in this dead city fit to loose the latchet of 
 his shoes, and such was the stern old Roman 
 virtue that the most constant of Rome's enemies 
 trusted the most unrelenting of her officers with 
 a boundless faith. Such men are of those who 
 are born to rule the world ; from the beginning 
 elected to the divine right, crowned and anointed 
 at their birth. 
 
l?^Sg5g5E5 E5gg^gg5E5H^5^5^^^^^ZSZ5E5g5B5g5aEgSg5H555g5H Fn 
 
 [^■E5E5E5ESE5S5S5E5E55SS5E5S5S5S5E5BS55E5ESE5S5B5ES-E5E5E5E5E555E5SSS 
 
 V. 
 
 A DAY IN CARTHAGE. 
 
 jjUT about Regulus," said Antiquary, walk- 
 ing up and down the narrow cistern 
 cave. "In the fifth }~ear of "his cap- 
 tivity an embassy from Carthage was sent to 
 Rome, and he accompanied the ambassadors, 
 under promise to return to his prison if the pro- 
 posals offered were declined. Many an orator 
 has spoken, and many a poet harped and sung, 
 how, when he reached his own city, he at first 
 refused to enter it, because he was the slave of 
 the Carthaginians. When brought before the 
 Senate, which received him with the honors he 
 had never failed to deserve, he declined to give 
 an opinion, as he had ceased by his captivity to 
 be a member of that illustrious body, being de- 
 graded to the level of a slave. At length, when 
 persuaded by his countrymen to speak, he im- 
 plored the Senate to acknowledge no peace, and 
 
A Day in Carthage. 57 
 
 to decline even an exchange of prisoners. When 
 he saw them wavering from their desire to redeem 
 him from captivity, he said the enemy had given 
 him slow poison, which soon would send him unto 
 the silent majority. And at last, when the Senate, 
 through his pleadings, refused the offered terms 
 of the Carthaginians, he resisted the prayers of 
 his friends to remain in Rome, false to his word, 
 and returned to Carthage, where a martyr's death 
 awaited him. It is told he was placed in a barrel 
 lined with spikes of iron, and was rolled over and 
 over till he perished. Others say that his eyelids 
 were cut off, and he was then thrown into a dark 
 dungeon, from which he was suddenly brought 
 out and exposed to the full rays of a burning sun. 
 It is not clearly known, — only that he made him- 
 self a place among the immortal names. 
 
 " The Roman spirit is dead here. It went out 
 with the republic ; but it still lives in our own 
 country. If President Lincoln had been kid- 
 napped, as was at first intended by the rebels, I 
 do believe he would not have counted his life dear 
 unto himself could it have been weighed against 
 the safety of the republic. He, too, would have 
 implored the Senate to submit to no ignoble 
 terms, and would have gone back to the black 
 bread and carrion of Andersonville, sharing its 
 
58 The Storied Sea. 
 
 slow poison with the lowest soldier, dying in un- 
 speakable filth and miser}', rather than treat with 
 rebels. The heroism of the high Roman was not 
 nobler than that of the plain man of our prosaic 
 age, in homely guise, working out the grand re- 
 sults to which he was ordained. But he is too 
 near our eyes for the lights of airy and remote 
 distance ; and no color of fable tinges the name 
 and fame of the man who led us in stormy times, 
 — the shepherd of his people." 
 
 After a pause he resumed : — 
 
 Ci They were stout fighters, those old Cartha- 
 ginians. In the last siege of the city, vessels of 
 silver and gold were given for arms, and posses- 
 sion was battled from street to street with the 
 energy of despair. Dead bodies were used for 
 ramparts ; the fire lasted seventeen days ; and 
 even Scipio was moved to tears at the utter 
 wretchedness of the powerful city. 
 
 "On the very hillock above us, perhaps, he 
 repeated the words of the Iliad over the flames : 
 ' The clay shall come when sacred Troy shall 
 perish, and Priam and his people shall be slain.' 
 
 " It was here the women gave their hair for 
 bowstrings. Thalia's rich, silky locks would 
 have made a very Cupid's bow for a swift-flying 
 arrow." 
 
A Day in Carthage. 59 
 
 I looked at her, and she was fast asleep. The 
 tlHrd Punic war is altogether too much for the 
 woman who does not like study. We forgive 
 everything to beauty ; and the delicate, girlish 
 shape, made of the refined clay of which Nature 
 is most sparing, rested against the Persian rug 
 like the pictures of the gentle Mohammedan 
 Peris, who subsist on perfumes, mainly "musk. 
 No one disturbed her siesta or resented the slight ; 
 and while I watched her the gentlemen rambled 
 out in search of a white stone with which to mark 
 the da} T , but failed to find one worth stooping to 
 pick up. The temples, amphitheatres, forums, 
 have passed from sight ; nothing remains but the 
 storied sea and the proud harbor, where the 
 countless fleets lay anchored. All, all gone, 
 the grandeur and the glory ! 
 
 My reader who visited the Centennial may re- 
 member, in the Tunisian Department, an ancient 
 mosaic from the floor of a Carthaginian palace. 
 The design was a lion, and the make rude and 
 uneven. Maybe the wearing centuries had rubbed 
 away some of its polish ; but I am free to main- 
 tain that specimen of Carthaginian art was a dam- 
 aging blow to my early notions of the pristine 
 splendors of the Orient. Still, good judges pro- 
 fessed to believe it was an admirable work. You, 
 
60 The Storied Sea. 
 
 my beloved, must make your own choice. All 
 beauty is in the eye of the gazer, and no one can 
 judge for another. 
 
 Long after the Phoenician Carthage had been 
 swept away, after the Roman city- ceased to exist, 
 after the Vandal and the Arab, came here armies, 
 gorgeous, magnificent, upholding the emblem of 
 peace for the most merciless of wars. In 1248 
 St. Louis of France and his three brothers re- 
 ceived from the Abbey of St. Denis the pilgrim's 
 scrip and staff and the sacred oriflamme, dele- 
 gated to him by the holy men who were forbidden 
 to use arms personally, to be borne before the 
 abbot in battle. The king sailed, with his barons 
 and vassals, haughty and defiant, and arrived in 
 Cyprus with fifty thousand men, bearing banners 
 that u bloomed with crimson," resplendent with 
 jewels and gold. Each feudal baron had the right 
 to his own standard in the field ; and in the rosy 
 island, sacred to Love and Beauty, the mailed 
 armor of the knights, made of glittering rings, 
 gave back the mildly tempered sunlight of that 
 soft region of poetry and romance. All that 
 skill could devise in the way of ornamentation 
 of shield, sword, lance, was wrought into the 
 arms of the later Crusaders. Gunpowder has 
 blown away much of the pomp and circumstance 
 
A Day in Carthage. 61 
 
 of glorious war ; and historians unite in testi- 
 mony that a more gallant army never took the 
 field than that which went out on the eighth 
 Crusade. 
 
 Egypt was the object of Louis's first attack, 
 the deliverance of Palestine being hoped from the 
 conquest of the land of Mizraim. A storm dis- 
 persed his fleet soon after leaving Cyprus ; and 
 the royal division, in which were nearly three 
 thousand knights and their following, arrived off 
 Damietta before the rest appeared. The shores 
 were lined with the Sultan's troops. The un- 
 earthly din of their horns and kettledrums struck 
 the French with dismay ; and the splendor of 
 their arms of barbaric gold was so brilliant, that 
 w * when the sun shone on the commander, he 
 seemed like the sun itself." The counsellors 
 urged Louis to wait for the rest of his army ; but 
 the pious and intrepid monarch waited not for 
 his impatient knights, tossing on the stormy sea. 
 Harnessed in complete armor 5 a shining shield 
 pendent from his neck, lance in hand, and the 
 consecrated oriflamme borne before him, he leaped 
 the waves breast high, among the foremost 
 who reached the shore. The Mussulmans fled in 
 panic, and the French quietly took possession of 
 Damietta : but the enemy rallied and returned in 
 
62 The Storied Sea. 
 
 great numbers, and, after a bloody struggle, the 
 French were routed. The king, separated from 
 the rest of the army, was captured, with the 
 whole of his nobles, and ransomed with ten thou- 
 sand golden bezants. Thus closed the eighth 
 Crusade, in bitter lamenting that the very bloom 
 and flower of chivalry had been sacrificed in 
 vain. 
 
 The appalling situation of Christian forces in 
 Asia Minor determined King Louis to put his for- 
 tunes to the touch in a final enterprise. He sum- 
 moned his barons and knights, some of whom 
 cursed his folly, and refused to join him. He and 
 his three sons then put on the cross for the last 
 time. He was old and gra} T ; but his faith was 
 clear, and his unbending will had not begun to 
 waver. His host was numerous, and his plan 
 was first to subdue the Moslems of North Africa. 
 Accordingly, he encamped near Tunis ; and his 
 camp was vari-colored, radiant with hundreds of 
 banners floating on the warm winds. Ever} 7 sort 
 of arm, device, and ensign fluttered softly in the 
 breeze, that blew now from the desert, now from 
 the sea. Instead of victory, there was waiting 
 for him the pestilence which walketh in darkness 
 and waste th at noonda}\ Here, on the site of 
 old Carthage, the Christian king added one more 
 
A Day in Carthage. 63 
 
 renowned name to the still slopes on Fame's 
 eternal camping-ground. He died of malarial 
 fever, August 25, 1270. Many a minstrel and 
 Troubadour of his time sang how Louis, ninth of 
 his name, la}' dying on a bed of ashes, the words 
 6 'Jerusalem! O Jerusalem ! " the last on his 
 white lips ; and how his weeping knights be- 
 wailed him and shrouded him in the lilied flags, 
 the crowned helmet, sword, knightly spurs, and 
 cross-marked shield upon his coffin. For six cen- 
 turies the grave of the king was neglected, though 
 he was canonized as a saint, and His portrait hung 
 with the most illustrious of the palace galleries of 
 France. 
 
 In 1830, the time of Charles X., a treat} T was 
 made between France and the Regent of Tunis, 
 containing a special article by which a site for a 
 monument of St. Louis was ceded forever to the 
 King of France ; but the kingdom was in revolu- 
 tion, and not till 1841, in the reign of Louis Phi- 
 lippe, was the present memorial chapel raised. 
 
 We walked to see it, — a small, graceful struc- 
 ture of white stone, hardly equal to the monu- 
 ments that brilliant people usually devote to their 
 beloved dead. The garden in which the chapel 
 stands was doubtless the site of the ancient 
 Byrsa, or Citadel. It contains Roman inscrip- 
 
64 The Storied Sea. 
 
 tions and reliefs of the Imperial Era, found by the 
 French in course of excavation. 
 
 The old Crusader sleeps well. Env} 7 and 
 malice no longer whisper that the motif of his 
 life was not alwa} T s above reproach. At this late 
 hour we cannot separate the subtle links which 
 combine good and bad passions, and the human 
 heart is kindly disposed toward the warriors of 
 every grade who battled for the Holy Sepulchre. 
 His errors of deed and judgment are forgiven. 
 What a mixture of romance and nonsense, of 
 splendid achievement and pure folly, is in the 
 dazzling and useless valor of that period ! 
 
 The Crusades did one good thing for the 
 unborn generations, of which eloquent orators 
 occasionally speak. They have furnished end- 
 less debates for ingenuous youth in the land of 
 the free and the home of the brave. Still is the 
 question discussed, and the wrangle contended : 
 Were they or were they not beneficial to man- 
 kind? And were Peter and Godfrey, Richard, 
 Raymond, and the rest, of the number of those 
 who had uplifted the human race, when their life- 
 withering marches were closed, "and a mourn- 
 ful and solitary silence prevailed along the coast 
 which had so long resounded with the world's 
 debate " ? , 
 
A Day in Carthage. 65 
 
 That was the golden age of the Troubadours. 
 Poetry was the delight of high and low, and the 
 world was mad with music. With no friend but 
 his harp, the wanderer strolled from town to 
 town, from court to cam}), getting supper and 
 bed literally for a song. Every one remembers 
 the sweet story of Blondel and the captive Rich- 
 ard of the Lion Heart, himself a Troubadour. 
 Among the lovers of the gay science were two 
 kings of France, princes, counts, and knights 
 unnumbered. What a contagion the pleasant 
 madness was while the craze lasted ! It de- 
 manded leisure, enthusiasm, and vivid imagina- 
 tion. Our old earth has grown too cold, too 
 tired, too commonplace for such an epidemic, 
 and now the struggle for bread is too sharp. 
 We have one final hint and dying reminder of 
 those ancient harpers — Brudder Bones and his 
 merry men, last of the gentle race of Trouba- 
 dours. Near Carthage, in a lonely spot rarely 
 visited, sleeps a wandering minstrel of our own 
 times, whose one immortal song has been heard 
 wherever the English language is spoken. Like 
 the roving singers of lovely Provence, many times 
 he had nothing but his harp. John Howard 
 Payne was a gay Bohemian, extravagant in taste, 
 lavish in expenditure ; living much, too much 
 
 5 
 
66 The Storied Sea. 
 
 u 'mid pleasures and palaces," yet with a vein 
 of sadness down deep in his heart, an unsatisfied 
 longing for rest never found except in the narrow 
 house appointed for all living. He died while 
 holding the office of consul, and a plain marble 
 slab, sent out b}' the Government of the United 
 States, marks the grave of the homeless man, 
 sixty years a wanderer on this earth, the author 
 of " Home, Sweet Home." 2 
 
 One winter he was without money or credit, 
 and in London had not where to lay his head. 
 He tried to quiet the pain of hunger and home- 
 lessness b}' looking in at windows and from the 
 areas scenting good cheer. It was Christmas 
 Eve, the snow fell fast, the wind was sharp and 
 keen. At one luxurious house the hungry man 
 stopped and watched the lighting of the Christ- 
 mas tree. Its candles streamed brightly on the 
 pavement, and among the evergreens he could 
 see the red berries of holly, the toys and gar- 
 lands, and the pretty heads of children. They 
 danced and clapped their hands while the presents 
 were distributed, and the air rang with shouts, 
 laughter, and screams of delight. When the 
 merriment had spent itself a little, one young 
 girl went to the piano and struck up " Sweet 
 
 1 The remains have since been removed to the United States. 
 
A Day in Carthage. G7 
 
 Home," while the happy family joined in a rousing 
 chorus. Was ever contrast so bitter? 
 
 I have this from Mrs. Consul General Heap, 
 on whose head be the blessing of those who en- 
 tertain strangers. Payne told it to her long after 
 those evil days were passed. 
 
 Strolling over the spot where Carthage is ?iot, 
 we deeply felt that ours is the continent of Hope 
 and this is the continent of Memory. Here one 
 does not need so much as to stamp his foot to 
 call up ghosts of the past and people space with 
 spirits whose names are a gloiy which fills the 
 earth. The sun sank behind mysterious hills, a 
 rocky range, with long low outline, marking the 
 limit of the melancholy desert. They were over- 
 shadowed by veils (sa}', rather, a radiance of 
 tinted mists), bright as plumage of birds or hues 
 of flowers ; amber, amethyst, and carmine, of 
 unspeakable beaut}'. Suddenly, out of the fading 
 lights fell violet shadows, such as one never sees 
 in harsher climes. The sea was a sea of glass, 
 mingled with fire. 
 
 Grecian peasants say that on the field of Mara- 
 thon, certain nights, the neighing and trampling 
 of steeds is heard and phantom horse and rider 
 appear in the open plain, " come like shadows, 
 so depart." Thus it was spectral armies marched 
 
68 The Storied Sea. 
 
 awa}^ with us from the dead city. They were 
 swifter than eagles ; the # y were stronger than 
 lions, — serried hosts, in the purple and gold of 
 Rome, never breaking, with hoof- beat or steel 
 clash, the spell of that 4t calmest and most stillest 
 night." Of its exquisite loveliness I hardly trust 
 myself to speak. A tropic air rippled the bay, 
 and, silently donkeying along through the lumi- 
 nous dusk, I thought of the lines a greater than 
 Virgil wrote : — 
 
 "In such a night 
 Stood Dido, with a willow in her hand, 
 Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love 
 To come again to Carthage." 
 
 The dew of the sea cooled the thirsty land ; 
 the moon on the sand lay soft as snow. Under 
 that divine radiance the troubled earth was lulled 
 to rest, hushed as if rocked to sleep by the beat- 
 ing heart in the bosom of the sea. The heavens 
 bent low. Paradise was brought near. The don- 
 key boys ceased their hallooing ; solemn silence 
 all, save the low tinkle of a bell where a goat 
 browsed under a famished fig-tree, which had 
 cast its untimely fruit. In the Arab camp a few 
 red coals glowed, a burning spot in the colorless 
 plain. 
 
A Day in Carthage. CO 
 
 The weight of old histoiy pressed on 1113' soul 
 with feeling that can never be expressed, — a 
 sense of the littleness of one petty life in the 
 sight of Him to whom a thousand years are but 
 as yesterday when it is past and as a watch in 
 the night ; of the poverty of aims which end 
 with closing breath, of the emptiuess of earthly 
 glory beneath the light of the heavenly, I 
 thought, too, and remorsefully, of my own unwrit- 
 ten life, its poor purposes, weak ambitions, griev- 
 ous mistakes, failures, and looked toward the 
 blue above for comfort. A few stars shone faint 
 and pale through the moon's strong light. In 
 the poetic belief of the Orient they are mystic 
 signs in which the destinies of mortals are writ- 
 ten on the everlasting tablet of white pearl ex- 
 tending from east to west, from earth to heaven, 
 and it is guarded by the angels. The decrees of 
 God, the compassionate, are graven there ; all 
 fates in the future, all events past, present, and 
 to come, to all eternity. The tired pilgrim looked 
 in vain. To mortal eyes that starry volume is a 
 sealed book. Well are the guardian angels keep- 
 ing its mighty secrets. 
 
VI. 
 
 ABOUT THE AEABS. 
 
 ^T was at Tunis I had my first impression 
 of the Arabs ; and as Arabia is like 
 no other countiy, so the Arabs are like 
 no other people. The utter solitude of accursed 
 spots is pictured by this touch ; the Arabian shall 
 not pitch his tent there. The wild-eyed Bedouin, 
 unhindered and unharmed, but not harmless, had 
 his beginnings in the land of Shinar, first gather- 
 ing-place of the sons of men. Irrepressible wan- 
 derers, living in strenuous idleness, whose hand 
 is against every man's, of old they broke out of 
 the waterless desert, to raid over Jordan into the 
 green plain of Esdraelon, over the Euphrates, 
 to the civic splendors and rich gardens beyond. 
 From 
 
 " the Eastern gate 
 Where the great sun begins his state," 
 
About the Arabs. 71 
 
 they now traverse a greater distance than from 
 the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. From the 
 Sahara across the land of the Sphinx, and the 
 Phoenix, through which the Nile makes a narrow 
 ribbon of green, they rove and scatter into the 
 great and terrible wilderness where sand-storm 
 rises and simoom blows, and no road ever did or 
 ever will mark its shifting surface. Six hundred 
 miles of land, level as the sea when the wind 
 sleeps, — well may the poets sing of the endless 
 line of the Sahara and the unsearchable regions 
 of the voiceless, mystic desert. Even here the 
 world does move, and the melancholy silence is 
 no longer broken by the songs of slaves chanting 
 in mournful measure : — 
 
 " Where are we going ? Where are we going ? 
 Hear us, save us, Rubee. 
 Moons of marches from our eyes 
 Bornou-Land behind us lies ; 
 Hot the desert wind is blowing, 
 Wild the waves of sand are flowing; 
 Hear us, tell us, where are we going ? 
 Where are we going, Rubee ? " 
 
 Caravans move with the dull, slow, steady tread 
 of camels ; but the long files of Ethiop slaves are 
 not in the rear. 
 
 The Arab tents are, indeed, black, but comely. 
 As I watched a never-to-be-forgotten sunset, three 
 
72 The Storied Sea, 
 
 tents were suddenly pitched, it seemed, against 
 the sky, — rising swiftly as shapes of genii rise 
 from enchanted depths to startle the sight. Above 
 them four palm-trees, a plumy clump, stood mo- 
 tionless as mirage, every delicate leaf sharp cut 
 against the shining gold. In the farness of the dis- 
 tance a train of overladen camels, slow-moving, 
 winding in serpentine curves across the desert 
 waste, spectral, shadowy, like the pictures of the 
 march of the wise men, every six camels led by a 
 donkey, his driver marching beside him. 
 
 The Arabs are the only out-door people I have 
 seen who have beauty of face or grace of move- 
 ment. The Oriental love of color and floating dra- 
 peries finds best expression in the white turbans, 
 crimson and green sashes, and floating burnous of 
 the sons of the desert. I do not know if these 
 came from the wilds of the Atlas or the low hills 
 to the east ; but, wherever it was, the country was 
 in the limitless realm of poetiy, picture, fable, 
 and they were gifted with resistless fascination. 
 A carpet, gay as a peacock's back, was laid in 
 front of the tents. Such were the rugs Haroun 
 al Raschid and his wife, Zobeide, had spread be- 
 fore them all the wa} T when they made the pilgrim- 
 age from Bagdad to Mecca. Such was the magic 
 carpet of Hassan, which obeyed his lightest wish 
 
About the Arabs. 73 
 
 and carried him, as on the wings of birds, afloat 
 in the air. 
 
 The group upon it was too remote for my see- 
 ing ; but I could not doubt that among them was 
 a lovely girl, with eyes like the mountain gazelle, 
 and a heart as tameless. Her locks were like 
 midnight, and as a piece of a pomegranate her 
 temples within her locks. She was robed in 
 scarfs and flowing draperies and a gauzy veil, 
 which half concealed her loveliness, according 
 to changeless fashions of the immemorial East. 
 Thus came Rebecca to the well, and she was very 
 fair to look upon, with the wedding gifts on her 
 arms and in her ears, sparkling in the sun's last 
 rays. It sets suddenly here, and darkness falls 
 like a drop-curtain. Under the stars, throbbing 
 white in the indigo blue of that night, was an 
 appeal to fancy such as is never made among 
 AVestern tribes, whose history, broken and frag- 
 mentary, is scarcely worth tracing and knowing. 
 In this new world, which is the old, is limitless 
 suggestion, and at every turn there is kindling for 
 memoiy and imagination. They were the camp- 
 ing party I watched of the country of Job, great- 
 est of all the men of the East ; and of Moses, 
 when he was a stranger and a shepherd. They 
 came from the refuge where Elijah fled for safety, 
 
74 The Storied Sea. 
 
 and the murmuring millions of Israel — the chosen 
 band bearing the coffin of Joseph — wandered in 
 a pilgrimage such as never was nor never will be 
 made again on earth. With their black bread 
 and dates, coated with a sugary crust, these de- 
 scendants of Hagar would make their evening 
 meal ; and, had we chosen to claim hospitality, 
 doubtless it would have been freely offered as to 
 the stranger in the days of Abraham. The cus- 
 toms of four thousand years are the same. Well 
 has it been said, could Ishmael come again to the 
 earth, he would recognize without effort his own 
 people and his own land. 
 
 While these old Bible thoughts went through 
 my mind, suddenly the moving figures stopped, 
 as in the act of listening. We heard nothing but 
 the clumsy stumbling of the mules among the 
 stones. Not a sound but that ; yet it was even- 
 tide, and somewhere a muezzin was calling to 
 prayer. From the airy top of lofty, remote min- 
 arets the faithful had heard a voice we could not 
 hear (ezari), calling, in musical, far-reaching wail, 
 the pra}~er revealed in vision to the Prophet : 
 " God is great ! There is no god but God ! 
 Mohammed is the prophet of God ! Come to 
 prajers ! Come to prayers ! Praj'er is better 
 than sleep ! " All the senses of the desert-born 
 
About the Arabs. 75 
 
 are remarkably acute, their eyesight is like clair- 
 voyance, and their hearing appears miraculous. 
 As we lost them in the distance, 1 could see their 
 prostrations, bowing till their foreheads touched 
 the sand, kneeling and rising again with rever- 
 ence and devotion. All times and places are 
 alike to them when the hour of worship comes. 
 For the Prophet (exalted be his name!) says: 
 " Every place on earth is given as a place of 
 prayer, except the bath and the grave." I filled 
 up the evening picture, — the gathering round the 
 tiny fire, where they told the ancient thousand 
 and one stories, forever old, forever new ; or the 
 fables of JEsop, called by them Lokinan ; or the 
 favorite tale, familiar in our schoolbooks, of Lle- 
 wellyn and his faithful hound, Gelert, which killed 
 the wolf to save his master's child, and was itself 
 killed by the father, when the latter, on entering 
 the hut, saw nothing but an overturned cradle, a 
 pool of blood, and the dog licking his lips. 
 
 Their rich and copious language lends itself 
 readily to poetry, and often the stories there 
 would be songs, possibly "very long and very 
 lonesome, and about nothing in particular," or 
 maybe their passionate love of music would 
 have led them to bring along the primitive two- 
 stringed guitar, to accompany the war-song with 
 
76 The Storied Sea. 
 
 full chorus, or the soft, grave love clitty to the 
 gazelle-e}'ed darling in the shadow of the tent. 
 Here is one of the Bedouin songs : — 
 
 " Her skin is like silk and her speech is low, neither redundant 
 
 nor deficient. 
 Her eyes, God said to them, Be ! and they were, stirring 
 
 men's hearts with the potency of wine. 
 May my love for her grow more warm each day, and not 
 
 cease till the Day of Judgment ! 
 The locks on her brow are dark as night, 
 While her forehead shines like the gleam of the morning. 
 And the rain falls not, but for the purpose of kissing the 
 
 ground before her feet." 
 
 Do } r ou recall any line, dear reader, of sweeter 
 exaggeration than that last one ? I have heard 
 Arabic music, but the melodies are harsh and 
 irregular, as their verses are smooth and flow- 
 ing. The lofty imagery of the Orient takes ns 
 back to the first love song written to the Egyp- 
 tian spouse, and the poems of the Arab are filled 
 with spicery, myrrh, and balm, color, and ex- 
 travagant hyperbole. The scent and soul of the 
 furthest East are in them. They have brave, 
 proud lyrics, full of the spirit of battle, the dust 
 and the rush, the cries and clamor, and are well 
 accompanied by the harsh, tense notes of the 
 zithern. They sing of the ancient fastnesses of 
 their own Arabia, where freemen dwell, in an 
 
About the Arabs. 77 
 
 oasis of freedom, in a world of slaves ; and how 
 they drink no wine in a hot and thirsty land, 
 though their wounds consume them, because they 
 have the promise of the Prophet (exalted be his 
 name !) that the faithful shall appear in glory at 
 the resurrection, with their wounds brilliant as 
 vermilion and odoriferous as musk. Led by a 
 beaming light, they will cross the bridge El Sirat, 
 which is fine as the edge of a cimeter, and drink 
 of the Lake of the Happy. It is sweet as honey, 
 cold as snow, clear as crystal. There are streams 
 of milk and of wine, flowing over beds of musk, 
 between margins of camphor, covered with moss 
 and saffron. There they will rest under the won- 
 derful tree of life, Taba, so large that a fleet horse 
 would need a hundred years to cross its shade ; 
 and the meanest in Paradise will have seventy- 
 two houris and eighty slaves, eternally young and 
 beautiful forever. 
 
 They count a man childless who has only 
 daughters, and around the evening camp-fires 
 they recite a most melancholy tragedy concern- 
 ing the ancient custom of burying female children 
 alive, practised before the coming of Mohammed, 
 the beloved of God. The tale runs that a chief 
 of Sinai found that among his daughters (who 
 are g;ood for nothing) was one saved alive, and 
 
78 The Storied Sea. 
 
 brought up by a neighboring family, unknown to 
 him. She was fair as the moon in her brightness 
 and obedient as the gentle lambs reared in the 
 tents with the women. But the cruel father fol- 
 lowed the hideous Proverbs : " To bury daughters 
 is an act of mercy. ,, " An excellent son-in-law is 
 the grave." He watched the chance of carrying 
 her away from her adopted father and mother 
 and heeded not their pra} T ers and entreaties. His 
 heart was hard as the nether millstone. They 
 tell with long, lingering pathos how she hung 
 round her unnatural father's neck, and with ter- 
 rible minuteness relate how the mother swooned 
 away, but dared not interfere ; how, at last, even 
 the flinty nature of the chief was moved, but not 
 far enough to save the child, and the only tears 
 he was ever known to shed were over the little 
 ewe lamb, laid in the living grave, when she 
 reached up and brushed the grave-dust off his beard! 
 Heroic songs are the favorites, and old men im- 
 provise readily. These reciters, going from camp 
 to camp, as did the Rhapsodists of Greece, keep 
 the unwritten literature of the furthest East ; the 
 legends and traditions, which are loaded with im- 
 agery ; prose and verse, truth and fable, mixed 
 in the strangest way, making rich and exquisite 
 composition. Stories are current of how armies 
 
About the Arabs. 79 
 
 have been stayed and cities saved by the sudden 
 apparition of one of these Raids, with his poetry 
 and his two-stringed guitar, chanting to charmed 
 ears some old tale of woe and wrong, or some 
 wise, measured strain on the changing fortunes 
 of men. 
 
 They are not always grave and sober as the} r 
 appear. The Ishmaelite, the hating man, is not 
 without a dash of humor in his wild blood. Here 
 is one of their tales of a certain Caliph of splen- 
 did renown, who died long ago, when the Islam 
 world was young. He had many palaces, with 
 shady fountains ever playing among rings of 
 roses, wild, dark gardens, cooled b} T rushing 
 waters, running over sands of gold. The Com- 
 mander of the Faithful had made the holy pil- 
 grimage to Mecca, and kissed the heavenly stone, 
 which was once a pure white jacinth, but has 
 grown black with the kisses of sinful mortals. 
 He had drunk of the sacred well Zemzem, re- 
 vealed in mercy by the angel to Hagar, and he 
 dwelt in the peace of the blessed. His dishes 
 and goblets were of gold, and his tent, when he 
 journeyed, was a silken pavilion. He had his 
 story-tellers and his dwarfs, dancing girls, and 
 singing women, with musical instruments, and 
 hundreds of slaves, whose lives were in his hand. 
 
80 The Storied Sea, 
 
 His heart was warm and at rest. One day he 
 caught a glimpse of a girl with a wandering 
 Bedouin horde. Though dressed in the striped 
 cotton of Yemen, she was like the sun in its 
 brightness and the moon walking among .the 
 stars, and from the hour he saw her he neither 
 slept nor ate pleasant bread, for love of her. 
 Vainly did his wise men comfort him, saying the 
 rose from the garden of beauty should be his, if 
 it was predestined, because fifty thousand years 
 before the creation everything was registered in 
 the book of Destin} r , and what is not fated can 
 never come to pass. Commit thine affairs unto 
 Him the all-powerful, who spread out the heavens 
 and the earth. The enamored Caliph was a 
 bold believer in the theory that the unchangeable 
 destinies had decreed, preordained, never to be 
 cancelled, his right to the almond-eyed houri in 
 the dress of striped cotton. So he sent officers on 
 steeds shod with fire after the uncle of the girl, 
 who demanded twenty thousand golden dinars 
 for the virgin treasure. It was given without 
 words, and the Caliph thought it all too little for 
 the budding rose, beautiful as the four perfect 
 women with whom Allah has deigned to bless the 
 earth. u The women are all an evil," said Abu 
 Beker, the conqueror ; " but the greatest of all evils 
 
About the Arabs. 81 
 
 is that they are necessary." The Damascus pal- 
 ace, with its marble floors and latticed windows, 
 had little charm for her who trod the desert in 
 nn trammelled freedom, and whose vision had been 
 bounded by the line where earth and sky meet. 
 The Palace of Delight was only a palace of fears. 
 She pined for the black tents, the long march, the 
 evening bivouac among her homely kindred ; and 
 her imperial and imperious husband overheard her 
 singing, half in sorrow, half in scorn, these lines 
 of her own composition : — 
 
 "A tent wherein the breezes flow- 
 Is dearer than a palace fair. 
 A crust upon the floor below 
 
 Is clearer than the daintiest fare. 
 The winds that in each crevice sigh 
 
 Are dearer than these drums I hear. 
 An ' Abbah ' with a joyful eye 
 
 Is dearer than these gauzes here. 
 A dog that barks around my tent 
 
 Is dearer than a fawning cat. 
 The camel foal that with us went 
 
 Is dearer than a mule like that. 
 A boorish cousin though he be, 
 
 Too weak to- work on my behalf, 
 Were dearer, dearer far to me 
 
 Than yonder clumsy, rampant calf." 
 
 The last couplet enraged the august Caliph, al- 
 ways victorious, and he tore off the Broussa silks 
 
82 The Storied Sea. 
 
 and gauzy veil of his unwilling bride, and, giving 
 her the old striped cotton gown and leather slip- 
 pers, he rained curses on her bare head and sent 
 her back to the desert again. But she went out 
 laughing into the torrid waste, and, when at a 
 safe distance from the Summer Palace, she pulled 
 off the slippers and threw them back, in token 
 of her contempt for the high and mighty Com- 
 mander of the Faithful, his treasures of jewels 
 and silks, his camels white as milk, and horses 
 with saddles stitched in gold, his menservants and 
 his maidservants, and everything that was his. 
 
 Native talent for rigmarole asserted itself 
 rather strongly up there. The night following the 
 day spent at Carthage, I dreamed of the gazelle- 
 eyed houri in the shadow of the tent, lovely 
 enough to be the daughter born of the bridal of 
 the earth and sky. I was deeply mortified and 
 taken aback to learn next day that the pictorial 
 group, her fiery kinsmen, camped in the shade of 
 the palm grove, were a gang of g}'psies. One 
 sneaking scamp from among them tracked us half- 
 way to Tunis, in hope of finding a chance to rob 
 a straggler. Fortunatel}', I did not mention my 
 fancies — so vivid, } T et so weak — to any one but 
 you, my reader, and I know the secret is safe 
 with you and will never go any further. 
 
{P^S5B5S535S53S^S5S5S5S5SSSS3S3SS5SSS5S5SSB 
 
 VII. 
 
 DOING A LITTLE SHOPPING. 
 
 MOOR from the bazaars with Mecca 
 scarfs," said the polyglot courier at 
 the Hotel d'Orient. I descended to 
 
 the wide cool entrance-hall, a shady place, with 
 stone floor and columns, and tiled wall, on which 
 run verses of the Koran, inscribed in gilt letters 
 on an azure background. In a land which knows 
 little rain and never feels frost, its broad palace- 
 like emptiness is inviting, albeit with a sense of 
 homelessness to the AVestern traveller. At the 
 furthest end, in the heavj- shadow of magnolias 
 without and lemon-trees within, stood a tall, 
 straight, slender figure, his white turban in clear 
 relief against the bright blue, — the Moor with 
 the Mecca scarfs. It is to be deplored that the 
 influence of France in the East has exchanged 
 graceful Oriental garments, flowing robes, and 
 ample draperies for the rigid armor-like suits of 
 
84 The Stoned Sea. 
 
 the Parisian. This man I saw was true to the 
 fierce traditions of his race, and was armed, as 
 well as clad in the rich vestments of the gorgeous 
 East ; a barbaric magnificence, suited to the un- 
 conquered people who never crouched before 
 sovereigns, who had yoked kings to their char- 
 iots as beasts of burden, of whom the might}' 
 Cambyses had to beg leave to pass through their 
 dominions, and on whom even Sesostris and 
 Cyrus could not impose conditions. 
 
 Imagination rallied from the stunning blow it 
 had over night (from the gypsies, you remember, 
 dear reader), and my very ideal of one half- 
 civilized Asian prince stood before me, the hero 
 of the most pathetic of human compositions. 
 The noble Othello ! For the first time I under- 
 stood the gentle lacty wedded to the Moor ; how 
 she could fall in love with what she had feared to 
 look upon. By the bluest of seas, in some cool 
 marble hall, with arabesque roof like this, Desde- 
 mona leaned against her father's breast to listen 
 to the stories of regions of fable, mysteries, 
 sorceries, and dim enchantments. Her house- 
 hold cares despatched in haste, she hung breathless 
 on his words, her soul in her ears, tremblingly 
 at first and in silence, rapt and gazing. "Her 
 father loved me, oft invited me." This hero from 
 
Doing a Little Shopping. 85 
 
 the glowing zone came into her smooth, quiet, 
 domestic life, like some brilliant tropic romance, 
 and as the tragic tales went on, of feats of broil 
 and battle, of moving accidents by flood and 
 field, all the currents of her being set toward 
 the regal stranger, who says, " I fetch my life 
 and being from men of royal siege." He was 
 robed in a sort of exotic grandeur by his princely 
 bearing and military renown. That such as he, 
 high-born, brave, and proud, should be sold to 
 slavery, pained the innocent young heart and 
 moved the hero to beguile her of her tears, 
 
 " When I did speak of some distressful stroke 
 That my youth suffered." 
 
 The passion for the marvellous and visionary is 
 strong in women closely kept and guarded, and 
 the shy, sensitive maiden was drawn as bj' subtile 
 magnetism. He was not the tyrant of an Eastern 
 seraglio ; even Iago admits he was of a constant, 
 loving, noble nature, till, being wrought, he dis- 
 closed the fierce fire of passion which flames in 
 the blood of these children of the sun. Hers was 
 the love which casteth out fear. She asked no 
 questions, required no pledges. 
 
 " She loved me for the dangers I had passed, 
 And I loved her that she did pity them.'' 
 
86 The Storied Sea. 
 
 Swifter than light these thoughts flashed through 
 my mind as I went down the stone stairs. Below 
 the white turban I saw an olive face, with thin, 
 sharp features ; above, the e} T es, those wonderful 
 Asiatic eyes ; the jet-black brows almost met ; a 
 beard of inky blackness, carefully smoothed, hid 
 his throat. A short jacket, stiff with gold thread, 
 was worn open in front, showing a vest embroid- 
 ered with silks and stiff with gold ; white linen 
 trousers buttoned at the ankle ; a variegated sash 
 of vivid dyes, wrapped several times round his 
 waist, held in place silver-mounted pistols and 
 the crooked j'ataghan, in his hand a dreadful 
 weapon. 
 
 A sort of handkerchief thrown over the turban 
 had been removed and la} T on the stranger's left 
 arm, a manj'-colored mass, mainly crimson, with 
 loose, long fringes in rich confusion, gay as the 
 scarf of Iris. The Moor was strikingly handsome, 
 picturesque, and dignified. He saluted by placing 
 his hand on his breast, then touching it to his 
 chin and forehead ; a pretty movement, w T hich 
 has displaced the many prostrations and slow 
 obeisances which were anciently the fashion 
 among Orientals and still obtain in holy Damascus, 
 the earthly Paradise of the Prophet. These men 
 usually pick up a little French, but the noble 
 
Doing a Little Shopping. 87 
 
 Othello had only two words, " Madama Ameri- 
 cana," -'-the interpreter must do the rest. His 
 pack of goods lay on the floor, like that of the 
 New England pedler of a past generation; but, 
 instead of hideous black oil-cloth or dirty old 
 bed-ticking, the silken stuffs were enveloped in a 
 square of buff cotton, a vine of green leaves 
 wrought on its fringed edge. This was no pert, 
 brisk Yankee trader with whom I was about to 
 deal. I knew he would be slow as eternity ; but 
 I had ample leisure, and was not going to be over- 
 reached by him or any like him. Not I. Not 
 if I know myself. 
 
 " Would Madama Americana be seated?" with 
 a stately bow. She would. He then unrolled 
 the bale and produced a gay little rug, which he 
 spread for my slippered feet. He next brought 
 a cigarette from his pocket, and not so much as 
 saying, "By your leave," puffed away. " Ma- 
 dama" does not smoke? " he said inquiringly. I 
 replied my early education in that direction had 
 been neglected. He nodded, much as to say, 
 " Madama misses it mightily and is to be pitied." 
 Be then -lowly drew out from the bottom of his 
 pack a second rug, and seated himself on it' 
 quick as a wink, bringing his feet under him in 
 a compact pose, impossible to one not to the 
 
88 The Storied Sea. 
 
 manner born. The lithe, agile Arabian was used 
 to the gesture, and the action had its owh grace. 
 I was forewarned. I knew these men have small 
 capital and no credit ; their whole stock of mer- 
 chandise may be in the single bundle of modest 
 size, bought out of a Greek brigantine for what 
 he could pay and read}' to be sold for what he 
 could get. I knew the dealer would ask a tow- 
 ering price, hopelessly high, would lower inch by 
 inch, and end by taking something in reason ; 
 besides, I believed the interpreter would give me 
 a hint and not see me swindled, though he was 
 an attache of the Hotel d'Orient. 
 
 The noble Othello smoked in silence, sitting 
 perfectly still. My patience and the cigarette 
 were giving out together ; as I was about to rise 
 and leave, he tossed the cigar-stump into a small 
 brass basin for the purpose standing near, and 
 returned the amber holder to his pocket. He 
 then drew his pack toward him, with the air of a 
 man with abundant leisure and not to be hindered 
 in the enjoyment of it, unfolded a short, wide 
 scarf, and, with careless nonchalance, threw it on 
 the striped mass covering his left arm. From 
 that lustrous background it looked snowy white. 
 
 " It is from the sacred city of the Prophet, (may 
 his name be extended far as the sand reaches !) 
 and is made of the finest twilled silk." 
 
Doing a Little Shopping. 89 
 
 I examined the fabric with cave. It was very 
 pretty, with striped gilt border and a thin gold 
 fringe at the ends. When words are filtered 
 through, an interpreter, any needless speech seems 
 folly. " What price? " I asked. 
 
 He named a sum equal to about forty-five 
 dollars. I shook my head ; but he regarded the 
 shake coolly, as though I had shaken at the 
 remotest stars. Evidently he was quite indifferent 
 whether I bought or not. He went on serene as 
 summer, smooth as society polish could make a 
 man, this one whom we call barbarian. 
 
 " Will Madama lay the happy scarf round her 
 
 head and throat, that she may feel its fine soft- 
 
 3, like the furs of the north? It was made 
 
 for the Princess Fatima Hammoun, niece of the 
 
 Khedive of Egypt/' 
 
 1 Then how did you get possession of so costly 
 
 
 a prize \ 
 
 " Ladies in the harems are sometimes short 
 of money." said the unconcerned trader, softly, 
 waving the gauzy silk in air. " The Madama 
 Americana may strike off my head if I speak not 
 the truth. Perhaps this will suit her better." 
 He -hook out a long, light woollen shawl, of dull 
 apple-green. Ci Such was the turban of Moham- 
 med (exalted be his name !) when in the heat of 
 
90 The Storied Sea, 
 
 battle he raised it on a lance and made the green 
 banner forever sacred." With stately reverence 
 he inclined toward the royal colors and laid it by 
 the white scarf. 
 
 "What price?" I asked. 
 
 u Seventy-five dollars." 
 
 I shook my head with energy. " Possibly 
 Madama Americana would like some towels? 
 Here are the towels of Damascus, embroidered 
 with gold. They come from Araby the Blest, and 
 are fresh from the last caravan." 
 
 " Will they wash ? " 
 
 " Forever. The silk is the best of Syria, and 
 the broidery was laid on in delightful gardens by 
 the flowery banks of the Pharpar. It will be 
 shining ten thousand years hence, as now, and 
 is such as Ayesha, the beautiful wife, worked for 
 the Apostle of God. Will Madama make me 
 proud to look at them? The Bey of Tunis has 
 this da} r ordered fifteen dozen, as a present to the 
 Sultan Abdul Hamid the Beloved. May he sleep 
 safe in the Yiidiz Palace, by the Bosphorus." 
 
 Real^, this pedler of the East had the imagi- 
 nation of a poet, the grace of a courtier, and the 
 will of a conqueror. Again I thought of the 
 fatal handkerchief in the hand of the Moor of 
 Venice, in whose web there was magic, — 
 
Doing a Little Shopping. 91 
 
 " That handkerchief 
 
 Did an Egyptian to my mother give. 
 She was a charmer. 
 
 The worms were hallowed that did breed the silk, 
 And it was dyed in mummy, which the skilful 
 Conserved of maidens 1 hearts." 
 
 These people manage to give a fictitious value 
 to each piece of merchandise they offer. Like 
 the handkerchief spotted with strawberries, it has 
 associations more precious than the goods. It 
 is antica — that is, antique — from some old 
 mosque, or a facsimile of one worn by goddess, 
 queen, or sultana, or other august personage, 
 whose very name stirs the fancy. The noble 
 Othello leaned his back against the wall, resting 
 from what toils I could not know. "Are }~ou 
 from the khan of Sadullah Bey ? ' ? I asked. " Sa- 
 dullah buys of me," said the unmoved merchant, 
 in haughty scorn, eying his small bundle with 
 pride enough for a whole Magasin du Louvre. I 
 think the Arabian was irritated at the question, 
 for the luminous eyes glowed like burning coals. 
 A dead pause of five long minutes, and he began 
 again. k * Madama sees here the choice things fit 
 for those who live in the shadow of lofty palaces ; 
 but remember," he said gravely, as he slowly 
 refolded the green banner, "four things come 
 
92 The Storied Sea. 
 
 not back, — the spoken word, the sped arrow, the 
 past life, the neglected opportunity. Thus sayeth 
 the proverb." The golden embroidery was in 
 mystic hieroglyph along the edges of the holy 
 flag. "From the Koran," said the Moslem, de- 
 voutly sliding a lean brown finger along the 
 lines : " pure gold — it will never dim, and water 
 does not tarnish it, nor time, though it last ten 
 thousand years." 
 s* /"It is too dear. I ma}' look at the towels 
 / again." He lifted one and threw it on the near 
 fl divan. "This is from Bagdad, — from Bagdad, 
 the land of Aladdin, of Sindbad and Zobeide, Sche- 
 herezade, the rose and the nightingale, of ivory 
 and amber, spicery and richest merchandise. The 
 tempter saw my wavering. Those keen eyes lost 
 nothing and marked every shade of change, with- 
 out seeming to see anj'thing. 
 
 "Beware of the neglected opportunity," said 
 the born-and-bred fatalist, beguilingly. "God, 
 the merciful, ordains all things, and onty once 
 in a lifetime come the great chances, according 
 as Kismet has prepared them. Allah kcrim!" 
 
 By this time the servants of the hotel, several 
 idlers and travellers, had come round to watch 
 the trade, and formed a ring, of which the Moor, 
 the interpreter, and your correspondent were the 
 
Doing a Little Shopping. 93 
 
 centre. Not a word was uttered nor a sign made. 
 They looked on intently, apparently anxious, as 
 though the fate of thousands was in the venture. 
 I sent an appealing glance at the interpreter, 
 who pretended not to see. I could not spend the 
 whole day in bargaining. The delay was tedious ; 
 the situation embarrassing to a woman not used 
 to Eastern ways. ;i What for the towel?" 
 
 u The towel from Bagdad ? Twelve dollars." 
 
 " Too much." 
 
 " Then will Madama make an offer? Ameri- 
 can as are princesses. Their money comes easy 
 and goes fast. Offer?" 
 
 " Six dollars," I said hastily, for I wanted to 
 get rid of the man, and he had stayed so long I 
 felt obliged to buy something and " Jewing" is 
 not rny forte. It was the Moor's turn to shake 
 his head now, which he did in melancholy and 
 decorous fashion, not tending to unsettle the tur- 
 ban folded with graceful coils above the olive 
 forehead, which it nearly concealed. The neg- 
 lected opportunity — was I missing it? A towel 
 from Bagdad is hot in market every day, and 
 it would be a nice souvenir. The chance was 
 passing, the supreme moment, the neglected op- 
 portunity. 
 
 " six dollars ! " I said recklessly. 
 
94 The Storied Sea. 
 
 m 
 
 " I lose money," said the melancholy man, im- 
 ploring by mournful accent and wistful gesture. 
 
 "I cannot help it," I retorted, warming with 
 the clay. " You need not sell if you don't 
 w 7 ant to." 
 
 " A man hard pressed must take what he can 
 get. It is Kismet. The towel is yours. It will 
 please Madama's friends across the sea, beyond 
 the Straits. May it be like the enchanted car- 
 pet of Boudressein, which brought a fresh good 
 fortune to its owner every morning." 
 
 u Have I seen your stock of goods ? " 
 
 u You have," he replied, much as to sa}', " The 
 world is at your feet ; what moro can mortal 
 ask?" The interpreter counted the mone} T , the 
 crowd broke away, smiling and jabbering in half 
 a dozen languages, and one Neapolitan remarked 
 in French : " A runner from Sadullah Bey's. A 
 man not pleasant to meet, if one has anj'thing to 
 lose." The noble Othello alone preserved his 
 calm dignity, and in silence made his courteous, 
 profound salaam. When his few goods were 
 gathered, he leaned his back against the wall, 
 after the manner of people who love repose, look- 
 ing little like one ready to mount horse and draw 
 sabre for Islam, willing eveiy hour to die for his 
 faith. Somehow the noble Othello's bearing made 
 
Doing a Little Shopping. 95 
 
 me feel like a robber, and, with a sense of guilt, 
 I turned to the stairs with the spoil. My heart 
 sank. My feminine reader will weep with me 
 when I tell her the first unfolding of the Persian 
 towel revealed several stout coffee-stains, which 
 added dirt to the yellow tint which dulled its 
 beauty and freshness. What a forlorn purchase 
 I had made ! Had I been cheated by a strolling 
 pedler, after all the warning fingers lifted at me 
 on both sides the sea? I? I? 
 
 Thalia was lying in wait for me on a divan in 
 the balconied window. I have a shrewd suspicion 
 she had been listening over the banister, but she 
 looked innocent as a baln\ There was no chance 
 of hiding the bargain which had been conducted 
 with so much dignity and ceremony. I walked 
 toward her, trying to assume a careless manner, 
 and plunged boldly into the subject by flaunting 
 the embroidery before her eyes, thereby revealing 
 two holes hidden with consummate art and a 
 wretched spot where the fringe stopped short at 
 one end ; and oh ! what were those mysterious 
 dots all over the scant and meagre fabric? 
 Thalia smiled such an ironic, blighting sarcasm 
 of a smile as I never saw in her face before. It 
 covered me with confusion, and made my splendid 
 Bagdad towel dwindle and shrink to the propor- 
 
96 The Storied Sea. 
 
 tions of a doyley. " Ah ! I see your rage for an- 
 tiquities again. This has arrived at the antique, 
 without becoming a gem, hasn't it?" She held 
 it up to the light, which it slightly obstructed, 
 showing a "body" like the sleazy stuff our 
 grandmothers used to make milk-strainers of. 
 
 "Don't }'ou think it's rather — rather thin?" 
 she continued, the dimples deepening in her 
 cheeks. "And, dear me, what did xow pay a 
 fly-speck?" She broke into the gayest laugh in 
 the world. 
 
 I reddened with vexation, but was dumb. 
 She took the Bagdad towel in her two little hands, 
 gave a slight jerk, and the rotten old thing split 
 from one end to the other. 
 
 " Really, now, that is too bad ! I bought this 
 as a souvenir for you, a sample of Oriental mag- 
 nificence, and you have gone and ruined it ! " 
 
 "Thank you, kindly," said the spoilt beauty, 
 burying her laughter in the pillows ; "but I al- 
 ways prefer my dish-rags without tinsel." 
 
VIII. 
 
 THE LIGHT OF THE HAREM. 
 PART I. 
 
 T was in the land of crumbling cities, 
 strange religions, deserted fanes ; of 
 quiet men, in twisted turbans and long 
 beards ; of placid women, with faces shrouded 
 like the faces of the dead, as pale and as calm. 
 Tranquil prisoners, with respite to drive and 
 walk about the streets, and for a brief space of 
 time escape bolt and bars, in charge of armed 
 attendants. A land silent as though Time him- 
 self had dropped to sleep and broken his emptied 
 hour-glass. 
 
 By the bluest and clearest of seas there is a 
 deep bay, where the navies of the world might 
 ride at anchor. The sweeping curves of its shores 
 are drawn as by an artist's hand, and from its 
 margin rise terraced heights, like the hanging gar- 
 
 7 
 
98 The Storied Sea. 
 
 dens of -Babylon. Toward the west are hills, 
 with capes of olive green, from which the breeze 
 blows deliriously cool in the hottest days. Away 
 to the south tall, slim minarets point toward the 
 glittering god of the ancient Persian, and dwarf 
 the rounded domes below by the ethereal grace 
 of their tapering spires. Close to the water's 
 edge stands a palace worthy the golden prime of 
 Haroun al Raschid, nobly built of white and pink 
 marble, the latter brought from Egypt. In the 
 distance, under a sky that would be dazzling 
 were it not so soft, it shines like a temple of 
 alabaster and silver. 
 
 Its crowning glory is a central dome, rising in 
 peerless beauty, like a globe of ice or of crystal, 
 and seeming to hang in air. Mirrored in the 
 glass}' water, the plume-like pillars and slender 
 turrets are a picture to make one in love with its 
 builder. He had the soul of an artist who meas- 
 ured the span of its rhythmic arches and told the 
 heights of its colonnades, harmonious to the eye 
 as choice music to the ear. He must have toiled 
 years to embodj- in this result his study of the 
 beautiful. The architect was a Spaniard, and he 
 had the same creative facult}' (this man who 
 worked in formless stone) that the poet has who 
 brings his idea out of hidden depths, polishes his 
 
The Light of the Harem. 99 
 
 work with elaborate care, nor leaves it till every 
 line is wrought to perfect finish. Under a des- 
 potic government architecture that is magnificent 
 
 nourishes, though all other arts languish. Among 
 a semi-civilized people kings prefer this expres- 
 sion of power, because it is readily understood, 
 demanding no instruction, no book or guide. He 
 who runs may read, be it the stupendous monu- 
 ment of Cheops or the any pinnacles of Solvman 
 the Magnificent. The wish is to give form which 
 shall compel the entire people to admiring aston- 
 ishment of works they cannot hope to imitate. 
 
 Let us call this the Palace of Delight, for there 
 dwells in the luxury and aroma of the furthest 
 East Nourmahal, the Light of the Harem, and we 
 were invited to see her, — the bulbul. the rose, 
 the Pearl of the Orient, the bride of Prince Fe- 
 ramorz. Dear reader, do you know how come 
 the brides in this strange country? Do you 
 think it a wooing of an innocent, laughing girl, 
 who, as in lands of social freedom, lays her light 
 hand, with her heart in it, in yours? A prize 
 won iu an emulous game, where beauty is weighed 
 against all beside which the world has to offer, 
 and he who has the right divine may carry her off 
 from Love's shining circle to be the centre of 
 another of his own creation. There was no flavor 
 
100 The Storied Sea, 
 
 of American matches in this betrothal, no hint of 
 golden afternoons in shacly lanes, nights of moon- 
 lit silence, and dreams better than sleep, of wed- 
 ding bells in festal rooms, and orange flowers 
 that leave a sweetness outlasting the waste of 
 years. Nor w T as it like European marriages, — 
 say the French or Italian, — where a demure young 
 girl is taken from the convent, and by her parents 
 given to the most eligible parti, of whom she is 
 not allowed an opinion, whom she sees not one 
 hour alone till after the ceremon}', in which her 
 dot is the first, second, and third consideration. 
 
 Nor 3'et is it brought about like the weddings 
 in kings' palaces, b} T negotiations for babies in 
 the cradle, long, tedious betrothal, interviews at 
 proper times, in proper places, and presences 
 appointed, where exact proprieties are observed 
 by the happy or unhappy pair. Nor was the con- 
 tract made as of old, in plains not very far 
 distant from this, w T hen Abraham sent out his 
 most * trusted servant as a business agent — a 
 travelling man, if 3-011 please — seeking a bride 
 for his son Isaac. B} r no such devious windings 
 did our princess come to the altar. The lovely 
 Nourmahal was bought at private sale for ten 
 thousand pieces of gold, and thus the marriage 
 was accomplished. It is not our business to 
 
The Light of the Harem. 101 
 
 inquire whether the bargain was made in the 
 shadow of the black tents of the Bedouin, or on 
 
 frosty heights of Caucasus, or in some ver- 
 dant vale in Arab}' the Blest. It was to a better 
 condition, came she from dissolute races, like the 
 
 trgian or barbarian hordes, like the Tartar 
 and Circassian, where the bride's portion is a 
 
 pskin, a sack of barley, a hand-mill, and an 
 earthen pan. It was a moment of melancholy 
 
 achantment when I first learned how she had 
 
 'led the rank and power of princess, by what 
 means been lifted from desert sand and gypsy 
 rider down and silken luxury, and 
 made a true believer, walking in the paths of the 
 faithful. To lie young, beautiful, and beloved is 
 Heaven : Bhe was this. and. it was said, sweet as 
 summer cherries withal. 
 
 ir amiable inquiries about what is not our 
 
 -in availed little. Her history was colorless 
 till the fated hour came when its blank page 
 should l»e illuminated and glow with tropic splen- 
 dor. She was a chosen beauty; princes seldom 
 
 in vain ; an a a men have eyes 
 
 fair women will wear purple and Bit on 
 thro 
 I > . : ies v. in ten days before the 
 
 reception, a day which stands apart 
 
102 The Storied Sea, 
 
 in memory in the year 1881, in the Time of the 
 Scattering of Roses, or, as we would say, in the 
 month of August. 
 
 The heaviest iron-clads might lie close to the 
 quay where we landed. So pure is the water and 
 so intensely clear that, at the depth of four 
 fathoms, fish swim and bright stones lie as though 
 close beneath the calm surface. Marble steps 
 lead to the water ; and when our little boat nearecl 
 them two sentinels, moveless as statues, appeared, 
 clad in the picturesque costume of the Tunisian 
 kavasse ; all gold embroider}' and dazzling color, 
 even to the holsters of pistols and the sides of the 
 long-topped boots. A wall, perhaps thirtj- feet 
 high, made of rough stone, was broken by a gate 
 of iron, light as network, evidently of French 
 construction. Its double valves flew open at our 
 approach, and as quickly closed when we entered 
 the garden. Two jet-black attendants were in 
 waiting, from that degraded class of men to whom 
 princes safely trust their treasures. The word 
 u harem " means " the reserved," and these were 
 part of the reserve guard, — hideous Ethiops of 
 the extremest type, with flattened nose and lips, 
 — swollen rolls of dingy flesh. Their misshapen 
 skulls were hidden by that singular formation 
 called a fez. When the Creator gave these crea- 
 
The Light of the Harem. 103 
 
 tares life, he denied them nil else. Condemned 
 by nature to a perpetual mourning suit, they had 
 revenge in gorgeous costume, which must have 
 been consoling. To perfect their ugliness, both 
 were badly pitted with small-pox. After the 
 long-continued obeisances of the East, they stood 
 with folded arms and downcast eyes, fixed as the 
 ne lions beside the irate. 
 
 The garden was small, the narrow walks paved 
 with black and white pebbles, laid in graceful 
 Arabesque patterns, rimmed with a fanciful bor- 
 der of tiles. We had scented, out in the hay, 
 the heavy fragrance of roses we call damask : 
 :' bloom, crowded in beds or lining alleys 
 reddened by their blossoms. The terraces were 
 high and narrow, their sheer sides hanks of ivy, 
 
 ysuckle, and myrtle; a tangle of running 
 vines giving the feeling of wildnessand seclusion. 
 in its untamed, luxuriance. There the acacia 
 "waved her yellow hair," most exquisite of n 
 delicate a - >me high-born lady, a frail beauty in 
 her trembling lace-work of fine leaves. Beneath 
 its branches was a swing of manilla cord, with 
 a cushion tasselled and fringed with gold. Bees 
 hummed, butterflies darted through the air like 
 j, and humming-birds hovered over 
 
 purple hells of a creeper to me unknown. 
 
104 The Storied Sea. 
 
 Up higher were dense shades of laurel and lemon, 
 pomegranate, with scarlet buds, close thickets of 
 bay and of citron, walks set with daisies and 
 violets, bordered by heliotrope and lavender. 
 Highest on the hill, accented with clear outline 
 against the speckless sapphire, stood the round- 
 topped cedars of the Orient, reminders of Leba- 
 non, and the palm, swaying its green plumes. 
 Most honored of trees, for, says the devout Mos- 
 lem, " Thou must honor tlry paternal aunt, the date 
 palm, for she was created of the earth of which 
 Adam was made." In the centre of the garden 
 a fountain threw a glancing column sk}*ward and 
 fell in an alabaster basin, where gold fish swam 
 among white lilies and the azure lotus of Persia. 
 A tiny stream, brought from the snowj^ sides of 
 some distant mountain, ran in wayward grace 
 over vari-colored pebbles, laid with studied care- 
 lessness and nicest attention to effect, a copy of 
 nature. On its rim a long-legged stork stood, 
 intent on his pre}'. A miniature pavilion, a 
 gracious retreat from the sun, was roofed with 
 vines, from which hung pendent the scarlet pas- 
 sion flower. Oh ! it was beautiful ! beautiful ! 
 All flowers consecrated by poetiy, religion, and 
 love grew there. Even the rough wall was 
 covered like the verdurous wall of the first gar- 
 
The Light of the Harem. 105 
 
 den, which lay eastward in Eden. Could it be 
 possible the trail of the serpent is over it all? 
 
 Rather let me believe it the Earthly Paradise of 
 the Prophet or the Paradise Regained of the 
 
 Christian. 
 
 We could not loiter, for Nourmahal was wait- 
 ing. From the entrance hall to which men are 
 admitted, called "the place of greeting," slave 
 girls emerged to meet us and drew up in lines, 
 through which we passed. We crossed an outer 
 court, open to the sky, with cool marble pave- 
 ment, under an arched way, to a hall covered 
 with India matting. Beyond was a spacious 
 rotunda, a fountain dancing in the centre under 
 the dome, which rested on pillars of lapis lazuli. 
 I counted eight fragile supporting columns of 
 bright blue veined with white. Overhead were 
 traceries in blue and gold, pendent stalactites, the 
 " honeycomb ceilings " of the Moorish kings ; the 
 tints of the Alhambra were in the inlaying of 
 main' colors, and gilt texts of the Koran on the 
 walls. The builder had that most romantic of 
 castles in heart and eye when he planned the 
 Palace of Delight. We slowly crossed the circular 
 space (everything moves slowly here), stopping 
 only to admire a sultana bird, with purple breast, 
 in an ivory cage, and a few white doves, that 
 
108 The Storied Sea. 
 
 with many a flirt and flutter bathed in the bright 
 water or on the rim of the pool, cooed and twined 
 their beaks together, with outstretched wings, 
 undisturbed by our approach. Beyond was the 
 reception room, called Dares-Saadet (Abode of 
 Felicit}'), where the Pearl of the Orient was to 
 be seen. It was screened by a portiere made of 
 Lahore shawls, figured with palm leaves, ele- 
 phants, and pagodas, — a quaint and costly dra- 
 per}', drawn back for us to pass under. As we 
 entered, a crowd of slave girls formed lines, 
 between which we passed ; young natives from 
 the mountains of the Atlas, with vicious eyes 
 and sidelong glances. One was a light mulatto, 
 with crisp hair and downcast look, reminding me 
 of the old da}s of slavery. The}' were dressed 
 in cheap, gay, checked silks, made like our morn- 
 ing wrappers ; belts of tinsel, large silver ear- 
 rings, with grotesque heads of animals in front. 
 White muslin turbans covered their heads, their 
 hands were thin and wiry, and they bore the 
 meek, passive manner of all women of the East. 
 Two sides of the room were of glass, the one 
 overlooking the bay latticed with iron, painted 
 white, which banished the prison look it would 
 otherwise have. Velvety rugs of Bochara and 
 Korassan were laid here and there over the floor 
 
The Light of the Harem. 107 
 
 of blue and white mosaic. A broad, low divan 
 of pale blue silk ran round the apartment. Voila 
 tout. No pictures on the marble walls, no books, 
 no bric-a-brac, no trumpery tc collections," ceram- 
 ics, aesthetic trash, grave or gay, nor muffling 
 hangings. These are not Oriental luxuries ; but, 
 instead, a cool, shady emptiness, plenty of space 
 for the breeze to flutter the gauzy curtains and 
 carry the echo of the plash and drip of the 
 fountains. 
 
 At the furthest end, reclining on pillows of silk 
 and lace, rested the lady we sought. One little 
 foot, in red velvet slipper, was first seen below 
 wide trousers of } T ellow silk ; a loose robe of 
 white silk, embroidered with gold thread, was 
 partly covered b}' a sleeveless jacket of crimson, 
 dotted with seed pearl ; a broad variegated sash 
 wound the slender waist. Half concealing the 
 arms was a light scarf, airy as the woven wind 
 of the ancients. A head-band, with diamond 
 pendants, fringed her forehead ; a riviere of dia- 
 monds circlea the bare throat ; and here and 
 there solitary drops flashed in the braids of her 
 night-black hair. Among the billowy cushions 
 and vaporous veilings rose the young face — oh, 
 what a revelation of beauty ! — uplifted in a curi- 
 ous, questioning way, to see what manner of women 
 
108 The Storied Sea. 
 
 these are, who come from the ends of the earth, 
 with unveiled faces, and go about the world alone, 
 and have to think for themselves, — poor things ! 
 The expression was that of a lovely child, waking 
 from summer slumber in the happiest humor, 
 reacty for play. A sensitive, exquisite face, fair 
 as the first of women while the angel was yet 
 unfallen. A perfect oval, the lips a scarlet 
 thread, and oh, those wonderful Asiatic eyes ! — 
 lustrous, coal-black, long, rather than round, 
 beaming under the joined ej'ebrows of which the 
 poet Hafiz sings. 
 
 The edges of the eyelids were blackened with 
 kohl, which Orientals use to intensify the brilliance 
 of the brightest eyes under the sun. The most 
 common kind is smoke-black, made by burning 
 frankincense or shells of almonds. Sometimes 
 an ore of lead is used in fine powder. Our Ameri- 
 can girls make a miserable bungle of it, smearing 
 the whole eyelids, giving a ghastly and unnatural 
 effect, veiy different from the thin line of anti- 
 mony, applied by a probe of ivory, dipped in 
 the powder and skilfully drawn on the tip edges 
 of the lids. 
 
IX. 
 
 THE LIGHT OF THE HAREM. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 i 
 
 OURMAHAL did not rise, but held out 
 one jewelled hand, dimpled as a baby's, 
 with nails and finger-ends dyed pink 
 with henna, — five clustering rosebuds. The magic 
 of beauty made us her subjects. TTe kissed the 
 little ringers loyally, and yielded ourselves willing 
 captives, ready to be dragged at her chariot- 
 wheels. My life-long notions of the subjection 
 of woman (see Stuart Mill) and the wretchedness 
 of prisoners pining in palatial splendors vanished 
 at the first glance ; went down at a touch, like 
 the wounded knight in the lists of Templestowe. 
 She smiled, and hoped we were well ; then followed 
 suitable inquiries as to health and journeys, and 
 expressions of the charm of finding it all out. 
 Our interpreter was an Armenian lady, with the 
 
110 The Storied Sea. 
 
 gift of tongues. When conversation is filtered 
 through three languages, it becomes very thin ; 
 even such bold and spirited remarks as, " This 
 is a happy daj T for me ; 1 shall never forget it," 
 was robbed of half its spice and flavor by the 
 time it reached the ear for which it was intended. 
 I ventured the high assertion that we had sailed 
 six thousand miles on purpose to lay our homage 
 at her blessed feet ; which rhetorical flourish was 
 received with a childish nod at about what it was 
 worth. Somehow, she did not seem so enchanted 
 with her new worshippers as the} T were with her. 
 It appeared the Beauty had never seen the sea 
 except from shore. 
 
 " What is it like when you are in the middle 
 of the dark water ? " 
 
 " Had she seen the Great Desert?" 
 
 " Yes, many times, and had trembled when 
 awful columns of dust swept across it, moved by 
 the wings of evil genii." 
 
 "It was like that; wide, still, a desert of 
 water more lonely than any land." 
 
 "Do man} T people drown there? " she asked of 
 the mjsterious horror. 
 
 44 Very few. You would have no fear." 
 
 " Because I shall never go on it," she said 
 triumphantly, and laughed, showing teeth like 
 
The Light of the Harem. Ill 
 
 pomegranate seeds, and shook the diamond drops 
 on her forehead, so delighted was she with the 
 simple wit. 
 
 Suddenly changing her tone, she asked, " Why 
 do }~on wear black dresses? " 
 
 I have never seen an Eastern woman, of high 
 or low degree, in a black garment of any make. 
 Even their shoes are gayly embroidered. Dismal 
 and coarse three elderly women, in the conven- 
 tional black silks and poke bonnets, must appear 
 to one clad in elegant draperies of various and 
 brilliant dyes, whose eyes ever rested on tints to 
 which the rainbow is dim. 
 
 "It is the custom of our country for women 
 to go out in black," we answered. 
 
 4 - How sad!" said Beauty; and it did seem 
 sad in that light and lovely room, all sunshine 
 and vivid color. We were in love with her, 
 and again declared our love. She accepted the 
 admiration as one well used to such extrava- 
 gance, and clapped her hands after the fashion of 
 ladies of the u Arabian Nights." At the signal, 
 the slaves disappeared, except one old woman 
 and the Negroes, silent as ghosts, beside the 
 Lahore drapery. In a few minutes five slaves 
 returned, each carrying a small round table of 
 cedar, inlaid with scraps of mother of pearl. Five 
 
112 The Storied Sea. 
 
 others followed, with lighted cigarettes, lying 
 each in a silver saucer ; and coffee in tiny 
 cups, about the size of a giant's thimble, resting 
 in a silver filigree holder, set round with dia- 
 monds. 
 
 "My new friends have come so far," said 
 Nourmahal, u they must be tired. Take a cig- 
 arette and refresh yourselves." 
 
 I rather awkwardly adjusted the holder of 
 amber and ventured one faint whiff. Imagine 
 my astonishment at seeing my friend, whose 
 name with difficulty I suppress, puff away like a 
 dissipated old smoker. The Armenian was native 
 and to the manner born. Nourmahal smoked, of 
 course, and a lulling calm succeeded the excite- 
 ment of the brilliant conversation reported above. 
 While feeling round in my brain for a subject of 
 common interest adapted to our hostess's capacity 
 and mine, I tried a sip of the coffee. It was strong 
 enough to bear up an egg, thick with grounds, 
 and bitter as death. I pretended to deep enjoy- 
 ment of the dose, and sipped it, drop by drop, to 
 the bitter end. 
 
 Nourmahal clapped her hands again, and the 
 ten virgins took away the saucers. I think none 
 of them were foolish, for the} r fell into line with- 
 out effort, each one treacling in the footsteps of 
 
The Light of the Harem. 113 
 
 her predecessor, at an interval to avoid her 
 train. 
 
 Presently they returned, with gold-fringed nap- 
 kins and silver cups of sherbet, flavored with 
 quince, and a conserve of rose-leaves. Wishing 
 to appear easy as possible and thoroughly Oriental, 
 I trilled with the delicious nectar, cooled with 
 snow, anil was not half through when the attend- 
 ant picked up my table of cedar and pearl and 
 disappeared with it. How I regret not having 
 swallowed the Olympian food at railroad speed, 
 for it was the first ice I had seen for many 
 months. It is not court etiquette to ask receipts, 
 and, after a sigh of regret for what I shall never 
 taste again, I returned to the fascination of a 
 triple-tongued conversation. 
 
 "In this charming palace you must be very 
 happy. How do you pass the time?" 
 
 The dimples deepened in the cheeks of Beauty. 
 "Pass the time, pass the time?" she dreamily 
 repeated, playing with the knotted fringes of her 
 scarf. " I do not pass it, it passes itself!" and 
 again she laughed, and the laughter was sweet as 
 the tenderest voice can make it. 
 
 " Are 3*ou fond of music? " 
 
 Three ladies in black : iC Oh ! very ! " " Oh ! 
 very!" "Oh! very!" 
 
114 The Storied Sea. 
 
 " Then you shall be amused." She clapped 
 the rose-leaf palms, and in marched eight wo- 
 men musicians (we saw no men that day but 
 the harem guard), bearing stringed instruments. 
 Curious-looking things, like overgrown violins 
 and half-finished guitars, and a round shell, with 
 strings across, beaten with two sticks. 
 
 Didst ever hear Arabic music, beloved ? 
 
 No ? Then never hast thou known sorrow. 
 
 Since Jubal first struck the gamut, there can 
 have been no improvement in these compositions. 
 How long the exercises lasted I am unable to 
 record ; but I do know we grew old fast under 
 the beat, beat, hammer, hammer, in the terse, 
 unmeaning notes of the banjo. In the brief 
 interval, at the end of a peculiarly agonizing 
 strain, sung by the mulatto, I seized the moment 
 to ask what were the words of the song, and was 
 told it is a serenade, very ancient, dating back to 
 the Times of Ignorance, before the coming of 
 Mohammed, whose tomb is covered with the 
 splendor of unceasing light. I afterward ob- 
 tained a copy of the madrigal and give it in 
 rough translation. It is doubtful if the almond- 
 eyed Juliet came down from her lattice after the 
 anguish of that performance on the vina. 
 
The Light of the Harem. 115 
 
 GAZZEL ; OR, LOVE SONG. 
 
 On a steed shod with fire I come, 
 And weary is my heart with waiting. 
 Awakened it feels a vague unrest. 
 
 Chorus : 
 
 thou whose shape is that of the cypress, 
 And whose mouth is the opening rosebud, 
 
 1 am here, faithful as thy shadow. 
 
 Thy eyebrows are the form of an arch, 
 The shafts of thy lashes are unsparing, 
 And the sears which they leave are bleeding. 
 O thou whose shape, etc. 
 
 Queen rose, thy slave Raschid is beggared. 
 His whole heart is only one wound ; 
 Smile but once and his head will touch the stars. 
 thou whose shape, etc. 
 
 After the serenade followed a battle song, which 
 made our blood tingle with its fierce din. It was 
 of a victorious chief, who had been far as 
 Istamboul, the pearl of two seas, the possession 
 of which is the longing desire of every monarch. 
 The singer imitated the clanking keys of con- 
 quered cities, and sang of jewelled turbans worn 
 by padishas, of gold and perfumes, ivory and 
 balsam, of kiosks smelling of musk, ceiled with 
 cedar, and painted with vermilion. 
 
116 The Storied Sea. 
 
 Then the theme changed to a melancholy minor 
 key. The blight warrior, named Yilderinn, or 
 Lightning, so strong and swift was he, is wounded 
 and going to die ; he who, if the sky were to fall, 
 could uphold it on the point of his lance. He 
 salutes the black angel in the patient resignation 
 to sorrow, which the Prophet of God says is the 
 key to all happiness. " Weep not for him ; he is 
 tasting the honey of mart}Tdom, the reward of 
 those who fall fighting for Islam. Weep not for 
 him who has the passport to Paradise. In place 
 of two hands lost in defending the standard of the 
 faith, two wings are given to bear him across the 
 dread bridge El Sirat, to the blissful regions 
 where sixty black-eyed houris and* endless Ely- 
 sian pleasures await every true believer. He is 
 passing to their gardens, the Dwelling of the 
 Blest." A droning recitative, with tuneless, time- 
 less accompaniment on the two-stringed guitar. 
 
 Then came a burst of triumphant chords which 
 made our flesh creep. The bright warrior has 
 angelic visions and hears angelic voices : u I see, 
 I see a dark-eyed girl ! She has dropped the 
 flowered veil from her starlike eyes, and waves a 
 handkerchief, a handkerchief of green, and smiles 
 and shouts : ' Come kiss me, kiss me, for I love 
 thee.' Keep watch by me to-night, O Death ; 
 
The Light of the Harem, 117 
 
 come and keep watch by mc." The concluding 
 line trailed off in a dying way, and died in a 
 succession of heart-breaking moans. 
 
 My smoking friend looked deadly pale, as 
 though about to faint, and whispered, u An air 
 from * Pinafore ' would be a relief." It struck 
 me that any air would be a relief to her in that 
 desperate extremity. How 1 envied Nourmahal, 
 who adjusted her lace and silken pillows, and, 
 nestled in them, had dropped into a gentle nap. 
 When the last blow hit my tired tympanum, up 
 she rose from rainbow scarfs and frothy veilings, 
 like Aphrodite from the mist and foam of the sea, 
 and, without apology, said to the Armenian lady, 
 i4 The audience is ended." 
 
 We were not sorry. Our limited supply of 
 words forbade the giving of " views," so dear to 
 the mind of the universal suffragist ; but we had 
 enough to repeat offers of service and protest 
 vows of remembrance, which the princess received 
 in a listless way, much as to say, " This thing 
 grows tiresome." I think she was a little morti- 
 fied at the siesta, which led to such a protracted 
 session of the rub-a-dub music. To hear is to 
 obey was the law of all around her, and, had she 
 slept on till morning, there was no one to stop 
 the work of the band of torturers. 
 
118 The Storied Sea. 
 
 As we passed out of the salon, each of us 
 received a box of crimson andem wood, wrapped 
 in tissue paper. " To be opened when you reach 
 home," said the interpreter. 
 
 The doves had gone to their nests, for the 
 shades of evening were in the rotunda ; the sul- 
 tana bird, with head under its wing, was a purple 
 ball ; the moon was high over the enchanted 
 garden, which the King of the Genii had made 
 for Prince Feramorz. A tame gazelle, wearing a 
 collar of silver bells, followed us to the gate, and 
 in a fond, endearing way laid its pretty head on 
 m} T arm and looked in my face. The most ap- 
 pealing glance of a weai^y prisoner, longing for 
 the freedom of Judah's hills, the mild thyme of 
 Hermon, and the mountains of spices. Those 
 eyes had a human expression, which has never 
 left nry memor}\ I have seen it in the wistful 
 gaze of young mothers, in the }'earning eyes of 
 those who have so long mourned that the grief 
 has become a softened sorrow. Well do they 
 name the love song " Gazelle." 
 
 Before the gate we suddenly paused, at the 
 same instant, moved by the same impulse, and 
 turned to look for one moment more on the Palace 
 and Garden of Delight. We felt we should not 
 see its like again, for there are few such gardens 
 
The Light of the Harem. 119 
 
 in the world. The Paradise palms were whisper- 
 ing their secrets, and the pines wailed in answer 
 to the sea breeze as harp-strings answer to the 
 harper's hand. The moonlight tipped each leaf 
 with silver ; the flowers were pale, but not faded ; 
 heaven and earth were still, breathless, as w T e 
 grow when feeling most. A bird, a little brown 
 thing, like a wren, flew out of a thicket of laurels 
 and hid among the starry blossoms of the magno- 
 lia. Then hark ! that wondrous note. I should 
 have recognized it even if Thalia had not lifted a 
 hushing linger and said, under her breath, " Be- 
 lieve me, love, it is the nightingale." 
 
 It urns the nightingale, and the voice (so sweet, 
 so sweet, I hear it yet, and shall hear it at inter- 
 vals forever) was more stilling than very silence. 
 That wild melody was not the legendary plaint of 
 the lovelorn mate, leaning her breast against a 
 thorn, but rather an ecstatic strain from a soul 
 so full it must tell its rapture or die. Its charm 
 was past all telling, beyond the reach of words. 
 Still, as I write, hundreds of miles awa} T , after 
 months of rapid travel, my heart thrills with the 
 echo of its ineffable sweetness. The doe (the 
 winsome thing, with the haunting eyes) leaned 
 heavily against my arm while we stood and lis- 
 tened. Night was fallen, for in these latitudes it 
 
120 The Storied Sea. 
 
 makes brief mingling with clay. It is only to 
 meet and kiss in a crimson blush and part again. 
 " G-ood-by forever," we said, as the lock snapped 
 in the iron valves. The voice of the bulbu.l 
 followed us through the perfumed dusk, like an 
 invisible angel allowed to pass the guarded gates 
 of Eden and cheer the homely pilgrims on their 
 way. 
 
 Freshly the breeze blew, and the briny smell of 
 the sea was tonic, after the languors of the pal- 
 ace. The rich and balm}' eve invited to silence. 
 Under a trance we floated between blue and blue 
 (whether in the body or out of the body I cannot 
 tell) in the supreme delight of a day unreal in its 
 poetic lights ; so like the stuff which dreams are 
 made of, I sometimes wonder which was dream 
 and which reality. 
 
 From the distant minaret sounded a long musi- 
 cal wail, that seemed to fall from vague regions 
 surrounding us, or as a warning voice from some 
 unseen world, close at hand, the muezzin's call to 
 prayer. When it died away, a second voice took 
 up the cry, another followed, and another, as 
 trumpets answer and echo among far-off friendly 
 camps. It was finer than the stirring appeal of 
 bugles, clearer than the ringing bells of Christen- 
 dom. These were the words wafted through the 
 
The Light of the Harem. 121 
 
 ethereal haze, across the halcyon sea, revealed in 
 vision to the Prophet: "God is great! God is 
 great ! There is no God but God. Mohammed is 
 the apostle of God. Come to prayers ! Come to 
 prayers ! Prayer is better than sleep ! Alia hu ! " 
 
 A light pleasure-boat approached, with striped 
 canopy, and bearing a colored lantern, like a 
 great red eye, in front. Ten men bent to the 
 oars, it flew across the water, and phosphorescent 
 light fell off the dripping blades like sparkles of 
 fire. It came nearer, and we knew, by the cres- 
 cent and shining star in the flag, it was an official 
 of high rank, — the solitary passenger seated in the 
 slender bow among restful cushions. The fez cap 
 has no brim. As the bark shot past, we knew 
 the boyish face, and caught one glance of the 
 imperial eyes of Prince Feramorz. 
 
 When the call ended, he knelt, and, without 
 shame or concealment, prostrated his forehead to 
 the floor, his face toward Mecca, the Holy City of 
 the Faithful. Here is the prayer, named Fatiyeh, 
 which pious Moslems repeat five times a day : — ■ 
 
 " Praise be to God, the Lord of all creatures, the most 
 merciful, the King of the Day of Judgment ! Thee do we 
 worship, and of Thee do we beg assistance. Direct us in 
 the right way, in the way of those to whom Thou hast 
 been gracious, not of those against whom Thou hast been 
 incensed nor of those who go astray ; " — 
 
122 The Storied Sea. 
 
 the prayer which Adam uttered after his expul- 
 sion from Eden, that Abraham said after his son 
 was saved from sacrifice, that Christ breathed in 
 the Gethsemane agony, so they tell us, as it is 
 written in the books of the Chronicles. 
 
rBgsgsESEsgE^^ 
 
 5B5g5g555B5H555a5E5^H5a5a5H5g5aF1 
 
 X. 
 
 THE LIGHT OF THE HAREM. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 HEX we reached the hotel we had a toler- 
 able supper of foreign dishes, mixed with 
 rice and flavorless, as that tasteless ve<r- 
 etable makes everything it touches. Then in 
 wrappers, comfortable as could be without ice- 
 water or rocking-chairs, we reviewed the day's 
 pleasure and opened our presents. Thalia's 
 was an automatic bird of iridescent glass, which 
 could be made to sing by winding with a key. 
 My smoking friend, who, it is safe to say, will 
 never smoke again, had a box of delicious French 
 bonbons, which melt in your mouth, almost in 
 your glance. The Armenian's was a necklace 
 of Egyptian coins and filigree silver; mine a 
 pendant in green enamel. I touched the spring, 
 the locket flew open, and lo ! the serene, pictorial 
 
124 The Storied Sea. 
 
 face of Nourmahal. I held the portrait close to 
 the quaint brass lamp (an Aladdin pattern), and 
 ■we looked at the faultless features in unmixed 
 admiration. " She is, indeed, the Light of the 
 Harem," murmured the smoker. 
 
 The Advanced Thinker, eldest of the party, 
 one of the bravest of the brave American women, 
 turned to her and said, "What a pity we could 
 not plant a few ideas in that childish brain ! " 
 
 " What sort of ideas would 3011 like to plant?" 
 asked the other, dryly, without releasing the 
 matchless face from her gaze. 
 
 Advanced Thinker, in a tone of solemn author- 
 ity : " That life is made for something more than 
 being sweet and sleepy." 
 
 "You would have her sour and wide-awake, 
 then, would you? and for your sowing reap a 
 harvest of discontent? Do you think it would 
 help the happiness of that house to-night, when 
 Prince Feramorz comes home, to find her bother- 
 ing over development and evolution? She does 
 all her husband demands, which is to be beauti- 
 ful and kind. I know what } T ou want," she con- 
 tinued, warming, and with rapidly rising voice. 
 "You want her to study those awful problems 
 about the fox and the greyhound, and the cistern 
 with two pipes, and to read Buckle and Darwin, 
 
The Light of the Harem. 125 
 
 and worry about rights and wrongs, and have 
 views and give them, too, and make speeches, 
 and, in short, to be wise — and wretehed." 
 
 *• As to speeches," said the Advanced Thinker, 
 also very dry, •* many are called to the platform, 
 but few are chosen." (She is a first-rate leader 
 in women's-rights conventions.) " Nourraahal 
 should, at least, know she is a responsible being, 
 and that eveiy human soul has some divinely 
 appointed work, which only that one can accom- 
 plish. A perfect Talmud of tradition is walled 
 about these Oriental women. The}' are fettered 
 with bands of brass." 
 
 "Nourmahal is fettered with rosy garlands," 
 retorted the smoker, hotly". " She is an innocent 
 child, working out her destim', which is to give 
 and receive happiness, to twine and vine, sing 
 and cling and swing, instead of straining up hills 
 more or less imaginary and battling prejudices 
 old and fixed as Mount Sinai. As your own 
 Joseph Cook would sa}', she is in harmonization 
 with her environments. Let her alone." And 
 the speaker closed the locket with an emphatic 
 snap. It was as though a lovely light went out. 
 
 It was my turn now. "Dear friend," I said, 
 "do you see three lines between my eyebrows? 
 Strangers newly arrived in our country declare 
 
126 The Storied Sea. 
 
 they are the distinguishing feature of the Ameri- 
 can woman." 
 
 " It must be confessed — " she said, hesitating. 
 
 " Nonsense, " I said, interrupting. " Are they 
 or are they not there ? " 
 
 "If you will have it, even the eyes of love 
 must admit that three faint lines — " 
 
 " Faint! Speak the truth, child, as under 
 oath." 
 
 " Well, to pacify you, three well-defined lines 
 appear between your eyebrows." 
 
 "Precisely. They are, as you say, well 
 defined, and their definition is free agency, uni- 
 versal suffrage, and aesthetic culture." 
 
 I opened the sweet picture again and held 
 it up. 
 
 "Would you mark them in that untroubled 
 face between the even brows of the youngest 
 of the Graces ? " 
 
 "Not I. A butterfly is as good in its way as 
 an old hen. For my part, I find it refreshing 
 to meet a woman content to be what she is, — the 
 dimple on the cheek of home. She is more like 
 Eve in her bower than any one I have ever 
 seen. She is not made of common cla} T , but of 
 bright gems, as Mohammedans say the angels 
 are made." 
 
The Light of the Harem, 127 
 
 " Merely a grown-up baby," continued the Ad- 
 vanced Thinker, with cold, severe insistence. "I 
 suppose she does n't know how to read or to sew." 
 ' " It would be a shame," sharply struck in 
 Thalia, " to put a pen in those rosebud fingers, 
 to dull the lustre of her eyes over crabbed dic- 
 tionaries and grammars. If she reads the gay 
 texts of the Koran on the walls, it is enough to 
 live by and die by. Why harp on cerebral action 
 and the ab}'sses of the unknowable? I am tired 
 of all this talk about life's discipline. It is sure 
 to find you out." She went on vehemently, 
 raising her voice to the ledger-lines above, while 
 she rolled up her crimps : " Instead of making 
 the world a place of rational enjoyment, it is in- 
 sisted 3'ou must have an object and go on three- 
 score years working for that object ; and what 
 does the object bring, but vanity and vexation of 
 spirit? The words ; sense of duty' have forever 
 driven out sense of love, and it is harder for each 
 new generation. We go deeper and deeper into 
 the toil and trouble, because the terrible duties 
 keep rolling up in size and weight. Protoplasm, 
 pangenesis, and the rest of it — after all, the 
 world is no wiser. No man to-day writes as well 
 as Job or Moses ; no woman can sing like Miriam. 
 The strain on women is so severe, as the ideal 
 
128 The Storied Sea. 
 
 standard grows higher, that the march of the 
 ages of which we hear so much has become a 
 dead march, and the records are written on stones 
 over untimely graves. " 
 
 Advanced Thinker, mildly, but speaking with 
 energy: "What qualities has little Baby-face to 
 hold Prince Feramorz with when j'outh and 
 beauty have vanished ? " 
 
 "He will see her still beautiful, with the eyes 
 of memory and habit," replied Thalia, with ear- 
 nest feeling, her blue e}'es moistening. "There 
 are sj^mpathies and experiences which outlast the 
 fleeting spell of beaut}' ; magnetisms bevond 
 mere attractions of person. You know the old 
 story, which is the best thing told of Mohammed. 
 With all the world to choose from, he never 
 swerved from his early allegiance to Kadijah, 
 the wife of his youth, older than himself and 
 never beautiful. 
 
 " 4 O Apostle of God,' said Ayesha, the bride 
 of his house, but not of his heart, c was not Kadi- 
 jah stricken in years ? Has not Allah given thee 
 a better wife in her place ? ' 
 
 u ' A. fairer; but a better — never!' said Mo- 
 hammed. ' Never did God give man a better. 
 When I was poor, she enriched me ; when I was 
 called a liar, she believed in me ; when I was 
 
The Light of the Harem. 129 
 
 persecuted by the whole world, she alone was true 
 to me.' " 
 
 Thalia stopped short, blushing like one caught 
 in the act of making a speech. To hide her 
 confusion, she snatched a shoe-buttoner and 
 began trying to unlock a trunk with it. 
 
 " Go on, Thalia," I said to the flushed young 
 speaker. " Be sure you have one sympathetic 
 listener." 
 
 ''It is nothing; only to the last the banner 
 over her was love. Kadijah had no rival, though 
 she was skinny and wrinkled and sunburnt. You 
 know what horrid old witches Arabian women 
 are after thirty." 
 
 Thalia seated herself on the low ship-trunk, 
 much as to say, ct I am through now." 
 
 The gentle Armenian seemed amused at the 
 debate, in which she took no part. Like many 
 another of the so-called sterner sex, it was most 
 interesting to the debaters ; but she lent a kindly 
 ear. A woman of large experience, graceful cul- 
 ture, and broad, catholic spirit. "Let us hear 
 from Armenia." said the Advanced Thinker, 
 naturally lowering her tone into softness as she 
 addressed the silent matron, to whom a noisy 
 argument was a fresh novelty. 
 
 " You make a mistake," she observed quietly, 
 o 
 
130 The Storied Sea. 
 
 in a modest way, highly contrasting with the 
 assertive sentences just heard, "to suppose the 
 Harem is a mere boudoir and bower, the Oriental 
 wife the plaything of idle hours, living in butter- 
 fly idleness. In that consecrated place are all 
 the women of the household. There lives the 
 mother, in Eastern countries treated with the 
 utmost delicacy and reverence. The children are 
 there, proudly welcomed into life and tenderly 
 reared. Slavery here is not the dreadful bond- 
 age you used to have in America. The girls 3 ou 
 saw to-day sit with their mistress in the after- 
 noon, and sew and talk with her in a patriarchal 
 way you know nothing of. The Harem, the 
 Forbidden Room, is the golden milestone, the 
 centre of existence to the home-keeping Oriental, 
 and, as such, has a hold controlling every action 
 he meditates. He is deeply religious, and appeals 
 to his mother for advice long as she lives. The 
 women enter into every detail of the public life 
 of their husbands, and are recognized as a power 
 in the most difficult political affairs, as they are 
 not even in fair France." 
 
 "Do you mean to say," asked the Advanced 
 Thinker, amazedly, "that in time the tender 
 little parasite we saw to-day may come to know 
 something of grave matters of state, and be capa- 
 ble of advising in them?" 
 
The Light of the Harem. 131 
 
 u I do. There are wide possibilities in that 
 gentle soul, whose face is forbidden to the thoughts 
 and eyes of all men but one. To borrow the 
 words of a Christian missionary of Scutari, 4 Any 
 one who has a private scheme to advance, a 
 policy to develop, an office to gain or to keep, 
 a boy to provide for, or an enemy to crush, sends 
 his wife to the harem of a grandee. Women 
 here bring about the most astounding results. 
 All a Moslem's spare time and money are given 
 to adorning the k reserved place ' where he is the 
 sole male communication with the outer world, 
 and no other living man enters the screened 
 portal without his leave. Even an officer of 
 justice dares not set foot there, and ancient usage 
 respects a man's seclusion in the harem to the 
 degree that messengers w 7 ait and despatches are 
 unopened while the master's shoes are in sight 
 before the guarded door.' " 
 
 "These are new ideas to us," said the Ad- 
 vanced Thinker, meekly and in a subdued man- 
 ner quite mortifying to see. 
 
 44 1 testify to what I have seen," said the 
 Armenian, with her rare smile. " The tents of 
 the Arab women are sacred places, a halt in a 
 restless, roving life, where the man, incurably 
 wild, turns for rest and quiet. I, moi qui vous 
 
132 The Storied Sea. 
 
 park, have seen that no people are so kind to 
 children as the Bedouins are. The}' never scold 
 or strike them ; the son of a sheik is nursed and 
 petted in the chiefs tent all day long ; and, in 
 more than one tribe, it is in the women's tents 
 that the politics are settled. You know there is 
 a vein of poetry in even the lowest of the tribes, 
 and the Arab calls his wife the keeper of his soul, 
 — a pet name, sweet and strong. Depend upon 
 it," added the gentle lady, more positively, 
 u women of the East have their influence and 
 authority, not maintained in the same wa} r , but 
 held quite equal to the power of the women of the 
 West." 
 
 Thalia gave the Armenian a grateful glance. 
 "Thank you for righting us on the woman ques- 
 tion in this latitude, where soft voices and gra- 
 cious manners are the rule and seem to come by 
 inheritance, instead of teaching." 
 
 Here the Advanced Thinker started up, and 
 charmed our sleepy ears with one of her keen and 
 sparkling home speeches. She is a wise woman, 
 and you, my beloved, have probablv heard her in 
 the lecture-room and agreed with her. 
 
 Let me not weary you with the conversation, 
 which lasted far into the night, and set us to 
 thinking there might possibly be slight flaws in 
 
The Light of the Harem. 133 
 
 our boasted social science and polished civiliza- 
 tion. In the solitude of my own room I pondered 
 the subject alone. Looking out, for a good-night 
 to the stars, throbbing white in the steel-blue sky, 
 by a strange association of ideas I recalled a 
 sentence of Thackeray, which has clung to mem- 
 ory through many changes : " We are Turks with 
 the affections of our women, and have made them 
 subscribe to our doctrine too. We let their 
 bodies go abroad liberally enough, with smiles 
 and ringlets and pink bonnets to disguise them, 
 instead of veils and yasmaks ; but their souls 
 must be seen by only one man : and they obey not 
 unwillingly, and consent to remain at home as 
 our slaves, ministering to us and doing drudgery 
 for us." 
 
 The spirit of peace brooded the waters ; the 
 winds were whist, the waves were still. A pale 
 glimmer in the east heralded the coming day. 
 Sirius was in the zenith, the brightest thing in 
 the universe of God ; the morning stars were 
 out ; the setting moon hung low on the horizon's 
 edge. 
 
 Good-night to the lights above, and to the 
 Light of the Harem, as well. Again I unclasped 
 the miniature and gazed on the faultless picture. 
 A cherub face, without the cherub's chubby 
 
134 The Storied Sea. 
 
 squareness of outline ; eyes soft as those of her 
 own gazelle, as winsome, as artless, but not so 
 sad ; rather the smiling eyes of Mona Lisa, before 
 which we wait, thinking in another moment the 
 parted lips will say u Good-morning. " The Alad- 
 din lamp w r as dying, and I thought a blessing on 
 the sunny head and spotless soul which had never 
 known sorrow or strife. 
 
 Suppose I could, would I haye the heart to 
 reduce her to our prosaic and wearing leyel in the 
 hard, familiar ruts ; to giye the king's darling a 
 taste of the bitter fruit from the tree of knowl- 
 edge ? 
 
 Would you, dear reader? 
 
XL 
 
 BYRON. 
 
 X the old Protestant cemetery at Rome, 
 hard by the Pyramid of Cains Curtius, 
 
 is the grave of Keats. His epitaph — 
 " Here lies one whose name was writ in water" — 
 was the dying wail of a broken heart. In that 
 hour his fame appeared the dream of a sleeper, a 
 message dropped into darkness ; and among the 
 gathering shadows of death he beheld, in pro- 
 phetic vision, the dread phantom Oblivion. 
 
 He is one of the many poets whose illustrious 
 names appear in the wavy lines of the Storied 
 Sea. The\' are not transient records, and Byron 
 disputes the ancient supremacy of Homer. His 
 spirit walks abroad in the moonlight, in the star- 
 light, from the Pillars of Hercules to the home of 
 the obscene Harpies, where the Black Sea dashes 
 against the Cyanean rocks. On that mighty 
 tablet the name of Childe Harold is written, and 
 
136 The Storied Sea. 
 
 over it the years have no power. At the distance 
 of more than half a century, along the Lido of 
 Venice, the guide points the favorite road where 
 at evening galloped the reckless rider, whose 
 fever of heart and brain no touch of cooling 
 hand or balmy airs could quiet. Among the 
 violet vales and orange groves which skirt the 
 Bay of Naples, the cicerone tells of u Meelor 
 Beeron ; " in the hotel, the room "Meelor Beeron" 
 occupied is noted, mentioned, and shown, with 
 the candlestick he carried to his unquiet bedroom. 
 At Sphactera, which they tell you is Medora's 
 Isle, you are shown the grotto in which the 
 pirate chief anchored his ship : — 
 
 "How gloriously her gallant course she goes! 
 Her white wings flying — never from her foes — 
 She walks the waters like a thing of life, 
 And seems to dare the elements to strife." 
 
 He has made the iEgean his own, where 
 burning Sappho loved and sung; Coron's bay, 
 where floated many a galley light; and, passing 
 the Dardanelles, the captain of the " Fleur de 
 Luce " says nothing of Hero and Leander, but, 
 " This is where Byron swam across, three miles, 
 in an hour and ten minutes." By the blue rushing 
 of the arrowy Rhone and where Lake Leman lies 
 
Byron. 137 
 
 by Chillon's walls, the waters are forever asso- 
 ciated with the most illustrious Englishman of 
 the nineteenth century. 
 
 At Marathon we do not recall the flying hosts 
 of Persia ; but 
 
 "The mountains look on Marathon, 
 And Marathon looks on the sea. M 
 
 The earliest and the latest singers have tuned 
 their harps here ; but his name leads all, proudest 
 of the shining host written in the water of the 
 halcyon sea which softly beats on the shores of 
 that Greece to which he gave his sword, his 
 fortune, and his life. 
 
 At Missolonghi the name of Byron is an undy- 
 ing memory, and last xqvly his statue was there 
 unveiled, with music of trumpet and bugle and 
 national airs by martial bands. A funeral ser- 
 vice was performed, and the elerg}^ and civic 
 authorities, headed by trumpeters, walked in 
 solemn, stately procession to the site of the 
 statue. The prtfet said, in a voice loud enough 
 for the crowd to hear : " Let the veil fall ! Let 
 ns uncover the statue of the grand martyr of 
 our holy revolution ! the grand benefactor of 
 Greece ! " 
 
 This almost atones for the absence of his 
 
138 The Storied Sea. 
 
 monument in Westminster, and not till I visited 
 the East did I realize how secure is his fame. 
 
 He wrote, " Athens holds nry heart and soul." 
 The wanderer, outlawed by public opinion from 
 his native country, turned for adoption to the 
 classic land whose sons in desperate revolution 
 battled for a restoration of the glories of the 
 ancient republic. That subject should not be 
 touched with an every-day pen, nor the land 
 described in common phrase. 
 
 My reader of the outgoing generation may 
 remember something of " Contarini Fleming," the 
 most romantic, and therefore most charming to 
 the young, of all Disraeli's romances. More 
 years ago than I care to record, it fascinated me, 
 and one passage from its brilliant pages has 
 never faded from the chronicles of memoiy. I 
 gladly efface my own weak effort at description 
 for a paragraph which gives the very soul of the 
 glorious land on the iEgean shore : — 
 
 " A country of promontories and gulfs and islands 
 clustering in an azure sea ; a country of wooded vales and 
 purple mountains, wherein the cities are built on plains 
 covered with olive woods and at the base of an Acropolis 
 crcwned with a temple or a tower. And there are quarries 
 of white marble, and vines, and much wild honey. And 
 wherever you move is some fair and elegant memorial of 
 
Byron. 139 
 
 the poetic past ; a lone pillar on the green and silent plain, 
 once echoing with triumphant shouts of sacred games, the 
 tomb of a hero or the fane of a god. Clear is the sky and 
 fragrant is the air, and at all seasons the magical scenery 
 of this land is colored with that mellow tint and invested 
 with that pensive character which in other countries we 
 conceive to be peculiar to autumn, and which beautifully 
 associate with the recollections of the past." 
 
 Byron called the subtle, quick-witted Greeks 
 the Eastern Irish, — an idea echoed by English 
 statesmen of to-day. Speaking of the desperate 
 tangle known as the Eastern Question, knotted 
 by Epirotes of Smyrna, they say thirty Irelands 
 are in Asia Minor. 
 
 He wrote: " The} r are plausible rascals. I 
 came here expecting to find Plutarch's men. I find 
 the morals of Xewgate are better." Of Mara- 
 thon, the name which makes us all Grecians, he 
 writes : " The Plain of Marathon was offered me 
 for the sum of nine hundred pounds. Alas ! was 
 the dust of Miltiades worth no more? It could 
 scarcely have fetched less if sold by weight/' 
 But no disappointment or even a worn-out frame 
 or hopeless spirit could lead him to abandon the 
 cause he held so dear, or could chill his affection 
 for the birthplace of heroes. 
 
 Where, he asks, is the human being that ever 
 conferred a benefit on Greeks or Greece? " They 
 
140 The Storied Sea. 
 
 are to be grateful to the Turks for their fetters, 
 and to the Franks for their broken promises and 
 lying counsels. The}' are to be grateful to the 
 artist who engraves their ruins, and the anti- 
 quary who carries them awaj- ; to the traveller 
 whose janissary flogs them, and to the scribbler 
 whose journal abuses them." 
 
 The Greeks had looked to his arrival as they 
 would to the advent of the Messiah. Misso- 
 longhi was at the time a pestilential prison, — 
 floods on the land side and sirocco from the sea. 
 Of its marshes he says: "The dikes of Holland, 
 when broken down, are the deserts of Arabia 
 for diyness in comparison." He felt he should 
 never leave it alive, and said to his faithful Tita, 
 "Either the Turks, the Greeks, or the climate 
 will prevent my going back to Italy." He had, 
 as he gloomily expressed it, an old feel, and 
 frequently alluded to a Scotch fortune-teller, who 
 said to him, "Beware of j-our thirty-seventh 
 year." 
 
 Deep melancholy }^et touches us in thinking 
 of that death-bed, among half-wild soldiers, who 
 rested all hope of the future on this one man. 
 The absence of womanly care or nursing, the 
 wretchedness and desolation of his surroundings, 
 are in bitter contrast with the ideal minstrel of 
 
Byron. 141 
 
 the tens of thousands who had hung entranced 
 on his numbers and who wept at his death, 
 though they had never seen his face. 
 
 In Smyrna it was my good fortune to become 
 acquainted with a gentleman whose father was 
 with Byron in his last days, and from him I 
 learned nothing new ; but it seemed freshly 
 brought to mind by hearing the reminiscences, 
 rather than reading them. 
 
 To his mother, the strange, unnatural mother, 
 who never ceased to taunt him and rate him as 
 a lame brat, and whose last illness was made 
 fatal by a tit of rage brought on by reading her 
 upholsterer's bill, he was indebted for a belief in 
 lucky and unlucky days. She taught him, too, a 
 firm faith in sorcery and necromancy and the 
 ominous fascination of the evil eye, the mal oc- 
 chio, for which charms and talismans are found 
 in buried Pompeii. He was so superstitious as 
 to refuse to take medicine till some old witch 
 was first sent for, to exorcise the evil eye which 
 prevented its action. His morbid gloom at times 
 bordered on insanity, of which he lived in dread, 
 thinking himself predisposed to it b}^ inheritance. 
 His variable and capricious temper made the 
 case difficult for the physicians. To the last 
 his face wore its habitual sarcastic expression, 
 
142 The Storied Sea. 
 
 and the customarj 1 - sneer was rarely absent from 
 the exquisite lips. Yon remember Scott used to 
 say, " Byron's face is a thing to dream of, an ala- 
 baster vase lighted from within ; " nor did that 
 beauty vanish even in the hours when he repeated 
 " Ada, Greece," the last adieu to the land of his 
 adoption, and the sole child of his house and 
 heart, the child of love, though born in bitterness 
 and nurtured in convulsion. 
 
 Before embalming the bod}', when the prepara- 
 tions were ready, the physicians paused before 
 the Eternal Pilgrim, so young in years, so abso- 
 lute by genius, who had laid down his gathered 
 sheaves of fame in what appeared a useless 
 sacrifice. 
 
 Said my informant, involuntarily they stood in 
 silent admiration of the surpassing beauty of his 
 person. The restless, scintillating gray eyes 
 were closed, and his face wore the calm of one 
 whose last words were: "Now I shall go to 
 sleep." About the small, compact head the hair 
 curled naturally, already quite gray. His sick- 
 ness was so short, the body was not wasted, the 
 skin was white and delicate, and the perfect sym- 
 metry of his hands made them like waxen models. 
 The head was that of the Apollo ; but his left 
 foot was deformed and turned inward, the left leg 
 
Byron. 143 
 
 was smaller and shorter than the sound one. He 
 said an accident had misshaped his leg ; but 
 there can be no doubt that he was born club- 
 footed. Proceeding with the autopsy, they found 
 the lungs healthy ; but the appearance of the 
 heart was singular. "Its parietes were as col- 
 lapsed and of consistence as flabby as those of 
 persons who have died of old age." He spent 
 his summer while it was May, and was himself 
 one of whom he sung, — 
 
 " There is an order 
 Of mortals on the earth, who do become 
 Old in their youth, and die ere middle age, 
 Without the violence of warlike death: 
 Some perishing of pleasure, some of study, 
 Some worn with toil, some of mere weariness, 
 Some of disease, and some of insanity, 
 And some of withered or of broken hearts; 
 For this last is a malady which slays 
 More than are numbered in the lists of Fate, 
 Taking all shapes and bearing many names." 
 
 " On the 22d of April, 1824," writes an eyewit- 
 ness, " in the midst of his own brigade of the troops 
 of the Government, on the shoulders of the officers 
 of his corps, relieved occasionally by other Greeks, 
 the honored remains were carried to the church 
 where lie the bodies of Marcos Bozzaris and Gen- 
 eral Norman. There we laid them down. The 
 
144 The Storied Sea, 
 
 coffin was a rude, ill-constructed chest of wood ; 
 a black mantle served for a pall ; and over it we 
 placed a helmet and a sword, and a crown of 
 laurel. No funeral pomp could have left the im- 
 pression nor spoken the feelings of this simple 
 ceremony. The wretchedness and desolation of 
 the place itself; the wild, half-civilized warriors 
 around us; their deep-felt, unaffected grief; the 
 fond recollections ; the disappointed hopes ; the 
 anxieties and sad presentiments which might be 
 read on every countenance, — all contributed to 
 form a scene more moving, more truly affecting, 
 than perhaps was ever before witnessed round 
 the grave of a great man." An English chief- 
 tain, with Suliotes for his guards and all Greece 
 for his mourners. 
 
XII. 
 
 CLASSIC FUNERALS. 
 
 O you remember the little song which 
 Byron sung to a young Greek girl, 
 
 thereby giving her a century of fame? 
 A slight thing, yet to this day much affected by 
 college boys ; possibly because of the foreign line 
 which allows opportunity for airing a few words 
 from the Lexicon. It begins : — ■ 
 
 "Maid of Athens, ere we part, 
 Give, oh ! give me back my heart," 
 
 and was addressed to the lovely daughter of the 
 Greek lady, widow of an English vice-consul, 
 at whose house the poet lodged. In a letter to 
 Drury ( 1810) he writes : " I almost forgot to tell 
 you I am dying for love of three Greek girls at 
 Athens, sisters. I lived in the same house. 
 Theresa, Mariana, Katinka, are the names of 
 10 
 
146 The Storied Sea. 
 
 these divinities," all of them under fifteen. The 
 story (probably a lie) runs, that, in making love 
 to one of these goddesses, he had recourse to an 
 act of courtship common in the East, namely, 
 giving himself a wound across the breast with 
 his dagger. The young Athenian, b} r his own 
 account, looked on very coolly during the opera- 
 tion, regarding it a fit tribute to her beaut}', but 
 in no way moved to gratitude or acceptance of 
 his love. 
 
 The Maid of Athens was eldest of three sisters, 
 on whom the beauty of the beautiful race had 
 descended. For many years the name of Theresa 
 Maori was familiar to travellers. Her quiet, 
 modest home was sought out, and details of her 
 daily life, her classic face and gentle manner, 
 were the themes of the tourist. The rosy wreath 
 which Bjtoii placed on the girlish head seems to 
 be the main incident of an uneventful life. She 
 married Captain Black, and, mother of many 
 children, to the last years of a long life was one 
 of the u sights " of the violet-crowned city. 
 
 "We were invited to Mrs. Black's funeral," 
 writes a friend living in modern Athens, " and 
 joined the procession not far from the English 
 cemetery, where her grave was made. That is a 
 pleasant spot, on the banks of the shrunken 
 
Classic Funerals. 14/ 
 
 Ilissus, opposite the Stadium, near c green Cal- 
 lirrhoe,' — ancient mother of monsters, now a 
 wasted fountain. The river of poetry, consecrated 
 by religion, legend, and tradition, could never have 
 been a considerable stream, 011I3- what we would 
 call a spring branch, and in the Mississippi 
 valley would not count at all. 
 
 " Often dry in summer, it runs through the 
 east side of the city and is lost in the marshes of 
 the Athenian plain ; but size does not make the 
 interest of any river, else would the Amazon 
 be worth many a Tiber. Along the banks of this 
 irregular and fitful stream anciently were sacred 
 groves and flowery altars, dedicated to the Muses. 
 Its pure and limpid waters mirrored all fair and 
 graceful shapes,— a lovely throng, now vanished 
 forever, with their votive tablets and memorials. 
 
 "On a neighboring hill, Plato, the divine 
 teacher, walked and talked with his pupils, after 
 his return from Egypt and Sicily. Hallowed is 
 the ground by holy and venerable shades, gracious 
 presences invisible. Here, we fancy, the young 
 disciples might have swum in the milk-warm river 
 of summer, and hard by are the magnificent 
 remains of the unfinished Temple of Jupiter, like 
 all in Greece, lovelier in death than aught else in 
 life. 
 
148 The Storied Sea. 
 
 " The sun sets behind mountains which conceal 
 the Morea from view, and in funereal thought 
 ethereal spirits from out the dim, shadowy past 
 attended us ; ghosts of the flying Persian hosts. 
 Four hundred and eighty years before Christ, was 
 fought the battle of Salamis ; and on a throne of 
 precious metals Xerxes sat in royal slate, and 
 from the high mountain yonder surveyed the con- 
 test. The brass beaks of the light ships of the 
 agile Greek broke against the clumsy Persian 
 galleys, and the monarch, afar and impotent, 
 watched the slaughter of his 4 Immortals' and the 
 wrecked fleet scattered to the winds, one more 
 triumphal wreath for Themistocles that day. 
 
 "While the train moved forward we passed 
 peasants dancing and singing in the smooth 
 Ionian tongue, — 
 
 1 As the honey mingles wilh milk, 
 Thus the black of our eyes mingles with the blue of thine, ' — 
 
 love words joined to a melody such as shepherds 
 might have heard in the golden ages, when the 
 world was j'oung and the vales of Thessaly were 
 haunted with naiad and satyr ; such as Pan might 
 have piped in mythic times to the nymphs of 
 Arcady, banishing grief to a far dwelling on the 
 other side of the mountains. In the shadow 
 
Classic Funerals. 149 
 
 of the olives idlers lounged, and on little tables 
 rattled the dice-boxes, playing games old as the 
 Pyramids. Visit the Elder World, if you would 
 learn the truth that there is nothing new under 
 the sun. 
 
 "A few light clouds floated like airy scarfs 
 above a range of low hills which terminates in 
 the flowery Mount Hymettus. There the Attic 
 bees yet hum in the fragrant thyme, and, through 
 all changes, Athens is famous for olives and Hy- 
 mettus for honey. A group of peasants on the 
 hillside made a din by striking on brazen vessels, 
 to attract a swarm which had just left the hive. 
 In this way, when a child, I used to 'assist' 
 with a stick, and batter a tin pan by way of add- 
 ing to the tumult which an early superstition 
 taught was the speediest w r ay to make bees settle. 
 That practice has fallen into contempt with the 
 owners of patent hives, but is still continued here, 
 according to an immemorial fashion. The wild 
 honey is very rich, and is, indeed, sweet as 
 pleasant words. 
 
 " Not far away from the cemetery was once the 
 ancient Odeum, the theatre built by Pericles for 
 musical competitions ; and devout Greeks used 
 to say the Muses haunted the burial-place of 
 victors in these sweet contests, and made the air 
 
150 The Storied Sea. 
 
 tuneful with lamentations over their tombs. The 
 roof of this temple was made of masts and yards 
 of ships of the Persian fleet defeated at Salamis, 
 and was modelled after the tent of Xerxes. Thus 
 did this glorious people consecrate all that was 
 dear and precious, and the trophies of battle 
 were made to do gentle service in preservation 
 of the divinest of the arts of peace. 
 
 " Hard by is the Ceramicus, sacred to ashes of 
 heroes of war, who had separate and most hon- 
 ored sepulture apart from vulgar dust. Ven- 
 erated were their resting-places. You remember 
 the lofty, defiant boast : ' We know no blessing 
 but liberty, and confess no master but the gods. 
 If thou wouldst prove our valor, come and insult 
 the tombs of our ancestors.' 
 
 "Here, too, near the relics of the Acadenry, 
 Diogenes camped in his tub, which he never used 
 as a wash-tub. The dirty old vagabond has 
 his fame as a philosopher, while tens of thousands 
 have been forgotten the latchet of whose shoes 
 he is not worthy to unloose. He bore the slings 
 and arrows of outrageous fortune with mortify- 
 ing tranquillity, and his haughty scorn of riches 
 was equalled only by his contempt of work ; a re- 
 former of mankind, whose ideal man, a drone and 
 a thief, was most nearly reached in Lacedaemon. 
 
Classic Funerals. 151 
 
 4 1 have found men no where,' said this lazy brute ; 
 4 but I have seen children at Sparta.' 
 
 44 A pale blue column of smoke against the 
 fair horizon marks the distant volcano where 
 Vulcan used to set up his furnaces and make the 
 Cyclops forge the thunderbolts of Jupiter. But 
 how can I give half the associations in a single 
 landscape where every step is on an empire's 
 dust? Come into the tinted mist, hear the night- 
 ingale sing, and feel the soft Circean spell of the 
 sea, sky, and soil of Greece. Their loveliness is 
 beyond my praise. 
 
 14 Let me entreat you, in the words of Lysip- 
 pus : ; Whoever does not desire to see Athens is 
 stupid ; whoever sees it without being delighted, 
 is still more stupid ; but the height of stupidity is 
 to see it, to admire it, and to leave it.' 
 
 44 Softly tempered, the tender sunlight rested 
 on the mortal remains of the Maid of Athens. 
 The open coffin was rested beside the grave, and 
 the placid face, exposed, must once have been 
 remarkably fine. The low forehead and delicate, 
 straight nose, inclining to aquiline, were still 
 there, and the slender hands, which were folded 
 at rest. The expression of the mouth was peace- 
 ful, but she was worn and old. The funeral 
 was very simple in all its appointments, and few 
 
152 The Storied Sea. 
 
 followed to the grave the poor Widow Black, 
 whose c soft cheek's blooming tinge ' and ' wild 
 eyes ]ike the roe' have been sung wherever the 
 English language is spoken. 
 
 " She was a member of the Greek Church, and 
 Greek priests performed the funeral service. 
 The exquisite fineness of this atmosphere carries 
 the penetrating voices to great distances and 
 the procession is most solemn and picturesque. 
 The Greek priests look as though, like the Levite, 
 without blemish or fault and selected for beauty. 
 The deep-set, glowing black eyes are not shaded by 
 their stove-pipe hat with a square tile at the top ; 
 a most curious head-gear, to which a black gauze 
 veil is often attached. Long, floating robes reach 
 to the feet, nearly always black, though some- 
 times purple. Long hair, straggling on the shoul- 
 ders or knotted behind, gives strange blendings 
 to a costume which makes the wearer appear 
 neither man nor woman ; and at first glance it is 
 a question to one unfamiliar with the country." 
 
 The seeming immortality of the ancient Grecian 
 customs is shown in the burial ceremonials ; and 
 their rich and musical language is well adapted 
 to the wailing chants of priests, called by them 
 Meyriology, or rrymns of the dead. The absorb- 
 ing interest attached of old to a funeral, and 
 
('lassie Funerals. 153 
 
 indeed every event connected with death, still 
 adheres to the Hellenic mind. Modern religions 
 have influenced the national language and tradi- 
 tions ; but there is enough left of the classic rites, 
 old as superstition, to remind one of the " Iliad" 
 and the " Odyssey." Men let their beards grow, 
 and women cut off their hair at the death of their 
 husbands and bury the long tresses with them, 
 pledges of grief and affection. There are man}' 
 portions of Asia Minor where this is the common 
 practice. 
 
 The wedding wreath of the bride is carefully 
 laid away for the funeral, and in Epirus, so strict 
 is custom, a widow would be despised if she con- 
 tracted a second marriage. Instead of the an- 
 cient libations of oil and wine to the heathen 
 deities, platters of sweets are left on the grave, 
 which are appropriated by the priests. 
 
 When the last hour approaches and the last 
 enemy is to be met, a priest is sent for and sacra- 
 ment is administered. The nearest relative must 
 come and catch the latest breath — the parting 
 soul — of the beloved, give the farewell kiss, and 
 press the dull eyelids down over the lustreless 
 eyes. Still, as in the antique ages, do they array 
 the corpse in holiday robes, fresh bathed, and 
 anointed with oil and wine. It lies at full length, 
 
154 The Storied Sea. 
 
 with crossed hands and upright feet, sprinkled 
 with flowers, and the solemn cypress branch is 
 hung above the door. Formerly the coffin was 
 made of this wood. They sing, " Flowers fade, 
 leaves wither ; but the constant cypress is green 
 forever." Friends watch the body through the 
 night, and tapers at the head and feet are lighted. 
 Dirges are chanted, setting forth the life and 
 virtues of the deceased in tender valediction, and 
 the cause of his death. These are in minor key, 
 with long, shrill notes, that pierce the ear like 
 the shrieks of women. The funeral usually takes 
 place the next day after death, as in the classic 
 years, when opinion held that not till the burial- 
 rites are ended are the shades ferried over the 
 fatal Styx to the Elysian Fields beyond. The 
 soul, having left its habitation, is stopped on the 
 banks of the black-flowing river, and wanders 
 up and down in darkness, tormented with the 
 desire of reaching the place of its destination. 
 "And thus it appeared to the mourners, who 
 should not rest till they have withdrawn the 
 mortal relics from the eye of daj- and exposure 
 to the weather." 
 
 Friends come by invitation to the house of 
 mourning. The coffin is wreathed with flowers, 
 if the means of the survivors afford it, or dressed 
 
Classic Funerals. 155 
 
 with green leaves by the poorer classes. The 
 priests assemble, and a cake, soaked in wine, is 
 eaten by the company, who say, "O God, who 
 gave, rest his soul." Prayers are offered, and 
 the procession marches to the church. Crosses 
 are carried by the clergy, and lighted tapers by 
 the others. The coffin, opened and adorned, is 
 borne on the shoulders of men, and black 
 streamers, pending from it, are held by the eldest 
 or most honored members of the cortege. When 
 the funeral mass is ended, the priests tell the 
 relatives to take the last farewell and leave the 
 last kiss ; then there are wailing and ciying. On 
 reaching the grave, the final prayers are offered, 
 the coffin-lid nailed down, and the body is low- 
 ered in a shallow grave. The leading, or perhaps 
 I might say the ranking, priest throws in a spadeful 
 of gravel in the form of a cross, and passes the 
 spade to the nearest of kin, who do the same in 
 turns, repeating, "God rest his soul." The 
 bier is then covered with the pall of black and 
 the grave filled. Returning to the house of 
 mourning, the invited guests wash their hands 
 and partake of a lunch, at which fish, eggs, and 
 vegetables alone are eaten, — the weak modern 
 substitute for those tremendous feasts of old, 
 where heroes banqueted for days on the funeral- 
 
156 The Storied Sea. 
 
 baked meats and drank the red wine, which 
 warmed their heart's core. But those were the 
 heroic ages, and offerings at the shrine of the 
 mighty were in keeping with the prowess of 
 the deceased. 
 
 At evening of the third, ninth, twentieth days 
 masses are said for the soul of the departed, and 
 on the fortieth day the friends assemble at the 
 house of mourning, and, after a simple meal, pro- 
 ceed to the newly made grave and set up a tomb- 
 stone. On the fortieth da}- a list of the ancestors 
 of the dead is read and prayer is offered for their 
 souls. It would seem the Greek faith trusts the 
 power of prayer generations after the spirit has 
 passed beyond the veil, and, as some Christians 
 believe, been admitted to Paradise. 
 
 At intervals of three }~ears these rites are 
 observed in loving anniversaries. At the end of 
 that time a most singular and revolting custom 
 obtains in some provinces of the East. The 
 tomb is opened, and if the remains are well de- 
 composed the bones are gathered into a cloth, and 
 carried in a basket covered with a rich garment 
 to the church. Flowers are laid on the top and 
 the whole deposit is left nine days, while every 
 evening relatives go to say prayers, and the body 
 is then reinterred. 
 
Classic Funerals. 157 
 
 This hideous practice, enough to corrupt the 
 air and breed pestilence, has happily fallen into 
 disuse. It probably originated in some remote 
 period, when a hurried burial obliged a reinter- 
 ment, and is continued in the spirit of the 
 Boeotians. When questioned why they offered 
 eels to the gods: wi We observe the customs of 
 our forefathers, without thinking ourselves obliged 
 to give a reason for them." Conform to the re- 
 ceived religion of your country, was the command 
 of the Delphic oracle, and the well-disciplined 
 Greeks accept the usages of the past without 
 question, in reverence and submission which are 
 a puzzle and a mystery to the Yankee intellect. 
 It is excusable in a people whose history is in the 
 past and the future, but not in the restless 
 race working in the busy present to make 
 historv. 
 
XIII. 
 
 THE AMERICAN GIRL : AN INTERLUDE. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 N a day of ennui she came aboard, and 
 we knew her before she reached the 
 steamer. No other girl wears a w T hite 
 necktie so high over the full, soft throat ; no 
 other travels in navj'-blue silk, with solitaire 
 ear-rings, not vulgarly large, but of pure water 
 and fine setting ; no other girl is so freshly 
 gloved and chausse (the word " booted" is too 
 harsh for those delicate feet) ; and none other 
 could or would so lightly mount the gangway, 
 walk straight to us, and sa} T , "We are country- 
 women, are we not? Then let us be friends at 
 once." How did she identify the two ladies in 
 black, I should like to know? 
 
 A miniature woman, impossible anywhere on 
 earth except in our land of fierce, cold, and vivid 
 sunshine ; a lithe, pliant figure, of perfect shape, 
 
The American Girl. 159 
 
 from the Arab arch of her foot to the small, 
 compact head, well set on the sloping shoulders. 
 
 After living some months among demure, sup- 
 pressed European girls, much alike as rows of 
 pins, who would regard as something dangerous 
 and revolutionary the young republican from 
 14 the land of the free and the home of the brave," 
 this fairy came without question into our home- 
 sick hearts. 
 
 It must be confessed she was rather conspic- 
 uous. The fineness of her toilet was noticeable, 
 and on her arm was a Roman shawl, or rather 
 scarf, — ■ rainbow stripes on black ground, — which 
 harmonized well with the fresh young face ; but 
 elegant silken fabrics are not often used as travel- 
 ling wraps on the Mediterranean. She smiled as 
 she touched my hand, bringing out two sets of 
 dimples, one in each cheek, where the old war of 
 the roses went on, and one below the long lower 
 eyelashes. It flashed over her face like sunlight, 
 and kindled the luminous eyes, which were neither 
 gray, blue, nor brown, — a mixture of these colors 
 and better than either. We all at one moment 
 unanimously fell in love with her, except the 
 Antiquary. He had taken fright at her first 
 appearance. " A pert boarding-school girl !" he 
 said, with a sound between a snort and a groan, 
 
160 The Storied Sea. 
 
 and fortified himself between the wheelhouse 
 and the guard, under a large umbrella ; as though 
 she knew or cared, if she had known, what he 
 thought. 
 
 She was attended b} 7 a tall, gawky countryman, 
 who persisted in clutching with firm grip his own 
 valise, in spite of persistent endeavors of the 
 gargon. He was well dressed, but not able to 
 carry off his tailoring, and was plainly oppressed 
 by its superior make and finish, to quote the 
 aesthetic and autocratic Devlin. The slouch hat, 
 which identifies the native American from afar, 
 was borne in a knotty hand, the hand of a plough- 
 man, exposing a thick shock of hair, the color of 
 a Maltese cat. The breeze played softly with his 
 shaggy locks, and the rugged face was anxious, — 
 or was it only bored? 
 
 He seated himself on a stool near us, absorbed 
 in gazing at the small lady he attended, though, 
 in obedience to a signal from her, he shook hands 
 in sober, decorous, pump-handle fashion, smiled 
 a bony smile, and replaced the slouch between 
 his knees. It is an established historic fact that 
 our countrymen are a hat- wearing race, attached 
 to their head-covering beyond all peoples, except, 
 perhaps, the fez-wearers, who remove their na- 
 tional cap only in the seclusion of the harem ; 
 
The American Girl. 161 
 
 whereas ours occasionally uncover at meals. 
 What was this giddy Western traveller thinking 
 of, when he thus bared the black, bushy locks, 
 cooled with a gray frost, to the light of common 
 day? 
 
 " Now," said the new-comer, easily and pleas- 
 antly, as though we had known her for years, 
 " let us tell our stories, like travellers in the stoiy- 
 books. The oldest first." This chapter would 
 be entirely too long for even the gentlest of 
 readers, did we record the facts we gave to our 
 young friend ; and then she took the word. " My 
 name is Begina Atwood. Nina is my pet name. 
 Papa and Mamma (emphasis on the first syllable) 
 "died when I was little — 3-011 are laughing at 
 me — when I was only so high." She held her 
 hand about two feet from the floor. "This is my 
 adopted father, m3 T uncle. I have lived at school 
 in a college town ; never was away from home 
 till the Centennial. Last year I had t3~phoid 
 fever, and 1113* hair came out. Look ! " She took 
 off her hat, with streaming plume, and threw it 
 on the bench, baring a head of short, close curls. 
 tw I don't like these curls ; the3 T make me look so 
 babyish. I lost my memoiy, and sometimes it 
 fails me yet. We are travelling for 1113' health. 
 Are to summer in the Alps and winter in Eg3'pt." 
 
162 The Storied Sea. 
 
 "Beware of the ic}' winds of the Apennines 
 and of Rome." 
 
 "Yes, they are excavating, turning up the 
 ancient plagues in Rome. The old gentleman 
 yonder, camped under the umbrella, I don't know 
 why, for it neither rains nor shines — " 
 
 " Don't speak so loud." 
 
 " Well, then, the blooming youth in the green 
 goggles, does he belong to your party? He looks 
 — what was the word we used to use in composi- 
 tion ?" She put a finger-tip to her forehead. 
 " Didactic ! That 's it. Didactic ! Good to learn 
 from, but not happy to live with." 
 
 " What a pretty hat ! " said Thalia, turning the 
 little turban on her fist, as she struck the con- 
 genial topic which makes the world of womankind 
 akin. "Paris?" 
 
 "No, indeed. I made it myself, from scraps 
 left of nrv dress. If ever I have to make a living, 
 I shall not teach in the horrid schools, but shall 
 open a milliner's shop. That feather used to be 
 white. I had it dyed blue." 
 
 " Set me clown as your first customer, Made- 
 moiselle Atwood." 
 
 " Yes, thank you." And, looking at my bonnet 
 with a dash of mischief, which dimpled her vari- 
 able face all over, she added, " Suppose we begin 
 now." 
 
The American Girl. 163 
 
 "Really, you don't mean to insinuate this 
 Loudon purchase is not the proper thing." 
 
 "But I do, though. That Alsatian bow is as 
 old as the hills." And, before I knew what the 
 little witch was about, she had whisked off the 
 offending bonnet, had thrown a hood on my head, 
 was blowing cinders from the bows, turning rib- 
 bons this way and that in dainty fingers, where I 
 marked a single golden circlet. " There, now, 
 that is something less — less archaic, as your 
 friend yonder might say. Uncle, the handbag, 
 please." The relative thus accosted had the eyes 
 of a bloodhound, and when bidden to this slight 
 service his air was that of a faithful dog when 
 allowed to cany its master's pocket-handkerchief. 
 She drew from the satchel a copy of " Lucille, " 
 an old volume of Shakespeare, and a hand-glass. 
 " Now, look," she said, " at im' improvements." 
 
 " I do not care to look in the glass." 
 
 u But you must," she insisted, with a pretty, 
 wilful absurdity, kneeling before me and holding 
 up the mirror. Cw See ! If poor Mamma had lived 
 she might have been like you." Her varying face 
 changed painfully. 
 
 "You need her, poor child; never more than 
 now." 
 
 " So every one tells me; and I know it, for 
 
164 The Storied Sea. 
 
 there is always something wanting, — wanting. 
 But," she continued, brightening up again, "I 
 have Uncle, 3-011 see. Dear Uncle, he has been 
 my playmate alwaj's. Everybody said we should 
 go w T ith the Cook's Tourists, for company, — the 
 Cookies we call them ; but he said no. We get 
 on better alone, and I do not care how we go, so 
 we do go. We meet such nice people at every 
 turn. Can't get aw r ay from them if we try." 
 
 There was an Oxford student aboard, with 
 whom we had been friendly, — a callow youth, 
 in pinfeatherj- mustache, — one of those brisk, 
 dapper little men, reminders of Bantam chickens, 
 to whom the third and fourth vowels make the 
 " Niagara chord " that goes sounding through their 
 lives eternally. He had the Dundreary skip, lisp, 
 the Dundreary eyeglass, (alas ! poor Yorick !) and 
 through the pane in his eye, as our wit named it, 
 Ke surve^yed the quicksilvery creature as he might 
 a dodo, or a cassowar3% or a specimen kangaroo 
 from his own Australia. 
 
 He came near, and I formally presented him to 
 the lovely, chattering maiden, and he plunged 
 with languid movement into that subject on 
 which, sa3 T s B3T011, all are fluent and none agree- 
 able, — self. She listened in an attitude of easy 
 indifference, and when the platitudes ended, 
 
The American Girl. 1G5 
 
 appeared unconscious of the existence of the 
 autobiographer. 
 
 Thalia said, after a minute's silence: "You 
 live in a college town. No need to ask if you 
 have troops of admirers." 
 
 "Tribes," said Nina, unconcernedly, as one 
 might say, "That is a grasshopper region." 
 " Would you like to see the photographs of the 
 Senior Class of last year? And the Faculty, 
 too?" 
 
 "Never mind the Faculty. Bring the young 
 gentlemen." 
 
 " Good taste on your part," she said quickly. 
 " Those bald old men are so didactic." She put 
 on the blue hat, and, followed by Uncle (I never 
 learned his name), who watched like a faithful 
 hound, she disappeared below, and quickly re- 
 turned with a velvet case, full of card pictures. 
 Then she cleared the bench, drew them out, and 
 ranged them. " There the}' are, now, like four 
 and twenty blackbirds all in a row." 
 
 " Tell their stories to us, won't you? " 
 
 " Oh ! I don't know family histories. Nothing 
 about grandfathers, Darwinian or otherwise, and 
 all that," she continued, w r ith a frolicsome glee, 
 pleasant as the playful gambols of a kitten. " But 
 what I know I tell. Now the panorama moves. 
 
166 The Storied Sea. 
 
 Here is the aesthete, who thinks himself too sweet 
 for anything. His room was tinted sea-green, 
 with a claclo and a bewitching frieze of lilies and 
 swallows. The lilies were swallowing the birds 
 or the birds swallowing the lilies, I never could 
 tell which. Then he had a picture of Raphael, 
 leaning his head on his hand (so !), framed in old-, 
 gold velvet, and under it a lamp, with curious fig- 
 ures, like the one Booth carries in ' Richelieu ; ' 
 and he used to murmur about keeping the flame 
 alive, and votive offerings of genius at the shrine 
 of genius and the like." 
 
 84 You did not admire him, then ?" 
 
 44 No. He was too, too utterly intense, — alwa}'s 
 talking about melodies in blues and melodies in 
 gra3's. His wife would die trying to keep at con- 
 cert pitch with his melodies. Hollow ! hollow ! " 
 She turned the weak, expressionless face to the 
 wall. 
 
 "Now, here is number two, the ambitious 
 3'outh, a candidate for fame, about to rush from 
 the college campus into the arena of action." 
 
 I looked at the boyish picture. 
 
 44 A plain face ; but strong." 
 
 "Precisely. A good, ugly, hard worker, who 
 took the first prizes, — in fact, all the prizes." 
 
 44 You admired him?" 
 
The American Girl. 167 
 
 " Xot at all," said the little maid, wilfully, yet 
 ia a fresh-hearted, unspoiled way. 
 
 " Very young, was n't he, to graduate?" 
 
 64 No, not very, lie will vote at the November 
 
 elections." 
 
 The Antiquary, who had the impression he was 
 missing something good, had folded his tent and 
 silently stolen up to look at the pieturer. We 
 smiled at the different idea of j'outh she had from 
 her listeners, feeling the sad longing of winter 
 for spring. With a charming animation, she 
 went on. 
 
 "Here is the athlete, in base-ball costume. 
 You see ! All muscle. In choosing for the Ger- 
 man, we could always pick out those stumpy fin- 
 gers above the screen. And here are the Cherubs, 
 posed like the Sistine Madonna, rolling up their 
 eyes at nothing. We called them the twins ; but 
 they were no kin. And this is the artist. He 
 painted the regulation stork on the long panel ; a 
 view of Lake George and the Prison of Chillon ; 
 a portrait of himself, with flowing hair and a long 
 gown." 
 
 "Yours, too, perhaps." 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "A frightful thing! Looked like a dissolving 
 view, as bad in its way as his marine efforts on 
 
168 The Storied Sea. 
 
 clam shells. His studio was a chamber of hor- 
 rors ; and then he was forever talking of inspira- 
 tions, and that Art was his bride and he would 
 woo no other, for it sufficeth him. A do-less fel- 
 low, who will probably end as a sign-painter and 
 call it Pompeian fresco." 
 
 u Here is number nine. He looks pale, even in 
 a photograph. Like Hamlet, 'Man delights not 
 me ; no, nor woman neither.' He died of con- 
 sumption ; overwork they said. The Shake- 
 speare Club went in a bod}' to the funeral. He 
 was the oldest one of the class. They called him 
 Nestor, as though he dated back to the da} T s of 
 Methuselah." 
 
 " How old was he, anyhow?" 
 
 " Twent\'-eight. It is pretty old, you under- 
 stand." Again her audience smiled to each 
 other. 
 
 u Here is the handsomest student in Camden 
 College." She passed the picture round to the 
 listening group. 
 
 " A very fine face," said one. 
 
 " Very. It was such a shame he should be so 
 poor. Was sexton, and the boys used to call 
 him professor of dust and ashes. Expects to go 
 as missionary to Honolulu. The strangest part 
 of it is, he was the poet of the class. His speech 
 
The American Girl. 169 
 
 Commencement was in Spenserian verse. A splen- 
 did thing. He is very different from the artist 
 there, in love with himself, who is so dream} T and 
 willowy. His wife will have to support him. A 
 masculine ivy clinging to some half-way oak, I 
 suppose." ■ 
 
 "You liked the poet, eh?" 
 
 "I admired him," she said; " but he w r as too 
 lofty for me. See that ! " She handed a lank 
 young man in turn-down collar and flying cravat. 
 " He gives the whole of his mind to his necktie. 
 John Crain by name. Just look at that silly ring 
 on his thumb. He is a howling swell — " 
 
 " Slang from a college town?" 
 
 11 Yes. I must use a little now and then. 
 He — " Just there a sudden gust caught the 
 cards. We scrambled for them ; but one went 
 overboard. 
 
 " Look for a storm to-night," said Antiquary; 
 "there is a howling swell in the sea." And, after 
 the manner of men who rarely indulge in a witti- 
 cism, he dropped his prim manner and beamed 
 with delight at his own smartness. 
 
 " Capital ! " said the maiden, graciously, with a 
 sunny glance that would have melted a harder 
 heart . 
 
 The punster lifted an embroidered India cap, 
 
170 The Storied Sea, 
 
 that made him look like a scarecrow, and bowed 
 his thanks. She held the cards tightly in her 
 hand ; and as the photograph of the Senior with a 
 ring on his thumb floated off on the turquoise blue 
 water, she waved them at it. 
 
 u Good-by. Good-b}', John Crain. Give my 
 love to the nymphs and the naiads, down in the 
 corals and amber ; most of all to Undine, and tell 
 her I love her, I love her." 
 
 4i But I must get on with my galleiy of illus- 
 trious men," she continued gayly. " Here is the 
 heavy German scholar. Blonde, studies late at 
 night, and never goes to church." She handed 
 the portrait to the Oxford bantam, whose feathers 
 rose while he surveyed it as from a prodigious 
 height (say the Ghizeh Pyramid) through the 
 Cyclopean glass. 
 
 "Suppose aw — aw foreigner like this should 
 address aw — aw lady like — like aw — " 
 
 " Like that?" said Nina, archly, holding up her 
 own childish face on a card. 
 
 " Yes, exactly. Like that. What aw — what 
 would the aw — the lady say?" 
 
 His manner was not rude, but the words meant 
 more than met the ear. She looked steadily at 
 him with those frank, fearless dark eyes. " I 
 suppose she would probably smile, and say, 
 
The American Girl. 1/1 
 
 4 Thank you ; but I cannot think of marrying a 
 man disqualified by law from holding the office of 
 President of the United States.' " 
 
 It was as neat a stab as any Italian woman ever 
 gave with the silver stiletto which serves her for 
 a hair-pin. The Oxford man looked at her in a 
 dazed, bewildered way. She was cool as snow 
 and moonlight. Then he slipped out of sight. 
 
 6 'My little countrywoman, you take your fate 
 dans vos deux mains, as our French cousins sa}\" 
 
 "Oh! I didn't mean anything," she said inno- 
 cently, and chatted on indifferent, as though Ox- 
 ford had swung off on one of the rings of Saturn. 
 If it was acting, it was perfect. I did not know. 
 I never knew if it was more or less than that ; 
 but she never brushed away a gnat with less 
 concern. 
 
 "You have had enough for to-day," she said, 
 with sudden variation of expression, which gave 
 the final charm to her evanescent beanty. " Run 
 over the rest, and I will put them up." 
 
 I glanced at the remaining cards and counted 
 them. 
 
 " Here they are. Twenty-one, twenty-two ; }^ou 
 said there were twenty-four. Where is twenty- 
 four?" 
 
 "Yes, one went overboard." She hesitated at 
 
172 The Storied Sea, 
 
 a temptation to tell a fib, and affected to search 
 among the shawls for the missing Senior. Invol- 
 untarily she put her hand to her bosom. A strong 
 bound of the heart it was which sent the upspring- 
 ing flash of scarlet flame into her cheek. Ah ! 
 little one, the secret was out. I, too, have dwelt 
 in Arcadia, and know what was at the end of the 
 Venetian chain clasped round the white neck, with 
 vows and promises and never-ending kisses. In 
 that soft resting-place, " a thing to dream of, not 
 to tell," over the heart which beat so fast, was 
 hidden the portrait of the missing Senior. The 
 burning blush passed, leaving a hot, red spot in 
 her cheek, and a fluttered nervousness took pos- 
 session of her. The white hand trembled like a 
 tendril in the breeze, as she stooped, pretending 
 to button her shoe ; but she could not hide the 
 flush which reached to the kinky curls at the back 
 of her neck. 
 
 " Now I must look after Uncle's bangs," she 
 said in a merry voice, and, turning where her 
 guardian sat, she began to smooth his gray locks 
 with love-pats, now and then hitting him a little 
 tap under the chin with the back of the brush to 
 make him hold his head up. A thousand careless 
 graces waited on her steps ; not the rich gift of 
 beauty only, but witching ways not to be described, 
 
The American Girl. 173 
 
 — a force resistless as the airy kiss of the first 
 fragrant breeze of spring. You open your win- 
 clow and your heart ; 3*011 turn your face to it, and 
 would kiss it back again, if you could. 
 
 As for Uncle, at first I took him for a well- 
 meaning idiot ; but, finding a gleam of intelli- 
 gence in his peculiar face, gave him the benefit of 
 a doubt, and made him a patient study. After 
 all, there is nothing so interesting as humanity, 
 and I discovered a case not named in the lists of 
 medical works ; one where the heart had absorbed 
 the brain and there was thought of only one ob- 
 ject. Easy to see there were but two places in 
 the world for him, — where she w T as and where she 
 was not. To be near was all the dumb worshipper 
 asked or wished ; and with his idol was supreme 
 content. It radiated from the strange eyes, so 
 fierce at times, and again, when bent on her, so 
 fond. I have seen that rapt, ecstatic look in the 
 shining morning face of 3'oung lovers, in the 
 mother when she feels for the first time her first- 
 born's breath ; but only in this instance have 
 I known it on the face of a person of mature 
 years. 
 
 lie closed his e}*es, and she told him he looked 
 too sweet for anything ; whereat the doting Uncle 
 smiled such an inane smile I do believe he believed 
 
174 The Storied Sea. 
 
 every word she said. The hair-dressing ended, 
 she seated herself in his lap, in defiance of the 
 prejudices of civilization, — our refined and pol- 
 ished civilization, which allows our daughters, 
 those fresh and virgin blossoms, to go whirling 
 and whirling in the coarse clasp of a blase man of 
 the world, to the swell of voluptuous music, the 
 dreamy waltzes of Strauss, panting arm in arm 
 to the last stretch of nerve and muscle, not 
 infrequently coming down in a heap on slippery 
 floors, and dropping, at last, exhausted on a 
 sofa. 
 
XIV. 
 
 THE AMERICAN GIRL : AN INTERLUDE. 
 PART II. 
 
 FTER the Senior Exhibition the wind 
 freshened, and I staggered down below 
 to lie with shut eves and set teeth and 
 wrestle with the eneni}^. Thinking of the blessed 
 land was interrupted by the careful opening of 
 the door, and into the darkened room came Nina 
 Atwood, with a small bowl in her hand. She was 
 lithe as a panther, and her tread was soundless as 
 snow on snow. 
 
 11 Lift your head/' she said, with the air of a 
 dictator. 
 
 " I have no wish to lift my head." 
 
 " But you must. Here is beef tea. I told the 
 stewardess, in choice Ollendorff, how to have it 
 made after our own cooking-club receipt, with 
 just one ring of onion in, to give a home flavor. 
 Come, come." 
 
176 The Storied Sea. 
 
 Philosophers saj^, where there is strength to com- 
 mand there is always obedience. This uncrowned 
 queen, well named Regina, — I could no more re- 
 sist her than you could. I took the bowl, gulped 
 down the dose, failing, however, to detect the 
 home flavor. " Your health and mine, my Hebe. 
 It was most kind, and I thank xox\ heartily." 
 
 "Not at all. Now, mind, no more ice, but 
 beef tea, boiling hot, — that's what you want. 
 Don't speak another word." And she stole out. 
 A minute later, she was arguing with Uncle 
 against locking her in her stateroom and keeping 
 the key. " Suppose," she pleaded, " there should 
 be fire, and I locked in. Dreadful ! " 
 
 " I should be by you, honey, long afore you 
 smelt smoke," said Uncle. 
 
 She could twist him round her little finger in 
 sovereign sway till it came to guarding her. 
 There the old man was unbending as the ancient 
 emperor who sealed his edicts with the hilt of his 
 sword. 
 
 The most amazing thing about seasickness is 
 that the instant it leaves you are absolutely well 
 and the misery forgotten. After the life-giving 
 draught of beef-tea, with a ring of onion in it, the 
 patient fell asleep, and, waking in the dusk, 
 found the vessel steady. 
 
The American Girl. 177 
 
 " That child on deck ! What is she doing now, 
 Thalia ?" 
 
 44 She is sitting in the old arm-chair called 
 Uncle, still as a mouse, twirling the ring on her 
 left hand." 
 
 44 Thinking of the twentj'-fourth Senior." 
 
 44 No doubt. She is still as still can be. An 
 angel not much disguised." 
 
 44 And the night?'' 
 
 44 A Mohammedan night. The scent of Para- 
 dise." 
 
 We went on deck. In the solemn beauty of 
 the afterglow the sea lay in halcyon repose ; only 
 a vague unrest, soft as the stir of silken wings, 
 ruffled the surface of the water. The lull of the 
 tranquil evening shed a calming influence on the 
 passengers of the 44 Fleur de Luce." The gen- 
 tlemen smoked, the Roman priest fumbled his 
 beads, the chattering Frenchmen were still. 
 Among the august and glorious stars Orion moved 
 in shining armor, and the Pleiades watched se- 
 renely, as they used to watch the wandering Ulys- 
 ses. We could almost hear the sirens singing on 
 their coral isles, where they lie among beds of scar- 
 let poppies and golden asphodel. In the dimness 
 faiiy shapes were floating, and beckoning hands 
 stretched out to us in the shadow}' distances. 
 12 
 
178 The Storied Sea. 
 
 " Can you give us a song, my little girl?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " With pleasure. I can sing best standing," 
 she said, rising from the old arm-chair. " There 
 are but two subjects for song, — love and death ; 
 which shall it be ? " 
 
 " Love, by all means." 
 
 " You shall have one of love and death both." 
 
 Then, without apology or hesitation, she began 
 " The Maid of Dundee" in a voice of slender 
 sweetness. It was clear as a bobolink's, and 
 showed careful training. You know that hack- 
 neyed ballad. It had a fresh charm in the bird- 
 like notes, floating in the placid air of the Storied 
 Sea. When the lines 
 
 11 ; God,' she cried, * let me go too, 
 And be with my Jamie, so good and true,' " 
 
 died into silence, I watched a Swiss gentleman in 
 the dry mediaeval epoch wipe his eyes. In that 
 tender id} T l of a simple life did he hear far away 
 flutings under summer windows? Did thoughts 
 long buried rise out of their graves, like gentle 
 ghosts, haunting the gates of an Eden forever 
 lost, there where Junes and roses bloom, and the 
 nightingale is always singing in the green still- 
 ness of a shady garden ? 
 
The American Girl. 1/9 
 
 My reader who possesses the vision and faculty 
 divine may read the hearts of men and women, 
 and look below the surface currents, to depths 
 where the treasures lie ; but I cannot tell, who am 
 neither prophet nor seer. 
 
 Walter Scott said that there is romance enough 
 in every life for a three-volumed novel ; and we 
 may be sure the Swiss gentleman had his, and a 
 lost love, which the pensive strain brought back 
 from among flowers long withered and dear faces 
 nothing now but dust. 
 
 " If we had a guitar," said Nina, " it would be 
 something to lean on, so we could sing together. " 
 
 The guitar was brought. " It was left by a poor 
 Neapolitan, who died aboard," said the Captain. 
 Two of the strings were broken ; but the singer 
 pieced them together in the luminous dusk, de- 
 clining the help of a lantern's light. "I leave it 
 below concert pitch, to make it easy for the 
 strings and the singers ; and after a story we will 
 try it." 
 
 The story-teller gave the Crimean War. Bather 
 a modern tale for one fond of hoary antiquities. 
 I suspect it was mainly to recite the " Charge of 
 the Light Brigade," which he did with fine spirit, 
 and told the death of poor Nolan of the valiant 
 heart, and how, the night before the assault on the 
 
180 The Storied Sea. 
 
 Malakoff, the soldiers in the English camp sang by 
 hundreds along the line, — 
 
 " Song of love and not of fame ; 
 Forgot was Britain's glory. 
 Each heart recalled a different name, 
 Yet all sang, ' Annie Laurie.' " 
 
 After that we sang with guitar accompaniment 
 " Annie Laurie," Uncle bearing along that singu- 
 lar part known to ancient New Englanders as 
 " Counter." Then came the " Star-spangled Ban- 
 ner ; " " The Marseillaise," out of compliment to 
 the Captain; and u John Brown's Body," with 
 a rousing chorus. So pleased were we that we 
 rapturously applauded ourselves, and treated the 
 audience to generous encores. The prettiest thing 
 was a Spanish song of Nina's about the Rose of 
 the Alhambra drooping of loss for a Crusader 
 dying before his return from Palestine. Here the 
 guitar-strings snapped, and we had to give it up. 
 
 What pride Uncle took in his treasure, hover- 
 ing about her with a homely chivalry, watching 
 every movement, and coming in on old "John 
 Brown" with a booming bass! And, to tell the 
 whole truth, we all doted on the light-hearted, lov- 
 able girl, so full of winsome ways, with gentle 
 fearlessness going through the world unconscious 
 that it held anything less innocent than herself. 
 
The American Girl. 181 
 
 To me she was like some rich, sweet reminiscence 
 of a life from which the morning light has van- 
 ished. I warmed with her sunny warmth, and 
 tasted a little sip of her brimming cup of happi- 
 ness that overflowed all it touched. Then she 
 looked so fragile, — the look which the travelled 
 reader, for whom I do not write, may have seen 
 in the faces of Grenze's pictures. My heart 
 reached after her in a way known only to moth- 
 ers, and not to all mothers, as I noted the differ- 
 ence between this refined " rose red" cla}- and 
 the stuff of which the shaggy Uncle was made. 
 
 We lingered, sorry to part, till the calm even- 
 ing glided into midnight. When the little boat 
 came alongside, next morning, Nina said she was 
 sorry ; but then they were going to Verona, and 
 she should see the House of the Capulets, and the 
 tomb of Juliet, and was sure we would meet again. 
 The light cradle bowed and courtesied good-by, 
 and she made a pennon of the Roman scarf tied 
 to Uncle's umbrella. The end dipping into the 
 water, she caught it up ; and as the striped 
 streamer filled with wind, she sat under it in the 
 shimmer of the sea. like Iris under the heavenly 
 arch, never spirit of sun or storm, song or fable, 
 more lovely. So she floated from sight, and into 
 my dreams forever. 
 
182 The Storied Sea. 
 
 Blessings were showered on her fair young 
 head ; the Captain waved his cap ; Oxford politely 
 uncovered his baldish pate, where time was mak- 
 ing tracks among the blond locks ; Antiquary 
 swung his Indian turban gallantly ; — when they 
 were lost in a gra3 r vapor, and it was all as a 
 dream when one awaketh. 
 
 I must not forget to mention there was a black 
 servant aboard, in some menial capacit}' ; a Nu- 
 bian, I think. A dwarfish shape, with face so 
 badly pitted by small-pox that it looked like a 
 burnt waffle. Nina once caught a glimpse of the 
 little fellow, and had sent him a small piece of 
 gold coin. As she left the steamer, the poor 003- , 
 who looked more brute than human, knelt on the 
 lower deck, and followed her with eager eyes, ges- 
 ticulations, and grimaces that would have been 
 laughable, had they not been painful. The lan- 
 guage of signs is universal, and we understood it 
 was worship of the divinity that had made him rich 
 with gold, and her tender pity better than much 
 fine gold. Said the Captain : " The poise and 
 self-reliance of the American lady are the admira- 
 tion of all the world who has the happiness to know 
 her. My little daughter, of her age, is in the Con- 
 vent of the Sacred Cross, among the holy sisters. I 
 wish Mademoiselle At wood had a maid with her." 
 
The American Girl. 183 
 
 w * The girl who makes her own bonnets has not 
 much need of any one to pick up her slippers." 
 
 " Quite right; only it looks somewhat rash to 
 be going around in this way. Yet," he added, 
 thoughtfully, "elle est a Fabri du mal par la 
 purite." 
 
 " Precisely," said Antiquary, triumphantly. 
 11 She is sweet as a dream come true, and is 
 as well guarded as the Lady in Comas." 
 
 It is doubtful if the Captain of the "Fleur de 
 Luce " is acquainted with that divinest Lady ; but 
 he murmured, " Vraiment ! vraiment ! " 
 
 " Her visible guardian is enough. Uncle is no 
 fool. He watches her like a hawk. Did you no- 
 tice how he glowered at Oxford? There was an 
 evil brightness in his eyes whenever the young 
 gentleman approached his jewel. At the least im- 
 pertinence he would think no more of taking that 
 upstart by the back of his neck and dropping him 
 over the poop than he would of drowning a blind 
 puppy. You would have to shoot that man to get 
 him out of the way." 
 
 •• She is on a broad and dangerous journey," 
 said Thalia, cc and I wish she had some careful 
 woman near. But," she continued fervently and 
 cheerfully, "we must have faith in the angels. 
 They will carry the innocent feet safely along 
 
184 The Storied Sea. 
 
 greater perils than the edge of Vesuvius, nor will 
 she lose any portion of the snowy whiteness of 
 the purity which is her best defence. " 
 
 "Well, well, God bless her and her husband 
 too. Good and brave, rich and handsome, should 
 he be who wins that pretty hand. But women 
 marry so strangely, what if she should throw her- 
 self away on some cold clod, giving out the whole 
 treasure of her loving nature where she can have 
 no return? Her heart is deep as the Danube, 
 and she may be fated to the silent sisterhood of 
 unknown martyrs. We know many such, you 
 and I." 
 
 4 'The destinies have no such doom for her," 
 said Thalia, warmly. U I have cast her horo- 
 scope, and see her future as in a clear glass. She 
 will go safely home, bearing the delicious perfume 
 of travel, as Longfellow calls it. I read in the 
 shady leaves of Destiny that she will marry the 
 twenty-fourth Senior, will be a blithe and busy 
 housekeeper in some happy valley of the West, 
 maybe a snug nest on the edge of a flowery 
 prairie. She will be ingenious as the immortal 
 New England housekeeper who coul(l drive in 
 tacks with a flat-iron and draw them out with a 
 spoon-handle ; will make cake in the morning, 
 and go to the Shakespeare club in the evening ; 
 
The American Girl. 185 
 
 be foremost in the fruit and flower mission, and 
 the author of a few papers in the St. Nicholas, 
 catching a stray leaf from the green Isle of Palms. 
 Though not a prophet nor a prophet's son, I fore- 
 see that Uncle will enrich her with his corn-lands ; 
 her last days will be her best days ; her children 
 will rise up and call her blessed; her husband, 
 also, and praise her." 
 
 Thalia has latterly developed a suspicions 
 amount of sentiment. It may be possible she 
 is thinking of exchanging her weeds for orange 
 blossoms. 
 
 But what ailed the day ? I did not know our 
 steamer could be so dull. Slight clouds obscured 
 the sun, and, with quick perception of the beau- 
 tiful, an Italian sailor said, " The Signorina with 
 the shining face has taken our fair weather with 
 her." Later, a fine, cold rain set in, and the party 
 was very dismal. Our feeble efforts at gayety 
 died a natural death. The gentlemen solaced 
 themselves with cigars, and discussed the prehis- 
 toric monoliths of Palenque and Copan. Thalia 
 fell to crochet, and I turned to }~ou, dear reader, 
 for rest and refreshment. The lump of ambergris 
 which had flavored the Sultan's cup was missing. 
 
 You who are of my faith that the young Amer- 
 ican girl is the sweetest thing created since the 
 
186 The Storied Sea, 
 
 evening and the morning were the first da} T , read- 
 ily understand this is not an ideal sketch. The 
 subject of it is not unknown in Baltimore. In 
 Washington she has shed a soft light, like a rose- 
 blush, in the Arctic Circle (sometimes called the 
 Diplomatic) ; and in the little town of Athena, 
 not a thousand miles west of Indianapolis, look 
 in the mirror, O my darling, and behold — a 
 portrait. 
 
 With dire forebodings these last two papers 
 are committed to the post. The Judicious Friend 
 who wants accurate information condemns them 
 as light and trifling. Oh, J. F., if you hunger 
 and thirst after knowledge, read Buckle's " His- 
 tory of Civilization" and Hallam's " Middle 
 Ages," refresh your thirsty soul with salubrious 
 pages of Gibbon, or come home to the free ban- 
 quet spread in our own " Congressional Globe ; " 
 but as for me and mine, we do not steer for the 
 Valley of Dry Bones, 
 
 "As we sail, as we sail." 
 
5B5E5E5E5E55555Z5g5E555E5B5E5g5E5B5E5g5ESE5E5Z5E5E5E5^1 
 
 XV. 
 
 m 
 
 SOMETHING ABOUT HOMER. 
 
 E were warmly invited and urged to visit 
 the scenes of the Iliad, but did not 
 go. Why should we? It involved tents, 
 courier, servants, risk of catching the fever of 
 the country, being bitten to death by mosquitoes 
 or poisoned by bad water. It is in this classic 
 region that the world-renowned Congress of Fleas 
 was held. "Had they been unanimous," writes 
 the English reporter, " they could have lifted me 
 out of bed ; but, luckily, there was a division, and 
 I never discovered to which side I belonged." 
 
 Malaria hangs heavily over the Troad, and 
 powerful doses of quinine are needed to save the 
 pilgrim from the pestilence that walketh in 
 darkness and wasteth at noonday. Not so bad 
 as the Roman Campagna, where it is death to 
 sleep; but surpassing the swamp lands of the 
 Mississippi Valley in the dread month of August, 
 
188 The Storied Sea. 
 
 when ripe vegetation is rotting and the ague 
 hangs its yellow sign over the smitten faces in 
 the farm-houses. I had thought some spot was 
 happily exempt from this curse of the world ; 
 but no, even in rainless Egypt the overflow of 
 the Nile leaves lagoons and marshes, — lurking- 
 places for the insidious enemj', not numbered 
 among the ancient plagues. 
 
 We knew exactly what was to be seen in the 
 little town, never containing over four thousand 
 citizens, which has held a large place in the 
 imaginations of ninety generations of men. I 
 have been sadly disillusione in many things since 
 I used to fancy those famous walls — which some 
 wise men contend w r ere made of adobes — w r ere 
 high as the stupendous walls of Bab} Ion, and the 
 Scsean gate was like the brazen gates of mighty 
 Thebes. From the deck of the tc Fleur de Luce " 
 we saw — or fancied we could see, which was 
 just as well — the point of land where poor 
 Hecuba was buried, and about a league away the 
 promontoiy of Sigeum. Ambitious students climb 
 to the top, where Achilles is buried ; and there 
 Alexander ran naked round his tomb, in honor 
 of his manes, — doubtless to the great comfort of 
 that unquenchable and unresting spirit. Had we 
 strained over scorched plain and stony roads on 
 
Something about Homer. 189 
 
 a back-breaking donkey, it had been to see 
 nothing but a few slow men, digging at a lei- 
 surely rate in the poor, burnt-out soil. Priam's 
 treasure-house has been rifled ; there is no chance 
 for finding golden relics of Paris, Helen's neck- 
 lace, or Hector's spear. If such inestimable 
 treasure from that far epoch lay there, it would 
 not be for us, but would be caught up and 
 appropriated before our eyes beheld it. 
 
 Had we chosen to camp near the desert hills, 
 we might have watched in vain for the gleam of 
 lance, shield, or helmet of flitting spectres, re- 
 vealed in visions to the believing Grecian. 
 Certain scholars, who see with eyes anointed, 
 have been known to recognize the tall shade of 
 Agamemnon, with gigantic stride, looming above 
 the tumuli ; and, stately and sullen, the skulking 
 shadow of Ajax, remembering in eternity the 
 old spites against his chief and the hate still 
 rankling against the successful rival for the ce- 
 lestial armor of Achilles. 
 
 If my precious reader wants to see what the 
 gods are doing now, lie must summon buoyant 
 courage, high hope, and robust faith, and for him- 
 self call up the ghosts out of the underworld, and 
 with phantoms repeople the lone city of Priam. 
 
 After the destruction of Troy, a new city of 
 
190 The Storied Sea. 
 
 the same name was built by Alexander, about 
 thirty stadia from the ancient site. I take this 
 fact from the guide-book, and hope you know 
 what a stadium is. I do not. 
 
 Dr. Schliemann's experience illustrates the sus- 
 taining power of faith, even in earthly things. 
 The doubters and scoffers are silenced by his 
 convincing testimony, and their sneers no longer 
 assail the wondrous tale of Troy divine. Pale 
 shades hover about, perplexing the student with 
 inconstant shadows; but localities are fixed. 
 Yon strip of volcanic earth and rock is Tenedos, 
 the station to which the Greeks withdrew their 
 fleet, in order to induce the Trojans to believe 
 they had sailed away and to receive the wooden 
 horse. 
 
 And that is Imbros, lying in the azure sea. 
 The space opposite them is the plain where the 
 tents of the Greeks were pitched, and from which 
 they were chased to the ships. Here the gallej's 
 and triremes unloaded the troops ; and this ex- 
 quisite air — for sea and skj T alone are unchange- 
 able — echoed the musical shouts of noisy sailors, 
 and the thundering voices of the Trojan peers and 
 sceptred kings of Greece, as they battled in never- 
 ending duels. Their light boats must have had a 
 time landing, for the winds were fitful and capri- 
 
Something about Homer. 191 
 
 cions and are yet. You remember that in one of 
 these isles iEolus reigned, — the monarch who 
 showed Ulysses his twelve children, and who had 
 
 dominion over the twelve winds, — and here the 
 wanderer received of him an ox's hide, enclosing 
 all the winds, leaving free none but the friendly 
 home wind, to play in the sails, murmur of quiet 
 havens, and waft them gently back to Ithaca. 
 
 What dire misfortunes befell when the covetous 
 mariners untied the precious bag, thinking it 
 loaded with gold, when out they rushed with 
 hissing sound, like the rush of many waters. Is 
 it not all written in the stoiy-books ; and how the 
 ship was driven back in one hour Avhat it had 
 taken nine days to track ; and the remorse and 
 despair of the men, and the noble forbearance of 
 their chief ? 
 
 The breezes have never been prisoners since 
 then. xEolus still hunts the whirlwinds over 
 land and sea, and they blow this way and that, 
 making heavy seas, which in the Olympian dis- 
 pensation went hard with the sailers, but do not 
 greatly affect our steamers. 
 
 Here the fifty ships of Achilles anchored, and 
 this is the coast-line which bounded his vision for 
 nine years. lie is the true hero of the Iliad, 
 and carries away our whole heart with the palm 
 
192 The Storied Sea. 
 
 of strength and grace. For he was bravest and 
 handsomest of the bravest, handsomest race this 
 old earth of ours has produced, and he knew well 
 how to win favor in the eyes of beautiful women. 
 Affectionate and tender, though he had been fed 
 on the hearts of lions and the marrow of bears ; 
 and, when the choice was offered, preferred to 
 die eari} T and gloriously, rather than live a long 
 life of inglorious ease. Reading the record among 
 these old shadows, we easily forgive his quarrel 
 with the king of men, when he shook his golden 
 locks and shut himself up in his tent, refusing to 
 take further part in the war, till roused by the 
 voice of his mother to avenge the death of his 
 dearest friend. And then to lie, dying, at the 
 Scsean gate, having fought the battle only to 
 miss the victoiy. There is no histoiy half so real 
 as this legendary and supernatural story, nor any 
 pathos equal to the struggle where the gods took 
 part and talked to men as friend with friend. 
 
 How weary those ten years of siege, let those 
 tell who have had one year in the dreary mo- 
 notony of a changeless camp. In every arm}' the 
 few fierce hours of combat bear a slight propor- 
 tion to long intervals, where the dull, slow weeks 
 drag after each other in unvaiying sameness. 
 No wonder the tenth year was one of domestic 
 
Something about Homer. 193 
 
 quarrels. You soldiers, who have cursed with 
 curses loud and deep the inaction of your superior 
 officers while you were panting for a move, or, in 
 the classic language of the modern camp, spoiling 
 for a fight, can best fancy the undying hates 
 nursed in the ample leisure of ten years. With 
 what strength the feuds grew and enlarged in 
 each hateful day of enforced idleness ! How the 
 grudges and rankling jealousies burnt deeper and 
 deeper, while the soul of Agamemnon, king of a 
 hundred kings, rejoiced over the dissensions ful- 
 filling the sacred prophecy. What storms of 
 rage gathered and broke against rival chieftains, 
 till in the contest for the arms of Achilles, the 
 conquered Ajax rushed into an awful madness, 
 slaughtering the sheep of his own arm}', distracted 
 by the idea they were enemies, and ending by 
 destroying himself. 
 
 These marvellous warriors were clansmen, car- 
 rying on the feuds of powerful nobles ; and the 
 chiefs naturally varied the vapid monotony of 
 inaction by a watchfulness of the weak points of 
 former foes, whom they hated more than they 
 feared. They neither forgot nor forgave ; and 
 memories of gallant deeds gave them boundless 
 faith in their ability to conquer wherever they 
 chose to plant their standards. 
 
 13 
 
194 The Storied Sea. 
 
 Whoever has lived in camp can picture the 
 weary days, like to each other as the swell and 
 fall of the waves on this serene and silent shore. 
 Instead of our routine of drill and discipline, the 
 Greeks had wrestling matches, foot and chariot 
 races, single combats, the discus, and archeiy 
 and javelin exercise. The little boats, with sails 
 like the wings of swallows, and narrow keels, 
 cutting the blue floor, are such as brought recruits 
 from Sparta when war was not a science or the 
 trade of a separate class, but the pastime of 
 princes and the ultimate ambition of kings. 
 
 In their practice men had to stand up to the 
 thrust of cold steel and the hideous scent of warm 
 human blood, instead of the sulphurous fumes of 
 gunpowder and balls, from remote and unseen 
 machinery. 
 
 There was no newspaper, to relieve the leaden 
 gloom of the ancient da}~s ; no tobacco, to solace 
 picket duty ; I doubt if the pa}~master — most 
 cheering apparition — appeared at his appointed 
 seasons. No cheap novels were scattered about 
 the tents, no letters from home, or express boxes ; 
 it is not known if the}' had the comfort of cards ; — 
 nothing but their darling hates to cherish and 
 keep warm ; and how dear these ma}' become, 
 the veteran in no way like Themistocles may tell 
 
Something about Homer. 195 
 
 as he recalls those old nights when the trophies 
 of another would not let him sleep. 
 
 The ancient beauty has not disappeared from 
 the beautiful race, though alien blood has cor- 
 rupted the pure strain, till it is no longer the rule, 
 but the exception. When found, it is a thing to 
 dream of. I once saw a fisher boy, or, rather, 
 youth, on one of the Cyclades, mending his net, 
 who had a face correct as the statue of Antinous. 
 He was dressed in greasy tarpaulin ; on his short, 
 clustering locks a fillet of red cord gave the final 
 picturesque touch to a perfect head. As he lifted 
 his dreamy brown eyes to gaze on the passing 
 stranger, so Paris might have looked on many- 
 fountained Ida. So looked the shepherd boy b} T 
 the moon's light on old Latinos, when Dian 
 stooped to kiss him. 
 
 Did you ever think, dear reader, what deep 
 consolation those miraculous beings descended 
 from gods found in eating? Have \o\\ consid- 
 ered the charming simplicity of their banquets? 
 When the king of men, towering above all Gre- 
 cians in dignity, majesty, power, entertained in 
 his grand pavilion, Clytemnestra was not con- 
 cerned about aesthetic china and the like, nor did 
 she look after the forks and spoons, for there 
 were none. The leaders of the hosts of Greece 
 
196 The Storied Sea. 
 
 and the confederate kings banqueted on beef 
 killed, skinned, and roasted before their eyes. 
 Pretty tough it was, too ! 
 
 " A steer for sacrifice the king designed, 
 Of full five years and of the nobler kind. 
 The victim falls, they strip the smoking hide, 
 The beast they quarter and the joints divide, 
 Then spread the tables, the repast prepare, 
 Each takes his seat and each receives his share. 
 The king himself (an honorary sign) 
 Before great Ajax placed the mighty chine." 
 
 Imagine the godlike Ajax tearing away at the 
 marrow bones with his dripping fingers. Heroic 
 feasts for heroic stomachs, always ready for a 
 square meal. Philosophers call this living near to 
 Nature. They tell us the modern Greeks have a 
 wonderful gift of speech-making, like their long- 
 gone ancestors, and in their musical tongue they 
 hand down from wrinkled age to blooming youth 
 the mist} T traditions of bygone glory. They have, 
 too, tales of the farthest East, of sorceries and 
 witchcraft, of charms and drugs possessed with 
 magic, genii and afrite, and hidden treasures in 
 enchanted caverns. The legends of unknown 
 antiquity have easy faith among them, supernatu- 
 ral agencies are trusted, and sailors in every sea 
 are more or less superstitious. 
 
Something about Homer. 197 
 
 An isolated life tends to nurture weird fancies, 
 and the spinning of yarns is heard wherever wood 
 will float. The enjoyment of the story-teller de- 
 pends largely on the interest and patience of the 
 listener, and the rare, fine talent of continuous 
 attention is a peculiar attribute of the boatmen 
 of the Levant. One man will tell a tale lasting 
 through the mariner's leisure hours for a week, 
 and the audience remains unwearied and atten- 
 tive. Watching the long-protracted sessions of 
 amusement in these times of interruption and im- 
 patience, one has the same sensation as in look- 
 ing through certain books newly issued from the 
 press ; the wonder is not that they were written, 
 but that they are ever read. 
 
 An army of imaoinino- men, as the actors in the 
 great epic have been well called, naturally located 
 in Samothrace, the Holy Hill, the watch-tower of 
 Jove the Thunderer. From that ethereal height he 
 despatched the Twin Brothers, of matchless swift- 
 ness and silent pace, to bear away the body of 
 Sarpedon, fair as in life and undefiled, though 
 dragged through the dust of the crimsoned plain. 
 In the soft arms of silent Sleep and Death they 
 floated the young spirit home to eternal rest in 
 the bosom of his father. 
 
 You sad mourner for the brave and the beau- 
 
198 The Storied Sea. 
 
 tiful, see the rich meaning, passing the wisdom of 
 the wise, garnered in the fanciful truths to which 
 we give the name of fables. 
 
 We disputed about the geography of the Iliad. 
 Who does not? But I am not disposed to get 
 into hot water, — like the wise counsellor, u would 
 fain die a dry death," — and therefore reserve 
 argument till we meet face to face, O my beloved ! 
 We heard the surge and thunder of the Odyssey, 
 though steering through a summer sea, and, wind- 
 ing among the historic isles, many times we said, 
 "How like New Mexico ! " They are arid upheav- 
 als of volcanic rock, bare reddish slopes, at torrid 
 heat in the noonda} r shining. There may be ver- 
 dure and bloom on the sides away from the sight, 
 but from the deck of the " Fleur de Luce" we 
 saw little vegetation. We had expected gardens 
 and vineyards, bowers of roses, with birds-of-par- 
 adise and butterflies darting like winged thoughts 
 among them, tangled vines, festoons of ivy in 
 luxuriant verdure running wild. I had pictured 
 pomegranate-trees with blossoms like flame glow- 
 ing in a background of tender green ; but we did 
 not find them. Here and there was a tower or 
 castle, old in stoiy, picturesque and venerable, 
 which had withstood strokes of stones hurled by 
 the catapult, and scars gashed and torn by bat- 
 
Something about Homer. 199 
 
 tering-rams ages before gunpowder was in some 
 sort anticipated by Greek fire. 
 
 On those isles of barrenness and rock are 
 sparse, straggling villages, meagre gardens of 
 scant, starved herbage ; along the dried-up streams, 
 not a willow large enough for Homer to hang his 
 harp on. 
 
 The winding Mseander is shrunken to a mere 
 thread now, and the Scamander, — " the divine 
 Scamander,'' fed by springs on Ida, — once choked 
 with dead bodies by Achilles, would not float a 
 single corpse now. Yet this is haunted ground, 
 most interesting h\ association reaching to a hoary 
 antiquity. Here the blind first singer wandered 
 with footsteps set to music, and sung high, heroic 
 measures, — not such songs as we hear to-day from 
 strolling minstrels, who thus make their bread. 
 T^ait till the sun sets in a sk}' absolved from every 
 taint of cloud or mist, and the remotest island 
 becomes a soft purple stain on the horizon ; when 
 the highest peak is a mount of transfiguration, an 
 unknown heavenly land in a glory of ineffable 
 loveliness, blent of violet, rose, and gold ; — in this 
 tranquil hush the winds and the waves arc at their 
 evening song, answering the wooing sirens. We 
 forget the wrathful gods and the petty warring in 
 the battle we call life, and deeply feel all that poets 
 
200 The Storied Sea. 
 
 have sung and dreamers dreamed in this Kingdom 
 of the Beautiful Myths. The thrilling sense passes 
 with the hours, the glare of next day's noon is 
 a disenchanter, and the dim vision of the night 
 seems vague and unreal as the vanishing mirage 
 of some long-gone summer morning. Still, Mem- 
 ory, who loses more than she treasures, will never 
 let that heavenly picture go. The moon was at 
 its full when we made the voyage of the Homeric 
 Islands. That night, — what was it but the deli- 
 cate shade of a da} T that is dead ? The white 
 moonshine touched with silver the bright hair of 
 Thalia, as she leaned over the guard to watch the 
 dolphins play and hearken to the rhythmic flow 
 of the water. The sea seemed to listen as she 
 murmured, — 
 
 11 In such a night as this, 
 When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees 
 And they did make no noise, — in such a night 
 Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls, 
 And sighed his soul toward the Grecian tents, 
 Where Cressid lay that night." 
 
 It was the voice of the poet of the past saluting 
 the poet of all time. 
 
XVI. 
 
 ABOUT SMYRNA. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 HE guide-book sa}'s the early history of 
 Smyrna is disfigured by fables. Let us 
 rejoice that a place in American minds 
 associated only with figs lives in the pale twi- 
 light of fable, where flickering mythic lights pro- 
 duce lovely effects, changing men to demigods 
 and making heroes of common clay. I have 
 written elsewhere, and of a very different people, 
 that there is no myth without its teaching. Most 
 exquisite poetry veils subtle meaning, and the 
 old pagans well knew the deep wisdom that lay 
 hidden in their fantasies, to which the modern 
 unbeliever attaches no value. 
 
 Isman Giaour, or Infidel Smyrna, is one of the 
 Amazon cities whose names have faded from his- 
 tory and are lost to the chronicler. My classic 
 
202 The Storied Sea, 
 
 reader, if I am so fortunate as to have one, will 
 remember how, toward the conclusion of the 
 Trojan War, the Amazon queen came to the city 
 of Priam with the gallant band of archers, and 
 rushed on the Greeks, and how she was killed by 
 the great-souled Achilles. It was to this city, 
 "where the blue-haired sea shakes the land," 
 that Circe sent for the enchanted wine b}' which 
 men were transformed into swine, all except the 
 wise Ulysses. Over him the Daughter of the Day 
 had no witchery with her sorceries, because the 
 messenger of the gods, swift Hermes, had given 
 him to wear the small white blossom called moly, 
 which was a charm against every sort of magic. 
 I love to think young eyes, not dimmed b}~ age, 
 tears, or studj', read this paper, and so I tell the 
 old tale of Circe once more. 
 
 She was one of a family of sorcerers, sister of 
 Medea, and she lived in a pleasant island near 
 the floating Isle of ^Eohis, named iEsea, and was 
 wisest of all men and women. Only the superior 
 gods were wiser. The haughtj 7 beauty was the 
 child of the Sun. The brightness of her father's 
 face shone in her hair, her voice was a moving 
 music that charmed the ear and ravished the 
 soul. She held her proud state in a palace built 
 of precious stones and jewels, that sparkled like 
 
About Smyrna. 203 
 
 fire, lighting the hill on which it stood, and show- 
 ing the road up which she enticed man}' lovers. 
 Before the shining gate lay many animals, once 
 wild, now made tame by her art, — wolves gentle 
 as lambs, lions which had forgotten their fierce- 
 ness, and spotted leopards soft and playful as kit- 
 tens. Hard by was a herd of swine in a disgust- 
 ing sty, — grunting, squealing, wallowing brutes, 
 that were once brave, victorious heroes. Vainly 
 did thev entreat her pity ; from that horrid spot, 
 morning and evening, noon and midnight, went 
 up the cry: u O Circe, give back my manhood ! 
 hear, oh, hear my prayer ! " But she was deaf 
 to entreaty. By a crystal window of the palace 
 she sat at her loom, her long hair floating like 
 a golden glory round her, as she spun and wove a 
 web of mingled silver and gold, the colors of the 
 night and day. It was a subtle fabric, finished 
 with a skill which she had gained of the gods, 
 and so glorious mortal eye could scarcely look 
 upon, much less imitate it. When a strong wind 
 would bring to her the words of the prayers of 
 transformed wanderers, a strange light burned in 
 the steadfast eyes of the fair witch maiden, and 
 the magic of her glance was the surer. At times 
 she sung, as she spun, a song of ineffable sweet- 
 ness, such as drew men against their will to her 
 
204 The Storied Sea. 
 
 feet, almost their very souls out of their bodies. 
 When it sounded from the palace window, the 
 clouds stood still in mid blue and listened, the 
 trees bent their high heads and hushed the flutter 
 of their leaves, and all animals held their breath 
 to hear. That was her chosen moment to offer 
 the SmjTna wine to the enraptured worshippers ; 
 and she rejoiced in reducing them to beasts most 
 wretched, because in the metamorphose the} T 
 kept their human hearts unchanged. Happier 
 had the} 7 been doomed to wander, forlorn manes 
 of unburied bodies, by the shores of the forgetful 
 river and the dreaded St}^x, denied by the Fates 
 a rest in the land of Shades, condemned to flit 
 forever along the fields of the dead. 
 
 Circe was a mighty magician ; besides the 
 power which brought the sagest of scholars to 
 knock at her gates, she could move the moon 
 from her sphere, make the sun turn pale, the 
 stars whirl out of their courses, and the rocks 
 and hills to clap their hands. She had delights 
 and recreations "to fetch the day about from 
 sun to sun, and rock the tedious year as in a de- 
 lightful dream." She had sworn by the Styx 
 the dread oath of the gods to bring Ulj'sses into 
 her toils. 
 
 'T is an old tale, and often told, how Ulysses, the 
 
About Smyrna. 205 
 
 waster of cities, learning that his companions 
 had vanished by foul witchcraft, snatched his 
 sword and bow, to rescue his companions from 
 the strong spell of the great enchantress. Guided 
 by the song of matchless charm, like the lyre of 
 Orpheus, he sought alone the shining, lion-guarded 
 gate, where his men la}', grunting swine. They 
 crawled to his feet, incapable of speech, licked 
 his hands, and by hideous noises made him under- 
 stand they recognized their noble leader. How 
 the sorceress failed in her scheme of conquest of 
 the immortal Greek, is it not all written in the 
 books of the Chronicles of heroes? And what 
 are the myths but cloud}' shapes through which 
 the acts, deeds, and thoughts of olden time are 
 floated down to ns in a dim and shadowy light, 
 all loveliness? 
 
 To ears tuned aright the siren with the drink- 
 ing-cup of strong Smyrna wine is singing here 
 yet, and the modest little herb, with the white 
 blossom, called moly, is only the white flower of 
 a spotless life, which none wore of old but the 
 blameless knight Ulysses, — he who never forgot 
 in ten years the cliffs of rocky Ithaca, his first 
 love, fair Penelope- 7 and her child, waiting by 
 the seashore for his return. 
 
 Yet the guide-book tells us Smyrna is dis- 
 figured by fables. 
 
206 The Storied Sea. 
 
 There were settlements on this coast when 
 Rome was merely a group of straw-built huts on 
 the Palatine ; when Samson, blind and fettered, 
 did grind in the prison-house of his enemies ; 
 when our British ancestors were living in caves, 
 eating roots and dressed in shaggy skins of wild 
 animals. There were towns of respectable size 
 near the sea before the first of the Moguls was 
 enthroned at Delhi. Before Alexander wept 
 because there were no more worlds to conquer, 
 here were hills white with temples and palaces 
 fcC ribbed with colonnades " of fairest marble. 
 
 The bustle and activity of this modern Smyrna, 
 a Greek city of 180,000 souls, overpower the 
 gray antiquity of the place, and onh r by far- 
 sighted glances do we penetrate to the beginnings 
 of this least sluggish of all Asiatic towns. The 
 soft Oriental repose of the East is broken at 
 Smyrna by the wily Greeks, who may have for- 
 gotten, though we can never forget, their glorious 
 ancestors. It is one of the seven cities claiming 
 the birth of Homer. A cave was shown where 
 he wrote his verses ; here was ancientl}* his 
 temple, and here he received divine honors and 
 medals were stamped with his name. Let us not 
 be of the number of unbelievers who think his 
 fame was obscured in life. There were hearers 
 
About Smyrna. 207 
 
 then who believed his songs excelled nil that can 
 ever be written. And at the end of the hymn 
 to the Deliafl Apollo, which Thucydides cites as 
 genuine, occurs the following passage : "Farewell, 
 all ye virgins ; and remember me hereafter, when- 
 ever any one of men upon the earth, any hapless 
 stranger, ma} r come hither and inquire of yon, 
 % Who is, in your opinion, the sweetest of the 
 minstrels that dwell here, and with which of them 
 are yon most charmed? ' Then do yon all an- 
 swer, with the utmost cheerfulness, 'A blind man, 
 and he dwells in rocky Chios.' " 
 
 By the way, dear reader, when you visit Rome, 
 fail not to see the old bust of Horner, a grand, 
 majestic head, the sightless balls at rest, in the 
 fixed calm of resignation to the greatest earthly 
 ills. Forget it not, I pray } T ou. Once seen, it 
 will be remembered ever after. 
 
 In this Jewel of the East, named the 4t Crown of 
 Ionia," beautiful sculptured stones are occasion- 
 ally wrought into modern houses ; fragments of 
 temples and ruined fanes of the Byzantine period, 
 hinting of the lovely dead and gone religion which 
 had its devout worshippers when the deathful 
 sirens sang along these shores. Corners of ex- 
 quisite marbles are scattered about the hills, 
 piercing the burnt-out soil, and, could we dig, 
 
208 The Storied Sea, 
 
 doubtless fluted columns and exquisitely carved 
 capitals would be unearthed, bearing great his- 
 tories and teaching deep lessons. If \o\x have a 
 taste for research and love to copy inscriptions, 
 you find something to repay a weary and danger- 
 ous tramp over the volcanic hills. There is much 
 unexplored territory and unnamed " diggings," 
 that would well reward the miner who might be 
 privileged to set up his claim and push his w^ork 
 with diligence and intelligence. 
 
 Stately and solemn cypresses mark the Turkish 
 burial-place on Mount Pagus, and here ruins trace 
 the outlines of fortified cities, populous and strong, 
 which have perished from the face of earth and 
 the memories of men. 
 
 I will not weary my beloved by telling the 
 many vicissitudes through which the Queen of 
 the Levant has passed, — how the Ephesian and 
 iEolian Greeks battled for it ; how it was attacked 
 by Gyges, the king with the ring (which story 
 with difficulty I suppress) ; how she has suffered 
 by fire, earthquake, pestilence, by siege, fam- 
 ine, flood, and plague. It w r as the " pearl of 
 Asia," and passed from hand to hand, the spoil 
 of many victors, long before Columbus sailed 
 over the ocean blue. In the Greek period it 
 was called the "Forest of Philosophers," the 
 
About Smyrna. 209 
 
 " Museum of Ionia," the " Asylum of the Muses 
 and Graces." The battles and sieges of Saracens, 
 Crusaders, Genoese, Turks, battered the old walled 
 city ; and phantom images of vast power may 
 easily be invoked b} T the imaginative traveller. 
 
 The dead of many centuries rise and w r alk 
 abroad at his bidding, sunken ships sail up again, 
 and spectral armies land on the sunny shore. 
 Phoenician adventurers fought here, and many 
 heroes passed this way when the Pillars of Pler- 
 cules bounded the known world. They bore 
 swords that flashed like Excalibur, and suffocated 
 under chain mail and cloth of gold, — conquerors 
 bound for the Holj T Sepulchre, like Macbeth, 
 bloody, bold, and resolute, ready to do or die for 
 the Cross. Among them were princes of high 
 courage and undying devotion to the Crusades ; 
 chivalrous and haughty nobles, whose defiant 
 boast was that, if the sky w r ere to fall, they would 
 uphold it on the points of their lances. Minstrels 
 and troubadours hymned the praises of leaders 
 whose word was victory, whose eye was the bright 
 star of battle and conquest ; and wherever harp 
 was heard and sword worn, the fame of the 
 princes was chanted, with vows to plant the 
 banner of the Christian on the walls of Zion. 
 She who wound garlands for helmets worn in 
 14 
 
210 The Storied Sea. 
 
 such cause was blessed among women ; and at 
 home, in her bower, little could the high-born 
 maiden understand how the iron host, with spears 
 glancing, plumes dancing, standards waving in 
 the pride of unconquered intolerance, might fail 
 to make a speed}' conquest of Palestine. 
 
 The high courage of steel-clothed nobles, rid- 
 ing the heavy steeds of the West, sunk under 
 burning sun and sand against the wiry Asiatic 
 horsemen, all brawn and muscle, mounted on 
 horses called the winged, which eveiy true be- 
 liever knows were a gift of the Prophet himself 
 to the blessed Ali, his kinsman and lieutenant, 
 well called the Lion of God. 
 
 Turn to the historians for records of all the 
 changes which have befallen the finest city of the 
 East after Constantinople. For half a century it 
 was held by the Christian Knights of St. John, of 
 Jerusalem, and in that time twice besieged by 
 Sultans Amurath I. and Bayazeed I., they leading 
 their armies in person. It held out, this glitter- 
 ing prize, against the Ottoman Empire till Timour 
 came, in 1402. He besieged the city, then hand- 
 some, regular, and well built, in fifteen da}'s had 
 a mole thrown across the harbor, which cut off 
 supplies and brought the Mongol troops close to 
 the seaward parts of the place. The land walls 
 
About Smyrna. 211 
 
 were undermined, stupendous works constructed, 
 
 from which the besiegers mounted the battlements, 
 and Smyrna was carried by storm, despite the he- 
 roic defence of Christian knights and citizens of 
 Ephesus, who took to their galleys. This scourge 
 of the earth, who shed more blood and caused 
 more misery than an}' other human being that was 
 ever born upon it, then ordered a general massacre 
 of the inhabitants of the devoted city, and they 
 were slaughtered, without mercy to age or sex. 
 The Tartar hordes from the siege of Sivas (where 
 the conquered Christians had been buried alive, 
 their heads tied down by cords lashed tightly 
 round the neck and under the thighs so as to 
 bring the face between the legs) were ready for 
 more blood. Their insatiate thirst w T as yet un- 
 slaked, and they were let loose on Giaour Smyrna. 
 The records of that butchery are like the frightful 
 remembrance of some ghastly dream. Yet he was 
 only following his customary habit. Timour would 
 slay every male of a tribe, and send its women 
 into such distant captivity that its name would 
 never be heard again by the ears of men. To burn, 
 to overpower, to strike to the dust, sow with salt, 
 annihilate, was the aim of Timour, whose name, 
 meaning "iron," represented in the minds of Ori- 
 entals the resistless force with which he subdued 
 
212 The Storied Sea, 
 
 all things. The pompous titles — Great Wolf, 
 Lord of the Age, Conqueror of the World — were 
 no empt}' vaunt appropriated by the man who, in 
 the thirty-six years of his reign, united in one bar- 
 baric despotism the sovereignties of twenty-seven 
 countries, and who ruled in the place of nine sev- 
 eral dynasties of kings. He countermanded no 
 order once issued, and it was his maxim never to 
 repent and never to regret. He declared that, as 
 there is but one God in heaven, so there ought to 
 be but one lord on earth, and that all the king- 
 doms of the universe were too small for the ambi- 
 tion of one great emperor. His sword is still 
 shown in the Imperial Treasury at Stamboul. 
 
 Let me enrich my page with a few sentences 
 from Creasy's " History of the Ottoman Turks : " 
 "The career of Timour as a conqueror is un- 
 paralleled in history, for neither Cyrus, nor Alex- 
 ander, nor Caesar, nor Attila, nor Jengis Khan, 
 nor Charlemagne, nor Napoleon ever won by the 
 sword so large a portion of the globe, or ruled 
 over so many myriads of his subjugated fellow- 
 creatures. His triumphs were owing not only to 
 personal valor and to high military genius, but to 
 his eminent skill as a politician and ruler. He had 
 such an ascendency over his soldiers that they 
 not only underwent the severest privations and 
 
About Smyrna. 213 
 
 lavished their lives at his bidding, but would, if 
 Timour ordered, abstain from plunder in the hour 
 of victory, and give up the spoils of war without 
 a murmur. He was a generous master ; but his 
 cruelty to those who ventured to resist him sur- 
 passes all the similar horrors with which military 
 history is so rife. Timour evidently employed 
 terror as one of his principal instruments of con- 
 quest, and tli3 punishments which he inflicted on 
 whole populations often show the cold, calculating 
 subtilty of a practised tormentor, rather than the 
 mere savage ferocity of an irritated despot." 
 
 It was the custom of this Tartar chief to build 
 a vast pyramid of human heads when his army 
 revelled after any famous victory and capture. 
 The prisoners slain at Smyrna were not in suf- 
 ficient numbers to furnish material for such a 
 memorial tower on his usual scale of hideous gran- 
 deur. But he would not leave the beautiful bay 
 without the usual fearful monument, and he or- 
 dered the heads to be placed between alternate 
 layers of mud plaster, thus to swell the height. 
 Says a quaint old historian: "The -tower was 
 made after a new order of architecture, composed 
 in part of stone and in part of dead men's skulls, 
 •d in order like inlaid work, sometimes full 
 face and sometimes side wa vs." 
 
i(Hg5E5E5E5H5E5E5E5E5HSE5E5B5g5B5H5E5g5E555g5E5E5E5gsg5E5ESB5H5g5a5a 
 
 XVII. 
 
 ABOUT SMYRNA. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 N the old days, when Smyrna belonged to 
 the Kingdom of the Beautiful Myths, 
 her women were bewitching with graces 
 of person and wily arts inherited from the gods. 
 The modern Smyrniote has a peculiar witchery of 
 her own, which beams from the languid dark eyes, 
 and, in a soft repose of manner, she passes the 
 daughters of men with her fascinations. How 
 idle these women look, sitting in the doors, gazing 
 at the passers-by, with eyes like haunted cham- 
 bers, unsearchable as midnight, glittering as the 
 edge of the sword of the Prophet ! The descrip- 
 tions made of them years ago answer as well for 
 to-day : leaning out of the lattices, thinking upon 
 nothing, idle as painted pictures, which, indeed, 
 some of them are. Unchangeable except in 
 
About Smyrna. 215 
 
 costumes, they have abandoned the flowing dra- 
 peries and veiling scarfs of the Orient for the 
 modern French dress ; except, here and there, 
 one may see in the rich braids of jet black hair a 
 long stiletto hair-pin of ancient work, or on the 
 low smooth forehead a fringe of pendant coins, 
 reminder of Egypt. There is a strong dash of 
 Jewish blood, showing mainly in the high nose ; 
 and the Greek blood, though thinned by an alien 
 strain, beats warm in the people of Asia Minor. 
 ]\or have they forgotten the names of the dead 
 classic times. Aspasia and Sappho make a 
 pretence of embroidery, as they look up and down 
 the street from the projecting balcony. Aglaia 
 and Proserpine yet gather flowers in the beau- 
 tiful, close- walled gardens. 
 
 There is a fountain of pure, sparkling water in 
 the centre of the city, and of this there is an 
 ancient saying : t; Drink once of this water, and, 
 though yon fly to the ends of the earth, yon are 
 sure to drink again." It is not in the fountain 
 alone, grateful and refreshing as it is, that the 
 charm of Smyrna lies. There is wonderful fasci- 
 nation in the variety of color, costume, nationality, 
 which captivates the travellers from the West. 
 Along the broad, well-built quay which extends 
 almost across the entire length of the city, you 
 
216 The Storied Sea. 
 
 catch your first glimpse of a caravan of camels, — 
 a long train, each sixth one led by a donkey. 
 Naturally, the Bible days come into mind. Thus 
 came the Queen of Sheba to Solomon, with a very 
 great train, — with camels that bore spices and very 
 much gold and precious stones. Into this finest 
 port and richest city of the Levant pour treasures 
 from the four quarters of the globe ; but our inter- 
 est is not in the stuffs of France and German}', it 
 lies in the bales from Persia. An old chronicler 
 of the past century says : " From Persia came two 
 thousand bales of silk a year ; medicines, gums, 
 balsams ; all sweet spices, furs, and ever}' sort of 
 carpet ; the jewels that sparkle on the brow of 
 beauty ; the wealth of Ormuz and of Ind ; pearls 
 from warm and distant seas ; " and a vague, in- 
 definite idea of all things rich and rare is hidden 
 in the brown bales on the back of the unwieldy, 
 slow-moving beasts. They come from the track- 
 less desert, from Bagdad and Balsora, and an 
 Arab directs their march ; he is a true believer, 
 and thinks the sword of the Prophet is the key 
 both of heaven and hell ; he prays five times a 
 day, and knows an houri in Paradise is waiting to 
 give him the diamond cup of immortality. When 
 he unloads at the bazaars, you may see carpets of 
 iridescent dyes, soft as finest plush, cloth of gold 
 
About Smyrna. 217 
 
 and silver, scarfs of Mecca (the Holy City of the 
 Prophet), the matchless embroidery Arabesque, 
 shawls of Cashmere and India, and muslins like 
 woven wind ; but the trickeries and imitations of 
 the European are ruining the genuine merchandise 
 of the Orient. Base imitation coin is sent to this 
 market from England ; and little brass Egyptian 
 images are cast in foreign moulds many a hundred 
 miles from the land of the Pharaohs, and offered 
 as antica. German mixtures are taking the 
 place of the rose oil of Damascus, the scent of 
 Paradise, and cheap drugs are offered as balm of 
 Gilead and Sharon. The velvety mohair fabrics 
 are numbered among the lost arts. Beware of 
 the imitations, and hearken not to the voice of 
 the charmer, charming never so wisely, in the 
 bazaars of Smyrna. 
 
 The genuine relics of this city, six times totally 
 destroyed, are the citadel on Mount Pagus, an 
 Acropolis built by Byzantine emperors on the 
 supposed site of a great Cyclopean city, a Gen- 
 oese Tower, and remains of a stronghold which, 
 antiquarians believe, was founded by Alexander. 
 To the Christian (and everything here that is 
 not Mohammedan and Jew is called Christian) 
 Smyrna is most interesting as one of the Seven 
 Churches referred to bv St. John in his vision on 
 
218 The Storied Sea. 
 
 the lonety Isle of Patmos. It is the only one 
 praised except the Church of Philadelphia. Turn 
 to the second chapter of Revelation, and read 
 what the Beloved Disciple wrote to the First 
 Church of Smyrna. The view from the heights 
 back of the city is very beautiful, and the railway 
 to Ephesus reminds us how the West is encroach- 
 ing on the dead stillness of the East. Near the 
 summit of Mount Pagus is the site of the ancient 
 Stadium, — a large amphitheatre, like the one in 
 which Paul fought the beasts at Ephesus. It was 
 in this spot that Polycarp died for the faith, in 
 the year of our Lord 166. 
 
 The day we landed in Smyrna was St. Pol}'- 
 carp's day, and the Bulletin de Smyrne, a news- 
 paper about a foot square, contained the following 
 announcement : — 
 
 " Vendredi prochain, 29 juillet, etant le premier anniver- 
 saire du tremblement de terre dont la ville de Smyrne a 
 garde' un si effroyable souvenir, plusieurs Smyrniotes ont 
 prie les RR. PP. Capucms de vouloir bien organiser une 
 messe (Tactions de graces, en Thonneur du patron de notre 
 ville, St-Polycarpe, dont la puissante protection nous a 
 preserves du terrible fleau qui a e'prouve si cruellement 
 plus tard la ville et les campagnes de Cliio. 
 
 " Les PP. Capucins heureux de pouvoir montrer leur 
 empressement en tout ce qui est de Tavantage spirituel des 
 catholiques de la ville de Smyrne, font savoir que la dite 
 
About Smyrna. 219 
 
 Messe sera celebree solennellement a 8.}, et sera terminee 
 parle chant de niymnc de St-Polycarpe et la benediction 
 do. Ties S. Sacrement. 
 
 " Veuillele bon Dieu exaucer les prieres des Smyrniotes 
 et les notres, et etendre tonjours sa protection sur notre 
 ville, par ['intercession de notre puissant Patron St- 
 Polycarpe. 
 
 "Le Superieur des Capucins." 
 
 Naturally onr thoughts turned to the old story, 
 made familiar in childhood b} T Fox's " Book of 
 Martyrs/' and with deep interest we traced the 
 shape of the ancient theatre where he suffered 
 martyrdom. It is the fashion to sneer at these 
 records and laugh at the noble spirit which 
 taught us how to die grandly, to treat the whole 
 story as a myth or a superstition. It is as well 
 substantiated as that Caesar was assassinated, 
 and to deny it is only to betray ignorance and 
 incredulity. 
 
 In the time of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, 
 when Rome was mistress of the world, Christians 
 were cast to the wild beasts of the arena for the 
 amusement of the populace. Roman literature 
 contains no tragedies, because the ferocious 
 slaughter in public places was bloodier than any 
 imagined possibility in written tragedy. It was 
 no entertainment to read of groans and tortures, 
 when they could be seen and heard throughout 
 
220 The Storied Sea. 
 
 the Eastern world wherever there was a faction 
 to gain or a province to be conciliated. Polycarp 
 was the first Bishop of Smyrna. His Life, by 
 Eusebius, is the pathetic tale of a gentle, devout 
 teacher, a fellow disciple of the beloved one who 
 leaned on the Master's breast at the Supper. 
 
 Warned by those who endured persecution, at 
 the entreat} 7 of his flock he was persuaded to 
 retire to a place of safety, and not needlessl} T 
 expose himself to danger. Search was made for 
 him, and his hiding-place was betrayed by a child, 
 who was tortured till the innocent little fellow 
 told the secret. Polycarp still had time to 
 escape ; but the single-hearted man remained, 
 saying, " The will of God be done." While he 
 was being led out from the cave, he melted, for a 
 moment, the hearts of his captors by his prayers 
 for them. The^y did not hesitate long, and he was 
 dragged to the crowded amphitheatre, when the 
 games were almost ended. On his entr}-, a loud 
 voice, which the old man accepted as a voice 
 from Heaven, shouted in cheering tone, " Be 
 strong, O Polycarp, and quit you like a man ! " 
 
 The haughty proconsul was moved by the au- 
 gust presence and venerable appearance of the 
 prisoner, and the appeal of a wrinkled, time-worn 
 face, shaded by the shadow of death. 
 
About Smyrna. 221 
 
 It ma}' be he was stirred to admiration b} T the 
 bold, unquenchable spirit, and he urged him, 
 again and again, to recant, obey the imperial 
 edict, and swear by the fortunes of Caesar. The 
 aged saint looked up to heaven, and said, "Away 
 with the godless." Once more the proconsul 
 urged: "Swear by* Caesar, and I will release 
 thee. Revile Christ." Calmly the captive replied : 
 fci Eighty and six years have I served him, and 
 he never did me a wrong. How, then, can I 
 revile my King and 1113' Saviour?" 
 
 Vainly was he threatened with being thrown 
 to the lions or being burnt to death. To every 
 threat, in defiance of every menace, he quietly 
 answered, " I am a Christian." 
 
 The old chronicler says that the}' who looked 
 steadfastly on him saw his face as it had been the 
 face of an angel. A strange light glowed in it, 
 and his body was like that of the Shining Ones, 
 as he stood friendless, in lonely majesty, in the 
 arena. No soft, fair hand in the balcony to fling 
 a rose at his feet, as love's last token ; not one 
 of his faithful followers to stand by him. The 
 sustaining Presence was unseen, and it could not 
 fail, like the help of man. That serene, unfalter- 
 ing courage was from the heaven toward which 
 he lifted his eager and straining gaze. Eyes 
 
222 The Storied Sea. 
 
 dimmed with years could yet see in prophetic vis- 
 ion the heavens opened, and the saints, in bright 
 array, waiting with the crown and the palm for 
 those who come up out of great tribulation. 
 
 On the glittering page of Gibbon the reader 
 may find descriptions of the Stadium, and the 
 strifes of the parties, the betting, the breathless 
 interest, beyond the mere passing show exhibited 
 to the spectators. What the spectacle was in 
 Rome it was in less splendor wherever her stan- 
 dards flaunted their purple and gold, and the 
 gilded globes blazed in the sunlight. The shape 
 of the amphitheatre of Asia Minor was a horse- 
 shoe, the stone benches rising in tiers, like ours 
 in the opera house. It was open to the sun, 
 which here shines with marvellous strength and 
 splendor, except where a vast awning, striped in 
 bars of crimson and white, shaded the seats of 
 the privileged class. The exhibition was free 
 to all, and the student of history knows what a 
 power it was in the empire to secure popularity. 
 The choicest of the gladiators never left the 
 Imperial City ; but in such a place as Sm}Tna 
 there were always combatants of high prowess 
 and world-wide renown. 
 
 The stone benches were solid masonry, as 
 though made by the old Cyclopean giants, who 
 
About Smyrna. 223 
 
 used to haunt this spot. Capable of seating 
 many thousands, now all torn away and used for 
 modern buildings, except the vomitorla, where 
 wild beasts were kept for the games. 
 
 On the day whereof I write, a mighty and piti- 
 less multitude was gathered. The seats appor- 
 tioned to the vulgar were crowded early ; on the 
 reserved seats nearest the oval arena sat the 
 titled and high-born visitors ; on the upper tier 
 were the women, jewelled and radiant in costly 
 raiment, and the rich, bright color which belongs 
 to the Orient. Luxurious cushions relieved the 
 long-sitting, and refreshing drinks and perfumes 
 gratified the beauties, who idly fanned and chat- 
 ted, and debated the relative merits of rival gladi- 
 ators. There was music, too, the rousing appeal 
 of trumpets, as the combatants swept slowly 
 round the vast level space, in order to allow 
 every eye to scan their brawny limbs and mark 
 their steady nerve. And the interest of the 
 bloody drama was to rise, as the games went on, 
 till the last act and scene were the crowning, ex- 
 ultant life or the mangled death of those who 
 entered the lists. It was an awful and imposing 
 struggle of men, evenly matched, clad in complete 
 1. and bearing ponderous bucklers and pointed 
 swords. 
 
224 The Storied Sea. 
 
 From the records, it appears that this da}', the 
 28th of Jul}', 166, there had been some sort of 
 failure in the day's sport, and the time was spent 
 without the ghastly complement of the number 
 usually slain. The day was declining. The popu- 
 lace was unwearied ; roused by the brutish sports, 
 but not sated, though the sand of the arena was 
 spotted with crimson, the life-blood of professional 
 gladiators or it may be of hapless prisoners. Over 
 the merciless crowd was heard a clamor, a roar like 
 the rushing of man}' waters, the wild outcry for the 
 life of one helpless old man, to finish the day's 
 enjoyment. " Away with him, the father of the 
 Christians, the subverter of our gods, who teaches 
 many not to worship nor adore them ! " They 
 shouted for a lion to be let loose against Poly carp. 
 Philip of Tralles, the presiding asiarch, refused to 
 do this, on the ground that the entertainment was 
 ended. Stern officer as he was, he was touched by 
 the exalted heroism of the passive prisoner. In the 
 moment of deathlike silence which brooded over 
 the Stadium, there was not a hand, not even a 
 mother's hand, held out for the signal of mercy 
 and life. Probably there were those present who 
 had heard the fathers tell of the wondrous Man 
 of Nazareth, who taught in anguish and in glory 
 that his kingdom was not of this world, and who 
 
About Smyrna. 225 
 
 was crucified on Calvary. They knew, to advo- 
 cate the cause was mere]}' to take place by the 
 side of Poly carp, so they held their peace. The 
 people were warmed into blood, and nothing but 
 the death agony could satisfy their lust. 
 
 Around the horseshoe curve, swarming with 
 human heads, echoed the cry: u Let him be 
 burnt alive." While the object of this concen- 
 tred hate stood, Christ-like, calmly pra}ing, 
 they rapidly gathered fuel from the baths and 
 workshops near, the Jews being most active in 
 the work. It was a sublime tragedy. A majestic 
 peace was in the martyr's mien, and it was plain 
 he held all about him cheap as the dust upon his 
 sandals. Possibly he thought some special mir- 
 acle would interpose, as did the thirty thousand 
 Christians who once fled to St. Sophia and waited 
 b} T the altar ; but I do not believe it. Silently he 
 ungirded himself, and took his appointed place 
 among the fagots. When they were about to 
 nail him to the stake, he said, with the pathos of 
 one resigned to death, " Let me remain as I am ; 
 for He who giveth me strength to sustain the fire 
 will enable me also, without your fastening me 
 with nails, to endure its fierceness. ,, Putting his 
 hands behind him, he suffered himself to be 
 bound, and uttered a touching prayer, thanking 
 
 15 
 
226 27te Storied Sea. 
 
 God, who had counted him worthy the honor of 
 martyrdom for the resurrection of eternal life of 
 soul and body in Christ, and ascribing glory to 
 the blessed Trinity. The fire was kindled ; but 
 a strong wind blew the flames to one side, so he 
 was roasted, rather than burned. Upon which 
 the executioner was ordered to despatch him 
 with his sword. When it was plunged into the 
 poor, tortured body, the blood flowed so fast as 
 to quench the flames, which were rekindled ; for 
 the Jews were anxious to have it consumed, 
 " lest," said they, " these people should leave the 
 worship of the Crucified One for this man Poly- 
 carp." So into the immortal rest he entered. 
 The play was played out. In the ferocious as- 
 sembly, a mixed multitude, there was a monstrous 
 sense of satisfaction. The desire of sacrifice 
 was satiated, the thirst for slaughter was slaked. 
 The soft Asian twilight shone on a little heap of 
 ashes, holy dust, that was gathered up by a sor- 
 rowing band of his faithful followers, and buried 
 in a spot of which the tradition has been kept un- 
 broken from that claj x . We know we are on the 
 place of the martyrdom, and close to his tomb, 
 which is almost at the entrance of the Stadium. It 
 is still visited with devotion by Greeks of Smyrna. 
 The hillside where that precious dust was laid 
 
About Smyrna, 227 
 
 rises to the southeast of the city, and a sentinel 
 cypress-tree, straight, tall, and unbending, guards 
 the sacred shrine. So let it rest till the angels of 
 the Resurrection shall gather from the four winds 
 of heaven the holy dead who have died for the 
 Lord. 
 
 That life did not pass like the shadow of a 
 cloud, the dream of a sleeper. The light kin- 
 dled in the arena has never been extinguished in 
 Giaour Smyrna, and it never can be, for the Truth 
 itself has said, " Heaven and earth shall pass 
 away, but my word shall never pass." 
 
 We are Hearing the great city of the Crescent 
 and the Star. The reader who has so kindly 
 journeyed with me thus far will admit I have re- 
 frained from the cheap pedantry of guide-book 
 wisdom, and from loading down with useful in- 
 formation, — temptations which easily beset the 
 traveller. Gracious presences have hovered about 
 me on the wa} T , as in the grand pictures cherubs 
 circle the Madonnas with wings invisible. 
 
 I have tried to be agreeable ; only this. If 
 a dark day lias been brightened, a dull hour 
 cheered, a tired mother beguiled of her cares in 
 homes my feet may never enter, tell me, O be- 
 loved, for 'tis to you I have written these mes- 
 9. Good-night. 
 
XVIII. 
 
 POSTSCEIPT. 
 
 HEN we had been about six months in 
 Constantinople, one day we four were 
 straying through St. Sophia's. It has not 
 the charm of St. Peter's or of Westminster Abbey, 
 but there is a ponderous weight of history on the 
 gloomy old mosque, enough to make it a favorite 
 haunt for Antiquary, and after a few hours of 
 sight-seeing we usually drop in there an hour or 
 so. The small boy who picks out bits of stone 
 and glass from mosaics on the walls had met us 
 and made us his own, and we carried hanclfuls of 
 souvenirs for far-off friends to hang with other 
 endearing t young charms on slight chains. 
 
 Said Antiquary, didactically, as we paused 
 under one of the great cherubim in the angles of 
 the arcades : " This mighty fabric, so shaken yet 
 so enduring, seems to me the best type of the 
 
Postscript. 229 
 
 kingdom of Mohammed.. Made of elegant mate- 
 rial and of tremendous extent, capable of holding 
 twenty-five thousand persons, the collected rob- 
 beries and spoils from Troy, monuments from the 
 Greek Isles, from Athens, from the Temple of 
 the Sun at Baalbek, and heathen shrines where 
 ' the gorgeous East with richest hand showers o'er 
 her kings barbaric pearl and gold' — " 
 
 •• And what a bother to try and remember 
 which is which ! " broke in Thalia. 
 
 4 'To some persons," retorted the historian, 
 with a satiric bow. "I was about to say," he 
 continued stubbornly and oratorically, "with all 
 its strength unsightly without, in its clumsy props 
 against earthquake and time, — crutches for the 
 decrepitude of age. The interior, of rarest work- 
 manship, in dimness and dirt, a squalid magnifi- 
 cence ; the costly marbles of the floor overlaid 
 with filthy matting and carpets. Look at the 
 colossal columns from Heliopolis, out of line, 
 banded with brass and tilting uneasih', suggesting 
 the tottering sick man, tenacious of life, who is 
 not going to die suddenly, as the Russian Emperor 
 once fondly hoped, and so settle the long unsettled 
 ern Question. Then this wonderful, this 
 matchless dome," he pursued, warming with his 
 subject, — " its arch airy, graceful, as the blue arch 
 
230 The Storied Sea. 
 
 above it, — builders sa}- it may fall any moment 
 and crush the faithful at prayer below. Well 
 are they named the faithful, intent on their wor- 
 ship, not noticing us any more than if we were 
 so man} r ants. And to think this very hour all 
 may go to pieces, like the so-called crumbling 
 Ottoman Empire, which has* a powerful adhesive 
 quality of its own, and lasts, though swept by tem- 
 pests of armies, fenced by sleepless foes without, 
 betrayed by traitors within, — lasts in spite of 
 empty treasury and bankrupt credit, cheerless, 
 despairing, but not quite exhausted." 
 
 ' ' Precisely ; and having held together at this 
 pitch through centuries, the tough old concern 
 may hang on many generations to come. They 
 have the same saying of St. Sophia that they had 
 in Rome of the Coliseum, ' AYhile stands the Col- 
 iseum' — you know the rest." 
 
 "Yes," answered Thalia, smiling brightly; 
 " it "s one of the few pieces of guide-book wisdom I 
 do know. The placid Turk serenely waits for the 
 decree written in the fatal Book of Destiny, and 
 is happy so long as he has a sunbeam to prop 
 his roof. — But who are these ? " she suddenly 
 exclaimed, interrupting herself. 
 
 " You have the youngest eyes. Tell us." 
 
 Across the immense space, in shadowy per- 
 
Postscript. 231 
 
 sportive, we saw a gentleman and lady walking so 
 very slowl} T we said at once, "Lovers, whoever 
 they be." 
 
 When they reached the dingy corner under 
 the women's gallery, where the six green jasper 
 pillars from the Temple of Diana at Ephesus are 
 pointed out to every tourist, we marked the fig- 
 ure of a little lady who in the obscurity and dis- 
 tance showed hardly the proportions of a child. 
 Suddenly she reached up on tiptoe, and gave her 
 companion a swift light tap on the cheek with her 
 finger tips. The movement said, plainly as wdiis- 
 per in your ear, "My lingers kiss you." 
 
 "There is but one girl in the w T orld," said 
 Thalia, " who would dare make such a gay gesture 
 in this sepulchral spot ; my mosaics against that 
 Egyptian Scarabaeus you are so proud of, that 
 is Begina Atwood and the twenty-fourth Senior. 
 As I live," she continued, in delight flushing ros} T 
 red. "there's Uncle again, tagging along with 
 hat glued to his head as usual, and carrying the 
 same ridiculous handbag." 
 
 ; ' You notice he follows a good way off, so as 
 not to be de trap, the third person not wanted. I 
 always told you Uncle had fine instincts." 
 
 " How glad I am to see her again, and to 
 know she is reallv married ! " 
 
232 The Storied Sea. 
 
 " How you do jump at conclusions, my 
 Thalia ! " 
 
 " And how I do hit them ! " she ran on posi- 
 tively. u Look there! now the careful Uncle is 
 wrapping the striped scarf round her throat, as 
 well he may in this damp cavernous hole, knot- 
 ting it in a big lump at the back of her neck, just 
 like a man. Now she pulls it round under her 
 chin. I can't see her dimples, but I know they are 
 chasing each other over the sweet child's face as 
 she laughs at his awkwardness. That change in 
 her face always reminded me of a flower bursting 
 into bloom. Bless her heart!" 
 
 u Amen," said we, fervently. 
 
 Thalia waved her handkerchief in high excite- 
 ment, to the horror of the guard who gravely 
 watches the strangers ; but she could not make 
 them see, they were too absorbed, and came forward 
 at a lover's pace, with eyes for each other only. 
 
 It was indeed our steamer friend, leaning on 
 the arm of a young man with fresh, eager, hand- 
 some face upturned to the ceiling. Through the 
 mystical changing lights of St. Sophia, she looked 
 evanescent and ideal, as though one of the pictured 
 angels, hidden under the whitewash of Mohammed 
 the Conqueror, had floated down to rest her folded 
 wings awhile. 
 
Postscript, 233 
 
 It was the twenty-fourth Senior, and they were 
 married. The Paradise of Love about them, 
 radiant with the bloom and glow of youth, the 
 beautiful pair shone in that dreary waste fit rep- 
 resentatives of the bright New World which is 
 Hope's own. 
 
 University Press: John Wilson & Son, Cambridge. 
 
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