THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID A SUMMERS CRUISE IN THE WATERS OF GREECE, TURKEY, AND RUSSIA BY ALFRED COLBECK T. FISHER UNWIN 26 PATERNOSTER SQUARE MDCCCLXXXVII /^il DF 125 PREFACE. More than thirty years ago, Mr. Curzon, upon the publi- cation of his most entertaining book on " The Monasteries of the Levant," said, " The public is already overwhelmed with little volumes about palm trees and camels, and re- flections on the pyramids." Since that overwhelmed period, volumes of a similar kind have continued to pour forth from the press, and what condition the public is now in it would be rather difficult for me to say. I would not add to the discomfort of the reading world by increasing the deluge even to the extent of a single drop. Certainly my book is about the East, but not about palm trees, camels, and pyramids. My wanderings led me away from these, on a line not usually taken by travellers, and I hope, therefore, that those who look into my treasury will find things new as well as old. In dealing with Constantinople, I have thought well to sketch the rise and spread of Islam, and to describe its ecclesiastical constitution and the phases of its religious life, in order that the character and policy of the Ottoman people might be more clearly understood; and for the same reason with regard to the people of Russia, I have added a chapter on the Russo-Greek Church, and another on that scourge of the Russian national life Nihilism. To all readers interested in Biblical incident the chapter illus- i* nonnc^ Vk VI PREFACE. trative of the movements of the Apostle Paul will be welcome. My excuse for an account of Gibraltar must be the importance of the fortress. It was the most attractive feature in the scenery on the way home. My thanks are due to those authors whose works have largely assisted my observations, and increased the pleasure of my voyage ; and I would also most gratefully acknow- ledge the kindness of Mr. Edward Hain, senr., of St. Ives, Cornwall, and Mr. Richard Hain, of Cardiff, master mariners, and all other friends who contributed to make the voyage, not only possible, but enjoyable. A. C. Oct. ist, 1887. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. OUTWARD BOUND. I'AGE Newport Fog in the Channel Bay of Biscay Whales Spanish fishermen Cape Finisterre Corunna, and Sir John Moore The minor incidents of war Service off Vigo Battle of Vigo Bay Portuguese trade winds Sea-sickness and imaginative sounds Rock of Lisbon Harbours of refuge Flag signalling Cape St. Vincent Sagras Point Cuttle-fish Petrels Nelson and Trafalgar Miscarriage of the Smyrna fleet Mountains of Southern Spain Roman Catholic ecclesiasticism Blue waters North Africa Cape Bon Earthquakes Bed of the Mediterranean Pantellaria Sicily Phospho- rescent waters Greece I CHAPTER II. THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. Navarino Cape Matapan Gulf of Laconia Homer Lycurgus and his laws Sparta Cape Malea, or St. Angelo The ere- mite Eastern Church Beaticus Cerigo The JEgean Sea Cliffs Islands Milo Serpho and Siphanto The Cyclades Deli Its origin Its oracle Confederacy of Delos Religious festivities Palm tree Asylum Earthquake Paros Dis- grace of Miltiades Naxia My cone Tenos Image of the Virgin Superstition Andria Gyrae Audacious impiety Zea and Thermia Simonides Byron's Haidee View from Syra Marathon Patmos and St. John Samos and Poly- crates Pythagoras Scio Sharks Sunset Lesbos The Vlll CONTENTS. PAGE Northern JEgean The plains of Troy Tenedos Lemnos Imbros Thassos Samothracia Its grandeur Worship of the Cabiri Deluge Scenery Mount Athos and its monas- teries 3 CHAPTER III. SYRA. The town Its appearance Harbour Public square The people Costumes Cafes Wineshops Market Trades Speech English in Syra Italian man-of-war Visit to country gar- den Beautiful evening Singing on the forecastle Church of the Resurrection Church of St. Nicholas Woman and child Older churches Sacred pictures Infirmary St. Bar- tholomew's Hospital Funeral The observance of Sunday St. John's Eve : its bonfires, and their origin Pherecydes The story of Eumseus . 86- CHAPTER IV. THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. The two waterways Railway system Isolation of Constantinople Scenery of the Dardanelles Sea-fowl Chanak Sestos and Abydos Leander Byron The army of Xerxes, and its pas- sage across the Hellespont Alexander Julius Caesar The Turkish invasion Bride of Abydos Fortifications Damage to an English fleet Turkish boatmen CEgospotami The River Granicus Gallipoli Origin of the Janizaries Boulair Sea of Marmora : its shores and islands Scenery of the Bosphorus The Symplegades The Giant's grave The Genoese castles Therapia Deep waters The castles of Asia and Europe Cemeteries Suburbs of Constantinople . . 117 CHAPTER V. THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. Moonlight view Suggestions Morning Origin Situation General description Population Old seraglio Armoury and Museum St. Sophia ; its construction Byzantine model CONTENTS. IX PAGE Ecclesiastical furniture and service Mosque The bloody hand External appearance The Achmedie The Suliemanie The Pigeon mosque Mosque of Ortakeui Palace of Dolma Bagtche The Sultan's life Church of the Fountain Pera Galata Hamals Old round tower Genoese Fires Atmei- dan : its obelisk Meta Twisted serpents The Nika sedition Triumph of Belisarius Revolutions, and destruction of the Janizaries Burnt column Galata bridge Mosque of the Sultana Valide Women Dogs Beggars Bazaars Walls Latin siege Arab sieges Turkish designs Bajazet and Tamerlane Turkish siege Golden Horn Caiques Story of an English seaman Leander's tower Scutari Selimie bar- racks and English cemetery ....... 144 CHAPTER VI. ISLAM. Origin Knowledge of Islam important Condition of the Christian Church Condition of Arabia Birth of Mohammed Personal appearance and character Hanyfism Mecca and Medina Rapid spread of Islam under the perfect Caliphate A localized religion National embodiments Claim of the Sultan to the Caliphate, and to the title of Imaum-ul-Islam Its influence upon the foreign and domestic policy of the Sublime Porte The Mahdi God The Koran Prayer Almsgiving Fast of Ramadan Pilgrimage to Mecca Disallowance of gambling, usury, and the use of wine War Slavery Woman The royal Seraglio Paradise iJlema Imaums Preaching Muezzins Mysticism Dancing dervishes Howling der- vishes Influence of Islam on Turkish life and character . 192 CHAPTER VII. THE BLACK SEA AND THE SEA OF AZOV. The Black Sea Name Sunset The hoopoe Eastern legend Acalephaa Porpoises Rapidity of motion Crimea St. Vla- dimir His baptism Massacre of the Tartars British bravery Fortifications Russian officials Kertch Green Waters Straits of Yenikale Sea of Azov Sturgeon Smaller fish Pelican Mosquitoes Robins Russian fowls Dragon-fly Locusts Lightning Mirage 221 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. TOWN AND COUNTRY SCENES IN SOUTH RUSSIA. PAGE The great plain Flat land around the Sea of Azov Taganrog Shallow water An ice accident Streets and buildings- Public gardens The Czar's palace Death of Alexander Visit to the palace Journey to Rostoff Tumuli Grain tract Sunflowers Hamlets Kingfishers The delta of the Don- Horses The city of Azov Tamerlane Turks and Russians Peter the Great Rostoff Circus Wool-washing Central Asian route Selim's attempt to open it Napoleon and Paul House of Romanoff 248 CHAPTER IX. THE RUSSIAN PEOPLES. Different races Muscovy and the Muscovites House of Rurik Cossacks and Tartars Cossack troops Music No middle class Artificial government The tchin Its effect Personal appearance of the State officials Lower orders Contrast be- tween the Russians and the Greeks Dress Dhrosky drivers Recreation Tea-drinking Vatke Domestic life Mar- riage customs Woman Women's rights Education of women Development of trade Jews and Greeks Russian labourers Development of particular industries Cotton Woollen, silk, iron, oil, &c. Repressive power of the Govern- ment Domestic policy Foreign aggression . . . .276 CHAPTER X. NIHILISM. Peculiar to Russia Origin of the name Misleading term Its creed : religious and social Raskolniks and Jews Political creed Moderate and advanced sections Organization Sub- terranean press Conversations Official converts Weapons Adherents Students Women Disaffected aristocracy Mercantile classes Peasantry Veneration for the Czar CONTENTS. XI PAGE Cossacks Causes Characteristics of the Russian peoples Liberties of Novgorod Rural Communism Invasion of Tar- tars, and rise of absolutism Introduction of the tchin Politi- cal agitation in the early part of the nineteenth century Peasant revolts Government interference The Nihilistic struggle The Czar The people The future of Russia . . 303 CHAPTER XI. THE RUSSO-GREEK CHURCH. Introduction of Christianity The two legends Olga and Vladimir Influence upon the nation, and alliance with the Czars Independence Michael and Philaret Splendour of the patri- archate Nicon Peter the Great Suppression of the patri- archate Synod Reforms National Church Architecture Cathedral at Taganrog Clergy Monks and monasteries Hermits Doctrines Liturgy Veneration for pictures Bap- tism Confirmation Chrism : its preparation Visitation of the sick Marriage service Bells Choirs Description of a service Noisy Sabbath Saints : catacombs at Kief Martyrs The persecution of the Uniates Raskolniks Starovers Safeguards against dissent Constantinople .... 326 CHAPTER XII. ON THE TRACK OF ST. PAUL. Sacred associations Apostolic authority of St. Paul His character Value of geographical observations in confirming the truth- fulness of Scriptural incident Conybeare and Howson's "St. Paul" Voyage from Malta to Sicily Castor and Pollux The Euroclydon in Adria Drifting of the vessel St. Paul's beha- viour during the storm Ship's course from Corinth to Ephesus Ayasaluk Syra Priscilla and Aquila The shorn head Troubles in the Corinthian Church Alexandria Troas The journey thither Voyage to Philippi Scenery Sunrise St. Luke Second visit to Troas Third visit to Troas Affection for the Philippians Preaching at Troas, and accident to Euty- chus Walk to Assos, and voyage down the coast Fourth visit to Troas Arrest and martyrdom ...... 355 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIII. THE SENTINEL OF THE MEDITERRANEAN. PAGE Eastern side of the Rock in the early morning Western side Clear waters of the bay Surroundings Town Moors Castle Name Capture by the British in 1704 Siege of 1705 1727 1779 to 1783 Natural strength Strategical position Caverns "Munitions of rocks" Climate Inhabitants Smuggling A soldier's conversion Drive to Europa Point Stranded steamer Fauna View from the summit Current through the Straits Beyond the "gates." . . , .385 CHAPTER XIV. OLD ENGLAND. Fire on the Spanish land Sagras Point and Cape St. Vincent Sea-fowl Land seen through the haze Healthy breeze Bay of Biscay Old England The Lizard Lights Coast of Corn- wall Falmouth Harbour Home ...... 407 A SUMMER'S CRUISE, CHAPTER I. OUTWARD BOUND. Newport Fog in the Channel Bay of Biscay Whales Spanish fishermen Cape Finisterre Corunna, and Sir John Moore The minor incidents of war Service oft" Vigo Battle of Vigo Bay Por- tuguese trade winds Sea-sickness and imaginative sounds Rock of Lisbon Harbours of refuge Flag signalling Cape St. Vincent Sagras Point Cuttle-fish Petrels Nelson and Trafalgar Mis- carriage of the Smyrna fleet Mountains of Southern Spain Roman Catholic ecclesiasticism Blue waters North Africa Cape Bon Earthquakes Bed of the Mediterranean Pantellaria Sicily Phosphorescent waters Greece. Newport, in South Wales, is not the most picturesque town in Great Britain, and any one embarking there on a voyage to the Mediterranean would do his utmost to hasten the departure. The higher part of the town is the pleasanter part, and, when you get high enough to look inland, an interesting view of wooded hills and valleys stretches tempt- ingly before you. But the desire to ramble is checked when the fact forces itself upon you that the steamer is in the dock, expecting every tide to drop down the river into the channel and bear you away to new and lovelier scenes. The nearer you get to the docks, the more uninviting 2 OUTWARD BOUND. Newport becomes. The streets are dustier ; traffic increases; dirty men and women, and dirtier children, linger about the shops, and on the doorsteps, and near the public-houses ; the rattle of coal waggons is more distinct as they are run to the dock side, lifted by powerful hydraulic machines thirty feet above the vessel, their contents tipped into the hold, and then, empty and rattling still more, run down the incline, while the fine particles of coal blow about in clouds, and settle thickly upon the decks of the vessel, and the wharves, and the offices, and the workmen, and the water. It was flood-tide at midnight. The docks were silent. The coal dust had all settled. The Treloske lay under the electric light, which, from the lantern of the lighthouse, quivered and streamed into the night, burying in denser darkness everything outside its radius, and weirdly illumina- ting everything within. There was the hurry of departure ; men's voices giving and receiving orders, and saying " Good- bye ! " amid the noise of ropes and chains, and the hiss of steam; and, when stretched in the berth and weariedly closing the eyes, these mingled sounds formed themselves into an unusual lullaby. The morning broke through mists, and right ahead, as if it too were awaking from a sound sleep, and pushing aside its wrappings, was Lundy Island. The dark brown hills rose above a cloud of white vapour that rested upon and mingled with the grey sea. It appeared as much an island in the air as in the water, and seemed every moment inclined to wrap itself in its mists again and go to sleep, which it finally did, so far as our observation went ; and so did the hills of North Devon. They had been cautiously peering through the mists, withdrawing here and disclosing there, alternately hiding and revealing their loveliness like some beauteous moving form in gossamer, until at last the mists closed in, and rolled over the grey waters and about the ship ; and, at half speed, blowing the fog signal, a dismal operation, we passed along the Cornish coast, vainly hoping OUTWARD BOUND. 3 that the fog would lift sufficiently to permit a run into St. Ives Bay. Friends there knew we were passing down the coast, and we wished to give them a parting whistle. But no ! thicker and thicker grew the fog ; the soundings showed twenty-seven fathoms, with a bottom of shells and pebbles, and we judged ourselves off St. Ives Head ; later on we had thirty-five fathoms, and toward midnight we heard the warning fog-horn of the Sevenstones lightship off the Land's End, and spake with a Newlyn fishing boat, by which we sent our last message home. In the morning we were entering the Bay of Biscay. The sky was clear; the sea was calm; the long dark blue billows of the Atlantic were so subdued as to make scarcely any perceptible difference to the motion of the vessel." A large sailing ship, the Winnifred, with sails all set, was gently rising and falling with the swell of the sea. Several passengers, among whom were women and children, were moving about the deck* some of them perhaps impatiently, for she made little, if any, progress, and we steamed past, and speedily lost her as she dipped below the receding horizon. The Bay of Biscay was on its very best behaviour. The boundless expanse of azure overhead appeared to deny the possibility of roaring thunders and sweeping rains ; but, in the long majestic swell of the indigo deep beneath, sub- dued as it was, there was the suggestion of magnificent and irresistible billows before which the boldest mariner might quake, and in the midst of which no ship could live. What' tales of terror ; what exhibitions of fortitude and bravery ; what loving attempts to rescue friends from peril, and to rescue " nearer and dearer " ones still, attempts no less loving because wearied and vain ; what strange and varied secrets of human life and destiny lie hidden beneath the troubled surface of those dark blue waters, hidden deep enough never to be disturbed by the fiercest storm that blows, and never to be known till the sea shall give up its dead ! 4 OUTWARD BOUND. Sunday morning brought a fresh wind, with short, white- capped waves, and haze in the distance. Half a mile off the starboard bow whales were spouting, the columns of water rising thirty feet, and falling in fountain-like spray, while the troubled sea in their track brought to mind the description of Job's leviathan, " He maketh a path to shine after him j one would think the deep to be hoary." And yet the whale, notwithstanding his bulk, is not half so terrible as Job's leviathan, but a timid and inoffensive animal, contented with his food of living jellies, and quite peaceable if only let alone. Spanish fishermen were out, looking very cold clad in shiny oilskins in the grey morning, their anchored boats tumbling uneasily upon the tide, but quite alive to business, Sunday as it was, and indicating in various ways their desire to barter fish for any other com- modity we might have on board suitable to their needs or fancy. Among the rest we refused the tempting offer of a large live flat fish, held aloft at arm's length, and wriggling to and fro ; and passed on to view Cape Finisterre looming through the haze and growing more distinct with every turn of the propeller. To the north-east of Cape Finisterre the land runs out to the picturesque and memorable town of Corunna, the scene of a gallant struggle during the Peninsular War, and where, " Like a warrior, taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him," lie the remains of Sir John Moore. The retreat of his small army closely pressed day by day by an overwhelming host under the personal command of Napoleon ; the unsel- fish sacrifice of treasure (^"25,000 having to be thrown over a precipice, and left behind as a worthless impediment on the weary march) j the cold, and hunger, and death ; the harassing charges of the French cavalry among the frost- bitten stragglers, who fell trodden beneath the horses' hoofs, OUTWARD BOUND. 5 -or sabred, or were made prisoners ; and, withal, the orderly movement, the patient endurance, the calm fortitude of the men, inspired by the example of their general, won the warm commendation of Napoleon and Soult, and led Napoleon to exclaim not having yet proved the genius of Wellington that Moore was the only general living worthy to contend with him. And when, at last, 20,000 veterans of the French army reached Corunna at the same time as the English fleet appeared in the offing, the 14,000 English remaining after that devastating march faced about, and bought a dear victory by the death of their commander ; for while the French were falling back everywhere before the impetuous fighting of desperate men, Sir John Moore was dashed from his horse by a cannon-shot, and carried away with broken ribs and flesh torn and mangled to die in a foreign land. " Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone, And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him ; But little he'll reck if they let him sleep on In the grave where a Briton has laid him." Who shall chronicle the minor incidents of war? We remember the great men, and the broad outlines of every important struggle ; but the private has a personal history. The woman and child, who once followed the camp because the husband and father was in the ranks, felt the keenness of the struggle ; and the woman and child, who now wait, expectantly fearful and trembling, at home, also feel the keenness of the struggle. The misery of war is not confined to the march, and the camp, and the battle-field. It extends far beyond. The nobility of its personal incidents is not always recorded in the fleeting records of our newspapers, in the permanent pages of our literature, in the imperishable marbles of our national mausoleums. Many noble incidents remain unknown. During that fearful retreat through the snow in the north-western portion of the Spanish peninsula, 6 OUTWARD BOUND. an officer, overcome with fatigue, perishing for lack of food,, persuaded that his end was come, turned aside into a wood to die unseen, and there, laid upon the ground, nearly dead, was a soldier's wife, protecting as best she could her little babe, and, with a last effort, she besought him to take the babe and save its life. Her appeal was like the infusion of new strength. He took the infant and rejoined his com- rades, and, sustained by the trust of the dying woman, continued the march, carrying the infant upon his back, and never forsaking it until he had safely seen it in tender hands on board a transport in Vigo Bay. Surely this is not a solitary instance ! Our records of human life would be very much richer if incidents such as these the minor incidents of war were gathered together ; and beneath the terrible aspect of war, an aspect which all its pretended glory can- not soften and commend to right thinking men, we should see that chivalry exists that often they who have little to do with its wickedness, and much to do with its hardship and agony, are men of noble spirit, generous sympathy, and loving hearts. Cape Finisterre, the European Land's End, and, before the days of Columbus, thought to be the western extremity of the earth, is not a picturesque promontory. Its rounded hill and detached rocks, cold and sombre in the morning light, the rising sun shining behind them and throwing them in the shade, were passed quickly ; and we steamed along beneath a beautiful sky, and through the dark blue waters, until the late afternoon brought us off Vigo. There, under an awning aft, we held a service, joining in the praise of Him whose the sea is, and who made it ; and meditating upon the charity which springs from Him, wide, and free, and all-encompassing as the sea, and which, embodied in human life, as the mainspring and chief glory of human character, never faileth. Other than songs of praise have been heard in these waters. Other than feelings of heaven-born charity have OUTWARD BOUND. 7 animated men's hearts. Songs of warlike triumph have rung from lips blackened with powder, or reddened beyond their wonted redness with warm, fresh blood. Feelings of slaughter have burned in the bosoms of English and Dutch, anxious to crash in through the formidable boom protecting the French navy and Spanish merchantmen in Vigo Bay. It was years ago, in the early days of Queen Anne, when Louis XIV. claimed the Spanish crown for his grandson, and thereby reopened a struggle with England and Holland, whose combined arms, under the indomitable Prince of Orange, he had learned both to respect and dread ; and the English and Dutch, then the bravest sailors afloat, fearing no foe, and shrinking from no danger on that element which had become their second home, made straight for Vigo, where lay the wealthy Spanish galleons under the convoy of the French men-of-war. The. first vessel to strike the boom, which was nearly 500 yards long, and moored at each end to heavy ships, was the Torbay, and through the rending timbers she went, only to find herself between two vessels who swept her right and left with their thundering cannon, and speedily set all her rigging aflame. But on came the rest, the Dutch admiral alone, however, entering the breach with his vessel. The others, the wind having died away, had to lower their boats, and send their men eagerly clam- bering to the fray over the shattered boom. The Dutch admiral rendered timely aid, and the Torbay was saved, not so much by him as by one of those freaks of war that some- times happen j for the vessel she was engaged with had been a merchantman, and so hastily fitted up for warfare that her cargo had never been removed ; and her cargo consisted of snuff, which, when the vessel blew up, extinguished the fire. The flames were literally snuffed out, and the gallant Torbay saved. The fight was fierce and terrible. No less than eight vessels were burned, and four were sunk \ and much treasure in silver coin and plate, and costly merchandise, enriched the combined victorious fleets. S OUTWARD BOUND. The seas roar, and the floods clap their hands ; but there is One who " stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people." To-day the seas were calm ; no trace of conflict lingered on the deep ; all thought of conflict was hushed by our sweet evening hymn; the sun was sinking in the western ocean, wrapped in soft and many-coloured clouds, which, reflected in the ocean, transformed it into a pavement of sapphire suffused and chastened with amber, and emerald, and amethyst a quietude of splendour, the counterpart of that to be pro- duced by God's all-obliterating, all-conquering, never-failing charity, when it shall cover the earth with heaven's eternal peace. By the next day we were fairly within the compass of the Portuguese trade winds. These winds are very helpful to sailing vessels proceeding south, and as great a hindrance to those going north. The current sets southwards too, and merges itself in that current which incessantly flows through the Straits of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean. Sea-sickness, of a very slight nature, had already disturbed me, and was here renewed ; and it appeared as if the inability to poise the body, and walk steadily along the ship's deck, were not only an aggravation, but a partial cause, of the sick- ness. The loss of the body's equilibrium seems to have some direct relation with the stomach's distress ; qualms of sickness pass over one when the foot strikes the deck sooner or later than the mind reckons upon ; and, certainly, sick- ness is almost, if not altogether, overcome by the acquire- ment of what are popularly known as " sea-legs." When a man gets his sea-legs on he may defy sickness. But when, under stress of weather, old Neptune robs him again of his sea-legs, sickness once more creeps over him, and he longs for terra firma* When suffering from sickness, a peculiar phenomenon of the imagination several times presented itself, for which I could not account on the grounds of association, or in any OUTWARD BOUND. 9 other way. One day I heard the sounds of horses' hoofs and the interminable rattle of traffic in busy streets ; another day I heard birds singing, and could distinguish from among the rest the notes of the thrush and the cuckoo. Both these imaginative phenomena I became conscious of in the Bay of Biscay. Again, off the African coast, in the neighbour- hood of Algiers, while seated reading on the forecastle, I heard the sound as of a brass band playing in the far dis- tance ; and next day, near Cape Bon, as I lay in my berth, the ringing of church bells, subdued by distance, fell pleasantly upon my ears. The sounds were present with me, in the imagination, before I became fully conscious of them, and upon becoming fully conscious, and in the effort to dis- tinctly realize them, they faded away. They belonged to a half dreamy mental attitude induced by the slight sickness, and were never present except at such times. There was nothing in the ship, or on the sea, or about the appearance of the African land to suggest these sounds by way of associa- tion ; and, if the current of my mind happened to be in the direction of busy streets or bird-haunted woodlands, martial music or calls to prayer, and my imagination was quickened thereby to apprehend these sounds, I was not at the time aware of it, nor can I recall it now. The Berlings, a group of dangerous rocks, or small islands, off the coast of Portugal, came within view. About their bases the blue sea was breaking into white rolling surge, and from the largest rock, a white lighthouse, like a calm and lonely sentinel, overlooked the snowy tide. This rock is fortified, and used by the Portuguese Govern- ment as a State prison. The coast of Portugal here runs in a south-westerly direction towards the towering Rock of Lisbon. This mountainous promontory, the seaward ter- mination of the Serra de Estrella, forms the most westerly point of the European continent. The scenery in the neighbourhood of the Rock of Lisbon, is charming. The interest grows as you approach the rock. Village succeeds IO OUTWARD BOUND. village, half hidden in vines j a large monastery crowns the fertile slope, and, through its hundred windows, looks over the white villages to the distant purple sea \ the vivid green of the vineyards becomes more and more largely interspersed with greens of darker shades, and groves grow into woods, and woods into forests clambering up the steep sides of the promontory ; here and there are chasms, where the shadows gather deep and thick, and the water leaps, in a thousand cascades, to the roaring torrent below, while over the chasms, on either side, rise the straight pines; and these same pines, overtopping the other trees, still clamber upwards to where the face of the hill is broken by the bare rocky precipice, and stay not there, but, above the precipice, planting their feet on its verge, still clamber upwards, attempting, and yet vainly attempting, to reach the summit ; for the stately hill lifts its brown head far above the pines, and woos the clouds, floating in from the Atlantic, to stoop and kiss it, and linger about it, and bathe it in their virgin dews, before proceeding on their mission of mercy to remote and less favoured lands. As we left the Rock of Lisbon, and came within sight of the broad estuary of the Tagus, we descried, almost in a straight line, and moving westward, seven French ironclads. The efficiency of the French navy is said to be rapidly increasing, and certainly these very fine vessels were a proof of it. Nevertheless, her naval forces are much inferior to those of England, and reasonably so, because England's need of naval forces is much greater than the need of France. In another and more peaceable form of marine equipment, where still the greater need is that of England, France has shown herself the wiser nation by providing all along her coast harbours of refuge for the safety of her seamen, while yet the coast of England, notwithstanding every winter's tale of peril and death, remains in great part unprotected by such harbours. Are not the lives of our mercantile marine, our coasting sailors, our hardy fishermen, worth the careful OUTWARD BOUND. II consideration of the Government? And would not the erection of a few harbours of refuge along our eastern and western coasts, two or three of which would cost no more than one first-rate ironclad, be money wisely spent, even if we had to do with an ironclad the less? Succeeding governments may leave these harbours of refuge to private enterprise, but, in the meanwhile, thousands of valuable lives are being lost, hundreds of homes are made desolate ; and private enterprise only tardily moves, when it moves at all, in a scheme which is really national, and the successful develop- ment of which is not for any merely private, but for the national, good. France is wiser than England. She has seen her need, and tried to meet it. The need of England cries out loudly every winter with the despairing voices of drowning men, with the tender and pleading voices of bereaved women and children, and England is almost deaf to the cries. Her charitable people furnish lifeboats for the noble work of rescue, but her Government stirs not to make this noble work of rescue, noble, because always so perilous, and frequently so disastrous as to demand severe self-sacri- fice, unnecessary, by providing harbours into which her vessels might run and be safe. There is a signal station at Cape Espichel, and another at Cape Carveoiro. We reported ourselves at the former place by means of the universal signal code. This is a simple and ingeniously designed method by which any vessel may communicate with any other vessel upon the high seas, that is, if they possess the signals, and most vessels do, the code having been adopted by nearly all the maritime nations of the world ; or, by which any vessel may communicate with any signal station ashore. If the vessels are of different nationalities, if the signal station is in Portugal, or Denmark, or the Cape of Good Hope, the meaning of the communica- tion is not in the least affected. In every language the signals mean exactly the same. So that at sea a Dutchman may talk with an Italian, and a Norwegian with a Spaniard, 12 OUTWARD BOUND. although ashore they would not be able to understand each other at all. Ashore they would be at sea, and they would be more at home at sea than ashore. This universal code of signals, which is based upon a code previously used by the British navy, consists of eighteen flags, representing the consonants there are no vowel flags and the pennant expressing the desire to communi- cate, or the fact that the communication has been under- stood. The code is divided into four parts, namely, Brief signals, Vocabulary signals, Distant and Boat signals, and the signal indicating the name, port, and owner of the vessel to which such signal has been attached. Where quick dis- patch and immediate attention are necessary, as in cases of leakage, or mutiny, or drowning, only two flags are used ; where inquiries are made and answered concerning time or geographical position, three flags are used ; and four, where the communications are less important, or more involved, and requiring longer search in the vocabulary for each separate word. The flags are of different shapes and colours, and capable of multitudinous combinations in- deed, astounding as it may seem, the combinations possible are no less than seventy-eight thousand, six hundred and forty- two. Of course, the primary object in the adaptation of this code is to meet purely nautical wants ; but so efficient is it, that with a little patience general communications may be made, and even conversation indulged in. A word somewhat similar, or analogous, in meaning to the correct one, has sometimes to be substituted for the correct one, not unfrequently with a rather laughable result, as in the case of a vessel in the Mediterranean some years ago, which, wishing to convey to the British fleet the intelligence that there was a majority for the Government in favour of the disestablishment of the Irish Church, signalled this : Irish Church dislocated, her Majesty's Government surplus. Mistakes are made through careless- ness in signalling, and unfamiliarity with the code, but the OUTWARD BOUND. 1 5 mistakes are not many, and will naturally become less. The Board of Trade requires every candidate for an officer's certificate to pass an examination in code signalling, and, if other national authorities insist upon the same, the code will not only come into more general use, but will be more efficiently worked. The assistance which one vessel may render to another, assistance peculiarly valuable at sea, will thereby be largely increased, and the perils of the sea diminished in proportion; while this international inter- course must tend to bring the world nearer together, because it cannot but assert the brotherhood of the race. In common dangers we feel our unity, and the unity must be all the more deeply felt when, in one series of dangers, we can employ a common language. The universal code of signals can only be used in the daytime. t No method of communication during the night has yet been devised so simple and efficient as to meet with, or even hope for, universal adoption. The perils of the sea are doubly increased by the darkness, and he who could invent a code of night-signals, easy and rapid to work, either by flashing lamps or otherwise, would be a real bene- factor of the race. Cape St. Vincent stood out clear and sharp in the grey morning. On the high, perpendicular cliffs, a man's figure, like an active black shadow, was moving hither and thither, apparently endeavouring, by the aid of a rope, to capture something half-way down the cliffs, or to lift something from the shore. Where the cliffs meet to form the Cape, a large convent stands, its walls running up from the very edge of the cliffs themselves a square-towered, small-windowed, storm-beaten, time-worn old place, perched in picturesque solitude above the billows, and looking directly out upon them. Very few places are so situated as to have the sea for an organ, and the winds for a choir ; very few worshippers hear the music of the mass intermingled with the music of the tides, and sing their vesper hymns to the accompani- 14 OUTWARD BOUND. ment of ocean zephyrs whistling round the gables and about the lofty towers ; but how terrible must the music be sometimes! When the grand organ is on, the thundering tones of the ocean breaking over the rocky keyboard ; when all the stops are out, the mighty winds roaring from the depths of the sky, human voices must be overawed, and worship sink into silent reverence and adoration of the Almighty Power. Who can listen unmoved to the music of God's majesty ? For it is not only the tumultuous noise that impresses, but the truth that is underneath : " Thy way is in the sea, and Thy path in the great waters, and Thy footsteps are not known." To the south-east of Cape St. Vincent the cliffs are lower and broken, running round in a semicircle to Sagras Point. The semicircle is fringed with spray, for here the waters rush over sunken reefs, and awaken the echoes in the many caverns into which the cliffs are broken j while innumerable sea-birds find these broken cliffs and caverns a secure haunt, and this semicircular bay an almost un- disturbed fishing ground. Sagras Point, even more than Cape St. Vincent, is a dangerous headland, and many ships have gone to grief in the attempt to round these two promontories, and pursue their way northward. Three weeks after we passed, a singular catastrophe occurred here. An English steamer, in the night, went straight upon Sagras Point, but managed, by a sudden reversal of the engines, to back off into deep water. She was so seriously damaged, however, that her oaptain and crew, fearing she would immediately sink, trans- ferred themselves to another steamer which happened to be then passing. In the commotion and hurry no one thought of the engines and helm. The helm was hard down, the engines were working, and as soon as they were aboard the other steamer, she disappeared in the darkness. They never thought to see her again. They fully expected that in a very few minutes she would be at the bottom of the OUTWARD BOUND. I 5 sea. But she floated, and her engines continued to work, and she answered her helm by describing a circle, and, to the consternation of those who had just left her, she came crashing with her bows right amidships the vessel on which they then were, and made such a serious breach in her that they had to take to the boats to save their lives. Both steamers were lost, and some went ^down with them, but the majority saved themselves by the boats, and were picked up and conveyed to Gibraltar. When Sagras Point had been rounded, and we were steaming towards Trafalgar, I began to perceive the differ- ence in the shortness of the evenings. The twilight was brief, and darkness rushed on quickly after the setting sun. The waters, too, had another hue. The indigo had van- ished and a lighter blue had taken its place, not the lovely ultramarine of the Mediterranean, but a blue between that and indigo. The waters were smooth as oil ; not a ripple was on them ; and near the ship they had the appearance of blue ink. Moving away from the ship's track, by the aid of its long arms, and peculiar propelling apparatus an appa- ratus by which it can draw the water into a bag, and then by contraction of the bag, and forcible ejection of the water, push itself along was a sandy-coloured cuttle-fish, an interesting object enough when surveyed from a ship's deck, but a dread enemy when within reach of its horrible suckers and insatiable maw. To have a cuttle-fish fastened about one, and feel the intolerable stinging and the irresis- tible drawing of its formidable arms, is, according to the testimony of the few who have passed through it, and been rescued from it, the most terribly sickening sensation imaginable j and the sudden death by the shark's jaw must be much preferable to the slow agony inflicted by this monster of the deep. When in the Bay of Biscay, a flock of petrels, generally known as " Mother Carey's chickens," had gathered in the wake of the ship, and followed us every day since, and 1 6 OUTWARD BOUND. continued to follow us along the Mediterranean until we approached the shores of Greece. There they left us, and there they joined us again on our return, and continued in our wake until we sighted the shores of England. When the darkness fell they were following, when the morning broke they were following, always on the wing, always darting hither and thither across the waters troubled by the propeller, a flight like that of swallows when hunting for food, and never resting for a single moment, except when the steward threw some greasy liquid into the sea, which they would flutter over, and hastily dip up, and continue their flight again. Their sustaining power in flight must be extraordinary. These must have slept on the wing, if they slept at all, for certainly they never rested on the sea, and they never rested on any part of the vessel. They are small birds, dark feathered, and wkh white-tipped wings ; and when snared,, as they may be by simply allowing a few long threads to hang from the stern of the vessel, among which, in their flight backwards and forwards, they become entangled, they are found to be almost bare of flesh, mere feathers and bones, and nearly as light as the air itself. Within their stomachs an oily secretion is found, to increase which, perhaps, they follow the vessels and feed upon the grease thrown over- board, as well as upon the small molluscs, and other. tiny sea creatures, their proper food, turned up by the propeller. They never fly far on either side of the troubled waters, but keep constantly crossing the turmoil, and watching it with eager eyes. The name petrel is a diminutive of Peter, and may have been given them in honour of the fisherman apostle and patron saint of all " who do business on great waters." Petrels are regarded as friendly to sailors, and their presence is taken as one sign of a prosperous voyage. They have been called, and with more appropriateness, sea- runners, because of their quickness and precision upon the wing, skimming the surface of the tumbling waters, sweep- ing in and out of the hollows of the tide, never failing to OUTWARD BOUND. I 7 accommodate themselves to every motion, as if the sea had given them birth, tossed them like animated spray from its bosom, that it might play with them as a mother with the children in her lap. With the light of Cape Trafalgar on the port bow, growing more distinct as the darkness deepened, we moved on through the waters where occurred the memorable naval fight of Trafalgar. The very name Trafalgar, to an Englishman, means duty, and the name is never uttered in English ears without calling up visions of the gallant Nelson. The fame of the one-eyed, one-armed hero is as fresh to-day as when he fearlessly engaged the French and Spanish fleets in Trafalgar's Bay. " For those bright laurels will not fade with years, Whose leaves are watered by a nation's tears. " A more inspiriting signal to true-hearted, patriotic men was never given than Nelson's signal* " England expects every man to do his duty ; " and a more decisive naval victory than Trafalgar was never won. And it must ever be a deep satisfaction to Englishmen to know that the signal came from the commander's heart. Previous to the engagement, and during the engagement, Nelson was impressed with two thoughts Duty and Death. He felt that he must render to his country his utmost service, and he felt that in the rendering of the service he would die. An old friend of his, Captain Hallowell, had presented him with a coffin, which was deposited in an upholsterer's place in London j and, upon receiving his orders from the Government, he called to say that the coffin might be wanted upon his return. While the English fleet was bearing down upon the enemy, he was in his cabin penning the document in which he committed himself and his cause to the care of God, and his daughter and relatives to the generosity of the nation. When he left the cabin for the deck he scrupulously dressed 3 1 8 OUTWARD BOUND. himself in his full uniform, and wore upon his breast his numerous decorations. He was advised to put them off, that he might thereby not become conspicuous, and endanger him- self unnecessarily by attracting and directing the enemy's fire. " But," said he, " in honour I gained them, and in honour I will die with them." When Captain Blackwood left him, with the expressed hope that a speedy return would find him possessed of many of the enemy's vessels, he replied, " God bless you, Blackwood ! I shall never see you again." He had a strong presentiment that - he would die. And yet interwoven with this presentiment was the feeling of duty. When the ball struck him he said to his friend Hardy, " They have done for me at last." " I hope not," said Hardy. " Yes ! " he replied, " my backbone is shot through." And so it proved. And yet the feeling of duty did not forsake him. He lingered in the midshipmen's, berth, constantly asking for the results of the battle, brightening as the crew overhead rung out cheer after cheer when they beheld now one and now another vessel strike her colours, until he became too feeble to ask further questions or even to smile, and then, with a dying effort, he said, " I have done my duty praise God ! " and quietly passed away. He was made of stern stuff thus to face what he felt certain would be death, and face it with such a steady and unflinching courage ; but mingled with his stern- ness, as we often find in men like him, was much tenderness of heart, much sympathy with the suffering of others. When shot his thoughts were of his men, not of himself, and lest they should be grief-stricken and dismayed by his appear- ance, he drew his handkerchief over his face and decorated breast, that he might pass along the decks, and through the cockpit, unrecognized. Well might the sailors who lowered him into the vault in St. Paul's Cathedral, inspired by one common wish, simultaneously rend into fragments the flag, his own victorious flag, that covered his coffin; for each one was anxious to possess some appropriate and precious OUTWARD BOUND. 1 9 memento of him whom they revered as a hero, and loved as a friend, and whose face they should see no more. That reach of sea stretching from Cape St. Vincent to the Rock of Gibraltar has been the scene of many naval exploits. Two or three sea-fights have occurred off Cape St. Vincent itself, and the Rock of Gibraltar has been taken and re-taken again and again. The sea that lies between like the Netherlands in the history of European armies occupies a prominent position in the history of European navies, and may almost be considered the naval battle ground of modern Europe. More important engagements have occurred here, but, save Trafalgar, no engagement ever produced a deeper impression upon England than that known as the miscarriage of the Smyrna fleet. The English and Dutch merchantmen had been gathering for months in the Thames and the Texel, afraid to move out without a con- voy, fearing that the French fleets in Brest and Toulon would intercept and rob them of their precious cargoes ; and when the cries of the merchants, who were losing money every week by the delay, became loud and imperative, and their ships had increased to nearly four hundred, the English Government and the States General provided together a convoy of one hundred armed vessels to see them safely beyond the reach of the French fleets. But the English and Dutch commanders had no information concerning the movements of the French fleets. They thought them safely in Brest and Toulon, and never imagined that they had effected a junction, and were waiting for their prize near the Straits of Gibraltar. Therefore, after seeing the merchant- men beyond Ushant, the convoy, notwithstanding the strong opposition and remonstrances of Rooke, left him, with only twenty vessels, to see them into the Mediterranean. Rooke went forward, innocent of the peril awaiting him. A swift cruiser was despatched, if possible to come up with him, and warn him (for news of the movements of the French fleets had by this time reached England) ; but he was far 20 OUTWARD BOUND. away beyond the hope of warning, and discovered, too late, when rounding Cape St. Vincent, the trap into which he had been drawn. What could he do, with twenty ships, against the entire, magnificent naval forces of the French Empire? He had simply to abandon the merchantmen, and run for Madeira. Only sixty of the immense wealthy fleet reached that place with him. Some escaped to Spanish ports, some found their way to Ireland, some were scuttled in the Bay of Gibraltar. The rest were taken, or sunk, or wrecked. The news of the disaster filled England and Holland with consternation. Strong men were broken beneath the blow. It was the sharp and sudden blow of financial ruin for many of them, and the ruin was aggravated by the news of the battle of Landen that followed in a few days. The fortunes of England and Europe were at a low ebb. French domination appeared likely to become supreme. And if the throne of England had not been filled by a wise and mighty prince a prince whose statesmanship held together the coalition of European forces, and whose generalship, like that of most truly great men, enabled him to transform defeats into victories Louis XIV. might then have turned the whole course of European history, deferred the progress of liberal ideas, and crippled the influence of the Protestant religion for many, many years. William III., the Prince of Orange, was never more formidable than in the hour of defeat. His defeats made him a great man, and won for him lasting honour and gratitude. We passed through the Straits of Gibraltar in the night, and in the morning found ourselves steaming along the southern coast of Spain, with Malaga in the receding distance. There is no finer, more beautiful, or more im- posing coast in Europe than the southern coast of Spain, provided you keep at sufficient distance to take in the splendid range of the Sierra Nevada in the background. The Sierra Nevada, as their name implies, are snow moun- tains, and their highest peak, Mulhaceri, is the loftiest land OUTWARD BOUND. 21 in the Spanish peninsula. You may have the range in full view, and yet not miss the towns of Agra and Almeria at their base. Their grey roofs and towers may be seen peeping above the blue waters. Behind the hills rise, and higher hills behind them, lifting themselves above the sea- ward plain and the landward valleys amid a vast garden of fruitful luxuriance, and clad with verdure to their summits ; and still behind, browner and barer the higher they go, are towering mountains, throwing their shadows athwart each other, revealing their impassable chasms and frowning precipices, standing like a band of giants to guard the land beyond ; and yet they themselves are flanked and dwarfed by higher mountains still, mountains that run up into the pure sky, and expose their eternal snows to the sun- light, impressively "calm, silently majestic, appearing so near heaven as to be invested with heaven's peace. But they are never twice alike. In returning, as we steamed round the low-lying land that forms the plain of Almeria, and came within full view of the mountains, they were under a cloudless sky ; all their outlines were softened in a warm haze of blues and purples, and the snow was glittering on their summits a beautiful sight, but not so beautiful as that morning on the way out, when the mists were rolling about them, and gradually vanishing beneath the warmer rays of the sun. There was no haze. The outlines of the mountains stood out in all their rugged grandeur, except here and there where the outlines above were cut off from those below by white, swathing mists that rolled uneasily up and down, and became thinner and thinner as they were slowly drawn away into the deep valleys. The snow did not glitter. It was like a spotless mantle thrown over the top of the mountains. The whole scene was lovely. But it was that kind of loveliness which might be appropriately called intense. With the bluest of blue seas in the foreground, sufficiently broken in its surface to give it pleasing variable motion ; with well-defined grey 2 2 OUTWARD BOUND. roofs and towers beyond, to supply the human element, to take away from the solitude of the scene ; with the greens and browns of gardens and pasture lands behind, sweeping up into the darker browns of the rising hills ; with moving mists, soft and white, enveloping the peaks, wreathing them- selves round rocky projections, drawing themselves out into long thin bands across the faces of the cliffs, and vanishing in the valleys ; with the towering heights, and all their cracks and chasms, save where the moving mists were spread, clear and distinct as if they were only a mile away ; with the lofty ridge above all, snow-clad, a spotless, un- wrinkled garment with fringes where the snow had drifted and filled up the fissures below the ridge itself ; all this, in the pure morning light, ere yet the heavens were too bright, and the rosy blushes of the dawn had quite departed, made up a scene of surpassing beauty not easily forgotten, and full of inspiration to the mind and heart. Almeria, the conspicuous, as the Moorish name means, was, under the Moorish domination, a town of great importance, vying in population and influence with Granada itself; but since the swarthy conquerors were themselves conquered, and driven over the flood to the African shores, it has steadily sunk into its present humble position. And yet now, with quite an insignificant trade in fruits and wine, and with a population not much more than one-tenth of the population of its palmiest days, it is considered sufficiently important to give its name to a province, and to take its place as a leading provincial town. But Spain, the entire country, is only a shadow of what she once was ; the mere ghost of a power; a spirit dumb amid the councils of Europe, where, three centuries ago, her voice was heard above all others. And what is the cause of her decline ? With an extensive sea-board well adapted for eastern and western commerce; with healthy table-lands and fertile valleys; with mountains richer in minerals than any in Europe; with a law-abiding, industrious, cheerful-hearted OUTWARD BOUND. 23 people, and a people not only patriotic but successful in colonization, what is the cause of her decline? The answer is an involved one. Many causes enter into the grand cause. But the clue to the grand cause is supplied by the action of Spain in the Reformation and post- Reformation period, when the adamantine fetters of the Roman Catholic ecclesiasticism were more securely fastened upon and over her national life ; and all the more securely, as it would seem, in proportion to, and because of the strength with which other nations had burst those fetters, and entered upon the larger and freer life, lest this favoured priestly place, this happy hunting-ground of the inquisition, and the confessor, and the miracle worker, and the seller of indulgences should also burst them, and become larger and freer too. The Roman Catholic ecclesiasticism for it is well to distinguish between that and the religion of the Roman Catholic peoples has a firmer hold upon the national life of Spain than upon the national life of any other country in Europe ; and in that, more than in any- thing else, although in something else are to be found minor causes, may be found the major cause of the retarded pro- gress, inactivity, and almost stupor with which Spain has been long afflicted. But Spain will wake up by and by. The movements preparatory to returning consciousness are visible, and when she is sufficiently roused to throw off the incubus of this oppressive ecclesiasticism, she will once more take her place, not the chief place, but an honourable place, and a place to which her people, her history, her geographical position entitle her, among her sister com- munities in Europe. These thoughts occupied my mind as Almeria, the con- spicuous, hid its dimitiished head beneath the plain. We lost sight of it, and rounded the low-lying seaward termina- tion of the plain, and approached Cape de Gata in the late afternoon. This is the rocky south-eastern promontory of the Spanish peninsula. It faded from our view as we 24 OUTWARD BOUND. plunged forward into the twilight, and next day we were in the middle of the western basin of the Mediterranean, " An empty space above, a floating field around." The sky was cloudless. The sea was ruffled beneath a gentle north-eastern breeze. Both sky and sea were blue, the sky lighter in tint than the sea, and the sea of that wonderfully deep, rich ultramarine peculiar only to the Mediterranean. There are no waters in the wide world that will compare in colour with these waters. They are like animated sapphire. The whole ocean is a glowing, moving gem of liquid blue, except where the ship breaks it, and then it is broken into leaping, flashing diamonds. A variety of causes combine to produce this beautiful colour. The clear atmosphere, " the ambient air," has some- thing to do with it j and the specific gravity of the waters something more. For the specific gravity of the waters of the Mediterranean is greater than that of the waters of the Atlantic. The bed of the inland sea, too, may have some- thing to do with its lovely hue, although not much, because its bed is variable, rock and sand and coral prevailing in different parts ; and the sea is generally so deep that its bed must be largely hidden in impenetrable darkness. We were then sailing over 10,000 feet of water, and to the east of Malta the Mediterranean reaches a depth of 15,00a feet. In winter its waters are sometimes lashed into tremendous fury, especially across the mouth of the Adriatic; but its billows are shorter than the billows of the Atlantic. There is not the same mighty mass of moving water; and storms are not frequent. Then the Mediterranean is practically a tideless sea. Nowhere does it ebb and flow more than three feet, and there is no perceptible tide movement along most of its winding shores. And this comparative stillness, this undisturbed surface of the water, may add its little to the causes combining to OUTWARD BOUND. 25 produce that deep, rich colour which is its greatest charm. There is nothing very attractive about the North African coast. A succession of low barren hills, with white drifted sands reaching almost to their summits, and crowned with long coarse grass these were almost everything visible. We had occasional visitors from the shore in the shape of gorgeous butterflies, and one or two small birds ; and the ocean was represented by a large yellow turtle swimming ungainly out of the ship's track toward the coast. But for hundreds of miles the same monotonous reach of sand-hills stretched away, until near Cape Bon the outline became bold and broken, with high detached rocks and a really fine pro- montory. This headland was once the lordly sentinel of Carthage, long the chief maritime power of the Mediter- ranean, and the haughty rival of Rome. Now Carthage is only a name. Its glory is sunk beneath the blue waters upon which its armaments proudly rode. But Carthage will never be forgotten. If only by that inimitable fourth book of Virgil's " iEneis " Carthage will never be forgotten. But her history is too closely interwoven with the history of Imperial Rome, and too well was the wish and prophecy fulfilled which Virgil put into the lips of dying Dido, to be forgotten : " These are my prayers, and this my dying will ; And you, my Tyrians, every curse fulfil : Perpetual hate and mortal wars proclaim Against the prince, the people, and the name. These grateful offerings on my grave bestow ; Nor league, nor love, the hostile nations know ! Now, and from hence in every future age, When rage excites your arms, and strength supplies the rage, Rise some avenger of our Libyan blood ; With fire and sword pursue the perjured brood : Our arms, our seas, our shores opposed to theirs ; And the same hate descend on all our heirs ! " From Cape Bon to the coast of Sicily is the ridge of 26 OUTWARD BOUND. coral that divides the eastern from the western basin of the Mediterranean. Here the sea is only 200 feet deep, and in one place only 40 feet, dipping suddenly on both sides of the ridge to a depth of 5,000 feet. There is no doubt that here, as well as at the Straits of Gibraltar, the continents of Europe and Africa were connected, and at one time the Mediterranean must have been two large inland seas. Whether the change has been effected gradually by the slow, ceaseless action of the water, and the building up of the rocks, and the shifting of the shores through innumerable ages, or suddenly by some great volcanic upheaval and shattering, we cannot with certainty know. This is an old volcanic region. And the seismic forces are by no means spent. From the sea-board of the Levant, across the ^Egean, through the Balkan peninsula, across the Adriatic, in Italy and Sicily and the South of Spain, and even to the Atlantic sea-board so far north as the Rock of Lisbon, the whole region is volcanic, and never safe from seismic disturbances ; while some of the most appalling catastrophes that have ever afflicted mankind have occurred along this line. Lisbon has had one terrible visitation. Herculaneum and Pompeii were directly in this volcanic course. Smyrna, at its eastern extremity, has been shaken to ruins several times. Chios, the neighbouring island, has suffered greatly within the memory of living men. The entire Grecian Archipelago appears as if some mighty volcanic force had shattered another Levant and let in the seas, and left its mountain-tops a group of beautiful islands. It was the opinion of the ancients that Sicily was once joined to the mainland. " The Italian shore And fair Sicilia's coast were one, before An earthquake caused the flaw : the roaring tides The passage broke, that land from land divides ; And where the lands retired, the rushing ocean rides." And perhaps the Mediterranean itself, as we now know it, OUTWARD BOUND. 27 with its two basins, its Atlantic outlet, and its opening into the Black Sea, is the result of some sudden volcanic change so vast as to sink into insignificance all the changes ot historic times. If the Mediterranean were dried up, and we could look along its bed, it would appear like two enormously deep valleys, divided by the ridge running between Cape Bon and Sicily, valleys as deep as from the summit of Mont Blanc to the Lake of Geneva, broken here and there by rugged peaks, and studded with mountains higher than any in Europe ; the eastern valley connected by a long narrow gorge with another valley, almost as large and deep as itself, and quite as large and deep as its western neighbour. These three valleys are filled with water, and we call them the Mediterranean and Black Seas, and together they form one of the most wonderful sheets of water in the world wonderful in its vast area, enclosed as it is by three conti- nents; wonderful in its historical memories, for on its shores civilization was cradled and nursed to strength and beauty ; wonderful in its influence upon human life, for its mid-land situation has marked it out for many centuries as the chosen highway of commerce, and the medium of international relations; wonderful in its beneficent effects, for also to its mid-land situation is largely owing the salu- brious climate and abundant fertility of Central and Southern Europe. The island of Pantellaria is a lofty, conspicuous, barren rock off Cape Bon. It may be seen at great distances. The sight of Pantellaria to vessels proceeding westwards is the welcome sign of approach to the African land. . The sight is not only assisted, but sometimes deceived, by mirage, a not unfrequent phenomenon in the Eastern Mediterranean. Pantellaria may be seen fifty miles away without mirage, but with the assistance of mirage it may be seen at double the distance. It has been seen, and the distance verified by the sextant, 102 miles away. 28 OUTWARD BOUND. Very soon after passing Pantellaria, the large, beautiful, fertile island of Sicily comes within view. But we saw it not. " For gloomy night descended on the main, Nor glimmer 'd Phoebe in the ethereal plain : But all unseen the clouded island lay, And all unseen the surge and rolling sea." As we returned, however, we came within full sight of Cape Passaro, and passed along the southern coast of Sicily. A long gentle slope ascends, covered with vegetation, corn- fields and vineyards with villages interspersed, and flanked by wooded uplands. These uplands are not thickly wooded, like forests, but open, like a far-stretching and continuous park, with large white houses here and there looking through glades, and down sweeping avenues, toward the distant sea. Like an immense peaceful garden Sicily appears from the sea, at least on its southern side, and when Etna shrouds his head in clouds, one would hardly think that this goodly land is the seat of a thundering volcano, and that its smiling surface is rocked by hidden fires. A dangerous land, though pleasant, is Sicily, and ancient tradition teaches the same, for not only " There, sacred to the radiant god of day, Graze the fair herds, the flocks promiscuous stray," but also there, in dens, dwelt the monstrous one-eyed anthropophagi. A fair face the island wears, but destruction lurks within its bosom nevertheless. Re-crossing the mouth of the Adriatic at eventide the waters broke from the vessel in phosphorescent gleams. The appearance was exactly like that of tiny, sparkling insects playing along the vessel's .side, and among the ripples, and upon the breaking waves. This is not usually seen in the Mediterranean. Phosphorescent fish and insects are not near so numerous in the Mediterranean as in some other OUTWARD BOUND. 29 seas. In the Irish Channel I have seen the waves breaking from the plunging boat like waves of fire. In the South Pacific, and in Mexican waters, during stormy weather, the yard-arms of vessels sometimes appear to be hung with white, gleaming balls. But these in the Mediterranean were only sparkles, little fiery gleams shot off from the vessel, whirling in the eddies, and dying rapidly away. This phosphorescent life is extremely interesting to the naturalist, and will well repay investigation. We sighted the high lands of Greece, the lofty ridges of Mount Taygetus, bathed in the soft rosy splendours of the western sun ; and we traced them stretching away southward toward Cape Matapan. They were a welcome sight, not only because of their peculiar beauty and historical associa- tions, but also because they brought us within measurable distance of our first resting-place. Already we were antici- pating the pleasures of terra Jir7na, free from the tossing wave, and out of hearing of the engines and propeller. CHAPTER II. THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. Navarino Cape Matapan Gulf of Laconia Homer Lycurgus and his laws Sparta Cape Malea, or St. Angelo The eremite Eastern Church Beaticus Cerigo The JEgean Sea Cliffs Islands Milo Serpho and Siphanto The Cyclades Deli Its origin Its oracle Confederacy of Delos Religious festivities Palm tree Asylum Earthquake Paros Disgrace of Miltiades Naxia Mycone Tenos Image of the Virgin Superstition Andria Gyrae Audacious impiety Zea and Thermia Simonides Byron's Haidee View from Syra Marathon Patmos and St. John Samos and Polycrates Pythagoras Scio Sharks Sunset Lesbos The Northern ^Egean The plains of Troy Tenedos Lemnos Imbros Thassos Samothracia Its grandeur Wor- ship of the Cabiri Deluge Scenery Mount Athos and its monasteries. The mountains of Messenia, directly north of us, as we approached Cape Matapan, brought to mind Navarino, closely associated with Grecian history from the remotest times. There was the sage and aged Nestor's city, ancient Pyle ; there the Athenians and Spartans maintained a long and fierce struggle during the Peloponnesian War, resulting in the victory of Athens, and the exaltation of that city to the climax of her power ; and there the combined fleets of England, France, and Russia, under Admiral Codrington, completely destroyed the naval forces of. Turkey, and secured the national independence of modern Greece. These mountains quickjy faded as the high range of Taygetus came rapidly within view, the summits of its barren, THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. 3 1 pyramidal ridges gathering the tinted clouds about them, and some of them lifting themselves up into the clear azure, and displaying, even in midsummer, broad patches of snow. Taygetus diminishes in boldness and height somewhat rapidly, and its seaward termination, Cape Matapan, the ancient promontory of Taenarium, is a little disappointing. The cliffs are low, rounded, and barren; a much needed lighthouse, only half built when we went by, rises above the point, and will be very serviceable to mariners as soon as it is completed ; and there are very few inhabitants where once were thriving Spartan towns. Away from the Cape, on both slopes, and half hidden between the ribbed sides of the mountains, and generally so elevated and distant from the shore as to make them very difficult of access, are scattered villages ; below and above them, on the fertile ground, vines are trailing their vivid green leaves, and shooting out their tender, curling stems, and gardens, wildly luxuriant, yield their olives, and pomegranates, and figs, and apricots to the ready hand; while sheep and goats wander over the loftier and rocky ground in search of the sweet herbage, and fatten themselves for the village feast or the distant market. How different all this from the time when Poseidon's grove waved here, in which Pausanius was betrayed by the conversation of his slave, and from which the Helots were dragged to death ! A terrible earthquake shook Sparta at that time, overturning her capital and slaying her nobles, and, in their superstition, the Spartans thought that this was a visitation from the earth-shaking deity because his sanctuary at Taenarium had been violated. Now there is no sanctuary to violate. The old heathenism has departed, and her chief glory, Greece, " In all save form alone, how changed ! " The view after leaving Cape Matapan is a very noble one. The Gulf of Laconia opens up most beautifully. Its semi- 32 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE /EGEAN SEA. circular basin is flanked by high hills, between which the Eurotus flows quietly to the sea. Nothing can be lovelier than this mountain scenery softened by the rays of the de- parting sun. Sometimes in England, in the late afternoon of a hot summer's day, a bluish haze is discernible about the masses of foliage for which her parks and richest land- scapes have become renowned, not a mist, but a soft haze, toning and blending the leafy masses, and spreading itself above them, and giving a distinct charm to the picture ; and sometimes, in the Scilly Islands, the same phenomenon is discernible, only the haze is purple and not blue, toning the sharp edges of the rocks, and blending their outlines where they happen to overlap, surrounding and seeming to suffuse their very substance, and adding greatly to the beauty of the scene. In Greece this haze effect may be seen to perfec- tion. It is not only blue and purple, but almost every other colour, and sometimes many colours together shading off into each other, which, with the pellucid atmosphere, and the unflecked azure of the sky, invest the landscape with a splendour unknown in more Western climes. The intensely blue water of the Gulf of Laconia was breaking into the purest white foam as the fresh wind swept over its surface, and the hills around, particularly the range of Taygetus, behind which the sun had disappeared, were bathed in soft light. Spaces of blue and purple were spread between and about the foot of the hills, but nearer their summits the purple gave way to crimson and orange, and above their summits the crimson and orange were melted into the golden sky. There was an inexpressible softness, a subdued splendour, a placid beauty about the whole scene, rendering singularly appropriate Byron's simile of the Grecian shores to death newly come upon a young and lovely face, " The wild angelic air, The rapture of repose that's there The fixed yet tender traits that streak The languor of the placid cheek." THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. 33 Into the head of the Gulf of Laconia flows the Eurotus, and thirty miles up the Eurotus lies the ancient Lacedae- monian capital, Sparta. Helen, decoyed from the roof of her husband by the arts of Paris, left Sparta for a new home in Troy ; and from Sparta went forth the messages to the various Grecian States, calling upon them to arm and avenge this deed of treacherous ingratitude, this base violation of the divine laws of hospitality. And so we have the " Iliad " and the " Odyssey," works of human genius, pictures of human life in those far-away times, which, but for these two books, would be altogether lost in impenetrable shadows. Out from the shadows comes one clear figure, an old, blind, wandering musician, the poet-singer of the royal courts of Greece, and he weaves the heroic struggles of his country- men with another mighty race into graceful measures, and passes them on to others, and they to others again, until they become finally written and treasured in Greece, and through Greece scattered everywhere for the delight of all civilized nations, winning from all an unstinted meed of praise, the immortal wreath only twined about the brows of the noblest of mankind. Homer will live so long as the race lives, and must ever remain associated with Greece as her oldest, and not the least remarkable, among her many remarkable sons. Another remarkable son of Greece, and of Sparta, one who laid the foundation of the Spartan supremacy, and made her for centuries the leading power in Greece, was Lycurgus, exalted by his countrymen into a demi-god, and worshipped as worthy of divine honour. The Delphian oracle pro- claimed that if the Spartans would maintain the constitution of Lycurgus they should be everlastingly prosperous. Like a wise man, Lycurgus disappeared from his country, and thereby prevented the overthrow of his constitution by a personal attack upon himself. He left the constitution with them to be observed or not, as they pleased. The absence, the mysterious departure, the unknown where - 4 34 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. abouts, practically the death of Lycurgus a death which amounted to a sacrifice for the good of his country must have impressed his countrymen very deeply, and predisposed them to the acceptance of his laws. They are wonderful laws, only possible, perhaps, in a small State like Sparta, and under conditions similar to those of the Spartan State, where the mass of the people were serfs of the soil, cherishing an inveterate hatred towards those above them, and requiring to be kept down by military force. The nominal govern- ment was a hereditary monarchy under two monarchs, who shared the throne together, but a very limited monarchy, the real power being vested in the hands of five men, who, in process of time, and by a necessary development of the system, became absolute. There was also a Senate of thirty members and a larger assembly of the people. But the peculiarity and value of the constitution of Lycurgus was not in its political combination, but in the severe military discipline to which every Spartan was subjected in order to fit himself for victorious warfare. It was an embodiment of the principle, and of the principle carried to its utmost limit, that the people exist for the State, not the State for the people. Everything was made subordinate to State require- ments. Birth, education, marriage, domestic life, social relations all were made to serve State purposes. Weakly and misshapen children were exposed at birth to perish on Mount Taygetus. The youths were trained to suffer the greatest hardships without a murmur. Marriage under thirty years of age was disallowed, and, practically, there was no domestic life. A public table was provided by the public purse, and men lived together, not in families, but in com- panies, as members of the State. In many respects it was a very cruel custom, nevertheless the principle of subordina- tion was boldly embodied, and it resulted in the creation of a State unconquerable, irresistible, the most compact and strongest State, considering its size and population, the world has ever known. For all Laconia was less than many THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. 35 an English county. It made Thermopylae possible. It has given us a new word for firmness, hardihood, courage with a marble front and feet like adamant, courage which never fails the word Spartan. Sparta never became so famous as Athens. She could not, by reason of that very national constitution and discipline which was the secret of her military strength, but which effectually hindered the cultivation of poetry and philosophy, architecture, sculpture, and painting. Yet it would seem as if Sparta, in the early Grecian times, were a rich and well- built city, and, about the description of the palace of Menelaiis, there is a suggestion of barbaric splendour, although there may be little suggestion of grace and refine- ment. " Prodigies of art, and wondrous cost ! Above, beneath, around the palace shines The sunless treasure of exhausted mines : The spoils of elephants the roofs inlay, And studded amber darts a golden ray. " This is doubtless an imaginary picture, but the imagination rested on a solid basis. Sparta was a fine city. While war remained the chief art and calling of men, Sparta led the van, and from her most southern position, almost girt about and quite cut off from the rest of Greece by her barrier of hills natural disadvantages attracted all eyes, and com- manded universal respect. But when men began to see there was something better to live for than conquering and enslaving each other, when the pen, and the chisel, and the brush were employed to embody ideas which were struggling for expression and permanency, and thereby developing a higher intellectual life, and, to some extent, a purer morality, Sparta fell into the background, Sparta became simply a memory ; and she remains a memory to-day, while Athens is a real power, influencing human thought and human activity throughout the civilized world. The eastern boundary of the Gulf of Laconia is formed 36 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. by the magnificent promontory of St. Angelo. The Zarex mountains here terminate, not disappointingly, like the range of Taygetus at Cape Matapan, but in a fine, bold headland rising high above the flood, and looking proudly over the channel that separates it from the island of Cerigo. This promontory was known as Cape Malea by the ancients, and is so marked on many of our modern maps and charts, but some maps and charts and most seafaring men give it the name of Cape St. Angelo. Its former name, Cape Malea, is a sufficient indication of its dangerous character. It was considered the most critical part of the coast in the circum- navigation of Greece. Sailors might dismiss anxiety from their minds after clearing Cape Malea, but so difficult was it to clear, and so numerous were the disasters in attempting, that the Greeks had a proverb, "When rounding Malea for- get your home," * or, bid good-bye to your home. The proverb implies that it is doubtful if you will get round, or, should you succeed in getting round, it is doubtful if you will get back, and therefore you had better settle your affairs, and leave your home as if it were the final departure. Cape Malea was the promontory where several of the Grecian heroes, returning from the siege of Troy, are said to have first met with the calamities which delayed their arrival home. It seems to have been the place where cala- mities must come in. Nestor, relating the voyage home to young Telemachus, tells how he and Menelaiis came safely onward in company, until, as soon as he saw " Malea's misty tops arise, Sudden the Thunderer blackens all the skies, And the winds whistle, and the surges roll Mountains on mountains, and obscure the pole. The tempest scatters, and divides our fleet." Menelaiis wandered far and wide, and gathered many trea- sures ; and, by a divinely revealed stratagem, at last seized 1 MaXeag 7re.pnr\s(ov tTrikaQov tu>v oUdSe. . THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. 37 Proteus, the various god, who endeavoured to elude him by running through a whole series of transformations, and who, upon finding himself fast held, during every change, by the hero's powerful arms, condescended to reveal his future travels, and his safe arrival home. He also gave him in- formation concerning other Grecian warriors, companions at the siege of Troy, and particularly concerning the voyage and cruel murder of his brother, Agamemnon. Here again Malea plays its calamitous part. u The watery vast, Secure of storms, your royal brother pass'd, Till, coasting nigh the cape where Malea shrouds Her spiry cliffs amid surrounding clouds, A whirling gust tumultuous from the shore Across the deep his labouring vessel bore." That wise man, Ulysses, after his arrival in Ithaca, and while preserving his feigned character as ^thon, the ship- wrecked wanderer from Crete, invented a story for Pene- lope's ears ; and the better to beguile and cheer the wife who knew him not, spoke of himself (Ulysses) as having keen driven to Crete. " For elemental war, and wintry Jove, From Malea's gusty cape his navy drove To bright Lucina's fane." So that Malea was not misnamed. It had a traditionary bad character. This character was sustained when tradition merged itself in history ; and now, to sailing vessels, Malea is an awkward point, which it is well to avoid sometimes by running to the south of Cerigo. The height, together with the narrowness, of the promontory are sufficient to account for its dangerous circumnavigation. The wind gathers and sweeps down from its summit suddenly and furiously, as from other high lands near the shores and on the islands of the ^Egean \ and, rather than venture round Cape Malea, many 38 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE ;EGEAN SEA. mariners, in ancient times, dragged their boats over the isthmus of Corinth. Attempts have been made to prevent rounding Cape Malea, by piercing the isthmus and joining the Corinthian and Saronic Gulfs. Why has the name of this frowning promontory, this rugged headland lifting itself majestically out of the deep sea, been changed from Cape Malea to Cape St. Angelo ? Probably because it has become the solitary home of an eremite of the Eastern Church, a venerable father who has retired to this most lonely place, in order that he might devote himself to a religious life, altogether undistracted by the presence of his fellow-men. A quieter, and more solitary, and more unapproachable residence there is not in the wide world ; and if there is any virtue in asceticism, and if spiritual ascendency can be gained by voluntary exile from all human intercourse and an entire surrender of the life to prayer, surely this virtue must be possessed, this ascendency must be gained by the eremite of St. Angelo. His little hut is under the precipice, on a plateau surrounded by a low wall ; and the wall also encloses a patch of culti- vated ground where he may grow the simple vegetable foods he requires to keep up the slow waste of his physical system. An ass was tethered within the enclosure, as we went by, and cropping the scanty herbage within reach j a very useful animal, but rather a dull companion, nevertheless better than no companion at all. This plateau, containing the hut and small garden, is on the western side of the Cape, and looks across the channel to the island of Cerigo, about six miles away. There is no vestige of human habi- tation within view. The northern part of the island of Cerigo, which is the only part visible, is rocky and un- peopled, adding rather to the solitariness of the situation than otherwise ; and to the westward of Cerigo, stretching away to the horizon, is the lovely blue sea. A short distance from the hut, to the eastward, and more directly under the precipice, built upon a projecting rocky . THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE iEGEAN SEA. 39 ledge where the water has worn away the cliff into a gorge or chasm, is a small chapel. It has the distinguishing dome of all Greek places of worship, although, from the smallness of the building, almost in miniature; it is entered by folding doors ; on one side cloisters are cut in the solid rock, the evidence of long and patient skilled labour, and on the other side, perpendicular with the chapel wall, the cliff descends sheer into the sea. The chapel is cleanly whitewashed, like the hut on the plateau, and is approached from the hut by a narrow path winding between huge rocks, and now and then tunnelled through the rocks, for only by these means could a safe approach be made to the ledge on which the chapel stands. All this was distinctly visible through a powerful glass as we passed by, both going and returning. The waters here are very deep, and will permit of a close approach to the shore. Very seldom, however, will the holy man himself appear, although passing steamers blow their whistles in the endeavour to attract his attention. But we may suppose he is above the influence of such sublunary things as whistles, and has long since stifled any curiosity he may have had concerning the doings of the outside world. Sometimes he may be seen on his way to the chapel, or on his way home. We were fortunate in obtaining a good view of his venerable figure, tall and thin, clad in a long brown gown, with a band round the middle, and his cowl thrown back, fully exposing his face a well-moulded, grey-bearded face. He moved along quickly, passing between the large rocks, and through the passages in them, finally disappearing near the chapel, into which he entered, and engaged in his solitary devotions. This eremite, in his absolute retirement, in his undis- turbed and changeless worship, is a faithful picture of the Eastern Church. As it was a thousand years ago, so it is now. The peculiarities of the Eastern life are in it. Quietude, repose, and some might say deadness, prevail throughout all its branches. The activity of the West is 40 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. unknown, and may be impossible. Monasticism in the West was always very different from monasticism in the East. The East knows nothing of those great brotherhoods which have devoted themselves to art and literature, to teaching and preaching, to political propaganda in the service of Rome. The monks of the Thebaid, and Sinai, and the Levant, and Armenia, and Mount Athos, and Central Russia, have all been given more exclusively to devotion than the monks of the West, and therefore sometimes to pious extravaganza. We have had no pillar saints * and navel souls 2 in the West. The Eastern monks were, and are, ascetics in the true sense of the term, and very few monks of the West have been. The Church of the East is contemplative and mystical j the Church of the West is active and practical. Protestantism arose in the West. The only Protestantism of the East is Mohammedanism, if indeed it can be so called, for it is not a protest, but a revolt, an enemy to Christianity, and seeking to extinguish 1 Among these examples of religious fatuity, none acquired greater veneration and applause than those who were called Pillar Saints (Sancti Columnares), or in Greek, Stylitce, persons of a singular spirit and genius, who stood motionless on the tops of lofty columns during many years and to the end of life, and to the great astonishment of the ignorant multitude. Mosheim. (See also Tennyson's poem, " St. Simeon Stylites.") 2 Barlaam, a native of Calabria, a monk of the order of St. Basil, and afterwards Bishop of Geraci, in Calabria, travelling over Greece to inspect the conduct of the monks, found not a few things among them which were reprehensible ; but in none of them more than in the Hesychasts at Mount Athos, in Thessaly, who were mystics or more perfect monks, who sought for tranquillity of mind and the extinction of all the passions by means of contemplation. For these Quietists, in accordance with the prescription of their early teachers, who said there was a divine light hid in the soul, seated themselves daily in some retired corner, and fixed their eyes stedfastly for a considerable time upon the middle of their belly or navel ; and in that situation they boasted that a sort of divine light beamed forth upon them from the mind itself, which diffused through their souls wonderful delight. Mosheim. THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE ^EGEAN SEA. 4 1 the Christian name. Goethe says, in a beautiful little poem, and with a large charity " The East belongs to God ; the West Gladly obeys His high behest ; Tropic heat, and Arctic cold, His hand in peaceful bond doth hold. Only God is just ; He sees What thing is good for each and all ; Call Him by what name you please, But praise His name, both great and small." The Eastern Church is set forth in that lonely little chapel, with its one worshipper, hanging above the tide on the rocky ledge of Cape St. Angelo. The eremite is a subject of much speculation to sailors. Several stories have been invented to account for his solitary residence, and the story which obtains most credence is that the venerable monk is a Scotchman, who lost his vessel on Cape St. Angelo, and every soul aboard, including his wife and children ; and, in the melancholia succeeding this sad event, he took up his residence here, within view of the w r atery grave of all he possessed on earth, determined to spend here the rest of his earthly days. How fertile is the human imagination ! With what ease may an ingenious tale be told ! If this is so, the natural end of the eremite of St. Angelo will be suicide ; for under the circumstances mentioned in the story, a man would not long continue without taking the fatal plunge from some convenient rock, and seek again, beneath the deep waters, union with his loved ones sleeping there in the silence and stillness of that majestic sepulchre. Within Cape Malea, on the western side, is a small island w r hich appears to persons passing to be part of the main- land. Behind the island the coast is rounded into a pleasant bay, whose name, " Beaticus," the blessed, like the name 42 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE jEGEAN SEA. " Malea,'' the wicked, is a sufficient indication of its charac- ter. It must have afforded shelter to many storm-driven vessels, and obtained thereby from ancient mariners this kindly name. When Sparta and Athens were struggling for supremacy in Greece, an Athenian fleet was sent here, and attempted to establish a fort as they had already done at Pylus, the modern Navarino, but the attempt was not successful. It was not so favourable a place as the bay behind the island of Sphacteria. Malea overlooked it, always a dread object to Grecian sailors ; and it was in Laconia itself, the Spartan territory proper, nearer the capital, and likely to be defended with more spirit, and not in the conquered province of Messenia, divided from the Spartan capital by the high range of Taygetus. Opposite Cape Malea is the Island of Cerigo, the ancient Cythera, dedicated to Venus, sometimes called Cytheraea. The goddess of love, when she sprang from the foam of the sea, was carried to Cythera, and thence to Cyprus, both islands thereby becoming specially sacred to her, and under her powerful protection. To Cythera she snatched away Ascanius, ^Eneas' son, that, by substituting Cupid, and in this way securing Cupid's approach to Dido, and Dido's fondling embrace, she might shed the poison of love in the heart of the Carthaginian queen. Cythera, or Cerigo, is a fertile island on its eastern and southern sides. Its people inhabit these parts of the island, and almost at its southern extremity are the remains of its two ancient cities, Cythera and Scandia, in the former of which was the most famous temple dedicated to the goddess of love. This island is not commercially important, and, beyond its mythical connection with Venus, has very few interesting associations. Upon leaving Cape Malea, on the voyage eastward, the mariner fairly enters the ^Egean Sea. The name of this famous sea is connected with one of those wonderful and savage myths, which, like uncertain objects in a mist, loom THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. 43. out from the prehistoric period of Grecian life. ^Egeus was the King of Athens. He married iEthra, the daughter of Pittheus, King of Troezen in Argos. In Troezen the hero Theseus was born to this royal pair, and resided in Troezen until strong enough to raise an enormous stone, beneath which were his father's sword and sandals, and safely carry the sword and sandals over the Isthmus of Corinth a dangerous road infested with bold robbers to Athens, as pledges of his sonship. He arrived in Athens, and was recognized by his father and greeted by the people. Minos, the King of Crete, had imposed a fearful tax upon the Athenian people, because of the murder of his son. Every nine years, seven youths and seven maidens were shipped from Athens to Crete, there to be devoured by a monster with a bull's head and a human body, who had his home in a winding labyrinth almost impossible to trace. Theseus determined to end the tax, and, with the next batch of victims, went himself to Crete. Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, fell in love with him, and explained to him the windings of the labyrinth j the hero penetrated to the den of the Minotaur, and slew him, and delivered the Athenians from his cruel maw. On the way home, when nearing Athens, the pilot, instead of hoisting the white flag as a signal of success, hoisted in mistake the black flag usually carried in token of the sad sacrifice ; and ^Egeus, regarding the signal as certain evidence of the death of his son, flung himself into the sea which thenceforth became known as the ^Egean. The cliff land from Cape Malea northward into the Gulf of Argos is very fine. The Zarex mountains run very near the shore, and in many places break off abruptly, and de- scend in precipices to the sea. These precipices are very high, and form an irregular zigzag line all along the coast, and not a few of them are pointed toward their summits, exhibiting those " spiry cliffs " so menacing and terrible in stormy weather. It is by no means an inviting coast, 44 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE ^EGEAN SEA. although grandly picturesque, and a formidable defence to the south-eastern part of the Morea. These cliffs are lost to sight upon entering the Archipelago. The most charming marine scenery presents itself to the enraptured and wondering vision. It was a beautiful and clear morning when we found ourselves among the Grecian Islands. The sea was unruffled ; directly above each island a little cloud had gathered, like a vaporous island of the sky corresponding with the more solid island of the sea a curious and interesting sight, and more interesting on a moving vessel passing close by the shores, and through the channels of the islands, than if seen from some stationary- position. A sea of water below, of the richest ultramarine, glowing like a jewel in the morning sunlight, and bearing upon its bosom, as if they were the children of the deep, these numerous and various rocks and islands ; and a sea of translucent air above, with its own rocks and islands of the softest white clouds, scattered everywhere, but always oppo- site to those below, the two seas together presenting a most unique and lovely picture. The first considerable island, upon entering the ^Egean from Cape Malea, is Milo, with its hills rich in iron, and its dales full of vines and flowers. A famous place for honey it once was, and therefrom may have derived its name. Alum abounded here, and plentifully supplied those masters of the old world, the Romans, who flew their eagles over Milo as well as over the other islands of the Archipelago. Long years before they came, however, the Melians lived in peace, and strenuously refused to take sides in the Pelo- ponnesian War, although doubtless their sympathies were with Sparta, because they were themselves Spartans, and, except the inhabitants of Thera, the only Lacedaemonian islanders. Athens could not tolerate neutrality, and subdued the island, murdering every grown male, and selling every woman and child into slavery. Lysander, the Spartan general, avenged the cruel deed, drove out the Athenian THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. 45 colony, and brought the Melians back home. Behind Milo, and separated from it by a very narrow channel, is Cimolis, or Argentiere, lofty, rocky, and barren, but containing silver mines, and therefore, if the mines were worked, likely to be an important island. Passing between Milo and Anti-Milo, a small barren islet to the westward of Milo proper, we entered the channel between Serpho and Siphanto. Serpho is a stony and un- fruitful island. Its rugged, precipitous rocks are lifted, like prison walls, frowningly above the sea. Indeed, the Romans made use of it as a State prison, and sent here some of the most notorious offenders against the Imperial law. The island is scantily inhabited. There is sufficient soil in the crevices of the rocks to grow certain foods and fruits, and there are cool, fresh water springs, very valuable and much appreciated in Eastern climes. The barren hills, too, although so uninviting in appearance, are full of metal, particularly full of the magnetic iron ore called loadstone, which would doubt- less repay any one commercially enterprising enough to work them. Siphanto, the sister island to Serpho, is one of nature's favourites, blessed with a salubrious atmosphere and a fertile soil ; yielding corn, and fruit, and flowers in abundance ; possessing several good harbours, and alto- gether conducive to an easy, careless life. The fierce spirit of the Greeks is in these islanders. Siphanto abounds in lead, and two centuries ago certain Jewish speculators were wishful to farm the mines, and proceeded thither to obtain samples of the lead ore ; but the captain of the vessel, probably a Greek, being liberally bribed by the islanders, scuttled the vessel while on the way home, and sent the Jews and their cargo to the bottom of the sea. They wanted no Jews on the island, and were perhaps apprehensive of a life of toil should the lead mines be opened and prove successful. As we left Serpho and Siphanto behind, we came within view of " The scattered isles of Cyclades, That, scarce distinguished, stud the seas." 46 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. They presented . themselves on every side, some of them small and rocky, others large and fertile, but all very beauti- ful in the morning sunlight. They were all robed in the soft hues of the sea and sky. Villages were visible, not on the seashore, but half-way up the sloping hills ; while about the shore, here and there, were houses and small cots, in the gardens of which the vine, pomegranate, lemon, fig, olive, and various other fruits were growing in profusion. As we rounded the southern part of Syra, other islands opened up to the northward ; but the harbour and town of Syra came within view, and engrossed all our attention j and very soon we had the pilot aboard, and were working round the mole, and towards the wharf, where we were securely moored, and immediately beset by a motley group of almost wild-looking Greeks, who had been employed to take out the cargo. The islands of the Grecian Archipelago are divided into two sets, the Cyclades and the Sporades, the Cyclades be- cause they are supposed to be in a circle round Deli, the Sporades because they are scattered or sown over the rest of the sea. Deli, however, is not in the centre of the Cyclades. Most of the islands are to the south of Deli, yet the group is sufficiently rounded in the various local relations of its islands one towards the other as to justify the name Cyclades. Deli is the name now given to the large and the small islands anciently called Delos and Rheinea, and separated from each other by a channel only a few hundred yards wide. Rheinea is very small, and Delos itself is one of the smallest and least picturesque islands of the Archi- pelago. It lies low, and almost hidden between Rheinea and Mycone. It is, nevertheless, the most historically important, and, in many respects, the most interesting island in the Grecian seas. From the earliest times it has been a sacred sanctuary, because the supposed birthplace of Apollo and Diana ; and it was most intimately associated with the rise and supremacy of Athens. The confederacy from which Athens derived her maritime power, and by which she THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE jEGEAN SEA. 47 achieved her successes, was called the Confederacy of Delos, and the temple of Apollo and Diana on the sacred island was appropriated by the combined States as the safest pos sible treasury for the depositing of their common funds. " An island in the yEgean main appears : Neptune and watery Doris claim it theirs. It floated once, till Phcebus fixed the sides To rooted earth ; and now it braves the tides. " So Virgil refers to the myth which accounts for the origin of Deli, the myth which would have us believe that all the Cyclades were once floating islands, and circled round Deli, until they were fixed by the deities, and fitted for the habita- tions of men. In the description of the shield of JEneas, that wonderful shield wrought by Vulcan at the intercession of Venus for the valiant use of her heroic son, and pre- figuring on its ample front the notable events of his posterity, a conspicuous place is given to the naval fight at Actium. Antony is represented as having gathered " barbarian aids," and, " Rich in gaudy robes, amidst the strife, His ill fate follows him the Egyptian wife. Moving they fight : with oars and forky prows, The froth is gathered and the water glows. It seems as if the Cyclades again Were rooted up, and jostled in the main." This myth of the floating islands may have had its origin in the phenomenon of mirage, sometimes seen in the iEgean, and likely to produce a feeling of awe within the minds of a superstitious people. From the mole at Syra, Deli once appeared to me quite an unsubstantial island, lifted above the water, and shimmering in the strong light as if about to pass away. The oracle of Apollo at Deli was the second most famous oracle of the ancient world. Its fame was exceeded only by the oracle at Delphi in Phocis. It was distinguished from 48 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE ^GEAN SEA. that by the plainness of its answers. The Delphian oracle was almost always ambiguous, and its ambiguity was one source of its great fame ; the oracle of Apollo at Deli was simple and more direct, and I suppose, therefore, sometimes mistaken, and suffering in consequence. Its antiquity, how- ever, was sufficient to preserve its fame. ^Eneas called there soon after leaving Troy, consulted the oracle concerning his future abiding place, and obeyed the directions given him so far as his father, old Anchises, could interpret them ; but, although the oracle was plain enough, the mortals went astray, and sought a home in Crete instead of Italy. With Theseus also the oracle is connected. He vowed an annual pilgrimage, with games and sacrifices, to the shrine of Apollo at Deli, if that god would aid him in his attempt to destroy the Minotaur, and deliver the Athenians from the terrible tax of human blood ; and the vow was kept. This was the mythical origin of the stated voyages of the Athenians to Deli, and their numerous offerings and regular festivals before the sacred shrine. So important was this pilgrimage deemed that no prisoner was executed in Athens during the four or five weeks occupied on the voyage to and from Deli, and the performance of the religious rites there ; and to this custom Socrates owed the thirty days' communion with his friends between his condemnation and his death. The Delians themselves established a quinquennalia in honour of a statue of Venus, the gift of Ariadne to Theseus, and said to have been deposited in Deli by that hero ; and at this festival it was customary to dance a peculiar, sinuous, winding dance, supposed to represent in its motion the intricate labyrinth of Crete. The Confederacy of Delos was the outcome of the Grecian struggles with Persia. This was the most spirited and glorious period of Grecian history, the period of Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea, Mycale, and which revealed to the Greeks the necessity of maintaining a well-equipped navy if they wished to preserve their in- THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. 49 dependence. The wealth of Athens ; the attention which she had already devoted to the formation of a fleet, and the fortification of the Piraeus j the conspicuous skill and bravery which she had displayed at the battle of Salamis, all marked her out as the head of the new Confederacy. Sparta was offended, but for a while she had to submit. Most of the Grecian islands joined the Confederacy, and the temple of Apollo and Diana at Deli was the periodical place of meeting of the confederated assembly, as well as the treasure-house of their accumulated funds. The sacredness of the island was a sufficient guarantee for the safety of the treasure. No one would dare to violate the sanctuary of the gods. A temple of local fame might have been a tolerably safe place for depositing private wealth, but for public wealth the universal fame of the temple must be assured. It must be acknowledged sacred by all the people, and Delos was so acknowledged j and for a maritime con- federacy it had the advantage over Delphi of being an island, and in the midst of the States who had entered into a compact to defend their country against the well-nigh overwhelming and inexhaustible forces of a common foe. That the oracle at Deli was universally revered, and that the island of Deli was held sacred by all the nations, may be abundantly proved. The island was the summer resi- dence of Apollo, and the festival commenced with the returning warmth of the year. This is set forth, as well as the wide-spread fame of the sacred island, in a figurative description of ^Eneas, by the mention of Scythians from the north and Cretans from the south joining hands before the altars. ^Eneas is represented as going forth to the chase " Like fair Apollo, when he leaves the post Of wintry Xanthus, and the Lycian coast ; When to his native Delos he resorts, Ordains the dances, and renews the sports ; Where painted Scythians, mixed with Cretan bands, Before the joyful altars join their hands : 5 50 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. Himself, on Cynthus walking, sees below The merry madness of the sacred show. Green wreaths of bays his length of hair inclose ; A golden fillet binds his awful brows ; His quiver sounds." Here we have a view of the religious festivities, the wild play of these children of the world ; for humanity was then young, and spake as a child, felt as a child, thought as a child, and had not even dreamed of putting away childish things. Cynthus is only a hillock, but from its summit may be seen all the tiny isle. Further south than Crete, however, had the fame of Deli spread, if we may take the evidence of the massive architectural remains that now strew the island. On the top of Cynthus are the traces of a noble temple, and among its broken marbles have been found the in- scription of a vow to Serapis, I sis, and Anubis. There must have been some connection, therefore, between the sacred isle and these Egyptian deities ; and we may the more easily believe this, because of the myth that the waters of the fountain at Deli rose and fell with the waters of the Nile. It would appear, too, as if the palm had been cultivated in Deli, as sacred to Apollo. It was certainly a wonder among the islands of Greece, and it may possibly have been introduced by the Egyptians. We have the record of an immense brazen palm tree erected here in honour of Apollo, which, during a violent storm, was thrown down, and overturned in its fall a colossal statue dedicated to Apollo by the Naxians. A part of this statue is said to be still among the ruins of Deli. The brazen palm tree may have been erected after the living plant had disappeared ; but that the living plant, in very early times, did exist here, we may conclude from Ulysses' comparison of Nausicaa to the beauty and stateliness of the palm tree, when he met her on the beach at Phaeacia, and implored her protection. " I never view'd till this blest hour Such finish'd grace ! I gaze, and I adore ! THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. 5* I Thus seems the palm, with stately honours crown'd By Phoebus' altars ; thus o'erlooks the ground ; The pride of Delos. (By the Delian coast, I voyaged, leader of a warrior host, But ah, how changed ! from thence my sorrow flows ; O fatal voyage, source of all my woes !) Raptured I stood, and as this hour amazed, With reverence at the lofty wonder gazed : Raptured I stand ! for earth ne'er knew to bear A plant so stately, or a nymph so fair." It would seem by the passage in parenthesis that Ulysses had consulted the oracle at Deli, and, misunderstanding the answer, traced his subsequent sorrows thereto. Other evidences of the wide-spread fame of Deli, and the universal reverence with which it was regarded, may be obtained by searching the ruins, and deciphering on the overthrown and defaced entablatures the names of Philip of Macedon, two or three Mithridates of Pontus, and Nicomedus of Bithynia. The Romans respected its sanctity, and refrained from taxing its people. A magnificent city must have covered a great part of the island at one time. The splendour only remains in its ruins. Everything is overturned. So exten- sive and cumbersome are the fallen fragments, that the little soil which might have been cultivated is obliged to lie waste. Deli is forsaken and desolate. The oracle is not only dumb, but dead. We can hardly credit to what extent the sacredness of Deli was observed. The sound of war was unknown in the island. When the Persian fleet, under Datis and Arta- phernes, crossed the JEgean, and having subdued Naxia approached Deli, the Delians fled to Tino ; but Datis sent a message after them, to remonstrate with them, and per- suade them to return home, for, said he, "I have been commanded by the king to forbear practising any sort of hostilities in a country where two gods were born, or using violence of any kind against the inhabitants or the place." He would not even permit a single soldier to land in the 52 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE ^GEAN SEA. island, but sent by a messenger a large quantity of frankin- cense to burn upon the altars of the gods. Enemies at war with each other, driven by stress of weather, or other cir- cumstances, into the harbour at Deli, have not only sus- pended hostilities while there, but have become friends for the time, visiting the temples together, and vying with each other in doing honour to the gods. The Athenians, after purifying Deli by the removal from the island of all dead bodies, and the re-interment of the bodies in Rheinea, passed a law to the effect that neither births nor deaths were to be permitted in the island, if they could be at all prevented ; but that all births and deaths were to take place in the neighbouring island. The rights of asylum were also granted to any one fleeing to and dwelling in so sacred a place. Even dogs were refused admittance, in order that birds and hares might not be molested, and that thus the place might be preserved from the pollution of violent death ; and for the same reason it is said that animal sacrifices were forbidden, and that only the purer and more innocent sacrifices of fruits and wines, costly vestures and wealth in all its varie- ties, were acceptable. The place was jealously guarded against the more dread and ghastly rites of heathenism. Gladness was the prevailing feature in the worship at Deli. The ^Egean is in the midst of a powerful volcanic region, and once Deli was severely shaken. It was an unusual occurrence, although common in Mycone, a few miles to the east of Deli ; and so awe-inspiring a catastrophe in the sacred island, which, within human memory, up to this time, had been entirely free from these visitations, was regarded as sl certain portent of coming misery to the Grecian States. The belief in the portent was strengthened by the agitation then felt throughout all Greece, resulting in the Pelopon- nesian War, during which, for long years, the Greeks wasted their blood and treasure in a fratricidal struggle. The earth- quake in Deli proved to be the commencement of a long series of calamities, for other earthquakes followed in THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. 53. different parts of Greece, and the plague ravaged her cities, and drought and famine oppressed her, as if the powers of nature, in the fulness of their sympathy with so intellectual and artistic a people, were warning them to desist from self-destruction, and unite to meet a coming common foe. But Sparta was too pugnacious, and Athens was too am- bitious ; and when the Macedonian arose they fell before him, and his successors in their turn fell before the invin- cible legions of Rome. The opportune earthquake, the apparently preparatory shock in sacred Deli would enhance the reputation of the oracle, and more deeply establish the authority of Apollo from his shrine in the centre of the Cyclades. In the island of Paros, or Parichia, one of the larger islands of the Cyclades, to the south of Deli, are several very deep caverns, the remains of ancient quarries, whence was dug the world-known Parian marble. The closeness of the grain and the exceeding whiteness of this stone, so well adapted for statuary, secured for the island a prosperous and lucrative trade. It possessed several safe and large harbours, and was blessed with a fertile soil, and therefore became one of the wealthiest islands in the Archipelago. Two famous men were born here, one a poet, the great satirist, Archilochus, who threw his extraordinary bitterness into Iambic measures, and thereby became the father of Iambic poetry ; the other a sculptor, Scopas, the remains of some of whose work may now be seen in the British Museum. He specially excelled in single figures, and the beautiful statue of Aphrodite in the Louvre at Paris is supposed to be from his chisel. His groups, however, are very successful, as we may judge from the familiar one of Niobe and her children, represented as fleeing toward each other in sur- prised terror when about to fall beneath the shafts of Apollo and Diana. The attitude of the figures, the facial ex- pressions, and the entire grouping betray the genius of a master mind. We know nothing of the life of Scopas 54 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE iEGEAN SEA. beyond the fact that he was a Parian. But of Archilochus we know that his mother was a slave, and that he was consequently despised by his countrymen. The daughter of Lycambes was betrothed to him, but afterwards bestowed upon another; and this event feathered the arrows of his genius, and winged them home to the family who had wronged him; and so deeply mortified were they by the stinging shafts that they put an end to their own lives. Archilochus wandered to Thasos to find a social atmosphere more congenial than that of his own country, and wandered from Thasos to other lands, but was everywhere disappointed; and, returning home as restless as when he went away, perished in a fight between his own countrymen and the Naxians. Paros was connected with the disgrace and ruin of a more famous man than either her own poet or sculptor. The great hero of Marathon, Miltiades, after the battle, when The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow ; The fiery Greek, his red pursuing spear ; Mountains above, Earth's, Ocean's plain below ; Death in the front, Destruction in the rear ! " conferred immortal honour on him and Greece Miltiades, strange to say, degraded himself so far as to obtain from the willing Athenians seventy ships, and, without their knowledge, proceeded to Paros to punish the islanders because of a personal grudge he had against one of their leading citizens. The private and unworthy enterprise miscarried. The Parians were closely blockaded many days, and were delivered by an accidental fire to the wood of a neighbour- ing island, which was misunderstood to be the signal of approaching help from the Persians. Miltiades had been persuaded, by a priestess of Ceres, to visit the temple in the dead of the night, under the promise that she would then reveal to him how he might succeed in obtaining possession THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. 55 of the island, and, being struck with superstitious fear when within the temple precincts, rushed out, and seriously lamed himself by stumbling over one of the surrounding fences or barricades; and, in this lame condition, with the wound festering beyond all hope of cure, he was carried before the tribunal at Athens, and narrowly escaped the sentence of death. His heroic victory at Marathon saved him. But his misconduct was punished by a fine heavy enough to dis- charge the expenses of his unlawful expedition, and very soon the wounded thigh put an end to his glory and his shame. Naxia is a large and very fertile island to the east of Paros, reputed by some to produce the richest wine in the Archi- pelago, but the general opinion is that Chios and Samos share the honour with Naxia, and certainly we are more familiar with the name Chian, and especially Samian wine. " Fill high the bowl with Samian wine ! " exclaims Byron, in one of the most exquisite of his Grecian poems, the very spirit of which is embodied in the passionate abruptness of its last line " Dash down yon cup of Samian wine ! " Naxia, however, is the supposed birthplace of Bacchus, and it was here he was joined by Ariadne. By his command Theseus left her in the island of Naxia. The Naxians wor- shipped her under the twofold representation of a favoured and happy goddess, and a forsaken and melancholy wife, celebrating festivals appropriate to each condition at certain stated times. The wine of Naxia was certainly very famous, or else we should not have these stories of its connection with Bacchus ; indeed, the Naxians say Bacchus himself taught them how to cultivate their vines, so that we need not wonder to hear the wine of Naxia styled " the nectar of the 56 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE ^EGEAN SEA. gods." Naxia is very productive. Not only do vines- flourish, but many other kinds of delicious fruits oranges, lemons, pomegranates, figs, olives, citron, apricots, besides which there is no small amount of pasturage, all conducive to the increase of wealth and population. Its wealth was further increased by the presence of a green marble, spotted white, peculiar to Naxia, and the presence of a still more precious and rarer stone, the emerald, and that of the purest and most costly kind, which has been found in its western hills. In ancient times Naxia was able to bring eight thousand heavy armed troops into the field, and possessed a considerable and efficient navy. Its alliance was therefore coveted in the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars by each contending power. The Naxians distinguished themselves by their extraordinary bravery at the battle of Platsea. They favoured the republican form of government, and were there- fore the natural allies of the Athenians ; and beneath this form of government they attained their greatest power, even extending their authority over the neighbouring islands of Paros and Andria. The island of Mycone, to the east of Deli, is very scantily supplied with water, and consequently barren. Numerous, earthquakes have shaken the place. Here were buried the fabled centaurs killed by Hercules at least, so report says, but no one can show their graves. The inhabitants are few, and once were said to be mostly bald not an undesirable peculiarity in so hot a clime ; but, if the peculiarity still exists, we may hope that the priests of Mycone, for the sake of appearances, and the veneration with which they are regarded because of their long hair, and the sanctity myste- riously adhering thereto, do not share this peculiarity with the people. A bald-headed, bare-faced Greek priest would be as great a curiosity as a long-bearded, shock-headed English clergyman. The pleasant, mountainous, fruitful island of Tenos is to the north-west of Mycone. Neptune was the ancient patron. THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE jEGEAN SEA. 57 of this island, and was worshipped by the islanders, not only as the god of the ocean, but as an older ^Esculapius, the god of medicine. He once brought a flock of storks into the island, and the deadly serpents with which the island was infested had been destroyed by them a fable setting forth the god's triumph over disease. Neptune is now forgotten, and the Virgin Mary has taken his place. An old image of the Virgin was found many years ago in Tenos. It is by no means flattering to the Virgin's personal appearance. But the principle accepted without question in the East is, the uglier the image the greater the virtue ; and therefore this image is surcharged and brimming over with miraculous powers. It is not an idol, but an image, an icon, a sacred picture of the Virgin, with its painted face and its tinsel covering j and for the edification of the healthy pious, and the healing of the generous and penitent sick, the icon is paraded once a year through the streets of the town. Many thousands of people gather from the neighbouring islands, and even from Athens and Smyrna, to see this wonderful image, and take part in the religious festival. The cures are marvellous, according to common report ; the veneration is- still more marvellous, according to actual vision. Neverthe- less, the bulk of the people meet probably because it is customary to meet, a time for holiday-making and general rejoicing ; and maybe their feelings differ very little from the feeling of the islanders two thousand years ago when they celebrated the festivals of the earth-shaking, and to them, if not to others, the health-giving deity. These quiet, beautiful islands of the ^Egean have been the home of superstition for long ages. The excrescences of Christianity were multiplied rapidly, and overgrew the original stock, hiding and malforming the reality and truth of the Christian religion. These islands afforded an unmolested sanctuary for all kinds of monkery, and whatever tended to increase the influence and authority of the monks was here developed to its utmost degree. The worship of images 58 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. was carried to an alarming length in Constantinople, and the people were possessed with a profound veneration for these representations of the Christ, and the Virgin, and the saints j but in the Archipelago worship became rank idolatry, profound veneration became outrageous supersti- tion, and the monks favoured this declension from the purer and more spiritual aspects of religious life, because they themselves were greatly benefited thereby. When Leo, the Isaurian, issued the Imperial edict for the abolition of image worship, Constantinople was thrown into a tumult, but the islanders' of the Archipelago were roused to rebellion. They fitted out a fleet, erected their consecrated banners, besought the protection and assistance of their icons, and courageously advanced upon Constantinople. They had made up their minds that the hand of the iconoclast should be withered, and that the Imperial crown should be removed from the head of the despiser and breaker of the holy images. Another and a worthier than he should wear the purple. So the islanders confidently believed, and steering through the Hellespont and across the Propontis, expected to be put into possession of the Imperial city by a mighty miracle ; but there was no miracle, only Greek fire from the exaspe- rated soldiers by which both they and their fleet were almost entirely destroyed. This event reveals the spirit of the islanders, as well as their superstition ; and, if the veneration for images had been finally and universally condemned, it would have been a difficult matter to have rooted up the evil in these small islands of Greece. Andros, or Andria, is only one mile to the north-west of Tenos, and runs narrowly forward in this north-westerly direc- tion to within ten miles of Euboea, now known as Negro- pont. Like Tenos it is a fruitful and hilly island, but appears to have been poorer than many of the Cyclades. In very early times it belonged to the Pelasgians, given to them, so it was said, as a ransom for Ascanius, the son of ^Eneas, whom the Pelasgians had made prisoner. It openly favoured THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. 59 the Persians, and for that reason was besieged by Themis- tocles immediately after the battle of Salamis, who informed the islanders that they must pay a heavy fine for their mis- conduct, and that in order to obtain the fine he had procured the assistance of two powerful gods, Persuasion and Force. The Andrians were ready with a bold and ingenious answer. " We also," said they, " have two powerful gods, Poverty and Impossibility. They dwell in our island, and are very fond of it, and will not remove to new quarters." We can- not say whether this was exactly correct or not, but the avaricious Themistocles failed to screw anything out of the Andrians, or even intimidate them. The Persians again found them friendly, and apparently could rely upon them until their own power was broken by Alexander of Macedon. Gyarus, or Gyrae, is a very small island directly west of Tenos. It has the unenviable reputation of being the most barren and desolate island in the Grecian seas, and, like Serpho, was employed by the Romans as a State prison. The very mice of Gyrae, for lack of other food, were said to gnaw the iron ore which had been dug out of the mines a fable undoubtedly teaching the utter impossibility of subsisting on the produce of the soil. A fine passage in the Odyssey is connected with this island, fine in its concise descriptiveness, and fine in its teaching concerning the results of a loud and proud self-glorification. " By Neptune rescued from Minerva's hate, On Gyrae, safe Oilean Ajax sate, His ship o'erwhelmed ; but, frowning on the floods, Impious he roar'd defiance to the gods ; To his own prowess all the glory gave : The power defrauding who vouchsafed to save. This heard the raging ruler of the main ; His spear, indignant for such high disdain, He launched ; dividing with his forky mace The aerial summit from the marble base : The rock rush'd seaward, with impetuous roar Ingulf d, and to the abyss the boaster bore." 60 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE jEGEAN SEA. Quite as remarkable a passage, and more artistic, though not so concisely descriptive, illustrating the punishment of audacious impiety, may be found in Virgil's "^Eneis." " Salmoneus, suffering cruel pains, I found, For emulating Jove, the rattling sound Of mimic thunder, and the glittering blaze Of pointed lightnings, and their forky rays. Through Elis, and the Grecian towns, he flew : The audacious wretch four fiery coursers drew : He waved a torch aloft, and, madly vain, Sought godlike worship from a servile train. Ambitious fool ! with horny hoofs to pass O'er hollow arches of resounding brass ; To rival thunder in its rapid course, And imitate inimitable force ! But he, the King of heaven, obscure on high, Bared his red arm, and launching from the sky His writhen bolt, not shaking empty smoke, Down to the deep abyss the flaming felon struck." There is a deep religious tone in these passages, an unwaver- ing condemnation of irreverence, the outbreathing of the most solemn instincts of our nature ; and atheism, particu- larly blatant atheism, which sometimes looks back fondly to those far distant ages, and longs for their renewal in the earth, would have stood a very poor chance of a hearing, and no chance whatever of a following, among these simple children of the race. Men have always been religious. Atheism is not only the denial of the deity, but the contra- diction of humanity. Zea and Thermia are the two most western islands of the Cyclades. They lie off the coast of Attica, and are both very fertile. The latter, as its name indicates, possessed several hot springs, more renowned in ancient times than now. On its southern shores lie the remains of a fine and well-built city. The former is the larger and more fertile island of the two, and has obtained wide fame as the first place in Europe where silk was spun and manufactured from THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. 6 1 the cocoon of the silkworm. It was not like the closely-woven silk of China, but a thinner and more gauze-like material, and was much esteemed by the wealthy ladies, and even the gentlemen, in the effeminate days of the declining Roman Empire. So productive was the soil of Zea, so fine the pasturage, and so plentiful and delicious the fruit, that the inhabitants multiplied exceedingly, and the population had to be restricted by the most unpleasant method of poisoning the people on the attainment of their sixtieth year, with the alternative, however, of permitting them to quit the island at sixty if they so preferred, but then to leave all their goods behind. Surely not many would be found willing to retire to Zea for the quiet enjoyment of the evening of life with the prospect of so abrupt a termination. In all climes men prefer towards the end of life a long twilight gradually deep- ening into darkness rather than the sudden rush of darkness over the pleasant evening sky. However desirable a resi- dence Zea might be, it must have required a spirit of stoical endurance calmly to choose it in the face of its personally inconvenient, even if publicly beneficial, law. 1 Zea has had its great men its physician, Erasistratus ; its philosopher, Aristo ; its poets, Bacchylides and Simonides, the last-named outrivalling all the others in the greatness of his fame. He lived in Athens' most glorious period, and sang of the great battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, and Plataea ; of Artemisium and Salamis. He was a contem- porary of Pindar and ./Eschylus, but a much older man than they j and long after other men sing their last he sang still, and at eighty years of age gained the prize at Athens for the dithyrambic chorus, which made the fifty-sixth prize taken during his life. His special genius was displayed in the composition of threnodies, poetical lamentations for the heroic departed ; and he had a singular aptitude for touch- ing the deep sympathies of his hearers. A remarkable 1 Mr. Anthony Trollope may have derived the central idea of his pleasant book, " The Fixed Period," from this peculiar Zean law. 62 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE iEGEAN SEA. story is told, illustrating the punishment of the same self- glorification and impiety as the poetical passages quoted above, of a visit paid in the younger years of Simonides to the court of Scopas, at Crannon, in Thessaly. The proud and wealthy man arranged with the poet for the re- cital of a poem at a public banquet on his own famous deeds. As the custom was, Simonides introduced into the poem, by way of variety, the exploits of the twin gods, Castor and Pollux. Scopas was dissatisfied. He grudged the praise bestowed upon the heroic divinities. Simonides finished, and was about to receive the promised pay, when the vain man said, " Here is my half of thy pay ; the Tyndarids, who have had so much of thy praise, will doubtless furnish the other." The confusion of the poet, amid the rude laughter of the Thessalians surrounding the board, may be well imagined. A message came that the poet was wanted without by two young horsemen. He was glad to go. But upon leaving the hall no horsemen were visible. The twin gods had vanished. And no sooner was the poet clear of the roof than down it fell, and buried the proudly impious man and his vulgar applauders in a general ruin. We may reject the myth while we accept the parable. The feeling of the people who invented, and told, and retold the story is in it, the feeling that the gods will brook no insult, and that profanity is a disgrace to man. There are other and less important islands of the Cyclades to the south and east. Whether it was one of them, or one we have named where Byron's Haidee lived, and loved, and died, we cannot say. One of the many islands he must have had in view there can be no doubt ; and perhaps the basis of his story he heard from the islanders themselves. Which of the Cyclades it was we know not ; we only know " That isle is now all desolate and bare, Its dwellings down, its tenants pass'd away ; None but her own and father's grave is there, And nothing outward tells of human clay : THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. 63. Ye could not know where lies a thing so fair, No stone is there to show, no tongue to say, What was ; no dirge, except the hollow sea's, Mourns o'er the beauty of the Cyclades." Syra is in the centre of the northern portion of the Cyclades. The finest view of the " scattered isles " may be obtained from one or another of the heights above the town. There they lie to the east, Deli and Mycone ; to the north, Gyrae, Tenos, and Andria to the west, Zea, Thermia, and Serpho ; to the south, Siphanto, Paros, and Naxia, all clearly visible, with smaller islands and rocks, and in the distance the dim outlines of others, presenting in their quiet and varied beauty one of the loveliest scenes on earth. " Eternal summer gilds them yet, But all, except their sun, is set" A sad reflection, truly, but there is hope of a resurrection, if not to their former splendour, yet to true freedom and affluence, in the restored kingdom of Greece, should Greece be wise to make the most of her opportunities, to cultivate all useful arts, and especially to educate, to draw out the versatile genius still slumbering in the bosoms of her sons and daughters. Of the dim heights visible from the hills of Syra none are more interesting than those opposite the lofty lands of Negropont, away to the north-west, where " The mountains look on Marathon, And Marathon looks on the sea." When we entered the Doro channel, on the return voyage, between the mountains of Negropont and the isle of Andria we were much nearer Marathon, but Pentelicus was then shrouded in darkness, and the memorable plain hidden beneath the evening shades. We passed in the silence of the night, and over the silent seas, but not more silent are 64 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. they than the plain where ten thousand Greeks met ten times ten thousand Persians, and, in their country's defence, defeated them. So low may a country be brought that its most precious spots will lie uncared for, even violated with- out rebuke, nay worse, sold for a paltry sum, as the entire plain of Marathon, with its tumulus, where, once inurned, reposed the ashes of the Grecian heroes, was actually offered to Lord Byron for about nine hundred pounds. Any one else might have bought it for the same money. Well might the poet sadly breathe forth his pathetic patriotism for his adopted country " And where are they? and where art thou, My country ? On thy voiceless shore The heroic lay is tuneless now The heroic bosom beats no more ! And must thy lyre, so long divine, Degenerate into hands like mine ? 'Tis something in the dearth of fame, Though link'd among the fettered race, To feel at least a patriot's shame, Even as I sing, suffuse my face ; For what is left the poet here ? For Greeks a blush for Greece a tear." Upon leaving Syra for the Dardanelles we passed between Tenos and Mycone, and obtained a clear view of fertile Icaria, and, to the south-east of Icaria, rocky and lofty Patmos. Very small is Patmos, and in itself unimportant and uninteresting, but, among all the islands of that beautiful sea, where will you find one so deeply pathetic in its asso- ciations to all who have experienced the inward power of the Christian religion ? In this barren islet, this prison sur- rounded by the deep waters, the beloved disciple received the Saviour's messages for the seven churches of Asia. The shores of Asia were visible in clear weather, and especially the promontory of Mycale, in the neighbourhood of his adopted city, Ephesus ; but the sea lay between. He and THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. 65 his people were separated; and the sea, with its wide spaces, was a symbol of the separation. Sorrow had separated them, the sorrow of persecution ; and the sea, with its bitter waters, was a symbol of sorrow. The Church was restless beneath the persecution, and his own life was restless, tossed hither and thither in his work for the Master ; and the sea, with its incessant motion, was a symbol of unrest. There was mystery in all this work, in its very restlessness, in the diviwe permission of persecution, in the spread of the good news through persecution ; and mystery in the human life, the life of the world, which this work was designed to uplift and bless, and still mystery in the more than human life of Him who commenced the work, and committed it to His followers, and the sea, with its fathomless depths, was a symbol of mystery. How comforting it would be to St. John, when, toward the close of his Apocalyptic vision, he beheld the " new heaven and the new earth : for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away ; and there was no more sea ! " The separation, the bitterness, the restless- ness, the mystery, all gone ; the tabernacle of God with men, and God dwelling with them ; no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain ; the former things passed away. But the sea by which St. John was surrounded on that lonely isle, and which was ever before his vision and within his hearing, furnished him with other symbols. The pave- ment of heaven was like a sea of glass mingled with fire ; the voice of the glorified Christ, and the praises of the heavenly multitude, were like the sound of many waters. These were symbols naturally suggesting themselves to one who was constantly gazing across the glittering deep, and who heard always either the gentle murmuring of the waves or the thunderous roll of the billows upon the shore. It was a desolate situation, a cruel exile for a man of so sociable and loving a disposition as the Apostle John ; but where could a more fitting theatre have been found for the display 6 66 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE ^GEAN SEA. of the mystic marvels which he was commanded to record for the blessing of the churches than the little mountainous island of the ^Egean ? Jesus Christ knew where to put His beloved one ; and the grand oriental imagery of the Revela- tion with which the Scriptures close, the beauty and majesty of the book, would have suffered if St. John had not been in some place like Patmos, where brilliant stars stud the midnight sky and the midday firmament is filled with dazzling glory and the marble cliffs are bathed in the splendours of the sunrise and the sunset and the deep azure of heaven is reflected in the burning sapphire of the sea. Patmos must ever remain of unique interest as the last place where Christ appeared to the last and most beloved of the apostles. But was it an actual appearance ? or was it simply a vision like all the visions which followed ? I know not ; all I know is that to St. John himself the appearance was real enough. " I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day," he says, and the actual or visionary character of the appear- ance depends upon what is meant by being in the Spirit. In that spiritual condition he saw, sufficiently clear to describe in minute detail, the form of his glorified Lord. Whatever haziness there may be about other sights recorded in the book, this sight of the Master was so vividly impressed upon his vision that we can see Him too. In the midst of the seven golden candlesticks He stands, clad in a long robe, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle ; with His snow-white hair, and shining face, and flaming eyes, and glowing feet \ seven stars glittering in His right hand, and a bright sword proceeding from His lips ; and when those lips opened, a voice like the music of the sea. A most wonderful appearance, and, if only symbolical, well worth the Church's careful consideration as the last recorded appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the earth. As Patmos withdrew behind Icaria, we came within view of Samos, a large Ionian island near the Asiatic coast. THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE iEGEAN SEA. 67 This island has played an interesting part in Grecian history. Other two islands were also known by the name Samos, one near the Thracian coast, called Samothracia, the other among the group of islands on the western coast of Greece, now known as Cephalonia. The Ionian Samos was by far the most historically important of the three, mainly because of its location, although the Thracian Samos had a religious reputation at one time second to none, and for centuries second only to Deli, among the islands of the Grecian seas. The proximity of Samos to the prosperous towns of Ephesus and Miletus, and the fertile Asiatic shore and the fertility of Samos itself, gave it a high position and importance in olden times ; and, under its tyrant Polycrates, one of those remarkably fortunate men with whom everything seems to go well until they are suddenly'entrapped and completely ruined, it threatened to become the master not only of all the neigh- bouring islands, but of a considerable part of the mainland. Polycrates entered into a compact with Amasis, King of Egypt, by which he and Amasis engaged not to attack each other, that they might be free, without fear of each other, to attack the weaker States about them. News of the un- hindered success of Polycrates was brought to Amasis, and, under the superstition that such like success boded no good, that a run of fortune without a single mishap was very dan- gerous in its consequences, that a man rising so rapidly and uninterruptedly to the height of power would be sure to provoke the envy of the gods, he wrote to Polycrates advis- ing him to inflict misfortune upon himself by parting with the object he most prized. Polycrates accepted the advice. He had himself rowed out to sea, and cast from him a most costly emerald, set in gold, and engraved with a peculiar seal ; and returned home disconsolate for the loss of his favourite jewel. Several days after a large fish was presented to him, and he had it cooked, and invited to partake thereof the fisherman who had caught and sent it ; and behold ! when the fish was opened, there was the 68 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE ^GEAN SEA. precious stone. Polycrates despatched a messenger to inform Amasis of the incident, and the superstitious Egyptian was so amazed, and so confirmed in his fear that Polycrates would come to some awful end, that he imme- diately broke the compact lest he too should be involved in the ruin. As a matter of fact the end of Polycrates was a most miserable one, and in entire contrast with his fortunate career. The cruel Persian satrap of Sardis had been taunted by a brother satrap with the fact that he had not yet sub- dued the island of Samos, and, because of this taunt, he had conceived a most unreasonable hatred for Polycrates. He watched his opportunity to entrap him, succeeded by foul treachery, and inflicted upon him the torture and shameful death of the cross. The Samians were bold sailors. Many of them refused to submit tamely to the tyranny of Polycrates. They fitted out a fleet, and sought the help of the Lacedaemonians. Whether the Samian wine had loosened their tongues un- duly, or loquaciousness was a natural failing of these islanders, I cannot say, but the Spartans told them, after the recital of their story, that they had forgotten the beginning of it by listening to the end. A truly Spartan answer; but the Samians were ingenious, and the next time they were per- mitted to appeal, they brought an empty basket, and pointing at it, simply said, " It is empty." Then these inhabitants of Laconia outdid themselves by their laconic reply. They told them that they need not have spoken ; the sight of the empty basket was enough. But the siege of Samos by the Lacedaemonians was not successful. The good for- tune of Polycrates did not forsake him. And the Samian revolters, after various fortunes in Siphanto, Argolis, and Crete, found their way to Italy, and are said to have founded the city of Puteoli. Famous men have been born in Samos, the most famous of all being the philosopher Pythagoras. He was a contemporary of Polycrates, but could not endure the tyrant's rule. He THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE iEGEAN SEA. 69 travelled much, and finally settled in Italy. Notwithstanding the fact that he committed nothing to writing, or, if he did, nothing has remained (as he intended nothing to remain, according to some authorities), he permanently impressed his character and teaching upon human history, and looms forth from the shadows of the past a truly great man. He studied the science of numbers, and made the science serve the pur- pose of imparting profound philosophical truths ; the universe to him was a cosmos, beautifully regulated, and producing in its harmonious movements the music of the spheres ; he taught the theory of metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls, one day reproving a man for beating a dog, because he recognized in the dog's howling the voice of a departed friend. The reproof was not very flattering to his friend's vocal powers. In that theory of metempsychosis we have the recognition of the immortal principle, and the confession of a needful spiritual cleansing by some processor another a recognition and confession sufficient to place Pythagoras far ahead of the men of his own times. His disciples were gathered mostly from among the learned and wealthy classes, and formed themselves into a philosophical, and after- wards into a religious school, and later still into a political brotherhood, which led to its downfall. Two centuries later it was revived, but so corrupted and malformed as to differ greatly from its original. The earlier and purer Pythagorean system and teaching reveal the extraordinary mental gifts and sound moral life of Pythagoras ; and Samos may be reasonably proud of having given him to the world. As we approached the celebrated island of Scio, we dis- covered, to the westward, the rocky heights of Psyra, and in the afternoon we were passing " The safer road, beside the Psyrian isle," by which the Grecian voyagers from Troy came home. The mainland opposite Scio runs northward, and forms the Gulf 70 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE ^GEAN SEA. of Smyrna. Both Smyrna and Scio contend, with five other places, for the honour of Homer's birthplace ; and most pro- bably he was born either at Scio, or one of the two towns that claim him on the Asiatic mainland, namely, Smyrna and Colophon. The probabilities are against any European birthplace. The Scians are very confident in their claim, mainly because in Scio, in very early times, dwelt a poetical brotherhood who called themselves Homerids, and who traced their origin to the great poet, and also because tradition still points out the place of his birth in the midst of the far-famed Arvisian fields where grew the grapes so full of the most richly flavoured wine. Statuary casting in bronze had its origin in the combined skill of the inhabitants of the two islands, Samos and Scio. The Scians were not only good seamen, but very brave. During the naval engagement with the Persian fleet at Lade, when the Samian and Lesbian contingents basely sailed away, the Scians continued the fight with only one hundred small vessels against the six hundred vessels of the Persians until they were overpowered by the sheer force of numbers. Scio is an island of the most varied scenery, and exceedingly fertile. It would now support a large population, if its resources were developed, and its people allowed to profit by their industry. One disadvantage is its liability to earthquakes. These violent visitations some- times fearfully destroy human life and property, and spread terror far and wide. Several years ago an earthquake shook the entire island, bringing down its buildings, killing its people, and leaving sad traces of its havoc to this day. This liability to seismic disturbance Scio shares with the contiguous Asiatic shores. Smyrna has been rocked again and again, and thrown into indescribable confusion, but Smyrna continues very populous, and appears to care little for the heaving forces ceaselessly at work beneath its surface. Where nature puts on a smiling face, and pours her plentiful stores into the laps of the people, it is wonderful how soon THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE ^GEAN SEA. 7 1 the people forget her outbursts of anger, and live as heed- lessly and joyously as if she would never be angry again. A notice to bathers had been posted in Syra, a few days before we left, warning them of a shark which had been seen by some fishermen not far from the harbour, and which was doubtless on the look-out for a hearty meal. No less than three of these voracious monsters were within a few boat lengths of the vessel as we passed along the coast of Scio. Two of them were very large, the other a small one ; and perilously near them, making the best of its way toward the shore, was a young turtle. Sharks were hardly ever seen in these waters previous to the cutting of the Suez Canal, and are not frequent visitors now. They find their way from the Indian Ocean into the Red Sea, and are tempted forward through the Canal by the chance of securing something from the steamers, and may therefore be seen occasionally in the Eastern basin of the Mediterranean. The dolphins of the ^Egean, which are very numerous, must have a lively time of it when the sharks are about, but, in a chase for life } the dolphin would far outstrip his big unfriendly brother, and laugh at him in the distance. The fleetness of the dolphin is most extraordinary, and, to escape his rapid, sweeping course, the flying fish, a dainty morsel, will leave the water like a darting streak of silver, only to fall again when his large pectoral fins are dry. Small chance of escape has he when once fairly set upon, and while I admired his flight through the air, I felt sad at the certainty of his fate. The shark after the dolphin, and the dolphin after the flying pike; as in the sea, so on the land " Nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal ; The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow spear'd by the shrike, And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and prey." We had a beautiful sunset between Scio and Mitylene. The sun went down a flashing splendour, and drew, like fleecy curtains, about the golden gate of his departure, a 72 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. soft purple haze. The sea upon the horizon was a dark indigo. The haze changed from purple to violet, from violet to maroon, from maroon through all the shades of red to the lightest pinks in the mid-sky ; and behind the pinks, and visible through them, were masses of the most delicate green, across which, and across the pinks, as if interlacing them, rays of golden light were shot from behind the darker shades below, and from beyond the sea, in the form of an aurora borealis. All these colours were peculiarly subdued. They were not gorgeous, but soft, calm, quiet, filling the mind with the idea, and the heart with a deep feeling, of rest. In the evening we passed the isle 44 Where burning Sappho loved and sung." The pale moonlight was streaming upon it from a cloudless sky. We passed it again afterwards, and beheld it flooded with the glorious light of day. This large and beautiful island is crowded with historical memories. From the " Iliad " it appears that not only Phrygia and the lands adjacent to the Hellespont acknowledged Priam's sway, but also 44 All fair Lesbos' blissful seats contain." And Agamemnon, perhaps with the aid of the other Greeks, subdued the island, and offered, among other things, to atone for the wrong he had done Achilles, and to win back that matchless hero's aid, 44 Seven lovely captives of the Lesbian line." Its fortunes varied with the varied fortunes of Greece, but Mitylene, its chief city, early became a distinguished seat of literature and art, and maintained its reputation through the chequered events of several centuries. Sappho was. justly celebrated for her poetic genius, and also her con- THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. 73 temporary Alcaeus, and between them they carried the lyric poetry of the ^Eolians to its loftiest height. Pittacus, the Lesbian, was one of the seven sages of Greece, and having been invested with the supreme power, through the confi- dence of his countrymen, he used it wisely j and when the island, under his government, was reduced to order, he resigned it again into the hands of his countrymen. We may say of him what can be said of very few, that he governed disinterestedly, and embodied in his government the precepts which he taught. His precepts are among the wisest ever spoken by human lips. One of them was, " The greatest blessing which a man can enjoy is the power of doing good." His precepts, with those of the other sages r were inscribed upon the walls of the temple at Delphi. He had a different view of the culpability of drunkenness from that of many, and one which, if legally embodied and faithfully carried out, must have lessened the evil, and would lessen it now, namely, that every wrong com- mitted while under intoxication deserves double punishment. So eminent for its intellectual refinement did Mitylene become, that Aristotle spent two years in the city to profit by the conversation of its learned men j and, when about to appoint his successor, he delicately decided between the rival claims of Menedemus of Rhodes, and Theophrastus of Lesbos, by calling for some Rhodian and Lesbian wine, after tasting which, he said, " The Lesbian is the best." It continued famous as a resort for learned men in Roman times, and Marcellus, having withdrawn here after the down- fall of Pompey at the battle of Pharsalia, could not be persuaded, although granted a free pardon, to leave the refined and scholarly Mitylene for the wealthy and powerful Rome. Cornelia, the wife of Pompey, was waiting in Lesbos for the result of the battle which was to decide the fate of her husband and of the Republic ; and, after the battle, hither Pompey fled first, and then, with his wife, to Cyprus, and from Cyprus to Egypt, where he met 74 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. with his cruel and treacherous death. Lesbos is thereby closely associated with one of the world's great events, as well as with the world's ancient learning, and may again become important if the tide of civilization, which has so long rolled westward, and which may be stemmed on the western frontier, rolls back again upon its source. I was on the bridge at four o'clock in the morning, watch- ing the dawn break over the mountains of Ida, and the light spread itself " Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy." As the morning advanced, a scene of incomparable beauty presented itself. The islands of the northern ^Egean were kindled into rosy flame by the rays of the rising sun, Lemnos behind Tenedos, and Samothracia behind Imbros Samothracia towering high in the pure morning air, a sea- mountain of exquisite loveliness ; and far away to the westward, eighty miles away, but clearly visible, a higher mountain still, all glorious with rosy tints, " the most magni- ficent mountain imaginable, rising in a peak of white marble ten thousand feet straight out of the sea." I That sacred mountain, with its white marble surface, looking eastward over the sea, caught and enhanced the glories of the sun- rise, and stood forth, robed in them, a mountain of match- less beauty. Athos, under any conditions, is impressive. When the sun sets, and its magnificent heights are thrown into dark relief, projecting its shadow far across the sea, it strikes the imagination with solemn awe ; but never is it seen to such perfection as on clear mornings like these, when its marble precipices are illumined by the first rays of the sun, and swathed in the soft rosy colours of the advan- cing day. Between Athos and the plains of Troy the broad ^Egean spreads itself, its spaces broken here and there by the islands ; and opposite Athos, right across the -^Egean, 1 Curzon's "Monasteries of the Levant." THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. 75 the rolling Hellespont pours its waters in a troubled stream far into the calm and quiet sea. Towards the ^Egean the plains of Troy terminate in low gravel cliffs rounded into bays, Besika Bay, where an English fleet has anchored more than once, and perhaps in the very place where lay the ships of the Grecian heroes, being the best known, and the most important ; and, about the tops of the cliffs, towards Cape Sigasum, are Turkish hamlets, the occupants of which tickle the fertile land with their diminutive ploughs, and make it smile into flowers, and fruits, and waving corn. Behind the cliff tops, however, lies "A vast, untill'd, and mountain-skirted plain, And Ida in the distance, still the same, And old Scamander (if 'tis he) remain : The situation seems still form'd for fame A hundred thousand men might fight again With ease ; but where I sought for Ilion's walls, The quiet sheep feeds, and the tortoise crawls." Towards the Hellespont the plain runs out into flat land, well-watered and well-wooded ; but no trace remains, either towards the Hellespont or the ^Egean, of the works of the Grecian heroes built for the protection of their fleet. The prophecy is fulfilled " Vast drifts of sand shall change the former shore : The ruin vanish 'd, and the name no more." Seven or eight miles off the coast of Troy lies the small island of Tenedos, behind which, after building the wooden horse, the Greeks hid themselves, feigning despair at ever being able to subdue Priam's city, and wishing the Trojans to believe that they had gone home. The stratagem suc- ceeded, and Troy was taken. To Tenedos, after the fall of Troy, the Greeks returned, and offered sacrifices to the gods, and prayed for favourable winds to carry them again to their native shores. Tenedos has always been an unimpor- 76 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. tant island. A few people lived upon it in early times, and now some two or three thousand are supported mainly by its vineyards. Here and there are remains of defences erected at different times by the world's armies when they have passed this way, in the pride of conquest or in the humility of defeat. To the west of Tenedos lies the large island of Lemnos, in shape, and in varied scenery and fertility, as in name, not unlike Lesbos, but smaller, sacred to Vulcan, who was hospitably received here when Jove expelled him from the courts of Olympus. Jove had been punishing his lady for her interference with Hercules by fastening anvils to her feet, and suspending her from the vault of heaven, and Vulcan, out of pity for the Queen of the skies in the awkward and humiliating position in which she was placed, attempted to relieve her, and found, to his sorrow, that it was a dangerous experiment to step between Jove and his wife. By Milton, Vulcan is included among the gods of Pandemonium, and he describes his unexpected descent into Lemnos in these graphic lines : "He fell From heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove Sheer o'er the crystal battlements ; from morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer's day ; and, with the setting sun, Dropp'd from the zenith like a falling star On Lemnos, th' JEge&n isle." Another god had his home in this island, the god of sleep, but how he came, and why he lived here, it is difficult to find out. Juno, again at her deceitful wiles, wished to seal her great husband's eyelids, that she might, unmolested by him, assist her favourite Greeks ' ' Taking wing from Athos' lofty steep, She speeds to Lemnos o'er the rolling deep, And seeks the cave of Death's half-brother, Sleep." The island is intimately associated with Grecian mythology. THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. 77 The Argonauts rested here, and were so kindly treated by the inhabitants that they remained two years, and almost forgot their expedition for the golden fleece ; and Jason married Hypsipyle, the queen of the island, and left two children behind him from whom sprang the reigning race. It was to one of them Achilles sold the young Lycaon, Priam's son, who was afterwards ransomed, and met Achilles again on the field of battle, this time, notwithstanding his tender pleading, to die by the famous hero's arm. But leaving myths for more reliable records, we find that the Pelasgians, driven from Attica, settled here, and revenged themselves upon the Athenians whenever opportunity occurred, until Miltiades, when despot of the Thracian Chersonessus, reduced both Lemnos and Imbros, drove out the Persian garrisons and the Pelasgian inhabitants, and added the islands to the territory and government of the Athenians. In Lemnos is found a peculiar kind of white earth, sup- posed to possess wonderful medicinal properties. It is said to be an effectual remedy for poisonous bites and stings, running sores, and bleeding wounds. In very ancient times this earth was obtained during the performance of a religious ceremony, and at one particular time of the year ; and the custom yet remains, or did until recently, of digging for the earth only on the sixth day of August, and amid the monotonous chanting of Grecian priests, all earth obtained except on this particular day, and with this specific cere- monial, being considered valueless. In enumerating the Grecian fleet, Homer mentions the renowned archer, Philoctetes, who " lay raging on the Lemnian ground, A poisonous hydra gave the burning wound ; There groan'd the chief in agonizing pain, Whom Greece at length shall wish, nor wish in vain." Was he in Lemnos for the purpose of benefiting by this mysterious earth ? Or, is its supposed virtue, both then and 78 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. now, merely a superstition, then kept up by the priests, and now by the officials. Having exclusive privileges of sale, the officials are not averse to the practice of a little quackery in return for a well-filled purse. To the north of Tenedos, and separated from it by the rolling current of the Hellespont, Imbros lifts its spiry cliffs above the troubled waters, an island which has generally shared the same fate as Lemnos, and which has been in- habited by the same race. Perhaps the continual commo- tion of the sea between Tenedos and Imbros gave rise to the myth that beneath these waters was a cave where the steeds of Neptune, brass hoofed and golden maned, were stabled, awaiting the monarch's return from the field of Troy. And beneath the calmer waters, on the northern side of the isle, between it and Samothracia, was another cave, the secret home of Thetis, where, " placed amidst her melancholy train (The blue-hair'd sisters of the sacred main), Pensive she sat, revolving fates to come, And wept her god-like son's approaching doom." The sea all round here, from the Hellespont to Mount Athos, and along the entire Thracian coast, has been sacred from time immemorial j and now, when the ancient deities are no longer revered, the ayiog opog, the Monte Santo, the Holy Mountain, lifts its magnificent form above the western border of these waters, and looks over them from the windows of its many monasteries, claiming for them yet the name of a sacred sea. There is another island, called Thasos, in the northern ^Egean, hid from the view of sailors passing in and out of the Dardanelles by the towering heights of Samothracia, It lies near the coast of Thrace, and at one time possessed territory on the mainland. The fertility of the soil, and the richness of its gold mines, conferred upon it wealth and im- THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. 79 portance ; and, after a stubborn resistance, it fell beneath the Athenian power. Afterwards, however, it shook itself free, and managed to maintain a somewhat precarious in- dependence, almost without interruption, until the days of all- conquering Rome. The first well-known Grecian painter was born here, Polygnotus by name, a contemporary of Phidias, but, like most other island-born artists, he made Athens his home. The most important and picturesque island in the northern ^Egean, if not in the entire Archipelago, is Samothracia. Except on one side, where it shelves off toward the sea, it rises in abrupt precipices to the height of six thousand feet, and is therefore the loftiest island in the ^Egean. Waving woods run up the sides of this steep sea- mountain, and far into the deep chasms by which the mountain is rent, retaining the mists and clouds that float about it, and fill it with mysterious awe ; and when the mists and clouds get clear, and rise above the mountain, and dissolve in the azure sky, these waving woods add greatly to its grandeur. They clothe it with a robe seldom worn by these sea-girt heights. Samothracia is the Monarch of the Isles. The scenery on Samothracia, as well as the appearance of the island from the sea, is magnificent beyond description. The gorges; the precipices; the fountains, some of them clear and cold, some of them opaque, sulphurous, and warm ; the trees climbing one above another, and over- hanging the gloomy chasms, and the deep blue sea; the flowers in vast profusion, and filling the air with the most delicious perfume ; the mountain rising with its con- verging heights toward the three glorious summits; the summits, black with gathering thunder clouds, or wreathed in soft vapours, or beautifully clear and adorned with the varied lights of the changing day ; the wonderful views seaward and landward that open with every turn of the path in the ascent, and, when the ascent terminates, the crowning view comprising the islands of the ^Egean ; the plains of 80 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. Troy closed in by the high ranges of Ida ; the peninsula of Gallipoli, with the shores of Thrace, flanked by the Rhodope mountains ; Monte Santo rising grandly above the tide, and, on very clear days, the outlines of the Monte Santo of the ancient world, the celebrated home of the gods, Olympus all these unite to enforce the claim of Samo- thracia to the supreme scenic position among the islands of the Grecian seas. This mountainous island often attracts the wandering clouds, and from its summits in their centre shoots out the brilliant lightnings, rolls forth the pealing thunder, sweeps the ocean with its stormy winds, like an awe-inspiring, terror-striking, majestic Sinai of the sea. One recent visitor to that island says, " Never shall I forget the sublime grandeur of the storm that, one afternoon towards sunset, gathered its blackness about the peaks of this sea- mountain, and, there enthroned, flashed lightnings over the sea, and hurled thunders in a succession so quick that one peal had not ceased when another burst on the ear with its deafening crack, roll, and reverberation. In a moment the breeze rose into a gale; the waves suddenly swelled into vast rolling mounds that threatened to break on and engulf us ; and the rigging became like the strings of a lyre for the fierce song and whistle of the tempest." z The main interest of Samothracia is in its religious associations. It was the centre of the worship of the mys- terious Cabiri, and the only place where the worthy could be initiated in the secret sacred rites. The testimony con- cerning these rites, and the Cabiri themselves, is so very conflicting, that we may well despair of any definite know- ledge ; but this conflicting testimony is itself an evidence of the inviolable secrecy maintained by all the initiated, no matter from what clime they came. It was a sin even to pronounce the names of the mysterious Cabiri. But mysterious as they were, to the initiated they were supposed to be ever present, ready to delive* them in danger either 1 " Samothrace and its Gods," Contemporary Reviezv, 1882. THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. 8 1 from the forces of nature or the toils of their fellow-men. It has been said that the initiation consisted in crowning the candidate with laurel, tying purple bands about his loins, enthroning him in a sacred grove, and dancing round his throne in a mad revel, unseen by the eyes of any but those who had been danced around before. But surely something beyond this was included in the ancient mys- terious rites. This may be only a guess at the ceremonies, and a guess based upon the supposition that Bacchus was one of the Cabiri. The greater probability is that Vulcan was one of the Cabiri, if not the chief of the three, for these mystic divinities seem to have had something to do with the underworld and the subterranean fires. The wor- ship of the Cabiri was an old religious freemasonry, the secrets of which we vainly try to penetrate. The secrets are buried in the colossal ruins of the temples scattered about the entrances to the awful ravines of the island. In its antiquity this mysterious worship is unparalleled among the heathenish rites of the East. Before Delos, in the Cyclades, became a sacred sanctuary ; before Delphi, at the foot of Parnassus, delivered its oracles through the tripod- seated Pythian priestess, Samothracia was revered, its groves were regarded with superstitious awe, its majestic cloud- wreathed heights were fearfully gazed upon, and its deep, dark, impenetrable ravines timidly looked into, as the homes of the most dreaded of the gods. A man could bind himself by no more solemn and terrible vow than the vow of the Cabiri. Whence had this mysterious worship its origin ? The oldest tradition of the East of Europe is that once the Black Sea, and the Sea of Marmora, and the Mediterranean were inland lakes, and that the Black Sea, fed by the great rivers, burst its way through the Bosphorus into the Sea of Marmora, and the Sea of Marmora through the Dardanelles into the Mediterranean, and the Mediterranean between the pillars of Hercules into the Atlantic. This influx of waters 7 82 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. caused the ^Egean to rise and overflow all its islands except one, the island of Samothracia, and the inhabitants found there a refuge from the terrible catastrophe. When the waters had subsided this mountainous refuge was solemnly consecrated to the gods, and henceforward became the sacred island of the ^Egean. What Ararat was to Noah and his family, Samothracia was to the Pelasgians ; and this tradition, doubtless based upon fact, may be taken as evidence of the Noachian deluge. These two events were most probably simultaneous. Geological and sub- marine evidences exist of some such catastrophe, the last of the kind by which the earth has been visited. Before this chain of lakes burst one into another, Europe must have been joined to Asia at the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, and to Africa by a continuation of what are now the Italian and Spanish peninsulas, dividing the Mediterranean into two parts j and our own island then must have been connected with the European mainland. When these vast areas of pent-up water found an outlet, the face of North- Western Europe, as well as its southern and eastern borderlands, must have been greatly changed ; and these great changes have influenced human life, and controlled the currents of human history, far beyond what we can realize. The natural sublimity, the awful grandeur of Samothracia, its high, tree- clad peaks; its deep, shadow-burdened, torrent- riven chasms; its storm-clouded summits, whence the thunderous peals ring across the heavens, and the vivid lightnings flash over the seas; and the earthquakes that sometimes rock it to its centre, have had very much to do with its consecration as a sacred sanctuary, and with the supposition that it was the dwelling-place of mysterious deities. The very position of its ruined temples, at the mouth of dark and impenetrable ravines, is an indica- tion of the secret character of its rites; and certainly no more fitting place could be found for the worship of the gods of the underworld, the gods whose very names were THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA. 83 too terrible to be spoken, the weird Cabiri, than amid the recesses of this magnificent and lonely island. One of the earliest stories connected with Samothracia is that of Dardanus, who wandered eastward from Italy, and brought hither his household gods, previous to settling on the shores of the Dardanelles. ^Eneas, after the fall of Troy, sought for these very household gods their permanent resting-place in Italy again. But there are many stories connected with Samothracia. All the great heroes of antiquity, from the mythological heroes onward to men whose careers are not adorned with fable, and the events of whose lives are matters of common knowledge, visited the island, and were initiated in the mysteries ; and by all it was regarded as an inviolable asylum. Here Perseus, the last monarch of Macedonia, after his defeat by the Romans, found refuge for a while, and the Romans never attempted to disturb him during his stay on Samothracia. He was safe under the shadow of the gods. The splendid view from Samothracia is incidentally referred to in the "Iliad." It commanded "fair Ilion's glittering spires," the ample plains of Troy, the Grecian ramparts and navy ; and there u on a mountain's brow, Whose waving woods o'erhung the deep below," Neptune sat, and mourned the losses of the Grecian troops. Thence he flung himself in his fury, yoked his immortal coursers to their chariot, and rode to the succour of his favourite heroes. The heroes are all gone ; Neptune him- self, with his blue eyes, and hoary beard, and scaly armour, only exists in pleasant imagination ; but there rises Samo- thracia, the majestic sea- mountain of the northern ^Egean, unchanged in its waving woods, and stormy peaks, and dark ravines, and all its solitary grandeur. The most conspicuous object in the view from the top of 84 THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE .EGEAN SEA. Samothracia is Mount Athos. The impressive majesty of this white marble mountain, two thousand feet higher even than the sacred isle, can hardly be surpassed. It was a dread promontory to ancient sailors. The navy of the first Persian expedition encountered a fearful storm while rounding this mountainous headland, in which three hundred ships were wrecked and twenty thousand men were drowned. The second expedition, at immense cost, and by three years' continuous labour, cut a canal through the isthmus behind the mountain to avoid the risk always attending a voyage round it, the traces of which gigantic work are still visible. Seventy-five years later a Spartan fleet was entirely destroyed by a storm near Mount Athos ; and the individual instances of shipwreck must be in- numerable. It is the Cape Malea of the northern ^Egean. While crowding the islands with sacred associations mythology has left Mount Athos free. Not so Christianity. Here, as in other secluded and easily-defended positions, in order to escape from the molestations of its inveterate enemies, Eastern Christianity has found a place of refuge. Mount Athos has become the Holy Mountain to all the eastern part of Christendom, and from every quarter the eyes of the Eas'tern Church are turned toward Mount Athos as toward the centre of its religious life. The great monas- teries of the Eastern Church Greek, Russian, Bulgarian, Servian, Iberian, &c. are clustered here. In the most picturesque situations, extensive buildings, sheltering vast religious communities, may be seen, all living under the order of St. Basil, passing their whole time in a round of sacred duties, very rarely visited by the outside world. Curious relics of mediaeval and early Christian ages are treasured here : jewelled pieces of the true cross, old paintings by fathers whose names are now forgotten, rare manuscripts which might throw floods of light on ecclesias- tical history. Here they lie, jealously guarded, even though seldom understood, by these long-bearded monks, who THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE jEGEAN SEA. 85 chant and pray, and burn the holy candles, and kiss the sacred images for the brethren without, as if they could save them by proxy. No female foot is allowed to tread on Monte Santo. For hundreds of years, if the monks may be believed, no female foot has trodden that sacred mount. It rears its white marble pyramid untainted and inviolate into the pure air. Nowhere in the East is there so holy a sanctuary, and to no place do the Eastern Christians turn with greater veneration than to the majestic Mount Athos. And, that such a retreat has its charms, we may believe with Byron, who, speaking of the solitude experienced amid un- known crowds, said " More blest the life of godly Eremite, Such as on lonely Athos may be seen, Watching at eve upon the giant height, Which looks o'er waves so blue, skies so serene, That he who there at such an hour hath been, Will wistful linger on that hallow'd spot ; Then slowly tear him from the 'witching scene, Sigh forth one wish that such had been his lot, Then turn to hate a world he had almost forgot." CHAPTER III. SYRA. The town Its appearance Harbour Public square The people Costumes Cafes Wineshops Market Trades Speech Eng- lish in Syra Italian man-of-war Visit to country garden Beauti- ful evening Singing on the forecastle Church of the Resurrection Church of St. Nicholas Woman and child Older churches Sacred pictures Infirmary St. Bartholomew's Hospital Funeral The observance of Sunday St. John's Eve : its bonfires, and their origin Pherecydes The story of Eumseus. Syra is built on the margin of the sea, and on two hills rising rapidly above the margin, one of them conical, and surmounted by the partly built Church of the Resurrec- tion, and one of them winding round into an elevated plateau, whence may be obtained one of the finest views of the Cyclades. There is no other large town so near the sea as Syra in the entire Archipelago indeed, Syra is the only large town in the Archipelago, and one of the largest towns in Greece. The other towns, or villages, of these beautiful islands lie significantly far away from the shore, on the hill- sides, and in the secluded valleys, generally difficult of access significantly, because for many centuries, and until com- paratively recent years, piracy was very common in the yEgean, and, by building their huts and tilling the ground along the shore, the villagers would simply have tempted these robbers of the sea. The protection of their own lives SYRA. 87 and property demanded the choice of distant and not easily approachable sites for their houses, and vineyards, and olive- yards, and sheep, and cattle, and all their worldly wealth. The oldest part of Syra is furthest from the sea. The modern buildings, erected with the rapid growth of the port since the days of Grecian independence, are near the shore a sign that the exciting occupation of these Ishmaelites of the sea, whose hand was against every man, and every man's hand against them, is gone. Syra is a picturesque town, with its squarely-built, flat- roofed, lattice-windowed houses crowded together, and rising one above another on its two hills ; every house painted or washed with a light colour, and sometimes with two or three colours white, grey, blue, pink and the latticed windows generally green ; the larger houses with verandahs, and vines climbing about them, and apricots clustering between them, and oranges ripening in their little courtyards ; the Church of the Resurrection, with its lofty dome and its fanciful square towers, guarding the town from one hill, and the Church of St. Nicholas, a larger and more substantial struc- ture, from the other ; older and smaller churches, one near the wharf, another behind the public square, mingling with the houses ; and, along the wharf, a motley line of dwellings, and shops, and mercantile offices, and store-rooms, looking into a small harbour crowded with craft of all sorts and sizes, from large ocean steamers to tiny buoyant caiques. Behind the town are other two hills, conical in shape, very high, brown and bare, between whose clearly defined outlines is the pure, silvery atmosphere only seen above the sea, and which everywhere suggests to the susceptible nostrils the smell of the sea; while, on either side of these conical hills, other high, brown, bare hills rise and sweep toward the town, shutting it in to the right and left, and adding very greatly to its beauty. Under the serenest of skies, and from the bluest of seas, this town presents a most charming picture ; and the charm is enhanced upon entering the harbour and coming, 88 SYRA. within hearing of its babel voices, and within sight of its varied and gaily attired people. The little harbour, formed by a stone jetty yet in course of construction, and enclosing a portion of an open bay, is very busy. Syra is the port of call for all steamers passing between Smyrna and Athens, and for many steamers on their way to Constantinople and the Black Sea. And it is the port of the Cyclades, and even of the more distant islands of the .Egean, to which the islanders bring their fruit, and sheep, and cattle, and at which they purchase what they require for their simple lives. The Cunard steamers call occasionally, and frequently the Austrian Lloyd steamers, which convey the passengers hereabouts large boats, well officered by Austrians and Germans, and well engineered by Scotch and Englishmen, crowded with the most curious human cargo imaginable, attired in every kind of colour, Turks, Greeks, Jews, Albanians, Armenians, Egyptians, Italians, Germans, French, English, the last four in small numbers, all mixing together, and talking one to another, each in his own language, and producing a new confusion of tongues. One or more English steamers discharging coal may always be found in the harbour, with a Grecian barque or schooner clean and trim, and, moored to the wharf closely alongside, the smaller boats of the islanders, slenderly built, sitting lightly upon the water, and yet with wide, rounded, capacious hulls, into which may be stored a well-nigh incredible cargo. With the stern as sharp as the stem, and the single mast groaning beneath a huge lateen sail, these old-fashioned craft are capable of sweeping across the shining spaces between the islands at an amazing speed. I watched one of these boats discharge a cargo of sheep in Syra harbour, sheep of a small breed, and, as I afterwards proved, mutton not very juicy or tender, and I was greatly surprised at the number turned out. Where, in so small a boat, all that live stock could have been stowed, was a mystery ; but they had been stowed somewhere, for out they SYR A. 89 came, quite a flock of them, floundering in the water, and bleating piteously upon the quay. These island boats remind one, by their light construction, and rig, and speed, and enormous carrying capacity, of the views on old coins and antiquated pottery, and the descriptions in ancient writings, of the boats of long past ages; and they are substan- tially similar. Moving across the water, between the larger boats, in every direction are small caiques, prettily painted, not so long and not so elaborately fitted and ornamented as the caiques of the Bosphorus, but well adapted for the rapid work required, and the small space of water available in Syra harbour. The constantly changing scene, and the variety of life represented, the quaint and tinted town rising above, and the hum of voices from its closely adjoining market mingling with the voices of the people about the ships and boats, and all the sounds peculiar to harbours everywhere, invest the picture with considerable interest, and many a pleasant hour may be passed in quiet observa- tion and reverie in this busy little port of the East. The most favourable time and place for seeing the people of Syra is in the evening in the public square. Those who can sleep through the middle of the summer day do so, and remain awake to enjoy the cool season between sunset and sunrise. During the summer months, towards the middle of the day, the heat in the Grecian islands is very great, and nowhere greater than in Syra, facing the south-east, and closed in on every other side by high hills. Soon after eleven o'clock all labour is suspended ; the well-to-do people retire to their homes, the poorer people crouch in the shadow of the porches, warehouses, awnings, corners of the street, everywhere, and go sound asleep j and the town is hushed into silence, and dreaminess, and siesta, until the intense heat has partially passed away. Signs of returning activity are visible about two o'clock. Gradually the town wakes up again, the streets and harbour resume their accustomed sounds, and work and business are prose- 90 SYRA. cuted until the early evening. Then the people pour into the public square. Then the band commences its stirring music. Then the cafes drive a thriving trade. Every balcony is filled with merry groups. Every seat and table under the trees are occupied by eaters, and drinkers, and loungers. Waiters are running to and fro with rich, aromatic coffee in tiny cups ; and delicious lemonade in glasses ; and large narghiles, the bubbling pipes of the East, their glass recep- tacles half filled with water, through which, and, to further cool the fumes, through long serpentine tubes, the perfect smoker sucks the burning, fragrant weed. And on the smooth marble pavement of the open square, bounded right along one side by a partly finished handsome public build- ing, several hundred people and many little children pro- menade arm-in-arm, and speak the word of greeting to friends and neighbours whom they recognize as they pass along. The Greeks are a good-looking race. Ages of degenera- tion have not availed to erase the regular lines of beauty, or to crush out the animated intelligence by which the face is lit up. The old lines are there, and the old light is there maybe more distinctly visible since they have again tasted the sweets of freedom, and rekindled, by actual possession of their country, the fire of patriotism which once glowed so fiercely within their bosoms. Activity, both physical and mental, ready and graceful movements of the body and of the mind (if we may speak in this figurative way of their quick receptive and expressive faculties) are the special gifts of the Greek. The rough fellows at work upon our cargo were lithe, busy, talkative, eyes beaming with light, features extremely mobile, always apparently on the point of a quarrel, and yet in the midst of violent gesticulation bursting into loud laughter. The warm, restless, passionate spirit of the old Hellenes was largely possessed by these begrimed and ignorant men, and these men had in them the stuff out of which heroes are made. To see the better class of well- dressed Greeks promenading in the public square could not SYRA. 9 1 but prepossess any one in their favour. The men are fairly tall, slim in figure, gentlemanly in bearing j the women are only of medium height, and even less than that, many of them with an almost faultless regularity of feature, full and sparkling dark eyes, a profusion of dark hair, with a few rare exceptions, and pleasingly graceful in behaviour ; both men and women dressing in the prevailing Western costumes, and with very good taste. But the most attractive sight in the public square is the great number of little children, with brown, soft cheeks, and large, bright eyes, trotting along in groups, under the care of their parents or nurses, dressed in the most beautiful costumes, and with a perfect blending of colours ; and the fact is forced upon you that these children have happy homes, and are well cared for a fact of the highest importance to the future welfare of Greece. As the band plays, the children and the men and women step unconsciously to the music, and pass an hour or two away in the salubrious evening atmosphere an atmo- sphere which it is a simple pleasure to breathe in healthy exercise and innocent enjoyment. Only the better class of Greeks dress in Western costumes. The larger number dress in the characteristic voluminous breeches, and small embroidered jackets, and scarlet scarves, fifteen or twenty yards long, twined round and round and round their middles, in which they fold their cash, and fasten their weapons, and hide away everything of impor- tance ; and this dress, modified in certain particulars to meet the necessities of a man's calling, is most commonly met with in the narrow, unevenly paved, steep streets of the town, and almost exclusively met with in the country. There are many Turks in Syra, well known by their features and the inevitable fez, except in the rare case of some renowned pilgrim from Mecca calling at Syra on his way home, and wearing in place of a fez, or rather twined round his fez, the coloured turban to which he has become entitled ; and Jews and Armenians mingle with the crowd, attired a little 92 SYR A. different from their neighbours. But the most striking and picturesque costume met with in Syra, and in most other Grecian towns, is that of 11 The wild Albanian kirtled to his knee, With shawl girt head and ornamented gun, And gold-embroider'd garments, fair to see." This kirtle is of white linen in multitudinous folds, gathered about the middle, and stiffly projecting in a circle above the knees, giving the Albanian a comical appearance to the stranger. He himself, however, is supremely unconscious of his comical appearance. He carries himself with a free dignified bearing which it would be plainly dangerous to provoke. His manner implies that he is best let alone ; and I fear that the man who caught an Albanian would be worse off even than the man who caught a Tartar. Cafes are very numerous in Syra, and supply nearly all the population with foods and drinks suitable to the climate. White wines, with fruit and bread, are freely partaken of ; indeed, the people mainly live upon them, eating very little flesh meat, notwithstanding its cheapness. Flesh meat in so hot a climate would be detrimental, and the people do not require it, fruit and bread fully supplying all nature's wants. The Turkish custom of coffee drinking, and eating sweet- meats, largely prevails coffee of the rarest kind, and perfectly roasted, served in dolls' cups, out of which all the aromatic liquid might be thrust by inserting the thumb ; and sweet- meats as only Turks and Greeks can make them, sugared gelatines which melt in the mouth like honey, and recall visions of delight in years long gone by, when such-like deli- cacies could be more freely eaten, and were certainly much more appreciated. The sale of rahatlakoum, or "Turkish delight," is one of the many minor evidences of the Ottoman influence upon the people of Greece j for although the Ottomans were a fierce and warlike people, they imbibed a SYRA. 93 taste for, and became addicted to, the Asiatic luxuriousness and epicureanism which distinguished the cities of the Caliphs after the riches of Persia and the far East had fallen into their hands. The Ottomans received the recipe for this sweetmeat from the Arabs, and the Arabs trace its origin to the inventive mind and skilful fingers of Fatima, the daughter of the prophet, who concocted the sweetmeat during her honeymoon for the gratification of her husband, the famous AH. And when we remember that it is a com- pound of gelatine, the powdered kernels of apricots, and the pulp of grapes, sweetened with sugar, and further sweetened with honey, and all mixed together with rosewater, we may hope that the heart of Ali, her beloved, was en- tranced, and we may credit his belief that the ingredients of the confection were revealed to his newly-wedded spouse by the houris of paradise. These and many other things the cafes supply, and, in summer, the people make it a custom, in order to save trouble at home, and to enjoy the shade of the trees, or the currents of air through the narrow streets, and perhaps also the conversation of their neigh- bours, to take their meals outdoors. The busiest thorough- fares are crowded with cafes, and their tables and chairs are set on the pavement without, and in the coolness of the morning and evening the streets are full of groups at their slender meals, chatting, card-playing, bead-counting, and doing all these together sometimes, uniting the maximum of enjoyment with the minimum of religious devotion. There are many wine-shops, and a moderate amount of drinking, although it is quite an unusual occurrence to behold a man the worse for liquor. The intoxicating quality of the native wines is feeble, and well it is, for if these fiery Greeks were a drunken race, blood would run very freely in the quarrels consequent thereon. The wine-shops, like most of the other shops, are open to the street ; that is, the windows are unglazed, and mostly without frames, simply open spaces in the masonry for the admittance of light and 94 SYRA. air ; and at the back of the shops are arranged the tuns of wine, enormous barrels, raised a little from the floor, and reaching to the ceiling, while over the floor a few rough benches are strewn, which is the only furniture these places can boast of. The smell of the wine is not confined to these places. It seems to pervade the whole town. The smell follows you through every street, and does not leave you even upon the vessel. The first day we were there I became conscious of this aroma, and never completely lost it until we left the island. There it was, very faintly per- ceptible, as if wine were constantly being heated in some part of the town, and the vapour were constantly diffusing itself through the atmosphere. The market is a little lively place in a narrow thorough- fare leading from the wharf into the public square. The most noticeable commodity is fruit, of which there are various kinds, and in very large quantities. Fruit is sold by the ok, equalling about four English pounds, and the finest and most delicious peaches, apricots, and plums can be bought at twopence halfpenny the ok, retail. In the season grapes are very plentiful, and wonderfully cheap, obtainable retail sometimes at a farthing per pound. Other fruits, such as olives, pomegranates, figs, oranges, are proportionately cheap, particularly olives, which are largely consumed by the natives, but which pall upon an Englishman's taste, unless by constant use he has obtained an artificial liking for them. Fish are also sold in the market, not large fresh fish, but very small pickled fish, anchovy, and the like, packed in barrels, and sold out by number. These fish, previous to pickling, are of various bright colours, not dissimilar to the ornamental perch of a domestic aquarium ; and the young lads will sit on the edge of the wharf, or a moored boat, and assiduously drop their hooks into the water, in the hope of a bite from one of these little creatures, whom they could swallow at a mouthful. One ragged, wrinkled, dirty, venerable Greek crouched daily, for eight SYRA. 95 days in succession, and nearly the whole day long, on the wharfs edge, with a bit of thread, and hook, and bait, jerk- ing these unwary bits of coloured life out of the water, as if fishing were a mania with him ; and he seemed well satis- fied with half a score as the result of his day's employment. If these were what he lived on we cannot wonder at his shrivelled and scraggy limbs, and at his hollow-eyed, dried- up, dark yellow old face. Other fish are eaten beside these. One day I watched a fisherman carry home a good-sized octopus. A hook was thrust through its pulpy head, and its long tentacles, with their formidable suckers, were dangling underneath ; and this strange and dreaded creature, frequently found in the Grecian seas, was to be cut up, and pickled, that, by its salty flavour, it might add to the relish of the white wine. Butchers in the market are in a great minority. There are two or three, looking like brigands, with a whole magazine of weapons thrust into the leathern pouch attached to their scarf; and their busi- ness is mostly done with the steamers and foreign vessels in the port, who want flesh meat, and who can purchase it here, either beef or mutton, any cut, at twopence per pound. The different trades of the town are carried on in the open. The climate is too hot for any one to work shut up in a room. Tailors, shoemakers, all artizans follow their em- ployments in the streets, or in the open spaces which form the windows of their dwellings. Portering must be one of the most lucrative callings in Syra, and every- thing is carried on the backs of fine, short-haired, glossy- skinned asses, almost the only beast of burden adapted to wind through the narrow streets, and climb the steep ascents in the higher part of the town. These asses bring the purest drinking water obtainable on the island into the town, in cool, stone bottles, from which the owners sell it in glasses to the thirsty who can indulge in the luxury of a drink so common in England, and therefore not valued, but g6 SYRA. in Syra more delicious than wine. The appearance of the town is almost entirely Asiatic ; in occupation and manner of life the people are half- Asiatic ; the port, and the only important port lying between the borderlands of Europe and Asia, partakes of the peculiarities of both continents, and reflects the life of the East and the West. The one language generally understood by the trades- people, besides their own Romaic, is French. A person well conversant with French may pass, without much diffi- culty, through any country in Europe. It is not only the diplomatic language of Europe, but the commercial lan- guage, and the language for all international conversation. French words and English money are current everywhere. The chemist in the square at Syra could speak French, but not English, and an English prescription was of no use to him until it had been translated into French. Upon asking another gentleman, who could struggle through a little English, if he would accept English coin, he said, " Cer- tainly ! Engleesh mooney the best mooney." Over one establishment, in which a hairdresser carried on his trade, was the ostentatious announcement, " Maison d'Angleterre." Thought I, "Here at last are congenial quarters," and I stepped in to be operated upon. The man of the razor and scissors was quite astonished to find me " Engleese," and knew sufficient about our language to say, after snipping my hair in profound silence for the space of two minutes and a half, "waun frahnc." There are very few English in Syra. The members of the English Consulate, who occupy a large and pleasant building overlooking the northern side of the harbour, with an ex- tensive marble-paved courtyard at the back, where tropical plants and a few fruit trees flourish; the clergyman of a tiny English church, hidden away behind the market, where the Anglican liturgy is read, and the sacrament of the Lord's Supper administered, and a sermon preached every Sunday morning to a little congregation \ one or two clerks SYRA. 97 in merchants' offices, who bewail the lack of English society, and are glad of the opportunity to see an English face from any steamer that happens to call in port : these constitute the representatives in Syra of our illustrious people. Out of these, and with the addition of a few from English boats in the harbour, we might reasonably expect a larger attend- ance at the church. But of the twelve present, when I found my way with difficulty along the narrow tortuous streets, and through the door in the wall, two were Swiss, and three or four were Greeks, who had dropped in appa- rently to gather a little knowledge concerning the English tongue. An Italian ironclad anchored in the bay while we were there, and the fine brass band came ashore every evening, and courteously played in the public square for the enjoy- ment of the people. They were well trained, and rendered their pieces with spirit and taste, invariably concluding the evening's performance with the National Anthem of the Greeks, a short and abrupt piece of music, which never failed to elicit shouts of applause. It was very pleasant to see these two new countries, or old countries renewed, fraternizing in a way sure to draw them together, and sure to enlist for each other the kindliest feelings and the deepest sympathy. These Italian sailors shared the proclivities of their seafaring brethren of other nationalities. They came ashore in detachments to enjoy themselves, and one favourite pastime was a gallop on donkey-back into the country. Their equestrianism, if that term may be applied to donkey- riding, was more amusing than graceful, and the faster they could go, and the more violently they were shaken, the greater was their enjoyment of the ride. There is no better fun apparently to those who are tossed upon the sea than to have a tossing upon the land. Syra is a hilly island. The hills are uncultivated, and there are not many cultivated places in the hollows of the hills. The entrances to some of these hollows are en- 8 98 SYRA. cumbered with massive rocks, clean and bare, as if all the surface soil had been washed from them by a succession of heavy rains ; but beyond the entrances, sheltered behind the rocks and between the hills, a few pleasant houses and gardens may be found houses built centuries ago by Greeks of the Empire, or Genoese, or Turks, and gardens arranged terrace below terrace, and marvellously productive even in their half-neglected state. We drove out one after- noon to a house and garden situated like this, and in this condition, invisible from the main road, and only approach- able by dipping into a break-neck hollow, and climbing a rough, steep path, but well worth the trouble, as we speedily proved when there. The house was large and long, with pleasant verandahs. It had been transformed into a semi- cafe, and two Greek islanders, in their picturesque native costumes, were seated at a small round table, in the shade of a group of olive trees, making a hearty meal of white wine, fruit, and bread. Their asses, fine fleet animals, were waiting patiently for the conclusion of the repast, and, when it was over, carried them away at a quick trot down the rough, steep hill. Confined within a large wire cage, in a kind of outhouse, were a few ringdoves and a number of quails, whether for consumption or to turn into the gardens I could not ascertain. In the gardens were a large number and a great variety of insects. Splendid dragon-flies were darting hither and thither in the hot sunshine in ceaseless quest of prey, and butterflies, sufficiently gorgeous in colour- ing and peculiar in formation to charm the mind of the most fastidious entomologist, were flitting carelessly among the flowers, and through the orange groves, and between the hanging tendrils of the vines, tempting the hand to capture them ; while less brilliant but more homely bees were buzzing their way from flower to flower in that persistent, systematic way which bees have everywhere, collecting their stores of honey for the winter. Hid in the crannies of the rocks and walls, and among the undergrowth, insects SYRA. 99 without wings might have been found, lizards, scorpions, snakes, centipedes, and others with less than a hundred feet, but very formidable notwithstanding, whose acquaint- ance very few people desire to cultivate. The precious water from the hills around was carefully collected in stone fountains at the top of the gardens, whence it was carried in little conduits all along the terraces, and down every path, nourishing the roots of the plants and trees a very ne- cessary precaution, the neglect of which for a single summer would suffice, in this hot climate, to reduce everything to barrenness and desert. In these tiny streams, so well dis- tributed, we have the secret of the luxuriance. Because of these, 11 Here the blue fig with luscious juice o'erflows, With deeper red the full pomegranate glows : The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear, And verdant olives flourish round the year. ***** Here are the vines in early flower descried, Here grapes discolour'd on the sunny side, And there in autumn's richest purple dyed." It was a rare treat to walk through this wild garden. Everything was allowed to grow very much as it liked. Care was bestowed mainly upon the percolating, fertilizing streams, and very little care indeed upon the flowers and plants they nourished ; so that terrace after terrace was in a tangle, but such a delicious tangle that it was a pleasure to stride the spaces between the overgrown walks, instead of being confined, as in some gardens, to the trim walks themselves. The smell of the ripening oranges, bending low and tapping the head in passing, and the smell of the clustering grapes, trellissed and covering the long walks, and stretching out to grasp the friendly branches of the trees, and in some places running over the ground, was one to live in the nostrils as a memory for a long time. And to pass through these vineyards and orange groves into spaces IOO SYRA. where olives } and figs, and pomegranates flourished, thread- ing through them, and up the terraces again to the verandah j and then to partake of the coolest lemonade and the finest coffee, with fruits from this very garden, and sugared gelatines, waited upon all the while with obsequious sedate- ness by a gentleman in Grecian costume ; and afterwards to be driven home by a very brigand of a Greek in personal appearance and violent, erratic horsemanship all this was strange and exciting, and a true taste of Eastern life. What a beautiful evening it was as we drove home ! That is, to Syra, and our ship's cabin. Any place occupied un- interruptedly for a few weeks becomes very familiar, and its relation to other places briefly visited invests it with the sacred name of home. The moon had hardly attained her full rounded proportions, but she was resplendent, shining gloriously upon the calm sea and the distant islands. The lights of sunset were yet lingering in the mid-sky, and mingling with the tender silvery light of evening. The sea had not lost its blue beneath so clear a firmament. All the islands were as distinctly visible as if it were still afternoon, but darker, with their edges softened in the moon's rays, looking peaceful and asleep upon the quiet tide. As the moon ascended, and the lights of sunset were withdrawn, the scene became lovelier ; and I spent an hour, after arriving in Syra, on the mole, gazing across the channel at Deli, between which island and Syra the moon had laid a golden pathway, as if to invite the fancy to wander out to that ancient sanctuary, and look upon the ghosts of heroes assembled before Apollo's mystic shrine. The shades of evening after the glaring sunshine, and the cooler air after the heated atmosphere of the day, were most enjoyable. We were in no hurry to retire to rest. To look upon the purple waters silvered by the moonlight, and to breathe the sweet, pure, balmy air, was a real pleasure, quite enough for me, but not enough for our crew. They tried to SYRA. IOI increase the enjoyment by assembling on the forecastle, and singing for two or three hours, without cessation, all the English songs they could remember, to the accompaniment of an old violin. The old violin was "a good instrument, and fairly well played ; the singers had lusty voices, and could take the different parts moderately, with a decided, but not unpleasant preponderance of bass ; and sitting aft, suffi- ciently far away to lose the grossness, the sound of their mingling voices, and the scraping of the fiddle, were fully appreciated, more so, maybe, because the tones were English, and different from the tones of every one and everything around. But these English tones were not appreciated by several Greeks alongside, who either made their home in the recesses of an old craft, or were employed upon it as night watchmen, for, becoming tired of the incessant singing and scraping, they set up a counter howl, supposed to be an ironical imitation of our serenaders, which had the speedy effect of interrupting their musical flow by causing them to burst into a hearty ringing laugh. But when the laugh was well over, and a few good-humoured spoken salutes in marine English, which is not exactly Queen's English, had been fired at the Greeks, the old fiddle charmed again, and the voices fell in almost automatically with the music of the charmer. I have had occasion to refer to the unfinished Church of the Resurrection. It crowns the conical north-western hill, and, when completed, will be a fine structure. When com- pleted : no one can say how soon, or how late, this will be. It depends upon the offerings of the pious. If the offerings are never made, the church will never be finished, because the eccle- siastical authorities absolutely refuse to go into debt for the erection of any building whatever. No one could persuade them of the wisdom of the course adopted by a certain Chris- tian denomination in England, who are said to build their places of worship by faith, and pay for them by repentance. The Church of the Resurrection has stood many years in this partly finished state, and may stand many more, unless some 102 SYRA. wealthy man is delivered from serious peril, and completes it as a thankoffering, or becomes alarmed for his soul's salva- tion, and attempts to unlock the gates of heaven by the old- fashioned and well-worn key of earthly munificence. I suppose it must be finished by such means, if finished at all, because the service of the Greek Church is confined to an ancient liturgy which nowhere rests to permit the word of exhortation, else some modern Chrysostom might cry to the people in the words of Haggai the prophet, and enforce them with thundering anathemas, " Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste ? " The large public buildings of Syra, extending along the entire length of the northern side of the square, are only half completed, if even so much, and have remained in this condition several years. The strong aversion to debt is shared by the civil authorities. They only built while the money lasted, and, when the money was done, stayed the building until funds could accumulate large enough to war- rant a recommencement. The accumulation appears to be a very slow process, and apparently the buildings are no nearer completion now than they were ten years ago. It would certainly seem a more sensible plan not to begin building until all the money is ready a saving in interest on money unexpended, and a further saving in retaining a staff of men, with all their tools and appliances, upon the spot j but there would be the temptation of spending the money in other ways, and the danger of having no large public buildings at all. The custom of never venturing beyond the means actually possessed is, in some ways, highly commendable, and if the custom reaches downward into the private circles of business, and domestic, and personal life, it will effectually prevent much misery, even if it may pre- vent rapid and extensive acquisition of wealth. Sudden fortunes gained by speculation will be impossible, but so will sudden misfortunes, and life will gain in equableness, in that even play of social forces which are better than up- SYR A. 103 heaval and catastrophe, and in which consists, more largely than we suppose, the happiness of mankind. The Church of St. Nicholas is completed externally. The internal arrangements are so far completed as to permit of full services being held here. The iconastasis, or screen of images, dividing the holy place from the most holy, with its painted panels and swinging doors, separates the priests from the people, and admits them to their hidden and more sacred functions j a few icons are fastened on the walls, with appro- priate lamps, or sockets for candles and tapers, placed before them, although for the most part the walls are uncovered, and, for a Greek church, have a very bare appearance; a beautiful silver candelabra hangs from the centre of the dome, and, upon special occasions, brilliantly illuminates the middle of the church ; the choir have their place railed off in the far corner, whence their voices can respond in blending harmonies to the monotonous reading of the priests ; everything required for worship, after the form of the orthodox Greek Church, is there, so that services are held every Sunday, and on their numerous feast days, throughout the year. Internally the building has an un- finished appearance nevertheless, a lack of sacred embellish- ment common to Eastern churches ; but it is so constructed as to admit of, and admirably display, embellishment, and in time will make a very fine church indeed. It is a spacious building. It will comfortably accommodate two thousand worshippers. A young priest proudly informed us that it was an exact copy in form of the famous St. Sophia, at Constantinople, but, of course, much smaller. This is not altogether correct. It is, like St. Sophia, an oblong rect- angle, and its internal compartments are similarly arranged, but it has no splendid narthex, and it lacks the peculiar dome construction, the central dome supported by semi- domes, which gives to St. Sophia its majestic open space unencumbered by pillars, and which led to the boast of its architect that he had hung its dome in the air. In other 104 SYR A. respects it is like St. Sophia, but not more like the great Eastern cathedral, which has been degraded into the most famous mosque of the Mohammedans, than many other Grecian churches, for they are nearly all built upon the Byzantine model. We thought to attend service here on Sunday evening at five o'clock. We found the church empty. A few priests were gathered about the door, who informed us that the public service was held at four o'clock in the morning, and at five o'clock in the evening they met for vespers. They seemed likely to have the vespers entirely to themselves. While we were in the church examining the pictures, a poor and ragged woman entered, carrying a little child about two years old and apparently recovering from a serious illness. She paid a small coin to the doorkeeper, for which she re- ceived a thin wax taper, and, approaching a commonplace and badly painted image upon the iconastasis, she lit the taper, fixed it in the socket before the image, crossed herself, bowed, muttered, and then obliged the child to cross itself, not in any way, but in the orthodox way, first touching the forehead, and then the breast, and then from the right to the left shoulder. She afterwards kissed the icon, and put the child forward to kiss it, but the little thing shrank back, and only kissed it under pressure, and very reluctantly. She passed out, leaving the taper burning before the image ; and the doorkeeper, as soon as she was gone, took the taper from its socket, and irreverently extinguished the flame. I felt vexed at the man, because I had pitied the woman (she was so poor, and so devout, extracting as much comfort as she could from her religion, and maybe happy in the thought that her piety, represented by that miserable little taper, was acceptable to the blessed Virgin); but I found that not only in Greece, but in Russia, where the religious ceremonial is exactly the same, it was customary for the tapers to be care- lessly snuffed out, and carried away, as soon as the wor- shippers had left the building. In that incident of the SYRA. I05 mother and child, unnoticed by the priests and the door- keeper, because quite familiar to them, the mother instructing the child in the forms of devotion, forcing the child to go through the forms of devotion, we have the secret of the strength and continuance of particular types of religious life. Not by those priests, with all their learning, and mysterious functions, and paraphernalia of worship not by the gorge- ously decorated buildings, and burning candles, and painted images, and the observance of saint days, and fastings, and prayers, is the Grecian Church preserved and perpetuated, but by poor mothers like these ; and if it were not for their silent and unobtrusive training by which material is cease- lessly provided for the grinding of the vast ecclesiastical machine, that machine would simply grind itself to pieces, and the Greek Church, as any other church in its merely outward organization, would vanish from the face of the earth. There are much older churches in Syra than the Church of the Resurrection, or the Church of St. Nicholas, and with these older churches, hidden among the houses, I was better pleased than with the two overlooking the houses from the summit of the hills. One of these churches is behind the public buildings, fronting the narrow street that leads to the highest part of the town. It is crammed full of pictures, mostly old and curious paintings of long-forgotten saints, in massive gold and silver-gilt frames. Simply the hands and faces of many of these saints are painted, and the nimbus, the crown, the flowing robes, the sacred books in their hands, and everything else required to complete the picture, are represented by delicately wrought filigree, or thin plates of precious metal richly chased, with an appropriate ornamenta- tion of gems, as near to a statue, an idol, the abomination of the Greek Church, as a picture, an image can be, without being an idol altogether. For the world these Greeks would not bow before a carved statue. That would be the height of superstition. That would be gross idolatry. But to bow 106 SYRA. before a painted picture, attired in a golden filigree cloak, clasped with gems, is worship most acceptable. What a narrow line, a line fine as a hair, is sufficient to divide men into separate religious camps, and make them curse each other ! What a thin curtain, thin as a cobweb film, is suffi- cient to blind men to each other's goodness and sympathy ! No wonder if sometimes humanity overtops religion, and strides across the narrow line, and breaks through the thin curtain, and grasps the hand of its fellow in assertion of their common kinship j and what is this but Christianity triumph- ing over its forms, liberating itself from its fetters, calling men back from their dead images to the real life of Him who not only clearly taught the Fatherhood of God, but the brotherhood of man ! From the curious paintings, and silver lamps, and antique furniture, and elaborate decoration of the old church, my mind was called away by the sound of children's voices reading together in an adjoining school (and children's voices everywhere, no matter in what language they speak, sound very much alike); and I could not help thinking that the priests were doing good work, and were rightly employed here, work which would tell better for Greece, and for the world, than the endless genuflections of their worship before bald-headed, meek-eyed, red-faced old saints. With another old church, near the harbour, I was very much pleased, not so much with the church building as with a set of buildings at the back, forming a quadrangle, and enclosing a grassy courtyard. This quadrangle could be approached either through the church or by a separate entrance of its own. The separate entrance was from the street, up a few steps, and through a large door, admitting to a balcony or raised promenade running on every side of the quadrangle and looking into the courtyard, where the bright green grass, and the dark green leaves of the orange trees, laden with golden fruit, afforded rest to the eyes wearied with the glare of the white streets and the white SYRA. 107 walls. Opening from the promenade, and on the same level with it, were a variety of rooms appropriated to the uses of an infirmary, a surgery, a kitchen, a nurses' room, bedrooms for patients, and a large, lofty, well-ventilated room in which the convalescent could assemble for conversation with each other, or reading, or recreation, or rest. This infirmary was part of the ecclesiastical establishment, and maintained by the Church funds an evidence of practical Christianity all the more pleasing from the fact that poor patients of every faith and nationality are taken in, and carefully and skilfully treated, without any attempt at making proselytes, or even without any unnecessary obtrusion of particular beliefs and modes of worship. A real good Samaritan Church was this, which never passed by on the other side Roman Catholic, Protestant, Mohammedan, Gueber, or any one else requiring medical aid. Within its large room I saw Turks, and Greeks, and Franks, to the number of twenty or more, all recovering from accidents and sicknesses, who had received, and who were then receiving, without distinction, from the young doctor and the white-robed nurses, the most kindly attention, and who would be certain to look back in after years with grateful affection, wherever their home, and whatever their worship, to that little religious hospital behind the old church in Syra. At least one of our great English medical foundations originated in a similar work to that carried on by this Church in Syra. St. Bartholomew's Hospital, with which was long connected a church and priory, was founded in the reign of Henry I. by a gentleman of the name of Rahere. While on a pilgrimage to Rome, Rahere had a vision in which St. Bartholomew appeared to him, and commanded him to build a church " in the suburbs of London at Smith- field." The bishop favoured his project ; the king gave up part of his market, that marshy and least profitable part where it had been customary to gibbet notorious criminals ; Rahere gave, and begged, and worked himself, and obtained Io8 SYRA. money and labour from the people, who were willing to help him with both because, as the record quaintly says, "hys lyfe accorded to his tonge, and his dede approved well hys sermon ; " and, amid some opposition, the buildings were at length completed. For nearly eight hundred years the art of healing has been benevolently exercised at St. Bartholo- mew's, which was first an ecclesiastical foundation, and must have carried on, for several centuries, a similar work to that of the old Greek Church at Syra. In Eastern life a few hundred years seem nothing. To look into some out-of-the- way corners of Syra, and other towns on the European and Asiatic borderlands, is like leaping over the centuries, and meeting face to face the customs of mediaeval times. A funeral in Greece is a sadly picturesque sight. My attention was specially -arrested by the funeral of a little girl, seven or eight years old, with a most beautiful face, rounded as if in perfect health, but delicately pale, a white lily plucked suddenly from earth's garden to be added to the living garlands of paradise. It was not a largely attended funeral. First came the coffin lid, upright in order to dis- play its gaudy silver-gilt ornamentation, carried by a boy ; then several priests, not in the long dark robes and tall brim- less hat which they ordinarily wear outdoors, but in their coloured and bordered service robes, striking and even gorgeous, stepping slowly and solemnly, and chanting in low monotonous tones ; then five or six boys carrying tall wax tapers, moulded with floral decorations, on either side of the fair corpse, and the corpse in its coffin, without lid, fully exposed to the gaze of on-lookers, and carried low so as to be more clearly visible, strewn with flowers, and followed by a few mourning relatives. The sweet, silent face of the child was a touching sight, and its deep calm, its intense placidity, its matchless repose profoundly sugges- tive of many thoughts ; but the funeral passed on, not even attracting so much notice as our sombre English funerals, barely looked at by the people in the streets, who stayed not SYRA. 109 their business or pleasure one moment, or lessen that busi- ness or pleasure to any perceptible extent, in the presence of the mystery of death. Our English Sunday is ridiculed abroad. Our shops are closed, our streets are deserted, what to us appears reveren- tial, to the foreigner appears a foolish and self-imposed melancholy. Their weekly holy-day is a holiday, a time of amusement and pleasure ; our weekly holy-day is a day for worship and rest. There must be something very tame to a foreigner about our English Sunday. He cannot appreciate it, because he cannot in imagination occupy our national position, or enter into our more serious religious life. He looks at us, and at our Sunday, from his own standpoint, and his face broadens into a smile at the im- penetrable stupidity of Johnny Bull. That substantial gentleman can afford to be smiled at, and I trust will never be smiled into the observance of Sunday after the fashion of Continental Europe. The quiet of an English Sabbath to an Englishman who has experienced the hubbub and gaiety of Sabbaths abroad is worth struggling for, and not only for the sake of the quiet, but for the sake of many other things as well. The way we observe the Sunday has had much to do with the happiness and multiform endear- ments of our domestic life, and much to do with the forma- tion of the strongest, best, most pronounced types of English character ; and it would be a sad change from our sober to the dissipating methods of observance in vogue from the Bay of Biscay to the Black Sea. On Sundays Syra was like a fair. The square was then more thickly crowded. The streets were then most busily thronged. Business was carried on with an extra zest. The market resounded with the cries of all kinds of salesmen. Smoking, coffee-drinking, card-playing were indulged in at the little round tables, a priest here and there sitting among the company, as ardently engaged as the rest, and dropping beads the while from what appeared to be a rosary, but IIO SYRA. which some say is only a plaything. Mohammedans carry a string of beads containing ninety-nine in all, representing the ninety-nine attributes of the Deity, and their counting has a religious significance. But they can count, and game, and smoke, and drink coffee all at the same time. The entire population gives itself up to hilarity and merry-making on Sunday. The French and Italian musicians, both men and women, that wander here, and give scenic representa- tions outdoors, realize their largest profits on this day sacred to the worship of Christ, but whose worship has been either forgotten or strangely misunderstood in a so-called Christian country. This noisy play is more akin to the celebration of the old heathen festivals by their idolatrous forefathers than to the celebration of the resurrection of Christ by the dis- ciples who were gathered in these very Eastern cities in early Christian times. Give me the English Sunday, even if it were ten times duller than it is, before this continuous and intensified babel of the week. There is enough clamour and sport from Monday to Saturday. Let the Sunday be peaceful. The world should be hushed for one day. On St. John's Eve, by the old reckoning, we were startled by fires suddenly leaping up among the houses in every part of the town. As soon as it became dusk these fires were lit, now here, and now there, until a score were blazing at once, and illuminating together the town and harbour j and no sooner did one set of fires die down than others were lit, and others again, mostly in new places, as if every house and almost every person intended to have some share in the conflagration. " What is the meaning of this ? " I inquired ; and a Greek gentleman replied, " If not burn an old table, chair, basket, something, John send no good luck." Doubt- less these Midsummer bonfires are the remnants of an ancient heathenism once prevalent throughout Europe and Western Asia. As in some other instances, the Christian saint has taken the place and appropriated the honours of the mythical deity, and thereby aided in the perpetuation of SYRA. Ill a custom which might otherwise have been destroyed. Fire must have played a very important part in the idolatrous rites of past ages, and the custom of kindling fires for the various purposes of worship must have spread over wide areas of the earth's surface. But the most curious fact is not the spread of the custom, but the simultaneous practice of the custom in countries separated by thousands of miles, and by people utterly different from each other. In his " Yachting Tour in Norway," Mr. Froude says, " On St. John's Day, by the old reckoning, as we lay at anchor in a gorge, which from the land must have been inaccessible, we saw a large fire blazing, and figures leaping through the flame. It was the relic of a custom, once wide as the Northern hemisphere, on the festival of the summer solstice, old as the Israelitish prophet who saw the children passed through the fire to Moloch. I observed the same thing forty-three years ago in the market-place at Killarney. Thousands of years it has survived, down to these late times of ours, in which, like much besides, it will now end dis- solved in the revolutionary acids of scientific civilization." These revolutionary acids are dissolving the custom but slowly. It must live in the East for a long time yet. And in Cornwall, where, from distant ages, the custom has pre- vailed, and prevailed too on Midsummer Day, it will not easily disappear. Comparatively cut off for a long time from communication with the rest of Britain, and affording an asylum from the conquering Saxon, and Dane, and Nor- man for the Druid priests and bards, who exercised for centuries here an almost undisturbed influence over a sus- ceptible people when their influence in the rest of the island was gone, and who practised here last of all their mysterious rites in sacred groves, and by holy wells, and on rugged cairns, Cornwall preserves traditions of fires kindled on sacred granite altars, which to-day are called Sacrificing Rocks, and points out hollow stone basins for catching the blood of the victims offered to appease the wrath, and obtain 112 SYR A. the favour of the great god Baal. There is a marked differ- ence between the basins of the Sacrificing Rocks and the other basins on the Cornish cairns. The other basins are the result of the action of rain and wind, the rain first of all beating out a softer grain in the surface of the granite, and forming a little hollow, in which, beneath the water, small particles of granite are deposited; and then the wind stirring the water into circular eddies, and whirling the small particles round and round, causing them by this regular rotatory motion to grind the sides of the hollow into an even and smoothly rounded basin, wide in proportion to its depth. But the basins of the Sacrificing Rocks are deep in propor- tion to their width, too deep for the wind to act upon the particles and convert them into a grinding machine, and must have been formed by human hands. 1 On Midsummer Day the Druids celebrated an important festival, lit their altar fires, and implored the blessing of Heaven upon their lands, and maybe upon the contiguous waters; and the tourist now sheltering in the tiny coves of the picturesque peninsula would very likely behold the Midsummer fires, and the figures leaping through them, as Mr. Froude beheld in Norway. The cry, " O Baal, hear us ! '' has gone up from many English hills as well as from Mount Carmel. In Penzance the Midsummer fires are kindled in the middle of the streets ; torches steeped in tar are swung round the heads of young men who pass up and down on either side of the fires, and fill the street with blazing circles ; young lads leap through the flames in quick succession, and enjoy the exciting, but somewhat dangerous, fun ; and next day the people assemble for picnics on the water, as if, now Mid- summer had come, they might venture on the treacherous element without fear. Years ago, the shores of Mount's Bay, from the Lizard to the Land's End, used to be dotted 1 A good example of these hewn basins may be seen on Cam Brae, near Camborne ; and a good example of the worn basins on the Clapper Rocks, St. Mary's, Scilly Islands. SYRA. IIJ with Midsummer fires ; but these revolutionary acids are at work, the custom is dissolving, the fires are mostly ex- tinguished along this coast, and will be in Penzance, at any rate in the public streets, within a comparatively short time. Old customs die hard, however, and, if driven out of the towns, will take refuge in the villages and hamlets, and live on under the kindly fostering of a more simple-minded people. Syra, unlike many of the islands of the ^Egean, has very few historical associations. It must have possessed a con- siderable city in ancient times. The architectural remains which may yet be traced near the site of the present town prove this, as well as references to the prosperity of the island in the Odyssey. The only eminent person born in Syra was Pherecydes. He was one of the earliest prose writers of Greece, and became a great and much respected philoso- pher. He is said to have been a disciple of Pittacus, the Lesbian sage ; and there is reason to believe he was the master of Pythagoras, and that this learned and ingenious man received from him the doctrine of metempsychosis, and was grounded by him in the knowledge of the move- ment of the heavenly bodies. Apart from the birth and teaching of Pherecydes Syra has hardly any mention in the history of Greece. In the Odyssey, however, Syra has an important place. One of the most charming parts of that immortal poem is connected with this little island. Eumaeus, the faithful swineherd of Ulysses, every line of whose noble character is drawn with the most delicate precision, was a Syran, and son to Ctesius, the monarch of the two cities which then divided the island between them. Of this Eumaeus, who sheltered and entertained both Ulysses and Telemachus previous to the slaying of the suitors, and who himself took part in that terrible fray, Coleridge has left us a very interest- ing criticism. He considers him to be "a character less within the reach of modern imitation than any other in the 9 TI4 SYR A. Odyssey. He is a genuine country gentleman of the age of Homer, living at a distance from the town, having servants or labourers under him, but being at the same time the principal herdsman and superintendent of the swine belong- ing to Ulysses, which of course constituted an important article of the hero's property. . . . The scenes in his house are unequalled in their way. . . . The character of Eumaeus is a very complete conception, and a remarkably interesting specimen of rural life and its habits in the very remote age in which it was produced." For the comfort of his master, and in sympathy with his suffering, Eumaeus relates his own life's story. In describing his own land, he says ' ' Above Ortygia lies an isle of fame, Far hence remote, and Syria is the name (There curious eyes inscribed with wonder trace The sun's diurnal, and his annual race) ; Not large, but fruitful ; stored with grass to keep The bellowing oxen and the bleating sheep ; Her sloping hills the mantling vines adorn, And her rich valleys wave with golden corn. No want, no famine, the glad natives know, Nor sink by sickness to the shades below ; But when a length of years unnerves the strong, Apollo comes, and Cynthia comes along. They bend the silver bow with tender skill, And, void of pain, the silent arrows kill." Here we have a very pleasant picture, and save the dis- charging of Apollo and Cynthia's arrows, a veritable island of the blessed ; and, to some people, the exception would be no exception at all, but an increase of the blessedness, for they would prefer the contemplation of a painless and quiet death to the surfeited happiness of a life of hundreds of years. This description agrees well, both in the fertility of the island, its immunity from plague, and the study of its people of the movements of the heavenly bodies, with what we gather of Syra from the later Grecian writers. Then follows the touching and beautiful story of Eumaeus. When SYRA. 115 a very little child at home, a ship of Sidon entered the port of Syra, bringing many curious things from the East, with which the sailors traded, receiving in return whatever the island had to bestow. A Sidonian woman was then residing in the court of Ctesius. She had been Captured by pirates, and conveyed to Syra, and there sold to Ctesius j and, be- cause of her skilful fingers, held an honourable and trusted place in the king's household. This woman came down to the shore, where the Phoenician vessel was anchored, to wash her robes, and one of the sailors flattered and won her for himself. She told him she was one of his own countrywomen. A plan of escape was decided upon, and an intention formed of secretly spoiling the king of part of his riches, and kidnapping his child. The sailors took an oath at the woman's request, too glibly, that they would convey her in safety to her native land. A year passed away, during which all conversation with her was scrupulously and pur- posely avoided, lest it should arouse the suspicion of the king and the people. Their vessel was laden, and they were ready to depart ; one of the crew went to the palace, ex- hibited some elaborately wrought gold and amber chains, and, while the other women were bargaining for the trinkets, gave the sign previously agreed upon to the Sidonian. She passed into the large feasting-room, where the feast was already spread, but the guests not yet assembled, hid three golden goblets in her bosom, laid hold of the child who followed her in innocent glee to the seashore, was lifted with her human treasure, as well as the less costly spoil, to the deck of the vessel, and swiftly borne away. ' ' Six calmy days and six smooth nights we sail, And constant Jove supplied the gentle gale. The seventh, the fraudful wretch (no cause descried), Touched by Diana's vengeful arrow, died. Down dropp'd the caitiff- corse, a worthless load, Down to the deep ; there roll'd the future food Of fierce sea-wolves, and monsters of the flood." Il6 SYRA. Here is the bitter feeling of Eumaeus towards the fair robber who had deprived him of a father's training, a life of afflu- ence and power, and a lovely island kingdom. The Sidonian vessel was steered to Ithaca, and there, by command of the gods, the little child was sold to Laertes, the father of Ulysses, the King of Ithaca, with whom he found a happy and comfortable home. CHAPTER IV. THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. The two waterways Railway system Isolation of Constantinople Scenery of - the Dardanelles Sea-fowl Chanak Sestos and Abydos Leander Byron The army of Xerxes, and its passage across the Hellespont Alexander Julius Caesar The Turkish invasion Bride of Abydos Fortifications Damage to an English fleet Turkish boatmen ^Egospotami The River Granicus Gallipoli Origin of the Janizaries Boulair Sea of Marmora : its shores and islands Scenery of the Bosphorus The Symple- gades The Giant's grave The Genoese castles Therapia Deep waters The castles of Asia and Europe Cemeteries Suburbs of Constantinople. There are two ways to Constantinople, both waterways, one by Varna, across a corner of the Black Sea, and through the Bosphorus, the other by the Grecian Islands, and through the Dardanelles. Constantinople is not yet con- nected by railway with the continent of Europe. There is a single line to Adrianople. A train runs over this line in each direction once a day, accomplishing the journey of two hundred miles in fourteen hours. Adrianople is also connected by railway with Dede Agatch on the ^Egean, and Philippopolis and Sarembey in Eastern Roumelia. We may therefore consider Adrianople as the centre of the scanty European railway system of the Turks. What is wanted is the extension of the Continental line from Pirot, the present terminus, through Sophia to Sarembey; but even then, Il8 THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. unless the Turks could be persuaded to accelerate their trains, the present mail route, via Pesth, Rustchuk, and Varna, notwithstanding the occasional discomfort of crossing the south-west corner of the stormy Euxine, would be better than the slowness, closeness, and monotony o* Turkish railway cars. " Hurry is of the devil," say the Turks, and we do not entertain the shadow of a doubt con- cerning the Turkish belief in the truth of the proverb. By the want of this railway connection between Pirot and Sarembey Constantinople is isolated from Western Europe. Its inhabitants scarcely regard themselves as resident in Europe. In defiance of geographical boundaries they think and speak of Europe as beyond the Balkans. And not only is Constantinople isolated by the want of railway communication, but its waterways intensify the isolation. The Bosphorus and the Dardanelles are so narrow, and so easily defended, as to shut up Constantinople within herself, and to shut out the rest of the world. Her strength mainly consists in her isolation. This may account for the refusal of the suspicious Turk to extend the railway system. To block the passes of the Balkans, and to close the gates of the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, is to effectually protect Constantinople. If the fortifications of the waterways are well manned the gates cannot be forced. The finest navy in the world could be annihilated in those narrow channels. The real danger to Constantinople is by way of the Balkans, and to successfully defend them is to maintain the crescent on St. Sophia and the sacred banner of Mohammed in the East of Europe. The Hellespont opens tamely from the magnificent northern ^Egean. The swift current rolls between the low, marshy, Asiatic shore, where the classic waters of ancient Simois and Scamander unite to pour their wealth into the sea, and the sloping and marly European cliffs, scantily clad with brushwood and small trees, rising barely one hundred feet above the tide. The scenery improves very THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. II9 much upon approaching the elbow of the channel. The passage narrows down to a mile in width. The waters sweep round the sharp Asiatic elbow, and form, on the European shore, a pleasant, semicircular bay. The hills are finer and more fertile, rising rapidly from the European shore into high grassy slopes, and gradually stretching away from the shores of Asia into park-like wooded uplands, the spaces between the woods flourishing with vines and olives, and dotted with the picturesque farmsteads of industrious Greeks and Turks. When round the elbow, the channel widens by slow degrees until it is lost in the broad, shining mirror of the lovely Sea of Marmora. From the narrowest part of the Hellespont northward to the Sea of Marmora the scenery reminds one of Windermere in its best summer attire. Of course, the scenery is on a larger scale; the views are ampler ; the woods are more extensive. But there is a striking similarity, nevertheless, until Gallipoli is ap- proached, and then the slender, white minarets ; the brown- walled, red-tiled houses, with large overhanging eaves, like Swiss chalets ; the expanding Propontis ; the magnificent white marble heights of Marmora Island, rising in almost spiritual beauty above the sapphire sea, altogether dispel the similarity to Windermere and assert the peculiarities of the East. A flock of sea-fowl were skimming along the surface of the Dardanelles : they were small-sized, brown-backed birds, with long-pointed wings, and displayed as they swayed and turned in their flight the under white part of their wings. They fly restlessly backwards and forwards along the course of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, but never enter the ^Egean or the Black Sea. By some these birds are known as "the damned lovers," and are supposed to be animated by the souls of the numerous victims who have been silently sunk in the Bosphorus from the palaces that line the banks, when Sultan, Vizier, or Pacha found this the only resource left them of ending unpleasant domestic 120 THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. broils a fanciful interpretation of their restless movements, close upon, and backwards and forwards over the same waters, and an unmistakably suggestive name; but ima- gination is stimulated beyond the bounds of reason when dealing with what is jealously secreted, and the harem must be generally a duller place, and wanting in the ex- citing and dreadful incidents with which poetry delights to invest it, notwithstanding the refined cruelties to which a Turk will sometimes resort either for policy or revenge. Near the elbow of the Dardanelles, in its narrowest part, stands the modern fortified Turkish town of Chanak. Here all vessels going up or down must stay for the examination of papers, and to obtain pratique; and no vessel can pro- ceed either way in the night, but must wait for the daylight, and the pleasure of the Turkish authorities, before going through the gates. The Turks are very strict in the main- tenance of these regulations, and quite prepared to enforce them by cannon mounted and charged on both sides of the straits, between the two fires of which no ship could escape. That this elbow is the most important part of the Darda- nelles may be seen at a glance. Here stood the ancient castles of Sestos and Abydos, and now there are interesting remains of fortresses strongly built centuries ago by the Ottomans when first they ventured into Europe. The masonry of the castle at Sestos is perfect. It is a peculiar structure huge circular walls, defended by towers, and en- closing a triangular fortress a formidable place preparatory to the discovery of gunpowder, but upon that discovery, like many other structures, rendered suddenly obsolete. Abydos was a commanding situation for controlling the surrounding country, and, in the early times, the seat of empire. We read of Asias the great, who held his wealthy reign In fair Abydos, by the rolling main," THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 121 and whose name, perhaps, transferred to the region of Ephesus, afterwards spread over an entire continent, and now denotes one quarter of the globe. Here Dardanus, when he brought his household gods from Samothracia, fixed his seat, and allied his arms with Troy. Between Sestos and Abydos is that famous passage of the Hellespont, which, in mythology and history, has played a most important part, and become one of the best known and most interesting places in the world. The most pathetic and frequently told story is that of Hero and Leander. Hero was the beautiful priestess of Venus at Sestos. Leander, of Abydos, after meeting her at the festival of Venus and Adonis, and falling in love with her, secretly declared his passion in defiance of the vows of perpetual virginity under which the priestess maiden was bound ; and she too, in defiance of her vows, returned his love. Night after night he swam the channel, and, to guide him in his dangerous passage across the water, she hung a lantern in the top of a tower by the sea. One stormy night the rain fell in torrents, the heaving billows resounded upon the shore, the swollen waters swept more rapidly by, all warning him of the great risk he ran, but ' ' He could not see, he would not hear, Or sound or sign foreboding fear ; His eye but saw that light of love, The only star it hail'd above ; His ear but rang with Hero's song, 1 Ye waves, divide not lovers long ! ' " The blustering winds extinguished the light of Hero's lantern, and, unguided by the accustomed beacon, and whelmed beneath the tossing wave, the lifeless form of Leander was cast upon the further shore. The lovely priestess died disconsolate for the loss of her lover. An old, old story, told in many ways, and always attractive to the fond human heart ; and, after all, it is the old, old 122 THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. story of which every human heart knows something, and can respond to, because it is connected with and touches the strings of our purest and deepest human life. Byron swam the Hellespont from the European to the Asiatic shore. It is not an easy feat. Only a strong swim- mer can do it. The current is so rapid that a boat cannot row directly across, and therefore a swimmer would certainly be carried down the stream some distance before reaching the opposite shore. He was not much enamoured of the feat if we may judge from his humorously doleful poem. He says, comparing himself and Leander, who " Swam for love, and I for glory; 'Twere hard to say who fared the best : Sad mortals ! thus the gods still plague you ! He lost his labour, I my jest ; For he was drown "d, and I've the ague." The most numerous and magnificent army the world has ever seen crossed the Hellespont from Abydos to Sestos in the year 480 b.c. The Persians under Darius had crossed before, and conquered Thrace, and carried their arms beyond the Balkans and the Danube in a vain attempt to subdue the savage myriads of Scythia, and then turned southward toward Greece only to be scattered by Miltiades on the memorable plain of Marathon. The Persian power was humbled. Darius made more extensive preparations to chastise and enslave the Greeks, and, in the midst of these preparations, was touched by the inexorable finger of death* Xerxes, his son and successor, was persuaded, almost against his will, to continue the preparations, and avenge the honour of his country. He was not contented with his father's plans. His army and navy must be so large as to be irresistible by the mere weight of numbers, and so splendidly appointed as to gratify the pride of the most powerful monarch upon the face of the earth. Four years were spent in gathering forces from all parts of his vast dominions, painted negroes THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 23 from Ethiopia, clad in panther's skins, and carrying bows and flint-tipped arrows ; wild and almost naked hordes from the Libyan deserts, armed with hard and sharp wooden lances equally adapted for thrusting or throwing at the foe ; agile horsemen from Central Asian steppes, ready to fling the winding lasso, and despatch the entangled enemy with the dagger; fair-skinned men from the mountains of Iberia, and olive-coloured men from the banks of the Indus, and Medes and Persians on richly-caparisoned horses, and in gorgeous chariots, with all their numerous attendants in care of the camp and its luxuries a representative gathering of the widespread rule of the great king, who could not brook to be insulted by a refusal of submission from a few tribes dwelling in a little rocky peninsula not half the size of the poorest satrapy of his empire. The rendezvous was Sardis in Lydia. Thence they moved toward Abydos. The army was divided into two parts, and between the two parts rode the king in the midst of the choice troops of the empire. First went the baggage, and then one half the army, a motley mass of every colour, and armed in every way. After a respectful interval came the king's equipage, a splendid chariot drawn by the spirited horses of Nissea, in which sat the stately monarch, the tallest and most handsome man in the army, but whose height and appearance belied the weakness of his character. His chariot was preceded by another, a more splendid chariot still, for the appropriation of the invisible deity who might attend him, and give him success in his enterprise, to which eight beautiful white steeds were yoked, while other ten steeds of the sacred breed of Nisaea were led before by grooms in royal apparel. A thousand spearmen marched in front of the ten steeds, with the butt end of their spears, wrought in the shape of pomegranates and glittering with gold, held in the air ; and in front of them rode a thousand horsemen. The king was followed by two similar companies. Then came the I??unortals^ the ten thousand infantry whose 124 THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. number was always maintained, armed with spears, those of the outer lines adorned with golden pomegranates, and those of the inner ranks with pomegranates of silver. Behind them rode the ten thousand horsemen who completed the magnificent retinue of this luxurious king. After another respectful interval came the rest of the army, the mul- titude of barbarians who paid tribute, and made war so long as the king had power to hold them in awe; and the camp followers, who always gather in the wake of an army like jackals prowling after their prey. This numerous army, which has been computed at 1,800,000 fighting men, in addition to at least an equal number of attendants, was assisted by a fleet of over 4,000 vessels, great and small, containing oarsmen and troops to the number of 500,000. Afterwards, in Thrace, 300,000 were added to the army and 24,000 to the navy. One chief danger to such an armament was its own bulk. Only a man of rare military genius could handle it effectively. The provisioning of such a vast host taxed the resources of every country through which it passed. But Xerxes was anxious to frighten the Greeks by a display of unparalleled power, and at the same time flatter his own vanity by the greatness and splendour of a gathering such as had never been beheld before by the eyes of men. A bridge was constructed across the Hellespont, which the stormy winds and waves, caring no more for Xerxes than for the most obscure painted barbarian in the troops, smashed in pieces and carried away ; and the angry monarch beheaded his engineers, and, in his impotent rage, lashed the unheeding waters, and flung a set of iron fetters into the tide. Other two bridges were made of boats moored and anchored side by side, over which planks were laid, one bridge for the baggage, the other for the troops. Frankincense was burned upon them, myrtle was strewn over them. The king himself consecrated them by prayers to the rising sun, whom he implored to help him to carry his victorious arms to the extremities of THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 25 the West ; then, after propitiating the previously scourged Hellespont by pouring libations into its waters from a golden bowl, and flinging the bowl, with a golden censor and a richly-engraven and gem-bespangled sword, into the sea, the passage commenced. From a marble throne on a neigh- bouring eminence Xerxes had surveyed his great army, and he had been moved to tears by the thought that in a hundred years they would all be gone. Now he watched them file over the two bridges. For seven days the long procession crossed, confident in its conquering power. But the stand at Thermoplye' deceived them. The fight at Salamis con- vinced them otherwise ; and before many months they were back again, reduced by the slaughter of the Greeks, but more terribly reduced by famine and pestilence, to find the bridges washed away, and only the shattered remnant of a fleet gathered to convey their emaciated and dispirited companies to the Asiatic shore. One hundred and fifty years later a conqueror passed from Europe to Asia. Alexander the Great believed in the possibility and gathered an army for the purpose of penetrating the Persian Empire, and subduing that Empire to his sway. He was confident in his own military skill and in the unconquerable phalanx of his Macedonian troops. He knew that what the ten thousand Greeks had accom- plished under Cyrus, and by the successful retreat of the ten thousand Greeks through the fastnesses of Armenia upon the unexpected death of their leader under his command, Greeks could accomplish again, and much more, and would have no need to retreat, should his life be spared, until the Persian power was thoroughly broken, and the Persian crown upon his brow. Not with an imposing and osten- tatious display of forces did Alexander cross the Helles- pont. He had an army of 35,000. Of these only 5,000 were cavalry. He embarked at Sestos for the opposite shore. His own vessel he steered himself, and in mid- stream offered a bull in sacrifice to Neptune, and poured 126 THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. libations from a golden cup into the rolling tide. Alexander was proud of his pretended descent from Achilles. He had a passion for everything associated with the glory of Greece. Homer was his constant companion. And when his vessel came within distance of the famous Asiatic shore, where his ancestor had " drunk delight of battle with his peers," he hurled his spear over the waters and into the land to claim it again as a conqueror for Greece. A tumulus rose on Cape Sigseum, supposed to be the same of which Aga- memnon says ' ' High on the shore the growing hill w T e raise, , That wide the extended Hellespont surveys ; Where all, from age to age, who pass the coast, May point Achilles' tomb, and hail the mighty ghost." On the tumulus was a marble pillar, and this pillar Alexander adorned with flowers, and paid honour to the great Achilles :by running naked round the tomb. Southward went the Macedonian into the wealthy Persian satrapies and toward the heart of the Persian Empire, not to speedily return to the Hellespont with a broken army like the proud Xerxes, but to chase the armies of Asia across their plains and rivers, until the boasted infallible sceptre of the splendid Eastern monarchy was within his grasp. Alas ! for Alex- ander, however, and all such as he. The glory hardly won is soon lost. In the midst of his triumphs death sought him. out and summoned him away ; and other inferior men broke the sceptre in pieces, and ruled each one with his own part, only to be subdued each one by the invincible power of imperial Rome. Not on his way to conquer, but as a conqueror, Julius Caesar crossed the Hellespont, anxiously desirous to terminate his splendid victory by the capture of his opponent. Pompey THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 27 had fled to Lesbos and thence to Egypt, where the vengeance of Caesar was forestalled by the treachery of the Egyptians ; and the renowned general who won the memorable field of Pharsalia, thereby practically terminated the existence of the Republic, and obtained for himself the supreme posi- tion in the Roman world. The Turks first found their way into Europe across the narrow channel of the Dardanelles. They gradually made themselves masters of Anatolia. They wrested city after city from the hands of the careless and supine Greeks. They swarmed along the Asiatic shores of the Dardanelles and the Sea of Marmora and the Bosphorus, and looked longingly across the waters to the well-cultivated fields of Europe. The Greek governor of the castle of Abydos held out against their arms ; but his daughter became enamoured of a young Turk, and surrendered both herself and her home to the Ottomans for the sake of winning her lover. Sulieman, the son of Orchan, who was then Bey or Sultan of the Turks, conceived the bold design of crossing the Helles- pont on a raft in the night. The water was a new and untried element to the Turks. They had no boats, and they did not understand the building or the handling of them. But the young prince made his raft, embarked with two courageous companions and eighty followers, landed safely on the European side, and surprised a small fortress near Sestos which was known as the Hog's Castle. The foolish Byzantians, lost in luxury and selfishness, and weakened and blinded by division, smiled at this Turkish invasion, and said the enemy had captured a hog sty ; but, once master of the hog sty, they brought across their fierce troops, and marched northward, and invested and took Gallipoli. This important town they were able to fortify. At that time it was the key to the Hellespont. It gave them security in their European possessions. And yet the Greeks affected still to smile, and said, " The Turks had now taken from them a pottle of -wine." The Turks were wise 128 THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. enough to know the value of their conquests, and from that time they have remained complete masters of the European shores. The castle at Abydos brings to mind Byron's charming poem. A white marble pillar, one of many strewn about here, lies on the shore, and has become known as the " Pirate Phantom's Pillow." On the pillar, as on a pillow, so the Turkish legend-says, a turbaned head may be sometimes seen reclining, the phantom-head of a young pirate who was slain here by his foster-father, the pacha of the castle, for daring to make love to, and attempting to carry off, his only daughter. The daughter died broken-hearted, and, to mark her tomb, the pillar was placed above it, but in the night it was mysteriously carried away by invisible hands, and laid upon the shore where the young pirate fell. Probably the pillar is an ordinary Turkish grave-stone, and its sculptured turban (for very few Turkish gravestones are without) has been seen gleaming in the moonlight by superstitious pedestrians whose fertile fancy has gathered about it the incidents of an Oriental romance. In Byron's hands, with such congenial characters, and in such lovely scenes, it has become a very tender and beautiful English poem, free from Byron's ob- jectionable references, and written in his most charming style. Wherever Byron is read, " The Bride of Abydos " is sure to be a favourite. With what sweetly-flowing English does he describe the shores of the Dardanelles ! " Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime, Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle, Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime ? Know ye the land of the cedar and vine, Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine; Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppress'd with perfume, Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gul in her bloom ; Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit, And the voice of the nightingale never is mute ; THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 29 Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of the sky, In colour though varied, in beauty may vie, And the purple of Ocean is deepest in dye ; Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine, ' And all, save the spirit of man, is divine?" And with how much artistic grace does he introduce the Oriental belief already referred to concerning the sea-fowl of the Dardanelles, that departed souls inhabit the bodies of birds, especially, as it would seem, the souls of those whose innocent loves have pierced them through with many sorrows : " the livelong night there sings A bird unseen but not remote : Invisible his airy wings, But soft as harp that Houri strings His long, entrancing note ! They scarce can bear the morn to break That melancholy spell, And longer yet would weep and wake, He sings so wild and well ! That note so piercing and profound Will shape and syllable its sound Into Zuleika's name." The Turks have made the most of the natural advantages given them by the bend in the Dardanelles between Sestos and Abydos. The place bristles with guns. Most of them are guns of heavy calibre, and, properly manned, quite sufficiently heavy to successfully defend that way to Con- stantinople. From the Asiatic side one monster of eighty tons points its muzzle across the straits. This gun alone could do irreparable damage to vessels obliged to pass within half a mile of it, no matter how admirably constructed 10 130 THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. the vessels might be. Ever since the invention of gun- powder, or rather the introduction of gunpowder into Europe, this has been a formidable place; and before the art of destruction was developed on scientific lines to any- thing like its modern precision and thoroughness, a British fleet was once severely handled in forcing its way through to the vEgean Sea. This fleet consisted of eight ships of the line, two frigates, a sloop, and two bomb boats. One of these ships of the line was the fated Royal George. In 1807, in obedience to Government orders, they assembled in Besika Bay for the purpose of enforcing the extraordinary demand of a sur- render of the Turkish fleet and arsenal. It was feared that Napoleon might obtain possession of them, and employ them against us. A secondary purpose was the prevention of war, if possible, between Turkey and Russia. While waiting in Besika Bay, the Ajax, a fine ship of seventy-four guns, accidentally took fire, and, despite all efforts to save her, was completely destroyed. The fire commenced in the night. The crew tried to save themselves by leaping over- board, and 250 of them were drowned. In the morning the burning ship drifted on the rocky coast of Tenedos. Her magazine exploded, and her charred timbers were strewn far and wide along the coast and over the waters. This sad fatality depressed the spirits of the squadron, and, in olden times, would have been regarded as a certain omen of the ill-success of the mission, and the havoc wrought among the ships by the deadly fire of the Turkish guns when re-passing the Dardanelles. As now so then, no war vessel was permitted to proceed beyond the bend of the straits without the special warrant of the Sultan. Therefore, when the squadron attempted to pass this point, the Turkish guns opened fire, but, without sustaining much damage, the ships went forward, and sud- denly came within sight of a Turkish squadron, apparently prepared to dispute the passage at all hazards. An engage- THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 131 ment began. Very soon the Turkish vessels were in flames and driven ashore, and the British entered the Sea of Marmora, and hove to off Constantinople. The Sublime Porte was in no wise intimidated by the presence of the British ships. They treated this display of naval power with their characteristic sublime indifference. The squadron was not sufficiently strong to attempt the bombardment of the city. There were then 200,000 troops in Constanti- nople. And the Turkish navy was not to be despised. Therefore, after a short indecisive engagement on Proti, one of the beautiful Princes' Islands, the squadron again crossed the Sea of Marmora and entered the Dardanelles. The Turks had been very actively preparing for their return. The fortifications of Sestos and Abydos were speedily manned; the guns were increased; a large brass cannon, which may yet be seen, was ready for action ; huge granite balls, and rounded blocks of marble, the remnants of Roman and Grecian architecture, and some of them remnants of an architecture still more ancient, having once adorned the temples of the famous plains of Troy, were fired from this cannon stones weighing eight and nine hundred- weight apiece, and requiring a charge of 330 pounds of powder. The guns were not mounted on wheels, but fixed in the masonry, and the gunners waited the approach of the vessels, and, when the guns covered them, fired as they passed. One after another the ships received these ponderous stones. The Royal George was nearly sunk ; the Windsor Castle had her mainmast cut in two ; the wheel of the Repulse was swept into the sea, and, by the same shot, twenty-four of her men were killed and wounded. Almost every ship was injured, and yet no ship was taken, and no ship drifted ashore, but, through the brave and skilful exertions of their crews, one by one they sailed gallantly forward until they had all passed beyond the range of the terrible Turkish guns. When we left Chanak, two Turkish boatmen, wishing to 132 THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. escape the necessity of rowing against a strong current and an adverse wind, fastened their boat to the stern of the Treloske, and were towed along nearly to Gallipoli, and then pulled quietly ashore. Their rope was rather short, and the Treloske was steaming at full speed, so that the fore-part of their boat was constantly out of the water, and the after-part nearly buried in the tide. The water flew away from her in two diverging streams, the spray danced about her like feathers, the current, stirred by our propeller, surged beneath her as if the sea were a boiling pot, but the two Moslems reclined in their boat, calmly smoking and gravely conver- sing, as if it were the most comfortable place in the world. Apparently their equanimity would hardly have been dis- turbed even by the upsetting of the boat, and, perhaps, if the boat had been upset, it would have righted itself, and revealed these imperturbable Turks smoking as calmly and conversing as gravely as ever. Near Gallipoli is the ancient ^Egospotami, where the Athenian naval supremacy was broken by the Spartan navarchus Lysander at the close of the Peloponnesian War. He lay across the straits at Lampsacus, and refused to be tempted out of his advantageous position by the manoeuvres of the Athenian ships ; but, watchful all the while of the neglect of the Athenians to protect their own fleet, their foolish choice of an open beach to which to moor their vessels, the necessity they were under of fetching their pro- visions from so distant a place as Sestos, and even eating upon the shore, he crossed the straits when a favourable opportunity offered, captured nearly the whole of the ships, and made prisoners 4,000 men. This was the last and fatal blow for Athens, and the blow might have been averted if they had exercised common prudence, or listened to the advice of the exiled Alcibiades, who then dwelt upon these shores. Between the wooded hills that stretch away behind Lamp- sacus the river Granicus rolls its waters toward the Sea of THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 133 Marmora. In crossing this river Alexander was first opposed by Persian troops. The stream was deep ; the opposite bank was difficult to climb; the passage was fiercely dis- puted. Alexander proved himself equal to the occasion. At the risk of his own life, which was nearly lost several times, he personally led the charge of his cavalry, and obtained his first, and perhaps most hardly won victory, upon Asiatic soil. Gallipoli is a pleasant Turkish town at the head of the Dardanelles. It was more important in the days of Ottoman conquest than now. Here were first formed the terrible regiments by which that conquest was carried forward to its most successful issues. The Spahis, who early became the most renowned corps of Ottoman cavalry, had been already formed. They were originally the children of Christian parents, captured by the Turks, educated in Mohamme- danism and to the use of arms, and in time became fiercer missionary soldiers of Islam than the Turks them- selves. Perhaps the satisfactory result following upon the formation of the Spahis led to the formation of the Janizaries. By the Mohammedan law a fifth part of the captives, as well as the spoil, belonged to the Kalif, the prophet's successor, and Amurath, ambitious of this high distinction, claimed for himself at Gallipoli the fifth part of the healthy Christian male children who had been taken captive in the European wars. These children became Mohammedans. They were trained for military service; they were endowed with special privileges ; the highest places in the State were thrown open to them ; they were constantly employed about the person of the sovereign ; and Hadji Bektash, who consecrated and blessed them at Gallipoli, by stretching the sleeve of his garment over the head of the foremost soldiers, according to the fashion of the Mohammedans, said, " Let them be called Janizaries ; x may their countenance be ever bright ! their hand victorious I 1 Yengi chert, meaning new soldiers. 134 THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. their sword keen ! may their spear always hang over the heads of their enemies ! and wheresoever they go, may they return with a white face /" With a white face, a fair reputa- tion, a good character, these Janizaries did almost always return. Their very name became synonymous with impe- tuous and irresistible bravery. They were long the terror of Eastern Europe. But, in after days, they assumed and exercised a power which it was never intended they should possess, tyrannized over and made and unmade sultans as they pleased, until they drew on themselves a fearful revenge, and were utterly exterminated in 1823 in the Atmeidan of Constantinople. To educate the children of their van- quished enemies in a religion obnoxious to their parents, and to train them as soldiers for the bloody prosecution of that religion, was reserved for the genius of Mohamme- danism. The very currents of nature were not merely turned aside, but dammed up, and made to flow back in devastating floods upon their source. The Christian children of Eastern Europe, ignorant or forgetful of their origin, dead to all feelings of kinship and patriotism, attached by the strong ties of self-interest and personal ambition to the very people who had made them orphans, became a terrible engine of destruction in the hands of these people, and while they settled down in affluence and luxury, over-ran their own countries, massacred their own relatives, fought against the religion in which they were born, and put their masters in possession of some of the fairest provinces upon the face of the earth. Policy so cruelly cunning as this is unknown among Christian people, and has only been approached, not equalled, by the Mohammedans of Egypt in the creation of the famous Mamelukes, who were not captives of war, but slaves purchased from Syrian traders, and obtained by them from the high-lands adjacent to the Caspian Sea. Both the Mamelukes and the Janizaries gained the upper hand in their respective empires, which may be regarded as a proof of the inability of men to foresee the consequences of their THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 35 creations, and of the power of the hidden laws that regulate human life to produce that perfect balance of evil for evil to mete out, sooner or later, the exact measure of punish- ment for men's misdeeds. Above Gallipoli, where the tongue of land forming the peninsula is narrowest, are the heights of Boulair, looking across the peninsula into the two seas of Marmora and the JEgean. This was the last standing ground of the Turkish army in the late Russo-Turkish War. They lined these grassy heights under the protection of English gun-boats then anchored at the northern mouth of the Dardanelles. The Russian camp was visible in the plains of Thrace. But the English guns were not needed. The Turks did not fly precipitately across the Dardanelles into Asia Minor as it was expected they would do. The paw of the bear was not permitted to rest on Constantinople. And the treaty of San Stefano secured the retreat of the Russians, and prolonged the decline of the Ottoman Empire. The Sea of Marmora is a beautiful expanse of water, one hundred miles long, and seventy miles wide, the graceful curve of its northern shore almost unbroken, and its southern shore varied by two deep inlets, the Gulf of Isnik and the Bay of Ismid or Nicomedia. The northern shore is not very picturesque. The characteristics of the scenery of the European side of the Hellespont prevail to the walls of Constantinople. There is little or no woodland, but high grassy slopes, fresh and green, pleasant to look upon, but apt to grow monotonous when sailing near the shore. Silivria, overlooked by its ancient fortified castle, is a pretty town, full of interest to the antiquary, being as old as Byzantium itself, and important as one of the last outposts of the tottering Greek Empire ; and so is the smaller town of San Stefano, preserving in its name the religious founda- tion to which it owes its origin, and a testimony to the veneration cherished by the Eastern Church for the first Christian martyr. But these two towns, with their white 136 THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. houses, and domes, and minarets, however picturesque, do not compensate for the lack of natural beauty. On the Asiatic side the scenery is of the richest and most varied description. The coast line is broken; the high lands are splendidly wooded ; the deep inlets, especially the Bay of Ismid, presents a series of lovely views. One mountain rears itself behind another, and great Olympus behind and above them all. Beneath an unclouded sky, and reflected in a deep, pure, sleeping sea, the incomparable beauty of the views entitles the southern shores of the Propontis to the name of an earthly paradise. Marmora Island, from which the sea takes its name, the ancient Proconnessus, is a lofty white marble mountain, rising abruptly out of the sea to the height of two thousand three hundred feet, broken into glittering peaks, and scored by ravines, but devoid of wood a majestic object present- ing itself directly ahead of the vessel immediately upon entering the Sea of Marmora from the Dardanelles. The marble is a durable, close-grained, almost pure white stone, sometimes called alabaster, but not the half pellucid stone of that name, and was found very suitable, and therefore freely used, for the erection of the large buildings of Con- stantinople. There are smaller islands a little to the south- west of the island of Marmora, of a similar character, but not near so lofty; and directly to the south, larger and loftier than all, the Artaki peninsula, once known as the island of Cyzicus, the headquarters of the Arabs, who, in the earlier days of Mohammedan conquest, twice besieged the city of Constantinople. 1 At the opposite end of the Sea of Marmora, near the mouth of the Bosphorus, various other " Isles that gem Old Ocean's purple diadem," 1 Here, too, centuries before the Arabs appeared on the Propontis the brave monarch Mithridates suffered a severe defeat during his long and gallant struggle with the Roman arms. THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 137 enhance the view, and attract the vision. Small, but very beautiful, islands are these, forming together one of the most charming suburbs of Constantinople. There are four of them, Proti, Antigone, Khalki, and Prinkipo, on which last and largest of these islands is the only remaining tomb of the ancient reigning race of the great city, all the others having been destroyed by the Turks, the tomb of the Empress Irene, who, after a cruel, ambitious, and eventful career, ended her life in exile within sight of the palace where she had worn the purple, and ruled the Eastern world. The Bosphorus differs very largely from the Dardanelles. It is deeper and narrower ; the hills on both sides are loftier and more picturesque ; the bends in the current afford con- tinual surprises to the eye, and the scenery is enhanced by the cypress groves that run down to the water's edge, and the beautiful white marble kiosks of Europe and Asia that dot the margin of the stream, and prepare the imagination for the magnificent view of Stamboul. The Genoese castles opposite each other at Kavak, immediately upon entering the Bosphorus from the Black Sea ; and the two castles of Europe and Asia nearer the city, supply the antique element which adds greatly to the beauty and interest of a picture, and quicken the memory to preserve events which have largely influenced the history of the world. The waterway, sixteen miles long and less than a mile wide, with its high hills lifting themselves one after another along both sides of the stream, is to Constantinople what the long drive through a splendid winding avenue is to a noble mansion j and as the expectation of the grandeur of the mansion is enlarged by the length and splendour of the drive, so the expectation of the magnificence of Constantinople is enlarged by the passage between the hills, and the groves, and ancient castles, and beautiful marble palaces that lie along the deep and narrow channel of the Bosphorus. Nor is the expecta- tion disappointed ; for no city has a finer situation, and a 138 THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. more royal appearance than the city which Constantine designed to be the metropolis of the world. At the northern end of the Bosphorus, on each side of the channel, are "the blue Symplegades," the two rocks that were once supposed to be endowed with the power of motion. Between them nothing could pass. " No bird of air, no dove of swiftest wing, That bears ambrosia to the ethereal king, Shuns the dire rocks : in vain she cuts the skies ; The dire rocks meet, and crush her as she flies : Not the fleet bark, when prosperous breezes play, Ploughs o'er that roaring surge its desperate way ; O'erwhelm'd it sinks : while round a smoke expires, And the waves flashing seem to burn with fires." Vindictive rocks they must have been, delighting to destroy life of every kind, but their own destruction was accom- plished by the successful passage of the Argo between them, assisted and guided by the Queen of Heaven. Since then they have remained stationary, and although many ships, driven toward the Bosphorus by the stormy Euxine, have failed to make the entrance, and been wrecked upon these rocks, they have never united to crush the ships, and glut their vindictive rage. In this old myth we may trace the belief that, as the pillars of Hercules were one, so the Cyanean rocks were the other extremity of the earth. And we may observe the fact that the Black Sea was then as treacherous and dangerous as now. Often do the stormy winds sweep across it, and roll its dark tumultuous waves towards the Bosphorus, increasing the impetuosity of the southward current, and ruffling the surface of the waters at the mouth of the Golden Horn. 11 'Tis a grand sight, from off the Giant's Grave,' To watch the progress of those rolling seas Between the Bosphorus, as they lash and lave Europe and Asia ; " THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 39 but not so grand to be on "those rolling seas," for, as Byron continues, " There's not a sea the passenger e'er pukes in Turns up more dangerous breakers than the Euxine. " " The Giant's Grave " is a high hill, on the Asiatic shore, overlooking the town of Kavak, and supposed to have been the residence of Amycus, the king of the Bebryces. Kavak is the fortified station of the Turks, corresponding with Chanak on the Dardanelles, where all vessels must stay for examination, and permission to proceed toward the city. It is the strong point of the Bosphorus. The channel is very narrow here, and the guns from the fortifications on both sides would make it extremely dangerous for any vessel to force its way. The Genoese castles, erected by the enter- prising commercial Genoese colony who were permitted to settle on the northern side of the Golden Horn, still bear testimony to their audacious conduct in the very midst of the Greek Empire, and within sight of the palace of the Caesars. They dominated the Bosphorus, monopolized the trade, levied tolls upon the shipping, built these castles that they might effectually command the straits, as if they were entirely independent of the empire, and, notwithstanding imperial orders, could do what they pleased. One of the homeliest houses on the Bosphorus, the first large modern building visible on the way down, is the summer residence of the English Ambassador at Therapia. The house stands exactly on the Point, where the cool breezes from the Black Sea directly strike, and is therefore much to be preferred to any residence in or about the city. Within Therapia Point, the Bosphorus opens into a fine bay, surrounded by high hills, at the foot of which, lying back from the far corner of the bay, an old plane tree still flourishes, said to be the very same under whose branches Godfrey of Bouillon rested when on his way to fight the 140 THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. Saracens, and rescue the Holy Sepulchre from the defiling hands of the Moslem. This is the only extensive bay along the whole course of the Bosphorus, with the exception of the narrow inlet of the Golden Horn, which cannot be called a bay. Here and there, however, the shores curve and twine, and the openings between the hills exhibit entrancing vistas. Across one valley, above Therapia, on the European side, the remains of a gigantic aqueduct are visible, giving to the view a distinctive character, and awaken- ing reflections concerning the greatness of the city in olden times. So deep are the waters of the Bosphorus that large vessels may not only proceed in the middle of the stream, but in almost any part of it, without fear. The sides dip many fathoms within a few yards from the shore. For ten miles above Constantinople, and for five or six miles above Scutari, good roads have been constructed along the very margin of the water. People may walk or drive on these roads, and, in any place, call a caique, step directly in, and finish the journey by water. Two English vessels were once steaming up the Bosphorus, endeavouring to outstrip each other, and one of them, near the Asiatic shore, to lessen the distance, ran finely round one of the bends of the stream. The master had correctly calculated the movement of the ship, but not the consequences of that movement to a pacha's harem that stood directly over the tide. The projecting yardarm entered the window of the harem, and the force of the moving vessel tore out the intervening masonry between one window and another, and then another, and then another revealing the luxurious apart- ment, and the flying figures of several females who had been terrified by the unwonted and dangerous intrusion. The ship freed herself, and hove to in deep water altogether undamaged, although she had steamed so close to the brink as to nearly destroy the residence of a pacha, and almost kill his wives. Of course, the race proved rather an expen- THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 141 sive one, for the harem had to be repaired at the cost of the owners of the vessels. The Anatoli Hissar, or Castle of Asia, and the more curiously built, and larger, Roumeli Hissar, or Castle of Europe, about five miles from Constantinople, are certain to attract the attention of any visitor to the Bosphorus. The Castle of Asia was built by the Ottoman Sultan, Mohammed I., after he had won the Asiatic lands as far as the Bosphorus ; and the Castle of Europe was built by his grandson, Mohammed II., surnamed the Great, the con- queror of the royal city. Amurath, the father of Mohammed the Great, was a man of deep religious convictions. He had a sound sense of honour. He fought bravely when he had to fight, and he faithfully observed his treaties when the fighting was over. But not so Mohammed. Without consulting the Greeks, and in defiance of a well-known understanding, and against all protestations, he gathered a thousand masons at Asomaton, opposite the Anatoli Hissar, and two thousand labourers to assist them, and commenced the erection of the fortress, which was so direct a menace to Constantinople as to be in itself a declaration of war. By fortifying the two castles, he could close the Bosphorus, and starve the city. Ambassadors from the Imperial Court waited upon the inexorable sultan, to try to persuade him from the execution of his designs. He threatened to flay alive the next who should come, and sent these back with the insolent message that " the Empire of Constantinople is measured by her walls. . . . Return, and inform your king that the present Ottoman is far different from his pre- decessors : that his resolutions surpass their wishes ; and that he performs more than they could resolve." The work proceeded. The walls of the fortress, built in curious angles, were twenty-two feet thick, and the walls of the three towers thirty feet thick; and when the fortress was finished, he mounted heavy cannon on the walls and towers nearest the sea, similar to the cannon mounted on the 142 THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. fortress opposite, and levied taxes on all vessels passing to and from the Euxine. The first vessel that refused to obey the mandate of these new masters of the Bosphorus, a Venetian, was sunk by a cannon ball, and her crew were only rescued from drowning to be barbarously slain. The fierce Ottoman sultan had fully made up his mind to capture Constantinople, and remove thither the seat of his empire ; and the building of Roumeli Hissar was one im- portant step toward the accomplishment of his design, and neither by persuasion nor threats could he be dissuaded from taking that step, and afterwards investing with his troops and fleet the city of the Caesars. On the shores of the Bosphorus there are numerous cemeteries, crowded with gravestones in every state of neglect and decay. Cypress groves are planted in and about these burial places. Mile after mile these groves clothe the hill-sides with their dark green spires, and invest some of the views with a quiet and almost sombre look which is only partially relieved by the white-domed mosque, and the column-like minaret tapering toward the sky. The cemeteries are much more extensive on the Asiatic than on the European side. The cemetery at Scutari is one of the largest in the world. The Turks prefer to be buried in Asia. They belong to Asia. They never forget the fact that they obtained their European possessions by conquest, and that the Giaours may unite to drive them again across the Bosphorus, whence they came. There is a prevailing impression in the Turkish mind that they will have to quit Europe some day, and this impression determines their wishes to be laid at rest in their mother-soil beyond the waters, where there is less likelihood of their graves being trodden upon, and desecrated, by the feet of the infidels. The Princes' Islands already mentioned, and Scutari, and the long line of kiosks and palaces, with the smaller clustering dwellings, that lie along both sides of the Bosphorus, are suburbs of Constantinople. They are all THE WATERWAYS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 43 intimately connected with the city. Many steamers, and launches, and caiques converge from all quarters toward the mouth of the Golden Horn. From this centre Con- stantinople stretches out its arms in all directions. The centre is crowded, congested, unhealthy ; and it must be a pleasant escape, for those who can afford it, to get away, when business is over, to the cool breezes of Therapia, or the quiet shores of Vanikeui, or the lovely islands of Anti- gone and Prinkipo. Nothing is more striking, perhaps, than to see " The European and the Asian shore Sprinkled with palaces." The smaller houses are built of wood, with red tiles, and verandahs, and large overhanging eaves, in the midst of luxuriant gardens, where roses grow to perfection, and the air is laden with their delicate perfume. But the palaces are of gleaming white marble, most elegant in their archi- tectural construction, ornamented not with sculptured repre- sentation of animal life for that a strict Mohammedanism will not concede but with the graceful and involved tracery which, from its Mohammedan source, has become known as arabesque. Mohammedanism could not subdue the fertile fancy of the Arabian mind. It found a substitute for the animal face and form in the endless curves of the plant and flower. Some of these palaces are visions of beauty. The Sultan's kiosk, near the " sweet waters of Asia," for elegance of design, structural compactness, and harmonious orna- mentation, cannot be surpassed. The effect of these palaces is doubtless heightened by their surroundings. Pure white marbles, built into splendid architectural forms, and embellished with delicate tracery, would look beautiful anywhere; and the beauty must be enhanced by the lovely flowers around them, and the transparent waters beneath them, and the dark green wooded hills behind them, and a sky above them of the deepest azure and without a cloud. CHAPTER V. THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. Moonlight view Suggestions Morning Origin Situation General description Population Old seraglio Armoury and Museum St. Sophia: its construction Byzantine model Ecclesiastical furniture and service Mosque The bloody hand External ap- pearance The Achmedie The Suliemanie The Pigeon Mosque Mosque of Ortakeui Palace of Dolma Bagtche The Sultan's life Church of the Fountain Pera Galata Hamals Old round tower Genoese Fires Atmeidan : its obelisk Meta Twisted serpents The Nika sedition Triumph of Belisarius Revolu- tions, and destruction of the Janizaries Burnt column Galata bridge Mosque of the Sultana Valide Women Dogs Beggars Bazaars Walls Latin siege Arab sieges Turkish designs Bajazet and Tamerlane Turkish siege Golden Horn Caiques Story of an English seaman Leander's tower Scutari Selimie barracks and English cemetery. At midnight, beneath a full moon, we let go the anchor off Scutari. Constantinople lay before us, solemn and quiet ; the ample domes and slender minarets of its numberless mosques standing forth with almost supernatural clearness ; the Golden Horn, like a polished silver mirror, running far between, and separating the solid mass of buildings into two parts ; the gleaming water of the Bosphorus stretching away as far as the eye could see, with a long succession of marble palaces rising upon its shores, and bearing on its bosom the anchored and sleeping ships of all nations ; the picturesque Seraglio Point, its old crumbling walls, its clustering cypress groves, its almost prison-like, many-windowed, lofty build- THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 45 ings, overlooked by the weird magnificence of St. Sophia; the four minarets of St. Sophia, hung round with lanterns, and, farther back, the six taller and more tapering minarets of the beautiful Achmedie mosque engirdled with lights and lights gleaming like stars away and away over the endless habitations of glorious Stamboul. The dreamy splendour of the moonlight enveloping the whole city, shimmering on its waters, toning the dazzling white marbles of its towers, and mosques, and palaces, and giving them definite outline against the silvery blue of the sky, and, above all, the silence into which the great city had sunk in this midnight hour, left a deep impression upon the mind, an impression like that made by a solemn and mysterious vision, distinct in its main features, but filled with a meaning almost too profound for the human mind to fathom and comprehend. There stood the city, once Christian, now Mohammedan ;. there rose the huge pile of St. Sophia, once a temple sur- mounted by the cross, now a mosque surmounted by the crescent ; there stretched away, on every hand, an intermin- able labyrinth of streets, deserted except by the watchmen who walked to and fro, and marked the progress of the night; there lay the myriads of sleeping people, unconscious of the night's progress and the approaching dawn, and yet, at the muezzin's call, ready to rise, and turn toward Mecca, and go through the customary postures, and offer the usual prayers. Will the Christian religion never again assert its ascendency? Will the crescent for ever gleam from the dome of St. Sophia? Will the night of Mohammedanism always prevail ? The watchmen know that " the morning cometh." The people may be unconscious of the fact, but the fact is there, nevertheless, and more certainly impress- ing itself upon the horizon. And the people will wake to another call than that of the muezzin, from another place than the gallery of a minaret, and turn, not to the Arabian prophet's earthly home, but to another and more spiritual 1 r 146 THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. kebla, and offer their heart's adoration to Him who conquers men by the simple force of His compassionate and redeem- ing love. Very suggestive was everything upon which my eyes rested, and very helpful to calm reflection was the stillness and beauty of the night ; but all suggestions were lost, and my thoughts disturbed by the noises of Scutari. Men began to shout and sing, and beat their tiny Turkish drums, which, if jubilant, were certainly not musical ; and the dogs took up the chorus, and barked away to their hearts' content. The spell was effectually broken, and I sought quietude and repose, after a long day's enjoyment, in the dim, noise-impervious, comfortable cabin. The morning changed the whole scene. The sun rose in a cloudless sky. The waters danced and sparkled beneath the brilliancy of the firmament. Steamers, elaborately fitted, and with awnings stretched over, and sheltering, the decks, were passing up and down the Bosphorus, and to and from the Princes' Islands ; painted and gilded caiques, cushioned with purple velvet, and manned by gaily-attired oarsmen, bending the whole weight of their bodies to the sweeping strokes, shot across the water, with incredible speed, in all directions. The streets filled with multi- tudes in every conceivable garb and colour, and the hum of their moving feet came faintly floating over the tide. The scene was full of animation. The city became a seething mass of human life. The palaces, and domes, and minarets, and innumerable buildings were all aglow in the warm rays of the sun ; and it was a relief to turn from their glistering, smooth, white surfaces to the darker shade of the old walls of the seraglio, and the welcome green of the cypresses clustering there, and spreading along the shores of the Bosphorus. The entrance to the Golden Horn was choked with every kind of craft. Collision seemed inevitable. Boats and people ap- peared to become hopelessly confused. But ten minutes' quiet watching was sufficient to show that collision was THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 147 easily avoided, and that out of the confusion order was being evolved, simply because every one was intent upon his own business, and going his own way. It was the common sight of all large mercantile centres intensified, for although the trade of Constantinople is not to be compared with that of London, or Liverpool, or Marseilles, the city is apparently busier than any of these places, because its trading thoroughfares are so few and narrow, and all meet at the entrance to the Golden Horn. Byzantium, by which name, among others, Constantinople still continues to be known, and which was the name of the original city, dates back twenty-five hundred years. It was a Megarian colony. This Grecian tribe, confined within the narrow isthmus between Athens and Corinth, was obliged to find an outlet for its surplus population. Necessity became the mother of invention. The Mega- rians crossed the seas, and dotted other shores with little enterprising colonies, which, as the world widened, became important centres of industry and wealth. Tradition in- forms us that a company of emigrants, trading from Megara, founded the city of Chalcedon. Seven years later another company, feeling cramped at home, longing for expansion in a larger and freer soil, consulted the oracle at Delphi, and were told to settle opposite a colony of blind men. Good fortune carried their bark through the Hellespont, and across the Propontis, until they came to the tongue of land running out toward the mouth of the Bosphorus, and separated from the main shore by the deep and narrow in- let of the Golden Horn. This tongue of land was splendidly situated both for commercial and military purposes. Nature had done her utmost to induce men to settle here, but her inducements had hitherto been overlooked and neglected. On the opposite side of the Bosphorus, in a position altogether inferior, was the colony of Chalcedon ; and, coming to the conclusion that the oracle at Delphi, with its customary ambiguity, had meant that their kindred 148 THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. were blind men, blind to the plainest natural advantages, they immediately disembarked, and founded the city of Byzantium. Upon viewing Constantinople one's first thought is its magnificent situation. The men of Chalcedon must indeed have been blind to settle on the opposite shore. Constan- tine the Great was quick to perceive the advantages of this site, and wise to select it in preference to others which had occupied his attention; and, the first Christian monarch though he was, and designed to made this city the new capital of a Christian world, so much of the influence of the old Grecian mythology remained with him as to lead him to construe the flight of an eagle from the Asiatic shore to Byzantium into an assurance of Divine favour, and a presage of the future greatness of Constantinople. Dean Stanley says, " Of all the events of Constantine's life, this choice is the most convincing and enduring proof of his real genius. No city, chosen by the art of man, has been so well chosen, and so permanent. Alexandria is the nearest approach. All the others erected by the fancy or policy of individual sovereigns are miserably inferior, Berlin, Madrid, and even Petersburg. . . . The situation is, indeed, unrivalled. It stands, alone of the cities of the world, actually on two continents. It has the advantages of the confluence as of two rivers, and of a splendid maritime situation besides j for such is the effect, both in appearance and reality, of the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn, and the deep waters of the Propontis. As in the combination of these advantages, narrow straits, deep inlets, numerous islands, prolonged promontories, Europe is the miniature of the civilized world j and Greece, with its JEge&n Sea, is the miniature of the geography of Europe ; so the local peculiarities both of Greece and Europe are concentrated and developed to the highest degree in Con- stantinople. It is impossible to look down from the Galata Tower, on the complication of sea and land, island and mainland, peninsula and promontory, strait and continent, THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 49 and not feel that the spot is destined to be, what it seems more and more likely to be both historically and politically, the Gordian knot of the world." ' Another writer, Mr. Edward Upham, says, "The appear- ance of this city from the harbour fills the beholder with wonder and surprise j its situation is the most agreeable and most advantageous of the whole universe. Its stately mosques and minarets shining in the sun, together with the adjoining suburbs of Pera, Chalcedon, and Scutari, form a prospect of unrivalled grandeur ; and combining these in one view, Constantinople is assuredly one of the largest cities of Europe." 2 Stamboul, or the city, occupies almost the entire length of the narrow peninsula. The peninsula is triangular in shape, the point of the triangle running seaward, and its base stretching from the extremity of the Golden Horn to the Sea of Marmora, and marked by the ancient massive walls and towers, and the deep fosses, that yet exist as memorials of the sieges of olden times, picturesque in their ruin and decay. The extreme point of the triangle is occupied by the buildings of the old seraglio. Behind the old seraglio, one after another, stretching far back, are the seven hills, not high, but distinct, each one crowned with a stately mosque, around which the slender minarets shoot from the midst of luxuriant gardens, towards the clear sky. In the far dis- tance, bordering upon the walls, is the faubourg of Fanar, where the Turks condescend to allow the Greeks to live, and where is situated the poor palace of the Patriarch of the Orthodox Greek Church. The very position is indicative of servitude. The power of the Ottoman conqueror is empha- sized by the banishment to these quarters of the successor of the Patriarchs who, amid the splendours of a ritual to which that at St. Peter's is an ordinary show, ministered to imperial penitents within the walls of St. Sophia. Round 1 " The Eastern Church," lect. vi. p. 207. 2 "The Ottoman Empire," vol. i. chap. viii. p. 175. 150 THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. the head of the Golden Horn is the cemetery of Eyoub. The Ottoman Sultans, since the capture of Constantinople, have been invested with the Sword of State in the mosque of Eyoub, which was built over the grave of Eyoub, who fell fighting in the first Mohammedan siege of Constanti- nople by the Arabs, not long after the Prophet's death. This venerable Arab was one of the ansars or companions of the Prophet, who protected the Prophet when he fled to Medina, and fought under the green banner at Beder and Ohud, and was therefore held in the highest esteem by all the professors of Islam. Upon the capture of Constanti- nople by the Turks, the place of his burial is said to have been revealed in a dream to the Sheik Schems-eddin, and the victorious Sultan erected a mosque over his grave, in which, from that time, the successors of Othman have girded on the sword in token of their assumption of the sovereignty. The pretty faubourg of Kassim-Pacha lies be- tween the cemetery of Eyoub and the arsenal ; and from the arsenal, on hills rising rapidly above the Golden Horn, and running parallel with Stamboul, are the Frankish quarters of Galata and Pera, rounding off, opposite Seraglio Point, through Tophane, towards the Bosphorus. The Golden Horn is spanned by two long, low bridges, one at Galata, always crowded, and one near the arsenal, generally quiet. The Turk has shown his characteristic impenetrable in- difference to the convenience and welfare of the people by providing the strongest bridge near the arsenal where scarcely any one goes. The bridge at Galata is a standing disgrace to the Turkish authorities. From Tophane, up the European side of the Bosphorus, the lovely suburbs of the city run for many miles. On the Asiatic side also, from Scutari, which itself is one of the faubourgs of Constantinople, the gardens and palaces of numerous pachas are reflected in the deep, blue waters, while southward, along the strip of land that forms the opening of the Bay of Ismid, run the suburbs of- Haider-Pacha and Kadi-Keui. THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 151 Constantinople covers an immense area, and in the city, and in Scutari, Pera, and Galata, the streets are very narrow, and the houses crowded together. Its population must be very large, but, on account of the objection of the Sublime Porte to a census of the city, the number can only be approximately ascertained. The estimates of authorities differ, but we may safely conclude, however, that there are at least eight hundred thousand people in Constantinople, and we may as safely conclude that the Turks divide this number about equally with all other races. Mohammedanism is dominant in Constantinople because its professors are the dominant race, and not because they outnumber those who profess another faith. The mosques are very numerous. They occupy all the advantageous positions. Christian churches are few, and, for the most part, in obscure places, lest the sight of them should offend the prejudices of the Moslem, and raise an outcry against the presence of the infidel. The old Seraglio, whose buildings cover the extreme corner of Stamboul seaward, is the place where the women, who composed at one time the harem of the Sultan, are banished upon the accession of his successor to the throne. As soon as their lord and master expires, they are driven off to the confinement and solitude of this ancient and prison-like fortress, amid its groves of cypress, and almost surrounded by the sea, in order that their places in the seraglios of the occupied palaces might be taken by the women of the new Sultan's harem. An exception is made in the case of those women who have become mothers. For State reasons they are provided for in the imperial palaces. The rest are watched for years in the old Seraglio, and only permitted to leave it upon attaining an age when they may be safely allowed to settle in one of the numerous royal residences without any special supervision of the Sultan's slave. 1 1 For the condition of women in Constantinople, and Mohammedan countries generally, see the following chapter on Islam. 152 THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. Other buildings stand near the old Seraglio. In the corner of a courtyard, an ancient church, probably the church in which met the one hundred and fifty bishops of the second General Council, has been turned into an armoury. The nave is desecrated by the array rather a poor array of swords, axes, coats of mail, and other offen- sive and defensive weapons of days long gone by. Various sculptured marbles have also been collected in a museum, without any classification, or attempt to ascertain their com- parative value. The severe iconoclasticism of the believers in the Koran has thrown them confusedly together, and would probably treat an offer to sort them out, and arrange them, as a connivance at idolatry. There are several sarco- phagi, said to have once contained the bodies of Constantine the Great, Justinian, Theodora, Julian the Apostle, but all are now empty. The Imperial Treasury stands on this ground, the gate of which, as the Sublime Porte, has become the official designation of the Turkish Empire. In the Treasury are stored an extensive collection of antique objects, but here there is the same lack of order as in the museum, and the same indifference to comparative value, golden vessels of rare beauty, adorned with priceless gems, in the midst of a mass of mere tinsel worth nothing at all. The entire space covered by these buildings was originally occupied by the magnificent palace of the Caesars. The situation is superb. A palace, overlooking the Bos- phorus, and in the midst of luxuriant gardens, spreading themselves over a sea-washed peninsula, was worthy of the name Imperial ; but the Ottoman Sultan destroyed it, and built for himself, out of its ruins, the Seraskierat, which itself has been abandoned for quieter and more favourable places, and converted into the offices of the Ministry of War. The most interesting object in Constantinople is the great mosque of St. Sophia. For four hundred years it has been the mosque of Constantinople, and for nine hundred years previously it was the cathedral of Eastern Christendom. It THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 53 is supposed that on this site originally stood a heathen temple dedicated to Wisdom, and when Constantine built the city he selected the site for the erection of a Christian church which should be worthy of the city, and worthy to be associated with his own name. He retained the heathen appellation with a Christian significance. St. Sophia the church was called in memory of the Eternal Wisdom. But the building of Constantine was burnt down in the riots following upon the banishment of Chrysostom, and the building that rose on its ashes was consumed during the wild contentions of the different coloured factions of the Circus. The Emperor Justinian, however, determined to erect another and a grander church. Wood was to be pre- cluded from its construction as a safeguard against any attempt to burn it down. The plan of the work was en- trusted to Anthemius, the most distinguished architect of the empire, and the wonderful building stands to-day as a proof of his real genius, and a testimony of the age to the zeal and devotion with which it regarded our Lord Jesus Christ. Ten thousand workmen were employed upon the building. The emperor himself overlooked the growing work, and stimulated the endeavours of the workmen by special rewards. Every workman was paid each night in new silver coin of the realm. A few days less than six years sufficed to complete the building, and at the dedication service, so resplendent was its internal appearance, that Justinian rapturously exclaimed, "I have vanquished thee, O Solomon!" The peculiarity of the building, and that which contributed more than anything else to its majesty and grandeur, was the height and area of the dome, sup- ported by semi-domes, and giving the roof of the building that aerial appearance which led to the boast of its architect that he had hung the dome in the air. But alas ! for the boast of an architect and the pride of an emperor. Hardly twenty years had passed before an earthquake shattered the eastern side of the dome. The damage was repaired, the 154 THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. ornamentation restored, and after thirteen hundred years the fabric remains substantially the same as the chief adorn- ment of one of the greatest cities in the world. The more solid parts, upon which the weight of the fabric mainly rests, are composed of freestone cut into squares and triangles, fastened together by iron clamps, and further strengthened by having the interstices filled up with quicklime and lead. The other parts of the building are composed of brick covered with slabs of marble. The dome and semi-domes, in order to lessen their weight, are constructed of pumice-stone and light bricks from the island of Rhodes. The pavement was furnished by the pure white marble of Marmora, and eleven other precious marbles from various countries, and all differently and richly veined, adorn the interior. Massive granite columns on the northern and southern sides help to support the circle of the dome and semi-domes. Eight windows let in the light from above, and a large west window floods the nave with light, and reveals the beauty of the fine marbles that' everywhere meet the eye. The centre of the dome is one hundred and eighty-two feet above the pavement, and one hundred and fifteen feet in diameter. The two semi-domes are of the same diameter. Each of these semi-domes is again divided into three other semi-domes, and the wide and lofty space, unencumbered by pillars, thereby obtained, im- presses the worshipper with a sense of majesty unequalled by any other building in the world. Altogether there are one hundred and twenty-four columns supporting the different galleries and ceilings, eight of which are of porphyry from the temple of the sun at Baalbek, and another eight of fine green marble from Ephesus, and many of the columns are adorned with capitals, wrought in the form of interlacing foliage, and, therefore, escaped the hands of the destructive Mohammedans. The church was once filled with splendid mosaics, and even now, through the whitewash and paint with which the zealous Turks have tried THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 55 to hide the figures, the mosaics reveal their outlines, and attest the original uses of this magnificent sanctuary. The building is in the form of a Greek cross inscribed within a parallelogram, and with its narthex, or large exterior portico, has formed the Byzantine model. Many Eastern churches are built upon this model, with greater or less modification, but not many in the West. St. Vitale, at Ravenna, is By- zantine j but the most conspicuous Western example is St. Mark's, at Venice, whose present splendour gives one some idea of what St. Sophia must have been in the best of its days. Since the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, St. Sophia has become a pattern for the construction of Mohammedan mosques. As the religion itself borrowed largely from Christian sources, and as it owes its purest and soundest maxims, and especially its central idea of the unity of God to the Holy Scriptures, so its architecture is in- debted for its most worthy features to the cathedral of St. Sophia. The ecclesiastical furniture of St. Sophia necessary for the elaborate ritual of the Oriental Church was of the most gorgeous description. The dome and semi-domes, the choir, the galleries, the capitals of the pillars, the folding doors, were lavishly ornamented with glittering gold ; the five hundred ecclesiastics employed about the church in the ministration of its services were clad in vestments of the richest material and finest texture ; the crucifixes, and censors, and candelabra were of the purest gold, and adorned, as well as the altar covering, with rare and precious stones. Amid the pomp of religious ceremonial the emperors of Constantinople were crowned in St. Sophia. The impressiveness of its ordinary services was assisted by a dramatic effect unequalled among the services of Christen- dom. Now the cathedral services of Russia outshine in the splendour of their scenic representations the services of St. Peter's at Rome, and these Russian services are the per- petuation on a smaller scale of the services of St. Sophia. 156 THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. What the effect of these services were may be gathered from the account of the visit of the Russian ambassadors sent by Vladimir to inquire into the merits of the different reli- gions that were then bidding for his conversion. When the Russians beheld the illuminations, and heard the music, and saw the deacons passing in and out of the holy places with torches in their hands and white linen wings on their shoul- ders, we are told that they " took their guides by the hand, and said, ' All that we have seen is awful and majestic, but this is supernatural. We have seen young men with wings, in dazzling robes, who, without touching the ground, chanted in the air, Holy ! holy ! holy ! and this is what has most surprised us.' " The guides replied, " What ! do you not know that angels come down from heaven to mingle in our services?" "You are right," said the simple-minded Russians ; " we want no further proof; send us home again." When they arrived home they said to Vladimir, " We knew not whether we were not in heaven ; in truth, it would be impossible on earth to find such riches and magnificence. We cannot describe to you all that we have seen. We can only believe that there in all likelihood one is in the presence of God, and that the worship of other countries is there entirely eclipsed." All this was changed after the Turks broke into the city. St. Sophia was plundered by the Janizaries. The Sultan had given the wealth of the city to his soldiers, but the buildings he had reserved for himself, and therefore, after the movable treasure had been appropriated by whoever could first secure it, the sacred edifice fell into the hands of Mohammed. The affrighted people had sought refuge in their sanctuary. The fierce troops burst in upon them, and commenced the inevitable massacre. The work of death was stayed by the appearance of the Sultan in the portico, who, without dis- mounting from his steed, rode up the nave to the altar. Leaping from his horse, and standing on the altar, he pro- claimed the simple confession of faith which transformed the THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 157 Christian temple into a Mohammedan mosque " There is no God but God, and Mohammed is His prophet." Thence- forward Islam was the religion of St. Sophia. The Christian symbols were obliterated. The names of the Prophet and his four successors, in very large characters, were hung round the circle of the domes. Innumerable lamps were suspended by small cords from the ceiling. Four minarets were erected outside whence the muezzins might call the faithful to prayers. The Mihrab was fixed, directing the faces of the worshippers toward Mecca ; and to this day the curious sight may be witnessed of thousands of Moham- medans kneeling in long rows upon the pavement of the mosque, not parallel with its eastern and western ends, but at an acute angle, required by the fact that Mecca is neither directly east nor west of this originally Christian cathedral. On one of the pillars of St. Sophia, about fifteen feet from the pavement, is the mark of a bloody hand. Two stories account for this, both sufficiently horrible, and such as we may credit from a knowlege of the fierceness and barbarity of the early Ottomans. One story says it is the imprint of a soldier's hand. He put his hand against the pillar to steady himself in stepping over the bodies of the slain. The other story informs us that the Sultan, upon entering the building, saw one of his soldiers wantonly hacking the pillar with his sword. He called to him to desist, and reminded him that the buildings of the city belonged to the Sultan, and, as a warning to others who might be tempted to the same destructive work, he caused the man's hand to be struck off and fastened to the pillar. Such stories are memories of the sacking of Constantinople, but whether they truly account for the bloody hand mark or not it is impossible to say. It may be that the mark is a peculiar grain in the marble itself, an erratic flecking of colour not unusual in some marbles, and no memento whatever of the terrible carnage that took place four hundred years ago in St. Sophia. 158 THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. The external appearance of St. Sophia is rather dis- appointing. Its external appearance was sacrificed for the sake of internal effect. The loftiness and vast, unen- cumbered area produced by resting the dome on semi- domes has broken the altitude and majesty of its outward form. There are other mosques in Constantinople more pleasing to the eye externally, but none internally so im- pressive as the mosque of St. Sophia. The Achmedie mosque is near St. Sophia. It is a grace- ful building. The Sultan Achmet I., a feeble monarch, engrossed in the luxuries of the harem, incapable of govern- ing with a firm hand, distinguished himself by the erection of this mosque, and by no other solitary deed. Upon the- mosque, however, which was to bear his name, and keep his memory fresh among the people, he lavished riches incomputable. It is said that he secretly picked out the gems from their settings in the imperial throne, and replaced them with coloured glasses, that he might raise money for the accomplishment of his favourite task. The high dome is supported by fluted columns thirty-six feet in diameter. All the details of the building, the necessary accompani- ments to Mohammedan worship, are of the most elaborate description. The lamps are ornamented with emeralds ; the gates are of burnished brass ; the pulpit is beautifully carved ; the copies of the Koran are studded with jewels. Achmet went as far as the Koran would allow in placing on each side of the Mihrab nine magnificent golden candelabra. Six graceful minarets were erected round the mosque, equal in number to the minarets of the sacred mosque at Mecca, and the Ulemas would only permit that number on condition that Achmet should add a seventh to those of the Holy Shrine. Within the Achmedie, every seventh year, are displayed the sacred carpets annually sent by the Sultan to cover the Caaba. This man, who succeeded in nothing else, certainly succeeded in adding to the beauty of Constantinople. Behind the Seraskierat is another famous mosque, built THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 59 fifty years before the Achmedie, and not quite so large as the Achmedie, nor so elaborately furnished, but more pleasing, because all its windows are of glass stained in the form of intertwined foliage and flowers the mosque built by Sulieman the Magnificent. This monarch is to Con- stantinople what Haroun Al Raschid is to Bagdad. Under his long and able reign the Ottoman power reached its climax. It was the Ottoman golden age. He conquered the knights of Rhodes. He carried his victorious arms under the walls of Vienna. He successfully waged war with the Shah. He employed Barbarossa as Capitan Pacha of the Turkish navy, and gave him an honourable burial on the shores of the Bosphorus. His reign was full of activity. He was magnanimous to his foes, and beloved by his people, both of which are very exceptional statements to make of an Ottoman Sultan, but both true, nevertheless, of Sulieman the Magnificent. The charm of romance is not wanting in his eventful life. He cherished a deep and tender affection for Roxalana. She became his favourite queen. She ob- tained absolute ascendency over his heart, and, of course, the domestic troubles of the harem followed when the question of successor to the throne forced itself upon the women's attention. The Suliemanie mosque occupies perhaps the finest site in Stamboul. It crowns the highest of the seven hills. Its splendid dome, and four graceful minarets, two of them loftier even than those of the Ach- medie, rise from the midst of a mass of dark green cypresses, that add very much, by their contrast of colour, to the harmonious and glittering pile of white marble. There are hundreds of mosques in Constantinople. But to describe one is almost to describe them all. St. Sophia, the Achmedie, and the Suliemanie are quite special. Other mosques have interesting associations. The mosque of the Sultan Bajazet is known as the pigeon mosque, because Bajazet commanded that the pigeons settled there should not be disturbed, and left a provision in his will for their l6o THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. perpetual maintenance. The result may be imagined in the innumerable flocks that gather about the dome and minarets and courtyard of the mosque of the Sultan Bajazet. On the Galata side of the Golden Horn, a little beyond Tophane, is the more modern mosque of Ortakeui, a small, pure white marble structure, the very acme of elegance in design and execution, most elaborately carved, and overlooked by two high, fluted column-like minarets, where the Selamlik, or public devotional visit of the Sultan, is sometimes observed, when the visit is made by water. This mosque stands on the very edge of the Bosphorus, and is one of the conspicuous objects in passing up and down the waterway. The Selamlik is one of the sights of Constantinople. Every Friday the Sultan visits one of the mosques, chosen by himself an hour or two before, and there- fore not generally known to the people, for prayer. The gay procession, with all its military accompaniments, may pass through the narrow streets, or the Sultan may prefer the caique to the carriage, and, all glittering with green and gold, and shaded astern by a tasselled canopy, the royal boat, manned by silk-clad rowers, will shoot over the blue waters quicker than the quickest steamer, attended by several others of similar build and speed, while the men-of- war en route salute their sovereign, every sailor averting his eyes, in accordance with the etiquette of the Turkish Court, from the face of his august presence. The Imperial Palace of Dolma Bagtche is on the shores of the Bosphorus above the mosque of Ortakeui. This is the largest and most ornamental palace among the many palaces of the Turkish Sultans. Its elaborate white marble facades for there are several detached buildings included in the one palace are directly above, and reflected in, the crystal tide. The present Sultan, Abdul Hamid II., because of the troubles immediately preceding his reign, and associated with the Dolma Bagtche palace, has taken a dislike to it, and lives elsewhere. The Tcharagan, a large THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. l6l square palace, on the brow of the hill behind, is oftener favoured by his presence ; but he makes his home mostly at the Yildiz Kiosk, where, surrounded by a faithful regiment of Nubians, men black as ebony, and tall and strong as giants, he feels comparatively safe. The present Sultan has had by no means a pleasant reign. The deposi- tion of Murad, who was invested with the Imperial Scymitar upon the death of his uncle Abdul Aziz, was an unhappy termination of a short reign, and an unhappy inauguration of a troublesome reign for the present Sultan. More than one conspiracy for the restoration of Murad has been discovered and suppressed, but his lunacy places him beyond restoration, and takes from him the power of personally injuring his brother. Abdul Hamid's attempts at reform roused the fanaticism of the Ulemas, although he is a devout Mussulman, and probably cares more for his position as Caliph of Islam than Sultan of the Turks. His sovereignty is not to be envied. His comfort cannot be increased by standing between the two fires of European demands and Mohammedan bigotry. But the comfort of a devout believer in Islam is less likely to be disturbed, and more certain to bow to the inevitable, than the comfort of any other person in the world. Beyond Fanar, the Greek quarter of the city, and near the walls, is a church called sometimes the Church of the Fountain, sometimes the Church of the Fishes, a favourite resort of pious Greeks who have unbounded faith in all kinds of ecclesiastical miracles. In this church is a standing miracle of living fish, swimming about in a fountain, whose ancestors were cooked on one side, and yet survived the operation, transmitting the marks of their wonderful experi- ence to their sanctified posterity. On the site of the church a monastery stood during the siege of Constantinople by the Turks, and, within this monastery, on the day of the last assault, a monk was calmly frying fish for his brethren's 12 1 62 THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. delectation, when a messenger burst upon his culinary superin- tendence with the disturbing and exciting news that the Turks had carried the city. He replied that as soon as give credit to such an impossible story he would believe that the objects of his artistic attentions, the trout upon the fire, would come to life again. Whereupon, says the record, the good man was astonished to see the fish revive, notwithstanding the perfect cooking to which they had been subjected on one side, and, to preserve the permanence of the miracle, he sacrificed his dinner and the dinner of his brethren by placing the trout in a tank of fresh water, and allowing them the benefit of a cooler environment. Their children still live, and are well cared for, in the Balukli of Fanar, and no doubt appreciate the unremitting attentions of the Greek papas, and hope always to enjoy this solicitous concern for their welfare. Pera, meaning the place beyond, occupies the high plateau on the opposite side of the Golden Horn from Stamboul. The people of Western Europe the Europeans properly so called are congregated here. Most of the foreign Consu- lates are in Pera, and the Grand Rue de Pera is the most fashionable and representative street in Constantinople. It it very narrow and ill paved, but it can boast a few good shops, and more than a few itinerant venders, and opens out, in one part, for a few hundred yards, into a wide and respectable-looking boulevard. It has a thoroughly cosmo- politan character. All nations may be met with here. The far East and the far West, with all the graduating connective links, are to be seen in the Grand Rue de Pera, and the picturesque sight is only equalled, if indeed equalled, by the sight of the human streams that flow incessantly over the Bridge at Galata. Galata, so named from the Gauls who founded a colony here previous to its occupation by the Genoese, stands below Pera, on the steep hillside that rises from the Golden Horn. Its narrow streets are broken by steps here and there. The THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 63 British Consulate, which is built about halfway up the hill, is approached by a long flight of steps. To save the difficult ascent of this, stiff hill, those who care may be lifted by a tramway, and, if they have no objection, one of the hernials of Constantinople, generally met with in or near Galata, will be quite willing to put them on his saddle, and carry them to the top. The hamals are the porters of Constantinople. There are eight thousand of them, and they are united in a Guild under a Grand Master. They do all the carrying work of the city. Where the streets are so straight and rugged, the conveyance of goods by a waggon or dray would be very inconvenient and well-nigh impossible. These hamals are a necessary body of men, therefore, and get a good living, and they certainly earn all they get, for five of them will carry a ton weight if suspended on a pole so as to equally rest upon their shoulders, and a single hamal may not unfrequently be seen staggering through Galata beneath a burden of five hundred pounds. The porters on the Liverpool docks carry immense packages, but even they are outstripped by the hamals of Constantinople. The old round tower of Galata, on the top of the hill, and overlooking the whole city, reminds one of the enter- prizing Genoese who built it, and who were so long a thorn in the side, nay, pricking the very heart, of the Byzantine Empire. Upon the re-taking of Constantinople by the Greeks, who had been exiled for a time from the city and sovereignty by a Latin occupation, the Genoese were per- mitted to settle as liegemen in the faubourg of Galata. They were governed by their own laws, and subject to their own podesta, but required to acknowledge the over-lordship of the Emperor of Constantinople. The spirited Genoese, however, encroached upon the clemency of their over-lord, and aimed at the mastery of the Bosphorus, and a monopoly of the trade of the Black Sea. An attack upon Galata by the Venetians, and the destruction of the suburb, caused the Emperor to give them liberty to surround the suburb 164 THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. with walls and towers, not suspecting that these Genoese would employ their stronger vantage ground against himself, and in furtherance of their own ambitious designs. When the fortifications were completed the Genoese unmasked themselves. The city of Constantinople was at their mercy. The provisioning of the city was in their hands. They defied the Emperor, and showed him how able they were to damage his people and property by flinging huge stones, from the military engines on their ramparts, clear across the Golden Horn, and into the midst of the city. The Emperor, in his weakness, played the part of Hezekiah, who called in Egypt to fight Assyria a very foolish thing to do. He called in the Venetians to fight the Genoese. The Venetians, nothing loth, ready for any opportunity to carry war into an enterprizing colony of their enemies and rivals, sailed into the Bosphorus and gave battle, but the Genoese, after a fierce combat in which the odds were against them, obliged the Venetians to retire with heavy loss, and were able to enforce their own terms on the Greek Emperor. They had what they wanted, a monopoly of trade, and what they hardly expected to have, a very liberal extension of power ; and, in the last days of its feebleness, for some little time between the Latin expulsion and the Turkish domination, the Greek Empire was not much better than a dependency of the Genoese Republic. The tower of Galata, a massive round building, with an external gallery, and a summit like the lantern of a light- house, remains as a memorial of these troublesome Genoese merchants and sailors. It is now used as a watch-tower, like the tower of the Seraskierat in Stamboul, for the detec- tion of the first outbreak of fire in any part of the city. Fires in Constantinople are very common. The houses are mostly wooden, old and dried, badly constructed and built close together, and the pipes of the heated stoves, and the open braziers of glowing charcoal, easily ignite the timber near them, and the sparfs rapidly spring into fierce flames. THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 65 One house after another is devoured, one street after another is obliterated, and sometimes a whole quarter is burnt down before the fire can be subdued. When a fire occurs the whole city is roused. News is sent into every suburb, from Fanar to Prinkipo, that they who have property in the neighbourhood of the fire may come and look after it. The firemen rush along the streets, and work away at their pumps with a hearty good will, sparing no efforts to stay the ravages of the destructive element, but very seldom succeeding in checking it until several hundred houses have been con- sumed. Standing one on each side of the Golden Horn, and both on high hills, the towers of Galata and the Seraskierat are well adapted for the important uses of watch- towers, and some one is always posted there to give the alarm at once upon any outbreak of fire. The Atmeidan of Constantinople is a large open space near to the Achmedie mosque, and originally formed the public Circus or Hippodrome of the city. It was constructed in the days of Constantine the Great, surrounded by marble seats, and splendidly adorned with statuary choicely selected from the examples of Grecian art then scattered throughout many Eastern cities. Here the chariot races were held, and the entertainment was generally graced by the presence of the Emperor and Empress ; and here the people gathered in orderly or tumultuous assemblies to discuss or enforce their rights as citizens of the new Rome. During long years the Atmeidan has become closely associated with the pageantry of paraded conquests, and the misery of awful massacres. This large, silent, and almost deserted area, as it now sometimes is, if it were gifted with language, could tell unparalleled secrets in illustration of the pride and cruelties of the human heart. Every foot of the ground, every object left from the desolating hand of the Ottoman, is invested with the interest of striking historical memories. A huge granite obelisk stands in the centre of the Atmeidan, inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphics, which tell 1 66 THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. of its origin in the days when Moses must have been residing at the Egyptian Court as the foster-child of the Princess Thermuthis. This must be, therefore, one of the oldest inscribed records in the world. Not of Moses, however, does it speak, but of the Pharaoh who then sat upon the throne. The marble meta of the Hippodrome, the goal toward which the horses strained, amid the plaudits of the people and the lash of the charioteer, is still there, stripped of its ornaments, defaced and wearing away ; but the most interesting relic f the past is what remains of the three brazen serpents, twisted into one column, and on whose heads is said to have reposed the golden bowl of Mardonius, the Persian general, who was defeated at the battle of Plataea. If tradition is correct, and in this case it may be, these serpents, with their bowl, formed the welcome tripod, presented by the warriors of Greece to the pythoness at Delphi, in devout and grateful recognition of their splendid victory. It was brought from Delphi by Constantine the Great, who rifled Greece to adorn his capital, and was con- verted into a spouting fountain perhaps to cool and refresh the contending steeds of the Hippodrome. In the museum of the old seraglio the Turks show a brazen serpent's head, which, they say, belonged to this column, and was struck off by the powerful axe of the Sultan Mohammed as he rode through the Atmeidan on his way to St. Sophia in the first flush of his conquering pride. The column is now broken and dilapidated, filled with stones which have been appar- ently pelted at it by the mischievous children of Stamboul ; and, unless the Turkish authorities will exercise a little more care in its preservation, which is not likely, this interesting relic will vanish very soon from the eyes, and maybe from the memory, of man. One of the most remarkable riots that ever disturbed Constantinople had its origin and termination in the Hippo- drome. The drivers in the chariot races were attired in four different colours, white, red, green, and blue. The white THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 67 and red, the two colours first worn, afterwards fell into com- parative disuse, but the more recently introduced green and blue became identified with the opposing political parties of the city and empire. The green faction was attached to the memory of Anastasius, and was supposed to have espoused his heretical views ; the blues were strictly ortho- dox. Thus to these opposing colours was added a religious meaning and bitterness as well as a political ; and these fac- tions, on the occasion of the public games, and on every other convenient occasion, persecuted each other, and often broke out into open riot and slaughter. So predominant did they become, that all candidates for political and religious offices were obliged to obtain the favour of one or the other, because only by the help of one or the other, whichever happened to be the stronger at the time, could any office be procured. The factions made havoc among families, and friends, and communities of all kinds, dividing them, estranging them, embittering them, kindling hatred in bosoms where beforetime dwelt affection and peace. A very sad result truly, and not without its lessons, but man- kind is slow to learn, and will repeat what has led, and what can only lead, to disaster and misery. Justinian favoured the blues, as the monarchical and ortho- dox party, and freely expressed his favour during the chariot races celebrating the ides of January, 532, a.d. The greens were discontented with the result of the races, and inces- santly murmured at the apparent partiality, until the Emperor was provoked to remonstrate with them by the voice of his herald, upon which the blues rose from their seats, drew their swords, and drove their opponents from the Hippodrome. Tumult ensued, and, unfortunately, during the tumult, an execution of seven men, assassins, belonging to both parties, was carried out in Pera. Five were hung ; the last two, however, one a green, the other a blue, escaped on account of the breaking of the rope, and were mercifully rescued by a few monks, who carried them away to a safe 1 68 THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. asylum in their monastery. This event united the two fac- tions, who cried out against the authorities, burnt the palace of the prefect, massacred his guards, burst open the prisons and let out the prisoners to follow their own bent in the wild excitement of sudden liberty, and spread themselves on every hand for a work of general destruction. The priests inter- fered for the protection of the people, by marching in pro- cession, under sacred banners, and carrying with them the precious relics of their faith, thinking thereby to awe the rioters, and disperse them j but a company of fierce Heruli, whose barbarous minds were untouched by shaven crowns and ecclesiastical wonders, broke into the procession, scattered the relics, tore down the banners, and sent the priests flying back to their sanctuaries glad of their lives. This sacrilege inflamed the people, who fought with despera- tion from the roofs and windows of their dwellings, even women joining in the fray. To plunder and massacre the terror of fire was added, and street after street was wrapped in flames, which, spreading rapidly, caught the sacred pile of St. Sophia, and burnt the cathedral to the ground. For five days the city was abandoned to the maddened factions, who adopted the cry, JVika, meaning vanquish or victory. Justinian made concessions in order to quell the tumult. Obnoxious authorities were removed, and new men put in their places ; and the Emperor repaired to the Hippodrome to meet the citizens, and assure them of his anxiety for the public welfare. He was sullenly and mistrustfully received. He became fearful of a conspiracy to dethrone him, and bestow the purple buskins upon one of the nephews of Anastasius, the favourite of the green faction, and not only retired to his strongly fortified palace, but cowardly premeditated a secret flight from the capital. His wife, Theodora, and his great general, Belisarius, saved him. She spoke with the Imperial haughtiness as of one born to the purple, notwithstanding her obscure origin, and the despised calling of an actress from which she had been raised to the throne, and affirmed THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 69 herself prepared rather to die an Empress than to live a cowardly, self-condemned, disappointed exile. She asked if there were not yet troops left to quell this sedition, if it were not yet possible to revive the old enmity, and turn the blues against the greens. Belisarius was ready. Three thousand veterans were quietly brought to the gates of the Hippodrome, where the rioters were still assembled, and bursting in, slaughtered them en masse. The blues were roused to vengeance, and turned their hands against their green brethren of the riot, and thirty thousand people fell in the fearful massacre that ended one of the most memorable tumults that ever afflicted the capital of the East. Two years after this the Hippodrome witnessed a very different sight, in which the chief actor was Belisarius, who, to prove his fidelity to the Emperor, and to confound the schemes of his enemies, had suddenly returned to Con- stantinople from his victorious campaign in Africa, bringing with him costly spoils, and noble captives, among whom was Gelimir, the Vandal king. So rapid and successful had been the conquest of Africa, so transparently true the loyalty of Belisarius, and so unexpected his return amid the splendid proofs of his military genius, that he was honoured with a public triumph in the Hippodrome, after the fashion of the triumphs of the old Roman generals an honour which had never yet been conferred upon any one in the city of Constantinople. The Emperor and Empress sat in state ; the people assembled in vast multitudes ; the long procession traversed the streets, and filed into the large area ; the spoils were displayed, ivory, gold, gems, statuary, vases, all the wealth of a conquered people who in their turn had conquered a wealthier people than themselves, and conspicuous among them the vessels of the Jewish temple, which, after long and varied wanderings, were at length sent back to their sacred home ; the captive Vandals walked behind their lost treasures, and their brave king, Gelimir, with haughty step, and clad in purple, still a monarch even 170 THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. if a captive, murmured to himself, " Vanity ! vanity ! all is vanity ! " a significant comment on the pomp and pageantry of which he himself was a reluctant part ; and then came Belisarius, on foot, marching in front of his veterans, and cheered by the loud acclamation of the great gathering. The captive monarch and the victorious general prostrated themselves before Justinian in acknowledgment of his Imperial sovereignty; and the procession passed on, and became a memory, an historical record, which will never fade. Very different from this, and more akin to the scene ter- minating the Nika sedition, was that which men now living can well remember. The terrors of Constantinople in the beginning of this century were only exceeded by those of Paris in the end of last century. In Constantinople it was not an oppressed people rising like the bursted fountains of the great deep, devastating, overwhelming, submerging every surface object, and then indulging in the passionate expres- sion of their own wild will, but it was a fanatical soldiery, who, because of their religious alliance with the most renowned of the dervish sectaries, and because of their victories for Islam and the Turk, had been privileged beyond other troops, and had encroached on their privileges until they were absolute masters of the Ottoman power. When the Janizaries were first formed from the bands of captive Christian children at Gallipoli, Amuruth little thought that they would cause such trouble to his successors, and so frequently disturb the peace of the future empire. The wars of the early part of this century tried the courage of the Janizaries to the utmost. They persisted in the use of their obsolete weapons, and antiquated tactics, and consequently were not able to cope with the artillery, or outmatch the modern manoeuvres of the regiments of Austria and Russia. The Sultan Selim III. saw the necessity of introducing reforms into the army, if the empire was to be maintained, and attempted this, not- withstanding the fanatical resistance of the Janizaries. He THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 171 had unfortunately, however, the traitorous Musa for his Grand Vizier, a man outwardly attached to his sovereign, and willing to aid him in his reforms, but inwardly hating his sovereign, and determined to resist reforms. Through his machinations the Janizaries were provoked to fury, and admitted into Constantinople. They gathered in the Atmeidan. They protested against the new institutions, and demanded the death of those ministers of the Sultan who were favourable to them. Musa had everything in his own hands, and compelled his reluctant sovereign to behead those ministers, and present their heads, with his hatt-sheriff abolishing the new institutions, to the Janizaries assembled in the Atmeidan, in order to pacify and disperse them. But this was only one step in the progress, one link in the chain. The Janizaries were neither pacified nor dispersed. They demanded the deposition of the sovereign. Selim was calmly informed that he was no longer Sultan, and the poor, weak, dissolute Mustapha, a mere puppet of the Grand Vizier, and therefore altogether to his mind, was invested with the Imperial sword. The necessary counter revolution soon came. Biaractar, the Pacha of Rustchuk, who owed his elevation to Selim, and who cherished a sincere affection for the unfortunate Sultan, gathered his troops in Adrianople, marched upon Stamboul, unfurled the sanjak-sheriff or green banner of the Prophet and thereby enlisted the sympathy and help of the people, thundered at the gates of the Seraglio, and de- manded admittance. He was told that admittance could only be given by command of the Sultan Mustapha. He passionately exclaimed, " Speak no more of the Sultan Mustapha : it is the Sultan Selim, vile slave ! thou must address, whom we are come to rescue from his enemies, and to replace on his throne." Mustapha himself, who had been away at a kiosk on the Bosphorus, now appeared, and told them to say that the Sultan Selim should be there in a few minutes. The Pacha, fearing foul play, broke down the 172 THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. gates, and entered ; and the eunuchs of Mustapha flung the newly strangled body of Selim at his feet, and said, "Behold the Sultan whom ye seek ! " Biaractar was filled with dis- tress. He fell on the body of his master, and reproached himself with having sought to prolong his life, and really caused his death. From his grief he was aroused by his friend Seyd Ali, the Capitan Pacha, instantly arrested the Sul- tan Mustapha, and at once proclaimed the new Sultan Mah- moud in his place. Mahmoud was the only surviving member of the royal house. Search was carefully made for him. For a long time he could not be found. He had been designed for the bow-string by his weak and cruel brother Mustapha, and had prevailed on a slave to hide him in the furnace of a bath ; and at last, from this cramped and grimy retreat, he was ex- tracted to be elevated to the throne of the Ottoman Empire. This counter revolution was effected by the help of Albanian troops against the wishes of the Ulema, the Mufti, and the Janizaries. It was necessary both for the Sultan and his maker, the Pacha of Rustchuk, to act cautiously. Biaractar declared himself a Janizary, and was ultimately regarded as the liberator of the people. Mahmoud was a wise monarch, and refrained at first from offending their prejudices. But he had secretly resolved upon the extermi- nation of the janizaries. These passionate, fanatical troops had been so insubordinate that, although it would greatly diminish the army when all the soldiers he could muster were wanted for foreign service, he saw their extermination was necessary for the welfare of the empire and the stability of his own throne. The new institution was revived under a changed name. For some time the Janizaries were igno- rant of the fact, and only discovered it on carrying out the arrangements for a grand review in the Atmeidan, on the 15th June, 1823. During the evolutions one of the standard- bearers cried out, "This is very like Russian manoeuvring !" and immediately the troops broke their ranks, forced the dwelling of their Aga, murdered his servant, scattered his THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 73 harem, and, rousing their companions in every quarter of Constantinople, proceeded to the Sublime Porte, plundered the palace, and destroyed the archives of the city. Then they gathered in the Atmeidan, to the number of twenty thousand, and were ready for any kind of mischief what- ever. But their time had come, the time which Mahmoud expected, and had long prepared for. They were secretly surrounded by troops upon whom the Sultan could depend. He took the sanjak-sheriff from the Imperial treasury, and, accompanied by the Ulemas and Softas, proceeded to the Achmedie mosque. Thence he sent four superior officers to the Atmeidan to inform the Janizaries that, if they would immediately and quietly disperse, they should be pardoned. They answered him by murdering the officers. He then asked the Mufti for a fetva^ or religious mandate, to suppress by force the rebellion of the Janizaries. Thzfetva was given. He issued his command for the massacre. And the first intimation the Janizaries had of their peril was the rattling of grape shot from every opening into the Atmeidan, riddling their ranks through and through ; but, in the face of it all, they fought their way to the adjoining barracks, only, however, to meet with a more terrible death. The barracks were first fired and then surrounded by cannon, and the fire raged, and the cannon roared, until the awful work was done. The gates of Constantinople were shut for two days, and diligent search made everywhere for the Janizaries. Public executioners were fixed in certain places, and the victims inhumanly dragged before them for decapi- tation. Thousands were beheaded. The streets and squares were everywhere encumbered with the severed heads and bleeding trunks of the hapless soldiers. The fetva was proclaimed in the provinces. Wherever the Janizaries were the deed of death was carried out. And so thoroughly was the massacre planned and executed, that only one attempt at revenge was ever discovered, and that not until five years later, when a few of the remaining troops, who had secretly 174 THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. entered Constantinople, conspired against the Sultan and his empire, and were promptly put to death, and no more has been heard of them to this day. Near to the Atmeidan is a cracked, blackened, broken pillar, resting on a heavy square pedestal, which is known as 11 the burnt column." It was once an ornamental part of the Forum. It stood 120 feet high, and is supposed to have been surmounted by a splendid statue of Apollo, with a sceptre in his right hand, a globe in his left, and a coronet of rays about his head, executed by the marvellous chisel of Phidias. But now hardly any traces of its former glory remain. The fires of Constantinople have nearly destroyed it. Like other relics of an artistic past in the Mohammedan city, it is now in the last stage of decay. The Galata Bridge is an interesting sight, because of the continual ebb and flow of a cosmopolitan tide over its uneven surface. At each end of the bridge men stand, in white cotton smocks and turbans, collecting toll from all who pass over it. There are no gates, no turnstile. The men keep a sharp eye on the people, and no one has a chance of crossing the bridge without the customary fee. Money-changers are seated not far from the collectors, with their notes and coin on small tables, protected by a wire and glass covering, ready to pay Turkish money for the money of any other nation, glad especially of English gold, and charging a trifling commission for the transaction. Passing over this bridge you may see all sorts of people, Persians, Egyptians, Arabs, Armenians, Jews, Greeks, Albanians, Circassians, Negroes, Maltese, Russians, Germans, Italians, French, English, Americans, turbaned Turks, and closely- veiled women from the harems, dressed in their different national garbs, and presenting a picturesque and animated appearance, almost like a fancy fair, except that every one is too serious and quiet for quietude is one of the peculi- arities of the busy Constantinopolitan life and too much intent upon his or her own concerns. THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 75 At the Stamboul end of the bridge you suddenly come upon the mosque of the Sultana Valide, almost lost among the crowd of buildings when viewed from across the Golden Horn, but a really beautiful structure when close to, with its many fountains for the ablutions of the faithful, its wide marble steps, its ample dome, its triple galleried minarets, and, beneath a quaint postern, and beyond a cool corridor, in a courtyard at the back, its busy little market, where venders of fruit and delicacies in gelatine drive a thriving trade. All the streets in Constantinople are very narrow. The paving, if it can be so called, is simply barbarous. The wooden houses, with their latticed windows *nd overhanging eaves, lean towards each other, and nearly meet at the top. A tramway has been laid for a short distance in Stamboul. The car is divided into two compartments, in order that the women might be alone ; otherwise the car would not be tolerated. It is a sufficiently obnoxious innovation to some of the stricter Mohammedans as it is. All the women of Constantinople are veiled. None are ever seen in the streets unveiled, nor even anywhere else unveiled, except in the harem, and there only by their nearest relatives. And a woman in Constantinople is never accompanied by her father, brother, or husband. She is either alone, or with members of her own sex, generally of her own harem, and possibly with one or two children. The yashmack, or veil, consists of two pieces of white muslin, one covering the face from the bridge of the nose downwards, the other covering the head and eyebrows. Only the eyes are visible. The veil is mostly close enough to completely hide the contour of the face. Sometimes you may meet with an old and ugly negress with the veil carelessly put on, and nearly the whole face visible, but never a maiden or young wife. With the yas/imack is worn a mantle called the ferigee, a very loose garment, which altogether hides the outline of the figure. It is often made of rich silk, and beautifully 176 THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. coloured, partiality for violet shades prevailing. The ferigee falls below the knees, and below that, tied across and dropping over the ankles, are the s/ia/wars, what I suppose may be properly called " the divided skirt." As an artist has remarked, Turkish ladies in a crowd are simply " blots of colour ; " there is no shapeliness, no pleasing outline of figure, no interesting contour of face ; and yet the blots do not spoil the picture. The pure white muslin veils and the violet silk mantles give contrast and variety of colour to the crowd, which, after all, would be rather too sober a picture if the veils and mantles were not there. To say that there are no sanitary regulations in Constan- tinople is to express the truth in one way and not in another, for the sanitary regulations are superseded, in the usual Turkish manner, by permitting thousands of dogs to infest the city, and act as scavengers, by devouring whatever may be thrown into the streets. These dogs are very numerous in Pera, more numerous in Stamboul, and more numerous still in Scutari. The Turks are a kind and hospitable people, and the dogs fare better among them than among the Franks. The dogs are of one breed, in size a little less than a colley, in colour of that brownish yellow called tawny, thickly built, with short hair, small rounded ears, and a sharp muzzle. They lie about in the streets anywhere, and the people have to pick their way among them, or step over them, unless they are provoked enough to kick them aside. A Turk will seldom do this. They sleep much, and there- fore need little food, and they get little, so little in the keen competition of many mouths that one might reasonably ex- pect them to be nearly skin and bone. They appear to have tribal distinctions, each tribe having its own quarter, and fiercely resenting the encroachment of any member of another tribe upon that quarter. Fights are common, and therefore most of them exhibit the scars received in many a howling, tearing conflict. Man they seldom attack. They gather suspiciously about him when he ventures through a THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 77 lonely street in the evening, but they have a wholesome dread of a walking-stick, and generally keep well out of reach. The evening is their time for exercise and diversion, and there are very few nights when the sleeper is not awakened once or twice by the long howl or sharp yelp of some unfortunate dog beneath his window. Notwithstand- ing their number, cases of hydrophobia are very uncommon, accounted for by the ample supply of fresh water, and an unrestricted, unmolested freedom. During a visitation of the plague, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Sultan Achmed I., fearing that these dogs carried about the infection, would have had them all destroyed ; but the Ulema declared that each dog had a soul, and to destroy them, therefore, was against the teaching of the Koran. They were simply sent into a temporary exile on one of the islands of the Sea of Marmora, and, when the plague disappeared, were all brought safely back again into the city. Another nuisance of Constantinople, at any rate to the English visitor, is the incessant importunity of the beggars. There are as many beggars as dogs. To sit an hour in any merchant's office in Galata, where the office is on the ground floor, and watch the poor human objects that come one after another, ragged, dirty, diseased, lame, blind, incarnations of every kind and stage of earthly misery, with extended palms, pleading in plaintive muttering monotones until they are served, is a sight indeed ; and to see the pile of tiny Turkish coin, smoother and thinner than the most well-worn English sixpence, without a particle of the Sultan's signature left on it to show that it is a coin at all, and made of metal compared with which German silver is valuable, on the merchant's desk, if the merchant is a Mohammedan, ready to supply the wants of all who come, is a significant comment on Islam and that state of society in which beggary so largely prevails. To give to a beggar is one of the religious duties of Islam. No devout Mohammedan will refuse alms. And so the beggars increase, make a trade 13 178 THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. of it, grow not only persistent but insolent, obtruding them- selves on the foreigner, bitterly resenting his denials, and doubtless cursing him as a dog of an infidel. Some of these beggars belong to the Koreish ; they have descended from the Prophet, and may wear the green turban j they feel not the disgrace of their beggary, and sponge upon the veneration of the faithful in that calm, deliberate way which only arises from a settled conviction of the respectability of their calling. While we were in a cafe in Galata, a blind and lame beggar, led by a boy, presented himself just within the doorway, and began his doleful plaint. He was an obstacle to the people passing out and in, and three times the attendants in the cafe forcibly turned him away, but all to no purpose. He was back again in a moment, muttering, and muttering, and muttering ; and when the attendants at- tempted to remove him the fourth time, he swung his crutch round his head, showing that he was not so lame as he looked, and, with a contorted furious face, threatened to strike any one who came near. Eventually, however, he saw the uselessness of continuing his requests in a Frankish cafe, and retired to carry on business in a more favourable quarter. The bazaars of Stamboul are full of interest. They are simply the narrow streets covered in with a rounded roof of masonry, along which are galleries in some places, and windows to let in the light. They look like the old corridors of some immense mediaeval castle or monastery, converted into a market, and run in every direction, crossing and re- crossing each other, until a stranger is as much lost in them as if he were in the catacombs at Rome. There are different quarters in the bazaars appropriated to the sale of different articles, and here meet all the materials of the world the watches of America, the silks of China, the furs of Siberia, the ivory of Central Africa ; whatever you want you may have in the bazaars at Stamboul. But you can only have after long and leisurely bargaining. No business is done in THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 79 a hurry j every transaction is lingered over with that refine- ment of sale and purchase only understood by a Turk, a Persian, an Armenian. The world is not going to end yet, and even about the mere buying and selling of a fez, or a pair of embroidered slippers, or a phial of otto of roses, one might as well extract as much quiet enjoyment as possible. The price first mentioned is always many times in excess of the value of the article, and it may generally be bought for a quarter, or less than a quarter, of what it was said to be worth. As in the days of the Jewish king, so now in the East, " It is nought, it is nought, saith the buyer ; but when he is gone his way, then he boasteth." The Armenians are the closest hands at a bargain ; even a Jew has no chance when an Armenian steps in. The most interesting part of the bazaars is the part in which are displayed the Oriental manufactures. Weapons, perfumes, pottery, carpets, em- broidered curtains and covers articles distinctively Oriental, these are most attractive to a foreigner; and, projecting from a recess in the long corridor, the low stalls or platform, raised about two feet from the ground, on which the articles are displayed, and the merchant sits cross-legged, calmly smoking his narghile, and sipping his coffee, recalls the pictures of one's imagination, and associated not merely with Constantinople, but with the really Asiatic Damascus and Bagdad. A group of ladies from some Pasha's harem may be met with in the bazaars, sitting near each other on the platform, or on the ground, chatting in undertones, and darting quick glances from their fine black eyes the only part of their faces visible at the passers-by, while bargaining themselves, or superintending the bargaining of an attendant for articles of domestic use or personal luxury. Even a group may be met with sometimes busily stitching coverlets with white and yellow silks into a variety of arabesque designs, names of the caliphs, passages from the Koran, to sell to the wealthy gaiours as memorials of their visits to Stamboul. The little that may be seen of these women is l8o THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. enough to prove that they are not all of the same race. Beside Turkish women, there are Georgians, Circassians, Slavs who have been converted to Islam, Egyptians, Nubians not with low brows and thick lips, but beautiful, like the woman of Solomon's Song, upon whom the sun had looked ; * some of them purchased with gold, really slaves, and the rest married after the loose fashion of Mohammedan law. There is a startling array of armour on some of these plat- forms, old guns and pistols, with carved handles and barrels damascened in every Oriental pattern ; swords short and long, straight and crooked, with passages from the Koran inscribed upon the blades, and gems studded in the hilts > scymitars sharp as razors on one side, and on the other thick and heavy, to aid the force of the swinging stroke, and, that the stroke might gain still further impetus, grooved, and charged with running quicksilver. Surely war was a refined calling the calling of a people who ornamented and per- fected their weapons in this way. It was their business to kill, and they followed their business at one time most ardently, not only because of its large profits here, but because of its sensuous rewards hereafter. Constantinople was once surrounded by walls and towers. The most extensive remains of these ancient fortifications are along the landward side of the city, from the Sea of Marmora to the head of the Golden Horn. Some parts of the old walls remain, however, near Seraglio Point, and give the Point, from a distance, that worn and antiquated look which adds not a little to its charm. The walls were twelve miles in circuit, and on the landward side a double wall ran, of great breadth and strength, fortified by ramparts, and defended by a deep fosse fifty yards wide, lined with masonry, and so constructed as to admit the sea. By this fosse, Con- stantinople was converted into an island. It would appear almost impossible, with the artillery of four hundred years ago, to capture the city. It had been often besieged and 1 Song of Solomon, chap, i., vers. 5 and 6. THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. l8l taken, and re-taken in the Grecian wars. Philip of Macedon had won it. The ten thousand, provoked by the falsity of Anaxibius, the Lacedemonian navarchus, then in possession of the city, threatened to sack it, and were scarcely prevented by the persuasions of Xenophon. They forcibly kept open the city gates, and spread terror for awhile among the people. But the gates and walls of those days would be nothing like the gates and walls of mediaeval times j and, if a sufficient force had occupied the city, and a spark of patriotism had existed in the hearts of her people, neither the Franks nor the Turks would have succeeded in their sieges, notwithstanding the persistent character of their courage, and the efficiency of their arms. The French and Venetians took up the quarrel of the Emperor Isaac Angelus and his son Alexius. They fought desperately, and gained their ends ; only to be soon defeated, however, by the "perfidious Mourzonfle," who murdered the son, and hastened the death of the father, and himself usurped the throne of the Angeli. The French and Venetians, who had been dissatisfied with the ungenerous conduct of Alexius after his restoration, resolved neverthe- less to avenge his death. They commenced a second siege. But this time the Greeks fought more valiantly. Mourzonfle encouraged them by his presence and help, and after three months' terrible conflict the Latins saw the impossibility of taking the city on the landward side. They prevailed very little also on the side of the Sea of Marmora. The city must be taken, if taken at all, from the side of the Golden Horn. The Venetians were ready ; the natural harbour was entered. The Greek fire-ships were repulsed and sunk, by men who were more at home on the sea than the Greeks themselves. " Blind old Dandalo," the doge of Venice, was there to share in the conflict and the spoil, and to find a last resting-place, when fast approaching his hundredth year,, in conquered Byzantium. The Bishops of Troyes and Soissons fought with the foremost, for it was regarded as a 1 82 THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. holy war against the heretical Eastern Church, and an acceptable diversion on their way to fight the Saracens in Palestine. The Venetian ships ran under the walls and grappled them, and laid bridges across the space between the walls and the ships. On these bridges the conflict was terrible. The Greeks gave way ; the French knights were landed. To cope with them in open street and square was impossible. And Constantinople was won by the crusaders, who basely signalized their victory by plunder, and rapine, and fires, and the wanton destruction of religious relics, and matchless antique statuary, and the accumulated literature of ages. Fifty years sufficed to exhaust the Latin occupation of Constantinople. Then the Greeks retook it, and held it feebly for another two hundred years, when it finally fell before a mightier and more inexorable foe, who have had the genius to keep it (how much longer will they keep it ?) to the present day. Nearly eight centuries before the Ottoman gathered about Constantinople, and when his fathers were only wandering shepherds of the Caspian, it had successfully resisted two terrible Mohammedan sieges, and had formed the boundary of the Mohammedan conquests to the north-west. In the forty-sixth year of the Hejira, the Arabs attempted to subdue Constantinople. They wintered in Cyzicus, and for six summers in succession invested the city, and patiently fought, confident in the triumph of Islam, and then retired with the loss of thirty thousand men. In another forty years they were back again, this time with larger forces, and a splendid navy of the combined fleets ot Egypt and Syria. But the Greeks launched their fire-ships among them. That burning liquid, the composition of which was scrupulously kept as the special secret of Byzan- tium, did its deadly work. The navy was destroyed ; the Arabs were confounded and repulsed with the feeling that if God had given the land to them, He had given the sea to the infidel. But later on the Ottoman came. Greek fire had THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 83 been superseded by gunpowder j and the Greeks had no gun- powder monopoly. Their walls were less vulnerable against the huge brass cannon of Mohammed than they were against the old battering-rams of the Arabs. The Byzantians were weakened by long divisions and individual selfishness. They had estranged the people of Western Europe, who could have helped them, or who might, if they had not been too busy fighting among themselves. And the inflexible purpose of Mohammed was accomplished in the downfall of the city. The Turks had long cherished designs for the capture of Constantinople. Since their formation as a separate power, their eyes have always been westward. They conquered Phrygia and Bithynia, from Antioch looking towards Brusa, and from Brusa towards Nice, and from Nice towards Byzantium. They were possessed with all the fiery ardour of Islam. The doctrine of the prophet was like honey to their lips, and unction to their souls. War was their element; the battle-field was their home. As soon as ever Con- stantinople came within the sphere of their vision, it was coveted as a supreme prize, not only because of its com- manding position, and as the natural seat of extensive empire, but because the prophet had said that the sins should be forgiven of the first army that captured the city of the Caesars. They widened their borders slowly, but surely, until they were only separated from their prize by the gleaming waters of the Bosphorus. They crossed the Dardanelles, established themselves at Adrianople, and gradually worked their way round to Byzantium on the landward side, until the city was completely closed in, and Mohammed, upon the remonstrance of the Greek Emperor at the building of the Roumeli Hissar, was able to return the insolent message, " The Empire of Constantinople is measured by her walls." The Ottomans were prepared for the siege years before they actually commenced it. Constantinople would have fallen sooner if it had not been for the menace of the 184 THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. Ottoman Eastern frontier, and the defeat of the Ottoman forces, by Tamerlane of Samarcand. This military genius, who combined the vast hordes of Central Asia, and led them in battle against China, India, Persia, Syria, the peoples of the Caspian, the Scythians of the Russian steppes, Mohammedan as he was, demanded submission from the house of Othman, but found in Bajazet, surnamed Ilderim, or the lightning, a spirit almost as proud as his own. Their messages one to another have the true barbaric assumption of superiority and contempt. " Thou art no more than a pismire," said Tamerlane ; "why wilt thou seek to provoke the elephants ? " at the same time telling him it was only out of consideration for the fact that he was a Mohammedan, and his country the frontier and bulwark of the Mohammedan world, that he was prevented from destroying him utterly. " What is the foundation of thy insolence and thy folly ? Thou hast fought some battles in the woods of Anatolia ; contemptible trophies ! Thou hast obtained some victories over the Christians of Europe. ... Be wise in time ; reflect, repent ; and avert the thunder of our vengeance,, which is yet suspended over thy head." Bajazet was ready with his reply : " What are the arrows of the flying Tartar against the scymitars and battle-axes of my firm and in- vincible Janizaries ? " he asked ; and insulted his foe by a reference to his harem a mortal offence to a Mohammedan,, and one which could only be avenged by the sword. They met on a large plain near Angora, Bajazet with four hundred thousand, Tamerlane with eight hundred thousand men, and fought from daybreak till sunset. But the Turkish Sultan was no match for the great Khan. He had not the fore- sight, the tact, the manoeuvring genius of his terrible adversary. His men were as brave, but they were worn out with the fighting, and Tamerlane had men in reserve. The day ended in a complete victory for the Tartars. An equal number of men four hundred thousand in all fell on both sides. Bajazet was taken captive, and, because of his own THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 85 haughty demeanour, was imprisoned in an iron cage, and carried about as a public spectacle, until death mercifully ended his shame. Tamerlane, satisfied with this chastise- ment, and abandoning the country to its fate, a proceeding characteristic of Tamerlane, who seldom made any provision for the consolidation of conquered countries, and their attachment to his Empire, as if fighting were the first, and government the second, consideration of a monarch, with- drew into Central Asia, and prepared for his campaign against the Chinese. The Turks soon recovered themselves, and in fifty years were quite ready for the final attempt upon the city of their desire. Mohammed the Great, the opener, or vanquisher, as his people call him, because of his successful siege, was a patient, determined, courageous monarch. He studied economy in his own household that he might have the means to accomplish his favourite design. On the 6th of April, 1453, he invested Constantinople with more than two hundred thousand men, and a fleet of three hundred ships. Constantine Palaeologus, the Emperor, the last of his race,, and a braver man than many who had preceded him,, defended the city with his eight thousand troops in a manner which compels admiration, and anxiously looked for succour to his Christian brethren of the West. Five ships came, four of which were Genoese, laden with pro- visions and soldiers, and they gallantly fought their way through the Turkish lines extended in the form of a cres- cent at the mouth of the Bosphorus to intercept them,, anxiously and excitedly watched by thousands of people on the European and Asiatic shores. They came safely to anchor in the Golden Horn. They were the begin- ning and end of his succour from the West. For several weeks he hurled back the foe from his ramparts into the deep fosses, and fairly held his own. His troops were thinned and weakened. His walls were battered and broken by the cannon of Mohammed. Nevertheless, by 1 86 THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. the help of Justiniani, the Genoese, he continued the con- test, and scorned to accept the terms offered him by Mohammed if he would capitulate, namely, the sovereignty of a portion of the Morea. The Turks could see that, nothwithstanding their superior forces and huge brass cannon, the city would never be carried unless a simul- taneous assault could be made from the landward side and from the side of the Golden Horn. The defenders would not be sufficiently numerous to successfully repel both assaults. But how were they to get into the Golden Horn ? A clever stratagem was hit upon. Eighty ships were run ashore near to where now stands the Dolma Bagtche Palace, and, during the night, by the aid of rollers, carried over the low-lying land into the centre of the Golden Horn. Of course the ships were not very large. Still, the feat was not only clever, but arduous ; and sufficient were conveyed into the harbour to assault the city on that side. It is supposed that the Turks were assisted and directed in this effort by the Genoese of Galata ; and it is certain that a treacherous Genoese of Stamboul revealed to the enemy the design of the Byzantians to destroy the eighty ships by the terrible Greek fire, and, consequently, the few brave men who attempted to carry out this enterprize were en- trapped and beheaded within sight of, and for the purpose of striking terror into, their fellow-citizens. On the morning of the 29th of May, without any noise of drums or musical instruments, quietly, but with deadly fanaticism, having been prepared the previous night, amid their blazing camp fires, by the preaching dervishes, the double assault began. Mohammed personally superintended the assault on the landward side, surrounded by ten thousand Janizaries, and supported by one hundred thousand cavalry, in addition to the troops spread before the walls from sea to sea. The worst troops were forced on first, and as fast as they ap- proached they were thrown into the ditches, until their dead bodies became a bridge for the passage of braver THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 87 men. Then came the Janizaries. In one long linked line they commenced the attack. The Sultan had promised the government of his largest and fairest province to the man who should first mount the ramparts, and Hassan, a Janizary of gigantic stature, was the man to claim the reward. With thirty companions he scaled the walls j eighteen were killed, and he was hurled wounded to the ground. But he mounted again. The Genoese leader, Justiniani, who had fought bravely during the whole siege, received a wound in his hand at this critical juncture, and sullied his fame by retiring from the conflict. It was the last fatal act. Constantine met him and reproached him, but he would go. Soon the walls were carried. The Emperor removed the emblems of his sovereignty, fought to the last, and was afterwards found beneath a heap of slain j the citizens fled to St. Sophia, under the belief in a prophecy that, upon the Turkish approach to the sacred edifice, a miracle would be wrought, and the foe beaten back by the interposition and assistance of heavenly power. A poor man was to be seated at the foot of the column of Constantine. To him, upon the approach of the Turks, an angel was to appear, and handing him a sword, say, "Take this sword, and avenge the people of the Lord!" But the poor man was not there. The angel never came. And the tremblingly expectant multitude in St. Sophia was deceived by the Janizaries thundering at the doors and exultantly entering the building. The city was pillaged in the night. Sixty thousand people were sold into slavery. The crescent replaced the cross on the dome of St. Sophia. Constantinople became the greatest Mohammedan city in the world. The Golden Horn is a poetical name for the long, narrow, deep, curved inlet that separates Stamboul from Galata. It affords excellent natural harbourage for the Turkish fleet. It is certainly not unlike a horn in shape, and the reflection within its waters of " glorious Stamboul " may entitle it, in the opinion of the Turks, to the name golden. It catches 1 88 THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. the beams of the rising and setting sun, and the reflected golden glory of the sunrise and the sunset may further entitle it, in the opinion of all people, to its poetical name. But we must not take Turkish names to mean all they seem to mean. They borrow them from paradise. We have to beware the suggested heavenly character of the scenes. There are many places more beautiful than the Golden Horn. The Valley of the Sweet Waters of Asia implies, to a Western mind, a delightfully romantic place. Imagination fills in the details suggested by the poetical outline far otherwise than what they really are. We have gone to the other extreme in naming our fashionable resort Rotten Row. This Valley of the Sweet Waters of Asia is the Rotten Row of Constantinople. Very frequently the loveliest scenes, the places most like a terrestrial paradise, have no name, and are altogether unknown. The wooded slopes beyond the Bay of Buyukdere are far lovelier than the level meadow and narrow stream, called by its highly poetical name, on the opposite shore. Among all the shipping of the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus the most noticeable are the caiques. What the gondolas are to Venice the caiques are to Constantinople. They are lightly built, very buoyant, and without keel ; both the prow and stern curve out of the water, and terminate in long points j they have no rudder, the direc- tion, as well as propulsion, being managed by the oars, which are fastened by cords to the gunwale, and are thick and heavy toward the top, thereby securing balance and ease of movement ; they are gaily painted and comfortably cushioned, although the seats, on account of their shallow- ness, are only a few inches from the bottom; and they shoot through the water with a speed unequalled by any other craft in the world. Some of them are large, and well adapted for sailing j but they are mostly handled, whether large or small, by a set of rowers who are adepts in manage- ment, and can calculate all their movements to a nicety THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 89 The large caiques have many rowers, and their method of row- ing is peculiar. They sit in pairs along the middle of the boat, the passengers sitting astern, and the pairs rise from their seats simultaneously, stand on the seats of the pairs before them, lay the weight of their bodies to the stroke, and gradually pull themselves back into their places. Their motions are as exact as the motions of a machine, and the' caique cuts the water as a bird the air, skimming swiftly along with all the grace and swiftness imaginable. The caique is the ordinary passenger boat. Steamers ply across the Bos- phorus to stated places and at stated times, but if you want to take a special journey, at your own time, you must hire a caique. An amusing story is told of an English seaman, who ob- tained leave to go ashore, found his way into some drinking saloon in Galata, became intoxicated, and remained beyond the allotted time. He ransacked his brains for some plan of return, which should be gratifying to his own vanity as well as striking and laughable enough to put his superior in a good humour, and, counting his money, found that he had just sufficient left to pay for the hire of five caiques. These caiques, under his direction, were roped together ; he seated himself in the stern of the last one, a solitary passenger, inflated with his own importance, and told the rowers to " fire away." Out they went into the Bosphorus, one after another, quite a procession of them, attracting the attention of every one within sight, and, as they bent their way toward the English vessel, drew to the bulwarks the inquisitive eyes of all her crew. Whoever was coming? Some Pacha, the Sheik-ul-Islam, or the Sultan himself? Surely a big dignitary he must be to require five caiques to bring him ! But when the fifth drew near, and they recognized the form of their shipmate reclining among the cushions with all the complacency of intoxication, and affecting the air of a lord, they greeted him with loud laughter, and generously helped him aboard. It is a pity 190 THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. that a man with so much ingenuity, and characteristic English humour, should have to exercise it for the covering of his own faults, and the saving of himself from the dis- grace of deserved punishment. On the Scutari side of the Bosphorus, built upon a rock about half a mile from the shore, is a square tower, ninety feet high, with an external gallery, and surmounted by a flag- staff. It is now used as a lighthouse. Sometimes it is called Leander's tower, sometimes the Maiden's tower. Its latter name is supposed to have arisen from the imprison- ment of a lady within its narrow walls by the Sultan Mohammed. This may be so, but an event occurred in the troubles of the early part of this century, the troubles which were terminated by the destruction of the Janizaries, sufficient to stamp it for ever with the name of the Maiden's tower. Upon the successful counter revolution of Biaractar, which placed Mahmoud II. upon the throne, wholesale executions followed as a matter of course ; and among the unfortu- nate sufferers were the Odalisks of the Seraglio. As I have already described, Biaractar demanded the restoration of Selim III., and the body of that monarch, newly strangled, was thrown at his feet. The Odalisks, or favoured maidens of the Seraglio, were imprudent enough, not knowing how affairs were likely to turn, to express satisfaction at Selim's death ; and their imprudence was punished in a shockingly barbarous way. They were carried to the tower in the Bosphorus, sewn up in sacks, and flung from the summit into the sea a public execution which, in the less important and unknown domestic revolu- tions of many a Pacha's palace, has had doubtless its private parallels, even if imagination based upon rumour is only approximately correct. What can be said for that state of society, created largely by its professed religion, which tolerates deeds like these? nay, which leads up to deeds like these as to results expected and inevitable ? Scutari is more Turkish than Stamboul. There you touch THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 191 Asiatic soil. There you come completely into contact with Asiatic life. There Mohammedanism is in its own home. There caravans are seen from the interior, long strings of camels, and ragged, olive-coloured camel-drivers, with all the equipment of Oriental life not seen in Stamboul. That strip of water, narrow as it is, makes a difference to the feelings ; when you have crossed it, and landed at Scutari, you have left Europe behind. You are on a new continent, and in the midst of a new life. The life of Stamboul is too near Pera, too permeated by Western influences, to be new. Scutari is beyond the reach of Pera. Western influences do not prevail there. The Turks look across the water fondly. It is the place whence they came, and whither they must return. They are not of Europe, but only sojourners on European soil, and, by the burial of their dead in Scutari, confess the feeling that sometime their sojourning will cease. There are two places in Scutari dear to all Englishmen. One is the English cemetery, neat and trim, and presenting a decided contrast to the neglected cemeteries of the Turks. Here lie the soldiers, who were wounded beyond recovery in the Crimean W T ar. The Selimie barracks is the other, overlooking the cemetery, the building placed by the Sultan at the disposal of Florence Nightingale and her companions, who nobly devoted themselves to the tender Christian work of nursing the wounded men. These two places must have many memories, both sorrowful and joyful, for the English people, sorrowful because of their countrymen who lie there, joyful because of their countrywomen who endeavoured to save them, and, when they could not save them, who ministered to their comfort and peace in their dying hours. The English traveller, entering or leaving Constantinople, as he looks upon the grey barracks and the flower-decked " God's acre," must often have his mind drawn away from the surrounding splendours of Europe and Asia to his own people and his own home. CHAPTER VI. ISLAM. Origin Knowledge of Islam important Condition of the Christian Church Condition of Arabia Birth of Mohammed Personal appearance and character Hanyfism Mecca and Medina Rapid spread of Islam under the perfect Caliphate A localized religion National embodiments Claim of the Sultan to the Caliphate, and to the title of Imaum-ul-Islam Its influence upon the foreign and domestic policy of the Sublime Porte The Mahdi God The Koran Prayer Almsgiving Fast of Ramadan Pilgrimage to Mecca Disallowance of gambling, usury, and the use of wine War Slavery Woman The royal Seraglio Paradise Ulema Imaums Preaching Muezzins Mysticism Dancing dervishes Howling dervishes Influence of Islam upon Turkish life and character. Islam originated in the seventh century of the Christian era. It dates from the Hejira, corresponding with 622, a.d., in which year Mohammed fled from Mecca to Medina. No religion can compare with Mohammedanism in the rapidity of its extension, and in the suddenness of its arrest and decline. Its adherents now number two hundred millions. Of these, forty-five millions are Hindoos, subject to our own Queen-Empress Victoria, able to exert a mighty influence upon the course of events in our Indian Empire, and, there- fore likely to affect, for good or evil, the future welfare and destiny of the English race. To no nation is a knowledge of Islam, and, based upon that knowledge, the necessity of a prudent attitude toward the Moslem, more important than ISLAM. 193 to the English, not only because of the forty-five millions of Moslems in Hindostan, but because of another forty-five millions living between Hindostan and the Eastern border- land of Europe. The Eastern Question, which is ever recurring, in many forms, as the Gordian knot of European politics, cannot be comprehended and dealt with, except by men who understand the Mohammedan religion. A know- ledge of Islam will explain the apparent incapacity of the Turk, and the real retrogression of the Ottoman Empire. The study of Mohammedanism is as interesting and essential to the statesman as to the missionary, to the statesman if he would know how to guide events for the benefit of man- kind, to the missionary if he would know how to deal with men possibly as intelligent as, and even more outwardly religious than, himself; and by the working of these two, in unconscious unity, each one from his own standpoint, each one with the advantage of a clear understanding, very much would be done to purify the atmosphere, drive away the mists, bring the East and West nearer together, and solve some of those difficult problems that now appear, to many people, incapable of any solution whatever. Islam sprang from the teaching of one man in a very degenerate period of Christian history. The Church was rent by controversies. Nice theological distinctions engaged the attention of the learned, divided them into hostile camps, drew from them mutual anathemas, and not unfrequently caused them to rouse against each other the passions of the willing mob in their contentions for powerful vacant eccle- siastical sees. The original simple services of the Church had been superseded by gorgeous and elaborate rituals. The people were practically excluded from all participation in the services. Their attention was diverted from the real object of worship to certain media, such as sacred pictures and the relics of saints, and to these media were attributed mystic virtues which led the worshipper to pay obeisance to them for their own sake. They became as gods, and the i4 194 ISLAM. people were ignorant idolaters. It was a barefaced com- promise with heathenism. Hermits and Coenobites multi- plied greatly, and endeavoured, by the vagaries of religious fanaticism, to lift themselves into a state of spiritual rapture. They retired from their fellows, many of them to lead indolent and selfish lives, and nearly all, by inge- nious methods of self-mortification, to obtain a reputation for special sanctity, and thereby impose upon the credulous, and feed the vanity of their own morbid minds. Arabia was not Christianized. The Arabs were polythe- istic idolaters. The different tribes into which they were divided worshipped their own particular deities. The heavenly bodies were regarded by them all with excessive veneration. The brilliant constellations of an Oriental mid- night sky impressed the Arabs deeply. In their wanderings over the sandy wastes they depended as much for guidance upon the positions and movement of the stars as the mariners in their wanderings over the watery wastes. The firmament was as familiar to them as the desert. The signs of heaven, indicating the times and seasons, were matters of common knowledge. Although divided into independent tribes, each tribe under its own patriarchal government, and sometimes in deadly feud with one another, they all met in peace to worship in the temple at Mecca, and in this temple, known as the Caaba, their domestic gods found a common resting-place. All kinds of images, to the number of three hundred and sixty, were placed here, and, with various ceremonies, more or less repulsive, these images were worshipped. Human sacrifices were specially accept- able. Strong inducements were presented to offer a favourite t child, and, should the vow be made, the child barely escaped by the substituted sacrifice of a hundred camels. 1 The Caaba was under the care of the tribe of the Koreish. 1 The father of Mohammed was dedicated for sacrifice, and ransomed by the hundred camels. (Gibbon, chap. 50.) ISLAM. 195 They had special privileges. They obtained great influence. They were strong in the sanctity of their religious office. Into a world like this Mohammed was born. He was of the tribe of the Koreish, and of the family of Hashem. This family was numerous, wealthy, and powerful. The grandfather of Mohammed was the patriarch of the family, and his father the favourite of nineteen children. But his father, and mother too, through whom he was related to the illustrious tribe of the Zahrites, died while he was an infant, leaving him to the mercy of his uncles, who, with the right of might, the only right recognized in a society like theirs, appropriated all his fortune, with the exception of five camels and a black slave. One of these uncles, Abu Taleb, took charge of him, until he reached his twenty-fifth year. Then he became the servant, or steward, of Cadijah, a wealthy widow of Mecca, whom he afterwards married, and, by this alliance, was able to take his place again among the affluent members of his own family. Mohammed was a great man. That no one can doubt. Only a great man could have done the work he did a work, in its earlier stages, quite commendable, and in its effects, especially considering his ignorance, truly marvellous. His personal appearance was very striking. Even after making the necessary deductions from the warm descriptions of his contemporary admirers, we have the portrait left of a man of splendid physique. His walk was commanding. His head was finely poised, his eyes were black and sparkling, his eyebrows long and curved, his mouth was large and well formed, covering teeth "like hailstones," the Arabs say, beautifully clean and white. He was of the most highly developed Arab type. Men like him may yet be met with among the Bedouins of the wilderness. He was singularly gifted in many ways. He was a man of strong will, pene- tration, foresight, statesmanship; his nature was fervent, expressing itself in eloquent discourse, and magnetic, attach- ing people to his person as well as to his cause ; his dis- 196 ISLAM. position was open, gentle, gracious, generous; he loved those about him, and died, poisoned, as he believed, by a Jewess, four years before, since which his health had gradu- ally declined, manumitting his slaves, and distributing the scanty remains of the wealth left him after the continual replenishings, and as continual hospitalities, of twenty years. His faults were great, and were especially manifest in the second half of his life, the half which commences with the Hejira, when, having fled from Mecca, he unfurled in Medina the standard of Islam, and commenced his missionary war- fare, not only as a prophet, but as a king. He had deceived others already with the pretended revelations from heaven embodied in the Koran, and his military successes may possibly have helped him to deceive himself. There was no basis of truth in his character at any time, so far as his religious teaching was concerned. He was densely ignorant, accepting mythical accounts as genuine, confounding persons and historical events separated by centuries, and yet locking up all these incongruities along and mixed with his own ideas, in a book deemed infallible, and which the Moslem unquestioningly accepts, and lives by, as unchangeable and Divine. Success weakened his character, confirmed him in his purpose of propagating Islam by the sword, and led him into sensual indulgences in contravention of his own precepts, an example which his disciples have not been slow to follow, and which has contributed more than any other single thing to shatter Mohammedan States, and hasten the ruin of the Mohammedan religion. His life at Mecca was that of a prophet, a teacher, one who wished to convert his countrymen from their idolatrous practices to the worship of the one God. There had been a few before him, and there were a few among his contem- poraries, who knew how foolish and ridiculous and pitiable it was to worship idols. They called themselves Hanyfs, or Puritans, and endeavoured to restore the original faith of their great ancestor, Abraham. Mohammed was a HanyL ISLAM. 197 The genius of his character, as well as his illustrious birth, marked him out as the natural leader of these men. His mercantile journeys to Damascus as Cadijah's steward, and the contact with Jews and Christians into which he was brought thereby, widened the horizon of his mind, and furnished him with materials for his pretended prophetic revelations. Neither Judaism nor Christianity met with his approval. The narrowness of the one, and the grossness of the other, as represented in his day, repelled him ; and, true to his profession as a Hanyf, he called Islam a restoration of the pure faith of Abraham, and, true to his own ambitious nature, he proclaimed himself as the last and most glorious Prophet of God. He met with very little success in Mecca. Thirteen years were spent in gathering two or three hundred disciples. Then, because of the persecutions of his own tribe of the Koreish, whose calling as keepers of the Caaba was at stake, and the income of whose priestly offices was threatened, by the success of Islam, he fled to Medina. He was accompanied by some of his disciples, joined by others who had previously sought refuge in the Abyssinian court, and welcomed by those residents of Medina who had already been converted to his cause. Now he had might on his side, the might of armed men, and now he assumed the character of a monarch as well as a teacher, and enforced his government and doctrine upon the Jews of the neigh- bourhood at the edge of the sword. The caravans of the Koreish passed by Medina, and, with the true Arabian in- stinct, he retaliated their persecution by plunder ; and in eight years after fleeing from Mecca, entered it again as a sovereign- prophet at the head of ten thousand men. The tribes gathered about him. Islam did what all else had failed to do, bound the tribes together into one people, under one monarch, and Mohammed reigned from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf, from the Indian Ocean to the borders of Palestine. Mohammed was succeeded by men braver and fiercer 198 ISLAM. than himself. He had thoroughly roused the martial spirit of the Arabs, he had given them the fanatical war cry, "There is no God but God, and Mohammed is His Prophet," and he had inspired them to make to all people the threefold offer of Islam, the Tribute, or the Sword. Upon the Prophet's death the Arab tribes revolted, but, by the vigour of Abu-bekr, and the terrible sword of Caled, they were brought into submission to the Prophet's chosen successor. Under the first four Caliphs, Abu-bekr, Omar, Othman, and Ali, generally regarded by Mohammedans as the perfect Caliphate, Islam spread very rapidly. The succession of the perfect Caliphate was not without its troubles. Ali, the husband of Fatima, the Prophet's favourite daughter, was regarded by an influential section of Islam as entitled to the Caliphate first of all. His claims were over- ruled, however, and three Caliphs preceded him ; but, by the sect of the Shi-ites, who are predominant in Persia, his memory is cherished with peculiar veneration. By the Sonnites, who are predominant in Turkey, and who are considered the orthodox of Islam, equal veneration is paid to all the four. They trod faithfully in the Prophet's foot- steps. They fired the Arab hosts with fanatical enthusiasm ; they sent them forth against Syria, and Persia, and Egypt, and everywhere success crowned their arms. Riches untold were suddenly poured into their treasuries. The fair women of many nations filled their harems. Thousands, to escape the sword, consented to pay the tribute, and tens of thou- sands, seduced by the certainty of wealth in this world, and the promise of sensual pleasures in the world to come, pro- nounced the prescribed formula, and were enrolled among the believers of Islam. In a single century from the Prophet's death the green banner was waving over the Straits of Gibraltar, and on the banks of the Oxus, and the millions that dwelt along this immense territory were offering the prayers, and keeping the fasts, and observing the laws, and believing in the precepts of Islam. ISLAM. 199 Along this immense territory, but neither then nor after- wards very far to the North or the South of it. Moham- med was a real Arab, and Islam was primarily for Arabia He was ignorant of the differences of climate in the far North and the far South, and he prescribed forms of religion impossible to be kept except where the nights and days are much the same in length and mildness as the nights and days of Arabia. Beyond forty-five degrees North and South latitude, Mohammedanism cannot exist. Natural conditions are against it; and among Northern peoples it finds no favour. Its home is Asia. It is simply suited to the Asiatic mind. Mohammedanism is therefore essentially a localized religion, and never can become anything more. It contra- dicts its own claim to universal dominion. It gives the lie to the assumption of its founder as the final and perfect Prophet of God. The national embodiments of Islam have been shortlived. They have made little, if any, progress. They have con- tributed very slightly to the world's growth in arts, sciences, laws, literature, or any other mark of advanced civilization. Islam seeks national embodiment. Its highest expression, like that of Judaism, is through the State. In Mohammedan countries the religion is the law, the body politic is the body ecclesiastic. Islam is not a Church in a State, but the State itself churchified (if such a word may be allowed). The highest ecclesiastical authorities are the acknowledged lawyers of the land, and they rule both the people and the court. They are supreme. The Ottoman Empire is a religio-political organization. It is governed by the Sublime Porte, and the Sublime Porte is governed by the Ulema. Islam has passed through several national embodiments since the termination of the perfect Caliphate. In Damas- cus, in Bagdad, in Cordova, in Samarcand, in Constantinople, the seat of Mohammedan government has been fixed, and empires of greater or less extent have been swayed in the name of the Prophet, and for the glory of Islam. They have 200 ISLAM. been illustrious for a short time, and have then rapidly sunk into decay. The Ottoman Empire is the last creation of Islam. Whether we shall have another or not, when the Ottoman Empire vanishes, it is impossible to say j but all the probabilities are in favour of the opinion that Islam has run its course. Persia is Mohammedan, but heterodox, and of small importance compared with Turkey. Other Moham- medan States are smaller than Persia. The Padishah of Constantinople is the head of the Mohammedan world in power, and he claims to be head of the Mohammedan world by right. He regards himself as the Caliph, the Prophet's successor, the custodian of the green banner, the guardian of the faithful, the defender of Islam. This assumption of the Caliphate by the Sultan of Turkey, this belief that the Caliphate of right belongs to the Sultan of Turkey, must materially influence the foreign and domestic policy of the Sublime Porte. But the Caliphate of the Sultan is not universally acknowledged by the Mohammedan world. It may be acknowledged by the Ottomans, and that portion of the Slavs and Circassians who have been converted to Islam, and who are under Turkish rule ; but the great bulk of the Mohammedan peoples would repudiate the Caliphate of the Sultan, and refuse to obey his commands. The last of the real Caliphs, Mohammed XII., died in Egypt in 1538, a.d. It was through the enforced cession of the Caliphate by Mohammed XIL, to the Sultan Selim I., that the rulers of the Ottoman Empire have styled themselves the Caliphs of Islam. But Mohammed could not cede the title and authority of the Caliphate to an alien. The Prophet had declared that the Caliphate should be kept in his own family. The Ottoman Sultans are not of the family of the Prophet : they are not even of the race of the Prophet. The blood of the Arab does not run in the veins of the house of Othman. They are aliens, and their foreign source is an insurmountable objection to their claim to the Caliphate. The Moslems, beyond the confines of the Turkish Empire, ISLAM. 20 1 are more inclined to accept the Sheriff of Mecca as the true Caliph, because he is of the Prophet's family, and he dwells within the sacred walls. The Sheriff of Mecca does homage to the Sultan, and graciously accepts from him every year the kiswah) or holy carpet, for the covering of the sacred shrine. The Sultan is sovereign ; he has the power on his side. He can demand submission, and he can enforce the demand. But if ever the Sultan's sovereignty is overthrown, his power paralysed, his demands unenforceable, then the Caliphate will drop from his grasp, and he will become as any other ordinary Moslem. This is implied in the in- dependent argument of the Ulema in favour of the Caliphate of the Sultan. They say, "The rights of the house of Othman are based upon its power and success, for one of the most ancient canonical books declares that the authority of a prince who has usurped the Caliphate by force and violence, ought not the less to be considered legitimate, because, since the end of the perfect Caliphate, the sovereign power is held to reside in the person of him who is the strongest, who is the actual ruler, and whose right to com- mand rests upon the power of his armies." To the title of Imaum-ul-lslam, in the absence of any one else sufficiently strong to fulfil the duties of the office, among which are not only the recital of public prayers on a Friday, known in Stamboul as the Selamlik, but also the defence of the frontiers, the raising of armies, the administration of the law, to this title the Sultan may have a stronger claim. It rests, nevertheless, upon the same basis as the more im- portant claim to the Caliphate, because the Prophet restricted the office of Imaum-ul-Islam to the members of his own family. The foreign and domestic policy of the Sublime Porte is largely influenced by the religious offices of the Sultan. If the Sultan cherish strong religious convictions, and pride himself upon his position as successor of the Prophet, and defender of Islam, the policy of his government must be 202 ISLAM. influenced so much the more strongly in resisting the pressure of the infidel upon the confines of his dominion, and the interference of the infidel in the management of the affairs of his realm. He has a reputation to maintain among the Mohammedan peoples which can only be maintained by resisting the infidel, and proclaiming the supremacy of Islam ; and in order to maintain this reputation, no wonder if the Sultan is tempted sometimes to dream of a Pan- Islamic movement for the purpose of welding into one Empire the Moslems of Asia, Africa, and Europe, and presenting an unbroken front to the infidel world. To dream simply, for to realize this truly grand purpose is an utter impossibility. The division between the two sections of Mohammedanism is too deep for this to be ever realized, and the orthodox section is too much disagreed concerning the real Caliph even to realize it to any appreciable extent. To the real Caliph alone they will render implicit obedience, and the Ottoman Sultans do not fulfil the primary conditions. Nevertheless, the Ottoman Sultans believe in their right to the Caliphate, and when a Sultan ascends the throne, who has been reared in privacy, and under the direction and beneath the influence of the Ulema, like Abdul Hamid II., and who may think more of his religious supremacy than of his kingly power, there is not much hope of internal reform, and there is not much likelihood of concession to the Christian peoples either within or upon the frontiers of his realm. The Ottoman Empire is endangered not by the in- herent incapacity of the Turk to govern, and not by the want of forces and courage to maintain and defend the Empire, but by the religion which called it into being, like the others before it, only to stay its growth beyond the limits of its own inexorable system, and cripple it incurably and fatally. The Turks are a modern people. It is not many centuries since they emerged from the obscurity of the desert. They ought yet to have been in possession of the vigour and elasticity of national youth. But everywhere ISLAM. 203 they exhibit signs of a premature old age. They cannot grow ; they are cramped, bound everywhere by the strong cords of Islam, and they must either burst the cords and live on, or the cords, which have hindered their develop- ment, will hasten their decay. For several years the Mohammedan world has been agitated by the expectancy of the Mahdi. The Prophet, following the example of Moses, and perhaps influenced by Christian views concerning the coming of the Christ, de- clared that twelve centuries after his death another prophet should arise, and obtain for Islam a complete triumph in every part of the world. The real Mahdi has not yet appeared. There have been cries of Lo, here ! and Lo, there ! but the anxious expectations of the Moslems have been so far disappointed. And will be. For a Mahdi, such as they expect, whether they be Shi-ites or Sonnites, will never come. The Shi-ites are looking for the reappear- ance of the twelfth Imaum of the race of Ali, a little lad who disappeared at the age of twelve, and who, according to their traditions, lies hid in a cave somewhere, awaiting the appointed time ; but the Sonnites are looking for a celestial warrior, surrounded by 360 companions, who shall finish the work of the Prophet by accomplishing the universal victory of Islam. The hopes of the Mohammedan world are centred in the fulfilment of this prophecy. The perfect Caliphate is to be restored, and should any im- postor ingenious enough, and with sufficient forces, arise, and seemingly fulfil the conditions to almost any, even the most limited, degree, then woe betide the Caliphate of the Sultan ! Beyond his own borders it will vanish like smoke, and within his own borders it will receive so rude a shock as, maybe, never to recover. What is Islam ? What are its doctrines ? What is its practice? The meaning of the word Islam is resignation a meek submission to the will of God. The name is appropriate. The Divine will, as revealed in the Koran, is 204 ISLAM. supreme in the individual and in the State, theoretically supreme, and practically supreme to a very high degree. The freedom of the human will is unhinged by Islam. The State is plunged into an abyss of apathy. The individual is confirmed in ultra-predestination, if not quite fatalistic, beliefs. For Islam is not resignation as understood by Christian peoples, not the blending of the human will with the Divine, but the mastery of the human will by the Divine. This is inherent in the Mohammedan conception of God, which is truly Semitic, a return to the primitive monotheistic idea of the early Hebrews a God of terrible majesty and awful purity, alone, eternal. This belief in the one God is the strong point of Moham- medanism. Its assertion had an electric effect upon the Arabs, rousing them, knitting them together, enrolling them under one banner beneath one prophet and king. " There is no God but God, and Mohammed is His Prophet ! " This was their war-cry, and the repetition of this short formula was sufficient to transform enemies into friends, .and to bind them under the strictest mutual obligations of brotherhood. Now, when the Arabs swarm about the Upper Nile, and when the Turks dash into the Russian trenches, the cry oftenest upon their lips is " Allah ! " But the God of Mohammed and the Moslems has no identifica- tion with human life. He is altogether apart. The Living, the Self-Subsisting, the High, the Great, the Mighty these are the terms employed to describe Him. He is also called the Merciful, the Compassionate, but in a very different sense from that of the Christian, not in His mercy and compassion entering into our human lot that He might lift us above our weaknesses and sins, but in His mercy and compassion looking upon our human lot and indulging us in our weaknesses and sins. The Mohammedan creed knows nothing of the God who is not far from every one of us ; in whom we live, and move, and have our being ; whose heart throbs with a father's tenderness, and yearns ISLAM. 205. with a mother's love ; who cannot rest apart, but who must go forth to seek and to save that which was lost. The idea of incarnation is utterly foreign to the Mohammedan mind. And so is the idea of a Divine, suffering Saviour. God has revealed His truth through the prophets, say the believers in Islam, and finally through the last of the prophets, Mohammed. The Koran is the very word of God. Not only its teaching, but its form, is Divine. It is a sin to translate it. It is the embodiment of absolute wisdom. Beyond it there is no appeal. In the Koran, not only the unity of God and the authority of the Prophet are taught, but also certain supposed truths concerning angelic beings, the final judgment, and the decrees of Allah, mostly fanciful, sometimes sensual, and mixed with a mass of in- congruous incidents from Mosaic and Christian sources. The book is the compilation of a clever man, who could have done better had he been better informed, but who, even with the materials available, succeeded in binding men and nations by a mere letter a dead letter and enforcing obedience to his commands. Mohammed enjoined upon all believers in Islam the duty of reciting the prescribed formula, praying five times a day, almsgiving, observing the fast of Ramadan, and performing the pilgrimage to Mecca. The service of prayer, called the Namaz, consists of a series of genuflections, and the repeti- tion of certain words, always the same, and always with the face toward Mecca. This is the only devotional exercise of the Mohammedan. But he observes it everywhere, and in all kinds of company. He is never ashamed of his religion. When the time for prayer arrives, whether in the crowded city or the lonely desert, he performs the ablutions, with sand if water is not nigh, removes his slippers, spreads his carpet, and, oblivious to his surroundings, goes through his prayer. Doubtless there are many to whom the Namaz is a piece of officious formalism, but there are also many who are perfectly sincere in their genuflections and repeti- 206 ISLAM. tions, and cherish the satisfaction arising from the perform- ance of a religious duty. Almsgiving is regarded as an obligation binding upon the faithful. A niggardly Mohammedan cannot hope for Paradise. He must give ten per cent, of his grain and fruit, two and a half per cent, of his income from business, and one per cent, of his property in camels, and he is at liberty to give as much more as he likes the more the better. It is wonderful how freely the early Mohammedans distributed their wealth. They received it rapidly, and in very great abundance, but they never grew avaricious. Their hospitality knew no bounds. Every application was liberally met. The swarms of beggars in Constantinople, and every Mohammedan town, are proof of the continuance of the practice. They need no poorhouses. Perhaps they escape the grinding poverty too plainly visible in many Christian cities. But surely indolence is indulged by this indiscriminate bestowal of alms, and a mass of floating fanaticism maintained upon the surface of society, ready to be turned in any direction to the danger of the common weal. Mohammed laid a heavy burden upon believers by the institution of the annual fast of Ramadan. For a whole month, sometimes a hot month in summer, neither food nor drink is allowed to pass the lips of a Mohammedan from the sunrise till the sunset of every day. No matter where he may be, the fast must be observed. Traversing the sandy wilderness, floating on the lonely Nile, busy in the streets of Damascus, faint beneath the hot Indian sun, nothing may be taken to relieve him ; he may not smoke tobacco, he may not smell any reviving perfume, he may not chew any hunger-killing, thirst- allaying herb j he must simply endure his misery till sunset. Then he may eat and drink his fill. The next day brings a repetition of his misery, and the next, and the next, for a whole lunar month. He must abide by the infallible teaching of the Koran. He must obey the word of God and the Prophet. He cannot ISLAM. 207 be numbered among the faithful of Islam unless he strictly keep the fast of Ramadan. It is a divinely-appointed spiritual discipline to which he must meekly submit. A good Moslem would never think of disobeying the injunc- tion of the Prophet, and breaking his fast during Ramadan; because to disobey, and eat between the rising and setting of the sun, would be to imperil the future welfare of his soul, and bar against him the gates of Paradise. But how they rejoice when Rai?iadan is dead, as the children cry, when the fast is over, when they enter upon the feast of Bairam, and make up for Ramadan by a real good time ! A burden not much less heavy is the required pilgrimage to Mecca. Every Mohammedan is bound to visit the sacred shrine at least once during his lifetime. Wherever he may live, however long and toilsome the journey may be, he must come. Of course every Mohammedan does not come. Some neglect the duty. Some pay for a substitute. But all are expected to come, and are under spiritual penalties if they do not come ; indeed, the Prophet declared that a man might as well die an infidel as a Moslem, if he had not once been to the house of the Lord. The numbers visiting Mecca fluctuate according to the strength or weak- ness of the common spiritual impulses, the waves, of religious feeling that pass over the Mohammedan world as over every other, sometimes sinking to fifty thousand, sometimes rising to two hundred thousand annually. The pilgrims have the privilege of trading by the way, and some of them make good use of it, and are not averse to repeating the pilgrimage, especially when they can lay up a substantial spiritual balance against the time to come while providing for their earthly welfare. That Mohammedans are any the better for the pilgrimage is an open question, but that Mohammedanism is the better is no question at all. The individual advantage depends upon the individual intelligence. There are very few who see the truth which Goethe has expressed quaintly in the lines 208 ISLAM. " If the Ass whose back did carry, 'Mid pomp of palms, the Son of Mary, To Mecca should devoutly fare, And worship with the pilgrims there, He would go, and back return, An Ass the Ass that he was born ! " The advantage to Mohammedanism in the enforced pil- grimage to Mecca was foreseen by the Prophet. By the selection of Mecca as the holy place of Islam he enlisted the sympathy of the Arabs. It was already a holy place, consecrated by their idols, a centre for the gathering of their tribes ; and Mohammed met their heathenism half-way by adopting the Caaba as the temple of Islam, and more than half- way by permitting the superstitious veneration of the mystic "black stone." From Morocco and from Malay, from the banks of the Congo and from the shores of the Dardanelles, the Moslems meet in Mecca; it is the centre, the local habita- tion of their faith ; they behold each other's faces, and have before them an evidence of the wide area over which the faith is spread, and their unity is accentuated, their brother- hood definitely set forth, by the gathering of Islam within the walls of a single sanctuary. Mecca to the Moham- medans is what Jerusalem was to the Jews. Islam professes to reach back over the centuries beyond Judaism, and claims as the builder of the Caaba, Abraham himself. Within the precincts of the temple is the well Zemzem, from which Hagar obtained water to quench the thirst of her dying son, and which is therefore regarded as a second giver of life to the Arabs. To drink of this water, to walk round the temple, to kiss the " black stone," to press his form against the sacred structure, to run between the mountains, to stone the devil, to offer his sacrifice these are the ambition of a Moslem's heart, and by the help of these he hopes to walk over the path, finer than a hair, and sharper than the edge of a sword, into the delights of Paradise. Islam lays other restrictions upon its adherents. Games ISLAM. 209 of chance are not permitted. The loan of money for the sake of gain is forbidden. Wine-drinking is disallowed. So that Mohammedan countries are comparatively free from vices which sometimes threaten the happiness and prosperity of Christian countries. These commands are not universally kept. Various excuses are resorted to by a lax minority to whom present gain is better than future reward, who would rather make sure of the pleasurable excitement of the vinous nectar of these earthly gardens than wait for the doubtful joys of Paradise. Still usury and gambling and drunkenness are strangers to Islam. Those who indulge in them are false to Islam. An interdict is placed upon them, and when the Moslem is tempted to tamper with these evils, so common in Christian lands, the temptation is from the devil, and to the peril of his soul. But Islam permits indulgences which much more than counterbalance these restrictions. It is essentially a fighting religion, martial in every tone of it ; and the fierce spirit of the Arabs, of the Tartars, of the Turks, of all its devotees, it not only freely indulges, but sanctifies. The spirit is not only allowed to burn, but to burn upon an altar. To serve Islam faithfully is to fight for Islam to the end. Her saints are warriors. The scene of their exploits is the battle-field. Those who die sword in hand are martyrs. And a sufficient casus belli is a difference in faith. Islam proclaims war against the world. The world must either accept Islam as its faith, or pay tribute to Islam as its master. When any Mohammedan nation sheathes the sword, it falls below its religion. It fails to fulfil the mission for which it was called into being. And, as a matter of fact, as soon as any Mohammedan nation ceases to fight, it ceases to grow. The period of decline commences exactly where the period of aggression ends. Wherever the flow of Mohammedan conquest has been checked, the ebb has set in. A Moham- medan country cannot develop on peaceful lines. It is against its very nature. In a peaceful Mohammedan i5 2IO ISLAM. country growth would be miraculous. Decay is inevitable. The short history of the Ottoman Empire is the last and most illustrious example. That short history is a series of brilliant conquests until the repulse from the walls of Vienna. The limits of their Empire were set. They had acquired dominion over earth's fairest provinces. They were masters of a city incomparable as a seat of government and com- merce. The means of consolidation were within their grasp. They had wealth without end. Everything was favourable to their future prosperity, everything but their religion. They were the people of the Koran. They had to conform to the Letter. And 1 ' While the world rolls on from change to change, And realms of thought expand, The letter stands without expanse or range, Stiff as a dead man's hand ; " and the dead man's hand held them in its inexorable grip. They could not grow. Exactly at the point where Christian nations have shot forth with renewed vitality, Mohammedan nations have shrunk into helplessness and decay. But what a gospel was this to give to the wild children of Ishmael ! To put them under a religious obligation to fight, to preach to them the sacred privileges of plunder, to bless them in their divisions of the spoil, to promise them the crown of martial martyrdom, was an indulgence which they could appreciate to the full. It was whetting their natural appetites. It was quickening their inbred desires. It was fanning their favourite calling into a fanatical flame. No wonder that Islam spread rapidly. The wonder would have been if it had not spread rapidly. But "they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." A religion whose success depends upon the battle-field, must be con- tented with a very brief existence. It will run a rapid course to a violent end. Not only the property, but the persons, of the vanquished, ISLAM. 211 passed into the hands of the victors. The general plan was to massacre the males, and enslave the females. The males who were saved were sold, traded with, offered for ransom, made money of somehow ; the females were distributed in the harems. Slavery is an inevitable part of Mohammedan social life. While Mohammedanism exists there must be a demand for slaves. In the palmy days of Mohammedanism the demand was met, and more than met, by hosts of female captives. Now it has to be met in other ways. The slave- hunters of the world are the Arabs of Africa. The slave markets of Islam are yet open to the nefarious traffic in human blood. Some Roman Catholic countries allow the traffic, and maybe the majority of negro slaves find their way into the fields of so-called Christian lands. But there is this difference. Slaves are demanded in these lands for the tilling of the soil, notwithstanding the silent protest of Christianity, whereas, in Mohammedan countries, slaves are demanded for the maintenance of the domestic life peculiar to Mohammedanism, and with the full sanction of the Koran. The slavery of Turkey is by no means confined to African blood. There are many white slaves in the harems of Constantinople. With the system of concubinage ex- pressly sanctioned in the Koran, inevitably bound up with Mohammedan social life, necessarily consequent upon the Semitic idea of womanhood, slavery must exist, and must be perpetuated. The abolition of slavery would be the destruction of Islam. Mohammed adopted the Semitic idea of womanhood. Woman is a secondary creature, a mere servant, and less than a servant, a mere article, dealt with by man according to his pleasure or fancy. The sacredness of the marriage tie is unknown. Polygamy existed in Arabia previous to the rise of Islam, and it would have been disastrous to Islam to have forbidden polygamy. Mohammed never thought of forbidding it. But he attempted its restriction. He set the limit at four wives. This limit he transgressed 212 ISLAM. himself, for his own household consisted of nine wives and two slave-girls ; and, having his example as an excuse, his early disciples multiplied their wives without end, and purchased as many concubines as they could well support. An attempt was made by some to obey the Koran, notwith- standing the Prophet's example, by never exceeding four wives at a time, and the extreme facility of divorce enabled them to do this. Hassan, the grandson of the Prophet, exercised the privilege of divorce seventy times, and gene- rally kept within the letter of the law. In all parts of the Mohammedan world, in Penang, Zanzibar, Stamboul, Cairo, Morocco, wherever Mohammedanism exists, men in middle life may be met with who have had twenty, thirty, as many as fifty wives, changing them as often as they pleased. There are certain classes in Hindostan who confine themselves to one wife, not because they are Mohammedan in religion, but because they are Aryan in race. The conjugal rights of the wife are very limited. The slave has no conjugal rights at all. This degradation of woman to a mere article is the darkest blot upon Islam, and the fruitful source of evil and decay. The veil, the harem, the strict seclusion of woman, the impossibility of conversational intercourse between the sexes, the deprivation of woman's refining and ennobling influence in the home and in society, the abandonment of the sanctities of wifehood and motherhood these lie at the very centre of Islamic life. The fountain is impure, and what can the streams be? The roots are evil, and what can the fruit be? As Dr. Fairbairn has well said, " A religion that does not purify the home cannot regene- rate the race; one that depraves the home is certain to deprave humanity. Motherhood must be sacred if man- hood is to be honourable. Spoil the wife of sanctity, and for the man the sanctities of life have perished. And so has it been with Islam. It has reformed and lifted the savage tribes j it has depraved and barbarized civilized nations. At ISLAM. 213 the root of its fairest culture a worm has ever lived that has caused its blossoms soon to wither and die. Were Mo- hammed the hope of man, then his state were hopeless; before him could only lie retrogression, tyranny and despair." x The Ottomans are truly Mohammedan. The wealthy among them maintain immense harems filled with Circassian slaves. The system reaches its height in the household of the Sultan. He is separated from his people by an im- passable chasm ; he cannot marry as they can. All the inmates of his harem are slaves. The penetralia of the Seraglio is crowded with women purchased for him from among the fairest of his people. Not one among them is associated with him on the throne. The Sultana Valide is not his wife, but his mother; she is at the head of the Seraglio. Beneath her are many ranks wives, favourites, aspirants, to the number of four hundred, each with their separate households, and groups of female attendants, from which menial position any one of these attendants may be raised to honour by the slightest wish of the Sultan. One day may find her a servant-maid, the next a queen. The mother of the Sultan, Abdul Medjid, was once a menial in one of the minor households of the Seraglio. By the sudden caprice of the Sultan she became the head of a household of her own, and, several years afterwards, having given birth to a son, was proclaimed the Sultana Valide. The expense of the Sultan's harem must be enormous. But oh ! the sadness of it all ; the pernicious influence, the degradation, the misery ! How terrible its effects ! and how far-reaching ! Beneath the incubus of a system like this no State could rise into eminence, and prosperously perpetuate itself. The State, most favourably situated in every other respect, would succumb beneath the stifling pressure of this gigantic evil. It might fight for life a long time, but the fight could only end in defeat and death. 1 " The City of God," Part i. p. 97. 214 ISLAM. The paradise of Islam is in harmony with its earthly in- dulgences. Immortal youth, gardens of delight, black-eyed virgin houris to consort with, everything to gratify a refined Oriental sensualism these are what the Prophet promises to the disciples of Islam. With such a heaven before them the crown of martyrdom was eagerly desired by the warriors of Islam. They boasted in the fact that they loved death more than their enemies loved life. Their ardour was fired by the visions of paradise. Beneath the excitement of the battle-field their fervid imaginations beheld the joys of the blessed, and they fought with terrible earnestness, as if cutting their way to them through the ranks of their foes. The cry " Paradise ! "' rung from their lips as they flung themselves into the thickest of the fray. " Under the walls of Emesa," says Gibbon, " an Arabian youth, the cousin of Caled, was heard aloud to exclaim ' Methinks I see the black-eyed girls looking upon me ; one of whom, should she appear in this world, all mankind would die for love of her. And I see in the hand of one of them an handkerchief of green silk, and a cap of precious stones ; and she beckons me and calls out, Come hither quickly, for I love thee ! ' With these words, charging the Christians, he made havoc wherever he went, till, observed at length by the governor of Hems, he was struck through with a javelin." x An aged Moslem, upon the fall of his comrade, said : " O Paradise ! how close art thou beneath the arrow's point and the falchion's flash ! O Hashim ! even now I see heaven opened, and black-eyed maidens all bridally attired, clasping thee in their fond embrace ." Notwithstanding the restrictions of Mohammedanism, its numerous indulgences and its promise of the future won the attachment of the wild Asiatic races. It became known to the Saracens themselves as the easy way, and the end of it was all that their earthly natures could desire. The administration of Islam is in the hands of the Ulema. 1 Gibbon, chap. 51. ISLAM. 215 They are predominant in Turkey ; they stand in the way of all reform. To offend them in the prosecution of any enter- prise is most disastrous. They are zealous for the law, because by the law they live and prosper. The Ulema are not a priesthood ; there is no priesthood in Islam. Every man is a priest for himself. All Moslems are equal. The Ulema are the interpreters of the Koran, and the Koran is the law, civil and ecclesiastical. They are the men of the book, learned in its precepts, the unfolders of its meaning ; and they are deeply venerated, because of their distinguished office, by all the faithful. Next to the Ulema are the Imaums, or readers, who read the Koran in the mosques for the edification of the faithful. In the more frequented mosques of Constantinople several Imaums may be seen reading the Koran, each with an in- tently listening little group about him. To listen to the reading of the law, and to duly perform the daily Namaz, almost covers the entire ordinary religious worship of the Moslem. Much importance is attached to preaching ; and the preaching is sometimes very effective. The preacher begins by reciting the formula, " Peace be with you, and the mercy of God, and His blessings," after which the Muezzin, standing at the foot of the pulpit, utters the call for the sermon. Burton, describing a service in the great court of the Caaba, says : " The old man stood up and began to preach. As the majestic figure began to exert itself there was a deep silence. Presently a general ' Amin ' was intoned by the crowd at the conclusion of some long sentence ; and at last, towards the end of the sermon, every third or fourth word was followed by the simultaneous rise and fall of thou- sands of voices. I have seen the religious ceremonies of many lands, but never nowhere aught so solemn, so im- pressive as this spectacle." The Muezzin is the religious crier of Islam. Five times a day he climbs the minaret to summon the faithful to their devotions. Placing his thumbs beneath his ears, extending 2l6 ISLAM. his palms, and closing his eyes the first position of the Namaz he cries, " O God most high, I say there is no God but one, and Mohammed is His Prophet. Come to prayer ! Come to the temple of salvation ! God is great ! There is no God but God ! Prayer is better than sleep ! Prayer is better than sleep ! " Mohammed was puzzled how to call the faithful to prayers. Flags were not dignified enough, torches were the signals of the Guebers, bells were appro- priated by the Christians, and trumpets by the Jews. In his perplexity Abdallah came to his relief. He had been favoured by a vision, in which an angel had revealed to him the call of the Muezzin, and, mounting to the roof of the mosque, he repeated the formula. The difficulty was solved. The result was the building of minarets, and the institution of a new ecclesiastical order. The baldness of Mohammedanism compared with the decorative profusion of Eastern Christianity, in the religions themselves, and in all their expressions, is very conspicuous. The severe simplicity of the Mohammedan mosque rebukes the ornate embellishment of the Christian temple. The almost entire want of ritual in the individual worship of the Mohammedan is in direct contrast with the elaborate ceremonies of the priesthood of the Greek Church. The doctrines of Islam are few and clear; the doctrines of the Eastern Church are numerous and cloudy. And yet Islam has its mystics. The stiff, repressive character of the Mohammedan religion may have succeeded in checking the spiritual exuberance of the Asiatic nature, but it has by no means destroyed it. Mohammed detested the Christian monks. He had no patience with the ecstatic vagaries of the eremites. There were to be none in Islam, so he said. But to prevent the cultivation of the inner mystic life was beyond the power of the Prophet. Many in Islam have devoted themselves to a solitary life, frequent fasting, severe self-mortification, meditation, and prayer, in order to lift themselves nearer God and become partakers of the Divine ISLAM. 217 nature. Their experiences are very like the experiences of the so-called Christian saints who have endeavoured by the same means to reach the same end. They, have generally been persecuted by their brethren. They have mostly been in ill-favour with the Ulema. But the people have believed in them. In Turkey alone there are now thirty-two separate communities of such men, commonly known as Dervishes, sometimes called Fakirs, living according to certain prescribed rules, worshipping after certain defined forms, more tolerant towards other religions than the ordinary Moslems, a people who are feeling, in many strange ways, after the spiritual and Divine. 1 The dancing dervishes of Pera were founded about 1226, A..D., and are held in high reputation by the Turks. It was among these people that the candid, generous-hearted, truce- keeping Sultan Amarath twice retired to enjoy the quietude of a religious life. The dancing is a quick, balanced, whirling motion, begun and finished suddenly, and repeated three times, each time more rapid than before. The eyes are closed, the arms extended, the open palms pointing one to the heavens, the other to the earth. No signs of giddi- ness are apparent either during the dancing or at its close. There is a seeming absorption of all the faculties in the even gyrations, as if the purpose of the dancing were to forget themselves, and everything about them. The turning from the chief dervish, which forms the first motion of the dance, is said to be a symbol of humility. It represents the averting of the eyes from the presence of God. Their circular movements signify God's omnipresence, and their desire to seek Him wherever they may be. The dance itself, with its increasing rapidity, sets forth the course of human life ; the uplifted palm the receiving of God's blessing, and the down-pointing palm the bestowal of the blessing on others. 1 In the Contemporary Review for August, 1883, there is a very in- teresting article by W. S. Lilly, on " The Saints of Islam." 2l8 ISLAM. The howling dervishes reside in Scutari. Their services are much more exciting and difficult to understand than the services of the dancing dervishes of Pera. After the recital of the preliminary prayers during a long prostration toward Mecca, the dervishes rise, range themselves in a row, and at a signal from one of the company seated in the middle of the floor, begin swaying their bodies violently backwards and forwards, to the right hand and to the left, their heads swinging loosely, and their lips ejaculating, 11 Allah-how ! Allah-how ! " The swaying increases in rapidity and violence the longer the service continues. The ejaculations grow louder and fiercer until they become like the howlings of wild beasts. For more than an hour they will continue, until their faces are livid, and the sweat pours down them in streams. They lose themselves in the ecstasy of the rhythmic motion, and the regularly repeated deafening sound. Peculiar smiles appear upon their countenances ; they are in a blissful frenzy. Their move- ments still increase in rapidity, their voices are hoarse with howling j the wondering spectator expects to see them fall in sheer exhaustion, but, sustained by their excitement, on they go. And in the midst of it all their chief sits calm, im- passive, unmoved. Sick people are brought in, laid upon the floor, and he walks over them, and even over tender babies, only to relieve the pressure upon them he is supported on either side ; and when that curative ceremony is over, in obe- dience to a sign from him, the howling ceases, the swaying stops, and, with the recital of a final prayer, the service is over. Round about this meeting- place are hung instruments of torture once employed by these dervishes in the self-infliction of pain. Their use is now forbidden. But surely they need no torture beyond that to which they now subject themselves in order to induce the pleasurable ecstasy ! The service is repulsive in its barbarity. How horrible it must have been, when, in addition to the howlings and the shakings, their bodies were lashed into pain and disfigured with blood ! ISLAM. 219 These are abnormal developments of Islam. They have their influence upon individual character, and to some extent mould the national life. The vulgar believe in the dervishes, and are as ready to obey them as to^ obey the Ulema ; but it is to the interest of the dervishes not to provoke the Ulema too much, because they are the guardians of Islam, and can set in motion the civil power. The life of the people is interwoven with the religion of Islam. Moham- medanism explains many of the idiosyncrasies of Turkish character. Their apathy, their want of business tact, their lofty demeanour toward all foreigners, their benevolence, their general regard for honesty both in their dealings with each other and with the stranger in their midst, and many other conspicuous traits of Turkish character, are largely due to their religion. Upon an attempt to cheapen the wares of a Greek huckster on board the steamer in the Bosphorus, by a comparison between his prices and the prices of a Turk, he said : " Greek no like Turk. Turk head like this," significantly tapping the iron sides of the chart room, " but Greek head no like this." It is quite certain that the Turks do not make the money in Constantinople, but the Greeks and Jews and Armenians. The Turks are fairer to deal with; they are not cheats. You may trust them. Whatever may be the faults of Islam, one of its leading virtues is the inculcation of veracity. A Moslem seldom breaks his word. A typical story is that of Hormuzan, the Persian Prince, who, after a severe struggle, was at length captured and conveyed to Medina. There, in the Great Mosque, stripped for the humiliation of the scourge, he begged for a drink of water. " Give it him," said Omar, " and let him drink in peace." " Nay," answered the Prince, " I fear to drink, lest some one slay me unawares." " Thy life is safe," the Caliph said y " until thou hast drunk the water up." No sooner had the promise been given than, the cunning Persian poured the water on the ground. Omar was angry. He was tempted 2 20 ISLAM. to punish the deceiver; but his word had been given, and his word was kept. Hormuzan repeated the formula of Islam, and was immediately raised from his captivity to one of the first nobles of the realm. CHAPTER VII. THE BLACK SEA AND THE SEA OF AZOV. The Black Sea Name Sunset The hoopoe Eastern legend Acalephce Porpoises Rapidity of motion Crimea St. Vladimir His baptism Massacre of the Tartars British bravery Fortifications Russian officials Kertch Green waters Straits of Yenikale Sea of Azov Sturgeon Smaller fish Pelican Mosquitoes Robins Russian fowls Dragon-fly Locusts Lightning Mirage. Why should that vast expanse of water beyond the Bos- phorus, receiving into its bosom the wealth of the Danube, the Don, the Dnieper, and other smaller rivers, and laving the coasts of Europe and Asia, be called the Black Sea ? The White Sea, at the northern extremity of Russia, is fringed with snow, and, for the greater part of the year, frozen over and covered with snow, and therefore named appropriately; and it may be in contrast with it that the great South Russian waters are called the Black Sea. Beneath the clear waters of the Red Sea the coral reefs are distinctly seen, and on its eastern shore lies ancient Edom. Here are two reasons why that sea should be called Red a physical reason in the colour of the wonderful insect architecture of its rocky bed, an ethnographical reason in the presence of the descendants of him who came in faint and weary from the hunting field, and said to his brother, " Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage ; for I am faint : therefore was his name called Edom." The shallowness and muddy appearance of the Yellow Sea sufficiently account 222 THE BLACK SEA AND THE SEA OF AZOV. for its name. But there is no discoverable reason for the name of the Black Sea. Its waters are not black ; they are a deep blue. This blue is not the ultramarine of the Medi- terranean, but the blue that shades away to purple seen in sunny weather on the south-western shores of our own land. When the Greeks first made the acquaintance of the Black Sea they called it a&vog, inhospitable, but afterwards they found it a friendly element, and changed its name to svlivog, hospitable and by the name of The Euxine it is generally known to this day. My experience was like that of the Greeks. As we left behind us the Turkish forts, and came from between the hills into the open waters, we were met by a northerly wind, a smart shower of rain, and a lumpy sea; and I found it impossible to retain my equilibrium. I was anxious to do so. The clifts running on either hand, artificially whitened, to assist mariners making in the night the northern entrance of the Bosphorus, if not picturesque, were interesting. The sun was going down blood-red, and the flying, broken clouds were tinged with pale greens and sickly yellows. I struggled for awhile to preserve a dignified perpendicular position, and then honourably succumbed, seeking a refuge for my dignity in a fairly comfortable horizontal position in the recesses of my berth. There sweet sleep came to my assistance, and I became oblivious to the inhospitable seas. Next morning they were still inhospitable. The sky was clear, with a fresh wind : all day we were rolling and pitch- ing northwards, and I managed before evening to accom- modate myself to the motion of the vessel. We had an edition de luxe of the previous evening's sunset the sun a deeper blood-red, and the clearer sky suffused with peculiar greens and yellows toned down near the horizon into a long strip of light grey. While re-passing these waters two visitors came aboard one, a small bird with silvery grey throat and breast, and light brown back and wings, uttering a plaintive too-wheet THE BLACK SEA AND THE SEA OF AZOV. 223 as it flitted fore and aft, sometimes perching in the rigging, and sometimes venturing on deck ; the other, a beautiful hoopoe. With his light golden crest thrown back, and his white and buff wings spread in the sunshine to great ad- vantage, he flew aboard ; and, when settled comfortably on a rope above the well deck, he straightened his feathers, and erected his crest, and made himself quite at home. But he was too attractive a visitor to be left quietly in possession of his resting-place. Soon the eyes of one, and then another, were directed towards him, and sundry attempts were made to capture him. These attempts he eluded, and, discovering his perilous position, he flew away westward, and doubtless safely joined his kindred on the low marshy plains at the mouth of the Danube. Hoopoes are sociable birds, living in flocks ; and yet, strange to say, it is not unusual for them to migrate separately. This was crossing the Euxine all alone, and making use of our vessel as a half-way house, a resting-place in its long flight of probably four or five hundred miles. They visit England in the autumn but rarely, and may be more frequently seen in the environs of Paris : their home, however, is the East. Asia Minor and the Grecian Archi- pelago are favourite resorts of the hoopoe. They are somewhat less in build than the Cornish chough, but not otherwise unlike that cunning, mischievous bird. They belong, indeed, to the same family, notwithstanding their brighter dress, and the softer note, hoop, from which they derive their name. A pretty Eastern legend accounts for the crest of the hoopoe. Solomon was once on a journey, his ivory throne resting upon an enchanted carpet, whose corners were held by four genii. The sun was intolerably hot, and the king became faint and ill. A flock of vultures were met with, and were requested by Solomon to spread their wings between himself and the sun, and thereby afford him shelter. This they refused to do. They were going the 224 THE BLACK SEA AND THE SEA OF AZOV. other way, and would not alter their plans to please him. In his anger, Solomon decreed that they should be divested of their neck feathers, and continue ever afterwards exposed to the burning sun. He next met with a flock of hoopoes, and requested them to screen him. They said, " We are a little people, but we will all assemble and make up for our size by our numbers." And, flying in multitudes immediately above the king, he was effectually sheltered during the rest of the journey. Desirous to recompense them for their kindness, Solomon sent for the chief of the hoopoes, and asked him to prefer for his people whatsoever request he liked, and it should be granted. Time was given him to consult his people. The consultation was long and garrulous. At last his own vain little wife and queen made herself heard above the rest, and insisted upon her husband asking for a golden crown. When Solomon heard the request he was sad, knowing the possession of golden crowns would be fraught with danger to the hoopoes ; therefore he told the chief that if they should ever regret the choice, and desire his help in difficulty, he would most willingly render it. The chief flew away with his golden crown. All his people were decked with golden crowns. They became vain. They spake to none of their old acquaintances. They strutted before pools of water constantly admiring the reflection. But dangers came. Soon it was known that the hoopoes wore golden crowns. Bird-catchers increased. The resorts of the hoopoes bristled with gins, and were swept by arrows ; and it became evident that without some speedy alteration their days were numbered, and their race would soon become extinct. The chief has- tened back to Solomon, and begged him to remove the golden crown. This he compassionately consented to do ; but he gratefully supplied its place with a crest of feathers. When no more gold was to be had, the work of extermination ceased j and the little hoopoes were left in unmolested possession of the modest but appropriate reward for their kindly service. THE BLACK SEA AND THE SEA OF AZOV. 225 Some people cannot read between the lines of a legend. They miss the gem in an over-close scrutiny of its fantastic setting. Those who have the power to read between the lines who can see the gem, and obtain by its fantastic setting a better knowledge of its purity and worth will appreciate and profit by this legend of the hoopoes. Looking over the bows of the vessel as we re-crossed the Black Sea, an interesting form of marine life presented itself in numerous specimens of Acalephae a radiate, gela- tinous creature, with soft tentacles gently swaying in the current, and an almost transparent body floating near the surface of the water. As their name indicates, 1 they have a stinging property, one family being called the sea-nettle, I have seen them in abundance after the spring tides upon the Lancashire coast, without tentacles, however, and larger and less rotund than those of the Black Sea. They mostly frequent the warmer latitudes, and may be seen in immense numbers off the Azores. The stinging property consists in a secretion, which, upon irritation, or even when the creature is brought into contact with foreign matter, is exuded through the tentacles ; and bathers have found that, when the tentacles have been cut off, the power to sting remains for a considerable time. The creature itself may be so long irritated as to exude all its poison, and then it can be handled with impunity. Whales feed upon them ; through the narrow gullet of that mammoth of the seas they slip much more readily than the smallest mackerel. The poet Crabbe speaks of them as " Those living jellies which the flesh inflame, Fierce as a nettle, and from that its name ; Some in huge masses, some that you may bring In the small compass of a lady's ring." The playfulness and agility of the porpoise in these seas were very conspicuous. A shoal tumbling in the distance to 1 aKa\r]