iC< to fccr issa LONDON : PRINTED BY 8AMUEL BKNTLEY, Oonrt Street, Fleet Street. A VOYAGE DOWN THE DANUBE, WITH TRAVELS IN HUNGARY, WALLACHIA, MOLDAVIA, SOUTHERN RUSSIA, CRIM TARTARY, AND TURKEY IN EUROPE. TO CHARLES ELLIOTT, ESQ. THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE DEDICATED AS A SMALL TRIBUTE OF FILIAL AFFECTION AND GRATITUDE, BY THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. THE tour which forms the subject of the following pages was undertaken in search of health, when a complaint in the throat dis- abled the author from fulfilling the duties of his profession. For some time after its con- clusion, he entertained no intention of pub- lishing his notes ; and now that he is in- duced to do so, he labors under the disadvan- tage of absence from England, a second time caused by continued indisposition. Though these volumes be found to contain little that is new or erudite, the author will still indulge the hope that he has succeeded in gleaning some few scattered grains of infor- mation which have been overlooked by others : while in recording what he has heard and seen, it has been his anxious endeavour to 10 PREFACE. exclude whatever could wound the most sen- sitive delicacy ; a task by no means easy for a writer who undertakes to describe the ha- bits and manners of nations among whom morality is little estimated and purity of thought comparatively unknown. In the department of philology he has ha- zarded a few conjectures. Where he has fail- ed, his unsuccessful effort may lead to a hap- pier result by directing the attention of others to the same subject. To avoid a frequent reference to self he has generally substituted, for the singular, the plural personal pronoun ; which, however, he was often enabled to use with a strict regard to accuracy, as, during half of his travels, it was his privilege to enjoy the society of one who, in sharing, enhanced all his pleasures. It is sometimes expected that the published pages of a traveller should record the names of all from whom he received kind attentions during his wanderings. But gratitude is a sentiment which calls for little display; and when an individual advancing no claim to rank above the respectable mediocrity of an PREFACE. 11 English gentleman publicly connects himself with those of the highest station in foreign countries by a reference to kindnesses for which he was indebted to the adventitious circum- stances of travel, he may possibly be indulg- ing, however unconsciously, a sentiment less noble than gratitude. Under this impression, the author has abstained from adverting to the courtesies and hospitality which he received, and from recording the names of such as conferred more important favors, unless in cases where the omission of the fact or the name would have affected the interest of his work : at the same time, he trusts that those who have laid him under obligations in the distant corners of the Ottoman dominions, in the civilized and uncivilized parts of the Rus- sian empire, or in the more polished circles of Austria, will believe that their kindness has made an impression on his memory not easily to be effaced. PARIS, JUNE 1st, 1838. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. CHAPTER I. HUNGARY. PRESBURG. Leave Vienna for Presburg. Burial-ground. German coach- man. Drag-chain of carriage. Mode of harnessing third horse. Hainburgher Berg. Noblemen's houses. Frontier of Austria and Hungary. Arms of the two kingdoms. Dress of peasants. Ancient Carnuntum. First view of Presburg. Fortress. Pont volant. Koenigsberg. Posen. Population. Jews. Schlossberg. Church. Statue by Donner. Body of St. John. Inscription. Monument. Libraries. Sabbath festivities. Cos- tume. Mustaches. Personal appearance. Anecdote. Milk- man's stool. Palatine. Diet. Election of deputies. Growing influence of people. Latin language. Introduction of Hunga- rian. Count Wesseleni. Objections to use of Hungarian. Power of seigneurs. Four courts of appeal. Feudal system in Hungary. Taxes on peasantry. Urbarium. Exactions from serfs. Poor nobles. Revenue. Villes franches. Expression of public opinion Anecdote p. 2542. CHAPTER II. VOYAGE ON THE DANUBE. FROM PRESBURG TO PEST. Steam navigation of the Danube. Difficulties of undertaking. Embark at Presburg. Hungarian gentlemen. Latin spoken. 14 CONTENTS. Pronunciation. Introduction into Hungary. Hungarian lin- guists. Carlsburg. Insula Cituorum. Sifting gold dust. Comorn. Neudorf. Gran. Royal tombs. Archbishop. Cathedral. Vessigrad. Castle. Numerous branches of Danube. Aspect of country. Water-mills. Watzen. Cupolas. Ar- rival at Pest. Hungarian nobles. Patriotism. Union of Hun- gary with Austria. Pragmatic sanction. Monarchy hereafter elective. Indifference of emperor. Metternich's policy Exist- ing matters of dispute. Population of Austrian states. Lutheran church. Its parishes, clergy, and discipline. Reformed church. Roman Catholics. Dignitaries. Royal perquisites. Empe- ror's guard. Word Hussar. Punishment of deserters. Origin of Hungarians. Magyar and Torok. Wines. Meat and poul- try. Coins. Ducat. First view of Pest. Buda. Roman re- lics. Alt Buda. Aquincum. View. Plain of Rokos. Attila. Hot springs. Turkish baths. Palace of palatine. Hand of king Stephen. His crown. Cabinet of antiques. Coins. Luther's cup. French standard. Description of Buda. Jew's quarter. Reitzenstadt. Tobacco. Carts. Oxen . Inscriptions on houses. Pest. University. Manufacture of pipe-bowls. Projected iron bridge. Tax to be levied on nobles. Levelling system. Society for cultivation of Hungarian tongue. Count Szechenyi. First promoters of steam navigation of Danube. p. 4369. CHAPTER III. VOYAGE ON THE DANUBE. PROM PEST TO si Ml. IN. Embarkation on steamer. Description of passengers. Their behaviour and manners. Want of delicacy. Arrangements for night. Csepel. Tolna. Anchor. Course of Danube from Pest. Word county. Counties of Hungary. Province of Scla- vonia. Scenery. Peasants at Tolna. Dress. Tobacco. Its present consumption. Reminiscences of India. Mohacs. Erdut. Anchor. Scenery. Stoppage for coals. Courtesy of Hunga- rian baron. Gipsies. Costume. Resemblance of their language RtodOMtaMt. Anecdote. Sclavonia. Origin of people. CONTENTS. 15 Words slave and servant. Ratze. Rutheni. Groups on bank. Water-carriers. Illok. Neusatz. Peterwardein. Roman co- lony and mine. Market. Fruit. Fish. Carlovich. Victory of prince Eugene. General Brenna. Hanoverian passenger. Servian gazette. The Theis. Unchangeableness of features of nature. Sands of Theis. Mode of collecting gold. Golden fleece. Banat. Derivation of name. Military colonies. Illy- rians . Inhabitants. Country. Climate. Soil. Temesvar. Semlin. Trade in wool. The Save. Boundary of Austria^ and Turkey. Visit to Belgrade, Quarantine. Health Officers. Turkish soldiers. Mussulman sabbath. Minaret and mosque. Dilapidations. Pasha's house. Servants. Burial-ground. Female's palanquin. Games of soldiers. Citizens. Costume. Words Moslim and Mussulman. Females. Morals. Breaking in horses. Bullocks. Sakajees. Filtering-stones. Bazaar. Shops. Houses. Chimneys. Sultan's seal. Greek Church. Archbishop's house. New custom-house. Cargoes of salt. Visit to an Englishman. Tamarisk. Datura stramonium. Leave Belgrade. Watch-towers Carriage. Flock of sheep. Anec- dote. Government of Servia. Czerni Georges. Servia made a distinct principality under Milosch Obrenovich. A constitution granted. Enlightened views. Prospects of Servia. p. 70 109. CHAPTER IV. VOYAGE ON THE DANUBE. FROM SEMLIN TO ORSCHOVA. Leave Semlin. Morning view of Belgrade Course of Da- nube. Semendria. Triangular fort. Island of Ostrova. Pa- lanka. Eagles. Moldova. Difficulties of navigation. Com- plaints of passengers. Description of village. Peasants. Anec- dote. Copper mines. Leave steamer. Embark on small boat. Sailors. Kolumbatz. Scenery. Storm. Watch-towers Sen- tinels. Their huts. Shoes. Provision bags. Boat strikes. Berzasta Beautiful scenery. Projected road. Ridge of rocks. Geological phenomena. Perilous navigation. Sailors' charac- teristic expressions. Three lines of rocks. The Graben. Pro- jected canal. Exquisite view. Island of Poretz. Turkish and 16 CONTENTS. Banatian boats Succession of lakes. Plawischewitz Ineffici- ency of sailors. Hospitality of Mr. Vasarkelyi. Re-embark on boat. Roman road Tablets and inscriptions. Casarn. New road. View of river. Costume of Wallachian girls. FissuTe in rock. Vedranische Holle. Beautiful scenery Arrival at Orschova. Situation and surrounding country. Carpathian mountains. Quarantine building. Delay of baggage-boats. Excursion to M ehadia. Cart. Coachmen. The Czerna. Aqueduct. Scenery. Mehadia. Ruins. Singular printing. Mode of hanging gates. Dress of Banatian peasants. Baths. Tradition regarding Hercules. . p. 110 137. CHAPTER V. VOYAGE ON THE DANUBE. FROM ORSCHOVA IN HUNGARY . TO 8CALA CLADOVA IN WALLACHIA. Embarkation. Neu Orschova Fort Elizabeth. Custom- house. Scenery. Remains of Roman canal. Porte de Fer. Projected canal. Fall of river. Rapidity of current. Party land. Costumes. Quarantines. Sibb. Kladosicza. Delay of steamer. Customs connected with sneezing. Description of Scala Cladova. Huts. Feth Islam. Diminished interest of scenery. Rural scene and repast. Degraded condition of in- habitants. Dress. Postilions Their howling Arrival at Tchernitz. Reception. Sweetmeats. Supper. Wash-hand basin. Town of Tchernitz. Houses. Posts of gates. Chief street. Dark complexion of inhabitants. Beauty-spot. Break- fast. Governor. Salary. Anecdote. Slaves. Dinner. Return to Scala Cladova. National hospitality. Cheapness of food. Practice of burying money. Etymology of name Wallachia. Mode of reckoning time. Government. Hospodar. Former subjec- tion to Porte. Treaties of Bukharest and Adrianople. Present influence of Russia. Anecdote. Religion. First printing of Bible. System of tyranny. Gipsies. Their origin and names. Tax in gold dust. Anecdotes. State of morality in the two prin- cipalities. Divorces. Courts of law. Power of Frank consuls. Anecdote. General aspect and productiveness of country. CONTENTS. 17 Fertility of ancient Dacia. Adoption by people of Roman name and language. Mixture of Greek, Persian, and Italian words. Examples. . . . . . p. 138166. CHAPTER VI. VOYAGE ON THE DANUBE. FROM SCALA CLADOVA IN WAL- LACHIA TO GALATZ IN MOLDAVIA. Embark on steamer. Inefficiency of Wallachians. Severin. Trajan's bridge. Palanka. Bust of Trajan. Boundary between Wallachia and Bulgaria. Bulgarians. Their history. The Balkan. Windings of Danube. Scenery. Widdin. Muezzin. Turks Costume. Women Dervdsh. Pasha. Lorn Palanka. Sunday on board. Nicopolis. Plague. Breadth of river. Turkish villages. Hay-making. Pelicans. Osprays. Batina. Giorgervo. Trade. Departure and dispersion of passengers. Bukharest. Its population, morals, and commerce. Quarantine forms. Rustchuk. Fountains, population, and trade. Coffee- houses Streets, Houses. Bazaar. Burial-ground. Russian siege Consideration of Turks. Visit to pasha. Genoese camp. Turtuka. Grapes and water-melons. Scenery. Geological phenomena. Silistria. Russian quarantine. Fortifications. Soldiers. Pont volant. Russian power. Horses. Whirlpools. Chalk hills. Hirsovo. Islands. Watch-towers. Pelicans. The Jalonissa. Ibrail. Siege. Monument. Town. Inn. Ships and trade. Ispravnik and lady. Boundary of Wallachia and Moldavia. Arrival at Galatz. Review of voyage down the Danube. Reflections. Appendix with distances and fares be- tween Vienna and Constantinople. . . p. 167 200. CHAPTER VII. MOLDAVIA. FROM GALATZ TO LIOVA. Vice-consul at Galatz. Albanian character and costume. Mol- davian servants. Variety of languages spoken. Commerce of Galatz. Cheapness of food. Houses. Furniture. Streets. Population. Effect of arrival of steamer, Venedic nations. VOL. I. A 9 18 CONTENTS. General aspect of Moldavia. Its politics, fertility and population. Quarantine on Russian frontier. Preparations for departure. Carriage. Horses and tackle. Driver. Leave Galatz. Village of Formosica. Peasant's hut. Discomforts of night. Journey resumed. Villages. Wells. Gipsies. The Pruth. First view of Russian territory. Wines. Tobacco and wild asparagus. Wodeni. Ancient and modern modes of wearing hair. Faltsi. Greek church. Country. Party benighted. Strength and food of horses. Porte de Liova. Cry of Russian guard. Hut. Miseries of night. Jews. Apply for admission to quarantine. Difficulties about passport. Renewed application. Fresh obsta- cles. Objection of Russia to foreigners. Inventory of goods. Cross the Pruth. . p. 201225. CHAPTER VIII. BESSARABIA. FROM LIOVA TO KISHNAU. Enter Bessarabia. Form of admission into quarantine. Exami- nation of baggage. Room and furniture. Guardian. Insects. Visits of doctor. Difficulties. Jew traiteur. Interrogations. List of books. Final examination and oath. Leave quarantine. Ordered to Kishnau. Character and rank of officers of qua- rantine. Douane. Portmanteau with books sealed. Doctor. Niemtevich. Polish Jews. Description of vehicle. Quit Liova. Scenery. Verst-posts. Conquest of Bessarabia. Habits of people affected by government. Driver. Sarasicca. Peasant's hut. Wild scenery. Autumnal tints. Eagles. Indian vultures. View of Kishnau. Roman walls. Interior of town. Hotel. Beds. Visits to governor. Gipsies. Business transacted by Jews. Hebrew soldiers. Anecdote. . . p. 226244. CHAPTER IX. NEW RUSSIA. PROM KISHNAU TO ODESSA. Leave Kishnau. Desolate country. Funereal stones. Travel- ling in Russia. Murder of courier. Sicara. Frogf. Macro- cremnii Monies. Bender. Rcfugo of Charles XII. The CONTENTS. 19 Dniester. Enter New Russia. Taraspol. Calmuk Tartars. Scenery. Eagles. Ancient monuments. Thibetian relic. Ger- man colonists. Villages Manheim. Fossil bones. Mirage. Illustration of Scripture. Odessa. Its name and origin. Pre- sent state. Hotels. Scarcity of water. Condition of streets. Necessity for a carriage. Droshki. Coachmen. Censorship of press. English consul. Cure of hydrophobia. Lutheran minis- ter. Count Woronzow. Contrast of manners in North and South Russia. Lemon with tea. Russian tea. Climate. Mitel. Terrible effects. Sudden frost. Salubrity of Odessa. Plague. Locusts. Morals. Theatricals. Language of church service. Prohibition of missionaries. Bible Society. Russian church. Pastors and their flocks. Politics Closing Dardanelles. Russian influence. Anecdotes. Poland's wrongs. Exiles. Rupture of marriage tie. Russian wives. Polish ladies. Anec- dotes. Indignities suffered by Poles. Bulgarian emigrants. Feudal system. Serfs and seigneurs. Abrok. Services re- quired. Power of masters. Anecdote. Moral effects of slavery. . . . . p. 245280. CHAPTER X. THE CRIMEA. FROM ODESSA TO BAGTCHESERAI. Embark for Crimea. Ancient and modern names of Black Sea. Monastery of St. George. Balaclava. Aiabooroon Cliffs. Count Woronzow. Increased value of land. Villages. Ma- dame Narischkine. Fruits. Wines Prince Galitzin. Princess Metchersky. Country seats. Oreanda. Land at Yalta. Horses. Saddles. Aloupka. Estate of count Woronzow. Diosperos lotus. Mountain ash. House and grounds. Village of Kokoz. Road. Kindness of Tartars. Costumes. Shaven heads. Houses. Party benighted. Storm. Bagtcheserai. Tartar privileges. Etymology of Don Cossacks. Languages compared. Bazaar. Sheep. Dromedaries. Blacksmiths. Schools. Russian conquest. Palace of Tartar khans. Gardens. Apart- ments. Hall of audience. Frescoes. Fountain court. Royal 20 CONTENTS. private mosque. DeVan. Harem. Garden and tower. Mau- soleum. Royal cemetery. Coffins. Grand mosque. Moham- medan service. Missionaries ejected. Early hours. Fulfilment of prophecy. Gipsies. Ruins of old town. Monastery of As- sumption. Yearly festival. Asses laden with water. Difficult ascent. Fortress of Joofud Kalah. Houses. Market-place. Synagogues. Karaite Jews. Hatred of Rabbinists Origin. Doctrines. Veneration for Scripture. Morals. Civil laws. History. Manuscripts. School. Valley of Jehoshaphat. Return to Bagtcheserai. . . . . p. 281 317. CHAPTER XI. THE CRIMEA. FROM BAGTCHESERAI, BY THE HERACLEOTIC CHERSONESUS, TO ODESSA. Leave Bagtcheserai. Tartar village of Dosis. Mausoleums. Castle of Mankup. Dewankooee. Carts. Burial-grounds. Broochkooee. Scenery. Ferry . Old Jew. Sebastopol. Allot- ments of land. Reflections on a settlement in the Crimea. Bay. Ancient Ctenus. Its situation. Tortoises and fish. Aqueduct. Fortress and caves of Inkerman. Chapels in rock. Hiding places of early Christians. Harbour. Shipping and fortifications. Site of ancient Chersonesus. Its foundation and history. He- racleotic and Taurica Chersonesus. Genoese buildings. Pagan temples and Christian churches. Extensive ruins. Flowers and insects. Anecdote. Natural magic. Circular stone basins. Coins. Rings for shipping on tops of mountains. Geological conjectures. Monastery of St. George. Temple of Diana. Me- tropolitan. Greek service. Valley of Balaclava. Greek inhabi- tants. Variety of nations in Crimea. Harbour of Balaclava. Ancient fortress. Name derived from Genoese. Fish. Sea-ser- vant. Town paved with marble. Valley of Baidah. Tartar cottage. Repast. Ablutions. Mountains of Ayila. Majestic Bcenery. "Devil's stairs." Descent. Village destroyed. Houses. Mode of stacking hay. Richness of soil. Spina Christi. Tree-frog. Eagles. Lizards. Return to Aloupka. Yalta. CONTENTS. 21 Massandra. Count Woronzow's exertions in Crimea. Anecdote. Public garden at Nikita. Aidaniel. Its situation. View. Bear's mountain. Return to Odessa. . p. 318 343. CHAPTER XII. TURKEY IN EUROPE. CONSTANTINOPLE. Embark at Odessa for Constantinople. Russian pilgrims. Isle of Serpents. Markalia. Varna. Symplegades. Thracian Bos- phorus. Scenery. First view of Constantinople. Seraglio Point. Ships. Caiques. Costumes. Disembarkation. Anecdote. Plague dreaded by Franks. Recklessness of Turks. Towers of Galata and Seraskier. View from summit of latter. Mosques. Sea of Marmora. Mount Olympus. Princes' islands. Seraglio. Scutari and Kadikooee. " Sweet waters." Khans. Cemete- ries. Galata. Topkhanah. Pera. Golden Horn. Sultan's caique. Mosque of Soliman. Moslim worship. St. Sophia's. Jeni Jami. Ayoob. Mausoleums. Compared with those of Agra and Delhi. Sarcophagus of Constantino. Origin of Turkish cres- cent. Palace of Constantino. Atmeidan. Belisarius. Mosque of Achmet. Egyptian obelisk. Ancient pillar from Rhodes. Delphic brass column. Maiden's pillars. Cisterns. Been bir deerek. Iplikjee boodrumee. Yerek batan serai. Aqueduct. Walls of Constantinople. Seven Towers. Golden gate. Bloody well. Gates of city. Tomb of Ali pasha. Breach entered by Mohammed II. Palace of Belisarius. Fanar. Etmei- dan. . . . . . . p. 344379. CHAPTER XIII. TURKEY AND THE TURKS. Turkish vehicles Ladies . Slave market. Bedlam. Origin of name. Cemeteries. Tombstones. Cypresses. Dogs. Bazaars. Shoes. Manuscripts. Drugs. Arms. Jewellery. Saddlery. Pipes. Resemblance between bazaars of Coiistanti- 22 CONTENTS. nople and Pompeii. Fountains. Ablutions. Baths. Khans. Frank boarding-houses. Seraglio. Origin of name Sublime Porte. Kitchens. Consumption'of food. Hall of Justice. Harem. Door whence females were thrown into Bosphorus. Seminary for teaching French. French and Austrian schools. Fumigation for plague. Scutari. Caiques. Mosque. Chrysopolis. Origin of name. Chalcedon. Maiden's Tower. Great cemetery. Private burial-grounds. Howling dervishes. Dancing derveshes. Sultan's attendance at mosque. Conversation with widow of sultan Mustapha. Sultan Mahmood. Person. Character. Difficulties. Janissaries. Their destruction. Conflicting opin- ions concerning them. Present army. Population and extent of Turkey. Defective policy of Mahmood. Existing policy of Eng- land, France, Austria and Russia. Important crisis to Turkey. Her future destinies. Character of Turks. Habits and cus- toms. Anecdote of an opium-eater. Religious doctrines. Sub- tlety of Moslims regarding the Paraclete. Apostasy. Execution of a renegade. Prayers. Fasts and festivals. Pilgrimages. Priesthood. Dervishes. Oolama. Sheik Islam. Oomra. Grand vizir. His power and office. Game of chess. Dewan. Unjust mode of taxation. Marriage. Seclusion of females. Desire for children. Jealousies. Anecdotes. Dress of men and women. Differences between Turkish and European cus- toms. ...... p. 380445. CHAPTER XIV. TURKBY. HER CHRISTIAN SUBJECTS. Rayahs. B^ratlees Jews. Roman Catholics. Greeks. Their numbers, personal appearance, dress and character. Civil degrada- tion Anecdote. Present condition whence originating. Bright- er prospects. Religious doctrines. Public services. Burial ser- vice. Patriarch. Bishops and clergy. Marriage of priests. Cu- rious construction of law Deacons. Avarice. Simoniacal sales. Chicanery. Anecdote. Armenians. Their numbers. Papal and " schismatic." Anecdote. Their political influence. Charao CONTENTS. 23 ter. Person. Dress. Females. Antiquity of language. King Abgarus's letter to our Lord. Separation from church. Catho- licos. Patriarchs. Bishops. Priests. Their qualifications and character. Ceremonial purity. Respect for Bible. Translation into Armenian. Fasts. Sacrifices. Masses for dead. Worship of cross. Various modes of making sign of cross. Doctrines. Monophysitism. Creed. Confession. Worship of virgin and saints. Sacraments. Judaism of Armenians. Doctrines of Greek and Armenian churches compared. Missionary proceed- ings in Turkey. Difficulties and encouragements. State of re- ligion and education among Armenians, Greeks, Jews and Turks. Anecdotes. Concluding reflections. . p. 446 497. ERRATA. VOLUME I. Page Line 49. 9. For ' of fourteen" read fourteen. 84. 26. 130. V8. ' greeted" ' stalactites" were greeted by. inverted stalactites. 165. 29. ' massal " mashal. 294. 25. 301. 15. ' standing quietly in " ' under " moving slowly through. in. 379. 25. 410. 24. 413. 2. 492. 9. ' twenty" ' twenty" ' twenty-one " ' fomral " eight. eight. more than eight. formal. ILLUSTRATIONS. VOL. I. Hungarian Gipsies . . . to face the Title. Map of the Author's Travels in Europe .... p. 25 VOL. II. Village of Scala Cladova , . to face the Title. Map of the Author's Travels in Asia p. 17 TRAVELS IN THE THREE GREAT EMPIRES OF AUSTRIA, RUSSIA, AND TURKEY. CHAPTER I. HUNGARY. -PRESBURG. Leave Vienna for Presburg. Burial-ground. German coachman. Drag-chain of carriage. Mode of harnessing third horse. Hainburgher Berg. Noblemen's houses. Frontier of Austria and Hungary. Arms of the two kingdoms. Dress of peasants. Ancient Carnuntum. First view of Presburg. Fortress. Pont volant. Koe- nigsberg. Poson. Population. Jews. Schlossberg. Church. Statue by Donner. Body of St. John. Inscrip- tion. Monument. Libraries. Sabbath festivities. Costume. Mustaches. Personal appearance. Anecdote. Milkman's stool. Palatine. Diet. Election of depu- ties. Growing influence of people. Latin language. Introduction of Hungarian. Count Wesseleni. Objections to use of Hungarian. Power of seigneurs. Four courts of appeal. Feudal system in Hungary. Taxes on pea- VOL. I. B 26 DEPARTURE FROM VIENNA. santry. Urbarium. Exactions from serfs. Poor nobles. Revenue. Villes franches. Expression of public opinion. Anecdote. THE first object on the road to Presburg that arrests the eye, after quitting the busy haunts of men in the great capital of Austria, is the burial-ground on the right-hand side, so full, so overflowing with sepulchral monuments, that, at a short distance, they present only a confused mass of masonry. The cemetery looks like a city ; and so, indeed, it is ; a city of the dead ; more peopled than the neighbouring metropolis; the receptacle of its successive generations. Our road lay over a flat, sandy country, de- void of every object of interest ; and the phleg- matic German who officiated as coachman, with a characteristic blue apron like that of an Eng- lish butcher, refused to urge his horses beyond the pace to which they were habituated, be- tween a walk and a trot. At the half-way village, we amused ourselves during a halt by examining the clumsy machinery of our drag- chain, and the mode of fastening the horses. Instead of a neat iron shoe, a large piece of wood, three feet in longth, was supported by a heavy chain, which required a second contriv- ance to keep it from dangling on the ground. HAINBURGHER BERG. 27 The third horse was tackled in a manner no less strange. Abreast of the other two, his traces were fastened to a cross-bar, half of which extended beyond the side of the carriage, while its centre was attached by means of a long stick to one of the hind wheels. From this, therefore, he pulled at a great mechanical disadvantage, compelling the other outside horse to labor hard to preserve the carriage in its right direction. After travelling eight hours without seeing a hillock, we came to some little mounds called Hainburgher Berg, which, rising gently and gradually out of the plains, form the com- mencement of the great chain of Carpathian mountains encircling Hungary. Beyond these, the country improves in appearance ; and a few noblemen's houses are scattered over the plain ; but each is isolated and desolate, as if dropped from the clouds. A short drive brought us to the village of Wolfsthal, the boundary of Austria and Hun- gary, which is still invested with all the for- malities of a frontier, though the kingdoms have been long united. Over the door of the douane the arms of the two countries figure in co-equal size and dignity, each in the centre of a double-headed eagle, with crowns on his B 2 28 FRONTIER OF AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY. heads, a globe in one talon, and a sword and sceptre in the other. The inscription on the Hungarian side is in Latin, the language of business throughout the country, and that in which our passports were vis6s by the Hunga- rian consul in Vienna. Round the door of the custom-house six or seven peasants were sit- ting, clothed with a kind of coarse white blan- keting, like the dress of the Himalayan Tar- tars ; some with hats like coalheavers ; others with little caps turned up with fur, and orna- mented with a feather. Near this spot is the town of Petronelle, the ancient Carnuntum, where Marcus Aurelius wrote his Opera Phllosophica ; and a little be- yond it, the road is raised with much labor for about four miles over a swampy marsh, and defended with a rampart of immense stones. Hence the traveller obtains the first view of Presburg. The castle, burnt some years ago, still retains its exterior wall ; nor does it appear from a distance that this is but a skeleton. It stands on the top of a hill overlooking the town, the Danube, and the surrounding coun- try ; and, with its four octagonal turrets, forms a beautiful object in the landscape. Presburg is entered from Vienna by a pont volant, or bridge of boats, a kind of structure KOENIGSBERG. POSON. 29 very common on the Danube. This is about two hundred and eighty yards in length, having rails streaked with red and white, instead of black and yellow, the colors of Austria. On the bank of the river, just opposite the bridge, is a little mound furnished with a double flight of steps. It seems as if made for a band of musicians, but it is designated by the high- sounding title of Koenigsberg, or King's Moun- tain ; and ancient usage requires that every king of Hungary, after his coronation, shall ascend this hillock, on which he swears to maintain the constitution inviolate. The capital of Hungary, called by the na- tives Poson and by the Romans Posonium, contains a population of about twenty thou- sand, of whom seven thousand are Jews ; who, as in most other towns of the continent, have a distinct quarter allotted to them. Here they are separated from the rest of the inhabitants by a large iron gate, which, being close under the fort, is known by the name of Schlossberg. The wretchedness of the Old Jewry of Pres- burg is equalled only by the reputed dege- neracy and profligacy of its occupants, against whom public prejudice is so strong, and the opinion of their talent for thieving or amassing is such, that, curiously enough, they are pro- 30 THE PRINCIPAL CHURCH. hibited from residing nearer than Presburg to the gold mines of Cremnitz. The principal church contains little that is remarkable in point of architecture. Over the altar is a fine statue by Donner, representing St. Martin in the act of cutting his cloak in half with a sword, to give a portion to an aged beggar. On the left is a silver coffin, con- taining the body of St. John, bishop of Alex- andria, with the following inscription, which is interesting, as it shows on what slender foun- dation some of the miracles of the Romish church are based. " S. Johannis Eleemosyna- rii, Episcopi Alexandrini corpus integrum Regi Matthias Corvino transmissum fuit Constanti- nopoli a Cresare Turcarum. In Capella regia Buda5 asservatum miraculis coruscavit. Mvi illius scriptor Pelibartus in Pomerio id testatur, et post hunc Surius xxm Februarii." The year is not inserted. The inscription goes on to state that the body was carried to the valley of Tall near Presburg, the date being again omitted; and that, on the day of Pentecost 1530, by command of the emperor Ferdinand the First, it was brought to Presburg, where, in 1632, by the piety of Cardinal Peter Pazmany it was deposited in a silver coffin. Another piece of sculpture represents the busts of three SABBATH FESTIVITIES. 31 cardinals and four bishops in their appropriate dresses. They probably belonged to one fa- mily ; but the inscription is not easily deci- phered. The libraries are miserably furnished. No good maps or histories of Hungary are to be met with. There probably is not so poor a collection of books exposed for sale in any other European metropolis, except Christiania. As we passed a Sunday here, we had an op- portunity of seeing the people in their holiday costume. The sabbath with them is too much a holiday, and too little a holy day. Every cafe and every garden was full to overflowing; and the noise of revelry and profane mirth contrast- ed sadly with the sacred character of the day, and with that celestial melody in which each nominal Christian professes his hope to unite during an eternal sabbath. An Englishman remarked to us, that he met on this occasion the only drunken person he had seen since leaving England. The men wear very full, dark blue trowsers, gaudily worked on both sides with party-colored braid, and collected in full plaits at the waist. They are tucked into clumsy boots, nearly reaching the knees, but without tops. A long, shapeless coat, of the same colored cloth, is adorned with large, 32 PERSONAL APPEARANCE. plated, sugar-loaf buttons ; and underneath, with a full front, appears a waistcoat of bright red or green. Over all is sometimes thrown a sort of hussar cloak, called Attila. The hats have very broad brims, with a high feather, or a long streamer of red or blue ribbon. The tout ensemble a good deal resembles the Telle- marken costume in the wilds of Norway ; though the Scandinavian women do not, like some we saw here, wear Hessian boots. Near- ly all the men, even of the lowest classes, che- rish their mustaches, which are common in this country to the magnate and the clown. The Hungarians are a dark and. rather hand- some people, with more liveliness of expression and feeling than the Austrians : the women are pretty, with universally dark eyes and hair ; and both sexes exhibit an indescribable some- thing which bespeaks an eastern origin. We here met with one of those uncommon occurrences which sometimes refresh a travel- ler, wearied by the numerous acts of roguery he encounters. Passing a little dairy, we were induced to enter and ask for some new milk ; the master and his daughter waited on us with every possible attention, offering us chairs, with a glass and plate, and all the little luxuries their house a (lorded. Having enjoyed our pure. THE PALATINE. 33 draught, we placed on the table a trifling re- compense, which the cow-herd regarded with surprise, and refused to accept, observing that it was too much ; nor would he consent to re- ceive more than he considered his due. We were not a little amused at the stool made use of by the milkman. It was tied round his waist, and had but a single leg in the centre. When he rose, his stool rose with him, forming a ludicrous appendage as he walked about. In the course of our walk we met the arch- duke Joseph, the uncle of the present emperor, who holds the office of viceroy of Hungary, or palatine, a name he derives from the vice- regal residence at Buda, which is called Palatia regia. This fine old man was driving across the bridge in a carriage drawn by six horses, with a postilion on the first and third pair and two servants behind, but without horsemen or other attendants. Every one bowed as he passed, and he courteously returned the salute. As the representative of the emperor, who is king of Hungary, he presides over the diet, when present; and when absent, he nominates to that office a noble, who is officially styled Judex curia3. Before the year 1791 the diet used to as- semble at Buda, Oederiberg, and other towns, 34 ELECTION OF DEPUTIES. indiscriminately; but since that time it has held its sittings at Presburg. It ought pro- perly to meet every third year; but the king can assemble it more frequently ; and he stretches his authority to convoke it less often when it suits his convenience. Till the pre- sent session the peasantry were burdened with the charges of the deputies, a circumstance often made a pretext for early dissolution, the government urging that the people could not sustain the expense for a longer period. From this tax they have lately been relieved ; and the legislative body has been sitting, almost without intermission, for the last two years. The diet, or states general, comprehends two houses : the upper consists of magnates, or peers spiritual and temporal ; the lower, of members elected exclusively by the aristocracy, for none but those of noble blood are entitled to vote. Besides the representatives of coun- ties thus chosen, the royal free boroughs and ecclesiastical chapters send deputies who have the privilege of discussing, but not of voting, in the deliberative assembly ; so that, in fact, the whole legislation of Hungary is vested in the aristocracy : but here, as in almost every country of Europe, a great alteration is taking place in the condition of the lower orders, who, LATIN SUPERSEDED BY HUNGARIAN. 35 with advancing knowledge, are rising to a degree of importance from which they have hitherto been necessarily excluded. One change contemplated, which, when ef- fected, will increase their influence, is con- nected with the language of debate, hitherto conducted in Latin. Some time since, the liberals in the lower house began to hold their discussions in the vernacular tongue of the peasantry : at first, the king and his party steadily opposed the innovation ; but the feel- ing of the country was against them ; and of late, Hungarian has been introduced, even in the upper chamber. Its partisans in that house, however, are in a very small minority, the example of count Szechenyi, the first in- novator, having as yet been followed by only one peer, count Wesseleni, who has lately in- volved himself in a dispute with government and lost his seat.* As he found fault with * The count is still in difficulties, as appears from the fol- lowing paragraph in the Morning Chronicle of August 15th, 1837: " HUNGARY. Pest, August 1. Baron Nicolaus Wesseleni, the same nobleman whose revolutionizing speeches in the legislative assembly of Transylvania caused the disso- lution of those chambers some years ago by the emperor Francis, has since that time sojourned much in this country, in which he possesses some large estates. But his spirit has not learned moderation by experience. In the comitate of Izatmar, in which he resides, he held at the administrative 36 COUNT WESSELENI. some measures of the ministry, they issued an order for his arrest and pursued him into Tran- sylvania. He returned to Presburg and claim- ed the privilege of a magnate, to secure him against this infringement of his liberty. Se- veral of the counties of Hungary espoused his cause; among others, Pest, whose inhabitants ordered their delegate to support him. In the mean time, he resigned his seat in the upper house and was returned as a deputy in the lower, where he has headed, and still heads, the democratic party. The government car- ried on proceedings against him, in which they were supported by the member from Pest, who proved faithless to the order of his constituents. His conduct consequently became the subject of discussion at a public meeting convened for that purpose, and as Hungarian electors have power to dismiss their representative for advo- cating opinions contrary to their own, it was expected that he would be thus dealt with. One great objection advanced, and urged with some propriety, against the adoption of Hunga- rian as the medium of debate, is, that the end congregations speeches of so violent a nature, that the royal table has now condemned him to five years' imprisonment in a fortress; but this sentence must first be confirmed by the si-ptemviral table before its execution can take place." POWER OF THE SEIGNEURS. 37 proposed would not thereby be attained ; for va- rious languages are spoken in different parts of Hungary; the Sclavonian, Illyrian, and Croatian have their respective districts ; and no single di- alect is current throughout the whole kingdom : not more than a third, perhaps, of the natives, and by no means all of the deputies, are ac- quainted with Hungarian ; whereas Latin is a tongue universally understood by the educated, and therefore by all who are connected with the legislative assembly. The seigneurs have great power over their vassals ; and since they have virtually, if not legally, the nomination of the magistrates, who are taken out of their own body, this power knows little restraint but that imposed by their own judgment or caprice. In cases of mal-treatment, the peasant has nominally four appeals : First, to the magistrate of the county ; Secondly, to the Sedes judiciaria, consisting of a president, called vice-comes, with four asses- sors, a sheriff, called Judex nobilium, a doctor of laws who acts as legal adviser, and another member, forming the complement of eight; Thirdly, to a higher court, called Tabula regia, consisting of a president and nobles, varying in number from nine to twenty-one; Fourthly, to a court at Pest, called from its original con- 38 FEUDAL SYSTEM. stitution Septemviral, but now including seven- teen members. This series of courts of appeal would seem to offer to the vassals a hope of redress against their seigneurs in case of oppres- sion ; but when the time and expense required are taken into consideration, in addition to the fact that the majority, if not all, of the judges are themselves nobles, and therefore likely to side with their own body, it will be evident that the probability of justice being adminis- tered with equity is but slender. It is a remarkable feature in the history of this country, and one which indicates a gene- rous tone of feeling on the part of the ari- stocracy, that, under a conviction of their en- joying a power too unlimited for the present enlightened state of Europe, they are them- selves desirous, and have lately proposed to their sovereign, that a modification of their prerogatives should take place through the in- tervention of laws : but it appears that such a radical alteration of the present system, as must result from any attempt to modify it, would materially affect the revenue. If elevated in physical circumstances, the people would gra- dually rise in knowledge, knowledge of their strength and of their rights, and in this condi- tion they would not long consent to be drained, TAXES ON PEASANTRY. 89 as now, of all the profits of labor. Thus, the interests of the financial department are inti- mately connected with a maintenance of the rigor of the feudal system, which prevails here to a greater extent than in any country of Europe. The whole of the revenue yielded by the land is collected from the peasants, as are all tolls and taxes, from which a noble is entirely exempt. Before the time of Marie Th6rese no limit was assigned to the demand made on a serf; but she fixed it at what he now pays. It is called urbarium, and consists of fifty-two days' labor with his own cart and oxen, a florin, a pair of fowls, ten eggs, and two English pounds of butter annually, with a ninth part of his raw produce. In addition to this, each village gives a calf and two lambs to the seigneur; and a tythe of the soil is rendered to the church. No peasant can purchase or possess land. He enjoys no political rights, and, in all but the name, he is a slave. The aristocracy command, the peasantry obey ; these provide everything, those enjoy without care or toil. Is a bridge to be constructed ? an order is issued for the serfs to build it without remuneration. Are the roads to be repaired ? the serfs' labor is demanded. Are troops passing through the 40 POOR NOBLES. country ? the serfs must house and feed them ; and the highest recompense they expect is to escape without a beating and without insult to their families. But when the serfs are spoken of, it must be borne in mind that in this country a man's appearance does not always indicate his rank. A poor ragged creature cultivating his field is as likely to be a noble as a serf. Since nobility is not restricted by the law of primogeniture, a vast number of the aristocracy have become paupers, dependent on their own manual labor, and earning a miserable sub- sistence ; yet they enjoy all the privileges of their birth, and are exempted from the extor- tion practised on those of common blood. The pride and interests of the oligarchy combine to protect this anomalous class of democratic aris- tocrats. Many attempts have been made to force the nobles to pay taxes, yet their power has ena- bled them to stand out against an innovation which they regard as an imposition. With so large a reduction from the revenue as their exemption necessarily causes, the government could not be supplied with funds, were it not that the king holds certain crown lands, and all the salt mines, whose annual produce is about seven hundred thousand pounds. The gross EXPRESSION OF PUBLIC OPINION. 41 revenue of Hungary may be estimated at three millions sterling, of which probably not a twen- tieth part is clear profit to the Austrian govern- ment. Many towns are said to belong to the king ; but this is only a nominal possession ; they are called Civitates liberse et regiae, because under an entire exemption from taxes. In Hungary and Croatia there are fifty such villes franches ; in Transylvania five ; but none in Sclavonia. No noble has any authority or right in these pri- vileged boroughs ; and all that the citizens ac- quire they may regard as their own ; though, unless of high descent, they cannot possess lands. They elect their own magistrates an- nually, and send deputies to the diet. A great restraint is placed on the expression of public opinion throughout the Austrian do- minions, but more successfully in Austria proper than in Hungary. Here politics are freely dis- cussed ; not so there. At Vienna, an English- man in a caf was speaking to a friend about his partiality for tea, and observed, in the lan- guage of the country, " Ich liebe thee," or " I am fond of tea." One of the undress police, catching indistinctly the last three syllables, immediately accosted him, saying, " Sir, Liberte VOL. i. c 42 ANECDOTE. is a word not to be uttered in Austria !"" In fact, as Napoleon decreed impossible to be ex- cluded from the French language, so liberty is declared not to be Austrian. The above anec- dote is current at Vienna ; but the authenticity of it rests on an on dit. 43 CHAPTER II. VOYAGE ON THE DANUBE. FROM PRESBURG TO PEST. Steam navigation of the Danube. Difficulties of under- taking. Embark at Presburg. Hungarian gentlemen. Latin spoken. Pronunciation. Introduction into Hun- gary. Hungarian linguists. Carlsburg. Insula Cituo- rum. Sifting gold-dust. Comorn. Neudorf. Gran. Royal tombs. Archbishop. Cathedral. Vessigrad. Castle. Numerous branches of Danube. Aspect of coun- try. Water-mills. Watzen. Cupolas. Arrival at Pest. Hungarian nobles. Patriotism. Union of Hun- gary with Austria. Pragmatic sanction. Monarchy hereafter elective Indifference of emperor. Metter- nich's policy. Existing matters of dispute. Population of Austrian states. Lutheran church. Its parishes, clergy, and discipline. Reformed church. Roman Catholics. Dignitaries. Royal perquisites. Emperor's guard. Word Hussar. Punishment of deserters. Origin of Hungarians. Magyar and Torok. Wines. Meat and poultry. Coins. Ducat. First view of Pest. Buda. Roman relics. Alt Buda. Aquincum. View. Plain of Rokos. Attila. Hot springs. Turkish baths. Palace of palatine. Hand of king Stephen. His crown. Cabinet of antiques. Coins. Luther's cup. French standard. C 2 44 DIFFICULTIES OF Description of Buda. Jew's quarter. Reitzenstadt. To- bacco. Carts Oxen. Inscriptions on houses. Pest. University- Manufacture of pipe-bowls. Projected iron bridge. Tax to be levied on nobles. Levelling system. Society for cultivation of Hungarian tongue. Count Szechenyi. First promoters of steam navigation of Da- nube. IT was with feelings of no ordinary interest and with some misgivings that we prepared to commence a voyage on the Danube, hitherto re- garded as an unknown sea. The communica- tion by steam between Upper Hungary and the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia had been opened only the previous summer, when the vessel, after striking repeatedly on shoals, met with such disasters that she was obliged to land her passengers, who pursued their respective courses on terra firma, having accomplished only a portion of the voyage. None of our own countrymen but one, as we were informed,* had made the excursion ; and even the officials in the bureau at Vienna, whose interests are connected with it, repre- sented the undertaking as not free from risk. Still, we were inclined to believe that the difficulties were gradually diminishing, and that * Mr. Quin, whose " Steam Voyage down the Danube" made its appearance in England about the time the writer embarked at Presburg, in the autumn of 1835. STEAM NAVIGATION OF THE DANUBE. 45 the dangers were exaggerated. Our plans led us to Constantinople; the reputed beauty of the scenery on the banks of the Danube at- tracted us towards its waters as a medium of conveyance ; and an opportunity was not likely to occur twice in a life of seeing Hungary, Ser- via, Bulgaria, Wallachia, and Moldavia, through which that noble river flows. At the same time, we were unprepared for what we had to en- counter at the conclusion of the voyage ; when, landed in one of the least civilized countries of Europe, we found ourselves without the com- mon comforts of life, and lamented, when too late, that accurate information had not sug- gested the purchase of mattresses and other lux- uries while we were yet in a land where they could be procured. It was on a warm and clear morning that we embarked from the quay on the steamer destin- ed to convey us to Pest, which disputes with Presburg the honor of being the modern capital of Hungary and is far more popular among the natives than that triste metropolis. The proprietors of the vessel refused to convey more than one carriage as far as Pest, and a limited number beyond that town. These places were already secured ; so that other pas- sengers were denied permission to take their 46 HUNGARIAN GENTLEMEN. vehicles, and were obliged either to sell them or make arrangements for their safe keeping at Vienna. The steamer was crowded to excess, insomuch that it was no easy task to walk the deck. A hundred and sixty passengers, with boxes and packages innumerable, covered the poop, exhibiting a singular variety of costume and character. The majority were Hungarian nobles whom the diet had brought to Presburg. Among these were several intelligent, polite, and communicative men, who afforded a pleas- ing specimen of national character. Their con- versation was carried on, as we had been led to expect, in Latin ; and it was highly interesting to listen for the first time to that classic lan- guage employed as a living tongue. Its sounds, so intimately associated with early days, seemed to place us once again in communion with au- thors familiar in our schools ; while in the plain, honest, unsophisticated manners of our com- panions, fancy could almost trace something of those primitive characters which exercised the pens of the Roman satirist and comedian. This effect can never be produced by Italian, even when heard in Rome, nor by the polished, but less sincere, courtesies of the nobles of Italy. It is probable that the Hungarian, which resembles the Scotch, pronunciation of LATIN COMMONLY SPOKEN. 47 Latin does not differ very much from the an- cient ; or, at least, that it approximates to it far more than our own ; since it would appear that the language of the Romans has continued to be spoken here ever since they were in possession of Dacia. Its retention, or subsequent adoption, as a common medium of communication among the educated, may be attributed to the difficulty of selecting another, intelligible to all the differ- ent tribes that inundated the country between the third and tenth centuries. Some say that it was generally introduced about the year 1000 A. D. when Stephen, the first king of Hungary, was converted to Christianity. At that time a number of priests flowed into the kingdom from Bohemia and other parts of Germany, who brought in not only their religion, but, together with it, the language in which all its doctrines are taught. This is, perhaps, the most probable cause of the prevalence of Latin in Hungary ; at least, when combined with the absence, above referred to, of any one dialect intelligible throughout the country. A Hungarian is almost necessarily an accom- plished linguist, and here every well educated man speaks six or seven tongues with facility : he must learn Sclavonian as the language of the peasantry; Latin, as that of the middle and 48 SIFTING GOLD-DUST. upper classes ; and French, as that of universal Europe : being the subject of a German em- peror, he must speak the language of his ruler ; while circumstances bring him into perpetual contact with Polish, Italian, and Wallachian. As we sailed down the stream at an even rate of ten miles an hour, the native gentle- men pointed out every object of note in our route, furnishing the name and history of each successive locality. Though the charm of con- versational interest cannot be transferred to paper, the facts can be recorded, and thus con- signed to a guardianship more faithful than that of memory. After passing the town of Carlsburg, the an- cient Castra Gerulorum, we sailed by a large island, enclosed between two branches of the Danube and known to the Romans under the name of Insula Cituorum. On the banks a number of people were employed in sifting sand mixed with gold-dust. This was placed in baskets and washed in the stream, which carried off the lighter particles of earth, leaving the gold at the bottom. Passing Raab, Gonyo, and Martinsbcrg, the oldest Benedictine convent in Hungary, we reached Comorn, the Roman Comoronium, standing on the confluence of the Vagh, or Vagus, COMORN. GRAN. 49 and the Danube. To this fortress, which has never been captured, Francis, the late emperor of Austria, sent his treasures, when the French obliged him to fly from his own capital : the most conspicuous object is a handsome church formerly occupied by the Jesuits. Just op- posite Comorn is the site of Bregaetion, founded by a Greek colony. Still farther, on the left, is Parkany, a spot where, as a little boy of four- teen years of age told us with sparkling eyes, the Turks were defeated in 1685. Pursuing our course by Neszniely, famous for its wine, and Neudorf, and sailing for some miles parallel to the Verteschian hills, we reached the con- fluence of the Gran us and the Danube, where is seen the town of Gran, called by the modern Hungarians Esztergon, and by the ancients Strigonium and Istripolis. Once it was the residence of the kings of Hungary, some of whose tombs it contains ; now it is the seat of the primate, who ranks next in dignity to the palatine ; he used formerly to crown the king, and had the privilege of creating nobles within his jurisdiction. The cathedral, in process of erection, forms a striking object on an emi- nence overlooking the city. About fifteen miles lower down the stream, a proud old edi- fice of solid masonry, rising above the town of 50 NUMEROUS BRANCHES OF DANUBE. Vessigrad, and lowering with a sombre frown over the waters of the Danube, tells of days an- terior to the paltry structures of modern times. Underneath, is a solitary tower whose decrepi- tude bespeaks a still prior date. Here Salo- mon, the sixth king of Hungary, was confined by his subjects in the eleventh century. Towards Vessigrad the country begins to as- sume a more interesting character. To the west of Gran, the river winds through a mono- tonous plain, among a multitude of islands di- viding it into three or four different branches, each small and shallow ; but to the east of that town, hills rise on both sides, clad with shrubs and forest trees, interspersed with towns, spires, villages, and dilapidated fortresses, exhibiting at every point a landscape not dissimilar to those on the banks of the Rhine, but with less luxuriant vineyards and less interesting ruins. One of the peculiarities of the scenery of the Danube consists in the numerous water-mills on its surface. Eighteen or twenty boats are strung together, two and two, each pair con- taining a mill, the wheel of which, balanced between a couple of boats and turned by the current, is used for grinding corn. The town of Watzen on the left bank of the river indicated our approach to Pest. Its pretty HUNGARIAN NOBLES. 51 church, like many others in this part of the country, has two towers surmounted with shining cupolas, terminating in light, airy spires, in the eastern style. At 8 P. M. we reached our destination, having accomplished thirty-one German, or a hundred and forty- three English, miles. The evening closed upon a day of as much enjoyment as can be anticipated from an excur- sion of pleasure. A large portion of the king- dom of Hungary had passed under our review in the space of fourteen hours, and each turn in the river had presented a fresh subject for some amusing anecdote, some historical allusion, or some political opinion. The sitting of the diet at Presburg had combined with accidental cir- cumstances to cast us into the midst of the magnates of the land, and it would have re- quired an effort to have avoided learning some- thing from their conversation. Every word, every look of the Hungarian noble proclaims him a man of proud indepen- dent spirit, with one predominant political pas- sion, hatred of Austrian rule. Patriotic as the Pole, and frank as the Briton, his country's honor is dear to him, and he hesitates not to say that that honor is compromised by the annex- ation of Hungary to Austria, which deprives 52 UNION OF HUNGARY WITH AUSTRIA. the former of its character as a free state ; nor can he bear to think of the circumstances under which the land he loves became subject to the German emperors. King Louis the Second was drowned in a lake, into which he fell while flying from the famous battle of Mohacs, where the Turks were headed by Soli- man the Great, in the year 1526 ; a battle in which a large portion of the Hungarian nobi- lity was slain. The Moslims were expelled the following year by Ferdinand the First of Aus- tria, who then annexed the kingdom of Hun- gary to his dominions. The monarchy, how- ever, had always been elective, and so it con- tinued, the diet nominating as kings of Hun- gary the successive sovereigns of Austria, till the year 1687, when Leopold the First pre- vailed on the nation to make the crown here- ditary in his family. At the diet held at Presburg in that year, the magnates and depu- ties, in gratitude for the final expulsion of the Turks in 1686, consented to resign their privi- lege of election in behalf of the male descend- ants of Leopold, or, in failure of such, in favor of those of the house of Hapsburg. Charles the Sixth, the last male representative of his dynasty, fearing lest the crown should not devolve to his daughter Marie The>ese, ob- METTERNICH'S POLICY. 53 tained the sanction, commonly called the Prag- matic Sanction, of many of the powers of Europe to her succession. Though several of her pro- vinces revolted and others became disaffected, yet her right was maintained, and with it the possession of Hungary ; which, by her mar- riage with Francis the Lotharingian, passed, with the rest of her dominions, into the hands of the Lotharingian family, who still hold the empire. In failure of the descendants of Marie Therese, that is, of the Hapsburg family, the monarchy of Hungary becomes again elective in the hands of the diet. This reversionary right tends to keep up the existing jealousy towards Austria. The Hungarians naturally lament that they have no separate king of their own, no sovereign who holds his court among them ; and the emperor does not manifest in this part of his dominions an interest sufficient to make them forget that they are but a secondary object of his consideration : consequently, they are disaffected as well as jealous. A few years ago, Metternich flattered their vanity by pro- claiming the then crown prince, the present em- peror, king of Hungary, thus making the king- dom for a season a distinct monarchy and still preserving the integrity of the Austrian empire. 54 EXISTING DIFFERENCES. Just at this time there is a dispute be- tween the Hungarians and their sovereign on a point of apparently little moment. He calls himself Ferdinand the First, being the first Ferdinand of Austria; but as Hungary has had four kings of that name, they are desirous he should be called Ferdinand the Fifth of Hungary ; and with this prayer they have recently sent a deputation to him. They also insist on the empress being crowned at Presburg as queen of Hungary ; while the Austrians think her acknowledgement as empress to be sufficient. It is probable that the latter de- mand will be conceded on the part of govern- ment, while the former is resisted.* * The following schedule, extracted from an old number of the " Morning Herald," affords a means of comparing the extent and population of Hungary with those of the other dominions of the emperor of Austria. Contents in Sq. Population. AUSTRIAN STATES. Geo. M. Kingdom of Hungary. . . 4,182 11,232,600 Croatian Military Colonies . . 288 458,300 Sclavonian Do. Do. . . . 139 244,100 Banatian Do. Do. . . . 182 227,900 Transylvania .... 1,110 2,089,600 Kingdom of Bohemia . . . 952 3,994,700 Do. ofLombardy ... 394 2,477,200 Do. of Venice ... 430 2,073,800 Dalmatia .... 238 355,900 LUTHERAN CHURCH. 55 One of our party in the steamer was a " su- perintendent" of the Lutheran church. He resides at Oedenberg, a neat old town, nearly thirty-seven miles from Presburg, containing twelve thousand inhabitants, and carrying on a considerable trade in cattle and honey ; and in wine for which it is celebrated. The venerable divine informed us that the whole number of Lutherans in Hungary is about eight hundred thousand ; and that of the reformed Protestants a hundred and sixty thousand. The Luthe- rans have nearly six hundred churches, and as many pastors, who are supported by their congregations. These churches are distributed through four districts, called Cisdanubius and Transdanubius, Cistibiscus and Transtibiscus, from their position on one or the other side of the Danube and the Theis, the ancient Gallicia . .... 1,576 1,182,200 Illyria 515 1,182,200 Dukedom of Austria ... 708 2,183,400 Do. ofStyria ... 400 922,800 Moravia and Silesia ... 482 2,123,100 Tyrol and Voralberg ... 516 816,800 Total . 12,120 34,755,400 The inhabitants of the Russian and Austrian empires and of France are to one another as the numbers 100, 173, and 208, respectively. 56 REFORMED CHURCH. Tibiscus. In each district, under the super- intendent, are ten or twelve individuals, chosen from among the pastors, who act as overseers of their brethren within a smaller sphere, to wh:ch is attached a layman, generally a noble, whose influence is somewhat similar to that of the elder in Scotland. When a priest is guilty of an offence, he is admonished by the superintendent, who, if he be again in fault, has power to suspend his salary for any period less than a year: but if the crime be of a more serious nature, a convocation is held under the presidency of the superintendent, at which all the ten or twelve select pastors above referred to attend, with certain deputies from the prin- cipal churches. Their decision is final, unless the delinquent think fit to appeal to the king, as chief magistrate, and, in that capacity, head of the ecclesiastical body. The reformed, or Calvinistic, church is governed in the same manner, but retains less of Roman Catholic ex- ternals than the Lutheran, whose temples are distinguished by a cross, and before whose altars crucifixes still stand and lighted tapers are kept constantly burning. The prevalent religion of Hungary proper is Roman Catholic. The two archbishops and sixteen bishops, with all the abbots and dignita- GARDE NOBLE. HUSSARS. 5? ries, are nominated by the king, subject to the confirmation of the pope. On the demise of an intestate prelate, the sovereign claims a third of his property ; and if the see remain unoccupied, he has a right to draw the income for three years ; consequently, it often proves conve- nient to retain a vacancy. The archbishop of Gran is said to realize annually a hundred thousand pounds, and the bishops ten thousand each. Another of our party was a veteran who, having sought " the bubble reputation " even in " the cannon's mouth," loved now to tell of deeds of valor, and fight his battles o'er again. He talked of the emperor's guard, military ety- mologies, and martial law, with an animation which, communicating itself to his auditors, almost made them fancy themselves as enthusi- astic as the speaker. The emperor, it seems, as king of Hungary, has a guard consisting of sixty native nobles, privates in that corps, but rank- ing with lieutenants in the army ; he has an- other of Germans ; each is called the garde noble ; and they are on the footing on which the Scotch body-guard once stood in our own country. The Hungarian corps wear the na- tional costume, called the Hussar dress. This name is derived from the word Huss, signifying VOL. i. D 58 ORIGIN OF HUNGARIANS. twenty ; the appellation of Hussar being given to those regiments which were formed by taking one man in every twenty to act as a soldier. We have adopted the word in English without regard to its original signification ; but the British Hussars will not be sorry to remem- ber that the name by which they are designated points them out to the world as picked men, or such as might be selected if each regiment chose its best man out of every twenty, to form a special corps. The Hungarian desert- er, when taken, is made to run the gauntlet between files of his fellow-soldiers, all furnished with whips, who lash him severely as he passes. Those versed in antiquarian lore suggest that the Hungarians owe their origin to Fin- land, because many words are found in the two languages of similar sound and signification ; and that they crossed the Wolga is regarded as an undoubted fact. Others, perhaps with more probability, deduce their descent from the Huns, a theory sanctioned by the name of their country, while some maintain that they, together with the Turks, of kindred blood,* came from Turcomania, and urge the palpably oriental character of their physiognomy, and of the Hungarian tongue, whose strong affinity to the Turkish cannot escape observation. It CONNECTION WITH TURKS. 59 is a curious coincidence that there are two neighbouring ruins of villages at the foot of mount Caucasus, called Magyar and Torok ;* and that the former is the name by which the Hungarians call themselves, and the latter that by which they designate the Turks. The pro- bability is that they are to be traced to no single source, but to the confluence of many living streams ; as it is well known that the tribes inundating Pannonia were numerous, among which the names of the Avares, Huns, and Magyars are conspicuous in history. The inroads of these last were in the ninth century, from which period historical accounts are in- distinct till the time of Stephen the first king of Hungary. This country is famous for wine and fruit, as also for poultry and game. The wines, being strong and heating, require to be used with moderation and diluted with water : and, owing, as is supposed, to some peculiarity in the mode of feeding, the beef and poultry are apt to disagree with strangers. The coins current throughout Austria pass here also ; but the ducat, which is remarkably i * In the Hungarian, as in the German, the o, with two dots over it, is pronounced like the French u : thus Torok would be pronounced Turuk, a word easily converted into Turk, D2 60 HUNGARIAN DUCAT. elegant, is peculiar to Hungary. On one side is a portrait of the king, with a sword and sceptre ; on the other, the virgin Mary, holding with the right hand a sceptre and with the left the infant Saviour and a globe. Both are crowned with glories. Underneath her is a crescent, surmounted by across, in honor of the victories of Hungary over Turkey ; and below the crescent is a shield carrying the arms of the kingdom, consisting of three parallel lines and a double cross. The whole is surrounded by an inscription bearing the year of the coinage, and the words " Patrona Hungarias S. Maria Mater Dei." The ducat varies in value from nine shillings and sixpence to ten shillings. We arrived too late in the day to enjoy a good view of the towns of Pest and Ofen ; but could just perceive that some small hills behind a turn in the river form a fine back- ground, to which effect was given by the sha- dows of evening. Scores of hungry lackeys were ready to assail us as the boat touched the shore ; and such was the throng of passen- gers and porters, the former alone amounting to a hundred and sixty, that our luggage was in danger of being carried off. Buda derives its name from a brother of king Stephen. It is called by the Germans ALT BUDA. 61 Ofen, or The Oven, from its hot springs. Si- tuate on the right bank of the river, it com- municates with Pest by a bridge, and the two united cities contain a population of sixty thousand inhabitants : it was a place of some note among the Romans, who called it Sicam- bria, and who have left many relics of their occupation of the town ; among these is a su- darium, in a state of great preservation. About four miles hence, on some high ground, is Alt Buda, or Old Buda, known to the ancients under the name of Aquincum, where Attila held his court. Few or no ves- tiges are now to be seen of that savage con- queror's abode ; but the low surrounding hills look as if they had once been tenanted, and offer a site on which the mind can with easy effort picture the camp of the barbarian. This eminence commands an extensive view of a flat uninteresting country, with the plain of Rokos, capable of holding a hundred thou- sand tents, where the Hungarians used to assemble to elect their kings; and through which flow the broad waters of the Danube, here extended over thirteen hundred feet, and crossed by a bridge of boats : on the oppo- site side are the regularly built and handsome houses of the town of Pest, among which 62 TURKISH BATHS. the H6tel des Invalides, a noble structure, ar- rests the eye. In the ride to Aquincum we visited some natural hot baths, supplied by the springs that give their name to Ofen. The temperature is 138 of Fahrenheit, or 47 of Reaumur, and the water is clear, though impregnated, as its smell and taste would indicate, with sul- phuretted hydrogen gas. Several children were bathing when we entered, as also a man and a woman ; and we were informed that no separation of the sexes is enforced, but adults always cover the waist. Two of the baths are said to have been built by Soliman, when he occupied Pest after the battle of Mohacs; and hence they are called Turkish. They are about twelve feet square, with a small ledge running round the sides, on which otto- mans are placed for the convenience of bathers. Returning from this excursion, we visited the palace of the palatine at Buda. It is a well built house, whose interior arrangement offers more of comfort and less of show than most royal residences in Europe. The rooms are adorned with pictures of the wives of the viceroy, and their relations ; for he, like his brother, the late emperor, has been married four times. In the chapel of the palace, a priest showed us the CABINET OF ANTIQUES. 63 right hand of king Stephen, preserved in a glass case within a silver box. It is much withered after a post mortem existence rival- ling the age of Methuselah ; but it is not, like some relics exhibited, an object of disgust. The crown, made in imitation of that worn by the Greek emperors, which was given to Ste- phen by pope Sylvester, is shown only twice a year, on St. Stephen's day and the anniversary of the sovereign's coronation. The legend states that it came down from heaven, attesting by its celestial origin the divine right of the first king of Hungary. In connection with the royal hand, reduced by time to skin and bone, one of our companions mentioned the fact, doubtless well known, that the bones of forty men yield in analysis seven pounds of iron. As it happened to be a holiday, we could not succeed in gaining admittance to the library ; but we roused from his siesta the guardian of the public cabinet of antiques, which a silver key speedily opened, malgr6 the fete. It contains an interesting series of coins from the days of Stephen to the present time; the first gold ducat struck in Hungary under Carol us I ; a variety of Roman relics ; a silver goblet which belonged to Martin Luther, formed into a likeness of his wife ; and a French standard, of which the 64 TOWN OF BUDA. history is given in the following appropriate Latin inscription, wherein Napoleon is desig- nated by his legitimate title : " Fragmentum e currn triumphali Galliarum Usurpatoris ab Hungarica phalange Pyrobolariorum Jarosya- norum gloriosk in patriam reduce ad perennem rei fortiter pro defensione solii regum et liber- tate populorum gestas memoriam museo natio- nali Hungarico dicatum, Anno 1816." Huda has little to recommend it but an imposing appearance from the river. The streets are for the most part unpaved, and ankle-deep in dust, which in wet weather is converted into mud ; and the Jews' quarter is filthy. Behind the town, at the foot of a line of low hills, is Reitzenstadt, a suburb contain- ing five or six thousand Greeks. Driving to- wards it, we observed a field of tobacco thickly set with gourds of a bright orange color ; and a cart of the rudest possible construction, like those of Norway, being merely a framework on wheels. The oxen are large, with noble horns ; and the neighbourhood is famous for a breed of dogs of extraordinary size and courage, which attack and kill wolves. Over the doors of the coffee-houses, we traced the word Kav Haz, another of the many modifications through which the name of that valuable plant has TOWN OF PEST. 65 passed in its travels round the globe ; and we were surprised to observe on some of the better dwellings the occupant's name written in letters of a gigantic size. A sign of this kind points out the residence of count Sandor, well known in England in connection with equestrian feats. Pest is a modern town, with wide, clean, and well-paved streets, shops amply furnished with goods, many handsome public edifices, and a fine quay. The houses are almost invariably built of a light, porous stone, brought from the opposite side of the river. The university, which has acquired a high reputation, contains an excellent cabinet of natural history, and a good botanical garden. The principal manu- facture of the place is that of pipe-bowls of Retime de mer, which are imported from Con- stantinople. The material itself is a kind of fuller's earth, found in the south of Crim Tartary, in the vicinity of Balaclava ; and the long process necessary to its perfection as an article of luxury is really curious. Dr. Clarke informs us, that " the first rude shape is given to the pipes on the spot where the mineral is dug, where they are pressed in a mould, and laid in the sun to harden ; then they are baked in an oven, boiled in milk, and rubbed with soft leather. In this state they go to Constan- 66 IRON BRIDGE OVER THE DANUBE. tinople, where there is a peculiar bazaar, or khan, for the sale of them ; they are then bought up by the merchants, and sent by ca- ravans to Pest in Hungary. Still the form of the pipes is large and coarse. At Pest the manufacture begins which fits them for the German markets. They are there soaked for twenty-four hours in water, and then turned on a lathe. In this process many of them prove porous, and are good for nothing. Some- times only two or three out of ten succeed. From Pest they are conveyed to Vienna, and ultimately to the fairs of Leipzig, Frankfort, Manheim, and other German towns, where the best sell from three to five, and even seven pounds sterling each. When the oil of tobacco, after long smoking, has given them a fine por- celain yellow, or, which is more prized, a dark tortoise-shell hue, they have been known to sell for forty or fifty pounds of our money." It has long been in agitation to construct a new bridge over the Danube, in lieu of the one which now unites Pest with Buda. This is a pont-volant, consisting of nearly fifty boats chained together, two or three of which are dis- placed to make an opening as often as vessels have occasion to pass ; and in winter, the enor- mous masses of ice brought down the stream LEVELLING SYSTEM. 6? collect in such quantities as to compel the entire removal of the pont-volant. The communica- tion between the two towns, or, as they may be considered, the two parts of this metropolis, is thus broken off; nor can it be renewed (since the floating blocks of ice endanger small boats) till the whole river is frozen. The inconveni- ence to which the inhabitants are thus subject- ed periodically by the frost, and habitually by the transit of vessels, is so seriously felt that the erection of an iron bridge is now contem- plated. The peasants have hitherto defrayed all similar charges, and they were expected to bear this also, but their poverty has opposed an insuperable barrier to the work. The nobles have, at length, after great exertions on the part of a few, been persuaded to undertake the charge, and to consent to a toll, to be levied alike on serfs and seigneurs. This is hailed by the democratic party as the commencement of a levelling system, and a prelude to further measures in favor of the people. A society for the cultivation of the Hun- garian language holds its meetings at Pest; and so vigorously is it supported that one no- bleman has subscribed four thousand pounds, and another six ; the latter of these liberal con- tributors is count Szechenyi, already referred to 68 FIRST PROMOTERS OF as adopting the vernacular tongue in the house of peers. It is to the enlarged views and influ- ence of this enlightened individual that the pub- lic are indebted for the steam navigation of the Danube ; not that he originated the plan ; but as a leading rich man, whose exertions promote a great enterprise, generally obtains the credit of it, so in this instance the honor is usually ren- dered to the count ; though, in fact, the first person who seriously engaged in it was an in- dividual, named Andrews, residing at Vienna. For three years he received hardly any returns for his money, and frequently made the voyage with only a single passenger, as a prejudice existed against the undertaking, in which at that time the count held but one share of fifty pounds. Two years ago, however, there was a fair at Semlin, which led the curious to over- come their objections, and three hundred per- sons embarked at Pest. From that day the count espoused the enterprise ; he bought several shares ; and it is now his hobby. His whole time and thoughts are devoted to the subject; and by stimulating the jealousy of the Austrian government with a threat that, if they would not take it up, the Hungarian diet would do so, he has secured the patronage of Metternich and the emperor. He has, more- STEAM NAVIGATION OF THE DANUBE. 69 over, been to England for the purpose of making arrangements regarding the machinery, and now employs British engineers on all the steamers, and several of our countrymen in different departments connected with the un- dertaking. He is partial to the English ; and a traveller going to Pest is sure to be politely received by him, and invited to the Casino, which is supplied with the principal English and French papers. 70 CHAPTER III. VOYAGE ON THE DANUBE. FROM PEST TO SEMLIN. Embarkation on steamer. Description of passengers. Their behaviour and manners. Want of delicacy. Arrange- ments for night. Csepel. Tolna. Anchor. Course of Danube from Pest. Word county. Counties of Hungary. Province of Sclavonia. Scenery. Peasants at Tolna. Dress. Tobacco. Its present consumption. Reminis- cences of India. Mohacs. Erdut. Anchor. Scenery. Stoppage for coals. Courtesy of Hungarian baron. Gipsies. Costume. Resemblance of their language to Hindoostanee. Anecdote. Sclavonia. Origin of people. Words slave and servant. Ratze. Rutheni. Groups on bank. Water-carriers. Illok. Neusatz. Peter- wardein. Roman colony and mine. Market. Fruit. Fish. Carlovich. Victory of Prince Eugene. General Brenna. Hanoverian passenger. Servian gazette. The Theis. Unchangeableness of features of nature. Sands of Theis. Mode of collecting gold. Golden fleece. Banat. Derivation of name. Military colonies. Illy- rians. Inhabitants. Country. Climate. Soil. Temes- var. Semlin. Trade in wool. The Save. Boundary of Austria and Turkey. Visit to Belgrade. Quarantine. EMBARKATION. 71 Health officers. Turkish soldiers. Mussulman sabbath. Minaret and mosque. Dilapidations. Pasha's house. Servants. Burial-ground Female's palanquin. Games of soldiers. Citizens. Costume. Words Moslim and Mussulman. Females. Morals. Breaking in horses. Bullocks. Sakajees. Filtering-stones. Bazaar. Shops. Houses. Chimneys. Sultan's seal. Greek church. Archbishop's house. New custom-house. Cargoes of salt. Visit to an Englishman. Tamarisk. Datura stra- monium. Leave Belgrade. Watch-towers. Carriage. Flock of sheep. Anecdote. Government of Servia. Czerni Georges. Servia made a distinct principality under Milosch Obrenovich. A constitution granted. Enlight- ened views. Prospects of Servia. HAVING laid in a stock of provisions not liable to speedy decay, to serve us in the event of our being thrown by any accident on our own resources in a spot where nothing could be ob- tained, we embarked before sunrise. Since the water in the Danube is very shallow as far as Pest, a small steamer is provided to ply be- tween Presburg and that city ; but the same obstacle to navigation no longer existing, a large boat is held in readiness at Pest, where the traveller is allowed a whole day to visit the principal objects of interest. This vessel, " Francis the First," has a cuddy about twenty- four by eighteen feet, lined on three sides with seats capable of affording sleeping room to ten persons, but destitute of cots. The ladies 72 DESCRIPTION OF PASSENGERS. cabin has a semicircular floor, of which the radius may be four feet. A double row of benches, one above the other, surrounds this ; and in two corners are indifferent couches. On our arrival, we found the cuddy full of mat- tresses and feather-beds, alive and almost mov- ing, provided by travellers under the expecta- tion of spending several nights on board. Be- lieving that these necessaries would be supplied by the managers, we had adopted no such pre- cautions. The air of the room was fraught with unsavory odors, and almost suffocating, several of the passengers having embarked the previous evening and passed the night in the cabin with every door and window closed. The ladies' apartment was less tolerable than the gentle- men's. A sick woman occupied one of the cir- cular benches ; and her feather-bed, protruding over the floor, nearly covered it. Next to the corner I had secured in the cuddy, a female, suffering from a tertian fever, was bolstered up with pillows and mattresses, which promised no small diminution of the scanty portion of com- fort my berth was calculated to afford. The steward of the boat was attacked with the same disease. Thus our voyage towards the lowlands of Hungary, the nursery of autumnal fevers, commenced with a melancholy omen. SCENE ON STEAMER. 73 The passengers gradually assembled, and when we started, the party exceeded fifty, who, together with their beds and cloaks, so filled the small room as to render every change of place a labor. This discomfort was greatly enhanced by that singular antipathy to fresh air mani- fested by Germans and Hungarians. No sooner was an attempt made to open a window, than one or two hands were extended towards it, seconded by a polite request that it might be left in statu quo. The natural refuge from such de'sagre'mens would have been the deck ; but here further miseries awaited us. No less than seven carriages were stowed in two rows over the whole of that part usually left for perambulation; and between the wheels of these and the baggage piled up in the centre it re- quired some skill to steer a course. Walking was out of the question. Soon after 5 A.M, at which hour we got under weigh, it began to rain, and the whole party were necessarily confined to the cabin. A more heterogeneous mass has, perhaps, seldom been collected together : it would have afforded an admirable subject to the pencil of Hogarth. The English travellers, besides ourselves, con- sisted of the consul of Bukharest, with his mo- ther and sister, and another gentleman. These VOL. i. E 74 SCENE ON STEAMER. all quitted the vessel at Giorgervo in Walla- chia ; and our foreign companions left us, one by one, in the course of the long voyage, till, at its conclusion, our number was reduced to three, exclusive of ourselves. Two Armenian Catholic monks, with enormous hats and jet black beards, a young lawyer fresh from school, and sundry parties of Austrians and Hun- garians, swelled the group. Some Italians mingled their soft language and dirty habits with the raucity of German tongues and the vulgar manners of the motley tribe. A fat elderly woman, with half a dozen girls of va- rious ages, seemed to be giving her family a holiday from the labors of the shop or needle, and strove to drown every other noise in that of her loud mirth and harsh unmusical voice. Here and there, a drowsy one, whose slumbers had been too early disturbed, strove in vain to recompose himself to sleep ; while, close to us, a large coarse female, attired in night-cap and dressing-gown, who had roughed it through the night in the gentlemen's cabin, was equip- ping herself for the day's campaign with a freedom indicative alike of indifference to what was due to herself, and of disregard to the more delicate feelings of the men who surrounded her. Some attempts were made by the gentlemen to BREAKFAST. 75 console themselves, amid their multiplied dis- comforts, with the pipe, a German's unfailing resource; but being withstood by a small mino- rity, fortified by the printed laws of the steam- er, each satisfied himself with ruminating over his empty meerschaum suspended from the lips, 6crachant with all the dignity of a real smoker, till the floor became as dangerous for pedestrians by day as for the mattresses destined to be spread on it by night. Breakfast began to be served at the early hour of six, when each was provided with a cup of coffee and a solitary roll. Conversation was then resumed and kept up, with a little pelting of orange-peel and all the concomitants of the most essentially vulgar mirth, till twelve o'clock, when the cloth was spread for dinner. This tantalizing sight doomed the ennuyes to an hour of anxious expectation ; and surely never did the " walls and battlements" and "chimney- tops" of the imperial city witness a more intense anxiety " To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome," than was exhibited by Germans, Hungarians, Armenians, and Italians, to see dinner served. A rude contest for chairs took place long before its arrival ; but vain would be an attempt to describe the scene which ensued. Loud con- E 2 76 DINNER. versation and still louder laughs became more thickly interspersed with boisterous complaints as the desired gag was withheld from the crav- ing herd. At length vociferations commenced. " Jacob" was called, commanded, scolded, abused, but without effect. An universal roar was then raised for Fleisch, Fleisch, Fleisch, followed by a Bacchanalian yell for Wein, Wein, Wein !* The food brought was greedily and speedily devoured, when another sad delay in the arrival of the next dish gave rise to shouts similar to the former. An observation that one of the ladies was suffering from headach and fever produced only a momentary cessation of uproar, which was almost immediately renew- ed, the invalid being forgotten because the noisy animals could feel but little sympathy for a human sufferer. Two hours and a half passed painfully at dinner. From three to seven o'clock, cards and tumultuous mirth below, with drizzling rain above, continued uninterruptedly. At that hour candles were brought in ; and we took the precaution to lay out our cloaks on the spots we intended to oc- cupy for the night, knowing that there would be a scramble for places. By this time, some departures had reduced the numbers to fifteen * Fleisch in German is meat ; and wein, wine. CONTINENTAL MANNERS. 77 women and thirty men; but the benches in the two cabins afforded sleeping room for only twelve, and the tables for six ; so that more than three of the gentlemen could not expect accommodation. Coffee and singing, succeeded by meat sup- pers and cards, kept up a few of the party till some hours after the rest became unconscious of their proceedings; but, unfortunately, con- sciousness long survived comfort. The females were so fond of gossip, that, not sated with the tattle of their own sex, they had during the day permitted the gentlemen free access into the inner apartment. When one of the English ladies retired to rest, the room was cleared of three intruders, and it was hoped that the hint might be generally under- stood. She had not, however, been undressing above five minutes, when a man of respectable appearance opened the door and looked in. On being reproved for this breach of delicacy, he considered himself much aggrieved, and said he only wished to see whether a window had not been left unclosed ; nor did it seem to strike any of the natives present that he was justly chargeable with indecorum. So much do con- tinental ideas of propriety differ from our own ! On another occasion, the consul was obliged to 78 INDELICATE HABITS OF turn two men out of the cabin when his ladies wished to repair thither ; and his just repre- sentation of the inexpediency of their entering it led to a sharp reply in defence of this viola- tion of delicacy. Above deck others of the party were guilty of acts equally rude and in- considerate, mounting on the steps of the car- riages, and even seating themselves in the in- terior, without asking permission. Nor were the women less deficient in propriety. While one of the gentlemen was sitting with some ladies in the cuddy, a female standing close to him, preparatory to a siesta, suddenly strip- ped herself of very nearly all her clothes but one garment ; they fell from her by a single action of the arms, as if prepared beforehand for an exhibition ; at the same time, her manner indicated an utter unconsciousness of indecorum, which could not be supposed to be intentional on the part of a mother advanced in years, in the company of her daughter and husband. When the time of repose arrived, each individual undressed as much as he thought fit; the men for the most part but little, the women entirely ; and a girl of seventeen years, with her mother and another female, disrobed themselves in the presence of twenty men, and in the full light of six candles, without attempt- THE PASSENGERS. 79 ing to conceal their persons. From these ex- amples, however, we would not draw too sweep- ing a conclusion. A steamer is not the fittest place in which to seek for polished manners or the highest society. Accident may carry there the most refined, but the majority will be of an inferior class ; and we would deprecate an inference from the above recital unfavorable to the high bred ladies of Hungary, of whom we enjoyed little opportunity of forming an opinion. Of the gentlemen of that country the excursion from Presburg afforded a pleasing specimen. During a voyage of fifteen hours through a hundred and forty-five miles, we passed no town of note. Among the numerous islands formed by the separation and reunion of branches of the river, the largest is that of Csepel, which contains nine villages and a town, arid is thirty-six miles in length. In the time of Marie Therese, the whole was laid out as a garden and belonged to the Jesuits, who cultivated it till their banishment from the em- pire. Towards evening we stopped to take in wood at Tolna, and anchored at night in a so- litary spot not far from the village of Baja. From Pest the Danube flows due south through the comitat,* or county, of the same * Latin, comitatus ; whence Hungarian, comitat ; French, comtfe ; Italian, contea ; and English, county. 80 COURSE OF THE DANUBE. name, which is flat and uninteresting. Passing out of that, it forms the boundary of Stiihl- weissenburger comitat, Tolnaer, and Baranyer on the right ; and of Baeser on the left. From its junction with the Drave it pursues an east- erly course, still having Baeser on its left, or north ; and the counties of Veroczer and Syr- iniener on its right, or south bank. As far as Szekard, a distance of a hundred and twenty miles from the capital, little but sand is seen on either shore. Soon after leaving that town, the river enters a forest, rich in oaks and limes, extending on both sides for some leagues : the larger trees then become less nu- merous, and the forest degenerates into a cop- pice of willows and low bushes : these are suc- ceeded by high reeds ; vast masses of which, alternating with vacant spaces and a few shrubs, form the only scenery as far as Baja. Baranyer and Baeser, together with Posegaer, are the three comitats constituting the province of Sclavonia, which comprises a hundred and thirty-nine square geographical miles and a po- pulation of two hundred and forty-four thou- sand souls. Pest is, with one exception, the largest of the fifty-two counties of Hungary: it contains six hundred thousand inhabitants, and a hundred and ninety thousand geogra- phical miles. PEASANTS AT TOLNA. 81 While halting at Tolna, a group of Hun- garian peasants assembled round us. Their coats and trowsers were made of coarse blan- keting; the former thrown loosely over them and reaching nearly to the knee, with enor- mous pockets on each side. A broad-brimmed hat, or sometimes a brimless one, covered the long dark hair which hung about their swarthy faces either in lank locks or matted plaits. The children wore very little clothes, and squat- ted on their heels, after the Turkish fashion. Tolna is famous for the production of the finest tobacco. This plant is said to have been introduced into the country in 1576 ; yet, though now considered as one of the neces- saries of life, its growth and use were prohi- bited till the beginning of the eighteenth cen- tury. The present annual consumption of to- bacco and snuff in the Austrian dominions is almost incredible ; being, as is said, at the rate of 60,000 cwt. of tobacco and 8,000 cwt. of snuff. In the evening, when we stepped on shore to take a view of the spot where we had an- chored, the barren sands and the absence of all signs of man in the vicinity, with the twinkling lights in our own and a neighbouring boat, re- minded us of the little fleets which are moored every evening on the similar banks of the 82 MOHACS. ERDUT. Ganges. The lapse of years gives interest to past scenes; and scenes long past are seldom recalled without a mixture of feeling. Since they were present, how many days are fled ! " Where are they ? With the years beyond the flood." At 5 A. M. on the second morning, we re- sumed our voyage, and soon came to another of those large islands which abound among the erratic streams of the Danube. Passing Mo- hacs, famous for the victory obtained by Soli- man the Turk over Louis the Second, we reached, at no great distance from the em- bouchure of the Drave, a castle in ruins, named Erdut, which was destroyed by the Turks in one of their barbarous incursions into this ill- fated land. It stands in the centre of a beau- tiful little tract of country, an oasis in the midst of surrounding desolation. At night, we anchored off Scharengrad, having made a hundred and thirty miles in fifteen hours. The scenery throughout this day's voyage resembles that of the preceding. The banks are alternately covered with reeds, willows, and poplars, here and there varied by forest trees and desert patches of sand. After such a suc- cession of uninteresting views, it was a refresh- ment to see two pretty church spires at Vu- kover, and a handsome dwelling adorned with SCENERY. HUNGARIAN BARON. 83 a green-house and other indications of domestic comfort. The eye loves such relief and, like the mind, is wont, after absence, to rest with increased satisfaction on objects whose charm is diminished by long and uninterrupted fruition. As the boat stopped for two hours to lay in coals at Mohacs, we took the opportunity of running to a petty inn, the only one in the place, to enjoy the luxury of fresh water after a night spent in some discomfort from vitiated air, noise, and insects, and to refresh ourselves with a change of clothes. Our road crossed a mass of mud, formed by the heavy rain of the previous day ; through which as we were wading in company with a Hungarian baron, a fellow-traveller from Pest, two empty car- nages drove up to meet him. He ordered one with four horses to proceed to the steamer for his lady, and having, with much kindness and courtesy, seated us in the other, mounted the coach-box himself. The vehicle was a shabby one of basket-work, in the German style ; but the horses, though ill groomed, were noble crea- tures of high mettle : the driver's livery con- sisted of a piece of black glazed leather round the hat, and two large plated buttons on a coat in no other respect differing from that of an English peasant. 84 HUNGARIAN GIPSIES. After breakfasting on a spot which once reeked with the blood of Mohammedans and Christians, we returned to the boat, and found the village crowd assembled round it, as at Tolna, receiving and affording amusement. Among the motley group were a number of Hungarian gipsies, who maintain here, as every- where, their distinctive characteristics, idleness, love of wandering, and skill in tinker's and basket-work. The younger ones were scarcely clothed ; and two little girls, six years old, were absolutely naked, as far as regards the purposes to which dress is applied. They scrambled in the mud and water for small pieces of copper thrown from the vessel, and danced and sang and howled with strange wild- ness, in token of satisfaction. The women ap- peared literally to wear only two garments ; a full petticoat tied round the waist, disgust- ingly filthy and ragged, and a kind of scarf which hung over the head and shoulders, serving in many cases as a covering to a naked infant. The complexion of these gipsies is peculiarly dark and swarthy, readily distinguishing them from the native Hungarian peasants. Some of their sounds greeted us with the cordiality of old acquaintance: we could almost have fancied them talking Hindoostanee, and thought that THEIR LANGUAGE. 85 we could identify some words. This is not the first time that a resemblance has been traced between the gipsy tongue and the Indian : a late governor-general of India, meeting an old gipsy who boasted herself to be the last of her tribe in England of unadulterated blood, de- tected in a sentence she uttered two Sanscrit words still in colloquial use in Bengal. A comparison of some of the numerals as ex- pressed in the languages of the Hindoo and the Hungarian gipsy, corroborates the opinion that the resemblance is real, and not imaginary. English. Hindoostauee. Hungarian gipsy language. One. Ek. Yeg. Two. Do. Dio. Three. Teen. Tri. Four. Char. Stah. Five. Panch. Panch. Six. Cheh. Schof. Twenty. Bees. Bish. On entering Sclavonia we found ourselves in the country that gives its name to that large family of languages which divides Europe with the Teutonic, and comprehends Bohemian, Mo- ravian, Carinthian, Carniolan, Illyrian, Slavo- nian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Polish, Russian, Muscovitish, Circassian, and many others. The similarity of all these is, doubt- less, attributable to the fact that the various 86 SCLAVONIC LANGUAGES. people by whom they are spoken deduce their origin from the Sarmatians, who occupied the country between mount Caucasus and the Ta- nais, or Don. In the days of Diodorus Siculus these were regarded as one of the numerous tribes of Scythians ; and he speaks of their pas- sage from Media to the banks of the Tanais, calling them Sauromatas or Sarmatas. In con- firmation of his statement, it is urged that Sar is an oriental mark of descent analogous to Ap, O', De, Von, Vich, Fitz, or Son ; and that the very name Sarmatce, or Sarmadai, designates the progenitors of the vast Sclavonic family as de- scendants of the Medes. If this be true, we need not be surprised at the resemblance above referred to, between the languages of the Hin- doos and Hungarian gipsies, or at the similarity existing between Sclavonic tongues in general and that spoken by the present representatives of the great empire of Medes and Persians. It is remarkable that the names of Sclavonia and Servia, two countries bordering on each other, should bear such close resemblance to the words which indicate a slave and a servant in most of the languages of Europe. To a cer- tain extent the connection may be traced. The word esclave is said to have been intro- duced into France in the eighth century, when ETYMOLOGY OF WORDS. 87 the nobles were rich in Sclavonian, or Slavo- nian, captives ; and hence originated the Ger- man, English, Italian, and Wallachian words, sclave, slave, schiavo, and schiave, with their de- rivatives. A similar connection probably sub- sists, though it may be somewhat more difficult to trace, between Servia and the words servus, serf, servant, and the like. With the gipsies collected about the boat at Mohacs were a few Hungarian and Slavian peasants, and some Ratze. This is a term given in Hungary, by way of reproach, to the disciples of the Greek church ; and emphati- cally to those congregating in the eastern part of Sclavonia, which has acquired the name of Ratza. In German and Hungarian it signifies a rat ; and possibly, having been first applied to some individual who forsook the Romish for the Greek heresy, it has now been extended to include all Greek Christians. If this conjec- ture be correct, the fact is curious, when regarded with reference to the application of the word rat to a political renegade in our own country. When a Greek becomes a Ro- man Catholic he is called Ruthen, a name de- rived from the Rutheni, the early inhabitants of the provinces of Beregh and Marmaros, who were the first in Hungary to acknowledge 88 WATER CARRIERS. the pope. Throughout the kingdom the dis- ciples of the Greek church are numerous, owing to the vicinity of Servia, Bulgaria, Wallachia, Moldavia, and Russia on the one side, and of Illyria and Greece on the other, where the same creed is professed. On the Slavian bank our attention was often arrested by the merry, motley groups of men, women, and children, reposing in the sun or sporting by the side of the river. Children seem to be the principal water-carriers. Several had curved boughs over their shoulders, with a hook at each end, from which was suspend- ed an earthen vessel, resembling in form those used 'n India with the characteristic bhangy. The only difference is, that the Hungarian water-pot is of superior manufacture and of grey earth, while the Indian vessels are the rudest possible and always of a red color. The second night was spent with all the discomfort of the previous one, on benches and tables, without change of clothes ; and at three o'clock in the morning we got under weigh by the light of the moon, which shone bril- liantly as we passed the site of Malatis, where the town of Illok now stands. It was six o'clock when we reached Neusatz, on the left bank, united by a bridge of boats to Peter- PETERWARDEIN. MARKET. 89 wardein on the right. These form conjointly one of the largest towns of Sclavonia, contain- ing between twenty and thirty thousand in- habitants. The latter stands on an eminence on the site of the old Acunum, and is one of the strongest of the forts which command the Danube ; its modern name is derived from Peter the Hermit, who was born here. The traveller is shown the marks of a Roman mine, extending hence to the nearest point of the Theis, and, at no great distance, the site of the ancient Cusum. Here we stopped for an hour and a half, and walked through the town. Most of the houses consist of only a ground floor ; few exceed a single story in height ; yet the chief plat% makes a very respectable appearance, and the inn is tolerably comfortable. The market women filled the square with fruit-baskets overflowing with apples, plums, peaches, and grapes, of which they sold for a halfpenny as many as one person could eat. Milk, cream, butter, and eggs, were in great abundance; and large barbel and sturgeon were carried about on poles, like the bunches of the grapes of Esh- col, between two men. Few of the people could talk German, and their Slavonian was un- intelligible to us ; yet we contrived to arrange VOL. I. F 90 CARLOVICH. SERVIAN GAZETTE. our bargains, for the acts of buying and selling proved mutually agreeable ; and where the will exists, a way is seldom wanting. Near Peterwardein, on the site of Rictium, at the foot of some hills, is Carlovich, famous for its wines, but still more so for the victory which Prince Eugene of Savoy, at the head of the Austrian troops, gained over the Turks in the beginning of the last century. At a short distance from the town, our attention was di- rected to the field of Mariosna, where general Brenna was ordered by Eugene to beguile the Turks into a defile, while the prince went round to attack them in the rear ; the general, however, was seized by the enemy, and hung up to a tree. Here we took on board a Hano- verian, dressed in the modern costume of a Turkish official. He was for some time director of a printing-office at Belgrade, where he had six presses, sent out from London, by means of which a paper called Novine Serbske, the Ser- vian Gazette, still continues to be edited every week in the Illyrian language. The dress of this Hanoverian, and the fact of his being an employe in a country so lately subject, and still tributary, to the Porte, afforded the first indi- cation of our approach to Turkey. Pursuing our course under a brilliant sky, . THE RIVER THEIS. 91 we came to the confluence of the Theis and Danube. The former river was known to the ancients under the names of Tibiscus, Tibesis, Parthicus, Pathissus, and Tisicinus ; and a Ger- man author says that its present appellation is formed from the Latin Pathissus, the first sylla- ble being dropped. It takes its rise in the Car- pathian mountains, in N. Lat. 47, and E. Long. 24, just at the point where the Romans had their most advanced outposts. Thence it winds its way over many hundred miles, receiving several smaller rivers, and fertilizing the plains of Pannonia, till it falls into the Danube oppo- site the ancient Acumincum. As described by ancient writers, so we see this vast mass of water, and so will it be seen by generations yet unborn. Cities and the works of art have their short-lived day and vanish; but the great outlines of nature remain, with little vari- ation, as the deluge of Noah left them. Age deepens their furrows and may change their complexion, but the features remain to be iden- tified. The sands of the Theis, as well as those of the Danube and several of the streams that flow into it, are auriferous, and give employ- ment to thousands of gipsies, who earn a scanty livelihood by collecting the particles of gold. F 2 92 GOLDEN FLEECE. These are separated from the sand and dirt with which they are mixed by placing the whole mass on the top of an inclined^ plane, on which grooves are cut crossways; water is then thrown over it, and the heavy particles of gold settle in the grooves, while the silicious and calcareous are washed down. Sometimes a woollen cloth, or a sheepskin, is spread over the board ; and it is not improbable, as has been observed by one of the most amusing of mo- dern travellers,* that the custom almost iden- tical with this and prevalent in Colchis, of plac- ing unprepared skins in the bed of the Phasis to collect particles of gold, gave rise to the dedication of fleeces to the gods, and to the fabulous history of the Argonauts, as far as re- lated to the golden fleece. Passing the Theis, we entered Banat, the last province of Hungary, which extends on the left bank of the Danube as far as Walla- chia. Its governors were first called Bann, which signifies a regent ; hence the terri- tory they governed was designated Banat, or the regency. All the southern parts of this province and of Sclavonia, as they border on the Ottoman dominions, are divided into military districts, colonized by soldiers and placed under Dr. Clarke. BANAT. MILITARY COLONIES. 93 martial law. Every male is by birth a soldier, obliged to serve a certain time to learn his duties, and ever afterwards to hold himself ready at any moment to leave the plough or the loom for the sword and musket. Thus, a formidable militia is maintained at very little expense, and every house on the frontier of the kingdom becomes a watch-tower and a bar- rack. These regiments are called Grenzer, from Grenze, a frontier. The capital of the Banat is Temesvar, which stands forty or fifty miles from the banks of the Danube. The soil is rich ; fruit trees, in particular, florish in it ; and the silkworm is propagated with great success ; but the coun- try is low and level, surrounded on every side, except the east, by rivers ; consequently, the air is damp, and the people are subject to ague and fever. The inhabitants consist of Illyrians,* who are of Scythian origin ; of Wal- lachians ; of gipsies ; and of Germans. A voyage of twenty or thirty miles brought us to Semlin, on the southern frontier of Hungary. This town contains about three thousand inha- bitants, and a tolerable inn, but is without any object of interest. It carries on a considerable * The name of Illyrians is applied indiscriminately to the inhabitants of Syrmia and the Banat. 94 SEMLIN. THE SAVE. trade in wool, which gives employment to a num- ber of females. They wash the skins, standing up to their knees in the Danube, and singing merrily their national airs ; then lay them out on the grass to dry, and, with amphibious non- chalance, return to the water. Situate near the confluence of two rivers, Semlin was called by the Romans Ad Confluentes. The Save, here falling into the Danube, separates Sclavonia from Servia, and thus forms the boundary be- tween Austria and Turkey. After receiving it, the Danube, already augmented by the influx of the Drave, the Theis, and various tributary streams, becomes much larger; and when not divided into two or more branches, as it gene- rally is, may be nearly a mile in width. As the steamer arrived at Semlin early in the day, some of the party were anxious to avail themselves of the afternoon to see the opposite town of Belgrade ; accordingly, they waited on the general commandant, who, after starting many difficulties, gave them permis- sion to cross the water to the late capital of Servia, warning them, at the same time, that, if absent after sunset, they would be condemn- ed to a quarantine of ten days, as all persons entering the Austrian dominions from Turkey AUSTRIAN QUARANTINE. 95 or Wallachia are compelled to submit to that penance, even when the plague is not raging : when it is, the period is extended to twen- ty days. With regard to Turkey this precau- tion is necessary, because no means are adopted in that country by which it can be accurately ascertained when and where plague exists. With reference to Wallachia the measure may. be regarded as purely political. Since a spirit of liberalism prevails in that and the neighbour- ing principality of Moldavia, the Austrian go- vernment does not wish more communication than is inevitable to subsist between the sub- jects of those states and its own ; therefore, the notorious unhealthiness of the climate is made a pretext to establish a quarantine. As no official intimation of the plague had been received at Semlin, nor of an infectious fever which report stated to be then raging in the principalities, the period of incarceration was fixed at ten days ; and to this we should have subjected ourselves by merely setting foot in Belgrade, but for a provision established by custom, which enables travellers to go over from Semlin for a few hours by express per- mission, accompanied by health officers who, on their return, make affidavit that the strangers 96 VISIT TO BELGRADE. consigned to their charge neither bought nor sold, nor touched any person nor article sup- posed to convey infection. Our party consisted of three English gentle- men, three boatmen, two health officers, and a douanier, whose avowed object was to see that we brought back no contraband goods, though he likewise did salutary duty in the quarantine department. All these were provided with long sticks ; and, from the moment we set foot on Turkish soil to the time we left it, they formed a cordon round us, preventing com- munication with others by means of their ex- tended batons, and ordering us to halt when- ever a crowd, or any other cause, placed us in danger of contact. Seen from the water, the fortress wears rather a commanding aspect, being situate on a steep eminence overlooking the Save and the Danube; but on close in- spection the effect is different ; all is decay, and dirt, and misery. As we approached, some Turkish soldiers, sitting on the ramparts with their legs under them, dressed in the modern uniform and smoking long pipes, surveyed us with curiosity. One of them courteously put his hand to his forehead, and we returned his salaam. Landing under the fort, we ascended a long TURKISH MINARETS. 97 winding flight of steps which leads to the resi- dence of the pasha and the troops. Flags, flying in various directions in honor of the Mussulman sabbath, enlivened the gloomy bat- tlements and gave an air of animation to the scene ; while the few Moslims resident here were decked in their gayest robes because it was Friday. As we ascended, the first Turk- ish minaret we had ever beheld appeared before us ; it rose from a square unsightly mosque, built like a common house with a sloping tiled roof; and soon after, several others burst upon the view. Their light and tapering forms and their summits, tipped with silver-colored metal glittering in the sun, confer on the Servian city a peculiar elegance ; for though the architec- tural beauty of a minaret is not comparable to that of an English church spire, nor is it so well suited to our style of building, yet, regarded en masse, the minarets of the east communicate to the cities they adorn a more striking effect than our spires yield to our towns. Reaching the summit of the hill, we found ourselves on a table land entirely occupied by the fort and its appurtenances. The old tur- reted walls are crumbling into dust ; the store- houses are falling into decay ; and the stores, which we looked at through the broken case- 98 PASHA'S PALACE. ments, were limited to a few guns thrown care- lessly on the ground and fragments of gun- carriages fit only for firewood. Some shot, enough to make a single artillery pyramid, lie about, and probably serve as bowls to amuse the soldiers in their idle hours. The pasha's palace, house, hut, or ruin, (for it were difficult to decide with what species in the genus of human dwellings it should be classed,) stands in one corner of the fort, and boasts but a single floor. The ascent is by a flight of ten or twelve steps ; these conduct to a large saloon with only three walls, the fourth side being open towards the citadel. In this sat eight or ten servants and a Moorish slave with white wands: while we were surveying them, a clapping of hands, the usual mode of summoning domestics in Turkey, was heard; and in an instant the whole party jumped up and walked in pro- cession to their master's apartment. On one side of this open hall is a single room ; on the other are two, in which, as we learned, the pasha lives. Through a falling window the inside may be seen, with its vaulted roof and a few rude arabesque paintings, now almost obli- terated from the walls ; but no furniture is visible. Behind this are the sleeping apart- ments, which we could not explore; but we SERVIAN COSTUME. 99 saw quite enough to attest the nakedness of the land. In one part of the fort is a burial-ground re- served for persons of distinction. Some stones, rudely sculptured and inscribed with Turkish characters, indicate that the dead they would commemorate died in the faith of Mohammed. Not far hence stood a female's palanquin. It was about four feet long and three high ; and was carried with poles, like a sedan-chair. In the front was a long slit through which the lady might see without being seen ; and the sides were furnished with Venetian blinds, an- swering the same purpose. The fort was by no means full of soldiers. A few were scattered here and there ; some playing at the game which the Scotch call put- ting the stone; others sauntering, gossiping, and smoking. They all looked less martial than the citizens who blended with them ; for they had no weapons, while each of the latter was armed. The dress of the Servians differs very lit- tle from that of the Turks in general. It consists of a pair of large trowsers, with short boots ; a loose robe buttoning over the neck and flowing down to the feet ; and a long toga of cloth. A turban of colored or white 100 TURKISH FEMALE COSTUME. cotton made into a twist thicker than the finger is carelessly folded round the head ; the poorest wear only a red scull cap. A pair of pistols, with heavy brass-headed stocks, and a yataghan, or long, straight sword, complete the costume. Most of the men cherish their mustaches, and some few the beard. A man in a gaudy scarlet dress was pointed out as chief musician to the pasha ; and another was known as a person of rank because accompanied by a servant bearing a pipe, with a handsome mouthpiece of rhino- ceros-horn ; his face was scarred with the wound of a sword, which seemed to tell a tale of chivalry or war. A few, but very few, per- sons are seen in the Frank dress. We had not proceeded very far before we met some of the softer sex. They were Mos- limahs.* A long white cloth covered the head and was brought over the face so as to conceal * The Arabic word *iUJ (Islam), applied to the religion of Mohammed, is derived from *)Lj (salaam), a reverential obeisance > Juu^o (mooslim, commonly written moslim), the active participle, of which moslimah is the feminine, signifies a follower of Islam, or a devout religionist. The plural of this is i4.l_uLt) (mooslimeen). .UJuuc* (moosliman) is an irregular word formed by the affix of the Persian plural termi- nation to an Arabic singular noun ; and this word, corrupted SERVIAN WOMEN. 101 the mouth and lower part of the nose, while it was left sufficiently open to exhibit a light, olive complexion, like the Persian, and dark eyes, set off, as in all eastern countries, by anti- mony smeared over the edges of the eyelids : their feet were protected by yellow slippers turned up at the toe, like those of the Chinese, and open at the heel. One woman of rank, at- tended by a servant, was dressed in a bright scarlet robe, with the veil above described. As we stopped to observe her, our guides hurried us forward, urging that the Turks would not suffer their women to be looked at, and might shoot us if we indulged curiosity. The Servian women, not professing Mohammedanism, be- long to the Greek church ; they dress like those on the opposite coast of Hungary, and are re- garded with contempt by the Moslim females, whom, however, as housewives, they greatly excel, for their neat and tidy houses can easily be distinguished from those of the Turks, which are dirty, dilapidated, and comfortless in the extreme. Still, it must be admitted, to the dishonor of these professors of Christianity, that in many respects the character of Greek Christians is inferior to that of Mohammedans ; into Mussulman, is used colloquially in the singular number by the Persians and Indians, from whom we have adopted it. 102 BOSNIAN HORSES. BAZAAR. and all who know both nations will rely rather on the word of a Turk than on that of a Ser- vian. We had already left the fort, with its ut- ter desolation, and were descending to the town on the side of the hill opposite to that we had climbed, when we encountered a party en- gaged in breaking in horses. In this art the Servians are well skilled ; but they are incon- siderate of their animals, using a bit, the se- verity of which so distresses them that the head is thrown up, tie* au vent ; an attitude which most of the Turkish horses assume. Those we saw displayed a good deal of blood : they were of the Bosnian race, small, strong- built, and with good figures. The bullocks are of a fine white breed, remarkably large and handsome. There are no good springs in the fort ; con- sequently, all the water is brought from the river by sakqjecs,* in barrels placed on wheels ; and a large filtering-stone is a necessary ap- pendage to every house. Entering the town, we walked through the principal bazaar, which exhibited a busy scene, notwithstanding it was the Mussulman sabbath. The shops are entirely open towards the street, * Wuter-carriiTs. TOWN OF BELGRADE. 103 having neither doors nor windows ; and the floors are a little raised, and covered with goods exposed for sale. The houses are built of wood or of bricks ; some entirely of one, some of the other, material. They are wretched habita- tions, many of them worse than the cabins of Ireland ; and a few stand under a sand hill, several feet below the surface of the ground, and are fit for animals only, being of a construction so rude that they cannot possibly shelter the inmates from the inclemency of the weather. The chimneys are of various shapes : some are quite crooked, made of W 7 ood and perched on sloping thatched roofs ; others, again, are long cylinders of brickwork, with spiral lines of red, blue, and white, alternating with one another. Prince Milosch has two houses in the best part of the town. One of these is a neat build- ing with green jalousies, but very unlike a royal residence. Over the door is his coat of arms ; and in a glass case, preserved with the same honor which the Roman Catholics pay to their little madonnas and saints, is the revered seal of the grand sultan, affixed to the firman constituting him prince of Servia. The other house has been occupied by the civil go- vernor of the city, Efrem Obrenovich, ever since his brother Milosch deserted Belgrade and 104 SERVIAN IMPORTS. made Kragojevacz his capital. Just opposite, stands the Greek church, where the prince and his people meet to worship ; for the Greek is the national religion of Servia, and the few Turks residing here are connected with the gar- rison of the fort, which the sultan still retains in his own hands. Close to the sacred edifice is the abode of the archbishop, a miserable dwell- ing, wholly destitute of comfort. The only building of respectable appearance is the new custom-house, still unfinished, opposite to which were anchored several vessels laden with com- mon pottery and salt from Moldavia. Hitherto Wallachia, which has the largest quantity of the last-named article, has supplied this market ; but latterly, the government have undertaken to work the mines on their own account. They forgot, however, to buy those of Moldavia, which might have been purchased for a very trifling sum ; and the consequence is, that the Moldavians have undersold them and filled the market, getting rid of all their stock, while the Wallachian salt is lying on hand. Before leaving the town, we paid a visit to an Englishman, who informed us that he had been in Belgrade a month, and that he purposed, with his wife, to pass the winter there ; that he was treated with the greatest respect by Turks DATURA STRAMONIUM. 105 and Servians, and that he found himself as com- fortable as he desired. There was a mystery about him which we endeavoured to fathom, for, as a fellow-countryman, he called forth our sympathies ; but our efforts failed. That an Englishman should voluntarily fix his residence in such a spot seemed passing strange. By the bank of the river, and in various other little desert patches in the vicinity, we ob- served large quantities of the tamarisk, rising to a height of seven or eight feet, with a top like asparagus ; also of the datura stramonium, or common thorn-apple, which grows as a weed and, lower down the Danube, quite covers the banks, forming almost a jungle between Ibrail and Galatz. For its narcotic properties it is used medicinally ; and sometimes admi- nistered in cases of leprosy. From the Turkish shore we rowed in a few minutes to the Hungarian, and landed under a watch tower, one of the many which line the bank of the Save, constituting a sanitary cordon against an enemy more formidable than the Turks. Here a carriage was in readiness to take us back to Semlin as speedily as possible, lest, the fatal hour transgressed, we should be doomed to quarantine. Our road lay across a common converted by recent rains into a morass. The ve- VOL. i. G 106 CZERNI GEORGES. hicle consisted of a few rails fastened to a frame on four wheels, in which some hay, covered by a blanket, formed a seat not very uncomfortable. As we drove along, our attention was attracted by some birds flying over our heads. They proved to be a heron and a covey of plovers ; birds loving desolation, and therefore Belgrade. At the same time we met a flock of sheep with short pointed horns, preceded by three rams, one of which was tied to a goat, who headed the party, dragging his prisoner with all the energy of an officer carrying a criminal to justice. The culprit moved sluggishly along, lagging as much as his rope would allow, and uttering a doleful sound like the crying of a child. We reached our destination before the even- ing closed in. Our appearance in such a ve- hicle, in travelling costume, and covered with dirt, may be supposed to have indicated any thing but dignity ; yet we heard a little child, unaccustomed in this Ultima Thule of civiliza- tion to see any but Hungarian peasants, ex- claim in a note of surprise and fear, as he gazed on us, Edelmann, Edelmann ! or, Noble- man, Nobleman ! In the early part of the present century Ser- via was governed by Czerni Georges, a native who had served in the Austrian army. En- MILOSCH OBRENOVICH. 107 raged at the atrocities which tfie Turks prac- tised on his countrymen, he resolved to free them from their state of thraldom, and assem- bled a small body of men, by means of whom he kept up a species of irregular warfare with the infidels. At length, his followers increasing, he openly rebelled against the sultan, and expelled his troops from the coun- try. In return, he was acknowledged as their prince by the Servians. Though he re- fused the title, maintaining the utmost sim- plicity of dress and habits, yet he was virtu- ally their head, and acted as a sovereign who had the good of his country at heart. He dis- ciplined a large body of troops according to the European system, dispensed justice with equity, and endeavoured to secure the independence of the province. The Porte was not indifferent to the conduct of her vassal, but more address and power than she possessed were requisite to re- gain and maintain possession of Servia. She, therefore, with much wisdom, decided to re- sign it quietly into the hands of a governor of its own, exacting from him a tribute and suf- fering him to have the entire management of the internal policy, while she garrisoned the forts and controlled the external relations. In the mean time, Czerni Georges died, or fell, G 2 108 PROSPECTS OF SERVIA. as some say, by the hand of Milosch Obreno- vich, a cattle driver. This man first distin- guished himself in 1807 as a bold insurgent in the insurrection headed by the above-named patriot, to whom he was greatly inferior in point of ability. When the Porte resolved to recognize its rebellious province as a separate principality, Milosch was the most influen- tial person in the country, having gradually risen into power ; and policy dictated that he should be nominated its ruler, under the title of Prince of Servia. This was accordingly done; and in 1827 the dignity was guaran- teed to him and his heirs by Turkey and Russia ; but his views are said to be now too liberal to please either of those courts. He is nearly sixty years of age, and has two sons and two daughters : the names of the sons are Milan and Michael. In its liberation from the direct control of Turkey, a new era has dawned on Servia. Mi- losch is desirous of conferring on his people the benefits of a constitution, and last year he met for the first time the unfledged representative of a national assembly ; but he has to contend with unnumbered difficulties ; the want of effi- cient civil officers and of money, pride, preju- dice, and the natural hatred of innovation. Still, FREEDOM OF SLAVES. 109 something has been already effected. His at- tention has been turned to a simplification of the laws, and the mode of taxation ; he has fixed the legal demand on each member of the principality; released the serfs from thral- dom ; and declared every Servian free. How would the spirits have rejoiced of the ancient Servi* and Slavi, men whose names are iden- tified with servitude and slavery in every language of Europe, could they have anti- cipated the day which, under the benign in- fluence of Christian princes, should proclaim liberty to the Serf and freedom to the Slave ! * The Servi inhabited Servia, and the Sclavi, or Slavi, the adjoining province of Sclavonia. The Sclavonians, now sub- ject to Austria, have already been liberated from the slavery under which their forefathers groaned. Though the govern- ment of this empire does not merit the epithet benign when compared with that of England, yet it does so when con- trasted with the iron rule of the ancient conquerors of Scla- vonia. See pages 86 and 87- no CHAPTER IV. VOYAGE ON THE DANUBE. FROM SEMLIN TO ORSCHOVA. Leave Semlin. Morning view of Belgrade. Course of Da- nube. Semendria. Triangular fort. Island of Ostrova. Palanka. Eagles. Moldova. Difficulties of navigation Complaints of passengers. Description of village. Peasants. Anecdote. Copper mines. Leave steamer. Embark on small boat. Sailors. Kolumbatz. Scenery. Storm. Watch-towers. Sentinels. Their huts. Shoes. Provision bags. Boat strikes. Berzasta. Beautiful scenery. Projected road. Ridge of rocks. Geological phenomena. Perilous navigation. Sailors' characteristic expressions. Three lines of rocks. The Graben. Pro- jected canal. Exquisite view. Island of Poretz. Turkish and Banatian boats. Succession of lakes. Plawischewitz. Inefficiency of Sailors. Hospitality of Mr. Vasarkelyi. Re-embark on boat. Roman road. Tablets and inscrip- tions. Casarn. New road. View of river. Costume of Wallachian girls. Fissure in rock. Vedranische Hblle. Beautiful scenery Arrival at Orschova. Situa- tion and surrounding country. Carpathian mountains. Quarantine building. Delay of baggage-boats. Excursion to Mehadia. Cart. Coachmen. The Czerna. Aque- VIEW OF BELGRADE. Ill duct. Scenery. Mehadia. Ruins. Singular printing. Mode of hanging gates. Dress of Banatian peasants. Baths. Tradition regarding Hercules. AT a very early hour on the following morn- ing we were summoned to return to the steamer, the captain having resolved to start at 5 A.M., though the voyage to Moldova was not expected to occupy more than eight hours. We weighed anchor with the promise of a fine day and, passing quickly the mouth of the Save which we had yesterday explored, found ourselves again under the walls of the once proud, but now fallen, Belgrade. The sun was in the act of rising; and the sky was gilded with the brightest orange hues deepening into the lovely color of the golden orb itself, but without its dazzling splendor. Just above, a few dark purple clouds were forming themselves into every conceivable shape, while here and there they opened to display a roseate, or brighter crimson, or some other indescribable and in- imitable, tint. The moon was visible ; and her crescent form, the emblem of Turkey, yet lingered over the city. The elegant mi- narets of the mosques, while pointing to the glorious sight above, still attracted our atten- tion below, as they cast a magic beauty over a spot to which they yielded its single charm. 112 SEMENDRIA. The castle of the pasha rising in the rear, with this architectural forest in the foreground, seemed like the dynasty it represents, decayed and ready to fall, yet proud and assuming ; now, indeed, weak and powerless, yet exult- ing in the ancient glories with which poetry and history invest it. The Danube, enlarged to nearly three-quar- ters of a mile in width, winds its way, now between hills and now through a cultivated plain ; at one time, separating into two and even three or four branches, forming islands of various sizes ; at another, collecting its strag- gling waters into one vast stream, and rolling them down slowly and majestically towards the sea. Pursuing a south-eastern course, it passes Semendria, the Aureus Mons of the Romans. The city, once designated by so lofty a name, is now no more. Another has been built on the site, and has fallen in its turn under the hand of time. Of this last all that survives is a curious triangular fort in ruins ; twenty-three of whose towers are standing. One of the three sides fronts the water; and if repaired and properly garrisoned, its guns would command the navigation of the river : now it serves only as a token of the fleeting nature of all worldly grandeur, and as an indication of the ARRIVAL AT MOLDOVA. 113 tottering state of the Mohammedan dynasty. Soon after passing this ruin, the Danube as- sumes a north-eastern direction, and divides to form the island of Ostrova, about twelve miles in length ; after which a pretty curve in its course exposes to view the town of Palanka in Banat. Here the country is beautiful. On both sides low hills, covered with foliage or cultivated fields, line the banks ; and planta- tions of vines and Indian corn bespeak the fertility of the soil. The rock is sandstone. Large flights of wild ducks flew over our heads, migrating to their winter quarters ; while some eagles, the first we saw, told how far we had wandered towards the countries familiar with this kingly race. In two hours more we arrived at Moldova, where we were informed that the shallows and rocks would not allow the steamer to pro- ceed further, and that a small English boat, commanded by a British sailor, would be ready to carry us on at four o'clock the following morning. Here the danger of the Danube navigation commences, and the next sixty miles are those which have opposed so many difficulties to the establishment of a steam com- munication between Constantinople and Vienna. Before leaving our vessel, the passengers agreed 114 DESCRIPTION OF VILLAGE. that it was due to the directors and to future travellers to enter in a book, kept for that pur- pose, their complaints as to mismanagement. These they classed under four heads: First, the intrusion of gentlemen into the ladies' apartment ; Secondly, smoking in the cuddy ; Thirdly, the admission of " second-class " pas- sengers to sit and dine in the first cabin ; and Fourthly, shooting on deck, to the great alarm of the ladies. As Moldova does not boast an inn, the tra- vellers had no alternative but to sleep on board the steamer. We rambled, however, among the cottages, and were struck with the entire absence of paint. Not a single door, window, shutter, nor gate is painted. The peasants are too poor to bestow so much of ornament on their houses, which are limited to a ground-floor, and are roofed with wood, arranged in small pieces like tiles. A double row of mulberry trees, extending through the village, indicates that the silkworm is cherish- ed as its ablest and most productive manufac- turer. The inhabitants are a simple unsophis- ticated race, so little acquainted with the civi- lized modes of western Europe, that our cap- tain, who resides among them, quaintly observ- ed that we were in " liarbary ;" while another QUIT THE STEAMER. 115 man remarked that we were now " at the world's end." A villager, who sold us a draught of milk, insisted on our sharing with him some baked Indian corn and, forcing into our hands the rest of his frugal meal, he added, with true liberality, " I have a few plums ; you must accept them also." Within a quarter of an hour's walk are some mines which yield three hundred thousand pounds of copper annually, and give employ- ment to many of the poor occupants of this and the neighbouring villages. At four o'clock in the morning, the captain of the steamer weighed anchor to return to Semlin ; and at 5 A. M. his late passengers went on board the little bark that was to convey them to Orschova, a voyage of fifty-four miles, usually in fine weather accomplished in a day. The boat drew twenty inches of water and carried a mast ; but was not large enough to take the luggage, which was sent, with the heavy merchandise, by a flat-bottomed barge. It was covered, and admitted ten persons in- side. Our party consisted of twelve, exclusive of eight boatmen and the pilot, or captain. The wind was contrary, and the rowers pulled as if they had never before held an oar ; no two keeping time. The fact was, they were pea- 116 VOYAGE IN SMALL BOAT. sants taken from the field or the tool, and as little accustomed to row as their own buffaloes. One was a butcher, and one a blacksmith ; two were gipsies, and the rest laborers. Before passing St. Helena on the left, we came to the island of Orlovicz, which is nearly four miles in length and said to contain the most productive land in the neighbourhood. Beyond this, a black conical rock, called Baba- gaya, rises out of the river, like a sentinel to guard its rights and warn the voyager of com- ing dangers. A little further, on the south and Servian bank, most picturesquely situate at the foot of a chain of steep rocky hills, stands the fortress of Kolumbatz, whose three massive towers of granite, grey with age, speak of days when the prowess of the Moslim was terrible in Europe. . At this point, two branches of the Danube embracing the island of Plovicz unite, and rush through a narrow defile in the moun- tains ; the river, which in other places extends over three quarters of a mile in width, is here contracted within the limits of four hundred yards; and the hills on either shore, rising more perpendicularly than before, approach each other. Through this pass the wind blew boisterously. The waters had formed themselves into waves MOUNTAIN PASS. STORM. 117 under its influence, and the motley crew could ill weather the storm : though the stream was with us, they lost ground, and at length re- solved to tow the vessel from the Hungarian side; accordingly, they jumped out and waded to land ; but the difficulty of scrambling along the bank, where a road is only in process of formation, was great; in many places they were compelled to have recourse to their hands, and in others climbed over masses of large broken rock which formed so bad a stepping-place that the danger of falling was imminent. The ob- stacles thus opposed to the sailors were great ; and on such ground they pulled with little suc- cess against the wind; while the clouds became darker and denser, and reminded us that the equinox was not far distant. Soon, however, an opening in the mountains afforded more space to the angry elements, whose violence comparatively subsiding, we were dragged through the dangerous pass in safety. It has already been mentioned that the whole of this coast from Semlin to the frontier of Wallachia is under martial law and lined with watch-towers, erected at intervals of about a mile. In each of these two sentinels are posted, who, by turns, keep guard against intruders from Servia, and prevent infringement of the 118 QUARANTINE CORDON. quarantine laws. They belong to the colonies above alluded to, and serve for six months at a time, once in their lives ; after which, they are free, except on emergencies, when they must again take duty; but they cannot be sent away from their lands, unless during war. Two of these men called themselves Wallachians, telling us they were not Hunga- rians, though in the Austrian army ; and they persisted in maintaining that the spot on which they then stood was Wallachia, not Hungary. On this latter point they were mistaken, for Banat is a province of Hungary ; but the dis- trict in which our conversation was held is called the Wallachi-Illyrian district, probably because it was originally peopled from the neighbour- ing principality of Wallachia by persons whose descendants adopted the Illyrian language. The dwellings of these poor fellows are form- ed, like Norwegian houses, of the trunks of trees, roughly hewn and placed one upon another, then pitched in the interior; the door and a hole in the top serve to let out the smoke. The hut is usually built under an overhanging rock, and thus sheltered from the extreme severity of the winds to which this mountain- ous tract is subject. In common with all the peasantry, these men wore shoes which are no- ACCIDENT. SCENERY. 119 thing more than soles strapped over the ankles and toes by means of narrow slips of leather cut parallel to one another. Their whole stock of provisions appeared to be a few pounds of meal, contained in a skin of which the fur was outside. Close to the fortress of Kolumbatz a sand- bank stretches across the river, sometimes higher and sometimes lower, according to cir- cumstances. On this, as there were only eigh- teen inches of water while our boat drew twenty, we struck: and some time elapsed, and many fears were excited, before we could re- sume our course. With all these untoward circumstances, it is not to be wondered at that it was near noon before we reached Berzasta, a Banatian village fifteen miles from Moldova. Here the country becomes more woody. The chesnut, that charm of English scenery, is want- ing ; but beech, ash, and elm, with a few limes and oaks, cover the hills to their very summits. The wild walnut, too, adds its rich green foliage to the forest, at the foot of which a thousand children of Flora scatter their seeds, and dif- fuse their fragrance. Sometimes the moun- tains appear to separate and stand in columns to guard the venerable Ister in his progress to the turbid Euxine ; at others, they form one con- 120 NEW ROAD TO ORSCHOVA. tinuous chain, varying in height and coloring : here, rude and irregular, they rise abruptly from the water; there, though less frequently, the ascent is sloping and gradual : in one place, the rock stands out isolated and bare, terrifying by its vastness and naked barrenness ; in another, it recedes, richly clothed with verdure varied by the most exquisite tints, in which scarlet- creepers blend their brilliant hues. Along the Banatian side a road is in pro- cess of formation, which will provide a better communication than now exists between Mol- dova and Orschova : but at present, only the rough outline of a path is traced in the rock, through which a great part of the projected line must be cut ; when it is accomplished, travellers will be able to enjoy this lovely scenery without subjecting themselves to the perils of navigating the river. The work has been long suspended for want of funds ; or, at least, it has been confined to a small tract nearer Orschova, where nine miles have already cost fourteen thousand pounds; and sixty thou- sand more are required to perfect the under- taking. The government appropriate a portion of the produce of the salt-mines to the improve- ment of the Danube and its banks; but the sum is inconsiderable ; and it may be doubted REMARKABLE FORMATION. 121 whether any plan, having for its object a faci- lity of communication which involves an inter- change of thought and knowledge, would meet with encouragement from Austria. Near Berzasta is a range of low rocks, form- ing a long ridge, like a huge crocodile's back, in the middle of the river. This once extend- ed considerably farther ; but on the Banatian side it has been blown up, and a channel, six feet in depth, has been excavated. Beyond this, a large rock, called Bevoli, rises several feet out of the water ; and at some little dis- tance the right bank exhibits a curious forma- tion. The lowest part is hidden by trees : in the centre is seen a thick and almost hori- zontal layer of red marble, on which rests another and parallel one of lime. Above these, all is confusion. The superior strata seem to have been tossed in the gambols of nature in every possible direction, and to have alighted in positions defying description. The effect is beautiful, and cannot fail to call forth the ad- miration of every spectator. From Berzasta to Swinitza, a distance of fif- teen miles, the river pursues a southern course ; and it is between these limits that its naviga- tion is the most dangerous, with the exception of the Porte de Fer, beyond Orschova. With- VOL. i. H 122 DANGEROUS REEFS. in half a mile, three reefs of rocks, at some distance from one another, cross the Danube ; each effectually preventing the transit of boats except where a single narrow opening affords a passage to a small one ; at the same time the fall is considerable, being eleven feet in that half mile : the rapidity of the stream is there- fore accelerated, and it requires no ordinary skill to pilot a vessel between the rocks. We saw and heard the roaring of the breakers at a distance ; and, curiously enough, they curled their heads to meet us ; for such was the gale of wind in our teeth, that the waves were blown contrary to the course of the current. The sailors encouraged one another in the Illyrian tongue to encounter the mighty rush of waters " with lusty sinews," each reproach- ing his fellows with idleness, and referring to his own prowess. This is the Banatian fashion : the English sailor has his mode ; the Neapolitan cries out " Macaroni ;" the Greek invokes his saints; and the Indian screams " Ram, Ram." In each case the words used are different, but the object is the same. The burden of the song is, " Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast." The first of the lines of rock referred to PROJECTED CANAL. 123 is called Izlas, and the last Graben.* They are all seen when the water is low ; but as it was high when we crossed, only one or two isolated points exhibited themselves amidst the white foam of the breakers. For a steamer to pass these stony ramparts at all seasons is, of course, impossible ;f but it is in contemplation to make a canal by taking in a portion of the river, twenty or thirty yards in width and twelve hundred in length, building a wall in the water, and at the same time deepening the channel. It is feared, however, that the vast masses of ice which float down the Danube may carry away this barrier. To place the matter beyond a doubt, a piece of the projected wall was raised two years ago ; but it proved to be too low and the ice floated over it, so that the experiment yet remains to be tried. Near this point, one feature, out of many most striking and beautiful, arrests attention. In the midst of rich foliage on the mountains, a solitary rock rises with a bold bluff outline, * Graben is probably so called on account of its having proved a watery grave to many ; from the German Grab, a grave. t The Argo steamer, however, once effected a passage, when the river was very full : and the Pannonia has per- formed a similar feat since these notes were penned. H 2 124 BEAUTIFUL SCENERY. its sides rugged, bare, and perpendicular; it outtops all the neighbouring hills, and the summit is clothed with a few stunted trees, like the straggling hairs on the head of age. As far as the Graben, the Danube continues to wind for some leagues through a long and narrow defile; its waters being sixty feet in depth : but immediately beyond, on rounding a corner, the voyager finds himself, as if by magic influence, placed on a vast lake, extend- ing many miles in length. The effect is elec- trical; and such the exquisite beauty of the scenery, that some of our party, familiar with the Rhine and the Rhone, acknowledged they had seen nothing comparable to this. On each side, hills rise, range after range, in long and beauteous lines, richly covered with luxuriant verdure, and tinged, when we saw them, with the iris-hues of autumn. On the right stands the little island of Poretz, known to the an- cients by the name of Ad Serapulos, on which a Greek church rears its elegant form; and just beyond, is the Servian town of Milanovacz, beautifully situate, and built within the last few years under Milosch. A little fleet of Turkish boats, with their white triangular sails bleached in the sun, was before us, in full view ; while on the opposite coast the town of LAKE OF THE GRABEN. 125 Swinitza, the red and black marble quarry of Graben, the solitary watch towers of the sanita, the solemn marching sentinel, and the light and simple forms of the Banatian boats, hol- lowed like the canoe of an Esquimaux out of a single tree, gave an air of variety and interest to the scene. Throughout the whole voyage from Mol- dova to Orschova, the river wears the appear- ance of a succession of lakes. Every turn pre- sents one of different shape and dimensions. That of the Graben may be about seven miles long, very nearly a mile broad,* and six feet deep, with a bottom of rock and sand ; at its extremity, on the left, are three towers, called Tricola, now serving only as a resting- place for the eye which loves the picturesque. From Swinitza the Danube flows for some distance in an easterly direction, and then nearly north, forming within a few miles three sides of a triangle. In such a course it is diffi- cult to understand how the wind could be al- ways against us, yet so it was ; and our voyage, expected to be completed in ten hours, had * The Danube here attains its extreme width which is five thousand and eighty-three feet. Its narrowest part is just beyond Dubova, where it is only three hundred and seventy feet wide. 126 RUSTIC SAILORS. already been extended over fourteen, and more than a quarter still remained to be accomplished when we reached, at 8 P. M., the little Banatian village of Plawischewitz. Much of our delay was, doubtless, attribut- able to the unfavorable weather ; but more to the gross inefficiency of the sailors, over whom the good-natured English captain had little influence and no authority. They rowed when they liked, and how they liked. Every now and then two left off, to smoke ; and when they had finished, two more took the pipe : now and then they slept a little; and at other times amused themselves with pulling six oars on one side, and two on the other. For four weeks this boat had not made the voyage from Mol- dova, because there had been no passengers. Owing to the paucity of these, the steam com- pany are unwilling to keep up an establishment of sailors ; and when travellers arrive for the lower Danube, peasants are enticed to row the boat for four days for the sum of five shillings. They go to Orschova and back again ; fifty- four miles with the stream, and as many against it ; this being probably their first and last essay with an oar. When the Danube becomes a fashionable resort, a better arrangement will, doubtless, be effected. ROMAN ROAD. 127 At Plawischewitz, the first object was to procure* accommodation for the travellers. No inn exists in the place ; but from Mr. Vasar- kelyi, the superintendent of works on the road above referred to, who resides here, occu- pying the only decent house in the village, we received the greatest possible civility. He made up three beds for the ladies, and supplied the gentlemen with hay and blankets, besides hospitably providing the whole party with supper and breakfast. Leaving our kind host at 8 A. M., we soon reached the remains of a road running for se- veral miles on the Servian bank of the Danube. This was the work of Trajan in his second campaign against the Dacians, who occupied the countries now called Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania; it was hewn out of the solid rock, in which, at regular intervals, are square holes, evidently intended to sustain pro- jecting bars, with a view to widen the road, every trace of which is now and then lost, and after a while recovered. What remains is three feet broad and three feet above the level of the river, when full. Eight miles beyond its first appearance, opposite to the village of Og- radena, is a tablet cut in the side of the hill, about four feet square and twelve from the INSCRIPTIONS. NEW ROAD. surface of the water ; on each side is a winged animal rampant, and above are four large roses, all in basso rilievo : this contains an in- scription which from the boat we deciphered with difficulty ; and had we landed, even for an instant, we should have subjected ourselves to a quarantine of ten days. The words are as follow ; IMP. CAES. DIVI NERV^ F. NERVA TRAJAN. AUGUST. GERM. PONTIFEX MAX. TRIB. P. O. XXXIII. Over another part of the road is a second si- milar tablet, with this inscription, TR. C^SARE AUSPICE AUGUST. IMPERATOR. TRIB. P. OP. XXXIII. IrEGIO IV 8CYTH. ET V MACEDONIC. At Casarn, about a mile from Plawischewitz, we disembarked to see the new road to Ors- chova. A great portion of it is excavated out of the natural rock, huge masses of which hang over, threatening destruction to some unwary passenger; but in other parts, sufficient soil exists for the work to proceed without digging into the stony strata. A parapet is raised on the outside, of marble found on the spot, which bears a fine polish. Six hundred men are em- ployed ; but in order to accomplish the under- SCENERY. REMARKABLE CAVE. 129 taking in a few years, a much larger number ought to be at work. As we walked along the shore, we met some young women in the Wallachian costume. They wore a loose blanket-robe, and a belt of worsted, of various colors, about eight inches wide, from which strings of the same material hung down to the knee, forming a fringe a foot and a half long. Their legs and feet were bare. Proceeding a little further, we climbed by a perilous staircase to a celebrated cave known by the name of Vedranische Holle, where three hundred Austrians under General Vedran defended themselves in the last Turkish war for three months, and then gained their point by capitulation. The entrance is by a narrow passage difficult of access, and eluding even a scrutinizing search ; and the cave is lighted by a little hole in the top, itself inaccessible, being the apex of a pyramidal rock seven hundred feet in height. It contains a powder-magazine and a well. Here the Danube makes a sudden turn, and the view is beautiful. An amphitheatre of hills, rising from fifteen hundred to three thousand feet, encloses the river, giving it the appear- ance of a lake, in the centre of which stands an 130 STERBUTZ. DUBOVA. island clothed with foliage. Forests of beech, ash, and elm deck the slopes, and the wild beauty of nature is nnmarred by the hand of man. After passing out of this appa- rently natural basin, the stream becomes much narrower ; and the hills, which are of limestone mixed with red marble and quartz, are more abrupt and less thickly covered with wood. The scenery is exceedingly wild. Here a huge fissure, known by the name of Punicova, passes through a rock nearly two thousand feet in width, and terminates in the opposite valley. On the Turkish coast, facing the fearful re- treat of Vedranische Holle, an exquisitely wooded mountain, called Sterbutz, rises to a height of two thousand three hundred and twenty-eight feet ; and further on, a number of hills, standing like stalactites en masse, yield variety to the scene. Among these a giant form towers here and there above the rest ; and, just beyond the village of Dubova, the beauty of the prospect is enhanced by the approach towards each other of the opposite banks, and the contraction of the river to its narrowest width, a hundred and twenty-three yards. Five miles further, being ten from our start- ing point, a little church, with a red tower VILLAGE OF ORSCHOVA. 131 and dome, points out the village of Ogradena, whence to Orschova the distance is six miles and the scenery less striking. On the left, a flat island intervenes between the main branch of the river and the hills ; and when these meet again, the latter have lost their height and beauty ; one bank assumes the character of a plain, and the other is less woody and romantic. Orschova is beautifully situate at the ex- treme south-east point of Hungary, on the frontier of Wallachia and Servia, and skirted by a common, covered with dwarf elder trees, not higher than small shrubs. The Danube flows at its feet ; and above, are the declining summits of the grand chain of the Carpathian mountains ; which, gently emerging near Pres- burg from the extensive plains of Hungary, make the circuit of its northern frontier, and, after separating it from Poland, assume a south- eastern course, dividing it from Moldavia; then, suddenly turning to the west, form its southern boundary on the Wallachian side. It is surprising that a locality so important should be the site of a petty village, and that the command of it should be a post of little honor ; but this is probably owing to the fact that the whole frontier is a colony of soldiers ; hence 132 DELAY OF STEAMER. no one place requires a strong military force. There is nothing in the village itself to attract attention, except a large open building with- out walls, the roof of which is supported by pillars. In the centre is a long narrow space, encircled by a wooden fence and appropriated to the exchange of goods with the Servians, who cross the water three days in the week to carry on their traffic within this railing, under the eye of health-officers. Articles not sup- posed to convey infection are purchased from them, and anything may be sold to them ; but the money received by the Banatians must be passed through a bowl of vinegar. As the steamer was not appointed to start from Scala Cladova for four days, and as there is no inn in that place, we decided to wait at Orschova, where the accommodation is better than could be anticipated from the size of the village. The reason for the apparently unne- cessary delay between Moldova and Cladova soon became manifest ; for our baggage-boats, with the passengers of the second cabin, instead of reaching Orschova in one day, or, as we did, in one and a half, did not arrive till the third. The fourth was necessarily occupied in clearing the goods through the frontier custom-house, and in other contingent business ; nor was it till EXCURSION TO MEIIADIA. 133 the fifth, at the hour originally fixed for the sailing of the steamer from Cladova, that they started from Orschova to join it. These boats might easily have proceeded on the fourth day ; as, owing to the rapidity of the stream, only a short time is required for the voyage to Cla- dova : but the sailors, who are accompanied by health-officers, are obliged to return before sunset or to submit to quarantine ; and the cause which accelerates their descent propor- tionately retards their course up again ; so that, unless they start at an early hour, they cannot regain home before night : hence no boat leaves Orschova except in the morning. One of our spare days was devoted to an excursion to Mehadia, a town about twenty miles north of Orschova, famous for its mi- neral baths. Though the rain poured in tor- rents, and the only conveyance to be procured was a cart without springs, composed of boards rudely nailed together, yet some of our party resolved on the expedition. A mat was thrown over the vehicle, and two trusses of straw formed a seat. Four little horses, not larger than ponies, were driven by two ragged pea- sants who acted as coachman and postilion. A hat, such as our coalheavers wear, shaded each dark gipsy -like visage ; while the dress of 134 THE RIVER CZERNA. these strange beings was a sort of blanketing, patched and repatched, and then torn and patched again, so that probably little remained of the original garb. With this equipage we started for Mehadia. The road lies through valleys, flanked by hills richly clothed with verdure, and doubly beautiful in their autum- nal tints. By its side flows the river Czerna, a rapid mountain stream, whose waters, in- creased by the rain, raged foamingly over every rock and stone that impeded their rushing course. On the left, we passed the ruins of an aqueduct, where six tall arches are still stand- ing. Opposite to this, some peasants were em- ployed in raising a temporary bridge by means of the trunks of trees, to supply the place of one which the torrent had carried away. The scenery on both sides is romantic to a great degree ; and though the pleasure of the excur- sion was much diminished by the weather and the discomfort of the vehicle, yet we were well compensated. As we approached Mehadia, our course lay along the banks of a river of the same name, as wild and savage as the Czerna, into which it disembogues its troubled waters. Arriving at the town, we enquired for some ruins of which we had heard, but in vain. The PECULIAR MODE OF PRINTING. 135 people speak the Illyrian language, and our German was unintelligible to them. One man, however, directed us to an ancient fortress about two miles off. We pursued the road for double that distance in the midst of a pouring rain which threatened to bring down our frail cover- ing upon our heads ; but finding nothing, we were compelled to return. On re-entering the town, we perceived the dismembered fragments of a fort, with a large mass of solid stone-work, crowning a hill, but were unable to prosecute any further our search. In the inn where we dined, two cards, curiously printed, were affixed to the wall. On one of these was inscribed, " GOTT ERHALTE UNSERN GUTEN FERDINAND !" or, " God preserve our good Ferdinand ! " On the other was a polite request that every- body would be so kind as to pay ready money. The letters were capitals, and each was formed by the colored figure of a man represented in a certain attitude with something in his hand. At a distance the words were perfectly legible, and the figures not discernible : on a near in- spection, the letters were entirely lost, and no- thing but the figures appeared. 136 GATES. COSTUME. The mode of hanging gates in the interior of the Banat is curious. They are made with the upper bar projecting very far behind, and piled with heavy wood; so that, when hung upon a stump, the point of which passes through the bar, the gate is nearly balanced and swings upon the stump as its fulcrum. Some of the peasants wear leather coats, and cloaks lined with wool : and here we observed, for the first time on this frontier, the girdle, or waistband, worn by all Asiatics. A large sock of blanket- ing is sometimes brought over the ankle and allowed to hang down in loose folds on the foot, which is protected by a red boot made of fragrant Russia leather. With their heads turned homewards, our little nags galloped as fast as we could wish, and faster than we had ever been carried by the heavy horses of Germany. They soon brought us to the turning which leads to the baths, and the drivers were ordered to take that road, but nothing would induce them to comply. They urged that it was too late in the evening; that the horses were fatigued; and that even now daylight would not last to carry us direct to our inn. They had reason on their side, and the result proved that they were correct ; for it was dark long before our return. HERCULESBAD. HOT SPRINGS. 137 In the vicinity of the baths, which are now quite a fashionable resort, there is a little vil- lage, consisting of about twenty good lodging- houses, and a large inn containing between one and two hundred bed-rooms, supported at the emperor's expense. The name given to the spot is Herculesbad, from a tradition that Hercules bathed in a dark cavern, access to which is by a small aperture not large enough to allow a man to enter erect. The natural spring which supplies the baths is impreg- nated with sulphuretted hydrogen gas, and the water, whose temperature is 45 of Reau- mur, or 1 33 of Fahrenheit, is found to be bene- ficial in cutaneous and hypochondriacal cases. There is nothing very remarkable in the place itself; the beauty of the scenery in the neigh- bourhood is that which a traveller should not lose ; and this we enjoyed as much as the un- favorable state of the weather permitted. VOL. i. 138 CHAPTER V. VOYAGE ON THE DANUBE. FROM ORSCHOVA IN HUNGARY TO SCALA CLADOVA IN WALLACHIA. Embarkation. Neu Orscliova. Fort Elizabeth. Custom- house. Scenery. Remains of Roman canal. Porte de Fer. Projected canal. Fall of river. Rapidity of cur- rent. Party land. Costumes. Quarantines. Sibb. Kladosicza. Delay of steamer. Customs connected with sneezing. Description of Scala Cladova. Huts. Feth Islam. Diminished interest of scenery. Rural scene and repast. Degraded condition of inhabitants. Dress. Postilions Their howling. Arrival at Tchernitz. Reception. Sweetmeats. Supper. Wash-hand basin. Town of Tchernitz. Houses. Posts of gates. Chief street. Dark complexion of inhabitants. Beauty-spot. Breakfast. Governor. Salary. Anecdote. Slaves. Dinner. Return to Scala Cladova. National hospi- tality. Cheapness of food. Practice of burying money. Etymology of name Wallachia. Mode of reckoning time. Government. Hospodar. Former subjection to Porte. Treaties of Bukharest and Adrianople. Present influence of Russia. Anecdote. Religion. First print- ing of Bible. System of tyranny. Gipsies. Their origin and names. Tax in gold-dust. Anecdotes. State of EMBARKATION AT OIISCHOVA. 139 morality in the two principalities. Divorces. Courts of law. Power of Frank consuls. Anecdote. General aspect and productiveness of country. Fertility of an- cient Dacia. Adoption by people of Roman name and language. Mixture of Greek, Persian, and Italian words. Examples. THE following morning all the passengers started for Scala Cladova, twelve miles from Orschova, having embarked on a wide flat- bottomed barge, the only sort of boat of the requisite size which can pass the ridge of rocks called by the appropriate name of Porte de Fer, because it effectually closes the navi- gation of the Danube. The morning was fine, and the exquisite scenery around glowed in all the loveliness with which the God of nature has invested it. The first object that attracted our attention was the fort of Neu Orschova, standing in the middle of the stream, two and a half miles below Orschova, and garrisoned by Turks, as are all the fortresses in Servia. Thus far, the islands in the river are held by Austria; but the Porte retains possession of this as an outpost. We sailed on the Servian side, close under the windows of the governor's harem, and were able to perceive the nakedness of the land and the utter ineffi- ciency of this fort in case of war, as it is out of i 2 140 FORT ELIZABETH. SCENERY. repair and commanded by the neighbouring Hungarian hills : not so, however, the small castle called Fort Elizabeth, a little lower down, which is likewise in the hands of the Moslims ; it is situate on the slope of the mountains, over- hung and protected by their tops, and is fur- nished on all sides with embrasures for guns and musketry. Near these, on the left, in a narrow valley terminating on the bank of the river, is the frontier custom-house of Hungary and Wai- lachia ; and from this point the Danube flows through territory tributary to Turkey, having Wallachia on one side and Servia on the other. Here a turn in the river opens a majestic view. On the right, a bold, barren peak of rock rises, like a gigantic pyramid, in the midst of luxuriantly clothed hills ; beyond which a low arm of land, projecting towards a curve on the opposite bank and apparently bounding the water, causes it to assume the appearance of a lake ; while the solemn murmur of distant breakers interrupts the silence of a scene where nature herself seems awed into stillness. This noise gradually increases with every hundred yards the vessel advances, till the terrific roar of the mighty element over- coming its natural enemies succeeds to tran- quillity and repose. PORTE DE PER. CANAL. 141 A mile further, on the opposite side, are traces of a canal formed in the time of Tra- jan for the purpose of avoiding the reef which, stretching across the river, gives rise to the breakers, rendering the navigation for small boats dangerous, and for large vessels imprac- ticable. A coal barge that hazarded the ex- periment not long ago still remains on the ridge, with two rocks through her bottom, a warning to adventurous sailors. Since an insuperable obstacle is thus opposed to the progress of a steamer, except in an unusually swollen state of the river, it is proposed to cut a canal two and a half English miles in length, partly through the channel of the old one, and partly in a more direct line traced by a branch of the Danube, which might, with lit- tle difficulty, be identified with the projected undertaking. The expense, in a country where labor is so cheap, would not be great ; and it is probable that in the course of ten or twelve years something of the kind will be effected. There is, however, one great difficulty to be contended with. The fall of the river is un- usually great ; it is even perceptible to the eye, being eighteen feet in half a mile in the neighbourhood of the Porte de Fer. In con- sequence of this and the subjacent rocks, the stream is full of whirlpools and rapids, and 142 RAPIDITY OF CURRENT. the current flows at the rate of thirteen and a half miles per hour;* a velocity such that it is scarcely possible for the paddles of a steamer to overcome it ; so that the vessel must under any circumstances be towed back at a very slow pace. A little boat usually re- quires for this purpose twelve oxen ; a large one, forty. Desirous of seeing the vestiges of Trajan's canal and the line of that projected, we left the boat, with most of our fellow-passengers, and walked along a portion of the supposed course of the former. While on shore, we passed several Moslim and Christian natives, all habited * It is possible that there may be some error in this state- ment regarding the rapidity of the current. The English captain of the boat between Moldova and Orschova told the author that it is " thirteen and a half feet a second, or thirteen and a half miles an hour." Now, as a foot per second is not the same as a mile per hour, he evidently made a mistake. The next day when the author was ques- tioning the engineer at Plawischewitz as to how many miles per hour the current runs in another part, he stated that he could not answer that question, for he had never made the calculation ; but that he knew it to be so many feet per second. Hence it is probable that the estimate of the stream's rapidity at the Porte de Fer was made in feet per second, not in miles per hour. In this case, its velocity would be less than ten miles per hour ; which is nearer the appa- rent rate, and more probable, than that mentioned above. VARIETY OF COSTUMES. 143 in their peculiar garbs ; which, contrasting with those of our little party, presented as curious a melange of costumes as can well be imagined. On one side were seen the long blanket dresses of the Servians, open in front and reaching to the feet ; with the colored turbans, gaudy ceintures, and flowing robes of the Turks: on the other, two Armenian Ca- tholic priests, in their sombre canonicals and large slouched hats, were accompanied by a Turkish Jew with Israelitish face and Mo- hammedan garb : in front were an English lady and three gentlemen ; while the Hungarian health-officers, bringing up the rear, added their official livery to the variety exhibited by the motley group. To these individuals we were indebted for our escape from the " durance vile" of a quarantine which, between Turkey and Wallachia, as between Wallachia and Austria, is never less than ten days ; and when plague exists to any extent, is fixed at twenty days. Passing the Servian villages of Sibb and Kladosicza, we reached Scala Cladova, where we were disappointed in not meeting the ex- pected steamer. The baggage was put on shore, as the sailors were compelled to return the same day to Orschova ; and on their de- parture we found ourselves fairly launched on 144 SALUTATION OF SNEEZERS. the penalty side of the quarantine boundary. At this moment one of our party inominously sneezed ; upon which most of the others turned to make the usual salutation, and one took off his hat, profoundly bowing ; but the omen was a bad one, and consorted with our unfortunate position.* It was now time to look about for a lodging. But the more we searched, the more we were convinced of the impracticability of obtaining accommodations for the night in Scala Cladova. This " head station", as it is called, of the steamer, is a village of thirty or forty huts, formed of hurdles, the interstices of which are, in some filled with clay, in others left to give free vent to the air. A few are covered with rushes ; many with mud ; of which two ma- terials all the chimneys are constructed; and several houses exhibit nothing but a roof, with * In almost every country some fear or prejudice is con- nected with the act of sneezing; probably from its having been long regarded as a symptom of the plague. Thus, in England, our grandfathers were accustomed to salute the sneezer with " God bless you ! " On the continent some such kindly wish is still usually expressed. In Spain every person present makes a low bow to the unfortunate one, as he is considered ; while Italian courtesy is mani- fested by " Salute !" "Felicita !" or, to a young married lady "Figlio maschio!" SCALA CLADOVA. 145 a door in it ; the rest of the habitation being under-ground. These miserable dwellings con- sist of a single room without windows, lighted and aired by the door : each stands by itself on a common, unprotected by any sort of enclo- sure. The only bed that the village afforded was one raised board in a hut, on which three blankets might be spread ; and this was secured by the Armenian priests and the Jew. In such a dilemma, with the possibility of passing two or three days before the arrival of the steamer, which we concluded to have been detained by bad weather, no alternative remained but to send to the authorities of Tchernitz, a little town about five miles off, built on the site of a Roman station called Termes. This the English consul undertook to do; and in a few hours we and our country- man were, by his kindness, conveyed thither. As some time, however, elapsed before pre- parations for our departure could be made, we had an opportunity of looking around. On the opposite side of the river, on the site of the ancient Mge\a, stands Feth Islam, called by the Wallachians Turkish Cladova : the fort is garrisoned by Turks and the town peopled by Servians. A tall elegant minaret close to the ramparts forms a striking object in the 146 VILLAGE SCENE. prospect. Here the mosque and the citadel not inappropriately meet together; for in the countries of Islam the preacher counsels the sword, and the sword propagates the faith. The scenery on the banks of the Danube, which, to the east of the Porte de Fer, be- comes gradually less and less interesting from the diminished size of the hills, here loses all its beauty ; but the river retains the grandeur which entitles it to be regarded as the king of European floods. The village scene was highly amusing. All was bustle on a small scale. Fishermen were every now and then bringing in the trophies of their success. In one quarter, under a canopy of dried leaves, the only shelter from sun and rain except the miserable huts already de- scribed, might be seen the houseless host of travellers sitting on a board, which served like- wise for a table, regaling themselves with slices of tonny or sturgeon fried on a skewer and eggs cooked in wood ashes ; while, a little fur- ther off, a party of boatmen, squatting on the ground, sent round the black bread and acid wine with all the glee of health and appetite, nothing disturbed by the numerous dogs and pigs, each of the latter with a triangle round his neck, which surrounded them with beseech- WALLACHIAN COSTUMES. 147 ing looks and grunts. In another quarter, a half-naked girl was washing one of a dozen naked children in what resembled a hog tub, but proved to be the family utensil for all culi- nary and household purposes. Here, a woman might be seen slaughtering a fowl by bleeding it at the back of the neck ; while, by her side, an old gipsy with grizzly hair was tossing about his legs in caricature of a dance, hold- ing by the arm a female beggar capering with equal grace. The squalid filth, the poverty and degradation in which the people of this village vegetate can scarcely be exceeded ; and, alas! it is but a specimen of Wallachian misery in general. The dress of such as are covered with any thing more than rags partakes a good deal of the eastern character. The women wear a white veil fastened with silver pins, passing round the throat and falling loosely down the back: from their ears depend long ear-rings, to which shells are sometimes attached : a coarse chemise, worked with blue cotton, is tied round the neck; the long sleeves are turned up over the elbows; and two slips of colored striped cloth hang down from the waist, one in front and one behind, leaving the sides open, where the chemise with its blue border 148 WALLACHIAN HORSES. is again visible. The men wear a skull-cap of skin with the hair outside, a shirt rudely em- broidered and open at the chest, a scarlet girdle, white breeches, a cloth bound round the legs, and woollen socks. Others appear in a cap, trowsers, and long coat of white blanketing which is soon soiled, and, being never washed, becomes in time indescribably filthy. Some of the better orders, particularly the inferior public functionaries, are distinguished by a blue cloth dress and a fez ; while the police officers carry a brass plate on a leathern strap across the chest. The gentry in Wallachia have adopted altogether the European costume. At length the horses arrived which were to convey us to Tchernitz. Eight were ordered for each carriage; and a postilion was attached to every four, who wielded a thong of seven feet affixed to a handle not more than one eighth of its length. The animals were wild little ponies with rope-harness consisting only of traces and bridle : the drivers looked as wild ; and their patched blanket covering resembled the dress of beggars. A horseman, armed with pistols, sword, and musket, accompanied each carriage. As soon as we started, the postilions com- menced a howl, which they continued, almost without intermission, till we reached our desti- ARRIVAL AT TCHERNITZ. 149 nation. This extraordinary noise answers to the chuckle of the English, and the familiar loquacity of the Italian, coachmen. It made the horses go as long as they were able; but, notwithstanding every effort, one of them fell and was left behind; the driver said he was sleepy; we thought him jaded. Our route lay over a common, teeming with blackberries and sloes ; the road was bad, and the torrents to be crossed were numerous, so that, though the little nags galloped when it was possible, our progress was slow, and it was dark before we arrived. The party was distributed between the go- vernor and another official, who, joined by their respective ladies, received us with a cordial wel- come: since, however, with the exception of the governor, they spoke no language but Walla- chian, signs constituted our only medium of communication. The house of our host con- sisted of a single floor raised from the ground, the ascent to which was by a dozen high steps, each formed of the trunk of a tree roughly squared. Four rooms opened into the saloon, whose only furniture was a large sofa and table. One of these apartments was an office for the trial of petty offenders ; another, a kitchen ; the third we did not see; and the fourth was our bed-chamber : a sofa, about ten feet long and 150 WALLACIIIAN WELCOME. four broad, filled one whole side, except the space occupied by the stove; the walls were hung with pictures, among which were two of the virgin, one representing the hands and face, the other, the whole figure except those parts, in plated metal ; a style much in vogue among the followers of the Greek church. No paint was wasted on doors or windows, and the spaces between the boards of the former were stuffed with paper. Immediately on our arrival, the mistress presented to us a tray holding four pretty little circular glass jars with ornamented gilt tops. Two of these were full of sweetmeats, and two of water. This is the Wallachian welcome offered to every guest on entering a house, and repeated to us three times during our short detention at Tchernitz. The sweetmeat is intended to correct the water, which is bad throughout the principality ; and numerous spoons are brought, because it is contrary to etiquette to use the same twice. In an hour we were summoned to a supper consisting of various fruits, a roast fowl, poached eggs, boiled milk, salad, and a species of cheese, all served by the master of the house and another brother official ; a little gipsy- slave waiting in the distance. Before we sat down, our host brought us a metal ewer with WASH-HAND BASIN. HOUSES. 151 a long narrow top and a tin basin, having a flat surface pierced like a cullender and surmounted by a raised circle on which was placed a piece of soap. We had just asked for butter, and this apparatus so little resembled what we are accustomed to use for the purpose of washing, that we proceeded to cut the soap with a knife, intending to help ourselves to some butter. It would have been rude to smile at a foreigner's blunder ; so the only resource of our benevolent friend was to drench our arms with the water intended for our hands, and to make his es- cape while we bewailed this specimen of what we supposed to be Wallachian politeness. During supper, the divan was covered with counterpanes, and the pillows were adorned with muslin cases trimmed with lace and tied with pink ribbons. After a refreshing night's rest, we strolled out to survey the town wherein we were located. The majority of houses are similar to those at Scala Cladova. A few of a superior order, and among them the two in which our party were accommodated, are daubed with white- wash, and covered with a singularly high roof protected by wooden tiles. The side-posts of the gates are furnished with grotesque little umbrellas of wood, which may possibly be in- 152 THE ISPRAVNIK. tended to secure them from rain ; they termi- nate in points, and are topped with flat square pieces of deal. The chief street is long, and lined with shops on both sides. Each is an open room shaded by a mat awning, under which the owner sits. The size of the mud buildings, the platform before them, the dress of the natives, and the number of dogs running wild through the street, constitute a tout en- semble truly oriental. Some of the people are very dark ; others, again, are fair ; most of them are well-made and strong. One girl, with bright hazle eyes and fair complexion, had a beauty-spot on her left cheek cut in the form of a bird with expanded wings. For breakfast a ragged slave-boy brought us some coffee and hard rusks ; and at noon we joined our friends at dinner in the house of the ispravnik, or governor. Demetrio Kinez is about fifty years of age, and has fourteen children, with a good-natured looking wife. His three daughters, the only other members of his family whom we saw, are modest, well-behaved girls; they were all dressed in clothes such as one might expect to see in the family of a very poor half-pay officer in Eng- land. Their father's salary, as we were in- formed, is only sixty pounds per annum ; the DEGRADATION OF PEOPLE. . 153 chief emoluments of his office, which must first be purchased and, when obtained, is limit- ed to three years, depending on the degree of extortion he practises. He received us with great politeness, addressing us in broken French, and introduced us to the president of the tribunal and some other of the authori- ties who were so polite as to call on the stran- gers. The whole population are in a state of ab- ject dependence on the will of their governor, and are liable to be beaten for the most trivial offence, whether real or imaginary. While we were in the house of our host, a man appeared before the door with a letter; not daring to present it, he stood trembling at a distance, holding it in his hand : the lady of the isprav- nik, being asked why he exhibited such signs of fear, coolly remarked that he was afraid of being beaten in case her husband should hap- pen to be in his office, as he would then be punishable for not obtaining correct informa tion of the movements of the governor. Seve- ral of the servants excited our commiseration by the expression of their countenances, which were deeply seared with sorrow. We were told they were slaves. When we sat down to dinner, the master and VOL. I. K 154 DINNER. RETURN TO SCALA CLADOVA. mistress, who took an active part in laying out the table, formally wished us "a good appetite ;" various stimulants to which, such as salted fish, kaviar, or the spawn of the sturgeon, and pickles, were set before us. To these succeed- ed soup, boiled beef with sauce, fowls, mut- ton-haricot, pancake, and a salad of raw cab- bage dressed with oil and vinegar ; delicious grapes and peaches, bad pears, and walnuts, finished the repast : coffee and pipes were then served, and our hospitable friends, having duly bowed to each of their guests, expressed a hope that they had "dined well." When the pipe was finished, the whole family retired to take a siesta, a custom so prevalent that even workmen and servants go to sleep in the middle of the day. This concluded, infor- mation was brought that the steamer had ar- rived at Scala Cladova, and we proceeded to join her, our postilions howling, groaning, and screaming at their horses louder than before to do honor to the ispravnik, who accompanied us in a carriage with three outriders. The hospitality, almost universal in coun- tries comparatively uncivilized, costs very lit- tle, every article of food being cheap ; for in- stance, at Tchernitz, a fowl may be purchased for twopence halfpenny, and six or seven eggs HABITS OF WALLACH1ANS. 155 ready cooked for a penny. As soon, how- ever, as a system of steam navigation is or- ganized on the Danube, and an influx of strangers into Wallachia takes place, civiliza- tion will be promoted, and primitive hospita- lity will necessarily decrease. Notwithstanding an appearance of extreme poverty, some of the peasants of Wallachia are known to be rich. They are in the habit of hoarding money under ground ; a practice doubtless induced by the extortions to which they have been subjected ; and almost all have some little thus stowed away. Agriculture is now their chief employment, though in former days they were more addicted to pasturage, as their name indicates ; for in Illyrian Vlach sig- nifies a herdsman, whence is derived the name Wallachia. They reckon time from sunset to sunset, dividing each solar day into twenty -four ever-varying hours, the first of which com- mences with the sun's disappearance under the horizon, when they are consequently obliged to alter their clocks. This province, like that of Moldavia, was governed, till lately, by a prince chosen from among the Greek Fanariots of Constantinople, and vested with regal authority. The name of the present governor is Alexander Ghika. K 2 156 THE HOSPODAR. He is called " hospodar," a word corrupted from the Russian gospodin, lord ; and, as a bey of the Ottoman empire, he is entitled to the designation of " arch-prince". The Austrian government recognizes him under the appella- tion of serene highness, and his subjects call him " n-4/jjXSapa", " very high." His sons are styled " beyzadahs", or prince's sons ; but the grandsons have no title. Formerly the hospodar was appointed and deposed at the pleasure of the Porte, obtain- ing and retaining his situation by means of gold ; the highest bidder secured the vacant office, and remained one, two, or more years, till some one had influence sufficient to obtain an order for his removal ; his object, there- fore, with a tenure so uncertain, was to realize the largest possible sum in the least possible time ; and this he effected by means of extor- tion, practised without shame or moderation. Within the last few years, Wallachia and Mol- davia have been delivered from this state of abject dependence on the Porte ; not, how- ever, to gain freedom, but to fall into the hands of Russia. By the treaty of Bukharest, signed in 1812, the czar acquired the right of interfering in matters connected with the re- ligion of the people, and in cases of outrage INFLUENCE OF RUSSIA. ] 57 committed by the officers of Turkey against her Christian subjects in the principalities ; while, by the treaty of Adrianople in 1829, this power, as is well known, was so greatly extended, that the provinces in question were in fact made over to the northern autocrat, though suffered to continue under a nominal subjection to the sultan. To him they still pay a small annual tribute, and he still ap- points to the hospodarship ; yet he no longer does so as a free agent, being compelled to select one of a number of nominees presented to him by the boyars. Once invested with authority, the hospodars are not removable during life, provided they pay their tribute, which, previous to 1829, was fixed at two millions of piastres for Wallachia, and one million for Moldavia. Their permanence is guaranteed by Russia, who, the more effectu- ally to secure her undivided sway over them, has compelled Turkey to suffer a quarantine- cordon, ranged along the whole bank of the Danube from the Euxine to Hungary, effec- tually to cut off all free communication be- tween the dominions of the Porte and these her nominal provinces. As the recommendation of Russia can secure to any individual the hos- podarship of the principality, so her fiat can 158 ANECDOTE. RELIGION. crush him in a moment : consequently, no act, however trivial, which is displeasing to the czar, is permitted to pass unnoticed. A curi- ous proof of this occurred a short time since at Bukharest. The prince had done something offensive to the autocrat, and was speedily ap- prised by the Russian consul of his master's displeasure : Ghika sent a message expressive of his regret that he should unintentionally have given umbrage to the emperor ; but this was not sufficient ; the consul insisted that he should apologize in person ; and accordingly, the prince of Wallachia was actually seen a suitor for pardon at the door of a Russian em ploy 6 ! Among the various circumstances which tend to draw closer the connection between Russia and the provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia is the identity of their creed ; for all the inhabitants of the latter belong to the Greek church, and foster the most rancorous hatred to everything Turkish. They, like- wise, retain the old style, in order that they may duly observe all the sacred festivals. In connection with the religion of the two principalities, it may be mentioned, as an in- teresting and remarkable fact, that the Bible was unknown in the vernacular language till BIBLE PRINTED. 159 the year 1735, when the hospodar, Constantine Mavrocordato, ordered the Old and New Tes- taments to be printed in the dialect of the country. As a preliminary measure, however, he was compelled to invent a character com- pounded of the Slavonic and Greek ; for, till then, the patois of the country had not been reduced to writing, and the few public docu- ments that were necessarily committed to pa- per were inscribed in the Slavonic character ; one very little adapted to the language to which it was thus forcibly misapplied. A system of tyranny, which commences with the hospodar, extends itself to the boyars ; and the whole population may be divided into two classes, tyrants and slaves. Though the majo- rity of the people are thus virtually slaves, the only persons legally recognized as such are gipsies and their descendants. In Hungary, vast numbers of these are found scattered among the peasantry ; but Wallachia and Mol- davia are their head-quarters, where they form a large class, important on account of their numbers ; but otherwise valued as little as, or less than, beasts of burden. They are estimat- ed at a hundred and fifty thousand in the two principalities. History leaves us ignorant of the period and 160 GIPSIES. circumstances of the immigration of the gipsies ; nor does it appear why they are more numer- ous in these countries than in most of the other kingdoms of Europe through which they have been diffused. The physiognomy, musical taste, thievish and conjuring tricks, falsehood, dirt, and idleness, which characterize them throughout the world, here equally distinguish them : it may almost be said that they bear the same name, for in the words Zingani and Tchingani we trace the etymological root which points to Egypt as the native soil of the French Egyptien, the English Gipsy, the Spanish Gitano, the Italian Zingaro, and the German Zigeuner.* They intermarry almost exclusively among themselves, and thus per- petuate alike the distinguishing features of body and mind. As all gipsies are required to pay an annual tax to government of so many grains of gold, varying from ten shillings to three pounds, they become dexterous in detect- ing the precious metal in the auriferous streams of the principalities, and in separating it from * Some are disposed to think that the names Zingani and Zingaro are derived from Zingis Khan, under whose banners they suppose the Gipsies were first introduced into the coun- tries bordering on Persia, whence they dispersed themselves through Europe. MORALS OF THE PRINCIPALITIES. 161 sand by one or other of the methods already described. Some pursue the trade of black- smiths, some of tinkers, and others of carpen- ters ; but all retain the natural aversion of their caste from agriculture, though they are said to be less idle and of more settled habits here than in most countries. A healthy man costs three pounds, a woman two ; and both sexes are bought and sold by the nobles without any regard to the bonds of domestic union. Only eight days before our visit to Tcher- nitz, a boyar, close to the house where these notes were penned, who had a slave, sup- porting a wife and three children by his daily labor, separated him from them and sent him to a distant establishment in the interior, while he sold his family into other hands. Another noble, one of whose Zinganis was making a little money as a blacksmith, sold his wife and children in order that he might dispose of all that the man earned. Nor are instances of this kind rare ; on the contrary, they are of too frequent recurrence to be re- corded as individual cases. Immorality of the worst description pervades all classes in the principalities, and mothers frequently carry their new-born infants to the Danube to drown them. " When they act so 162 MARRIAGES. DIVORCES. towards their own children," said a lady residing here, " you will readily believe that I cannot feel mine safe with them, when out of my sight." But the example so closely imitated originates with the highest orders. The mar- riage vow is almost wholly disregarded. It is actually, we were told, in the power of every married person, man or woman, to obtain from the metropolitan a divorce on the score of ca- price alone or the preference of another party. Thus, it frequently happens that a gentleman and lady, who were once man and wife, ac- companying their respective partners to a ball- room, will there meet two or three more ci- devant husbands of the lady, and as many ci- devant wives of the gentleman ; nor will either of the parties be less esteemed in society on account of their frequent divorces. Where the marriage tie, the bond of all the charities of life, is thus unheeded, the whole fabric of social happiness is undermined, and neither moral nor intellectual excellence can be expect- ed. The result sanctions this conclusion ; and it may safely be affirmed that Christendom does not contain a country more demoralized and more degraded than Wallachia and Moldavia. In the courts of law there is a form without the reality of justice. Tribunals exist in abun- COURTS OF LAW. 163 dance, and no less than four appeals are pro- vided ; but the petitioner's way must be paved with the precious metal, and the judge's sen- tence is pronounced in notes modified by golden keys. So notorious is the iniquity of Turkish courts, that all Frank consuls are vested with a power of arresting judgment in cases of their own countrymen ; a power un- known in other kingdoms, but sanctioned by treaties with the Porte : the trial must take place in the presence of the consul ; and if he be dissatisfied with the result, he can refer the case to Constantinople, where the decision of the su- preme judge must be approved by the ambas- sador of the king whose protection the offender claims. A foreign consul can also sue the go- vernment for a debt due to one of the subjects of the power he represents ; he can even attach and sequester any public property on which such individuals may have lent money : and it happened, not long ago, that a quantity of salt belonging to the Wallachian government was placed under the seals of the English consulate till the payment of a sum borrowed from a British subject for the lading of the salt in question. The debt, which, but for this, might have remained unpaid till now, was im- mediately liquidated. 164 . ASPECT OF COUNTRY. The whole of Wallachia may be described "as an inclined plane, sloping towards the Danube and traversed by numerous rivers, flowing al- most in parallel courses, so as to meet that river nearly at right angles."* The population does not exceed a million. The soil is in general barren, though it would appear to have been once more productive, since, when Trajan sent a colony of thirty thousand men to cultivate the land, the Romans were enabled to obtain hence supplies for the use of their army during the war with the Scythians and Sarmatians. As a consequence of this inundation, resulted the adoption by the people of the name Romun by which they now designate themselves, of customs evidently borrowed from their early conquerors, and of a language almost entirely Latin. As members of the Greek church, they have naturally availed themselves of many Greek words ; and their connection with Rus- sia and the east has added some of Sclavonic and Persian origin ; as their intercourse with Europe has introduced several Italian. The following list, taken, with the exception of those compared with the Persian, from an in- teresting catalogue compiled by a late consul * Dr. Clarke, to whose interesting travels the writer is greatly indebted. COMPARISON OF LANGUAGES. 165 at Bukbarest, will enable tbe reader to form some opinion of the composition of the Walla- chian language. Wallachian. Latin. English. Formos Formosus Beautiful. Sunt Sunt They are. Alb Albus White. Respuns Responsum An answer. Dzio Dies A day. Degete Digitus A finger. Negro Niger Black. Unde Unde Whence. Cum Cum With. Wallachian. Modern Greek. English. Daskal AcurKaXos A tutor. Peristasis HfpicrrcuTis A circumstance. Ifos f(pos Arrogance. Pnevma HvfVfia A spirit. Droom ApOfJLOS A road. Zahar Zd^apt Sugar. Kindin KiVStj/o Danger. Yeftin &6ivo Cheap. Shapte 'ETTTO Seven. Wallachian. Persian. English. Duckian Dookan A shop. Appa Ab Water. Bakshish Bukshish A present. Shasse Shush Six. Massala Massal A torch. Perde Purdah A curtain. Zadah Zadah A son. Suraf Suraf A banker. 66 COMPARISON OF LANGUAGES. Wallacliian. Italian. English. Uno Uno One. Doi Due Two. Tre Tre Three. Patro Quattro Four. Cintsh Cinque Five. Aht Otto Eight. Noo Nove Nine. Zece Dieci Ten. Luna Luna The moon. Firestra Finestra A window. Porta Porta A door. Ochi Occhi Eyes. Limba Lingua A tongue. Mancare Mangiare To eat. Dulceazza Dolcezza Sweetness. Amar Amaro Bitter. Inghietsit Inghiottito Swallowed up. Puine Pane Bread. 167 CHAPTER VI. VOYAGE ON THE DANUBE. FROM SCALA CLADOVA IN WALLACHIA TO GALATZ IN MOLDAVIA. Embark on steamer. Inefficiency of Wallachians. Severin. Trajan's bridge. Palanka Bust of Trajan. Boundary between Wallachia and Bulgaria. Bulgarians Their history. The Balkan. Windings of Danube. Scenery. Widdin. Muezzin. Turks. Costume. Women. Dervesh. Pasha Lorn Palanka Sunday on board. Nicopolis. Plague. Breadth of river. Turkish vil- lages. Hay-making. Pelicans. Osprays. Batina. Giorgervo. Trade. Departure and dispersion of passen- gers Bukharest Its population, morals, and commerce. Quarantine forms. Rustchuk. Fountains, popula- tion, and trade. Coffee-houses. Streets. Houses. Bazaar. Burial-ground. R ussian siege. Consideration of Turks. Visit to pasha. Genoese camp. Turtuka. Grapes and water-melons. Scenery. Geological phaeno- mena. Silistria. Russian quarantine Fortifications Soldiers. Pont- volant. Russian power. Horses. Whirlpools. Chalk hills. Hirsovo. Islands. Watch- towers. Pelicans. The Jalonissa. Ibrail. Siege. Monument. Town. Inn. Ships and trade. Ispravnik and lady. Boundary of Wallachia and Moldavia. Arrival 168 RE-EMBARKATION. SEVERIN. at Galatz Review of voyage down the Danube. Reflec- tions. Appendix, with distances and fares between Vienna and Constantinople. THOUGH we hastened from our quarters at Tchernitz to join the steamer, we were not under weigh till four o'clock the following afternoon, as the Wallachians employed to load the vessel evinced no ordinary want of skill and activity, and dropped into the water a new carriage en route from Vienna to Bukharest ; an act of negligence which delayed our de- parture for some hours. Four miles from Scala Cladova, on the Wallachian bank, stand the ruins of an an- cient tower which once rendered terrible the fortress of Severin, erected by Septimius Se- verus and still called after him. The govern- ment is now building a new town on the site of the old one, with a custom-house and quaran- tine : this promises in a few years to become a place of some note, and to be substituted for Scala Cladova as a head station of the steamer. A little further, on each side of the river, are the remains of a bridge which Trajan erect- ed in his second expedition against the Da- cians. The Danube is here two thousand four hundred feet in width ; and, occasionally, four arches may be perceived close to each bank, TRAJAN'S BRIDGE. 169 but none are visible in the centre of the stream. From the size of those which have survived the wreck of time, it appears that twenty-two would have been required to extend across the water ; but, from the absence of all traces of masonry and from the nature of the soil, it is inferred that there was once an island in the middle, which was united by two small bridges to the adjacent shores ; and the fact that an islet still exists a little lower down corroborates this con- jecture, as that would have afforded the means of a communication between the two banks at a less expense than must have been requisite to construct a bridge half a mile in length. In the evening we anchored nearly opposite the Servian town of Palanka, called by the ancients Aquas from its abundant springs ; but none of the passengers or crew were allowed to go on shore, and we could procure no sup- plies. Resuming our voyage the following morn- ing, we soon reached the Servian village of Praova, near which a fisherman last year dis- covered in the bed of the river a bronze bust of Trajan. Nine miles below this, the ancient Timacus, now dwindled into a little stream called Timok, and falling into the Danube, forms the boundary between Servia and Bul- VOL. i. L 170 THE BULGARIANS. garia; between a country which only pays a tribute to the Porte and one which is entirely under Ottoman rule, constituting a part of Turkey properly so called. The Bulgarians, formerly called Volgarians because they came from the Volga, or Wolga, originally occupied the tract that lies between that river, where it meets the Sura, and the Caspian. At an early period of their history, a part of the tribe crossed the Wolga and Don, and settled on the coasts of the Black Sea ; after which, in the seventh century of our era, they passed over the Dniester and Danube into the country once called Mcesia, which now bears their name. These were converted from pagan- ism in the course of two centuries, and they still profess the faith of their first instructors, who were of the Greek church ; while that part of the nation remaining beyond the Wolga be- came Mussulmans, and subsequently swelled the train of Zingis Khan. The Bulgarians erected a kingdom of their own, which they retained till the fourteenth century, when they were swallowed up in the Ottoman empire. Their language was changed, in the course of their migrations, into Sclavonian, in conse- quence of their intercourse with so many tribes of that order. SINUOSITIES OF THE DANUBE. 171 On entering Bulgaria, the chain of the Balkan that runs through Turkey, attaining a height of seven thousand feet, opened on our view ; while, in the opposite direction, we saw the mountains in the neighbourhood of Ca- sarn and Plawischewitz, among which we had, five days previously, been so hospitably entertained. Though we had travelled down the tortuous stream full ninety miles, (which, owing to the imperfect arrangements of the steam-navigation company, had occupied five days,) yet the distance from the last-named village to the frontier of Bulgaria is not more than twelve leagues, as the crow flies. If the Danube be distinguished among the rivers of Europe by the numerous countries which it fertilizes, the width and velocity of its current, its shallows, rapids, and whirlpools, the rockiness of its bed, and the unusually hard character of the stone that constitutes that bed; it is still more so by its sharp and fre- quent turns : such are its sinuosities that, in flowing from Presburg to the Black Sea, five hundred and fifty miles in a direct line, its channel measures twelve hundred ; while the abruptness of its windings places the voyager twenty times in a day on what appears a lake shut in by mountains, and so completely L 2 172 SCENERY. WIDDIN. changes his prospect and horizon, that he can seldom see the object close to which he sailed half an hour before, though he may be brought in sight of it again, as on this occasion, after a voyage of thirty or forty leagues. Ten miles below the frontier of Bulgaria, we passed a picturesque old fort crumbling into ruins. The scenery in its immediate neigh- bourhood is less uninteresting than that which for a long distance precedes; but the country soon resumes the same flat, dull, and sandy level, with very little variety afforded by vil- lages or trees. The Wallachian side of the river is even less peopled than the Turkish ; since many of the subjects of the principality, disgusted with their own government, mi- grate yearly to Bulgaria, to seek a better un- der Mohammedan administration. Eighteen miles below Florentin is the Wallachian town of Kalafat, near which the Russians had an encampment in the last war, and lost in battle nearly ten thousand men. A little further, is the virgin fort of Widdin, the largest city on the Danube after Ofen and Rustchuk, with a population of more than twenty thousand. Where the ancient Bononia once reared her stately temples to the gods of Rome, there we saw a forest of light and MUEZZIN. TURKISH WOMEN. 173 silvery minarets, and heard the muezzin pro- claim that " God is great, and Mohammed is his prophet." Numerous little boats covered the water. The bank was crowded with Turks in their elegant costume ; some dressed in pur- ple or green with a ceinture of brilliant scarlet ; others reversing the colors ; and all wearing turbans of various hues : a dervish, with a beg- gar's dress and a high cap of blanketing, stood among the crowd. A few went towards the mosque, but by far the greater part were too much engaged in the secularities of life to heed the cry of the muezzin. Several women, their heads covered with white veils, eyed us with a curiosity from which themselves were screened ; and sat down to gaze and comment on the wondrous machine in which the " Chris- tian dogs" were navigating their river. Our boatmen remained stationary on the edge of the shore while the supplies they sought were brought to them : a pail placed on the ground received the articles they wanted, -which, when the sellers retired, the purchasers took up, pay- ing their money with the same precautions, that contact might be avoided. Widdin is a pashalic of some value. The present governor is named Hussein Aga. We met him at a short distance from the city, in 174 HUSSEIN AGA. a small boat with a scarlet awning, towed by ten men against the stream. To do bonor to this pasba with three tails, our captain fired a salute with the only three guns he had on board, and hoisted Turkish colors. Hussein Aga bolds the rank of vizir, and is the indi- vidual who, as generalissimo of the forces in the last Russian campaign, gallantly defended Shumla against the enemy. Thirty-one miles below Widdin, in a valley where herds of black buffaloes and cows were grazing, is the Turkish town of Lorn Palanka, from which rise three minarets and a steeple.* Throughout Bulgaria the great mass of the people are Greek Christians ; but in the towns the majority are Mohammedans, and it hap- * It was between this place and Widdin, opposite the Turkish village of Ortzar, as our captain informed us, that Mr. Quin, the first Englishman who attempted the voyage on the Danube, was obliged, in August of the year 1834, to quit the steamer, which stuck for two days on a sand- bank, and to take a little boat to Rustchuk, whence he prosecuted his journey overland to Constantinople. It re- mained for the author and his companions to be the first English party who succeeded in making the voyage as far as Galatz in Moldavia, within twelve hours of the Black Sea. The natives say that it happens once in forty years that the river is as low as Mr. Quin found it ; with only three feet of water. When the author sailed down its stream, there were nearly as many fathoms. NICOPOLIS. SISTOVA. 175 pened that the church of Lorn Palanka was the first we observed in Turkey. This was the second Sunday since our depar- ture from Presburg. On both occasions the little party of English on board met to read our incomparable liturgy ; thankful, we trust, for the religion that has been handed down to us by the apostolic fathers of our church, within whose pale we are privileged to worship in the purity and simplicity of the Protestant faith. Anchoring for the night eleven miles below Zibrti Palanka, and resuming our voyage at 5 A.M., we soon reached Oreava, which was a place of some note in Bulgaria before it was de- stroyed by the Russians in 1811 ; and at noon we were off Nicopolis, a town still retaining its Grecian name : here we were informed that the plague was raging at Philippopoli, only a hun- dred miles distant. Nicopolis stands in front of a fine background of hills, and its fortifications, picturesquely stationed on an eminence, indi- cate that it was once a strong post ; but, like everything in Turkey, it is falling into decay. The political existence, continued after the decline of physical strength, has lost the spirit and vigor of youth ; now all that remains are members without force, a name without the reality of life. 176 TURKISH VILLAGES. Opposite Sistova the river attains a breadth of four thousand one hundred and forty-four feet, presenting to the eye as noble a sheet of fresh water as is to be seen in any part of Europe. Nothing, however, can exceed the wretchedness of the Turkish villages that border on it : even Scala Cladova does not exhibit a picture of such misery : there some of the huts are above ground, and most of them are partially so ; but here they seem to be all subterranean, and no- thing except a mud roof points out the dwelling of man. In many of the fields on the banks, the peasants were getting in the hay, which they do not cut before September, because they find it more profitable to leave the crop till au- tumn than to mow it twice a year. In the course of the day we saw a flight of pelicans settle on a sandbank close to the steamer, who were speedily surrounded by gulls and crows, ready to profit by their superior strength and skill in fishing ; and two very large osprays flew over us in the direction of the winged conclave. Twenty-three miles from Sistova, or Schis- tow, on the Bulgarian side, is the village of Batina, where a bloody battle took place in 1809 between the Russians and Turks, when thirty thousand of the latter were slain. Al- most every spot in this neighbourhood tells of the hostilities of these rival nations whose blood GIORGERVO. 177 has manured the soil. Another such is Gior- gervo, where the Russians lost a large force in 1829. The success, however, was theirs; and they levelled the fortifications to the ground, leaving only the moat and some elevated mounds to mark where they once stood. The town is a wretched one ; composed, like the majority in Wallachia and Bulgaria, chiefly of huts. The principal piazza contains a tall quadrangular tower surmounted by a bell, which sounds at certain hours and is misnamed the clock. ; but with the exception of this appen- dage, the square differs little from a large court- yard surrounded by Irish cabins. Giorgervo carries on a considerable trade with some of the Austrian towns ; and a great part of the com- merce of Bukharest, of which it may be re- garded as the port, flows through it. Here nearly the whole of our little party, which had almost daily decreased in number, disembarked. Some of the travellers talked of engaging Tartars to accompany them on horseback across the Balkan to Constantinople ; the two Armenian priests proceeded to Varna, a journey of three days, whence they hoped to reach the Turkish metropolis by sea ; and our countrymen set off for Bukharest, which is within a morning's drive of Giorgervo. A de- 178 BUKHAREST. sire to avoid entering Constantinople while the plague was raging led us to decide on defer- ring our visit, and continuing our voyage down the mighty flood with the little remnant of the party, now reduced to three individuals, in whose company we embarked at Presburg. Bukharest, the capital of Wallachia and the residence of the hospodar, contains a popula- tion of about a hundred thousand souls. The people are divided into two classes, rich and poor : the rich are given up to display, indo- lence, and political chicanery ; the poor are in a state of abject misery and degradation. The exports consist chiefly of wool, butter, honey, tallow, wax, timber, salt, and salted provisions, for the markets of Constantinople and Odessa ; and of hogs, horned cattle, horses, and hides, for Germany. From that country the Walla- chians import many of the necessaries and nearly all the luxuries of life, except furs, linen, and tea, which they receive from Russia. From the authorities of Giorgervo, travel- lers can obtain permission, under certain re- strictions, to visit the Turkish town of Rust- chuk, and to return to Wallachia, without being subjected to quarantine. Accordingly, the following morning we embarked for that place in a little boat, accompanied by an inter- RUSTCHUK. 179 preter and two health-officers, with sticks of due length. The description already given of Belgrade applies, with very little modification, to this Bulgarian city, except that Kustchuk is not in such a state of dilapidation ; and the Turks here appear more civilized than the Ser- vians : they have schools for their boys ; and several of the houses are furnished with glass windows. The comfort of fountains, simple as they are in exterior, and the luxury of coffee-houses,- unlike though they be to those of the Palais Royal or Piazza di San Marco, are not unknown to the Bulgarians ; on the con- trary, the one and the other abound in Rust- chuk ; these minister to the idleness of the national character, and those to the cleanly per- sonal habits which distinguish the natives of the east in parallel grades of society from those of the west. Almost the first house we came to was a cafe, elevated some feet above the ground and ornamented with a verandah whose sides were inscribed with Turkish characters. As the principal occupation of every Turk is to smoke and drink coffee, the cafes become the chief places of fashionable resort and are al- ways full. The town contains a large population of Turks, Greeks, and Armenians, who carry on a 180 BAZAAR. CEMETERY. considerable trade with Vienna in indigo, corn, and cloth. The houses are so constructed that their windows look into a private court-yard, and very few of them face the streets, so that these, besides being narrow and dirty, wear a gloomy aspect, and the pedestrian walk- ing between high walls might fancy himself within the precincts of a gaol or a fortress ; yet, after the misery to which our eyes were habituated, a white-washed building ap- peared grand, and a single almost comfortable and clean-looking dwelling attracted notice as a rarity. The bazaar is long, and similar to that at Belgrade, except that it contains Turks exclusively, and that a covering of mats, ex- tended from house to house, affords a shelter from the sun. Round a mosque of some size is a cemetery, looking so like a Christian bu- rial-ground, both as to the shape of the monu- ments and its position with reference to the temple, that it was difficult to believe it Mo- hammedan ; especially as the Moslims usually bury their dead by the road-side. Soon, how- ever, the Arabic characters on the stones and the tall slender minaret satisfied us that Mo- hammed, not Jesus, was the Messiah recog- nized by the deceased. Not far hence is the parade, where a hundred clumsy artillery-men, RUSSIAN SIEGE. 181 dressed in long loose trowsers, with white coats and scarlet caps, were going through their ex- ercises. In another quarter we encountered a dervesh with a high round cap and flowing beard ; and in a third were saluted by two old women seated on the ground, who, peeping from under their white veils, assailed us with great importunity for charity. Near a clock without face or hands, like that at Giorgervo, a tall broken tower was pointed out as bear- ing marks of the Russians, who, in battering the town from the opposite side of the river in 1829, shot off the pointed spire of this mi- naret, which has never been replaced ; for the principle of renovation, characteristic of a sound state, has passed away from every mem- ber of the Turkish constitution. Protected by the long sticks of our guards, we advanced with cautious steps, fearful lest any rude man, timid woman, playful child, snappish dog, or stubborn buffalo, should chance to touch us and thus subject us to a penance of ten days' quarantine. Yet, though in a state of constant alarm, we con- trived to avoid contact. The men, as if ac- customed to be regarded as infected, kept aloof, and promptly obeyed the hint given by the motion or the tap of the health- 182 CONSIDERATION OF TURKS. officer's wand ; and this they habitually do with such readiness that one is led to sup- pose some penalty must attach to the violation of quarantine sanctity, which would otherwise often be infringed through sport or pique. Kindness, however, not the law, ensures con- sideration to the feelings of strangers ; and in this respect, as in some others, the Turks exhibit to their Christian neighbours a pat- tern worthy of imitation. It is not equally easy for the traveller to secure himself against contact with quadrupeds ; and our vigilance was in no ordinary degree excited by calves and young buffaloes frolicking in the streets, and pariah dogs acting as scavengers. In the entire absence of one domestic animal so use- ful in that capacity, strong presumptive evi- dence was afforded of our being in a Moslim town. As one of our objects in going to Rustchuk was to present to the governor a letter received from Ahmet Ferich pasha, the ambassador from the Porte to Vienna, we proceeded to the palace ; where, passing through a court filled with servants, we walked up stairs and stood for some minutes in an ante-chamber, while information of our arrival was conveyed to the pasha. Our dragoman and the health-officers TURTUKA. FRUIT. 183 uncovered their heads; but as the Turkish ser- vants kept on their shoes, we retained our hats. A large number of officials, all dressed in the same sort of costume, differing only in color and material, filled the hall, expecting their master's exit from the harem ; but as this was delayed and our time was limited, we declined waiting, and directed the dragoman to pre- sent the letter of introduction and offer our apologies : accordingly, he placed it on the floor, whence it was taken by one of the Turkish servants, and we hastened back to the steamer. Not far from Giorgervo is the site of an old Genoese camp, where the soldiers of that re- public once infused terror into the Bulgarians. In the afternoon, we stopped for a few mi- nutes at the Turkish town of Turtuka and sent a boat on shore to purchase supplies. The fruit of this country is rich and abundant. Large long grapes, like those of Portugal, sell for less than a halfpenny a pound; and deli- cious water-melons are procurable at a pro- portionate price ; some of these attain the extraordinary weight of a hundred pounds, and measure five feet in circumference. The river still preserves its usual character, ex- panding itself over an enormous width, divided 184 GEOLOGICAL PHENOMENA. into many branches, and forming a multitude of islands small and large. Our course lay along the Turkish coast, which is less flat and more cultivated than the Wallachian. Below Rustchuk the country is better wooded ; count- less numbers of fruit and forest trees, with their various tints, decorate the slopes, yielding richness to the scene. Here, and for some hundreds of miles higher up, the low banks of the Danube exhibit proofs of having been once under water, together with the plains of Hun- gary, Wallachia, Servia, and Bulgaria ; nor can it reasonably be doubted that the whole of these low countries was originally covered by the Euxine : even now, this territory is so marshy, that in many parts the inhabitants are consumed by disease ; and ague, fever, and dysentery are fearfully prevalent. We anchored after a voyage of eighty miles ; and a thick fog prevented us, the following morning, from pursuing our journey before nine o'clock : but we were gainers by the de- lay ; for, the sun being then nearer the meridian, we enjoyed an excellent view of Silistria. As we spent the night within a few minutes' walk of the town, we should have proceeded thither to sleep ; but such is the jealousy of the Rus- sians, that they will not suffer the steamer to SILISTRIA. 185 disembark her passengers ; and they have es- tablished a quarantine, more political than sa- nitary, to which persons arriving from Wal- lachia, as well as from all parts of Bulgaria, must submit, before they can enter Silistria, This fortress, given to them by Turkey as a pledge for the payment of the expenses of the late war, is yet retained as security for the last instalment.* New ramparts and new for- tifications line the whole bank of the river, and an extensive island just opposite is cover- ed with stacks of hay for the consumption of a large body of cavalry, while eight thousand regular troops are garrisoned within the fort. A tract of country is in the hands of the czar, extending twenty-eight miles along the coast and the same distance into the interior, com- prising several villages, throughout which and the neighbouring numerous islands of the Danube twenty thousand Russian soldiers are said to be dispersed in the guise of peasants and fishermen. Under a strong lunette, mounted with eighteen or twenty guns, a suf- ficient number of pontons are prepared to form a pont volant, requiring only three hours to * Since the above was written, Russia has restored Silistria to Turkey ; and the troops of the emperor have been with- drawn, at least for a season, from Bulgaria. VOL. I. M 186 RUSSIAN POWER. unite them and thus to complete a military communication between the two banks. When we recal to mind that, in addition to this commanding post, which the ascendant pow- ers of Europe may, or may not, compel her to resign, Russia holds entire possession of the delta of the Danube and of both its shores for a considerable distance ; that Wallachia and Moldavia have, through her agency, been completely separated from Turkey and vir- tually incorporated into her own empire ; that she has succeeded in closing the Darda- nelles against all foreign ships of war ; and that her fleets proudly ride on the waters of he Euxine without a rival ; it does not seem improbable that, ere many generations have played their part on the stage of life, unless France and England interfere, Russia will be in nominal, as well as virtual, possession of the two principalities; that the entire navigation of the Danube will be under her control ; and that the present capital of the sultan will be a regal or viceregal metropolis of the northern autocrat. In the course of the day we passed the Turkish villages of Tepren, Karahassan, Ras- sova, Gokirlen, and Simanesch. Near the last of these, in a valley terminating on the bank, BULGARIAN HORSES. 187 we saw several hundred horses galloping down to the water's edge to slake their thirst. It was a new and curious spectacle. No keepers were visible, though, doubtless, some accompa- nied the animals ; and not a sign of man could be discerned in the vicinity. An impression for the moment prevailed that these noble creatures were wild. This, however, was not the case. In Bulgaria, where there is little cultivation, the people are supported chiefly by their cattle, and the whole country is de- voted to the pasturage of vast herds of buf- faloes and oxen, and of that race of horses which supply the Turks with the swiftest cavalry in Europe. Just before it washes the foot of the rock on which the ruins of Hirsovo stand, the Danube makes an extraordinary curve, flowing in a westerly direction, exactly contrary to its own usual course. At this point whirlpools and counter-currents greatly impede the passage of boats not impelled by steam. Some bold chalk hills stand out in grotesque forms on the Bulgarian bank, and it is on one of these that the fortress of Hirsovo is seen. From this point to Galatz, the river winds among low islands covered with reeds and rushes, and scarcely any foliage is visible, except in the large M 2 188 IBRAIL. village of Gropen, where one solitary tree out- tops the huts, a monument of its own deso- lation. No less than forty-two considerable islands exist in the space of sixty-nine miles. At short distances along their banks, dirty-look- ing Wallachian soldiers, perched, like monkeys, on high platforms made of sticks, exhibit squalid forms, no less in unison with the desert tract than are the pelicans which hover over this sea of islands and fill their pouches pre- vious to their annual migration into Egypt. We anchored for the night opposite the mouth of the Jalonissa river, the dense fog of the morning having prevented us from making more than ninety miles in the day. The same cause operated a second time and hindered us again from setting off before 8 A.M. After traversing for some hours a coun- try like that already described, we reached Braila, or Ibrail, a fort of considerable celebrity in the late war as the scene of a bloody battle in which the Russians lost thirty thousand men and the Turks their whole garrison. When the former were on the point of springing a mine, the Moslims anticipated them by a countermine and blew up twelve thousand of the enemy ; by a second mine of their own, sprung at a wrong moment, the Russians lost RUSSIAN SIEGE. 189 eight thousand, and during the siege and in the final conflict ten thousand more, among whom were three generals, to whose memory a monument is erected between the site of the fort, now entirely destroyed, and the little village of Arba-dulcse. A stoppage of an hour enabled us to walk about and inspect the town, which is rising out of the ashes of the old one. An inn, such as it is, lately established by a German, offers to a traveller the only public accommodation he can command in Wallachia, except, per- haps, at Bukharest, its capital. Some comfort- able little white houses, with windows, are just finished ; others are in process of erection ; and the dwellings of the poor, which were the first we had for some time seen covered with tiles, may almost be dignified with the name of cot- tages. In the principal street, two wooden arches erected for an illumination in honor of a re- cent visit from count Woronzow, the governor general of Lower Russia, afforded a proof of northern influence in Wallachia. Several Eng- lish and some Greek merchantmen were lying off the shore. The first British vessel that ever sailed up the Danube lately conveyed a vice- consul to Ibrail; and since that time eleven 190 COMMERCE OF IBRAIL. ships from England have arrived here. The annual exports may be estimated at eighty thousand beasts and two hundred and fifty thousand sheep-skins to Hungary and Ger- many ; five hundred cargoes of wheat, barley, and oats, each of two hundred tons, a thousand tons of tallow, four hundred thousand pounds of wool, and a thousand pounds of cantharides, to various countries ; besides barrel-staves to England, and wine to Russia. A horse sells for about three pounds, and the prices of other articles are in proportion. Eight horses for a post of twelve miles cost twenty-two piastres, or something less than seven shillings. Accounts are kept in the Turkish coins of paras and piastres : forty paras equal a piastre, which is equivalent to about threepence-halfpenny here, though to little more than twopence-half- penny in Constantinople and Smyrna. During a voyage of six days from Scala Cla- dova to Ibrail, we had not received a single new passenger on board. At this place the ispravnik and his wife, accompanied by seve- ral officers and ladies, embarked to enjoy a little excursion to Galatz, which seems to afford almost the only variety in their mono- tonous life. The governor speaks French, as does his lady, a remarkably intelligent woman, NAVIGATION OF THE DANUBE. 191 who travelled last year to England, accom- panied by a single servant. An hour and twenty minutes carried us by the river Sereth, the boundary of Wallachia and Moldavia, into the latter principality, land- ing us at its chief commercial town Galatz, a place of importance in the country, yet so lit- tle known that only one English traveller had preceded us, as we were informed, (though per- haps erroneously,) within the memory of man. Here the steam-navigation of the Danube terminates ; but it is hoped that next year the communication between Vienna and Con- stantinople will be completed.* In taking a review of our long voyage, we felt that we had not been subjected to more d6s- agr^mens than might reasonably have been an- ticipated on a route wholly untried, and in the infancy of an establishment so novel in the countries embraced by the speculation of the steam-navigation company. It is true, the in- conveniences to be encountered are considera- ble ; but then, no one should venture on the excursion who is unprepared for hardships and harassing delays, for it cannot be expected that * This communication is now perfected by means of an additional steamer which plies between Galatz and Constan- tinople. 192 REFLECTIONS ON THE a project which has to contend against so many obstacles should be perfected at once. Instead of complaining, a traveller of an enlarged and philanthropic mind will turn with admira- tion to the enterprise and patriotism which have set on foot so grand an undertaking, and to the important moral consequences likely to be the result, remembering with satisfac- tion that steam is calculated to prove the precursor of civilization, civilization of edu- cation, education of religion, and religion of happiness. The effect of the perfect orga- nization of the existing arrangements will be to bring all the provinces on the banks of the Danube, with those bordering on them, into contact with the arts and sciences, the civil institutions, and the moral, commercial, and religious resources of western Europe ; and a brighter, happier day will dawn on Hungary, Transylvania, Croatia, Sclavonia, Bosnia, Servia, Bulgaria, Wallachia, and Mol- davia. Nor will these countries be a limit to bound the operations of the mighty moral engine. The steam communication now ar- ranged between England, Spain, Malta, Mar- seilles, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Syria, Constanti- nople, Crim Tartary, and Odessa, completes the line which may encircle Europe with a zone of NAVIGATION OF THE DANUBE. 193 blessings, and unite it to Asia and Africa by the golden tie of gratitude for benefits con- ferred : it promises to enlarge the empires of science, religion, and happiness ; to wave the sceptre of liberty over Afric's injured soil ; and, by facilitating the dissemination of the truths of the gospel, to prostrate the crescent at the foot of the cross. 194 APPENDIX TO THE VOYAGE DOWN THE DANUBE. THE following details may prove interesting to those who purpose to make a voyage down the Danube. R and L indicate the right and left banks of the river. The Eng- lish miles are given, instead of hours, from Moldova to Scala Cladova, because the voyage is made in a row-boat, not a steamer. The time noted throughout the rest of the course includes stoppages of less than an hour, and is that in which the author actually made the voyage. While, therefore, an estimate of ten miles for each hour will, in general, give the distance by approximation, it will some- times prove very erroneous with reference to two neigh- bouring towns where it may have happened that long stop- pages occurred. APPENDIX TO VOYAGE ON DANUBE. 195 DISTANCES BY WATER FROM PRESBURG. Hours. Hours. From Presburg to Carlsburg R. 2 Hungary. Raab . R. 3 Comorn . L. 3 Neudorf R. ii Gran R. \ Marosh L. ) Vessigrad R. 5 3 Watzen L. H Ofen, and . Pest . R.1 L.3 if Foldvar . R. N Paks . R. 2 Tolna R. 3 Baja . . * . L. 3 2 Mohacs . R. 2 Apatin . L. 3 k Vukovar . R. 4 Scharengrad . R. 2 i Neusatz . L. ) Peter wardein -. R.J * Semlin R. 51 - 34} Pancsova . ++':-. * -, L. H Basias * ; . L. 4J Moldova L. 11 - 7* From Presburg to Moldova 562 Eng. miles, or Hours 196 APPENDIX TO VOYAGE ON DANUBE. Miles. Miles From Presburg to Moldova 561 hours, or Hungarian bank. St. Helena . Lupkova . Berzasta Swinitza . ' . Servian bank. Milanovacz . Kolumbina Plawischewitz Dubova . Ogradena . . Frauenwiese Jieschenitza . Orschova . . . L. 2J L. 1\ L. 5 L. 15 R. 2 R. 6 L. 4 L. 5 L. 5 L. 1 L. L. 2 i Turkish fort. Turkish fort. Boundary of 57} 121 Island of Neu Orschova . i Fort Elizabeth . R. Hungary and Wallachia L. Rocks called Eisen Thor i Sibb . . . R. ] Kladosicza R. I Wallachian bank. Scala Cladova . . L. i Hours. From Presburg to Scala Cladova, 781, or Eng. miles 632 In May 1834, when the Danube was unusually full, a small steamer, the Argo, made this voyage once ;* but the habitual shallowness of the river requires the general substitution of a row-boat for a steam-vessel between Moldova and Scala Cladova. On the occasion above referred to, the Argo reached Orschova in six, and Scala Cladova in eight and a quarter hours from Moldova ; a row-boat sometimes re- quires twenty-two hours, as above calculated. * The Paunonia has likewise effected it since these notes were penned. APPENDIX TO VOYAGE ON DANUBE. 197 Hrs. Min. Hrs. From Presburg to ) _. , \ 632J Eng. miles, or 78 Scala Cladova 3 Tchernitz . . L. 20 Remains of Trajan's ^ - Bridge R. and L. 3 PersaPalanka . R. 2 35 Island of Ostrovo 30 End of ditto . 10 Praova . . R. 5 R 55 Servia & Bulgaria. ) Bulgarian bank. Florentin . . R. 1 15 Kalafat . . L. 25 Widdin . . R. 20 Lorn Palanka . R. 3 5 ZibruPafanka . R. 1 30 Oreava . ' 2 5 Quarantine station L. Vadiin i . R. 1 40 Isker river . . R. 10 Aluta river . L. 2 25 Nicopolis . r< i'- R. 15 Sistova or 1 -\ Schistow y '/ 2 55 Quarantine station L. J Novigrad . . R. 1 25 Batina . . R. 50 Rustchuk . ';*- R. ) Giorgervo . . L. From Presburg to Giorgervo 925 Eng. miles, or Hours 107 J 198 APPENDIX TO VOYAGE ON DANUBE. Hrs. Min. Hrs. From Presburg to Giorgervo 925 Eng. miles, or 107J The site of an old ) , _ } R. 50 Genoese camp J Turtuka . . R. 3 10 Silistria . . R. 3 30 Adaku R. 50 Tepren . . R. 30 Karahassan . R. 1 55 Rassova . . R. 45 Gokirlen . . R. 20 Neu Simanesch R. 1 5 Hirsovo . . R. 2 30 Jalonissa river . L. 45 Bertus . L. 50 Gropen . . L. 1 45 Braila . . . L. 1 55 Boundary between} Wallachia and^Sereth river . L. 55 Moldavia. Port of Moldavia. Galatz . L. 25 Total distance from Presburg to Galatz, . ,,.-,-, > 1145 Eng. miles, or Hours 129J calculated by the pro- gress of the steamer, A steamer goes every third day, during the season, from Presburg to Pest ; another plies every twelfth day from Pest to Moldova, communicating, by means of a row-boat, with a ) third that proceeds from Scala Cladova to Galatz. In the three steamers the engineers are English, and the captains and conducteurs generally talk either English or French, sometimes both. APPENDIX TO VOYAGE ON DANUBE. 199 'he following are said to be the distances to Constantinople by water : Hrs. Mia. Hrs. rom Presburg to 1 [l 145 English miles, or . . 129i ralatz, as above, ) ioundary between \ Moldavia and>River Pruth . . L. 10 Bessarabia. 3 Russian bank, lleni Tomarino . L. 45 Isakscha . . R. 1 45 Tulthsche . R. 1 50 Mouth of Danube . 6 10 -- Ill Constantinople . 32 'otal estimated distance \ from Presburg to Con- V 1580 Eng. miles, or Hours 173 stantinople, * Eng. The following are said to be the Miles. measured distances by water : From Vienna to Presburg . . . . 42 Presburg to Pest . . . 138 Pest to Semlin "''*? . . . 364 Semlin to Moldova . . y 70 Moldova to Scala Cladova . . 70 Total from Vienna to Scala Cladova . . . 684 Estimated, as above, from Scala Cladova ? 9471 to Constantinople . . " .3 total corrected distance from 1 fc Vienna to Constantinople ) 200 APPENDIX TO VOYAGE ON DANUBE. Though the voyage from Presburg to Galatz, with the incidental delays, occupied the author nineteen days, yet when the arrangements of the company shall be fully com- pleted and the whole system organized, the time required will, probably, not exceed that indicated in the following schedule.* Total Days. Days. From Presburg to Pest ... 1 Pest to Semlin . . . 2i 01 "a Semlin to Moldova . | . Moldova to Scala Cladova . 1 5 Scala Cladova to Giorgervo . 2 ~ Giorgervo to Galatz 2 g Galatz to 'Constantinople . 3 jn Total from Presburg to Constantinople 12 days. The fares in the chief cabin are as follow : Silver Sil. Flo. Florins. Total. From Presburg to Pest ... 9 Semlin . . 15 24 Moldova 3 . * ^ / Orschova . . 10 Q _ oi Giorgervo . .13 65 50 Galatz . . 15 The florin may be calculated at two shillings and a penny English. The price of a place in the fore-cabin is of the above. Food is not included, but is supplied by a traiteur on board. * Sinre the above memoranda were committed to paper, the arrange- ments have been completed, as stated in the note to page 191. 201 CHAPTER VII. MOLDAVIA. FROM GALATZ TO LIOVA. Vice-consul at Galatz. Albanian character and costume- Moldavian servants. Variety of languages spoken. Com- merce of Galatz. Cheapness of food Houses. Furni- ture. Streets. Population. Effect of arrival of steamer. Venedic nations. General aspect of Moldavia. Its politics, fertility, and population. Quarantine on Rus- sian frontier. Preparations for departure. Carriage. Horses and tackle. Driver. Leave Galatz. Village of Formosica. Peasant's hut. Discomforts of night. Journey resumed. Villages. Wells. Gipsies. The Pruth. First view of Russian territory. Wines. To- bacco and wild asparagus. Wodeni. Ancient and modern modes of wearing hair. Faltsi. Greek church. Coun- try. Party benighted. Strength and food of horses. Porte de Liova. Cry of Russian guard. Hut. Miseries of night. Jews. Apply for admission to quarantine. Difficulties about passport. Renewed application. Fresh obstacles. Objection of Russia to foreigners. Inventory of goods. Cross the Pruth. A LETTER of introduction insured to us the hospitalities of the vice-consul of Galatz and his lady, who kindly took us into their house VOL. i. N 202 ALBANIAN COSTUME. and were unremitting in their obliging atten- tions till we resumed our journey towards the frontier of Russia. It was no small privilege to find ourselves under the shelter of a roof and to enjoy the luxury of a bed, after six consecutive nights passed on the hard unfurnished boards of the steamer. These comforts, with the cour- tesies of our considerate host and hostess, were the more valued when we learned that our companions had searched the town in every direction for a corner in which they might pass the night ; and had, at length, been obliged to put up with accommodations of a very diffe- rent description from those with which we were favored. The lady of the vice-consul presided over our morning repast and amused us with anecdotes of her servants. One is a fine handsome Alba- nian ; fierce, capricious, and violent in love and hatred ; at times he leaves his master, to whom he is much attached, for hours together ; and when, on his return, he is questioned as to this strange conduct, he fixes his eyes on the ground, makes no reply, shows no sign either of sorrow or of anger, and does the same thing the next time he is offended or idle. But he is honest, and this is no little recommendation. His costume is beautiful. From a crimson cap MOLDAVIAN SERVANTS. 203 a long black tassel falls over his light flowing locks. A shirt, open in front, is retained in its place by a dark brown jacket, likewise open : below this, is a red leathern girdle, about ten inches wide, furnished with a brace of silver- headed pistols ; and a yataghan formed part of his dress till his ungoverned passions rendered it necessary to disarm him of that formidable weapon : from the waist hangs a very full white linen petticoat, the width of which is a subject of pride with the wearer, and varies from thirty to fifty yards : long dark gaiters and shoes complete the costume, The ser- vant who had charge of the child was a Greek, habited in the garb commonly worn by his countrymen in Turkey. Moldavian domestics appear to be indolent, stupid, and immoral to the last degree. They require to have the same order repeated every day : when the dinner-cloth is laid by one who has performed the office for months, the mis- tress must sit by and say, " Now put on the spoons, now the salt-cellars, now the tumblers now the knives," and so for every separate ar- ticle of table furniture : when reproved, they stand mute, and look on the ground; but neither profess nor exhibit an intention to do better. Their inclination to theft is irresistible ; a lady N 2 204 GALATZ. residing here told us that it frequently hap- pened that her pocket-handkerchief, laid down for a moment while she was speaking to a servant, disappeared as she turned away her head : the culprit at first denies the charge ; and when the stolen article is found upon him, he evinces no sense of shame. While we sat at dinner five languages were spoken, though the party consisted of only four individuals. We talked to one another in English and to our hostess in French ; while our host addressed one of us in French, the other in Italian, and his wife in Greek ; and they both gave orders to their servants in Moldavian. Galatz carries on a considerable commerce and may be regarded as the port of both the principalities, though Ibrail has lately drawn to itself a share of the trade of Wallachia. Ships from England, the Ionian isles, and other European countries, are generally lying off the quay. The principal exports are tallow, hari- cot-beans, corn, cheese, barrel staves, wax, wool, beasts, skins, and wine to Odessa. The chief imports are iron, oil, olives, cotton, sugar, and coffee. Articles of food are remarkably cheap : a goose in good condition costs sevenpence, a fat sheep three shillings, and an egg a farthing. STREETS. POPULATION. 205 The houses are nearly all built of unpainted wood and roofed with the same material. Most are limited to a single floor, with a front open towards the street, as is usual in Wallachia and the east ; and goods exposed for sale are spread out on the ground. At the upper end of the town are a few dwellings of a better descrip- tion, inhabited by consuls and two or three of the richer merchants ; they are tiled and white- washed, and have glass windows, with a story above the rez-de-chaussee. The furniture of the rooms consists of a sofa extending along one side, a table, a looking-glass, and three or four chairs; while a stove in the wall answers for two or more apartments. The streets are formed of the trunks of trees placed crossways, making what is familiarly called a corduroy road. The population may be about five thousand, of whom one thousand are British subjects from the Ionian isles ; principally, men who have fled for debt or crime, or have been left here by vessels in which they worked their passage. Besides these, a considerable number of Jews and Armenians are to be seen, but the great mass of the natives are of the Greek persuasion. The arrival of the steamer brings with it a gala-day to the inhabitants. On these occa- sions the vessel becomes a general rendez- POLITICS OF MOLDAVIA. vous for all the gossips of the place, and or- dinary recreations and amusements are absorb- ed in that superlatively gratifying one, seeing and being seen, talking and being talked to. Moldavia derives its name from the river Moldau. It was once occupied " by the Ve- nedic nations, or the people who dwelt on fens ; the same tribes who first inhabited that part of England now called Cambridgeshire. The ancient Venedi appear to have been the beavers of the human race; all their settle- ments were on the banks of small rivers and lakes, or by the side of fens. It is more than probable that their diet was fish and the flesh of water-birds ; and finding that the efflu- via from the marshes was best obviated by covering them with water, they constructed dams across the narrows and rapids of the small rivers and filled the marshy hollows with water, around which they dwelt in security, and lived upon the salmon and wild fowl which fattened in these artificial lakes. Most of the rivers in Moldavia are at this hour intersected with weirs which dam the waters and form ponds ; mills are built on these weirs, and the villages are placed around them.' 1 * In the north there is * Neale's Travels. Doubtless the name Venedi is con- nected with the Teutonic word fen ; and a similar relation ITS GENERAL ASPECT. 207 some beautiful scenery, but the southern parts are flat and uninteresting. From what we could learn of the politics of the country, it seems that they are so inti- mately blended with those of Wallachia as scarcely to require a separate mention. Once subject to the tyranny of Turkey, Moldavia, at the same time with her sister principality, was virtually released from the Ottoman yoke to bow to one no less galling ; and though governed by a hospodar of her own, yet he is the creature and the tool of Russia. The population, amounting to half a million, is thinly scattered over the province, which, from the fertility of its soil, is capable of supporting four or five times the existing number. The towns participate the general dearth of inha- bitants; and Jassi, the capital, contains scarcely more than twelve thousand souls. The first information obtained at Galatz re- lative to the quarantine on the frontier of Rus- sia was discouraging. The period of probation prescribed for travellers arriving at the neigh- bouring town .of Reni, instead of being four days, as we had been informed, proved to be fourteen ; at the same time, bills of health re- may be traced between the Saxon fcnn and the Dutch venne, each signifying a marshy spot. 208 VARIOUS ROUTES. ceived from the English consul at Constanti- nople certified that, though the plague existed there, it was not raging with malignity ; thus it appeared that, in descending the Danube nearly to its embouchure, we had acted on incorrect information ; and we were almost inclined to wish that we had proceeded, like some of our companions, direct from Rustchuk to Varna, and thence by water to Constantinople. It was now too late to pursue this course ; and there is no road from Galatz to the capital of Tur- key : while, owing to the prevalent winds, a voyage is so tedious and the vessels are so ill adapted for the reception of passengers, that we resolved to submit to quarantine and make the best of our way to Odessa, whence a steamer plies to Constantinople. In this de- cision we were confirmed by hearing that at Liova, distant eighteen hours from Galatz, travellers might enter Russia with a detention of only four days. Preparatory to departure, it was necessary that the Russian consul should sign our pass- ports, to attest that we had not been travelling in any part of Turkey but Wallachia and Mol- davia, in neither of which provinces the plague existed. This form, with the exchange of money and purchase of provisions for a journey PREPARATIONS FOR JOURNEY. 209 ihrough a country supplying none, occupied :he morning ; and it was 4 p. M. before our car- -iage made its appearance. As there is no high- -oad to Liova, it was impracticable to travel with post-horses, and the best vehicle the con- sul could procure was so rickety that we feared it would scarcely carry us to the journey's ?nd. To this five ponies were attached with less of tackle than we had ever seen used ; and what there was consisted solely of cord which had been repeatedly broken and re-tied. The wheeler on which the driver mounted had a bit, the other only a halter: of the three leaders two were furnished with bits and were linked to- gether; to the third nothing whatever was affix- ed but the traces round his chest ; he was go- verned entirely by the voice, heedless of which, he frequently strayed in the course of the jour- ney and made direct for a piece of grass or a well; while his comrades, pursuing their course, left him behind the vehicle ; in which state he was dragged backwards by the traces, till the driver descending chastised him for his erratic propensities. This man was a Molda- vian, who spoke not a word of any other lan- guage than that of his native wilds. His coarse white shirt, with long sleeves, was fas- tened over a pair of yet coarser trowsers by a 210 DEPARTURE FROM GALATZ. broad girdle of green cloth, ornamented with two leather straps studded with large brass buttons. Over this was a sheepskin cloak, with the wool inside. His cap was made of the same material with the wool outside; and he was furnished with large top-boots. The sight of this equipage was almost suffi- cient to deter us from undertaking the jour- ney ; but we had no alternative : whether we advanced or receded, whether we returned to Giorgervo, or directed our course to Odessa or Constantinople, this was the best conveyance the town supplied ; and in it we were com- pelled to proceed. Our luggage was soon stowed away in the vehicle; the lighter articles were placed behind, and two large portmanteaux, to serve as seats, in front. No interpreter could be obtained who spoke Moldavian and Russ together with any language with which we were acquainted ; and thus, to all other discomforts was added that of an inability to communicate with our driver or with the people of the country. At length, we bade adieu to our friends at Galatz, through whose kindness we were pro- vided with a little English porter, some good bread, roast fowls, butter, and a few bottles of mineral water. It was 5 P.M. when we started; PEASANT'S HUT. 211 the sun soon sank below the horizon, and our route lay over a flat common without a single object to vary its monotony. The road, con- sidering that it was nothing but a Moldavian wagon track, was pretty good ; though every now and then we were sadly jolted by a rut or hole; while the frail bridges crossing the streams or quagmires, composed, as they were, of pieces of wood thrown loosely one upon an- other, tottered under our weight. It was nearly ten o'clock when the howling of a number of wolf-like dogs announced that we were in the village of Formosica. We drove to the residence of the boyar, or chief landholder, and requested him to provide us with a lodging. Fortunately, he spoke Ger- man ; and, politely expressing a regret that his own house was full, he sent a man to shew us the next best accommodation in the village. In a few minutes we were at the door of a hut, our entrance into which roused from their slum- bers an old man and his wife, three or four young women, and a girl, who were lying on benches which they readily resigned at the com- mand of their landlord. The suffocating smell and hard boards offered so little inducement to sleep, that, had it been July instead of Sep- tember, we should have preferred remaining in 212 DISCOMFORTS OF THE NIGHT. the carriage ; but the night air in these coun- tries, especially in autumn, is peculiarly preju- dicial to health. While, therefore, one of the party guarded the baggage, in a spot where we might so easily have been plundered without the means of obtaining redress, the others threw themselves on the benches in travelling costume. Sundry wild sounds varied the dull watches of the night, through all of which we might have slept had it not been for the young lady of the family, who, long before day -break, roused by the increased activity of the Lilli- putian herds to which her flowing locks afforded cover, set up a scream, and began to pursue them with the deadly vengeance of her nails. Our alarm kept pace with the vigor of her efforts, and the fears induced were an antidote to sleep. A little before 5 A.M. we resumed our jour- ney without food. Every third or fourth hour carried us to a collection of miserable huts, built of mud and wicker-work, thatched with reeds, and scattered irregularly over the waste, without garden or enclosure. Nothing like a street is to be seen. One of these villages is called Brennerst ; another Popogene, and a third Wodeni. At Brennerst we were struck with the unusual number of wells : every twenty yards was marked by one of those long GIPSIES. THE TRUTH. 213 poles, balanced on the stump of a tree by a bucket at one end and a heap of mud on the other, which are so common in India, and in almost every country of Europe except our own. In the neighbourhood of Popogene we met a tribe of gipsies, whose swarthy complexions were scarcely concealed by any clothes ; one of the younger ones, by no means an infant, was absolutely naked; a man was almost in the same state ; and the women were not decently covered. These wretched people seem in the principalities to be sunk even below their degraded fellow-subjects. Elsewhere they separate themselves, here sla- very separates them, from the rest of mankind. Our course lay along the right bank of the river Pruth, the ancient Puretus, which once formed the boundary of Russia and Turkey, and which now divides the Russian province of Bessarabia from the principalities whose independence the czar professes to guarantee, while he holds them in abject subjection. Our first view of the great northern empire was ac- companied with appropriate sensations, for the morning was the coldest we had experienced ; yet many of the fields on this side the Pruth are cultivated with vines ; and the wine of Moldavia, especially that called Odobesta, is 214 ANCIENT AND MODERN HEAD-DRESS. celebrated. We passed some plantations of tobacco ; and wild asparagus scattered its seeds under our wheels as we galloped over the com- mon which skirts the nominal dominions of Turkey on the Russian frontier. This waste swarms with crows and hawks ; and the mag- pies excited our surprise, as we had never before seen those birds in such numbers. At noon we halted at Wodeni, a village con- sisting of a few huts made of hurdles, daubed with mud and covered with rushes, which is favored above its fellows with a church of the same simple structure. The people wear neither shoes nor stockings, and are clad in the filthiest garbs. The girls of all classes plait their hair in two queues which hang down to the feet ; and, as these are peculiar to unmarried women, very possibly some such custom exists (though less precise and less accurately defined,) as that which pre- vails in Hamburg ; where, it is said, a girl cuts off one queue when she marries, and the other if she become a second time a wife. It is not improbable that the Moldavians derive their mode from the Dacians, as the Hamburgers do from their ancestors, the Suevi, of whom Tacitus records that the common people braided and tied their hair, while the chiefs CHURCHES AND BELFRIES. 215 wore it in a knot on the top of the head, that they might appear taller arid more terrible to their enemies. Resuming our journey, we soon reached a spot called Orgee and, as the sun set, the small town of Faltsi, distinguished from the neigh- bouring villages only by the greater number of its huts and the superiority of its church, which is stuccoed and ornamented with two towers, and has a belfry at a distance from the sacred edifice ; a separation as usual in the principalities, as it is in Scandinavia and many parts of Italy. Here we observed, for the first time, chains suspended from the crosses sur- mounting the towers, while the crosses them- selves are double, like those of Russia. This adoption of the northern style of architecture and ornament indicated our near approach to the empire of the czars ; and as the building appeared quite modern, it may reasonably be concluded that it has been erected since the course of political occurrences placed Moldavia virtually in the hands of the Russians. From Faltsi our route ran parallel to the channel of the Pruth and to a chain of low hills in Bessarabia, over a wide morass extending ten or twelve miles and sometimes form- ing small lakes, in the middle of which are 216 MOLDAVIAN HORSES. islands covered with rushes and other produc- tions of marshy lands. The moon yielded but a feeble glimmer ; our driver lost his way ; and for more than an hour we anticipated the pro- bability of wandering all night on the com- mon : at length, with great difficulty, we reached a village and obtained a guide to direct us into the straight road to Liova. Our animals had now been fifteen hours in harness, with only one short interval in the middle of the day ; and unless accustomed to such severe labor, they would have been incapacitated for exertion ; but the Moldavian horses are very strong, though ill fed ; they seldom touch oats or any nutritious grain ; and even during this long journey, though those we drove eat but once in the day, still the only food with which they were indulged was rank straw. It was past nine in the evening when we found ourselves among some huts on the bank of the Pruth, at a spot dignified by the high- sounding title of Porte de Liova. By the light of the moon we discerned a ferry ; and the loud cry of the guards, stationed on the opposite side and answering one another at short inter- vals, indicated the vicinity of the Russian qua- rantine, whither we were bound. This cry of the sentinels is wild and singular. It consists DISCOMFORTS OF NIGHT. 217 of one high note, which they usually sustain as long as the breath permits, when they con- clude by descending the scale in semi-tones. A hard-featured, passionate man, roused from his slumbers, soon answered the call of our driver, and came out to ask what we required. We intimated by signs that we were desirous of crossing the river to Liova: to this he replied by violent gestures and unintelligible vociferations; and after a fruitless effort to persuade him to comply with our wishes, we were beginning to make arrangements for spending the night in the carriage, when a more respectable person accosted us. He understood just two words of German ; " To-morrow morning ;" by means of which he intimated that we could not cross the ferry till the following day ; and at the same time conducted us to a miserable hut, where a woman and a naked child, rolling themselves off a plank, placed it at our dispo- sal. In a corner, two more children lay on the mud floor. The stove, a broad bench on three sides of the room, and a stick suspended from the ceiling, on which several articles of dress were hanging, constituted the only furniture. Three holes in the wall, provided with pieces of bladder removable at pleasure, served to admit light, but did not exclude the air. Snch was VOL. i. o 218 PORTE DE LI OVA. our apartment. Our companions had a similar one in another cabin. In a few minutes the vehicle was unloaded and the baggage piled be- fore the door to barricade it against intruders ; when, partially undressing and wrapt in our cloaks, we lay down to sleep, with the two children in the corner, thankful for a sheltered spot in which to rest our weary limbs. The following morning we awoke to a sense of our miseries, and saw by daylight the full extent of the wretchedness by which we were surrounded. The screaming of the children had compelled us in the middle of the night -to put them into the outer room, and they ceased to disturb us ; but not so the insects by which we were almost devoured : an entomologist might have made a fair collection from the various species of our tormentors. On opening the door, we found ourselves enveloped in a thick mist ; the Pruth flowed under the wall of the hut, and the eye could not penetrate the dense vapor that arose from its surface ; but as soon as this was dissipated, we descried the roof of the Russian quarantine on the further side of a low hill, and recognized in it the site oi our future prison. In vain we traversed and re traversed the village in search of some one wh( spoke French, Italian, or German ; but not ; CROSS THE PRUTH. 219 creature was to be found whose attainments ex- tended beyond a knowledge of the Moldavian dialect. The uncourteous man who, the preced- ing night, had impressed us with no very favor- able opinion of his disposition, verified to-day the estimate we had formed of him ; and to our signs, soliciting a conveyance to the oppo- site shore, he replied only by negations issued with all the assumption of petty authority. In this painful situation we passed several hours, without the possibility of moving or of procur- ing bread, meat, clean water, or the common necessaries of life ; till, in the afternoon, a flag raised on the Russian bank intimated that strangers might cross the water: at the same time several Jews arrived, some of whom spoke broken German ; and from them we learned the real cause of our detention, namely, that the bureau is opened only twice a day, and on Sunday, which this happened to be, but once. Embarking in a canoe formed of an exca- vated tree, and reaching the opposite shore in company with about sixteen Jews and Moldavian peasants, we proceeded to exhibit our passports and solicit permission to enter the quarantine, which consists of a number of little detached buildings, surrounded by o 2 220 A TRAVELLER'S DIFFICULTIES a wooden palisade forming a square of about a hundred and fifty yards. Outside this are an office, where at stated hours an employ^ re- ceives passports and strangers, and a quadran- gle into which the detenus are permitted to enter once in the day, to converse with their friends through a screen of trellis-work. The visit of our companions enabled the prisoners to avail themselves of this privilege, and a dirty tribe flocked to the bars to gossip away their short half-hour. Some of the Jews, who had been long fasting, spread out their provisions on the ground and began to eat, having first washed their hands and rinsed their mouths; for, like their ancestors of old, " unless they wash, they eat not." In the bureau we encountered an official styling himself the commissary, who spoke not a word of any language but the Russian. We were separated by a double grating furnished with small doors opposite to each other, between which, on a glass case containing a New Testament and a picture of the virgin, our passports were placed. These were taken up with a pair of tongs, and one of the Jews was desired to inform us that we must return the following day. We represented that we had already lost time by the arrangements which ON ENTERING RUSSIA. 221 prevented our reception the previous night; that we were now in a spot where the necessaries of life were not procurable ; that we had literally passed fifty-four hours without washing our faces, from the impossibility of procuring any water unmixed with mud, and that we had spent two nights without enjoying the comfort of a bed ; that to force us to remain longer in such a condition was cruel ; and that some consideration ought to be manifested. All this touched not the heart of the commis- sary, who replied only that the law must be obeyed. Before we left, the doctor of the quarantine, who spoke a little French, arrived, and acted as interpreter. Having heard our just complaint, he kindly interceded for us, but without effect ; and the sleek little com- missary desired him to apprise us that the law requires every foreigner, not French, bring- ing a French passport, to be detained beyond the frontier while enquiries are instituted re- garding him ; nor would he understand that the passports of all English travellers are ne- cessarily drawn out in French ; that being the diplomatic language of Europe. Finding that we were likely to be thus mal- treated, we gave him a letter addressed to the governor of the town, stating that some foreign A TRAVELLER'S DIFFICULTIES gentlemen wished to enter the Russian domi- nions, that they were furnished with regular passports and willing to submit to quarantine, but tbat they were harassed by unnecessary detention, to obviate which his aid was soli- cited. When we requested that this might be speedily forwarded, the following dialogue with the commissary took place by means of a Jew. " Whence comes this letter to the governor of Liova ?" " From the Porte de Liova." - " Who wrote it ?" " A gentleman."" What gentleman ?" " His name will be found in the letter." " The commissary must know his name." " Then the governor will doubtless inform him." Disgusted with his examine", the commissary turned away, the doors were locked, and we were ordered to recross the water. Doomed to pass another day in the miserable Porte de Liova, it was a source of thankfulness and surprise that the means professedly intend- ed to prevent our carrying infection from coun- tries where it was well known no contagious disease existed, did not themselves induce ill- ness ; a result which would probably have en- sued, but for the wholesome food supplied by our kind friends at Galatz. After a second doleful night, we arose with such strength as survived the attacks of the ON ENTERING RUSSIA. 223 insatiable insects, and were happy to see the flag flying at eight o'clock. Again we resorted to the office of the commissary, who said that it was impossible we should be received, because we must previously take an oath, and we did not understand the Russian language. We enquired why the oath could not be trans- lated ? " Because nobody can translate it." " Where is the doctor ?" " He may perhaps come to-morrow or next day." " Is there no one in the town who talks German, French, or Italian, and who will translate the oath for a handsome remuneration ?" " No ; nobody !" " Will you not communicate the substance of the oath to one of these Jews, and suffer him to repeat it to us ?" " That is impossible : a Jew cannot administer an oath to a Christian." " But a Jew can inform a Christian what he is called upon to swear." " No ; he cannot take the name of Christ." " A Jew often does take the name of Christ, though in blasphemy : however, the word is the same in all languages; let him interpret the rest of the oath, we can supply the sacred name." The absurdity of this conversation was the more glaring, as a Jew was at the time actually naming the name of Christ in his office of interpreter between us. To suppose the commissary could not under- 224 A TRAVELLER'S DIFFICULTIES stand the feasibility of this arrangement, were to suppose him without reason ; but he would not. We offered him a piece of gold, which he refused, and went away, leaving us to de- cide whether we should go back to Galatz or make one more effort to overcome the vexa- tious annoyances of a Russian frontier. On the northern boundary equal obstacles are not opposed to the admission of travellers ; but we were informed at Vienna that it was impossible to conceive the inconveniences to which those are exposed who enter Bessarabia ; and so the result proved. The fact is, Russia does not wish the subjects of more liberal go- vernments to blend with her own ; and she can- not more effectually prevent such an amalga- mation than by condemning them to what we suffered. Nothing but a determination to ex- clude foreigners to the utmost of her power can account for the anomaly that, in a frontier of- fice, at which many must be constantly arriving, there should not be an individual capable of conversing in any language but Moldavian and Russ, except the doctor, who stated that it was no part of his duty to act as interpreter. While we were meditating on the course to be adopted, the commissary returned : he had pro- bably seen the governor and learned that we ON ENTERING RUSSIA. 225 were furnished with an introduction to count Woronzow, the governor- general of Southern Russia; for his manner was entirely changed: he now told us that if we would attend, with our party, in the afternoon, bringing a list in Russ of every, even the most minute, article in our possession, we should be admitted, and the oath should be translated for us into French. By means of a Jew who spoke a little German and Moldavian, and a Moldavian who spoke a little Russ but could scarcely write and required two or three minutes for each word, a list of our effects was made, minute even to scraps of linen, some allumettes, and frag- ments of paper. This tedious work accom- plished, we proceeded to cross the ferry, but were arrested in our progress by the sentinel on the Moldavian side, who insisted on a present before he would suffer us to pass. Some of his companions, encouraged by the readiness with which we had submitted to similar impositions, had asked for a trifle, which we intended to give ; but when a mili- tary sentry ventured to stop us with such a demand, we felt that compliance would be weakness and that duty required we should assert our rights by forcing a passage malgre" his opposition. 226 CHAPTER VIII. BESSARABIA. FROM LIOVA TO KISHNAU. Enter Bessarabia Forms of admission into quarantine. Ex- amination of baggage. Room and furniture. Guardian. Insects. Visits of doctor. Difficulties Jew traiteur. Interrogations. List of books. Final examination and oath. Leave quarantine. Ordered to Kishnau. Charac- ter and rank of officers of quarantine. Douane. Port- manteau with books sealed. Doctor. Niemtevich. Polish Jews. Description of-vehicle. Quit Liova. Scenery. Verst-posts. Conquest of Bessarabia Habits of people affected by government. Driver. Sarasicca. Peasant's hut. Wild scenery. Autumnal tints. Eagles. Indian vultures. View of Kishnau. Roman walls. Interior of town. Hotel. Beds. Visits to governor. Gipsies. Business transacted by Jews. Hebrew soldiers. Anecdote. ARRIVED on the Bessarabian bank and now in the empire of Russia, we marched in pro- cession, accompanied by a number of Jews going to see their friends, to the office of the commissary, who, after sundry forms and much delay, placed in our hands a French A RUSSIAN QUARANTINE. 227 translation of the regulations of the quarantine, all of which were enforced under penalty of death. These being read, we were required to take an oath of obedience, and to give a solemn promise that we would secrete nothing from the inspectors. The great doors were then opened, and we were admitted with our bag- gage, which was laid out upon the grass, every article being taken separately from the boxes and compared with the inventory written on the other side of the water. The exact num- ber of gold ducats and silver rubles possessed by each of us was entered ; every scrap of paper, rag, and leather was examined, and the list made doubly correct ; yet, two days after- wards, an official was directed to inform us that a pair of braces was not recorded, which, with some garters, was then formally added to the catalogue. It is not possible to conceive, with- out personal experience, the rigidity of this investigation. At length, the shadows of night drew over the horizon, and we were permitted to retire to our apartments ; having previous- ly bespoken the best in the quarantine, and particularly requested that mattresses might be hired for our use from the town. Our room, floored with brick, was eleven feet square and seven high ; it contained a stove, 228 A QUARANTINE a small deal table, a wooden stool, and two frames of bedsteads supplied with narrow planks which did not nearly meet one another. This was literally the whole furniture of the apartment in which we were destined to pass four days and nights ; there were none of the innumerable little comforts required in a do- mestic menage, nor were we permitted to pro- vide them at our own expense. The door opened into a small enclosure, six yards square, in which a soldier, called our guardian., remain- ed day and night, the gate being locked at sunset on him and us, and the windows fas- tened on the outside. One of these, (for there were two,) faced the little quadrangle, so that the guardian could inform himself of all we did ; and between eight and nine o'clock in the evening he insisted on our putting out our candle and fire ; a requisition the more vexatious, as the place swarmed with field- bugs and fleas to such a degree that, every second hour of the day and as long as light was allowed, we were compelled to wage war against them ; giving, as we received, no quar- ter. For a candlestick we were provided with a piece of clay ; a soldier's old cloak, with a coarse canvass bag, was given as a cover- ing for each bedstead ; thus, no very pro- IN BESSARABIA. 229 mising prospect opened before us. We were told that there was a Jew traiteur who pro- vided food; but, on our admission, he had left his shop for the day, and the following was a Hebrew festival ; so that, but for our own little stock, laid in without the slightest an- ticipation of being placed in such circum- stances, we should probably have become ill for want of the necessaries of life. The first morning, the doctor paid us an early visit to enquire, as well he might, how we had rested on our hard beds, and to tell us that permission would be granted to purchase from the Jew some hay to convert into pail- lasses the sacks thrown over the bedsteads ; he likewise informed us that all our goods must be suspended, or spread out, under a roof surrounded by trellis-work, there to re- main for three days to be ventilated and pu- rified. But another difficulty had arisen. Our passport was drawn out on the twenty- ninth of August at Vienna, and a vise" appeared on it which, according to the doctor, bore date the twenty-fifth of August. This looked like fraud, and we were responsible. The docu- ment was produced, and the vise proved to be written on the eleventh of September ; the entry, however, was in German; and the German 230 A QUARANTINE running-hand S is not very unlike an O with a flourish ; the doctor therefore declared it was October : we reminded him that the eleventh of October had not yet arrived ; and that, even if the secretary of a public office had made the blunder supposed, a traveller should not be held accountable ; at the same time we main- tained that, in point of fact, the word written was September, not October ; nevertheless, he strongly asserted his acquaintance with German, and it was not expedient to dispute it. At length he departed, and we heard no more of the passport being in French, nor of the date, nor of any other difficulty connected with it. The Jew made his appearance notwithstand- ing the holiday. Happily, he spoke German, without which we might have been left to starve, for our guardians understood only three syllables of any language but Russ ; and their usual reply to our solicitations for food or other necessaries was, " Jude ist nicht," " The Jew is not here ;" words repeated with a somewhat vex- atious monotony and indifference. The He- brew traiteur sold only raw materials for the table, and we were provided with no apparatus for cooking. But necessity is the mother of invention. A few earthen vessels supplied the place of saucepans, plates, and basins; thus IN BESSARABIA. 231 our meals were prepared and served; and we made the best of our lot, congratulating ourselves that the period of incarceration was so short. The second morning, the doctor came to complain that during the previous day we had not submitted all pur goods to ventilation, for our guardian-spy had informed the commissary that we had reserved some books and other articles for use. Soon after, he returned, and begged to be informed, for the third time, what was our object in going to Odessa. We repeated that we had no object but pleasure ; that we were originally bound for Constanti- nople, but that tidings of the plague had led us to defer our visit to the Turkish capital; and that we purposed waiting at Odessa till its ravages should cease. After many enqui- ries, he asked, " But if the plague should re- main there two years, what will you do?" This cross-examination concluded, he delivered to us the subjoined form in duplicate, in which he desired that each book in our possession should be recorded. Name of When No. Language. Work, and of and where No. of the Author. printed. Vols. On the fifth day preparations were made for 232 LEAVE QUARANTINE. our liberation, which, however, was not effected as readily as we had hoped. Early in the morning the doctor paid us a visit to assure himself that we were in health. We were then required to take an oath, enforced by a reference to God's presence and the anticipa- tion of his " terrible judgment," that we had complied with all the requisitions of the estab- lishment ; that we had not been in contact with any person, except those of our party, during the time of confinement ; that we had thrown nothing over the walls; and that everything belonging to us had been aired and turned each day. To the last clause we objected, observing that, however anxious we might have been to comply with the instructions re- ceived, yet it was scarcely practicable to han- dle daily each minute scrap of paper, &c. and that certainly we could not swear that this had been done. Our hesitation gave rise to a dis- cussion between the doctor, the commissary, and the director, as to whether we should be detained. At length, it was decided that all our things had been turned en masse ; and, with this understanding, we were suffered to depart. At the gate of the quarantine a carriage was in waiting to convey us to the town, a mile distant. As we crossed the threshold, the RUSSIAN EMPLOYES. 233 commissary placed in our hands a paper from his superior, directing us to proceed im- mediately to Kishnau, the capital of Bessa- rabia, in order to present ourselves to the governor of that town. It was in vain that we expostulated, stating that Kishnau was out of our road and that, as we were travellers, and not criminals, we ought to be allowed to choose our own route. Unhappily for us, we were foreigners; and as such, compelled to obey any capricious orders which these petty officials might please to issue. The director of the quarantine was raised from the situation of a coachman ; and the little commissary, who had so much annoyed us, was the son of a barber in the town. The former now receives eight hundred silver rubles, or 125 sterling, per annum ; the latter half that sum. If so small a salary be attached to respon- sible situations, the employes must necessarily be taken from the lowest grades of society, and the government must submit to the censure of foreigners who become victims to their igno- rance. The officer miscalled an interpreter receives three hundred silver rubles, or 47, a year ; his acquirements correspond with his salary, being limited to Moldavian and Russ ; and we were informed that, had it not been VOL. i. p 234 RUSSIAN DOUANE. for the doctor, we should have been sent, mal- gr6 nous, a distance of two hundred miles to the central quarantine of Bessarabia, where the high qualification of a knowledge of French is supposed to exist in the interpreter. Though our baggage had already been sub- jected to the most minute investigation, this did not exempt it from the searching scru- tiny of the douaniers, who were ready to receive us the moment we passed beyond the gates of the lazaretto. All the trunks were re- opened, and re-examined ; we were called upon to write a third list of our books, and were then informed that the portmanteau containing them must be sealed, and remain so till our arrival at Odessa. During the whole of this long journey, protracted as it might be by illness or weather, we were deprived of books of every kind, except a bible and prayer-book and one other, exempted as "sacred:" all the rest being collected together from various boxes and placed in one, our goods being un- packed, examined, and repacked on an exposed common, and the proscribed portmanteau being sealed, we were again closely questioned as to whether we had anything contraband, espe- cially any poison! Finally, we were led into a room, and made to sign an engagement that GENERAL NIEMTIVICH. 235 we would not break the seal which secured our books till we reached the office of the gover- nor-general at Odessa, where they would be inspected. Sick at heart of all the forms which impede a foreigner's entrance into the kingdom of the czars, we gained the town, where, in the house of a traiteur, we began to breathe freely and to expatiate on the barbarity of the treat- ment we had received and the absurdity of the excuses under which we had been kept outside the quarantine for two days ; but we tried in vain to discover why the commissary had asserted that no one in the town spoke any language but Russ, when it is crowded with Jews, all talking German ; and when the public rendezvous for travellers is in the hands of an Italian, who for a trifling compensation, would have been thankful to act as an interpreter. Hence, also, we might readily have obtained mattresses and other comforts had we been per- mitted to enjoy them. While waiting at the traiteur's for a carriage, the kind doctor, who is a Pole, paid us a visit of congratulation. When we spoke of Niem- tivich, whom we had personally known in England, his eyes sparkled and a ray of joy lighted up his features, as though a chord had P2 236 LIOVA. JEWS. been touched which vibrated to his heart. A similar circumstance occurred a few months before in Venice. We were cautiously retra- cing our steps from the subterranean prisons under the doge's palace and the Bridge of Sighs, in company with a stranger, when an incidental allusion was made to the Polish patriot. Our companion, who proved to be a Pole who had acted as his private secretary, pressed forward and, with a lively and interest- ed manner, asked if we were acquainted with that great man, and then gave vent to his feel- ings, saying that he was the idol of his coun- try, that infant tongues lisped his name with reverence, and that the world produced but one Niemtivich. It was a holiday with the Hebrews, and the following day was their sabbath ; on which ac- count they refused to supply us with a con- veyance. Jews are the principal tradespeople in Liova, where they abound, having fled from Poland into Bessarabia ; their peculiar dress, consisting of a long, grey, stuff coat fastened by a girdle, and a high fur cap, no less than their striking physiognomy, distinguishes them from the Christians by whom they are despised and mal-treated. As we were particularly anxious to reach Kishnau before Sunday, we CARRIAGE. ROAD. 237 ordered the best conveyance the town supplied to be procured for us without delay, and were not a little dismayed when it appeared. It con- sisted of a low frame, four feet long and two wide, surrounded by rough wicker-work, fixed on four crazy wheels. To this two wild-look- ing, unshod ponies were attached by ropes and driven by a peasant who spoke only Moldavian. When brought to the door, the vehicle was covered with a piece of old canvass fastened on some willow twigs bent over the top ; but as this was not sufficiently high to allow of our sitting under it and would have afforded no shelter against rain, it was speedily removed. Having already wasted three- fourths of the day in a fruitless search for a more commodious carriage, we consoled our- selves by thinking that, possibly, the Jews might not have been able to supply a better, and that in a few hours we should be in a high road, in a civilized country, and hastening to the comforts of a good hotel, a luxury we had not enjoyed since leaving Hungary. The road lies in a north-east direction, across a country absolutely barren ; not a single tree nor cultivated field is to be seen ; and the only objects which vary the sameness of the view are the tall posts erected as way-marks on this, as on 238 BESSARABIA AND ITS PEOPLE. every, Russian road : these are inscribed with the distances to the two stations on either side, and painted with broad vertical stripes of al- ternate black, white, and red. The soil is dark and rich ; and the absence of tillage can be ac- counted for only by the scanty population and the unenterprizing character of the people. Bessarabia was conquered from Turkey in the beginning of the present century by the emperor Paul. Unlike the serfs in other parts of Russia, the peasants are at liberty to dwell where they please, and they are not compelled to furnish recruits : they retain something of the character fostered by Ottoman rule ; being servile, fraudulent, and idle ; never willing to work while possessing a kopeck, and therefore always living from hand to mouth : in one minor particular, however, the habits of the people on the opposite banks of the Pruth pre- sent a remarkable contrast, owing, doubtless, to the tax on tobacco in Russia : there everybody smokes, here scarcely any one. The effect pro- duced by the government on the habits and cus- toms of a nation, and hence on national cha- racter, is exhibited even in a trifle like this ; while it is exemplified on a larger scale in Italy, whose present people, enjoying the same physical advantages of climate, but less favor- DRIVER. SARASICCA. 239 ed in their political institutions, differ so widely from their Roman ancestors. Our driver at first proceeded at a pace but little superior to a snail's gallop. We endeavoured to stimulate him by the pro- mise of a handsome reward, and in the few Moldavian words we could muster enforced on him unceasingly, " Haja meera graba ; meer graba, meer bakshish ; nich graba, nich bak- shish." Or " Get on quickly ; the quicker, the more money ; no speed, no present." To all this he seemed insensible, and soon assumed an insolent air ; nor was it till a harsher tone and manner were adopted, that he would proceed even at a moderate rate. Our fellow-travellers tried the practice of the country with their pos- tilion, and found it succeed. One of them was incessantly scolding, and often running by the side of his vehicle, with stick upraised and a pretended fierceness which operated like a charm on both the drivers. Thus, threats effected what promises could not, and we moved on at a more reasonable pace. A drive of three hours and a half brought us to the village of Sarasicca, a distance of thirty versts. Here we found in a peasant's hut a good room, with benches to lie upon, plenty of carpets to serve as mattresses and covering, and 240 SCENERY. EAGLES. some good eggs and milk. We were too much accustomed to hard fare to be fastidious, and though the woman of the house at first refused us the carpets on which we had cast longing eyes, as they lay piled up in a heap four feet high, yet her son speedily secured her reluctant consent by making her understand that she would be a gainer by any accommodation she afforded us. We resumed our course before day-light, only too happy to awake outside the walls of the lazaretto. The road to Kishnau passes through the villages of Hoorhahalbena and Mooshalee, which divide the journey into three stages of eighteen, nineteen, and twenty-one versts re- spectively, each occupying about three hours. The country is, for the most part, a wild uncul- tivated waste, either flat or gently undulating, but here and there it is varied by woods which, at this season, were richly dyed with autumnal tints, and almost carpeted with an abundant, low, bright-crimson shrub, that contrasted beauti- fully with the yellow, red, and purple hues of the surrounding foliage ; while the fragrant herbs that covered the ground over which we drove yielded their grateful odors as our horses bruised them under foot. In more than one place large flights of crows and a few royal ROMAN WALLS. 241 eagles were enjoying their aerial life, or conde- scending to dispute the possession of a carcase with some half-wild and famished dogs, remind- ing us of the Jewish proverb, " Wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together." In the east, vultures, crows, and dogs, often fight over their noisome prey ; nor is it uncommon to see a flotilla of dead bodies on the Ganges surmounted by carrion birds, looking, at a distance, like children on a raft. The first view of Kishnau from the summit of a neighbouring hill, is imposing; and the prospect of a comfortable inn led us to see everything couleur de rose. The extent of the town, its churches with their green painted domes, and its new white buildings, all seemed to confer on it an air of respectability superior to that of any place we had visited since leaving Hungary. Just outside the gates, are ruins of one of the walls erected by Trajan, which extended as far as the ancient Chersonesus. Remains of another are found between the Black Sea and Reni, near Galatz ; and a third may be traced from Reni to Taraspol. After passing the barriere and driving over a series of broad, sandy roads, skirted with straggling dwellings on either side, we were 242 KISHNAU. surprised to find that we were in the middle of the town, when we fancied ourselves as yet in the suburbs. Kishnau looks better at a dis- tance than on a near inspection. None of the streets are paved, nor are the houses in general close together, but separated by their respective enclosures. The shops are few and shabby in exterior; yet the population is rapidly in- creasing, and has risen during the last forty years from a very small number to its present amount, between thirty and forty thousand. Our hopes of obtaining good accommodation were sadly disappointed when we drove to the door of what is said to be the best hotel in Bessarabia, and saw nothing but a low shabby building ill adapted for the reception of tra- vellers. Each comfortless room contained a sofa, a table, a chair, and abundance of dirt, which amply furnished the otherwise empty apart- ment. It was with difficulty that we succeed- ed in procuring a leather pillow and a quilt too greasy for use, while our application for sheets was replied to by a look of surprise and an intimation that nothing of the kind belonged to the establishment. The master seemed very indifferent to his guests, and was evidently en- gaged in some more thriving business than that of an innkeeper. Bad as was the accommo- RUSSIAN POLICY. dation, we determined to spend the Sunday here; and as the sole cause of our visit was the order of the authorities at Liova that we should present ourselves to the governor of the chief town of the province, we waited on him immediately, and were informed that he was asleep. On a second occasion we were detained three hours and a half, and then told that we might go ; that the general was in- disposed ! The only apparent object attained by the Russian government in compelling us to make this long detour was the enforcement of a payment of five rubles for a new passport ; an accession to their treasury which might be secured without sending travellers a journey of two days out of their course. This is one of the few towns where we found gipsies with a settled residence. Many of these degraded people dwell in little wooden huts, carrying on the trades of tinkers, basket-ma- kers, and the like ; while others traverse the country, dealing in horses. Their women are better looking than the native Russians, but disfigure themselves with a multitude of worth- less trinkets. All the business of Kishnau is transacted by Jews, ten thousand of whom are said to reside here. They consider themselves less 244 HEBREW SOLDIERS. kindly treated under the present, than under the late, emperor, who liberated them from the necessity, now re-imposed, of furnishing re- cruits. We did not ascertain how the Hebrew soldiers perform their duties in Russia; but it is recorded of their brethren in Turkey, whom Selim formed into regiments, that when he ordered forty thousand of them to invade Austria, they petitioned for a guard to escort them across an intermediate tract of country, said to be infested by marauders ! The petition succeeded in convincing the sul- tan that the Moslim faith would gain little from the Hebrew sword, and his Jewish re- giments were disbanded. If Scripture did not lead us to look for a marked degeneracy of cha- racter among the descendants of Israel, it would appear singularly strange that a people who have preserved nearly all their other national peculiarities, should so completely have lost that ferocity and courage which characterized them in the days of Joshua, the Maccabees, and Josephus. 245 CHAPTER IX. NEW RUSSIA. FROM KISHNAU TO ODESSA. Leave Kishnau. Desolate country. Funereal stones. Travelling in Russia. Murder of courier. Sicara. Frogs. Macrocremnii Montes. Bender. Refuge of Charles XII. The Dniester. Enter New Russia. Taraspol Calmuk Tartars. Scenery. Eagles. An- cient monuments. Thibetian relic. German colonists. Villages. Manheim. Fossil bones. Mirage. Il- lustration of Scripture. Odessa. Its name and origin. Present state. Hotels. Scarcity of water. Con- dition of streets. Necessity for a carriage. Droshki. Coachmen. Censorship of press. English consul. Cure of hydrophobia. Lutheran minister. Count Woronzow. Contrast of manners in North and South Russia. Lemon with tea. Russian tea. Climate. Mitel. Terrible effects. Sudden frost. Salubrity of Odessa. Plague. Locusts. Morals. Theatricals. Language of church service. Prohibition of missionaries. Bible Society. Russian church. Pastors and their flocks. Politics. Closing Dardanelles. Russian influence. Anecdotes. Poland's wrongs. Exiles. Rupture of marriage tie. Russian wives. Polish ladies. Anec- dotes. Indignities suffered by Poles. Bulgarian emi- grants. Feudal system. Serfs and seigneurs. Abrok. Services required. Power of masters. Anecdote. Moral effects of slavery. 246 TRAVELLING IN RUSSIA. HAVING secured the best conveyance to Odessa which the town of Kishnau afforded, we continued our route with an anxious desire to reach the capital of New Russia, where we expected to find comfortable accommoda- tions, and intended to arrange our plans for the winter with reference to the state of the plague in Constantinople. The first part of the journey lay over a sandy road, through a desolate country where nothing but birds afforded a proof of animal existence. Several eagles, whose noble size and lofty flight commanded our respect for their royal race, with numerous hawks and falcons, flew over our heads : but the bird of which we saw the greatest number was the pewet, called by the natives "keefit" a name evidently derived, like our own, from the sound it utters. We met neither carriages, carts, nor human beings, for many miles ; and the solitude is rendered fear- ful by monumental stones, marked with crosses, which every here and there indicate the spot where some poor traveller has fallen a prey to banditti. In a space of thirty miles five of these may be seen, one of which commemorates a murder perpetrated only six months before we passed the spot. Travelling in Russia is not travelling for MURDER OF COURIER. 24? pleasure. The bad roads, undefined by any hedge or boundary, the miserable conveyances constantly breaking down, and the dirty, com- fortless post-houses, combine to make a journey a painful and laborious undertaking: hence, the object is to accomplish it as quickly as pos- sible, and for this purpose the natives gene- rally travel day and night, sleeping in the carriage when fatigue compels a halt, to avoid entering the huts, miscalled post-houses. Dan- ger is added to discomfort ; murders and rob- beries are not unfrequent, and the police is so inefficient that the criminals are seldom se- cured. Some time ago, a courier engaged by the English consul at Odessa, on his way to Vienna with money, stopped at a house where thirty other individuals had taken shelter : in the night the building was surrounded, all the inmates were murdered, the property was stolen, and the banditti escaped, nor have they since been heard of. Between Kishnau and Sicara, a distance of forty versts, not a single habitation, except one post-house, is erected by the roadside. At the end of this long stage we were thankful for a pause ; and as we partook of some refresh- ment from our stores, we were amused by ob- serving the frogs which, in countless numbers, 248 CHARLES XII. THE DNIESTER. covered the surface of a small lake. The ma- jority were sleeping with their heads just above the water, and so soundly as not to be aroused by stones thrown close to them ; while a minority, sufficiently large to claim consi- deration, raised their deep bass voices in full sonorous symphony, as if striving to vindicate the taste and judgment which have assigned to them the name of " Holstein nightingales!" From Sicara we ascended a high hill, beyond which are others that form the range sup- posed to be the Macrocremnii Montes men- tioned by Pliny, commanding a view of the extensive plains lying to the east of the Dnies- ter, and inhabited, in the time of Strabo, by the Tyrigetae. A drive of seventeen versts brought us under the walls of the fortress of Bender, distant two miles from a town of the same name. Close to this is the little vil- lage of Varnitza, where Charles XII. of Swe- den took refuge after his defeat at Pultawa, gallantly defending himself with a scanty remnant of his followers : and to the south is a large mound supposed to be that mentioned by Herodotus as having been raised by some kings of Scythia. The Dniester, which runs under the walls of the fortress, is crossed on a swinging ferry : it THE STEPPE. 249 takes its rise in the Carpathian hills, and pur- sues a winding course till it reaches the Black Sea. In ancient maps it is called the Danas- tus, and represented as the boundary between Dacia and Sarmatia : in modern geography it was known, under a modified name, as the line of separation between Russia and Turkey, till the former empire acquired Bessarabia, thus stretching its limits to the river Pruth. Leaving this last-named province and enter- ing into what is called New Russia, we con- tinued our journey by moonlight as far as Taraspol, a town of considerable size, nine versts from Bender and sixty-six from Kish- nau ; whence we started again before daylight the following morning, lamenting the misera- ble accommodation afforded by Russian inns. Nothing can be more dreary than the flat, desolate, and uncultivated country, called the steppe, between Taraspol and Odessa; not a village nor a traveller is to be seen for hours together, and almost the only persons we met during the day's journey were a party of Cal- muk Tartars habited in the costume of the country. There is no road ; but numerous tracks of cart-wheels run side by side over the unpeopled waste, and a way seems to be no sooner marked out than it is deserted for a VOL. I. Q 250 ANCIENT MONUMENTS. parallel line supposed to offer harder ground or fewer obstructions. The common is cover- ed with scented hertys and flowers, among which the clematis, larkspur, and coronella abound, as also a species of wild asparagus, smaller and greener than that cultivated in our gardens, and preferred by the Russians for its flavor; while hawks of various kinds and eagles hover unmolested over a country which man seems to disown : in one spot we observ- ed no fewer than eight eagles together. The objects which principally attracted our notice were a number of stones standing on both sides of the beaten track, and looking like way-marks to direct the traveller when the steppe is covered with snow : whatever their object, a minute inspection proves them to be of ancient date, and brings to light human forms represented in various postures, but all holding a vessel before them : they are said to have been taken from neighbouring tumuli to be placed where they now stand. It is remarked by an acute traveller* that, although the inundation of this country in the thirteenth century by the Mongolian hordes under Zingis Khan has given rise to an idea that these monuments are to be ascribed to that period ; yet that this hypo- * Dr. Henderson. THIBETIAN RELIC. 251 thesis is overthrown by the mention made of their existence by Ammianus Marcellinus, a writer of the fourth century ; and his obser- vation that the features they exhibited were of the same cast with those of the Huns (Xowot], leads to the conclusion that they owe their origin to the tribes distinguished by that name, which were driven over the Wolga by the Sienpi, in the year 374, and spread alarm through all the nations inhabiting the eastern frontiers of the Roman empire. The same traveller mentions that another curious relic of antiquity was, some years ago, disin- terred near Kishnau ; it consisted of a piece of black paper containing a collection of prayers, written in silver letters, in the Thibetian lan- guage and character. A considerable part of the land near Odessa is in the hands of German colonists, who live in villages of their own erection, entirely con- signed to them and called by such national names as Strasburg and Manheim. Fifteen of these German villages are between Taraspol and Odessa, each containing a hundred and fifty or two hundred houses, and together form- ing one colony : two other colonies are not far distant. Protestants and Catholics are equally privileged, but all those belonging to the same Q 2 252 GERMAN COLONIES. settlement must hold the same faith. The Catholics are said to have been invited to leave their country in a time of persecution under a promise of perfect toleration ; and a hope of participating all the advantages they enjoyed, doubtless induced the Protestants to follow their example. The only cultivated land we saw on the steppe was that in the imme- diate neighbourhood of these colonies ; and a German laborer was the first individual we noticed in Russia engaged in agricultural pur- suits. Sixty dezatines, or a hundred and sixty acres, of land are allotted to every settler ; for this he pays twelve rubles a year to the crown, and about twenty-four more for the police and sundry petty taxes. The whole annual demand upon him thus scarcely exceeds two- pence halfpenny an acre ; while his food con- sists chiefly of water-melons and Indian corn, both produced in great abundance ; so that want is unknown, and the people are con- tented and happy. The villages themselves form a striking contrast to those of the native Russians. Each house is built of stone, white- washed, neatly thatched, and surrounded by a low wall enclosing several ricks of hay and corn ; to which is added a little stock of domes- tic poultry, with a couple of fierce dogs who MANHEIM. TUFA STRATUM. 253 guard their posts so well that one of our party paid the penalty of a bite for the curiosity that led him to enter a court-yard. The outside of the dwelling and the trees in the area are made to perform their part in the domestic economy of the German farmer by holding pins for Indian corn, long rows of which are suspended on them, to be dried in the sun. The women retain the costume, and all the colony speak the language, of their an- cestors. We were so pleased to find ourselves among people comparatively clean and civilized, that, though we had travelled only fifty-seven versts when we reached Manheim, we resolved to spend the day there and accomplish, the next morning, the remaining forty-three to Odessa. At an inn kept by the doctor, a loquacious old gentleman, we found better accommodation than we had enjoyed for many nights ; but here, as elsewhere, no sheets nor mattresses were to be procured, and we slept on sofas which constituted almost the only furniture in the room, except a picture of " The three glo- rious days of 1830" suspended on the wall. The whole of this village is built of a light, porous stone, filled with myriads of small shells and evidently formed by the action of water. 254 FOSSIL BONES. MIRAGE. It is a sort of tufa, or sandstone, from a bank of the same kind extending from the Euxine into Poland, a distance of six hun- dred versts, and passing by Manheim. Some bones of elephants and carved wood were discovered last year embedded in this stra- tum, which would open an interesting study to a geologist. A drive of a few hours, over a road dete- riorating as it approached Odessa, conveyed us thither. The land around is flat and un- cultivated, and not a single country-house meets the eye. As we advanced, we were sur- prised to observe between ourselves and the coast a sheet of water, in the centre of which appeared a long row of wind-mills ; and the city itself reminded us of Venice rising out of the ocean. At first we conjectured that a flood had been occasioned by heavy rains, and then that an arm of the sea ran up into the land ; but, as we proceeded, the water seemed to contract its limits, and then gradually vanished before our gaze : at length, we discovered that we were deceived by a mirage, and that the whole was dry land assuming the deceitful aspect which tantalizes the parched traveller in the deserts of Arabia. The peasants think that this appearance is owing to saltpetre in ILLUSTRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 255 the soil ; and, probably, it is in part attri- butable to saline vapors. It has been conjec- tured that the expression in Isaiah,* " The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water," carries in it an allusion to this optical phenomenon ; and some critics go so far as to say that the words " parched ground" should be translated " ima- ginary water :" an emendation which, if war- ranted, is convincing. The capital of New Russia stands on, or near, the site of the Isiacorum Portus of an- cient geographers, and derives its name from the Milesian colony of Odessus, which is sup- posed to have existed in the neighbourhood. It has risen, within forty years, under the go- vernment of the duke of Richelieu and count Woronzow, from a petty Tartar fishing village, called Hajee bey, to considerable eminence in the scale of mercantile towns; and the immu- nities granted to it as a ville franche have raised it to the dignity of the first commercial port of Southern Russia, a rank which it will retain till Turkey be added to the empire of the czars. Still, it is not as flourishing as, under all the favorable circumstances of the case, might be expected ; and the reason assigned is that, * Is. xxxv. 7 256 ODESSA. although nominally, it is not -actually, a free city ; for a tax of one fifth of the usual duties is levied on all goods, the proceeds of which are devoted to its embellishment; but, since the same vexatious restrictions are requisite for the collection of a part as for that of the whole, the evil more than counterbalances the benefit, and the impost is regarded as impolitic. The population of Odessa is about fifty thousand. The houses are generally well built, but being detached from each other, there are few handsome streets. Most of those that exist are unpaved, and after rain the mud is so deep that it is not uncommon for gentlemen to be obliged to leave their carriages in quagmires in the middle of the city, and to send oxen to drag them out. There are no comfortable inns ; the best, such as the Hotel de Richelieu, may ra- ther be considered h6tels garnis, since attend- ance is not included among their accommoda- tions. The charges are high owing to a variety of circumstances ; partly, perhaps, to the scar- city of fresh water, which is brought in carts from springs three miles distant, so that a small cask sells for fourteen or fifteen pence ; and partly, to the high price of fuel which, owing to the want of coal mines and the entire barrenness of the neighbouring steppe, where STREETS. CARRIAGES. 257 no timber grows, is so expensive that during their long and severe winters, the poor are hap- py to make use of the manure of animals as a substitute for wood. As the condition of the streets renders walk- ing at most seasons impracticable, a vehicle is indispensable; and an individual above the rank of a serf might as well deny himself a pair of boots as a carriage, for the want of either must confine him to the house : thus people, whose income is less than two hundred pounds a year, will keep a landaulet and pair, with a well-dressed coachman. The consequence is, that a covered vehicle for hire is never to be seen in the streets. The only conveyance to be procured is a droshki, or low carriage, open on both sides and protected from the dirt of the wheels by semicircular leathern splash- boards ; in the same straight line with the shaft-horse is a narrow bench, across which the rider seats himself, com me a cheval, the driver being in immediate contact with the animal's tail. The droshki is drawn by two horses; one of these is between shafts and reined up to a hoop over his head, at an eleva- tion of three feet above the ears ; this always trots ; the other canters, curvetting with his head turned towards the near hoof. The Rus- 258 CENSORSHIP OF PRESS. sian coachmen wear waistbands and long beards, and most of the gentlemen's carriages have four horses, the leaders being five or six yards ahead of the wheelers, with traces vary- ing in length and inutility according to the dignity of the owner. Immediately on our arrival, the portmanteau containing our books, sealed up at Liova, was delivered in due form at the chancellerie of the governor-general. The volumes were thence conveyed to the censor's office, and we were informed that they would be detained till we should quit the country. Two days before sailing for Constantinople we applied for their restitution ; and they were all returned with the exception of three. These were " Voyage en Orient par Fontanier," " Mrs. Starke's Travels in Europe," and " Auldjo's Visit to Constantinople." The first is prohibited in Russia : the other two are not in the list of those permitted ; therefore, they are forbid- den. It seems scarcely credible that so great a power should maintain a system so illiberal. In Petersburg a chief censor reads, or professes to read, all books published in Europe ; what he disapproves are excluded from the country, and what he does not approve, including what he does not read, are not tolerated. Conse- CURE FOR HYDROPHOBIA. 259 quently, the whole intellectual appetite of this prodigious empire is gauged by one man's ca- pacity and the supply limited by his caprice. Our visit to Odessa was rendered very pleas- ing by the kindness and hospitality of the English consul and his amiable lady, who re- ceived us under their roof and were unremit- ting in their polite attentions ; while the intel- ligence of our host and his acquaintance with the country, its people, habits, and politics, added much to our stock of information. To him we were indebted for the mention of a fact connected with hydrophobia in Poland, which, if thoroughly established, deserves the attention of the medical profession. He stated that when a man is bitten by a mad dog, a mi- nute examination, instituted after a day or two, will bring to light a small red swelling or a collection of minute pustules under the tongue of the patient, which should be cut out and strong caustic applied to the part. The con- sul is acquainted with individuals who have repeatedly witnessed the success of this mode of treatment ; and if it appear incredible, it is not more so than what is now asserted with confidence, the effect of cold water on the head as an antidote to prussic acid. The Protestant minister, a man of great sim- 260 COUNT WORONZOW. plicity and zeal, has a large German congrega- tion. His salary is little better than a hundred a year, made up by voluntary contributions received every Sunday. The worthy Lu- theran's foreign English detracted nothing from the interest his character inspired. At one time, speaking of Mr. Wolfe, the mis- sionary to the Jews, he told us, with his hand on his heart, that though he was so eccentric, he was nevertheless a "living man;"* at an- other, he called a young lady's governess her " watchman ;" and contrasted the " heavenly understanding " of the Christian with the " merchant ghost "f of the worldling. He offered to send his *' wagon "J to take us a drive through the town, and concluded his intercourse with a cordial embrace as sincere and unsophisticated as the primitive Christians' " kiss of charity." Count Woronzow, the governor-general of New Russia and the Crimea, is very popular. An Englishman by education, though a Rus- sian by origin, he is raised far above the mass of his countrymen, who respect, admire, and * He doubtless meant " alive unto God," in the sense in which St. Paul uses the expression ; Rom. vi. 11. f Mercantile spirit. j Wugen is the German for carriage. HABITS OF PEOPLE. love him. His manner to his inferiors con- trasts strikingly with that of the nobles in the north ; and in this respect a great difference is perceptible in the forms of society in general, in Old and New Russia. In Petersburg dis- tinctions of rank are maintained with a pre- cision which borders on the ridiculous. In these parts of the empire, as a general officer remarked to us, " reserve and hauteur are quite ungenteel." The nobility are peculiarly con- siderate in their deportment towards men of low degree, and we once met at the table of one of the first nobles in the country a head- carpenter, a superintendent of gardeners, and a master-builder; though it should be added that the circumstances which brought them together were unusual. D Each country, almost each province, offers peculiarities to the observation of a stranger. Some of these are trifling in themselves, yet not without interest. To this class belongs the habit, here prevalent, of substituting lemon for milk in tea. A slice of the fruit is handed round with each cup, and the excel- lence of the flavor thus communicated to the beverage attests the good taste of those who adopt the custom. Some credit, however, may be due to the tea itself; for it is certain that RUSSIAN TEA. in no country in Europe is this article import- ed in such perfection as in Russia. Conveyed by land through the medium of the large fairs at Ladak and Nijni Novgorod, it retains the virtue of which a sea voyage is said to deprive it; while its grateful savor is much enhanced by the leaves of the olea fragrans with which the Chinese pack it for a land journey. In summer and winter the extremes of heat and cold prevail ; the latter, especially, exceeds that generally experienced in the same latitude ; and the south of Russia is subject to a north- easterly wind, called mitd, often accompanied by snow which is drifted with great violence. When the natives encounter one of these storms, they are in the habit of turning the backs of their carriages towards it and remain- ing stationary till its conclusion. On such oc- casions, whole herds of cattle and horses grazing on the waste land have been known to take fright, and, scudding before the wind till they reached a precipice, to leap down it and perish. Three years ago, eight hundred were buried in the snow in the streets of Odessa, during one of these terrible tempests ; and such is the dread entertained of the mitel that, when it blows, no one ventures out of doors. The shipping, likewise, suffers greatly THE MITEL. CLIMATE. at these times; vessels in the harbour often start their anchors ; and twelve or fourteen wrecks have been seen lying together on the shore. In the storm above referred to several British ships were placed in imminent peril and fired guns of distress, but no help could be afforded. An English gentleman watched them from the shore, at some personal risk, as long as light lasted ; and when, at length, night closed in, he retired with the painful conviction that they would be stranded : at break of day he arose, expecting to witness the realization of his fears ; but, to his utter astonishment, he beheld all the vessels fixed in a sea of ice. The wind had suddenly ceased, and a frost of no ordinary severity having set in, the harbour had been frozen over. Such is the account given by an eye- witness, on whose authority it is repeated* While some seasons are excessively cold, others are equally mild ; very little snow is seen ; and as soon as it falls, the inhabitants gather it into their ice-houses, lest they should fail to secure a supply for summer use. It might be supposed that the great varia- tions of the climate would render Odessa an unhealthy spot ; but we were informed that it is otherwise. The strong winds to which the 264 PLAGUE. LOCUSTS. Black Sea is liable carry off the miasma gene- rated in the low lands of its coasts, and leave them by no means hostile to health and lon- gevity. The plague, however, is occasionally imported from Constantinople, and in 1812 its ravages were great. About the same time the natives were ha- rassed by a flight of locusts, so numerous that they darkened the sky and devoured every green thing. They came from the east by gradual approaches, and were expected at Odessa long before they arrived ; their stay was short, but the havoc committed was great ; and, moreover, it was perpetuated ; for they left in the ground their eggs, which were hatched the following season, when young locusts appeared in myriads, devastating every field and tree. These remained one year more and then departed, nor have they since return- ed. The noise of their wings in flying is like that of the waves of the sea, or, in the poeti- cal imagery of scripture, " like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble."* We were informed that they some- times fight furiously, and that the slaughtered are eaten by their conquerors. * Joel ii. 5. STATE OF MORALS. 265 The state of morals in this city is very bad. The conjugal tie is little regarded ; and in the higher classes individuals are admitted into society who in Petersburg would not be tole- rated. A Polish lady, who deserted her hus- band and lately came here to reside under the protection of a Russian noble, was not only visited, but received marked attention at the first tables. One or two of the corps diploma- tique declined her acquaintance, but they constituted a small minority. Ladies of the highest rank have been known to perform in the public theatres. A few years ago, during a severe winter, private theatricals were set on foot for the benefit of the poor : in these many of the nobility and fashionables of Odessa took parts once a fortnight ; and at the conclusion of a piece, when called for by the audience, the ladies stepped forward to receive applause, and acknowledged it like professional actors. Some of them were so pleased with their essay that they acted twice in the public theatre, in company with the regular comedians, excusing themselves for this indiscretion on the plea of a charitable object. The fund raised by these exhibitions was large, and many poor were fed ; but the dissipation and immoralities in- duced were, it is said, very great. VOL. i. R 266 THE BIBLE SOCIETY. The circumstances of the natives are less favorable than heretofore to the reception of religious instruction, for while the language of the country has been changed from Sclavo- nian to Russ, the former is retained in the churches ; thus, like the Roman Catholics, the people are compelled to listen to an unintelli- gible tongue and to offer an unmeaning sacri- fice: nor is the ignorance of the laity greater than that of the priests, who are sunk in the depths of moral and intellectual darkness. The government has actually prohibited Protestant and Roman Catholic ministers from acting as missionaries, even among the Moslim subjects of the empire ; and no Russian of the Greek church may change his religion under pain of exile. A foreign princess marrying into the family of the czar is compelled not only to adopt the national creed, but actually to be re- baptized, as is said to have been the case when the interesting princess Helena of Wiirtem- berg became the consort of the present grand duke Michael. In such a state of things it is to be expected that institutions of a moral and religious cha- racter should proportionately wane. The Bi- ble Society once had warm advocates in this town, and was in a florishing condition ; but THE CHURCH AND CLERGY. it is no longer so, having experienced under the present emperor a check which it will not soon recover ; now it is discouraged throughout the empire as tending to liberal principles ; and in Russia what the government disapproves the people are afraid to espouse. The tenets of the Russian church are precise- ly those of the Greek, from which it was sepa- rated in the time of Peter the Great, who in- sisted on his subjects recognizing him as their ecclesiastical head, instead of the patriarch of Constantinople. The same errors of doctrine and of practice prevail, and perhaps equally, in both churches. In Russian parishes an un- kindly feeling generally subsists between the pastor and the flock. Unfixed charges engender strife. A man goes to his minister to inform him of the death of his wife. " What will you give me for burying her ?" asks the priest. " I am poor," he replies. " Well, give me your cow." " No, a cow is too valuable ; I have a goose, you shall have that." " That is too little, I will not bury your wife for a goose ; pay me thirty rubles." " I will give twenty." " No, that will not do ; I will take twenty and a shirt." And so the bargain is concluded ; but cordiality is at an end. Many of the ecclesiastics, especially of the inferior R 2 268 POLITICS. grade, are dependent entirely on fees for their subsistence, which is consequently very pre- carious ; nor is it to be wondered at that the voluntary system, which stints the clergy in rich countries, should starve them in a poor one. The politics of Russia have lately become a matter of increasing interest to the rest of Eu- rope. She is no longer what she was, a semi- barbarous power without knowledge, troops, or resources. On the contrary, she has attained a certain degree of civilization, while by her en- croachments on other nations, so little heeded, she has acquired such a mass of men and terri- tory, that it is now no easy matter to control her. A traveller, however, in the country itself, from which foreign newspapers and free discussion are vigilantly excluded, is not in a position to form so accurate an opinion on such subjects as an attentive observer posted on the political eminence of London or Paris, whence he may survey the whole of Europe through the clear medium of a free press. Still, no one can fail to see that Russia is likely to remember her triumph in closing the Dardanelles, and in compelling an English ambassador before en- tering them to quit his frigate, while her own ships of war pass to and fro without impedi- INFLUENCE OF RUSSIA. 269 ment. In Turkey it is notorious that she is all- powerful, and that Britain carries comparatively little weight. Not long ago, an Englishman was taken up by the police of Constantinople for some trifling breach of discipline, thrown into the Bagnio, and treated with every indignity. During the night he laid his plans and resolved to have recourse to an artifice. In the morning, when brought before the cadi, he found him raging against the "English infidel" who had thus insulted the majesty of the " Sublime Porte." The offender demanded indignantly why he should be regarded as an Englishman ; he owed allegiance to the high and mighty czar of all the Russias, and to him he should com- plain of the insult offered to his subject. The cadi looked aghast, trembled, offered a thousand and one apologies, and entreated permission to send a guard of honor to escort the late tenant of the Bagnio to his house ! Much may be learned from trifles ; and the story, whether true or false, by its very currency, speaks volumes, The fact is, England is not esteemed abroad as England was; and of this a British travel- ler in any part of Europe will be made quick- ly and fully sensible. Nothing can more strikingly manifest the in- fluence which Russia possesses on the continent 270 POLISH REFUGEES. than the mode in which she has induced govern- ments, acting against their better judgment, to respect her orders. A case in point is that of six Polish officers, among whom was a distin- guished veteran, colonel the count Oborski, who fought under Napoleon and Koszciuszko, and who himself related the facts to the author. Having taken part in the revolution and served in the army, he and his companions were obliged, when all hope of aiding their country's cause had fled, to seek refuge at Dresden, where they were received with the greatest kindness by the king of Saxony, and loaded with attentions by the principal inhabit- ants who were enthusiastic in the cause of the Poles. After they had spent six months in Dresden, the Russian ambassador represented to the king that he must no longer suffer them to remain in his capital. The sovereign sent for count Oborski, expressed the greatest sympathy in his trials, and mentioning the communi- cation from Russia, requested him to believe that if Saxon protection were withdrawn from the Polish refugees, it would not be owing to his diminished interest in them, but to his fear of offending a superior power. Some weeks elapsed; when the count was suddenly sum- moned before the commissary of police, and told that he was to make his choice whether lie POLISH REFUGEES. 271 would leave the city the following day for Trieste, whence he was to be shipped for America, or whether he would be delivered into the hands of the Russians : the commis- sary added that the Saxons were compelled to adopt this measure by a threat of Russian and Prussian troops marching into the city. Count Oborski remonstrated and declared his resolu- tion at all hazards to remain where he was ; he was accordingly seized and, with his compani- ons, cast into prison ; his watch and money, and even his spurs were taken from him. Through the medium of a friend high in office, the count petitioned for leave to present himself before the Russian ambassador. This being granted, he was allowed to quit the prison in charge of his friend ; but instead of proceeding to the Russian, he repaired to the English, minister, and intreated his protection, which was granted, and the unfortunate Poles were all released. After some time, they were pro- vided with a passport to England, and, on their departure, were escorted to the frontiers of the kingdom, where a kind message from the sove- reign assured them of his regret for the part he had been compelled to act. These six refugees are now in England, unable to return to their country, and afraid even to cross the Channel. Count Oborski has written to the different 272 WRONGS OF POLAND. members of his family, some of whom reside at Vienna ; but such is the dread of Russian displeasure that they have not ventured to re- ply to his letters, and he has resigned all hope of ever hearing from them again. Poland's cry still rends the heavens ! Would that Russia were willing now, even now, to listen to the voice that says, " Vengeance is mine ; I will repay !" Though the Poles have long ceased to oppose the power that has crushed them, and though their nationality has already been destroyed, yet the czar seems deter- mined to break the spirit of the people. The college which existed in the capital of Podolia, and which was there supported by voluntary subscriptions, has been removed to Kioff; the system of education has been completely changed ; and now contributions, miscalled vo- luntary, are forced from the reluctant donors. But this is a trifling item in the heavy score ; numbers of the aristocracy are yearly sent to Siberia : within the last twelve months no less than fourteen hundred have passed through the German colony of Manheim (as we were in- formed on the spot,) on their way to banishment : children are torn from their parents, and fathers from their families; and, worse than all! the sacred tie of marriage, sole relic to man of his paradisiacal state, is ruptured by law. In the WRONGS OF POLAND. 273 face of God's decree that man and wife shall be "one flesh," the Russian sovereign's dictum makes them two. An edict of banishment is a sentence of divorce ; and multitudes of women, whose husbands have been ordered to Siberia, are now re-united to others: many, indeed, refusing to submit to separation, have followed their partners through cold and peril and naked- ness, and still share their griefs, supplying a solace, in their sympathy and love, of which no ukase can deprive them. Of these " honor- able women," for such indeed they are, we heard that the majority are Russian wives. The Polish ladies have never failed to show their fidelity to their country's cause by an abhorrence of everything Russian. At first, they refused to dance, converse, or remain in the same party, with Russian gentlemen, to whom they manifested their dislike in every possible manner; and such was their moral courage, that after the subjection of the nation, when the grand duke Michael held his court at Warsaw, they positively refused to appear, while the men attended only by coercion. An English gentleman told us that a Polish lady, whom he recently met at the government house, spoke to him with such fervor about the wrongs of her country, that she actually burst into tears. One instance is on record 274 WRONGS OF POLAND. of a young countess, who, during the war, armed her peasantry and attacked the Rus- sians in person. The name of another, the countess Potortska, an accomplished woman who sold all her jewels and valuables that she might be enabled to assist such of her un* happy countrymen as were driven pennyless from their homes, is never mentioned by a Pole but with admiration and enthusiastic affection. Not only self-denial, but likewise courage, is requisite to induce a friend of the refugees to aid them ; for it is a task of danger, resulting often in exile. One young Pole who took part in the revolution, after enduring the greatest privations, arrived in Paris, where he became dangerously ill. All communication with Po- land was interdicted and letters were intercept- ed. Under these circumstances he was reduced almost to despair, when he met with a country- man who offered to convey a note to his parents, still residing in Warsaw. A few lines, stating merely his illness and destitution, arrived in safety ; and the father, having for three years received no intelligence of his only son, was overjoyed to learn that he was alive, and made his friends partakers of his happiness. The very day after his answer, containing a check, PASCKEVICH. 275 was committed to the post, be was summoned before the governor of Warsaw, when, to his astonishment, he saw his letter on the table. Pasckevich commenced, " Is this your writ- ing?" "It is." "Do you not know that it is contrary to the orders of the czar that you should hold communication with refugees?" " I have only sent my son money to keep him from perishing ; I have not touched on public affairs." " It matters not ; you are holding correspondence with a rebel ; and for this you are liable to punishment." The poor father was then dragged to prison, where he remained for some time. After occurrences of this kind, the Poles did not venture either to address their exiled relatives or to receive letters from them. Pasckevich is execrated for the cruelty with which he enforces the orders of the czar, tormenting the unhappy sufferers by needless severities. It is related that one day, as he was passing through the streets of Cracow, the window of a private dwelling being open, he heard music, and, stopping to listen, recognized the Mazourka, a popular national air of which the Poles are peculiarly fond. He instantly sent to the house to know who was the per- former. His emissary returned, saying it was a little girl, who was amusing herself with 276 BULGARIAN EMIGRANTS. practising some of the few tunes with which she was acquainted. " I will teach her another kind of Mazourka," said he : " carry her off to prison ; she shall learn Mazourkas there." It is reported, (though we trust falsely,) that, with puerile anger, worthy of a Nero, he once ordered a little bull-finch to be destroyed for piping this favorite air which it had been taught. No Polish gentleman is allowed to retain a fowling-piece, even to indulge his favorite sport ; whilst any petty Russian officer may enter his house, command his cellar, if house or cellar be spared, and treat him with every species of insolence. Should the boiling blood of the Pole burst the valve of prudence under the high pressure of such indignities, he is denounced, and Siberia or death may be his portion. Nor is the conduct of Russia blameless to- wards others who fall into her hands. During the war with Turkey many of the Bulgarians were persuaded to revolt against their own government, and were offered an asylum in the dominions of the czar. Accordingly, some thousands were induced to leave home and to take ship for Odessa, where numerous vessels deposited their living freight. An expectation had been raised that, previous to SERFS AND SEIGNEURS. 277 their arrival, arrangements would be made for their support and protection ; but nothing had been done. No one was prepared to inform them where they should go or what they should do. A Russian winter set in, and mul- titudes perished of hunger, cold, and fatigue.. At length, the survivors were dispatched into the interior, and suffered to depend on what little subsistence they could glean from the poor inhabitants of the steppe, only less desti- tute than themselves, till summer supplied them with crops, the result of their own labor. Many entreated to be allowed to return to their country ; but having once placed them- selves under Russian protection, they and their descendants were doomed to be Russians. The system under which the seigneurs and serfs are connected very much resembles the feudal, to all the evils of which it is subject ; but the Russian noble is kind, and excess of anger is not his characteristic ; so that his slave fares better than that of the Spani- ard or Portuguese. Wretched as is the serf's condition, if estimated by our ideas of hap- piness, it is less so in reality, because he sees and knows no other. His master is raised too far above him to excite jealousy or ambi- tion ; and between them there is no third class : 278 SERFS AND SEIGNEURS. so long as he can satisfy the cravings of nature, he wishes for nothing more: devoid of fore- thought, he has no anxiety for the future; the stripe inflicted one moment is forgotten the next, and not dreaded for the following; and when old or disabled, he is supported by his lord, and serves to swell the train of his at- tendants in the city, where each decrepit slave contributes to form a class of idle and dissolute dependents. Still, the case of the Russian peasant is a hard one : the noble is extravagant and therefore poor ; and his steward is ordered to drain all he can out of the serfs, who are con- sequently oppressed. They either pay a certain abrok, or rent, according to their average gains, or else the seigneur is entitled to their labor during three days in the week : these services may be required at any time, and the serf's own crop may be rotting on the ground while he is working for his master ; or his task may be appointed at the distance of a day's journey from his house, and the hours spent on the road are not carried to his credit ; or rain may interfere with his threshing, which is always executed in the open air, and thus another day is lost. As an appendage to the soil, he cannot legally be alienated from it ; yet the law is often evaded. He may be beaten SERFS AND SEIGNEURS. 279 or imprisoned ; but, happily, the master's inter- est is intimately connected with the slave's ; and an abuse of this power is therefore checked by selfishness. Nevertheless, isolated cases of ex- treme cruelty must, and do, occur ; and what- ever the practice, the principle remains inde- fensible. No man ought to be trusted with ab- solute dominion over his fellow-man. There is now a lady in Odessa, under the surveillance of the police, some of whose female servants have been disposed of in a suspicious manner ; and there are others of noble blood and tender sex who will stand by while their women are beaten, and order more lashes to be inflicted. It is, however, in moral rather than in phy- sical effects that the baneful influence of sla- very, and of that degradation which it promotes and perpetuates, is manifested. All that a serf possesses, even his wife, is the property of his lord; and though the conviction that an infringement of the sanctity of wedlock would lead to his own murder may act in most cases as a check on the superior, in the ab- sence of law; yet the mere existence of the power alluded to, however little abused, weakens that sacred tie on which rests the whole fabric of social charities, and carries with it the evils inseparably connected with 280 MORAL EFFECTS OF SLAVERY. the insecurity of the first and strongest bond of society. Nor is this the only channel through which slavery infuses a moral poison into the character of the serf. As his abrok will be raised with prosperity, he conceals his gains ; and the first lesson he is taught with the dawn of reason is to deceive his master. To effect this, he must deceive his fellow-slaves ; thus, low cunning and a habit of daring false- hood are engendered. Again, self-interest is usually the main- spring of exertion ; and as the labor of the vassal enriches chiefly his lord, the motive to industry is removed ; he is habi- tually indolent ; and determined idleness be- comes a leading feature of his character, which nothing but physical compulsion will overcome. Again, he has no reputation to lose ; and, un- respected by others, he respects not himself; when, then, he has an opportunity of thieving, what should prevent him ? If discovered, he is beaten ; but he is accustomed to the lash ; and his enjoyment of the stolen goods suffers no diminution from remorse of conscience or violated principle. This is a sad picture, but a true one ; and such the original must remain till liberty and the light of truth dawn on this benighted land. 281 CHAPTER X. THE CRIMEA. FROM ODESSA TO BAGTCHESERAI. Embark for Crimea. Ancient and modern names of Black Sea. Monastery of St. George. Balaclava. Aiabooroon. Cliffs. Count Woronzow. Increased value of land. Villages. Madame Narischkine. Fruits. Wines. Prince Galitzin. Princess Metchersky Country seats. Oreanda. Land at Yalta. Horses. Saddles. Aloupka. Estate of count Woronzow. Diosperos lotus. Moun- tain ash. House and grounds. Village of Kokoz. Road. Kindness of Tartars. Costumes. Shaven heads. Houses. Party benighted. Storm. Bagtcheserai. Tartar privileges. Etymology of Don Cossacks. Lan- guages compared. Bazaar. Sheep. Dromedaries. Blacksmiths. Schools. Russian conquest. Palace of Tartar khans. Gardens. Apartments. Hall of audi- ence. Frescoes. Fountain court. Royal private mosque. Dewan. Harem. Garden and tower. Mausoleum. Royal cemetery. Coffins. Grand mosque. Moham- medan service. Missionaries ejected. Early hours. Fulfilment of prophecy. Gipsies Ruins of old town. Monastery of Assumption. Yearly festival. Asses laden with water. Difficult ascent. Fortress of Joofud Kalah. Houses. Market -place. Synagogues. Karaite VOL. I. S 282 EMBARKATION FOR THE CRIMEA. Jews. Hatred of Rabbinists. Origin. Doctrines Veneration for Scripture. Morals. Civil laws. His- tory. Manuscripts. School. Valley of Jehoshaphat. Return to Bagtcheserai. MANY formal preliminaries and a minute examination of the traveller's baggage precede the grant of permission which enables him to leave Odessa for the Crimea. Furnished by count Woronzow with introductions calcu- lated to secure a hospitable reception among the Tartars, we embarked on a sea, more, per- haps, than all others, liable to heavy squalls and fogs owing to the elevation of the mountains by which it is encompassed. A brisk wind blowing for some days had already excited the waters pent within contracted limits, and the waves were short and uneasy. The rain had fallen in torrents during the day ; and we were soon convinced that the ancients had with good reason regarded this sea with alarm ; an alarm not altogether unjustifiable even in the present improved state of the science of navi- gation. The Greeks called it ''A%wo$ Tlovros, The Inhospitable Sea, either on account of the savage character of the inhabitants of its shores, or its frequent storms. The modern appellation has, probably, a similar origin ; for we often call that black which we dislike ; as a black THE BLACK SEA. 283 day, black weather, a black sea. When the Romans took possession of the coasts, and expelled the Getse, Sarmata?, and other barba- rians who had previously occupied them, they changed the name from Inhospitable to Hospi- table, from "A^vog (Axenos) to Ev&vo$ (Euxinos). Singularly enough, the moderns retain both names ; and paradoxically call it the Black Sea, or Euxine, that is, the Inhospitable or Hospitable sea. After a voyage of about sixteen hours we descried, on an eminence opposite the town of Sebastopol, a Russian light-house, proclaiming the authority of the czar over the land where Iphigenia offered sacrifices on the altar of Diana. The chalky cliffs of the Crimean Tar- tary, or ancient Chersonesus, rise rudely and abruptly from the sea at the point known by the name of Cape Chersonesus, and increase gradually in height, assuming first a south- eastern and then an eastern direction, till they attain an elevation of two thousand feet. Un- der their frowning brows we pursued our course to the Greek monastery of St. George, a long white building distinguished in the distance by a tower surmounted by a cross. It stands on the ancient Parthenium, close to the sites of the temple of Orestes and of another where 284 COAST OF THE CRIMEA. Iphigenia officiated as priestess. Not far from the monastery a Genoese ruin points out the port of Balaclava, whence to Aiabooroon, or The White Cape, the cliffs become perceptibly higher and higher, exhibiting grand and terrific masses, here rising into the clouds, there disjointed from the main land and awaiting only the fiat of their great Creator to hurl themselves into the abyss. Throughout these, veins of red marble, mixing with the limestone, give a pleasing va- riety to their color. Strabo mentions that sailors navigating the Euxine could, from a certain point, discern the two shores of Europe and Asia ; and Aiabooroon, called by the Greeks Kgiov (Asranffov, or the Ram's head, which is the extreme south of the Crimea and very high land, is supposed to be the cape in Europe re- ferred to, while Carambe on the shore of Paph- lagonia is the corresponding Asiatic promontory. The whole of this southern coast is covered with vineyards and has become within the last seven years a rich and luxuriant garden. Count Woronzow has extensive possessions here, and the country, once left to the rude hands of! Tartars, is now, owing principally to his ex- ertions, cultivated and studded with the seats of Russian nobles. One of his estates, called Massandra, was originally bought from the ESTATES OF RUSSIAN NOBLES. 285 natives for five thousand rubles, then sold for twelve, and afterwards for ninety thousand ; at present it is said to be worth a million : nor is this an unfair example of the proportion in which the price of land has risen since the Crimea became the favorite resort of its con- querors. As we glided along, village after village passed before our eyes like the scenes in a camera obscura, each beautiful in its way and each succeeded by beauties different, but not in- ferior. Foros and Nitschatka are picturesque- ly situate on the slope of the Ayila chain of mountains, among forests which give cover to herds of deer and antelopes. Beyond these is Simeis, the residence of Madame Narischkine, whose father, general Rostoptchin, is believed to have set fire to Moscow, of which city he was the governor when Napoleon entered it. Proceeding a little further, Aloupka, the Xa^af of Ptolemy, a lovely spot embellished by the taste of its proprietor, count Woronzow, dawned on our view. Here we were saluted with nine guns, and the same playful compliment was re- peatedly paid to the name borne by our steamer, " Peter the Great." On the adjoining estate of count Narischkine, olives, pomegranates, and figs grow in great luxuriance, with vines which 286 TRAVELLING IN CRIM TARTARY. produce the best white wine of the country, called Risling ; while the neighbourhood is famous for its Pineau fleuri> a red wine resem- bling Burgundy, which is made from a vine called Pineau. A beautiful white structure, towards the east, surmounted by two towers, proclaims the residence of prince Galitzin, whose assistance in missions entitles him to the gratitude of every lover of that cause ; and next to this is the cottage of the princess Metchersky, who is said to have distributed more bibles than any other female in Eu- rope. After passing several country seats, all built within the last seven years, and the imperial gardens of Oreanda, the private pro- perty of the emperor, we landed at Yalta, a village on the south-east point of the Crimea, having accomplished four hundred and sixty versts, or three hundred and six English miles, in twenty-seven hours. The usual mode of travelling in this coun- try is on horseback. Horses are either sup- plied at the post stations, or hired from the Tartars; those of the country are fleet and sure-footed, accustomed to long journeys and bad roads ; but the saddles are uneasy : they consist of a thick cushion fastened on the horse's back by a leather thong, which is SADDLES. ALOUPKA. 287 pulled tight over its centre and passes under the animal's belly ; the space in which the rider is supposed to sit is thus limited to the width of the thong, perhaps two inches ; so that he is necessarily perched on the two hard projec- tions of the cushion in front and behind ; and, with each step of the horse, falls on one or the other. We were soon mounted, and our guide followed with a pair of saddle-bags, while we pursued the road for fifteen versts across the tops of the mountains under which we had sailed in the morning. On our arrival at Aloupka, we were hospitably received and housed by an Englishman employed to superin- tend the building of a mansion of no ordinary splendor, which count Woronzow is erecting in that place : the upper and lower gardens surrounding it are tastily laid out by the countess among rocks once covered with wood, but now forming romantic glens, interspersed with flowers, fountains, shrubberies, and wild masses of the native limestone. Walnut, beech, oak, and all the trees of northern Europe here blend with the olive, the fig, and the cypress, growing luxuriantly on every side; while the diosperos lotus, of which only one specimen is known in England, is seen 288 COUNT WORONZOW'S ESTATE. in great abundance as a very large tree, and the mountain ash produces a pleasant fruit, much prized by the Tartars, which is ga- thered in September and suspended under shelter till January or February, when it is eaten, like the medlar, in a half-rotten state. In the upper garden is a circular pit sup- posed to have been the original crater of a volcano, as its sides are covered with large masses of stone evidently thrown into their present positions by volcanic agency. In one part, a grotto is formed by adjacent and superincumbent rocks ; in another, basins of clear water are made to reflect the beauties of the surrounding hills ; and in a third, parterres of flowers are varied with fountains and jets d'eau, gratifying the eye and cooling the air; while the tout ensemble almost answers the description given by Fenelon of the residence of Calypso. Between the two gardens stands the new house, which, when finished, will be unique. It presents to the sea a front of nine .hundred feet : in the centre is a magnificent open saloon surmount- ed by a dome, and about to be decorated by a fountain, while another of these elegant and luxurious ornaments adorns the state drawing- room, which is united to the body of the house THE MOUNTAINS. 289 by an orangery, and corresponds with a library forming the opposite wing. The exterior is entirely gothic, and the work is proceeding under the superintendence of an English archi- tect who has an able agent on the spot. It was past mid-day before we could es- cape from the fascinations of a place which nature has adapted, and taste formed, to be a little terrestrial paradise. For ten versts we climbed the rugged steeps of the mountains rising behind Aloupka to a height of three thousand feet ; and then, for a similar distance, we descended on the opposite side to the Tartar village of Kokoz. The slopes are covered with forests ; the track barely suffices to indicate the way ; and none but horses accustomed to such difficulties would venture on the preci- pitous ascents and descents which here alter- nate with each other. A few Tartar moun- taineers who make their fires under the trees, consuming half the trunks and thus securing the easy fall of the remainder which they con- vert into firewood, were the only persons we encountered. One of their children, whom we chanced to meet, ran terrified away, as though he had seen a monster ; and being in a narrow defile, whence he could not escape, he fled before our horses, keeping ahead of them 290 THE TARTARS. at a brisk trot, and crying lustily, for several minutes. It was near sunset when we reached the vil- lage which is something less than half-way to Bagtcheserai. A number of Tartars were stand- ing outside their doors opposite a little mosque, awaiting the summons to their vespers. They greeted us with looks of kindness, and our mutual ignorance of a common tongue forbade further communication ; but the language of the countenance and manner is the same in every country. One took a pipe out of his mouth and offered it as a token of good will ; while another presented a large slice of water- melon on which he was making his simple repast. In one corner, a group of women were discussing the travellers, who were equally at- tracted by the novelty of their appearance. Long white veils, covering the whole of the upper part of the body, were drawn over their faces and held between the teeth, but left sufficiently open to disclose a fair complexion and dark eyes bordered with antimony. The men wore loose blue trowsers and a shirt of similar color, with a light jacket, for which they substitute a fur cloak in cold weather. A sheep-skin cap or a high turban covered their heads, which were shaven with the exception of a small portion A STORM. 291 on the crown. This custom of retaining a soli- tary lock is of eastern origin, and probably con- nected with a hope similar to that indulged by the Hindoo, that by these favored hairs his body shall be lifted up into paradise. The houses, though poor, are incomparably superior to those of Wallachia and Moldavia. They are above ground, tiled, stuccoed, and furnished with glass windows. As we left Kokoz, it began to rain, and night closed in. The storm gradually increased, and the darkness became intense: rain fell in tor- rents ; thunder rolled over the summits of the surrounding mountains ; and the angry flashes of lightning, which served only to exhibit the narrow bye-road we were traversing filled with water, were quickly succeeded by a darkness that precluded any pace beyond a slow walk. Our guide lost his way, and it was with the greatest difficulty that each could discern the rider and horse immediately before him. No Tartar, met by accident on the road, could be prevailed on to accompany and direct us in so tempestuous a night, nor could we obtain shelter at any place short of our destination. The country through which we rode seemed wild and terrific in the extreme ; but it was not easy to decide how much of this ini- 292 INHOSPITABLE RECEPTION. pression resulted from the reality, and how much from the influence of imagination acted on by the existing circumstances. At length, we turned into a steep and narrow defile winding among ravines, and soon after arrived at Bagtcheserai. It was 10 o'clock; we had been many hours on horseback, and three or four in the rain ; thus suffering from cold and fatigue, we were greatly annoyed at being refused admission into the only house in the town to which travellers usually resort ; the storm was still raging, and we should have been thankful for a shed, or a stable ; but the Greek landlord was obstinate, and we were compelled to seek shelter in a neighbouring dwelling, into which, after knocking long at the door, we were surlily admitted ; when the master and mistress, whom we found with their children in one bed, resigned bedstead and room for our occupation, though they carried off the bedding. Neither fire, food, nor covering was to be procured ; but travellers in Tartary learn to be thankful for a little, and in every country the hardships of a long journey are soon forgotten in the repose of sleep.* * On his return to Odessa, the author learned from a fellow-traveller, who the same day accompanied Lord Dur- ham to Nikolaieff, that this storm, so violent in the Crimea, LANGUAGES COMPARED. 293 The town of Bagtcheserai, or " The palace of the garden," so called from the residence of the khans of the Crimea situate in the midst of gardens, was the old capital of Grim Tar- tary ; and after the Russian conquest Cathe- rine granted to the Tartars the exclusive pri- vilege of living there. Though this privilege is now infringed, (for a detachment of Don Cossacks* garrisons the town,) yet its former existence accounts for the oriental modes and buildings observable in this ancient metro- polis. extended to that place : the postilions lost their way ; and the English ambassador and his companion passed the night under a haystack, while the authorities of Nikolaieff stood on the banks of the river, from five o'clock in the evening till the same hour the following morning, to receive with due honor the representative of the British government. This adventure is characteristic of travelling in Russia. * The word Cossack is a corruption of the Turkish djZ (kuzzak), a robber. The predatory tribes living on the banks of the Don were called the Kuzzaks of the Don ; an appel- lation which, by an easy corruption, has been converted into Don Cossacks. Nor is this the only word which the Rus- sians have borrowed from the Orientals. The usual saluta- tion khyreeut, health ; kaftan, a long robe ; khurboozah, and turboozah, the dry and water-melon ; sookha, dry ; zindook, a box, and chahee, tea ; with various others, are either Arabic, Persian, or Indian in their origin. In like manner, the Tartars have adopted eastern words. In their language, as in Hindoostanee, nukhtah is a halter, and tazah is fresh. 294 BAGTCIIESERAI, Bagtcheserai is romantically enclosed by high rocks of freestone worn by the action of the elements into various shapes, in which imagi- nation may, with little effort, trace the ruins of an ancient Titanic fortification. The town is nearly two miles in length ; the chief street, or bazaar, which is very narrow, consists of low shops, open in front and furnished with raised terraces, resembling in many respects those already described in Servia and Moldavia. In some of the houses we saw pet sheep, which the Tartars are fond of caressing : they belong to a peculiar breed cultivated on the confines of the Crimea, resembling those at the Cape of Good Hope, with broad flat tails which attain such a size that, as is well known, they require to be supported by little carriages on wheels. The butchers' shops are provided with good meat. The principal animals of draught are dromedaries, which are yoked together, and guided, not by iron pins through their noses, as elsewhere, nor by a bit, but simply by halters : sometimes as many as six or seven pairs, draw- ing carts rilled with nuts and other fruits from the country, may be seen standing quietly in the street, in which, to the great inconvenience of pedestrians, are piled large heaps of water- melons and enormous cucumbers. The black- THE CAPITAL OF THE CRIMEA. 295 smiths work while standing in a hole, thus de- pressing themselves so as to avoid the necessity of stooping over their anvils. We visited two madrissas, or schools. In one of them, the moolla was seated on a small piece of carpet, surrounded by eighteen or twenty boys in a similar position, to whom he was reading the Koran. As we entered, he in- clined his head, but did not rise ; and the lads behaved better than a similar number of English children would have done, had a Mussulman in native costume suddenly entered their school. The moolla wore a high turban, the privilege of his profession ; for in Crim Tartary the turban is a badge of honor, which all are not authorised to adopt ; and its superior height denotes superior dignity. The palace of the khans is more com- pletely Asiatic than any building in Europe. Amidst all the barbarities that have marked the conquest of the Crimea by the Russians, it is surprising that they should have allowed the Tartars the gratification of retaining this single memorial of their ancient dynasty : their conduct towards Poland almost forces a suspicion that it has not been spared out of any kind consideration to the feelings of a fallen enemy. 296 RUSSIAN POLICY. Dr. Clarke is too severe, yet some think it is not without a semblance of justice that he concludes his account of the consequences of the capture of the peninsula with the fol- lowing invective against Russia : an invective which certainly ought, in the present day, to be qualified by a reference to the benefit that has accrued to the country from the exer- tions and enterprise of count Woronzow, and of the nobility who have followed his ex- ample : yet the benefit is partial, the injury universal; in the one case, the odium at- taches to government, in the other, the credit is due to individuals. "If it be now asked," says the author referred to, " what the Rus- sians have done for the Crimea, after the de- pravity, the cruelty, and the murders by which it was obtained, and on that account became so favorite an acquisition in their eyes, the answer is given in few words. They have laid waste the country ; cut down the trees ; pulled down the houses ; overthrown the sacred edi- fices of the natives, with all their public build- ings ; destroyed the public aqueducts ; robbed the inhabitants ; insulted the Tartars in their acts of public worship ; torn up from the tombs the bodies of their ancestors, casting their relics upon dunghills, and feeding swine PALACE OF THE KHANS. 297 out of their coffins; annihilated all the monu- ments of antiquity, breaking up alike the se- pulchres of saints and pagans, and scattering their ashes in the air. Auferre, rapere, tru- cidare, falsis nominibus imperium ; atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.' " The following description of the palace of the khans may appear minute, but it is given almost as written on the spot, under a con- viction that every year will rob this inter- esting structure of something of its eastern character. The only entrance is towards the town, by a bridge crossing the Dchuruksu, a stream which flows through the valley. The gate opens into a large irregular parallelogram, bounded by a low wall, above which rise four tiers of gardens, abutting on the bold and picturesque mountains which, like an amphi- theatre, encircle the capital. The left side of the court contains a range of buildings, only a single story in height, occu- pied on one occasion by the emperor Alex- ander, and now reserved for the use of Russian travellers: the upper part is ornamented with a covered balcony,* while the ground floor is shaded by an open verandah. The rooms * Eastern balconies are always at the top of the house, which is called xiU>- itb (bala khanah) ; whence our word balcony. VOL. I. T 298 PALACE OF THE are small ; but each is furnished with a table, chairs, and a long sofa : the walls are white, and exhibit, especially round the window- frames, various singular devices painted in the gayest colors. Beyond these are the principal mosque, the royal cemetery, and some apart- ments now allotted to the Russian governor of the palace and his Cossack soldiers. The right side of the court used to be inhabited by the khan. The interior is simi- lar to that described above, with a profu- sion of arabesques which correspond well with the gaudy trellis-work of the casements. Pass- ing the great gate, we entered a suite of rooms similar to that on the left. These were for- merly appropriated to the servants of the khan, into whose apartments they open ; they are small and square, leading one into another, and entirely destitute of furniture except the usual long sofa and a few chairs, with a single table ; they offer little worthy of notice but the fireplaces, which are in the form of a gothic arch, with a canopy of the same shape. From one of these rooms a passage leads to the side of the d6wan, or council-chamber, in the upper part of whose wall are four lattices through which the khan, while himself con- cealed, could witness all that transpired : from TARTAR KHANS. 299 another, eight stairs conduct to the guest- chamber, and the last of these opens into a very small hall of audience, called the " Golden room," lined on three sides with cushions, .six inches high. The plafond is ornamented with a profusion of gilding ; and some rude frescoes are painted round the top of the wall, which is pierced with two tiers of windows ; the lower, small and square, co- vered with vines trained on the outside; the higher glazed with ground and painted glass. Throughout the palace red is the prevailing color. Descending from this story, we entered the " Fountain court," the marble-work of which is covered with Arabic and Persian inscriptions. A door leads to the royal private mosque, and above the portal is recorded the name of the founder, &. \ L, UJ1 ^1 J or, Salamat Gheraee Khan, son of Saleem Gheraee Khan the hajee. Through a second door the visitor is conducted into a room sur- rounded by glass, with a fountain playing in the centre ; this opens into a small garden, contain- ing a bath supplied by another fountain and encircled by a trellis-work of vines, where the khans were wont to seek refuge from the toils of court and the heats of summer. A third T 2 300 PALACE OF THE door is the entrance to the d6wan above named, which is lighted by double rows of windows with colored glass, paved with large flag-stones, and adorned with a richly gilded ceiling and arabesque figures on the walls. The hand- somest of the doors leading out of the " Foun- tain court" is faced by pilasters having capi- tals of the Corinthian order, and by a frieze and pediment decorated with sculpture and Arabic inscriptions. It opens into a small garden, shut in by high walls and assigned to the females : in this is a summer-house with a fountain playing in the centre, and near it a square tow r er, surmounted by a room enclosed with jalousies, to which the women were ad- mitted on special occasions to witness the fes- tivities of their lord and his courtiers in other parts of the palace. Here they might strive for a few moments, among the beauties of art and the grandeur of the vast amphitheatre of hills, to fly from grief; but their lot was one which involved sorrows too various to be easily beguiled and too serious to be long forgotten. In their numbers each traced the cause of her own desolation ; and the solitude of nature and the mirth of man would alike remind her that she was a captive and a victim. This thought embittered our enjoyment ; but we TARTAR KHANS. 301 were aroused, as the sad tenants of the ha- rem too seldom were, from a gloomy reverie to active and pleasurable exertion. The garden, rising in tiers on the slope of the hill in front of the great gate of the palace, is filled with fruit-trees and may have been a good one ; but it is now sadly neglected. In a distant corner stands the mausoleum of a Geor- gian beauty, who gained such influence over the heart of the khan Kareem Gheraee that he allowed her to retain her own religion, even when raised to the rank of his chief spouse. In one of two mausoleums, in the royal ce- metery on the left of the principal entrance, are five, under the other nineteen, coffins ; of which twelve are those of khans ; six those of their wives ; and one that of a sultan, the next in rank to a khan : they consist of wood, and are merely placed over the bodies, which are interred underneath in shrouds ; some of them are yet distinguished by the turbans of the de- ceased, which have survived for more than a century the heads that wore them. The en- closure is filled with marble tombstones in- scribed with sentences from the Koran. The grand mosque adjoining the cemetery has an elegant minaret of white stone, sur- rounded, near the top, by a balcony beauti- 302 THE GRAND MOSQUE. fully carved in bass relief. Anxious to witness the service, we attended. The sight was im- posing. It was evening ; and the declining sun barely sufficed to light the interior of the edifice, at the entrance of which were collected all the shoes of the worshippers. Opposite a niche in the centre of the wall, with his back to the door, stood a moolla, proclaiming in a low bass voice, and in the solemn accents of the Arabic tongue, that " God is great and merciful." To this the whole Tartar congre- gation responded by reverently bowing the head to the ground, in which position they remained for some minutes. The same act was repeated several times, when an interval was allowed for private prayer. All seemed absorbed ; their backs were turned as we ap- proached them, and though they must have heard us, yet not one looked round to gratify curiosity by a sight of the strangers. The ex- terior of the mosque is painted like the range of buildings above described ; and the inter- vals between the windows are inscribed with sentences of the Koran in figures of variout devices. The interior is square, and furnishec with a gallery, of which one side was reserv ed for the khan who had a private entrano from the palace : it is indifferently lightct PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES. 303 by two tiers of windows, the upper being glazed with painted glass exhibiting Arabic in- scriptions ; while from the red plafond are sus- pended a pair of chandeliers, each composed of two planes of wood, one above another, in the form of a star, with a lamp affixed to each of its eight angular points. Several copies of the sacred volume are placed on frames round the walls ; and at a distance from each other are a reading-desk and a pulpit : in the former the moolla sits a la Turque, in the latter he stands. Bagtcheserai is on many accounts a most interesting spot. It was for several years the scene of an English missionary's labors, which might possibly have been crowned with suc- cess, had not the Russian government issued the law before referred to, forbidding Chris- tian ministers of every denomination, except those of the Greek church, to baptize, or at- tempt to make converts of, the Mohammedans. The consequence was that several Protestant missionaries were obliged to leave the Crimea. The inhabitants of Bagtcheserai keep very early hours. Some time before sunset the shops are closed ; and all wears the appearance of a holiday. The reason is, that the whole trade is in the hands of the Karaite Jews, who 304 FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY. in the morning descend from the neighbouring fort of Joofud Kalah,* and in the evening reclimb the steep ascent, to pass the night in their stronghold. There is, perhaps, at the present moment, nothing connected with the capital or its en- virons so remarkable as this fort, situate on a high rock, about four versts, or two and a half miles, from the town. The road lies through a deep ravine, skirted on both sides by lofty precipitous hills, worn in one part into a succession of natural bastions that stand out from the rest of the freestone mass like the ruins of a gigantic citadel. On the left, are the head-quarters of some wandering gipsies who sojourn among these fastnesses and make them resound with their wild cries and songs ; * As>- (Ju- food, commonly pronounced Joofud,) is a Turkish corruption of the Arabic JUs?" (juhood), a term applied to infidels and derived from iis?" (juhd), denying. Here it is appropriated to the Jews ; and so distinctly is it recognized as a term of reproach that Joofud kalah is sometimes translated "The fort of the rogues" When the reader peruses the testimony to the excellent character of the Karaites contained in the following pages, and yet finds that their dwelling-place is called " The fort of the rogues," he will hardly fail to rival the prophetic declaration, " Thou shalt become a bye-word among all nations." Deut. xxviii. 37- GREEK TOWN. 305 while the children run naked about the valley, learning vice in infancy and, together with their parents, exhibiting, according to the ca- pacities of their early years, the baneful effects of moral degradation. Here the road turns to the right, leading through a narrow defile between two grand mountains. Before we had proceeded far, we found ourselves among the ruins of a town, whose extensive remains show that it must have been a place of some importance : it bears marks of great antiquity, and may, possibly, have been built by the Greeks. Exactly oppo- site, in the side of a perpendicular rock, and very high from the ground, some little wooden balconies attracted our attention, and curiosity prompted us to visit the spot, It was not possible for horses to cross the intermediate ravine ; so, dismounting among the dilapi- dated walls of the old town, of which time has obliterated even the name, we clam- bered up flights of rugged steps cut out of the hill, till we reached an excavation which proved to be a long, dark chapel, supported by columns hewn out of the solid stone, and opening into one of the balconies referred to. This was constructed as a secret place of worship in the days of Mussulman rule, when Chris- 306 MONASTERY OF THE ASSUMPTION. tians were not suffered to celebrate publicly the outward rites of their faith ; and near it are a number of horizontal niches, then used as sarcophagi. It is called the monastery of the Assumption of the Virgin, and gives the name of Mary's valley to the ravine over which it impends. The single individual who now te- nants this religious solitude informed us that service is performed in the chapel by a Greek priest from the neighbouring town, as often as any one will pay for the same ; and that the burial-ground on the slope of the mountain is open to the reception of every corpse whose friends will purchase for it a resting-place at the price of twenty-five rubles, or twenty- two shillings. Though quite deserted at other seasons of the year, yet on the fifteenth of August this spot presents a striking spectacle. Pilgrims flock to it, many with naked feet, from all parts of the Crimea ; and on that day the whole country is animated by a vast multitude who are seen pressing through the narrow avenues leading to the monastery, to celebrate a festival in honor of the Virgin. The groups of every age and nation, and of both sexes, collected in different parts of the valley to take their rural repast after the ceremony, are said to ROAD TO JEWS' FORT. 307 constitute a picture singularly novel and curi- ous ; and it can easily be imagined that the variety of costumes, together with the sur- rounding scenery so peculiar in character, the landscape bounded by rocks and the monastery suspended, as it were, in air, at a height of several hundred feet, must form a very inter- esting coup d'ceil. Proceeding further up the gorge, we passed four fountains to which the inhabitants of the neighbouring fortress of Joofud Kalah resort for water, as none can be procured in their little citadel. Conveyed from so great a dis- tance and to such an eminence, every drop be- comes precious. It is carried in long narrow barrels placed on asses, some of whom were toiling up the steep acclivity as we pursued our course in the same direction. The dif- ficulty of the road, both in ascent and descent, is such that no animal can make the journey more than twice or thrice in a day ; and it may fairly be concluded that the labor of thus sup- plying a whole town with the chief necessary of life would have long since overcome the lo- cal attachments of almost any other people but Jews. At length, some cottages on the very sum- mit of the rock immediately above our heads 308 FORT OF JOOFUD KALAH. became visible ; and curiosity increased with every step which led us nearer to the abode of a tribe so little known, and yet so worthy to be known as one which has preserved in its least altered state the religion of Abra- ham, Isaac, and Jacob. The ascent became more and more arduous, and would be altoge- ther impracticable, since the hill is nearly per- pendicular, were it not for the assistance afford- ed by flights of steps cut in a zig-zag direction, which multiply many fold the distance while they diminish the difficulty. To take this for- tress by any known means, except by cutting off the supplies, would be impossible : it seems as if intended by nature to laugh to scorn the puny efforts of man and to defy his science. In two hours we reached the gate of the cita- del, whose present defences were constructed by the Genoese. The streets are narrow, and the rock forms a natural pave, worn by the feet of the cattle into holes, without which they would be unable to maintain a footing on the slope. Each house is surrounded by stone walls, under whose shadow the females of the family breathe fresh air in privacy. Joofud Kalah contains two hundred families, all of whom are Israelites, for no Gentile is allowed to encroach on the exclusive privilege of dwelling where THE KARAITE JEWS. 309 none but Jews could be induced to dwell. In the centre of the town is a kind of market-place, or public rendezvous, where a number of aged Hebrews in Tartar costume, with long flowing- beards, were sitting in conclave ; one of them offered to conduct us to the only buildings worthy of inspection, namely, the synagogues, of which there are two, nearly equal in size, enclosed by the same wall and exhibiting a simi- lar interior. Here we met the chief rabbi, ac- companied by some others : they could speak only Russ and Tartar ; but as one of our party was equally conversant with Russ and English, he acted as interpreter, unwearied by the mi- nute and categorical questions with which a de- sire to learn every particular connected with their history induced us to trouble the rabbis. The Karaite, or Karaim, Jews form a sect entirely distinct from the great mass of He- brews scattered over the world. Their exist- ence here, as a body politic and religious, not only maintaining their own peculiar usages but governed by their own laws, is a fact very re- markable ; and almost, though not absolutely, unique ; for the Falasha in Abyssinia are simi- larly circumstanced, as is another tribe which has a fortress in Morocco. The Karaites once had a settlement in Spain, but they were driven 310 KARAITE SETTLEMENTS. thence in the twelfth century by the intrigues of the Rabbinists, who entertain towards them a malignant hatred ; and who, though their detestation of Christians amounts to a passion, have yet a saying, that, if one of their num- ber saw a disciple of the " Man of Nazareth" drowning, it would be his duty to make a bridge of a Karaite's body to save the Chris- tian's life. These, on the contrary, never speak unkindly of the Rabbinists, whom they acknowledge as brethren, while protesting against their errors. At present they are to be found in very small numbers in Turkey, Syria, Austria, the Caucasus, India, Egypt, and Rus- sia; in this empire they have established them- selves in the Crimea and on its frontier, in Poland, and in Lithuania. Very little is known of their first establishment in Poland where, in 1791, they amounted to upwards of four thousand ; it seems, however, that they migrated thither from the Crimea. They are equally ignorant of their first possession of Joofud Kalah ; but it appears that they exist- ed in Crim Tartary in the twelfth century, previous to its invasion by the Moslims ; and about a hundred years ago, under one of the khans of the Gheraee family, peculiar immuni- ties were conferred on them. In Grand Cairo KARAITE DOCTRINES. 311 they have a valuable library with many Arabic manuscripts and a synagogue, which is said to have been the first established after the de- struction of their city by Titus. The Karaites take their name from the Hebrew word kara, signifying Scripture, be- cause they adhere exclusively to the letter of the Bible, rejecting the talmud and the interpretations of the rabbis, on which the other Jews, called, by way of distinction, Talmudists, Rabbinists, Pharisaical Jews, and Sons of the text, lay so much stress. This is the fundamental point of difference. They are said to hold some of the doctrines of the Sadducees, with whom they were probably identified, till these fell into gross errors, when such as retained the pure faith gave them the name of their chief, Sadok, and separated from them. Others, again, main- tain that they have handed down the hetero- doxies of the Samaritans and that they deny all Scripture except the Pentateuch. The asser- tion, however, is incorrect ; and the charge probably originated in their keeping the rest of the Sacred Scriptures apart from the books of Moses, which are much used in their schools^ in order that none may suffer unnecessarily from the carelessness of the boys. As they 312 KARAITE MANUSCRIPTS. have no printed copies, each manuscript is of great value, and this precaution is indispensa- ble ; while in order to secure a further supply, every member of the synagogue is expected to transcribe the whole, or the greater part, of the law at least once in his life, a work which the Karaites perform with much precision and beauty of penmanship.* They possess Tartar * In thus enjoining on every member of their society to transcribe the law, the Karaites demand even more than is required by the Rabbinists, who yet, as is well known, place such honor on the sacred volume, that they commit very large portions of it to memory, and in former days consigned to the Masorets, who were thence called Sopherim, or Num- berers, the office of counting all the verses, words, and even letters, in the Old Testament. " Ask one of our nation," says Josephus, " concerning the law, he will tell you all things more readily than his own name ; for learning them as soon as we come to have any knowledge of things, we pre- serve them deeply engraven on our minds." And Ribera mentions that, as he was once making inquiries from a Jew at Salamanca regarding several minute details in the historical and prophetical books of Scripture, the individual repeated from memory, in the Hebrew tongue, every chapter to which lie adverted. The early Christians seem to have been inspired with something of a similar zeal for God's word. It is record- ed of Tertullian that he learned much of the Scriptures by heart, and that with such accuracy that he knew every period. Theodosius the younger could recite almost any part of the Bible. Eusebius says, he heard " one who had his eyes burnt out in the Dioclesian persecution, repeat memoriter the Scriptures in a large assembly, as if he had been reading KARAITE MANUSCRIPTS. 313 targums, or versions of the Old Testament in that language, which are regarded as objects of interest equally by themselves and by those versed in biblical lore. The rabbis kindly showed us all their manuscripts, and complain- ed that, as the society has been from time to time reduced by the departure of its members, several have been taken away and their col- lection has accordingly suffered. Afterwards, they conducted us into their school, and exhi- bited the various books in which the youth are instructed in the Hebrew and Tartar languages. From all we could ascertain in personal con- ference with these sons of Israel and with their neighbours, as well as from what is re- corded concerning them,* it appears that they hold the Jewish faith in much purity and sim- plicity ; adhering so strictly to the letter of the law that, as their rabbi informed us, they allow no fire to be seen in their town on the sabbath, neither for light, warmth, culinary purposes, out of a book." Zuinglius transcribed the whole of St. Paul's Epistles and got them by heart. Beza could recite them in Greek at the age of fourscore years. And, to advert to more modern days, we are told that Cranmer and Ridley learned the whole of the New Testament, the one in his journey to Rome, the other in the walks of Pembroke College. * By Dr. Henderson, to whose " Researches" the author is indebted for much information regarding the Karaites. VOL. I. U 314 MORALS OF KARAITES. nor even for smoking; though it is well known the Talmudists find little difficulty in evading the Levitical prohibition. Their morals are unusually blameless : at Odessa, where several hundreds of them are established as merchants, they enjoy a high character for honesty and general probity, forming a striking contrast to the Jews of other denominations : in Poland, the records of the police prove that no Karaite has been punished for an offence against the laws for four centuries : and in Gallicia, the government has exempted them, on account of their good conduct, from the imposts levied on other Hebrews, conferring on them, at the same time, all the privileges enjoyed by their Christian fellow subjects. Among the minor points of difference be- tween the two Israelitish parties are the liturgy, the regulation of food, and the degrees of affi- nity that oppose marriage. Their civil laws also present some distinctive characters. The Karaites suffer polygamy which, however, is not much practised : and by them, as by the Rabbinists, affiance is considered as sacred as marriage ; so that the means requisite to annul the one are equally necessary to set aside the other, except in the event of the death of the father of a girl betrothed when a minor, who KARAITE LAWS. 315 is then allowed a voice in the matter and may refuse to ratify her father's contract. The members of this tribe are not permitted to dispose of their estates, either by gift or testament, to the prejudice of the lawful heirs; nor to leave more to one child than to another. The following is the order in which succession to property is regulated : First, sons ; Secondly, male descendants through the male line ; Thirdly, daughters ; Fourthly, daughter's children indiscriminately ; Fifthly, father ; Sixthly, paternal uncles ; Se- venthly, brothers ; Eighthly, mother. Illegiti- mate children are not excluded, provided the mother be a Karaite. A husband can never inherit from his wife ; but it is lawful for her to resign to him a share of her dower. The Rabbinists pretend that the schism (as they term it,) of the Karaites cannot be traced beyond the year 750 of our era. These, 3n the contrary, maintain that, before the de- struction of the first temple, they existed as i distinct sect under the name of " The com- pany of the son of Judah ;" that it was only in ater days that they were called Karaites, to listinguish them from the Rabbinists ; and hat their princes reigned over Egypt. Ac- ording to some, their history is marked by u 2 316 KARAITE HISTORY. three great epochs : First, the year 106 B. c. in which Simeon Ben Chetak, driven to Alex- andria to avoid the persecution directed by Alexander Janneus against the wise men of his country, returned to Jerusalem after the danger was past, and began to disseminate his doctrines : Secondly, 750 A. D. when Anan was their chief at Babylon : Thirdly, the year (in the fifteenth century,) in which He'le'liah Ben Don Davis went from Lisbon to Constanti- nople in order to effect a coalition between the Karaites and Rabbinists; but, failing in his project, gave them a code of laws which, with the Adareth, (a moral work much es- teemed among them,) formed the basis of their institutions. As our visit was protracted to some length, the greater part of the population of this little fort heard of our arrival ; and before we took leave, the number whom curiosity had brought to see the strangers was such as to incommode us. The boys fought for the hopeful privilege of holding our horses, and still more for the kopecks, in distributing which we strove not to give rise to a breach of the peace ; but some more than playful blows proved that our efforts were unsuccessful. With the double object of avoiding the pre- VALLEY OF JEHOSHAPHAT. 317 cipitous ascent encountered in our progress to the town, and of seeing the burial-ground of these lovers of Holy Scripture, on quitting Joofud Kalah we proceeded along a road lead- ing to a valley peopled with the dead of the last five centuries, and called " The valley of Jehoshaphat." It lies in a fissure of the moun- tains, and is darkened by the shade of nume- rous venerable trees which cast a sombre hue over the graves and give effect to the scene. The cemetery is filled to overflowing with white marble monuments, each carved in the shape of a sarcophagus and furnished with a headstone : the oldest of these, which was more than half buried in the ground till the visit of the emperor Alexander who caused it to be taken up and laid down afresh, bears a date corresponding to the year 1364 of our era. The view from this spot is very grand ; and our last impressions of Joofud Kalah were such as to induce a regret that we were compelled to hasten away, and that our visit could neither be prolonged nor repeated. Yet so it is! A regret is mingled with life's every pleasure ! 318 CHAPTER XI. THE CRIMEA. FROM BAGTCHESERAI, BY THE HERACLEOTIC CHERSONESUS, TO ODESSA. Leave Bagtcheserai. Tartar village of Dosis. Mausoleums. Castle of Mankup. Dewankooee. Carts. Burial- grounds. Broochkooee. Scenery. Ferry. Old Jew. Sebastopol. Allotments of land. Reflections on a settlement in the Crimea. Bay. Ancient Ctenus. Its situation. Tortoises and fish. Aqueduct. For- tress and caves of Inkerman. Chapels in rock. Hiding- places of early Christians. Harbour. Shipping and fortifi- cations. Site of ancient Chersonesus. Its foundation and history. Heracleotic and Taurica Chersonesus. Genoese buildings. Pagan temples and Christian churches. Ex- tensive ruins. Flowers and insects. Anecdote. Na- tural magic. Circular stone basins. Coins. Rings for shipping on tops of mountains. Geological conjectures. Monastery of St. George. Temple of Diana. Metropo- litan. Greek service. Valley of Balaclava. Greek inhabitants. Variety of nations in Crimea. Harbour ol Balaclava. Ancient fortress. Name derived from Geno- ese. Fish. Sea-servant. Town paved with marble Valley of Baidah. Tartar cottage. Repast. Ablu- tions. Mountains of Ayila. Majestic scenery. " Devil'; stairs." Descent. Village destroyed. Houses. DEPARTURE FROM BAGTCHESERAI. 319 Mode of stacking hay. Richness of soil. Spina Christi. Tree frog. Eagles. Lizards. Return to Aloupka. Yalta. Massandra. Count Woronzow's exertions in Cri- mea. Anecdote. Public garden at Nikita. Aidaniel. Its situation. View. Bear's mountain. Return to Odessa. THE distance from Bagtcheserai, the ancient metropolis of Crim Tartary, to Sebastopol, its present capital, is about thirty versts ; and the journey may be accomplished on horseback in three hours and a half, the road being level and such as even a wagon can pass over. The first little cluster of cottages, wearing an appearance of comfort superior to that of most Tartar villages, is called Dosis. In the vicinity are several mausoleums; one, remarkable for the beauty of its architecture, is considered by competent judges the best specimen of that art in Russia; it probably contains the dust of royalty, and the name of the spot thus con- secrated to the dead, which may be translated The old abode, has given rise to a belief that the khans formerly resided here. The burial- grounds of the Tartars, like those of Moham- medans in general, lie near the public road ; and they are numerous, as each family can choose their last home without regard to a form of consecration. These frequent mementos 320 TARTAR CEMETERIES. of death ought to be profitable ; but they are so common that they cease to affect the mind. As we proceeded, a turn in the road opened to view the castle of Mankup, once a place of considerable strength ; and after passing through Dewankooee, inhabited principally by Crimean gipsies and abounding, as does the neighbour- hood, in carts beautifully carved, like the old oak mantel-pieces of our forefathers, we rode along a country exhibiting every possible variety of mountain scenery and here and there studded with vineyards, till we reached, at a distance of two versts from Sebastopol, the village of Brooch kooee, where we again saw the Euxine. Our ride carried us through a series of valleys, more or less cultivated, and surrounded with high hills of freestone which, their sides hav- ing been bared of mould by successive rains, stood forth, like giants, terrible in their size and naked majesty. Before reaching Sebastopol we had to cross an arm of the sea, about half a mile in width. A ferry was put in requisition, and some Rus- sians and a Tartar Jew embarked with us. The venerable son of Abraham commanded our respect by his age and our interest by his birth ; our companions, however, felt other- wise, and immediately commenced hostilities ; SEBASTOPOL. 321 assailing him with reproaches, threatening to pluck his hoary beard, and treating him with the greatest unkindness. As in Christendom, so equally in the countries of Islam, the Jew is an object of scorn, " a shaking of the head among the nations." The modern town of Sebastopol, erected since the Russian conquest of the Crimea, stands on a rising ground, commanding a beautiful view of the bay. It consists of re- gularly built stuccoed houses and contains some good shops, with a population of thirty thousand Russians, nearly all of whom are naval or military. The superintendent of the works is an English engineer, one of whose sons is settled at Magaratsch near Yalta. On the south coast of the Crimea, as in this neighbourhood, the government allows large tracts of territory to such as are willing to accept them on condition of planting a vine in every seven feet square of land adapted to its cultivation. A dezatine is a little less than three acres, and it is calculated that six dezatines will contain thirty thousand trees, the wine produced by which, estimated at fifteen thousand quarts annually, will sell for four hundred and fifty pounds. Now, among thirty dezatines, a settler will pro- 322 ALLOTMENTS OF LAND. bably find six fit for the vine, while the rest will be good for pasturage ; and he will lay out on the land and in the purchase of a stock of sheep four hundred and fifty pounds. The first year his vines will yield nothing, and his sheep but little ; the second year the latter will pay his expenses, and the third they will give him a small interest ; at the same time the vines will begin to be productive, and every successive year they will return him the full amount of his capital; while his sheep will be a source of accumulating profit, with which he may cultivate more land, and increase his wealth at pleasure. Such is the calculation of the sanguine speculators, but it seems too fa- vorable to be correct. The chief drawbacks to a settlement in the Crimea are the despotic character of the go- vernment and the loss a foreigner might sus- tain in case of a war between his own coun- try and Russia ; but the inducements of gain and a delightful climate are powerful; conse- quently, nearly the whole of the land is al- ready engaged. Still, a small portion remains, and the subject is worth the consideration of those whose circumstances compel them to emigrate from England. To the east of the town is a bay, forming a THE BAY. TUNNEL. 323 port, that has been supposed with good rea- son to be the Ctenns of Strabo, represented by him as situate forty stadia, or seven and a half versts, from the town of Chersonesus, and equally distant from Portus Symbolorum, the modern Balaclava ; a description which cor- responds exactly with the position of this har- bour. The sea here runs up for several versts into the land in a direction parallel to the shore from Cape Fiolente to Balaclava, and thus forms a smaller peninsula at the western corner of the larger one ; while the bay itself resembles, in everything but the exquisite scenery of its banks, a Norwegian fiord. Having rowed to the top of it, we sud- denly entered a narrow stream flowing through a wide plain of rushes and abounding with tortoises, numbers of which plunged from the bank into the water as the splashing of our oars disturbed their slumbers, while fish rose to the surface in swarms to devour the seeds of water-melons thrown out of our boat. Proceeding some little way, we landed to inspect a tunnel several hundred feet in length, lately cut through the rock to con- vey water to the docks at Sebastopol. The aqueduct of which it forms a part is a magni- ficent undertaking, and extends six or eight 324 CAVES OF INKERMAN. miles, here perforating a mountain, and in another part spanning the valley with its lofty arches. The rock in the vicinity is a soft freestone, whose sides present to the eye hun- dreds of caverns of various shapes and dimen- sions, now occupied by laborers engaged in the canal and other works. Beyond this, at a great elevation, is the for- tress of Inkerman which, from its position, must have been a place of considerable strength; while the subterranean habitations connected with it, constituting almost a city in themselves, would have supplied places of store and refuge beyond its possible requirements. From va- rious inscriptions still extant, as well as from the character of the remains, it is inferred that this fortress is as old as the Chersonesian, or Bosphorian, power ; and there are indications of its having been since repaired and occupied by the Genoese. To one of the numerous excavations which pervade the mountains on both sides of the valley we made our way by means of a rugged flight of steps and a long low passage, on the left of which caves are cut in the rock, suited, as they were doubtless appro- priated, to the austerities of monastic life. At length, we reached a large room eleven feet in HARBOUR OF SEBASTOPOL. 325 height, whose form and vaulted roof, with two Grecian sarcophagi, an altar-piece, and a cross still faintly traced, clearly show that it was once consecrated to Christian worship. A similar chapel faces the sea. The access to it is by another long sinuous passage, hewn with great regularity through a rock which readily yields to the impression of the chisel. The corridor and stairs are lighted by arched windows opened at regular intervals, command- ing a lovely view of the valley, the opposite excavations, and the bay ; while chambers appear above and below, and on either side. Scraps of fresco-painting and the remains of sarcophagi are yet discernible in several of these caverns which were, doubtless, the resort of early Christians who fled there in times of persecution, first from Pagans and then from Mussulmans. Crim Tartary, especially the southern part of it, abounds with such subter- ranean dwellings, to which no other plausible origin has been assigned. Returning to Sebastopol, we visited the harbour, reputed to be one of the largest and most commodious in the world. Six first-rate men-of-war and some smaller ones were reposing on the calm surface of the water, while others were engaged in performing the duties of a 326 THE HERACLEOTIC AND quarantine and smuggling cordon. Everything bespoke action and enterprise. On one side, numerous laborers were engaged in levelling the solid rock, the natural fortification of the country ; on another, engineers were erect- ing artificial defences of colossal magnitude; and on a third, the diligent construction of " wooden walls," rivalling Britannia's boast, seemed to intimate that this northern inland power, as if anxious to outstep the bounds assigned to her by Providence, had resolved to acquire a dominion over the sea coexten- sive with the vast expanse of her territory on land. After a night's repose, we proceeded in the direction opposite to that of Inkerman ; and soon reached a guard of soldiers stationed on the shore of another bay to the south-west of the town. Overlooking this, once rose the proud city of Chersonesus, the glory of eastern Europe. Founded six centuries before the Christian era by a colony of Greeks from Bithynia, she gave her name, not only to the Heracleotic Chersonesus, the small promontory on which she stood, but, by extension, to the Taurica Chersonesus, or the whole of that larger peninsula now called the Crimea.* Here the * Strabo, Lib. vii. cap. 4. TAURICA CHERSONESUS. 327 Taiirian Diana had a temple, and history re- cords that a cave in the citadel itself was consecrated to the mysteries of her worship. For many generations, and until the growing power of the Scythians compelled her to seek the protection of Mithridates, Chersonesus retained her independence of the Bosphorian kings. She was a free republic and had more than one opportunity of benefiting the em- pire in time of war, when Rome was at the zenith of her splendor ; and in the fourth cen- tury Constantine acknowledged his obligation to her for aiding him in an expedition against the Goths. From the introduction of Christi- anity till the fourteenth century she included among her edifices the palace of a Greek arch- bishop, and within her precincts, A. D. 988, Vladimir, the first Christian sovereign of Rus- sia, was baptized. It is probable that, during the time of the Genoese power in the Crimea, that enterprising people constructed a new city with the old ma- terials on the site of Chersonesus ; for many of the walls now standing contain within them portions of ancient pillars ; exhibiting, here and there embedded in the masonry, fragments of a chaste Ionic shaft or a rich Corinthian capi- tal. The remains of three separate buildings 328 THE ANCIENT CHERSONESUS. may be seen which were evidently Christian churches ; for while their pagan emblems in- dicate an earlier, their half-faded crosses tell of a later, antiquity, when the religion of Diana and the Christian faith met in conflict, as once at Ephesus, where Diana of the Ephesians* was opposed by the great apostle of the Gen- tiles. Strabo mentions the temple of the vir- gin goddess (TO r?jg vagd'tvou kgov] in this place ; and, probably, one of these ruins is that of a Christian church built on the site and out of the materials of that very temple. Much of the ancient masonry has been removed by Tartars and Russians, who have communicated to it a third, but less inter- esting, connection with the living in their mo- dern dwellings : vast masses, however, are yet spared as a memorial of the grandeur of former days ; nor are these confined to the five miles within which Pliny circumscribes the city ; they are to be traced through the whole of the Heracleotic Chersonesus, now lying open on the surface of the country, and now forming large hillocks consisting entirely of rubbish ; which remind the traveller of the fallen capital of India ; where, as here, Mongols and Tartars have trampled on the sacred relics of antiquity * Acts xix. 26. 28. NATURAL MAGIC. 329 and are now themselves trampled under foot. We robbed the soil of a venerable stone and of a sprig of wormwood which waved its branches, bitter, as it were, with the recollec- tions of the past, over the prostrate marbles that tell of generations in the grave, and of splendor known no more. Leaving this interesting spot, we crossed the promontory, in a south-western direction, to the monastery of St. George, passing over the site of the wall that once guarded the Heracleotic peninsula from the inroads of the Scythians. The ground was covered with wild flowers, among which several cultivated in our gardens appeared blooming in indigenous luxuriance. The country is equally productive in insects ; nor are they all harmless ; for only last year a regiment of Russian soldiers was obliged to be removed from their encampment solely on ac- count of the number of tarantulas, from whose bites many of them suffered severely. The wind blew hard as we galloped over the plain ; and as one of our party pulled from his pocket a pencil-case, a loud whistle was heard and thrice repeated : all were startled ; the sound was peculiar, and each inquired of the other whether it issued from him. While we were trying to find out its origin, the whistle was VOL. i. x 330 ANTIQUES. heard again, and was then discovered to pro- ceed from the pencil-case, which the wind con- verted into a musical instrument. Instances, not more remarkable, of what may be termed natural magic have given rise to many fables of preternatural wonders. Throughout the high land in this quarter, known, like that around Odessa, by the name of the steppe, circular stone basins, four feet in diameter, are found buried in the soil : when disinterred, they prove to be two feet deep, and to be formed either of a single stone or, as is more general, of several well joined together. Antiquaries are divided in opinion regarding the use of these ; but their ap- pearance sanctions the conjecture that they may have been sacrificial vases intended to receive the blood of slaughtered victims. Relics of an- tiquity abound here. A gentleman, who ac- companied us in this excursion, showed us a large stone recently dug out of his estate in the neighbourhood, exhibiting in basso rilievo a recumbent human figure and evidently of an early date. He also kindly presented us with several ancient copper coins, some bearing very legible Greek inscriptions. In various parts of the coast of the Crimea large rings are found on the lower mountains, GEOLOGICAL CONJECTURES. 331 whose object is uncertain, and therefore offers legitimate subject for conjecture. Some are so bold as to suggest that they might have been employed to secure ships ; and this hypothesis may have originated in a notion very preva- lent in the country, that the sea formerly rose far above its present level. An opinion has been broached that the channel of the Bos- phorus is of comparatively modern formation, and that the Euxine was originally a lake ex- tending over the northern coast of Anato- lia and the southern coast of Russia, and so raising the surface of the Danube that the present banks were under water. Its fresh- less has been observed to be a strong corro- borative proof of this theory ; and the small >ortion of salt it contains is the more re- narkable, when we remember that the sur- ounding land is saturated with saline particles md produces large quantities of fossil salt vhich is constantly melting into it. Some geologists imagine that the whole of Russia vas once covered by a sea extending from he Baltic to the Caspian ; and it is certain hat the tract of country between the Baltic nd the Black Sea is scarcely " fifty fathoms bove the level of the ocean, while the plain of ^a Mancha in the western peninsula, if placed x 2 332 GEOLOGICAL CONJECTURES. between the sources of the Niemen and the Borysthenes, would figure as a group of moun- tains of considerable height." It has, with great probability, been maintained that the Sea of Marmora was originally a lake, and that it forced itself through the Dardanelles into the Archipelago at a period anterior to the sup- posed irruption of the Euxine : Diodorus Sicu- lus alludes to the event, and asserts that when it occurred the waters rose high on the moun- tains of Thrace. The sandy plains in the north of Africa, covered, as they are, with marine shells, afford no equivocal indication of hav- ing once lain at the bottom of the ocean, from whose superincumbent weight they are supposed by the advocates of this theory to have been relieved when the Mediterranean, till then confined between Europe, Asia, and Africa, burst its way through the pillars of Hercules. The communication thus formed with the Atlantic now serves to carry off the superfluous waters, not only of the Mediter- ranean, but likewise of the Propontis and Eux- ine, with their tributary rivers ; and secures many thousands of square miles in the coun- tries above mentioned from being again sub- jected to the dominion of the sea. The monastery of St. George is situate, as al MONASTERY OF ST. GEORGE. 333 ready mentioned, on the ancient promontory of Parthenium, twelve versts from Chersonesus, overlooking the Black Sea and surrounded by vast masses of rock which assume various gro- tesque shapes. Just below it, on the cliff, are shown the spot where stood the temple of the Tauric Diana, the very pedestal on which her golden statue was placed, and the " Virgin Rock" named from her priestess Iphigenia, or, as some say, from the resemblance it bears to a woman in the act of holding a child. The buildings belonging to the monastery consist of a church and some cottages, in which twelve monks reside. Their president is a venerable archbishop, with whom we had an interview. Custom requires that every Russian so honor- ed, not excepting the emperor, should kiss his hand ; but to us Protestants he did not offer it. His chamber (for he has but one) contains only a table and chairs, a sofa and bed ; his diocese comprehends the Crimea, in which are twenty- eight priests who have made no efforts to con- vert the Tartars. The monks were performing divine service in an adjoining church, with a congregation consisting of a few domestics and one woman and child, whom we watched with sad interest as they went through the various forms their faith enjoined. Each pic- 334 BALACLAVA. ture was kissed in turn by the mother, who bowed before it; crossed herself; bowed again; saluted the picture; again crossed herself; and, lastly, raised the little one to perform the same act of adoration ! Hence our course lay across the hills for seven versts to the romantic village of Balaclava, occupied by Greeks, where all speak that classic language, and where every individual boasts his descent from Grecian loins. They are called Arnaoutes ; a name indicating that their origin is from Albania, whence they fled from the persecutions of the Turks. When Potem- kin conquered the Crimea, they offered to form a corps in the Russian service ; and they now exhibit the singular anomaly of a native Greek regiment in the army of the northern czar, and of a Greek colony preserving their own lan- guage, modes, and peculiarities, in the midst of a people remarkably opposed to them in character. Indeed, as a modern writer ob- serves, " the variety of the different nations which are found in the Crimea, each living as if in a country of its own, practising its peculiar customs, and preserving its religious rites, is one of the circumstances which render the peninsula interesting to a stranger. At Bagtcheserai, Tartars and Turks ; upon the ITS NAME AND PORT. 335 rocks above them, a colony of Karaite Jews ; at Balaclava, a horde of Greeks ; an army of Russians at Akmetchet ; in other towns, Ana- tolians and Armenians ; in the steppes, Nogays, Gipsies and Calmuks ; so that in a very small district of territory, as in a menagerie, very opposite specimens of living curiosities are sin- gularly contrasted." The fertile valley in which the town of Ba- laclava stands is rendered extremely picturesque by its bay, which, constituting a magnificent harbour, was once called KaXoV A/^, The beauti- ful port ; a name which the Italian conquerors of this coast translated by Bella chiave, since corrupted into Balaclava. The water, enter- ing by a narrow strait scarcely thirty yards across, expands itself behind the mountains into a commodious basin, twelve or fourteen hundred feet in width and three hundred fathoms deep, in which large vessels may ride in safety dur- ing the severest storms. Between the town and the sea, overlooking both and standing at a fearful height on the summit of a mountain, supposed to be the HaXawov of the ancients, is a fortress which the Genoese repaired and strengthened in the fourteenth century : one of the towers, of which there are now three, con- tains a large reservoir of water, supplied by VALLEY OF BAIDAH. means of a covered aqueduct from a mountain some miles distant. The port abounds with fish, particularly a small delicate one known by the name of sea-servant ; as also with macke- rel and mullet ; and with a marine production resembling tallow. The town of Balaclava is paved with the red and white marble of which the surround- ing rocks are composed. It contains nothing of interest but its inhabitants ; so that, after dining with a Greek family and examining the localities above described, we remounted our horses and, crossing a precipitous hill, reached the beautiful valley of Baidah, distant fifteen versts, just as the sun sank beneath the horizon. The village is occupied entirely by Tartars; to which kind, hospitable, and honest race our host belonged. We were shown into a room twelve feet by eight, carpeted, and surrounded by a divan, or sofa, two feet wide and six inches high, likewise carpeted and covered with soft cushions. The arched rafters of the ceiling were painted of a black color, relieved by patches of white lime; and two holes in the wall were furnished with shutters and a grat- ing, but no glass. Opposite one of these was the fireplace, or open chimney, into one of whose corners the side-seat of the room ex- TARTAR COTTAGE. 337 tended, constituting the post of honor for a guest, who is compelled to sit, like the Tartars, with his legs crossed under him ; no easy po- sition for a Christian. Round the walls seve- ral shining tin plates were ranged, and under them, in double rows, hung white cloths, of the size and shape of towels, worked and bordered with gold : these are the riches of the bride, prepared by her own hands be- fore marriage and varying in costliness and number with the wealth of the party. On one side was suspended a large broad band of leather, ornamented with brass twist ; at each end of which was a silver circle four inches in diameter, furnished with hooks that fastened it round the waist : this is the bride- groom's gift to his bride, and it is often an article of great expense. On a table, a foot square and a foot high, our kind host himself served our meal, placing on it a large tin tray containing some hard- boiled eggs, black rye bread, and a dish called begmes, made of the juice of pears. Three men waited on us ; but no females made their ap- pearance ; for the Tartars are as careful to screen their women from the eye of man as Moslims in all other parts of the world. The ladies of the house, however, peeped at us occa- MOUNTAINS OF AYILA. sionally, and we caught a glimpse of one of the peepers. Before and after eating, we were presented with a basin and a fringed towel, to wash our hands; and this ablution is con- sidered necessary after sleep, though it be but a siesta of ten minutes. At the hour of repose, a number of mattresses and carpets were brought out from behind a curtain and laid on the floor to form our beds, together with cushions adorned with worked pillow-cases. They entirely filled the room, and it was with great difficulty that we avoided soiling them as we moved ; a difficulty which the natives obviate by leaving their shoes at the door when they enter a house. The following morning we bade adieu to the hospitable Mussulmans who would accept no re- compense, and proceeded to climb the chain of mountains called Ayila, which stretches across the Crimea from west to east, abounding, in the interior, with picturesque valleys of the richest luxuriance, while to the sea it presents only rugged acclivities, and to the clouds wild gigan- tic outlines. From the valley of Baidah, in which Tartar villages and mountain streams unite with the tints of the foliage to form a lovely landscape, we ascended for some miles by a narrow and difficult path through forests SCENERY. 339 of oak, beech, elm, walnut, filbert, and hop- horn-beam, varied by the clematis and black- berry growing in great profusion ; and after descending for five versts on the opposite side, we reached a spot known by the name of the " Devil's Stairs," whence the view is such that no words can convey a just idea of it. The traveller stands on the top of a rock two thou- sand feet above the sea. Before him the Euxine expands itself over the horizon, wash- ing the shores of Asia Minor and the foot of the mighty Caucasus, whose snow-clad summits may occasionally be discerned in a line stretch- ing from the sea of Azof to the Caspian. On three sides he is surrounded by the weather- beaten heights of Ayila, rising in peaks and bluff forms of every possible variety, and frowning in terrible majesty over the abyss. Here, projecting fragments of rock, like vast inverted stalactites, almost disjoined from the parent mass, stand out in stately solitude, as if commissioned to go forth to explore the mighty deep; while there, the mountain ik self, assuming a concave form, recedes, as it were, from terrors of its own creation. The roots of Ayila are connected with the sea by a narrow strip of sloping land covered with gardens and vineyards. To reach this, 340 VILLAGE DESTROYED. about a thousand steps must be descended, on which it seems almost impossible for a horse to maintain his footing : they are partly natu- ral and partly artificial, some being hewn out of the rock which consists of limestone, trap, and schist, so loosely connected that large masses often fall, carrying away a verst, or more, of the main road, with all the trees and houses on its side. Our horses proceeded with less fear than ourselves, and brought us by slow and care- ful steps, after a ride of nineteen versts, to Koochakooee, where a number of gipsies were cooking their simple repast, surrounded by children running about in a state of nature : this picturesque village was built by the em- press after that on whose site it stands had been swept into the sea by one of the terrible disrup- tions above referred to : now, like most of the small Tartar hamlets, it is composed of flat- roofed houses covered with earth or gravel, and sometimes overgrown with grass ; so that, from an eminence, the whole looks like little patches of level ground of different elevations ; while the mode peculiar to the country of stacking the hay between the branches of trees commu- nicates to the neighbouring orchards the ap- pearance of a farm-yard. The soil is exceed- THE TREE-FROG. 341 ingly rich. It lies in schistous flakes ; but when broken up and exposed to the sun and rain, it forms a rich mould, in which vegetation is so rapid that some kinds of trees propagated by seed are said to bear fruit within the year. Several of these were shown to us, and we were informed that almost any cutting will strike root immediately, while vines produce grapes the second year. The Spina Christi, so called because tradition says it lent its thorns to pierce the Saviour's brow, is here common ; figs and pomegranates grow wild ; olives are abundant ; and at the season of vintage the vineyards are rich with purple pendants. As we rode along, our attention was often attracted by the tree- frog croaking among the branches of its lofty habitation, by the eagles that soared above us, and by the myriads of beautiful green lizards that ran under our horses' feet. From Koochakooee our route lay over a rocky tract, called by the ancients Kaor^a ruv xktpoiruv, where a path was but indistinctly marked. Beyond the village of Keekeneez, we passed an isolated rock projecting into the sea, on which are ruins of an ancient fortress once held by the Genoese ; and four versts farther, we re- entered the domain of count Woronzow in the valley of Aloupka, fully sensible of the benefits 342 IMPROVED STATE OF CRIMEA. resulting to the Crimea from the expenditure of his ample property and the exercise of his official influence. After another short sejour in this beautiful spot a ride of fifteen versts brought us back to Yalta, the Aayyoa of Ptolemy, by which we continued our course through romantic scenery, ascending and descending the hillocks formed by successive disruptions from the rocks that face the sea, till we reached Massandra, an- other estate of count Woronzow, which came into his possession in a singular manner. It belonged to a lady who borrowed from her sister, the mother of the countess, a pearl neck- lace, to wear at court. The string broke, and the pearls were lost : as a compensation, she gave her sister this estate, then valued at three thousand pounds, but said to be now worth forty thousand, or more. The whole country around, including Maga- ratsch and Nikita, is richly studded with vines and fruit-trees, where, ten years ago, all was desolation ; for the personal exertions and influence of the count have converted the wil- derness into a terrestial paradise. Some idea may be formed of the extent of the change wrought on the southern coast of the peninsula from the existence of an imperial public garden RETURN TO ODESSA. 343 at Nikita, intended to encourage horticulture by the sale of plants at cost price. It is situate on the sea-shore, laid out with great taste, and well stored with all the trees and plants suited to the climate, comprehending the productions of nearly every zone. Within a narrow space are five hundred different species of the vine. A few versts from Nikita is Aidaniel, where we slept on another estate belonging to the count. The view from the house is beau- tiful. In front, is the Euxine ; behind, the majestic Ayila rises as a guard against its en- croachment on the land ; and, to the east, a bluff promontory, called the Bear's mountain, an object of singular grandeur, supposed to be the Kofof ugo of Ptolemy, stretches into the sea. After enjoying the scenery of this lovely spot, we returned to Yalta, where, bidding a reluctant farewell to the country with which we had so recently formed a new and most interesting acquaintance, we re-embarked for Odessa on the steamer which, to the great accommodation of travellers, plies regularly between that port and Crim Tartary. 344 CHAPTER XII. TURKEY IN EUROPE. CONSTANTINOPLE. Embark at Odessa for Constantinople. Russian pilgrims. Isle of Serpents. Markalia. Varna. Symplegades. Thracian Bosphorus. Scenery. First view of Constanti- nople. Seraglio Point. Ships. Caiques. Costumes. Disembarkation. Anecdote. Plague dreaded by Franks. ^Recklessness of Turks. Towers of Galata and Seraskier. View from summit of latter. Mosques. Sea of Marmora. Mount Olympus. Princes' islands. Seraglio. Scutari and Kadikooee. Sweet waters. Khans. Cemeteries. Galata. Topkhanah. Pera. Golden Horn. Sultan's caique. Mosque of Soliman. Moslim worship. St. Sophia's. Jeni Jami. Ayoob. Mausoleums. Compared with those of Agra and Delhi. Sarcophagus of Constan- tine. Origin of Turkish crescent. Palace of Constantine. Atmeidan. Belisarius. Mosque of Achmet. Egyp- tian obelisk. Ancient pillar from Rhodes. Delphic brass column. Maiden's pillars. Cisterns. Been bir deerek. Jplikjee bopdrumee. Yerek batan serai. Aqueduct. Walls of Constantinople. Seven Towers. Gold en gate. Bloody well. Gates of city. Tomb of Ali Pasha. Breach entered by Mohammed II. Palace of Belisarius. Fanar. Etmeidan. VOYAGE ON THE EUXINE. 345 THE voyage from Odessa to Constantinople in the steamer, which goes backwards and forwards once every three weeks, varies from fifty to sixty hours. The distance is three hundred and forty geographical miles. One of our party was a Russian who, with his wife, was on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He had lately recovered from a severe illness and was devoting two thousand rubles, or 90, one fifth of his little all, to this pious act. The zeal of the disciples of the Greek and Romish churches, however mistaken, often shames a Protestant. Would that it were rightly directed ! The only land very close to which we passed was the Isle of Serpents, once called Leuce, or the Island of Achilles, who had a temple there. Below this, on the Bulgarian coast, is Markalia, the site of the ancient Noli, supposed to be the place of Ovid's banishment : and still farther is Varna, a scene of bloody warfare in the late contest between Russia and Turkey. It was midnight when the coasts of Europe and Asia, divided by the deep and narrow Bosphorus and tinged with the silvery rays of a brilliant moon, opened on our view. As we entered the bay which gradually contracts into the Thracian strait, the Symplegades, those VOL. i. Y 346 THE THRACIAN BOSPHORUS. terrors of ancient voyagers, were faintly seen emerging, with their rough and sea-worn sides, from the abyss ;* on both shores, thousands of houses and numerous forts lighted up seemed to glow with animation, even in the dead of night; and shoals of porpoises sported under our bow, throwing up the sea in phospho- rescent curves, rivalling in sparkling numbers the twinkling lamps of Asia and of Europe. The scene was so novel, and the faint view ob- tained so stimulating to curiosity, that we re- solved to repeat this portion of the voyage, and adhered to our intention. A day was fixed shortly after our arrival : the weather was fine ; not a cloud obscured our view ; and a caique carried us back the same evening to the landing-place at Galata. The strait of Constantinople, called the Thracian Bosphorusf in opposition to the Cimmerian which unites the Euxine and the * On one of these two black and barren rocks, which were formerly called also the Cyaneae, travellers say that remains still exist of a column dedicated to Augustus. As it was dark when we passed, we had no opportunity of ascertain- ing the correctness of this statement. f The word Bosphorus signifies an " Ox's ford." The strait was probably so called because sufficiently narrow to allow an ox to swim across it, according to the well-known classical story. It is not probable that it ever was, or that, not SCENERY OF THE BOSPHORUS. 34? Sea of Azof, is something less than twenty miles in length, and averages about a mile and a half in breadth and forty fathoms in depth. The current runs at the rate of three miles an hour, carrying the waters of the Black Sea into the Propontis, whence they flow through the longer and wider channel of the Dardanelles into the Grecian Archipelago, to mingle with those of the Mediterranean. On one side, the coast of Asia rises in low hills, assuming various picturesque forms and sepa- rated by valleys and bays, while the heights of mount Olympus in the distance tower above the beautiful town of Broussa, the ancient capi- tal of the sultans and the depository of the bones of Othman. On the other side, the coast of Europe, adorned with royal palaces and sum- mer retreats, preserves a nearly parallel line, and exhibits similar undulations of surface. On both, the foreground and the receding slopes teem with population : Buyuk Dere, Therapia, and twenty-one other towns and villages rise in rapid succession, like a natu- being, the ancients should have supposed it to be, so shal- low that an ox could ford it. Some think the name refers to the early passage of agricultural knowledge from the east to the west ; but names generally originate with the vulgar, for whom this idea seems too refined. Y 2 348 BANKS OF THE BOSPHORUS. ral mosaic, on the right;* and eleven more on the left ; while every point is fortified with towers, furnished with guns of great length and calibre, which lie close to the water's edge ready to sweep its surface from shore to shore. Every object that can enhance the grandeur and beauty of the scene is com- bined; and when Constantinople bursts upon the sight, the reality surpasses the utmost ex- * The names of the towns and villages on the right bank are as follow : Hissar, close to which are two large forts. Buyuk Dere, situate at the entrance of a beautiful bay, above which is an ancient aqueduct. Therapia, where the English and French ministers reside, and the sultan has a summer palace. Jenikooee, inhabited only by Greeks. Between this and Therapia is a fort, with a corresponding one on the opposite bank. Steniah, which the Russians wanted to secure for a winter port for their shipping, on account of its vicinity to Constantinople, and the security and depth of the bay. Imerganolah. Baltalemon. Roumelizar, or the European fort ; the first place at which Mo- hammed II, who took Constantinople, landed in Europe. It is also the spot where janissaries, guilty of crimes, used to be put to death. The stone was pointed out to us on which many have suffered. Roumelia is the Turk- ish name for Europe. Bebnk. FIRST VIEW OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 349 pectation : whatever may have been the anti- cipation, it is more than realized ; for nature and art have here united their efforts to form and combine the essentials of the most perfect view of the kind on which the eye of man can rest. Close to the Sea of Marmora the strait forms a curve; and from Seraglio Point where this commences, an arm of the Bosphorus, called the Golden Horn, runs up in a westerly direction Arnaoutkee, where the Armenians reside. Kroochasmee, where is a palace of the present sultan's daugh- ter who is married to Halil Pasha and who obtained from her father a promise that her children should be allowed to live, contrary to the custom of Turkey, which sanctions the slaughter of all grandsons of the sultan. Ortakooee. Beshektash, where is a mosque often frequented by the sultan, and the elegant mausoleum of a celebrated pasha. The sultan has a palace here, two chimneys of which, made to resemble architectural columns, are surmounted with gilded capitals. Tolmabakshah. Kabatash. Fundoklee. Topkhanah, at the entrance of the Golden Horn. Galata, opposite to Stambol. Kazim-pasha. Haskooee. Sootlijee. Kharaash. Khatanah, or the Sweet Waters, at the end of the Golden Horn. 350 POSITION OF CONSTANTINOPLE. into the shore, dividing it into two parts. On these two European banks and on the opposite Asiatic coast, riding like her western rival, but in far greater dignity and gorgeous splendor, upon seven hills, sits the beautiful city ; once the cradle of Europe's Christianity ; The names of the towns and villages on the left side of the Bosphorus are as follow : Begosah, near which is the fort alluded to, opposite Je- nikooee. Above it rises the Giant's mountain ; on this the Russians had 12,000 men encamped for several months in 1833, when called in by the Turks to assist them against Ibrahim Pasha who was within forty hours' march of the capital. Incherkooee. Khanigi. Anatolizar, the fort of Asia Minor, opposite to Roumelizar. Kurksu, near which is a pretty spot called "The Sweet Waters of Asia." Kandili, near which is a beautiful kiosk of the sultan, on a hill. Chingulkooee. Vanakooee. Beglerbe, where the sultan has a summer palace. Kooscoonjuk, opposite Beshektash, the residence of the Jews ; a village of very great length along the Bosphorus. Scutari, standing on the curve of the Bosphorus, opposite to the entrance of the Golden Horn. Above Begosah and Hissar are fourteen large forts, seven on either shore, with several smaller ones. Five more are in process of erection. VIEW FROM SERAGLIO POINT. 351 then the protegee, afterwards the nurse, and still the pride of Islam ; destined to be, under whatever government and whatever creed, a queen among cities, the seat of power, and the empress of the east. As we paused in a light and elegant caique before Seraglio Point, Topkhanah and Ga- lata rose upon our right, and still higher up the hill, Pera, the residence of the Franks ; before us, triangular in form, extending far inland, and bounded on two sides by the Gold- en Horn and the Bospborus, was Stambol,* or Constantinople, properly so called; while on the left, or Asiatic, shore, Scutari was seen to as- cend the slope with a mass of houses indicating population of a density unusual except in orien- tal cities, where civilization and comfort make less demands on the surface of the ground. In * The word Stambol, or Istambol, is supposed by some to be a Turkish corruption of Stannopol, three syllables of the Greek name Constantinopolis. It may possibly, how- ever, be a Greek corruption of the Moslim name jj^XoiL;! (Islambol) or The City of Islam : for it may be supposed that the conquered Greek, habituated to the syllable stan in con- nection with the name of his favorite city, would easily fall into the mistake of calling Islambol Istanbol ; and, in point of fact, both names are to be found in oriental dictionaries ; but the corruption, Istanbol, Istambol, or Stambol, is now more frequently employed than the original, Islambol. 352 VIEW FROM SERAGLIO POINT. this amphitheatre of peopled hills, forests of dark cypresses contrast with the dazzling brightness of the mosques, whose domes and minarets, topped with gilded crescents, arrest the eye ; those in majesty spanning with their curved lines of beauty the Moslim house of prayer, these shooting upwards their light tapering forms, from whose consecrated sum- mits the muezzin invites the congregation of " the faithful " to the adoration of an anti- trinitarian God. The Golden Horn, a port almost unrivalled, was crowded with vessels from every quarter of the globe : in one part were steamers from Russia and Smyrna ; in another, merchant-men of every size and coun- try ; in a third, a portion of the Turkish fleet, consisting of nine ships of war, (one the largest in the world, carrying 130 guns,) all built since the battle of Navarino ; while the surface was dotted with thousands of caiques skim- ming the water with more grace and rapidity than a Venetian gondola. At the same time the shore presented a picture of unequalled variety ; in which the elegant dresses of the Turks, characteristic of their grade or profes- sion and mixed with gayest colors, the cos- tumes of Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Georgians and Russians, and the less becoming dresses of LANDING AT GALATA. 353 western Europe, were combined in groups as picturesque as they were peculiar. . Before leaving Russia we had heard that the plague was committing ravages, not only in Constantinople but also in Galata and Pera; t and as this report was confirmed on our arrival, it was not without hesitation that we determined to land. The disembarkation of the passengers was somewhat ominous. First, the luggage was thrown into large horse- hair bags said to be incapable of conveying infection, and consigned to porters, who could not otherwise have been permitted to take charge of it as they are the usual bearers of the dead : then, the whole party proceeded on shore, each being furnished with a stick for the purpose of keeping other pedestrians at a dis- tance, and thus parrying contact by which alone the disease is said to be propagated. A Frank lady who landed at the same time had been confined to her cot by sea-sickness and had taken scarcely any nourishment during a voyage of some days. On the morning of her arrival, she left the vessel before breakfast, pre- ferring to eat that meal on shore, and was thus in the worst possible condition to encounter fa- tigue ; while it may be supposed that the fact of finding herself for the first time in a spot in- 354 ANECDOTE. fected by plague, and compelled to shun every one she met as if fraught with a deadly disease, exercised considerable influence on her nerves. In Galata no carriages are to be had ; and she had advanced but a short distance up the steep hill that rises from the water towards Pera, when tottering knees and cold perspiration indicated a fainting fit. To enter a house might be death; a drop of cold water from a shop might convey the plague through the hand or the vessel that brought it ; and to stop in the street incurred risk of contact with the passing crowd. She made every exertion, but in vain, and at length fell back into her husband's arms. The Turks gazed in wonder at this singular scene. " Doubtless the lady had the plague !" Her deadly color indicated as much. One stopped to see the result ; another tucking his clothes nearer to his body, passed by as quickly as possible ; but none proffered assistance, except a Greek, who asked if he should get some water, and did not wait for a reply. At length, the husband of the lady and one of his fellow- travellers took her in their arms and toiled up the hill which was steep and long, rendering the task no easy one. After many haltings they reached a boarding-house, w r hen, to their great dismay, they learned that only two THE PLAGUE. 355 days had elapsed since it had completed a quarantine of six weeks, one of its inmates having died of plague. No other suitable lodgings, however, could be procured, and they were compelled, whether they would or not, to remain there; nor, through the good providence of God, did they sustain injury. It were difficult to convey any just idea of the extreme alarm with which the Franks at Constantinople regard the plague, or of the want of ordinary sympathy induced by its appearance. The moment a patient is seized with the first symptoms, he is deserted by his nearest relations ; no doctor will attend him willingly ; and he is left to perish under the charge of a stranger who, perhaps, hastens his death to diminish the risk of infection. If the house in which he is taken ill be not his own property, he is hurried without mercy to the plague hospital, and the painful duty of sur- vivors is to destroy, as soon as possible, every article of dress and furniture which he may have touched. One gentleman, whose wife lately exhibited in the night indications of the fatal malady, fled instantaneously from his bed and house without waiting to satisfy the first claims of humanity, and left her to die in solitude. Nor, it is said, are such in- 356 TURKISH RECKLESSNESS. stances uncommon. But while the Franks are thus fearful, the Turks fall into the oppo- site extreme ; and it is surprising that the dis- ease should ever cease to rage among them, if indeed it do, even for a season ; for they not only adopt no precautions but court in- fection in every way, vying with each other for the honor of bearing a plague corpse a few paces on its road to the grave, and preserving or selling the clothes of the deceased. One of our first acts was to ascend an emi- nence whence we might enjoy a bird's-eye view of this exquisite panorama. The most advanta- geous positions are the summits of the towers of Galata and the seraskier on opposite sides of the Golden Horn ; two posts of observation where men are stationed to give notice of fire, a scourge to which the city is peculiarly liable, since the majority of the houses are built of wood. The former of these structures was erected by the emperor Anastasius within the wall separating Galata from Pera ; the latter stands in the middle of a square surrounding the palace of Ahmed pasha, seraskier, or chief of the army, and commands the finer view of the two ; the ascent is by a hundred and seventy-nine steps varying from ten to eleven inches in height ; but, owing to the elevation of the ground, a VIEW FROM SERASKIER'S TOWER. 357 spectator on the summit is raised much more than the altitude of the column above the level of the Bosphorus. Underneath and around, the metropolis and her suburbs expand themselves on the surface of the European and Asiatic shores, interspersed with hundreds of minarets and cupolas rising from her chaste and massive mosques, among which those of St. Sophia, Achmet, Noor Osmanee, Bajazet, and Mo- hammed pasha, are conspicuous : to the west are seen the elegant sacred edifices erected by Mohammed II, Soliman, and his son the shahzadeh, or prince ; beyond which, in the plains above the capital, appear those long lines of barracks built by the present sultan which first led the janissaries to perceive the fate he had prepared for them in the establishment of a regularly disciplined army : to the south-west and south lies the Sea of Marmora, with an island of the same name, the ancient Procon- rtesus : in the south, beyond the sea, rise the mountains of Asia Minor, backed by Olympus, who lifts his snow-capped head with hoary majesty above a breast of clouds : to the south-east the Prince's islands form a rest- ing-place for the eye in its progress towards the towns of Isrnid and Isnik, the ancient Nicomedia and Nicasa ; while, in the fore- 358 VIEW FROM SERASKIER'S TOWER. ground, stands the seraglio, or palace of the grand sultan, with the harem on the banks of the sea and a grove of cypresses, sorrowful emblems of the doom of many an unhappy female immured within those walls : to the east, separated only by the water from Seraglio Point, are Scutari and Kadikooee, the ancient Chrysopolis and Chalcedon, on the coast of Asia : from the north, the Bosphorus brings down the waters of the Danube, the Dniester, the Dnieper, and the Don, hasting to do homage to the imperial city that commands the gate by which they escape from their icy northern prison to the more genial climate of the south, and washing in their course the feet of numerous forts, and summer palaces, and towns and villages : to the north-east, the Golden Horn forms an elegant bay, gradually diminishing till met by two rivers, the ancient Cydaris and Barbyses, whose banks are the holiday resort of every class, and whose pic- turesque beauties and festive associations have given to the stream the appellation of " Sweet Waters :" in this bay the shipping, whose canvass was all hung out to dry, looked like a fleet in full sail, suddenly arrested by some magic influence and reposing on the bosom of the water in silent admiration of the scene VIEW FROM SERASKIER'S TOWER. 359 around. In various directions, suites of small domes, ranged in parallelograms, denote the site of khans or caravanserais* for travellers; while everywhere forests of cypresses, towering above the busy haunts of men, mark the spots which, now alone unanimated, will teem with animation when the silence of vacuity shall reign over all that is at present overflowing, and active, and turbulent. One only of these cemeteries is adorned with no funereal trees. It is removed from the capital and, standing on a distant hill, appears like a city of small white tenements ; its separation and distinc- tive character point it out as belonging to a people who in death, as in life, refuse to mingle with the nations around them, and by their continued rejection of the Messiah fulfil the prophetic declarations of that inspired re- cord on which the Gentiles rest their faith in Jesus of Nazareth, as the incarnate God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. There are, probably, fewer individual objects of interest in the metropolis of Turkey than in any city of equal magnitude in Europe. That which chiefly captivates is the tout ensemble * A caravanserai is a resting-place for the car wan, or cara- van. Khanah is a house, and hence khan is a public-house, 360 SUBURBS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. of the scenery and costumes, with the novelty of both. One of our first excursions was to the mosques. From Pera, we descended to the water-side through Galata. Galata, Topkhanah, and Pera constitute a vast suburb of Constan- tinople ; the two former side by side on the water's edge and climbing the slope of a hill opposite Stambol; the latter on the summit of that hill. Galata derives its name from the Gauls who first settled there. Topkhanah sig- nifies an arsenal or foundery ; and is so called from the arsenal standing in the midst of it. Pera means beyond, and denotes the suburb beyond Galata and Topkhanah, inhabited ex- clusively by Franks. From that quarter the only road to Constantinople lies through one of the other two ; and it is no small disadvantage o to the Peraote that he is unable to go out in any direction without being compelled in his return home to ascend a steep hill by dirty, narrow, ill-paved streets, winding among bu- rial-grounds. The distance over the Golden Horn to Stambol is scarcely a quarter of a mile. This little gulf, called by the ancients Sinus By- zantinus from the city of Byzantium which occupied the present site of Constantinople, THE GOLDEN HORN. 36 1 was known as early as Pliny's time by the name of Auricornu, or the Golden Horn, either from the riches which commerce hrought to it, its abundant shoals of fish, or the shape which it assumes. Nothing can be more picturesque than the scene it exhibits, covered, as it always is, with merchant-ves- sels, steamers, and ships of war, among which thousands of caiques flit in every direction ; while as many sea-fowl sport on the surface, fearless because undisturbed, except when por- poises, pursuing one another in playful mirth and partaking the universal gaiety, rear their uncouth backs above the water. We passed the sultan's richly-decorated caique manned by eight Turks ; and several pleasure-boats be- longing to private gentlemen, whose rowers appeared peculiarly graceful in dresses of white muslin. The mosques are so similar in appearance that a description of one is applicable to all. The most beautiful in Constantinople, not except- ing St. Sophia's, is that of Soliman, surnamed the Magnificent ; and it is the only one into which Franks are avowedly admitted, though not the only one of which we found a golden key would open the doors locked by Moslim prejudices. In two instances we were allowed VOL. i. z 362 MOSQUE OF SOLIMAN. to enter accompanied by a lady, in spite of the non-admission of even Mussulman women to worship in the assemblies of the faithful : on one of these occasions, however, we were ordered out again. We took off our shoes as a matter of course ; a compliance from which we suffered little inconvenience, since the marble pavements are always covered with Indian mat or carpets, never soiled by the sole of a shoe. The mosque of sultan Soliman is decorated externally with a handsome central cupola, two inferior ones, and a tall tapering minaret rising from each angle. Close to it are some plane-trees of great size and beauty. The interior is a square, surrounded by large and regular galleries. One of these, set apart for the sultan, is adorned with gilded trellis-work ; and near it stands the pulpit of the chief imam, constructed of chaste marble. In another part is a fountain supported by columns of similar material which, together with those that sus- tain the cupolas and many of the valuable stones composing the structure, are said to have been brought from the ruins of Chalcedon. We measured one of the porphyry pillars, and found it to be twelve feet in circumference. The walls are covered with Arabic inscriptions, MOSLIM SERVICE. 363 and from the ceiling are suspended scores of strings, to each of which is attached a small unsightly lamp ready to be lighted for evening prayer, the egg of an ostrich, or some similar bagatelle. At sunrise, noon, and sun- set, and once before and after noon, the Mos- lims are called to this sacred exercise ; and their silent solemnity and apparent devotion are very striking. Time will not soon efface from my memory the impression first made, and often renewed, by the sight of hundreds of Mohammedans prostrating themselves and bowing their foreheads to the ground in the great mosque of Delhi, incomparably more splendid than any building existing at Con- stantinople, while the imam chanted in slow and solemn accents, and in the sonorous lan- guage of the Koran, " God is great and mer- ciful. There is no God but God, and Moham- med is the prophet of God." No Christian is permitted to enter St. Sophia's without a firman, and this is never granted but on special occasions. We could, therefore, only peep into the interior and examine the outside. After the destruction of Constantine's temple by an earthquake, this far-famed edifice was erected in seven- teen years under Justinian, who devoted to it, 364 MOSQUE OF ST. SOPHIA. during that period, the whole revenues of Egypt. The architects were Anthemius of Tralles, and Isidorus of Miletus. The exterior is so built up with Mohammedan additions that it is impossible either to discern its ori- ginal, or to admire its present, form. Its site, however, is unalterable. It stands, like the first temple, on the hill of the ancient By- zantium, visible from the water on all sides, and presenting a more imposing appearance at a distance than when closely inspected. It has nine domes and four minarets. The great de- fect of the building consists in the flatness of the central dome, whose height is dispropor- tioned to its span and elevation from the ground. The hundred pillars which support its roof, consisting of porphyry, Egyptian granite, verd antique, and other valuable mar- bles, were taken from the temple of the Sun built by Aurelian, the temple of Diana at Ephesus, and various structures of the early Romans. The interior of the domes was ori- ginally lined with mosaics representing Chris- tian scenes, which were spared by the Turks till lately, when they discovered that it was a profitable speculation to pick out the compo- nent pieces and sell them to the Franks as ornaments or relics. The Koran was first MOSQUE OF ST. SOPHIA. 365 placed in the niche it now occupies when Mohammed the conqueror, entering the church on horseback, ascended the altar, and with a prayer dedicated it as a mosque to his prophet : then the sanctuary was defiled ; the tribune of the sultan displaced that of the emperor, and the pulpit of the mufti succeeded to that of the patriarch. Such is St. Sophia's, of which it may be truly said that, however great that pristine magnificence which tempted its found- er to regard it as a rival to the temple of Solomon, it has suffered so much internally from the alterations and mutilations necessary to convert it from a Christian church into a Mohammedan mosque, and so much externally from the large buttresses affixed to secure it from the effects of earthquake, that it can no longer be regarded as an object of first-rate beauty when compared with other sacred edi- fices in Europe and Asia. The Jeni Jami, or Walidea, so named from its foundress,* the mother of Mohammed the Fourth, is adorned with a double row of fine marble pillars, most of which were brought from the ruins of Troy. The inside is lined with that species of blue and white ware so JjJI. Walideh signifies a mother. 366 MOSQUES. common in Holland, and is full of lamps and crystal globes suspended from the ceiling. Its form, like that of all the Mohammedan tem- ples, approaches to a square ; and it has a spe- cial gallery for the sultan, with a pulpit for the officiating imam. The delicate workman- ship in the interior of this mosque, as in that of Killij Ali pasha at Topkhanah, where some fine old columns of marble are preserved, is much to be admired. In the mosque of Ayoob, situate near the Jews' quarter at the end of the Golden Horn, every sultan goes through a ceremony cor- responding to the crowning of European sove- reigns. He ascends a pulpit, and the chief priest invests him with a sword in token of universal sovereignty ; for he, like his royal brother, the great mogul, styles himself " King of the universe."* In the neighbourhood of a Moslim house of prayer are generally to be seen one or more monuments of deceased princes, close to each of which copies of the Koran are chained for the use of devout literati who love to study * Shah-i-alum and Jahan punnah, signifying King of the universe and Protector of the world, are the two most common appellations of the royal pageant of the house of Timur, the emperor of Delhi. MAUSOLEUMS. 367 among the tombs, or for the benefit of the souls who profit by paid readers ; and torches are, or ought to be, kept burning day and night. Near St. Sophia's are four mausoleums containing bodies of several of the Ottoman dynasty : they are hexagons surmounted by domes ; and, in the interior, vacant coffins * are placed over the royal dust, like those already described in the cemetery of the Tartar khans of the Crimea. In a similar mausoleum, behind the mosque of Soliman, are deposited the remains of that sul- tan and of several members of his family. His coffin is adorned with large feathers set with precious stones, and covered with a piece of tapestry representing the holy city of Mecca, whence it is said to have been brought. In all these buildings there is a resemblance to the numerous tombs in and around Agra, though those are as superior in splendor as they are in number. The depositories of the dead in the two cities correspond as to their shapes, Arabic inscriptions, and domes ; but the exquisite mosaic and marble filigree-work * The Arabic ^ (cuffun) signifies a shroud, or the com- mon covering of a corpse. Adopting the word, we apply it, by extension of meaning, to the outer covering, or coffin, un- known to the Arabs. 368 ORIGIN OF TURKISH CRESCENT. which give richness and elegance to the Indian edifices are wanting here. Of all the reminiscences of departed great- ness in Constantinople, the simplest is that which most interests the traveller. It is a porphyry sarcophagus standing close to the mosque of Noor Osmanee. The size is gigan- tic ; its dimensions being eleven feet by six and a half, and the depth eight and a half. Here were deposited the remains of Constan- tine the Great, the founder of this beautiful city, the emperor of undivided Rome, and the first who embraced the Christian faith. All the sacred structures are surmounted by a gilt crescent which has often been supposed to be the emblem of Islam, though it is, in fact, only the arms of the Byzantine capital retain- ed by the Turks. History records that when Philip of Macedon invested Byzantium, he availed himself of a dark night to under- mine the walls ; but the moon, unexpected- ly bursting through the clouds, revealed his plans to the besieged and saved the town. The Byzantines immediately erected a statue to Diana, and multiplied about their city re- presentations of the moon. Medals have been discovered, and are now extant, which perpetuate the memory of this event by a THE HIPPODROME. 369 crescent and a star with an appropriate motto. Not far from the walls a ruin is shewn, under the name of the " Palace of Constan- tine :" that palace, however, is known to have stood on the Byzantine hill, now occupied by the Seraglio; moreover, these remains do not bear marks of great antiquity, and modern coats of arms above the windows lead to the conclusion that they formed part of a Genoese structure. The largest piazza in Constantinople is called the Atmeidan,* or hippodrome ; it is three hundred yards long and a hundred and fifty wide, and is used for horse-races and other festive exercises. It was originally construct- ed with great magnificence by Severus, and finished after the model of the circus at Rome by Constantine, who surrounded it with two rows of pillars, raised one above another and supported by massive pedestals, within which were ranged several statues of men and animals in marble and bronze, of which the chef-d'oeuvre was the group of four horses transported hither from Rome, and hence to the cathedral of St. Mark at Venice. It was in this hippo- drome that Belisarius, the conqueror of Afri- * From At, a horse, and Meidan, a plain. 370 MOSQUE OF ACHMET. cans and Vandals, received the honors of a triumph ; and in this same place that, a short time after, he was compelled, as it is said, to solicit alms at the foot of those monuments of Roman glory which his valor had so often saved. On one side of the Atmeidan, protected by a marble screen, stands the mosque of sul- tan Achmet, in the construction of which he is reputed to have taken a share, laboring every day for an hour with his own hands. It is the only one in the city adorned with six minarets ; and each of these has two external galleries, one above the other, defended by a balustrade. In the court are covered cloisters surmounted by small domes, and a handsome fountain plays in the centre. The entrance is through folding-doors of bronze ; and the effect is enhanced by some noble plane-trees and a row of cypresses which stand in front of the edifice. Opposite the mosque, in the hippodrome, are three pillars. The first is an obelisk about fifty feet high, covered with hieroglyphics, and very similar to that in the Piazza di popolo at Rome. It stands on a cube of marble adorned with heads and figures in basso rilievo; this rests on four masses of red granite, one under OBELISK. BRASS COLUMN. 371 each angle, which are again supported on a pedestal bearing on one side a Latin, and on another a Greek, inscription to the memory of Theodosius who brought the obelisk from Thebes and placed it in its present position. The words Qzobovios /3a<7/Xet)f may still be traced. At some distance is another, apparently built of large, loose stones. The Greek in- scription is so illegible that for the history of the obelisk we are dependent on tradition, which records that it was brought from Rhodes by Constantine, and was once covered with plates of brass ; a fact corroborated by holes in the stones, to which the metal appears to have been fastened. Between these two ancient remains is a hol- low spiral brass column, in the form of three serpents twisted together, about twelve feet high, mutilated at the top and much injured in the centre. The Persians once gained posses- sion of this specimen of Grecian art ; but, after the defeat of Xerxes at Thermopylae and Sa- lamis and the slaughter of his remaining forces commanded by Mardonius at Plataea, it was discovered by the Greeks in the camp of the Orientals, rescued from their hands, and re- placed in its original post of honor as the sup- port of a golden tripod in the temple of Apollo. 372 ANCIENT REMAINS. Byzantine guides, who love the marvellous, inform travellers that Mohammed II. cut off the heads of the serpents by a single blow of his sword which, therefore, divided a brass pillar three feet in diameter ! The fact is, that he broke the under jaw of one of the serpents with a stroke of his battle-axe. Between the hippodrome and St. Sophia's formerly stood the imperial palace, the senate- house, and the forum ; but of these, not only no remains exist, but their very names are obliterated ; and it is to be doubted if any one in Constantinople, except a professed antiquary, would attempt to point out their sites. Four other relics of antiquity, each known by the name of ,li?:3 (kiztash), or the Maiden's Pillar, have met with a less ruthless doom ; yet they are all in a state of dilapida- tion, and destitute of intrinsic interest. One is sometimes designated the Burnt Pillar, and another Marcian's Column. To obviate the inconveniences resulting from a scarcity of water, the necessary con- sequence of a long and dry summer, the emperors built cisterns or reservoirs on a gigan- tic scale, in different parts of the town. There were originally seven, but only four are now in CISTERNS. 373 existence. One of these much resembles the Piscina Mirabile near Naples ; it is called in the figurative language of the east " Been bir deerek," or " A thousand and one pillars," -though, in fact, it contains only two hundred and twenty-four, ranged in fourteen rows, each comprising sixteen, of which ten are built up in one angle, so that the number visible is reduced to two hundred and fourteen : every pillar, however, consists of two, the capital of the low- er one forming the pedestal of the upper ; and thus they may be regarded as four hundred and forty-eight in number, or something less than half of what their name imports. Each column is about a yard in diameter ; and the distance between every two is four yards : the length of the reservoir, therefore, is two hun- dred and forty, and its breadth about two hundred, feet : the depth is five fathoms. A small door opens out of the street upon the arched ceiling of this vast room, which is now converted into a spinning-walk ; and a num- ber of little half-naked children, running up and down with the silk in their hands, as- sailed us for paras with cries which rose from the damp vaulted area like voices from the tombs. On the south of the hippodrome is a smaller 374 CISTERNS. cistern, now applied to a similar use, and called " Iplikjee boodrumee," or " The silk well." It is supported by thirty-two pillars, and is capa- ble of containing a million and a half gallons of water. Another is near the Seven Towers ; and a fourth is to be seen, called " Yerek batan serai," or " The subterranean house." This is known to be the largest of all these enormous excavations, though its precise extent has not yet been ascertained, as all attempts to explore it have been baffled by the darkness and the pestilential vapors. The entrance, which we had much difficulty in discovering, is not far from the Atmeidan, under a private house, whither we were conducted by the kindness of a Turkish gentleman, who heard our drago- man* inquiring the way. The pillars have Corinthian capitals and are of the same size, ranged in the same manner and at similar dis- tances, as those of the Been bir deerek and Iplikjee boodrumee : their height cannot be accurately estimated, because it is not known how deep they are buried in the earth. The Yerek batan serai is even to the present day a reservoir for the water of the city, and many wells are sunk into it in different parts. * The word dragoman is corrupted from lurjoman, an interpreter, derived from t**s>-Ji (turjamah), a translation. WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 375 All these cisterns were supplied by means of an aqueduct, part of which still exists as left by Soliman the Magnificent, who repaired the original structure raised by Adrian and renew- ed by Valens and one of the Constantines. A double tier of forty arches, composed partly of brick and partly of stone, joins two of the hills on which the city is built. The lower arches are about twenty-four feet by twelve; the upper are a little higher and narrower. This edifice, together with a similar one not far from Belgrade, forms part of the stupendous work by means of which the capital is supplied with water from that place. The walls of Constantinople have been re- nowned since the age in which they were first erected, and enough still remains to satisfy the curiosity of a traveller, whose attention is at- tracted, as he coasts in a caique from Seraglio Point towards the Propontis, by a multitude of ancient pillars embedded in the masonry, which present their round ends towards the sea and appear to have been used instead of stones for the foundation of the high wall that flanks the city for about six miles, extending as far as the " Seven Towers." This is very irregular, and bears marks of having been built and re- paired at different times. The castle of the 376 WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. Seven Towers defends the point where the wall of Theodosius protecting the city on the western side meets that on its southern ; it was raised by Mohammed the Second, and long used as a prison, when it was the cruel policy of the Porte to incarcerate the ambassadors of powers against whom it declared war : within it are two pillars, relics of the " Golden Gate," which Theodosius built in honor of his vic- tory over the rebel Maximus. Of the seven towers three are now reduced to the height of the wall ; and one of the remaining four serves as a watch-tower ; in another, whose summit commands an extensive view of the surrounding country, is the Bloody Well. The name indicates its nature. It was used as a place of destruction, into which the inno- cent, perhaps as often as the guilty, were cast alive to meet a lingering death. The triple wall of Theodosius, once ex- tending five miles from the Seven Towers to the Golden Horn, is fortified by bastions at irregular distances varying from fifty to a hundred yards, and by a ditch running parallel to it, twenty-two yards in breadth. The outer wall is much injured, being in many places reduced to the level of the top of the ditch. A space of fifteen yards separates it GATES OF THE CITY. 377 from the second, twenty-five feet high ; be- hind which the third and innermost rises with a slight additional elevation. The ivy covering these three walls communicates to them a venerable appearance consistent with their known antiquity. There were originally forty-three gates to Constantinople, of which twelve opened to- wards the Golden Horn ; thirteen towards the Propontis ; and eighteen faced the land. Of the last named, only seven* survive the city's glory. The first is the Seven Towers', or Golden, gate, above referred to. The next is called Selivree kaposee ; just opposite to which, under some tall funereal cypresses and close to the road, in a cemetery extending for three miles under the city-wall, a marble stone, sur- mounted by a pasha's turban, records the name of the famous AH pasha. The inscription is * These are called **U> i_ Jo Yedee kalah kaposee, or Seven Towers' gate ; <**# Selivree kaposee, or Selivria gate ; Jlc^ou (Beit-ool-rehem), " The house of mercy," a name peculiarly applicable to the site of the nativity of our Lord. CEMETERIES. 385 atone for a life of sin. Such endowments are held in high repute, being esteemed only less than a pilgrimage to Mecca which ensures to the " hajee" a seat in paradise. Death is seldom an object of terror to the disciple of Mohammed, who sees in God a being exclusively merciful and assures himself of an eternity of sensual enjoyment. To this view may be attributed the sort of pleasur- able feeling with which he regards a burial- ground. A necropolis in Turkey, unlike the same in Christendom, is anything but a spot set apart for solemn reflection and sad reminis- cences : here promenades, cafes, sherbet-booths, public thoroughfares, and festive parties in- trude on the repose of the dead ; and in every direction whether in the centre of the city, in its immediate suburbs, or in its uninhabited outskirts, the traveller encounters a cemetery. Turkish tombstones are surmounted with tur- bans of different shapes and sizes, characterizing the trade or occupation of the deceased ; some are of white marble, others painted ; that of the janissaries is peculiarly high and stately ; and those of women are distinguished by tren- cher-caps, such as are worn in our universi- ties. In Greek and Armenian cemeteries like- wise the profession of the deceased is denoted ; 386 HALF-WILD DOGS. not, however, by a turban over the head of the stone, but by symbols on its surface ; thus, a shoemaker's grave will be indicated by his hammer and last, and other trades by appropriate emblems ; while, occasionally, a gibbet, or a head separated from the trunk, represented in basso-relievo, declares to the passer-by the form in which death surprised the tenant of the tomb. The nearest relative of a deceased Turk plants a cypress by the side of his grave ; so that all the burial-grounds be- come groves of cypresses ; and their number, with the tall stately form and sombre hue of the trees, imparts a peculiar effect to the city. The cemeteries are the resort of multitudes of half-wild dogs who are probably allured there by the odor, but who abstain from disturbing the graves, as if aware that their lives would pay the penalty : an occasional brick-bat from the hand of a Moslim, falling with heavy ven- geance on the head of one whose paws have approached too close to the sacred dust, affords a warning to many of his companions, who are thus taught to deny their natural instincts as effectually as a sporting-dog ; a lesson the more readily acquired because they find plenty to eat in the city. Though these animals abound in such numbers that it is no uncommon sight BAZAARS. 387 to see groups of sixteen or twenty, and though they are owned by no one, yet they generally appear in good condition, and are less occupied in searching for food than in fighting with one another. In remote parts of the town where Franks are seldom seen, they are some- times so fierce as to be formidable. One of the chief objects of interest in this great metropolis is the bazaars, which consist of extensive ranges of stalls, all open in front and under cover of a common roof. Separate lines, or streets, are allotted to the respective trades. Thus, in one part, shoemakers sitting in two opposite rows, expose for sale all kinds of Turkish slippers of various colors, some ornamented with silk, others brocaded with gold; in another, a number of venerable old men are seen, with spectacles on nose, pondering over the Koran or a horoscope, the one convey- ing to them as many ideas as the other; for, probably, they understand neither; these are booksellers, whose piles exhibit sundry beauti- fully illuminated manuscripts in Persian, Ara- bic, and Turkish, for which they .demand enormous prices. We asked for a Koran, but they refused to allow a " giaour" * even to look at one. It is by no means, however, impossible * An infidel. 388 BAZAARS. to obtain a copy of the Mohammedan sacred volume, as a Turkish servant will convey it to a private house for inspection, with the secret concurrence of the bookseller, whose conscience will be satisfied, since he does not place it in the hands of an unbeliever. The objection of the Turks to submit the Koran to the perusal of others is a proof, even if history were silent, that their faith was never indebted for its extension to reason or persuasion. The drug bazaar presents a curious assort- ment of eastern specifics and cosmetics, of which the principal are rhubarb, henna, and orpiment. Henna is an orange-colored powder used by the females of the country to dye the tips of their nails and fingers : orpiment is a sulphuret of arsenic which they value as a de- pilatory, forming it into a paste with lime and applying it to the upper lip to remove super- fluous hairs. One portion of the bazaar, said to be the richest quarter of the whole, is appropriated to arms. Here, sparkling with brilliants or de- voured by rust, may be seen the long Turkish sword, the Greek yataghan, and the Italian stiletto, ranged side by side with the Tartar matchlock and the Persian bow. The jewellers, of course, have a row of stalls; BAZAARS. 389 but their assortment is a poor one. A few pairs of ear-rings and other small trinkets are exhibited in glass cases, to be sold by weight at a moderate price ; but if the purchaser would see valuables, which are not the less abun- dant because not displayed, he must retire to the dealer's private residence, where precious stones and diamonds will be exhibited to him in surprising profusion. The reason for con- cealing these, under such a government as that of Turkey, is obvious : to produce them in public would ensure the loss of property, per- haps of life. One entire street is filled with saddles and harness ; the former are covered with cloth, and furnished with a high knob in front, like those used in the Crimea ; the latter is rude in tex- ture and simple in contrivance, but adorned with a profusion of gold and silver wire- work, representing the sultan's cipher or the arms of the city. Another street contains shops for the ma- nufacture and sale of the chibouque and its component parts, the mouth-piece, stick, and tobacco-holder. The last is formed of red earth and shaped like the bowl of a common English pipe, but somewhat larger : the sticks are about five feet in length, of cherry or jessamine 390 FOUNTAINS. wood; the straigh test and best bear a high price: but the luxury of the Moslim is chiefly mani- fested in his mouth-piece, made of amber, the beauty of which consists in its paleness and opacity. The price of a chibouque knows no limit, as it may be set with diamonds and other precious stones to any extent. There is a resemblance in two respects between these bazaars and those of Pompeii, as seen in their present state. In both, all the shops are open and the sill of the window forms the counter, which, in eating-houses, is of white marble; and in both, large round blocks are fixed here and there in the middle of the street, to serve as stepping-stones when rain has been excessive; being so arranged as not to interfere with horses' feet, nor with the wheels of the arabahs. The fountains are among the chief beauties of Constantinople. In each piazza, in the centre of the courts of all the mosques, in every market, and at the corner of many streets, one of these is to be seen, not, like those of Italy, formed in grotesque or classical shapes and ornamented with figures of various kinds, but a regular square structure, adorned with sentences from the Koran and furnished with a spout on each side. There is some- ABLUTIONS. 391 thing in Turkish buildings which is character- istic of a people always dignified, never trifling, without imagination, and shunning, with re- ligious awe, the likeness of anything in earth, air, or sea. Everything in this country has a connection, seen or unseen, with religion ; and even the abundance of fountains is owing to the duty of frequent ablution enjoined by the Mahommedan sacred volume : as often as the Turk is called to prayer, so often is he direct- ed to wash the face, neck, hands, and feet, previous to that holy exercise; and thus the fountain becomes a necessary appendage to the mosque. In this hot climate nothing so much con- tributes to the general health of the people, next to their moderate use of meat and wine, as their frequent use of water. Establish- ments are found in all parts of the city where a poor man may enjoy the luxury and bene- fit of a hot bath for a penny. These are gene- rally crowded at certain hours by men, at others by women : sofas, coffee, sherbet, and chibouques are supplied to the bathers, and the greatest decorum prevails. The Turks are strangers to inns on the footing of European hotels; but, as a substi- tute, they have khans and serais. Of these 392 KHANS. HOTELS. there are nearly two hundred in the capital, which are for the most part royal or charitable endowments, each capable of containing from a hundred to a thousand persons. They consist of open squares surrounded by rooms, where the traveller may spread his carpet and deposit his luggage : the accommodation is not such as suits a Frank accustomed to the luxuries of the west ; but a Moslim, Greek, or Armenian finds there a supply for all his wants. It is much to be regretted that no good European hotel has been established in Pera, which contains, however, one or two respectable boarding-houses ; particularly that kept by Tongo Vitali, more commonly known by the name of his father Giuseppino. He and his wife are obliging persons, and the apartments are not uncomfortable. Travellers take break- fast and tea in their own rooms, and join the family at dinner. The charge varies from u dollar and a half to two dollars per day for each person. The term serai, signifying primarily a house, is applied, par excellence, to the residence of the sultan ; in which connection Franks affix to the word a western termination, and call the palace Seraglio, including under that name all the edi- fices and gardens within the enclosure which THE SERAGLIO. 393 contains the royal abode on the site of the ancient Byzantium. The seraglio was erected by Mo- hammed II. as a residence for himself, immedi- ately after he took the city. It stands on the slope of a hill ; and, from the water or from the top of an elevation in the neighbourhood, it looks like a garden of cypresses interspersed with buildings ; picturesque from the contrast of the surrounding light and elegant minarets with the dark and solemn stateliness of its trees, but unmarked by anything to characterize it as the habitation of royalty. The circumference is three miles, exactly that of the palace of the great mogul, which is similarly bounded by water ; but this has the superior advantage of overlooking the sea, and that on two sides ; on the east is the Bosphorus, on the north the Byzantine bay, and the remaining side of the triangle is separated by a wall from the city. The palace consists of various parts, built at different times and according to the taste of successive sultans, without any regard to uni- formity or the rules of architecture. It is surrounded with fountains, baths, summer- houses, parterres, and cypresses. The interior is not open to the public, but those who are acquainted with it find little worthy of admir- ation, and that little has been imported from VOL. i. 2 B 394 SUBLIME PORTE. Europe. The principal gate is a large unsight- ly structure, covered with Arabic inscriptions and guarded by numerous porters, each fur- nished with a wand : on either side is a niche in which are displayed, in terrorem, the heads of high offenders who have suffered for real or imaginary crimes. Some think that it is this gate, or porte, which has given its name to the Ottoman empire ; while others maintain that the Sublime Porte derives its appellation from the palace of the grand vizir, called meta- phorically The porte, inasmuch as that officer is supposed to be the only door of access to the sovereign. The court into which the principal gate of the seraglio opens is surrounded by offices, while in the centre are some fine plane-trees, one of which we found by measurement to be forty feet in circumference. The inner quadrangle is smaller, but handsome, being laid out in turf intersected by paved walks, and supplied with fountains. On one side are the treasury and stables ; on the other, servants' apartments and nine kitchens, six of which are allotted to the sultan, the harem, the ministers of the d6wan, the officers of the sultan, those of the harem, and the female servants, respectively. The annual consumption of food in these MURDER OF FEMALES. 395 kitchens was stated by a Frenchman in the last century to have been 40,000 oxen, 73,000 sheep, 36,500 kids and lambs, 3,650 calves, 70,000 hens, 146,000 pullets, 36,500 pairs of pigeons, and 18,000 geese! It is difficult for an En- glishman to measure the calibre of Turkish stomachs; but the powers of the reader who can digest the worthy Frenchman's statement may fairly be inferred to be of no common order ! The two courts lead on one side to the de"wan, or hall of justice of the grand vizir ; on the other, to the apartments of the sultan. In that part of the seraglio which faces Galata is a handsome kiosk, or pavilion, supported by twelve marble pillars. In another quarter, opposite Chalcedon, is the harem, a long, low building, with numerous windows covered with a trellis-work as a substitute for jalousies. This description of blind characterizes all the dwellings of Turks and Armenians on the Bos- phorus ; and even the kiosks and summer- houses, whither the women occasionally resort for air, are similarly defended. At some distance from Seraglio Point, which is the angle formed by the junction of the Golden Horn and the Sea, a door is shown on the top of the garden wall, whence an inclined 2 B 2 396 SEMINARY. plane slopes towards the water : from this spot the unhappy tenants of the harem, sewed up in sacks, were formerly rolled into the Bosphorus, when anger, jealousy, or caprice instigated their removal. Some years have now elapsed since a victim was thus sacrificed ; and a hope may be indulged that the present enlightened monarch, seeing the barbarity of his predecessors and of his former self, and shamed by the example of civilized Europe, will not suffer the future to be blackened by a crime which stains the me- mory of the past. Outside the wall is a modern establishment for the instruction of native youths in French, which may be regarded as an innovation fraught with important consequences. The law has hitherto rigidly prohibited Turks from learning any language spoken by infidels, and has thus compelled them to seek inter- preters among their Greek subjects, whose interests are often directly opposed to the suc- cess of the diplomatic negotiations they are called upon to conduct ; but in a few years the Porte will be enabled to carry on her external relations through the medium of Turkish agents whose personal ties bind them to the state; and the intercourse thus maintained between these individuals and Europeans will SCUTARI. 397 produce a beneficial effect which will diffuse itself over the nation at large. It is a singular fact, that the French and Austrian are the only governments that have hitherto established a school here for the acquisition of Turkish by their young diplomatists. As we passed the seminary in a boat, one of the native students was standing in a tall machine, like a sentry-box, with his head protruding from a hole in the upper part ; a pan of charcoal and cypress twigs was be- neath his feet, and he was undergoing the process of fumigation, a precaution against plague quite novel among the Turks, but one which Franks adopt as often as they return home after a walk. We devoted a day to an excursion in the neighbourhood of Scutari, a very large suburb of Constantinople, standing on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus and inhabited exclusively by Turks. The wind and sea were high, and hun- dreds of gulls, disturbed from their resting-place on the surface, were flying unqtiietly about, as if anticipating a storm, when we embarked on our caique. These long and narrow boats are generally scullers, managed by a single man with a pair of oars ; they measure twenty-five feet by three, taper to a point, rise high 398 CAIQUE. CAIQUEJEE. out of the water at both ends, and are so easily thrown off the equilibrium, that it is diffi- cult to enter one without overturning it : the Turks always sit cross-legged in the bottom of the unsteady vessel, and any other position in- volves danger. A caique with a full sail is perilous at any time ; but in boisterous weather it would try the nerves of a sailor : still, as the wind was in our favor, the boatman spread his canvass ; our dragoman, in great alarm, rebuk- ed us if we moved, pointing out the facility with which we might be upset ; and when he looked round for comfort, he received from the apathetic Turk only the unsatisfactory assur- ance that, if his passengers were drowned, he should be so likewise. At length, we providen- tially gained the shore ; and, as we disembark- ed, the caiquejee,* like an orthodox Moslim, muttered, " Allah kareem ; Alhumdoo lillah !" or, " Allah is gracious ; Thanks be to Allah !" * One of the sounds with which the ear becomes soonest familiar in Turkey, as in India, is jee, a convenient affix that converts into an agent the noun to which it is appended ; thus from rZjjli' (kaeek), a boat, comes csAlls (kaeekjee), a boat- man ; from c^o-J* (sherbet), honey-water, comes -sV-A (sherbetjee), a seller of sherbet ; and from J JU> (munzil), a day's journey, comes ^a^yui (munziljee), the man who pre- sides over journeys, or the postmaster. CHRYSOPOLIS. 399 An obliging imam, or priest, conducted us over a mosque built above the landing-place at Scutari, and refused the gratuity tendered in return for his kindness. We then hired horses, and having seen the saddles carefully sponged, a precaution which the existence of plague ren- dered indispensable, we proceeded through the bazaars. The ancient name of Scutari was Chrysopolis, or The city of gold. Some say it was so called because the Persians here col- lected the tribute of their towns ; others, that it derived its appellation from the contributions which the Athenians levied on all ships navi- gating the Bosphorus ; while a third class sup- pose it to have been so denominated, because it served as a depot for the commercial wealth that flowed into Constantinople from the east. A little below Chrysopolis, on the shores of the Bosphorus, stood Chalcedon, once famous for a temple of Apollo whose oracles rivalled those of Delphi ; and in later years for the council which anathematized the monophysite heresy of Eutyches and gave rise to the secession of the Armenians from the orthodox church. The site of the town where St. Chrysostom passed the time of his exile is now marked by the village of Kadikooee. Nearly opposite to Scutari, situate on a 400 GRAND CEMETERY. rock in the water, is the Maiden's tower, so called from a sultan's daughter who secluded herself, or was confined, there for life. It is now used, though perhaps only temporarily, as a plague hospital. From the top of a hill, close to the village of Janigah and four miles from Scutari, we en- joyed a fine view of the city, the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmora, and mount Olympus, and returned to the landing-place by the great Turkish burial-ground. This cemetery is the largest in the world, the metropolis of the empire of death. It is half a league in width and several miles in length ; the white marble tombstones are as close together as they can stand ; and could the multitude of its tenants be calculated, the amount would be startling. The shape and decorations of the monuments, varying, as usual, with the sex and situation in life of the deceased, the elegant and gilded Ara- bic character with which they are inscribed, and, above all, their extraordinary numbers, communicate to this cemetery a peculiar and picturesque effect ; while the solemn state- liness and sombre hue of thousands of cy- presses, unrelieved by any lighter foliage, con- sort with the mournful character of the spot. Most of the opulent Turks cause their dead HOWLING DERVISHES. 401 to be conveyed to this side of the Bosphorus, in order that they may repose in the quarter of the world which contains the holy cities of Mecca, Damascus, and Jerusalem. Many have private burial-grounds which are enclosed, and sometimes converted into flower-gardens or aviaries for the refreshment of the spirits of the deceased. Passing through the streets of Scutari on our return, a noise, like the groaning of persons in distress, arrested our steps. It proceeded from the mosque of the " Howling derveshes," who were then performing their unnatural orgies. In the centre of an octagonal room twenty of these men stood in a circle, each with his arms spread over the neck of a brother. At a given signal they commenced ; and, at another, stop- ped. They moved inwards towards a common centre, then re-expanded their circle, then moved rapidly round, then back again, utter- ing all the time low and plaintive groans, or terrible half-human yells. Occasionally they broke the ring to take in one who wished to join their company, but neither the movement nor the noise ceased for an instant ; and so vio- lent are the exertion and excitement, that the devotees often faint. They profess to perform miracles of healing; and in all countries ner- 402 DANCING DEKVfeSHES. vous subjects are to be found whose disorders may be cured through the medium of the imagination. In Galata a similar scene, of which we were likewise witnesses, is exhibited by the " Dan- cing dervishes" in a building of the same shape as that just referred to, but much handsomer. In both, the arena is surrounded by a low railing separating the actors from the specta- tors. Here, on a scarlet rug, opposite the door, sat the head of the party, dressed in a long, flowing, green robe, with a high cap of white felt upon his head. The derv6shes, about twenty-four in number, were ranged inside the palisade, sitting on the ground, and habited in costumes resembling that of their chief in form, but of various colors. At first, some low sounds were uttered, and every one inclined his head ; soon after, the music com- menced, when the whole party rose, and walked several times round the room : as each approached the scarlet rug, he bowed; then passing it, turned, bowed again, and proceeded : arriving opposite the rug, on the other side of the room, he bowed a third time, but without turning his head. After completing four slow and solemn circles, with the requisite number of obeisances, the superior DANCING DERVISHES. 403 resumed his seat ; each of the brethren then threw off his cloak, and appeared dressed in white muslin with a very full petticoat. Poised on one leg, they all wheeled round, with out- stretched arms, at the rate of nearly sixty revo- lutions in a minute ; not one lost his place for an instant, nor did the extended arms of any two come in contact with each other. This "dance" is kept up for half an hour, with the occasional intermission of a minute or two ; and then the worship ceases ! The sultan makes a point of attending the Mussulman service every Friday. The princi- pal object of this periodical public exhibition of himself is to assure his subjects of his life; and were he ever to omit it, without some good assignable cause, suspicions would speedily be excited and cabals as to a successor be generated. One Friday we went to the mosque of Be'shek- tash, a village on the Bosphorus about three miles from the city, for the purpose of seeing the sovereign ; we were accompanied by a Greek lady, and the English consul kindly lent us one of his kowasses, or orderlies, some of whom are in attendance on all the Frank authorities, holding a situation between spy, servant, and guard, in the place of the devoted janissaries. Our guide formerly belonged to that abolished 404 SULTAN'S PUBLIC order, and is one of the few who escaped the general massacre : by birth a Swiss, Mustapha was captured by pirates at the age of fourteen, sold four times, and then became a Mussulman to save his life. While waiting in the street for the arrival of the sultan, we stood beside a Turkish lady's arabah, in which were two native females whose veils were so transparent that their features were quite discernible. Our Greek companion addressed them, and they imme- diately inquired to what nation one of our party belonged. Being informed that she was an English lady, the elder of the two observed, " The English women have a great deal of talent." " So," answered the too courteous Greek, " have the Turkish." " Oh," replied the fair Moslimah, " I thank you ; you are very kind to say so; but I know the contrary; the Turkish women are beasts."* The kowass in- formed us that our new acquaintance was no less a personage than the widow of the late grand seignior, Mustapha, the murdered bro- ther of the reigning sultan : accompanied by only one female slave and her driver, she had gone to Beshektash, to witness the ceremony (Heiwan) was the term used. ATTENDANCE AT MOSQUE. 405 of her brother-in-law's visit to the mosque. Trifling pleasures of this kind are those which chiefly vary the monotony of female life in Turkey. We had not waited long before the sul- tan arrived. A file of shabby soldiers, ill dress- ed and worse ordered, were drawn up to clear the road from the intrusion of the rabble, and the first intimation of the sovereign's approach was communicated by twenty pages on horse- back. At length, the clock struck twelve, and the solemn notes of the muezzin* summoned the faithful to their noon-day prayer ; at this moment the sultan appeared, riding in solitary dignity, with a crowd of attendants on foot, among whom were Halil pasha and the grand vizir who held his stirrup when he alighted. * The muezzin is the man who proclaims from the top of the minaret the invitation to prayer, called the ^1 j] (azan), in these words : *UI ill 4) y Eeshadoo an la allah ill' allah, eeshadoo an Mohammed arrussool allah ! Allahoo akber ! Ya eeha, hay al' esselat, hay al' effelah ! I testify that there is no god but the God j I testify that Mohammed is the messenger of God. God is great ! O peo- ple, hasten to prayer, hasten to the temple ! 406 SULTAN MAHMOOD. Sultan Mahmood the Second* is about fifty years of age, of moderate stature, with a countenance denoting sternness and determi- nation, a long beard, and bushy jet-black whiskers whose color is said to be artificial. He is certainly one of the most remarkable men of the present century. When we con- sider the astonishing difficulties with which he has had to contend ; the mode of his original elevation to the throne ; his triumph over the janissaries, whose power, based on * The following is the line of succession of sultan Mahmood the Second, the present representative of the Ottoman dynasty. Othman made Broussa his capital and assumed the title of Sultan, A. D. 1327 Othman II. . A. D. 1618 Orkhan 1328 Mustapha I. re-enthroned 1622 Amurath I. 1359 Amurath IV. 1623 Bajazet I. . 1390 Ibrahim . 1640 Mohammed I. 1399 Mohammed IV. 1650 Amurath II. 1422 Achmet II. . . 1690 Mohammed II. 1450 Mustapha II. . 1695 Bajazet II. . 1481 Achmet III. . 1702 Selim I. 1512 Mahmood I. 1730 Soliman 1520 Othman III. . 1754 Selim II. . 1566 Mustapha III. 1757 Amurath III. 1574 Abdool Hamid. 1774 Mohammed III. 1595 Selim III. 1789 Achmet I. . 1604 Mustapha IV. 1807 Mustapha I. 1617 Mahmood II. 1808 HIS DIFFICULTIES. 407 their own strength and on the prejudices of the people, had defied the efforts of his prede- cessors ; his annihilation of the old, and esta- blishment of a new, system of military discipline at the very time when he was involved in war with a power superior to his own ; his subjec- tion of his rebellious vassals, themselves en- throned in regal dominion, Czerni Georges of Servia, Ali pasha of Janina, and Soliman pasha of Bagdad ; his destruction of the DeVee beys ; his defeat of the Wahabites and reco- very of Mecca and Medina ; and lastly, the change he has wrought in the habits and man- ners of the Turks, assimilating them to those of Europeans ; when we consider that all this has been effected by a sovereign who has had to contend with the Greek revolution, the dis- memberment of his empire by a powerful viceroy in Egypt, a depopulating Russian war, and the destruction of his entire fleet; it can- not be denied that the firmness, energy, and mental resources of the reigning sultan are almost unrivalled in the history of the Turkish empire. Mahmood, summoned to ascend the Otto- man throne from the hiding-place in which he had been concealed from his brother who sought his life, began his reign at the early 408 THE JANISSARIES. age of twenty-two, and every step he took was stained with blood. His first object was to rid himself of the janissaries, whose influ- ence had long acted as a check to the power of their emperors, a dead weight on the na- tion, and an impediment in the way of pro- gressive civilization. These were a sort of hereditary militia, amounting to two or three hundred thousand dispersed through the em- pire, of whom about sixty thousand had their names registered and received a monthly pay, but refused to submit to necessary dis- cipline or to learn the theory of war. They were originally established in the reign of Am ura th the First, who thought that it would contribute to the stability of the state to have a military force regularly ordered and attached by certain privileges to the ser- vice : with this view he took every fifth child of the Christian subjects of the Porte, made Mussulmans of them, trained them as soldiers, and formed them into a corps called ^^jBcjCi) (yungeecheree), or " The new troops," who were long regarded as the flower of the Turkish army ; but in the seven- teenth century, when the Ottoman empire ceased to be governed by warriors and to in- crease its conquests, this band of fierce soldiery THE JANISSARIES. 409 disdained the command of their effeminate sovereigns, and, breaking into open mutiny, dethroned monarch after monarch, disposing of the crown at their pleasure. From that time, insolent, factious, and inefficient, they became the terror of their rulers, whose policy was to relieve themselves and the country of so turbu- lent a body ; and the present sultan resolved on their dismemberment. Every expedient was adopted to dishonor them in the eyes of the nation. The most disreputable individuals were permitted to enrol themselves among their number; the attention of the people was direct- ed to their exactions and immoralities; and ulti- mately, they were sent to fight against the pa- triotic Greeks in detachments unequal to the occasion, in order that, being cut up in detail, their numerical strength might be diminished, and being frequently defeated, they might for- feit the character which formerly entitled them to be regarded as the glory of the Ottoman empire. An attempt, made by the sovereign in the commencement of his reign, to establish an order of better disciplined troops, opened the eyes of the janissaries to his views, while its failure confirmed the opinion they enter- tained of their own power and importance: but disappointment served only to inflame the VOL. i. 2 c 410 THE DESTRUCTION OF fierce spirit of Mahmood and to strengthen the firmness of his resolve. He paused but did not hesitate ; his pause was that of the tiger crouching before his spring ; he waited for an opportunity to annihilate what he could not modify, and to build up, on the destruction of this useless and factious body, an army disci- plined in the military tactics of the west. A firman was issued for the formation of a corps to be denominated " Nizam jedeed," or the " New institution," to supply which each regiment of janissaries was directed to send a hundred and fifty men, who were to be in- structed in firing at a target and other exercises. The inveterate hostility of the old soldiery to innovation was soothed by an assurance that this was only the revival of a practice intro- duced in Soliman's time. When, however, they saw that they were deceived, they open- ly rebelled, destroyed the palace of the aga, their chief, whom they then first discovered to be a favorer of the designs of the sultan, and assembled in the Etmeidan, to the number of more than iwefy thousand, with a reso- lution to insist on the dismissal of the exist- ing ministry, and to insure themselves against any future attempt to subject them to a new system. THE JANISSARIES. 411 The crisis had now arrived. The sultan had expected, and was prepared for it. He was, moreover, determined not to yield to the in- surgents, but to rest his throne on the issue of the contest. A council was summoned, in which Mahmood set forth the conduct of the rebels, their demand for the heads of his chief ministers, their utter inefficiency as a military establishment, and the necessity of now crush- ing them, or else allowing the country to fall, for want of proper defenders, into the hands of Christian powers. The divan concurred with the sovereign, and the doom of the janissaries was sealed. Four officers, however, were first dispatched to ask them if they would submit, and to assure them of pardon provided they instantly dispersed themselves. The offer was indignantly rejected, and the emissaries were murdered. Mahmood then enquired of the chief law-officer whether the Koran allowed him to kill his subjects in a state of rebellion : he answered in the affirmative ; and nothing remained but to accomplish the long-projected massacre. By this time the necessary preparations were in an advanced state ; and the aga pasha only waited for a signal to commence the attack with that portion of the army which still ad- 2 c 2 412 THE DESTRUCTION OF hered to him, comprising the bostanjis,* ma- rines, and the corps of artillery who had been gained over by frequent grants of privileges denied to their fellow-janissaries. In the mean time, the sultan displayed the i_yi jM-t (sanjak shereef), or holy ensign, and called on the faithful to rally round the standard of their prophet, pronouncing in one of the mosques an anathema against all who refused to enlist under the sacred banner. As the devoted band was universally hated by the rayahs, whom they had cruelly oppressed, and at the same time feared by some and envied by others of their brethren, nearly the whole po- pulation of the city joined the sovereign. In a moment the order was given and fulfilled. * The bostanjis (literally, gardeners,) are a body of ten or twelve thousand soldiers, whose duty is to protect the garden and the palace of the sultan, and to accompany him when he goes into the field. t The sanjak shereef is a standard, on the top of which are a piece of a garment worn by Mohammed and a lock oi his hair, with a bit of the curtain that hung before th< apartment of his favorite wife. This is kept in the seraglio and religiously guarded. On occasions of great emergency it is taken out ; and in battle it is carried at the head of tin troops. Every Mussulman is bound, under penalty of hell to rally round this sacred banner, and it was universally believ ed by the Turks, till they were undeceived in the last Russia: war, that an army possessing this ensign is invincible. THE JANISSARIES. 413 The Etmeidan was surrounded by artillery, and grape-shot poured in on twenty-one thousand of the rebels, congregated together within nar- row limits. Hundreds and thousands fell with- in the first half-hour. At length the barracks caught fire. Those who attempted to fly were cut to pieces by the sabres of the cavalry who surrounded the square, and no quarter was given. It is said that not a janissary who entered the Etmeidan survived that day. Dur- ing forty-eight hours the bostanjis were em- ployed in searching the city for such as had concealed themselves ; in drawing them forth from their lurking-places; and in butchering them in the public streets. On the third day Mahmood exhibited himself to his people, dressed in the uniform of the recently embodi- ed regiments ; and proceeding to the mosque, publicly declared the order of " yungeecheree" to be abolished, prohibited the mention of their name, and conferred on the new troops the title of " Nizam jedeed." * * The regular troops throughout the empire are calculated at about 200,000, the irregular at about 300,000, besides certain contingents. The army, as now constituted, is incomparably superior to its former self under the old system ; but it is still far from the perfection which it may attain under the eye of Mahmood. A part of his policy is to cause soldiers to be enrolled as young as fourteen years, in order that their early 414 REFLECTIONS ON THE PRESENT This dreadful tragedy was acted in June 1826 ; and to the present day the memory of the janissaries is so odious to rayahs and to many of the Turks, that they will scarcely allude to them ; or if they do, it will be in connection with some such remark as this, which we actually heard ; " In their time the inhabitants of Constantinople were unwilling to eat fish, because they found in them human fin- gers ;" the speaker implied that so many people were murdered and thrown into the Bosphoriis by those lawless ruffians. Nevertheless, of this, as of every great public act, different opinions prevail within the empire; and while some ap- plaud it as a master-piece of policy, others re- gard it as the result of despotism and cruelty, pitying the fate of the modern praetorian band, and cursing the spirit of that reform which de- prived them of a body of men identified with the system they loved. Whatever conclusion be formed with refer- ence to this individual measure, it must be ad- mitted, even by his friends, that the policy of the sultan has been in many respects defective. The fact is that Mahmood, though gifted with prejudices may be enlisted on his side, and that they may with the more readiness forward, as occasion offers, his plans of innovation. POLITICAL CRISIS. 415 extraordinary energy, lacks the genius of an efficient reformer and that tact which can be acquired only by a thorough acquaintance with human nature and the history of nations : he has destroyed the old constitution, but he has not the talent to construct a new one, and he has suffered opportunities to pass unheeded which can scarcely recur. After the loss of Greece, Servia, the Transdanubial provinces, Syria and Egypt, his empire might have been consolidated ; for the homogeneous character of his remaining subjects would have aided him in organizing a sound system of government ; and, this effected, the state would have gained far more in strength than it had lost in terri- tory. If his finances were impaired, the ex- penses of his dominions, curtailed within nar- rower limits, were proportionately diminished ; and economy, with judicious fiscal arrange- ments, might have supplied coffers which he vainly attempted to replenish by a system of monopolies and a deterioration of the coin. In subjecting his troops to a regular system of dis- cipline he acted like a general; but, at the same moment, he forgot that in flinging into the Bosphorus the turbans of the Osmanlies, he for- feited his right to address them as the head of their religion, and invited them to regard him 416 REFLECTIONS ON THE PRESENT as a " giaour." The prejudices of the people constitute the strength of the Moslim emperor ; and from the moment that the successor of Mohammed rises above those prejudices his tenure becomes insecure ; the cords which pre- viously attached him to the heart of his sub- jects are severed ; and thenceforth he holds the sceptre in one hand only while he wields the sword with the other. There never was a reign, except that in which the empire was founded, so fraught with important consequences to Turkey as is this. The existing lustrum is charged with her des- tinies : and Europe, Asia, and Africa await the result with anxious expectation. On the one hand, her resources are almost unlimited : with a population of upwards of twenty millions, a soil teeming with fertility, and an extent of country capable of supporting triple and qua- druple its present numbers,* there is no degree * The number of square geographical miles under the Turkish government, with the population contained, is calcu- lated as follows : Sq. Geogl. Miles. Population. In Europe .... 92,000 7,000,000 In Asia, including Syria, Arme- nia, and Mesopotamia . . 350,000 12,500,000 In Egypt . . . .116,000 2,000,000 Total . . . 558,000 21,500,000 POLITICAL CRISIS. 417 of eminence known among nations which she might not attain. On the other, obstacles apparently insuperable intervene : the pride of the people must be yet further humbled before they will believe that they have ought to learn ; their religion, or its peculiar charac- ter opposing every species of reform, must be changed ; security of property, clearly defined laws, the administration of justice with equity, sound financial regulations, the selection of public functionaries duly educated and quali- fied for their respective offices,* and a wise in- ternational policy, must be substituted for the errors of a system of government based on a false theology. But, to effect all this time is required. In the mean while, the empire is hurried to destruc- tion by the pressure from without. Circum- stances have forced her into painful contact with the insatiable ambition of the czars, the timid cautiousness of England, the vacillating system Of the inhabitants of Turkey in Europe, about 3,000,000 are Greek Christians; less than 1,000,000 Roman Catholics, Ar- menians, and Jews ; and the rest Mussulmans. * From a system of favoritism commencing in the seraglio, the chief men of the state are often selected from the dregs of the people without any reference to capacity or previous education ; so that, as now, a shoemaker fills the office of lord high admiral. 418 REFECTIONS ON THE PRESENT of France, and the cold calculating policy of Austria. All these have exercised and still exercise a baneful influence on the divan, which is driven to and fro by fears and menaces, distracted by contentions, and harassed by in- trigues. Torn by so many conflicting inter- ests, Turkey would long since have fallen into the hands of one or other of the European powers, had not their reciprocal jealousies ren- dered it impossible for any one to take pos- session of her without encountering the can- nons of its rivals. The present is an interval rife with expec- tation, in which all are watching each, and one is baffling all. England parades her fleets in the Mediterranean, displays the prows of her vessels at the forts of the Dardanelles and then speedily recals them, too keenly sensitive to the consequences of a crisis which may be postponed but cannot be averted, and too little alive to the impression communicated by the retrograde movement of her ships, which were wont never to speak but in thunder, and never to thunder but in victory. France, infected with a similar spirit, acts on the principles of the juste milieu, and her ambassador is instructed to keep well with all parties ; while, availing herself of the relaxation of the rigorous insti- o POLITICAL CRISIS. 419 tutions of Islam and the sultan's inability to humble his vassals, she disperses her travelling politicians through the country, covers the sea with her steamers, and lays the founda- tion of a new empire in Africa. Nor is Austria indifferent. The keen eye of Metternich, whose policy is to maintain for the present at all hazards the peace of Europe, already pierces the flimsy veil which unmeaning protocols and cobweb treaties have thrown over the fate of Turkey ; and though he be silent, his silence is that of thought, not of sleep. But while others are waiting, Russia is preparing. The colossal Muscovite, having habituated Stambol to the view of her eagles, has fallen back on her frontiers ; " alieni appetens, sui profusus" she scatters her gold with a lavish hand ; promises and threats are for a season substituted for cannons and Cossacks, and diplomacy is leav- ing but little for the sword to accomplish ; the counsels of the divan are led by her in- trigues ; her partisans increase in the very fa- mily of the sultan ; and she awaits with intense anxiety a crisis from which she has everything to gain and nothing to lose. In the mean time, Turkey, the object of po- litical desire, stands trembling and alone, wooed and deserted by all ; with too little ability to 420 REFLECTIONS ON THE PRESENT protect herself; ready to fall into the arms that first open to receive her; alternately sought and rejected by each. But from the inaus- picious day in which she crouched under the wing of the Russian eagle, her doom was seal- ed ; the crescent then set to rise no more above the political horizon ; and the old Moslim em- pire of the Ottomans, as established on the principles of the Koran, was at an end. The subject for consideration is not now whether the existence of that can be prolonged. It has already ceased to be. But another question, transcendant in interest, is proposed to the powers of Europe Shall Turkey continue an independent kingdom ? It is clear that she can no longer entrench herself behind the bar- ricade which Mohammedanism erects against the march of intelligence and improvement; she can no longer insult the rest of Europe by an assumption of superiority in inverse ratio to her claim ; but if she will consent to remodel her institutions, to receive the im- press of European civilization, and to admit into her dying members a new principle of political life, her nationality may yet be pro- longed. France and England seem conscious of this truth ; and, if their policy be sound, they will exert their influence to regenerate POLITICAL CRISIS. 421 her. Russia is equally aware of it ; and hence she strives to retain both government and in- stitutions in a state of inefficiency and decay. The drama is drawing to a close. The de- nouement is the fate of Turkey ! But while the statesman speculates on the probable rise and downfall of kingdoms, and contemplates their political bearings, the Chris- tian looks to the inspired volume to ascertain how far the design of the Most High regarding the fate of empires is intelligibly communicated to man, and directs his attention to the proba- ble influence of future changes on the moral and religious condition of the world. To one who thus views the subject, it can hardly fail to appear that the time is drawing nigh when the symbolical " water of the Euphrates " * shall be " dried up," and " the abomination that mak- eth desolate"! shall attain the period prescribed for its duration by Him who " ruleth in the kingdom of men ;"J when the reign of Islam shall be terminated, and its only two supports, now tottering under their own weight, shall fall ; when Turkey and Persia, whether they continue as separate political existences, be ab- sorbed in larger empires, or divided piecemeal among neighbouring powers, shall cease to ex- * Rev. xvi. 12. f Dan. xii. 11. J Dan. iv. 25. 422 CHARACTER OF TURKS. hibit the remarkable phenomenon (so charac- teristic of a fallen world !) of two monarchies indebted for their origin and continuance to a religion of lies, and founding their political in- stitutions on the reputed visions of an Arabian impostor. One of the prominent traits in the character of the Turks is indolence, which they carry to such an extent that they seldom work while they have bread to eat. Their pride is no less remarkable; it is perhaps the only passion which proves stronger than their power of dis- simulation, and Lord Byron justly characterizes the Moslim face as " well skill'd to hide " All but unconquerable pride." The Turk is daring and courageous ; impla- cable when offended, and revengeful ; but not quick to take offence. During the whole of our residence in Constantinople the plague was raging. Consequently, we and our attendants were always furnished with wands, by means of which personal contact with passers-by was parried, often at the expense of politeness ; and it sometimes happened that the tap of the stick was rather rough. Englishmen would not be slow to resent such treatment ; but never, even CHARACTER OF TURKS. 423 on a single occasion, did we trace a symptom of anger in a Moslim. The Turk is avaricious in making money, and ostentatious in spending it. At the same time he is honest and honorable : his word is as good as a bond in all pecuniary transactions ; and a tradesman, unless corrupted by inter- course with Greeks and Franks, will seldom ask a price which he will abate, or avail him- self of the ignorance of a customer to practise imposition. A great degree of propriety marks the con- duct of the natives in public. No offensive sights are encountered in the streets : no cru- elty towards animals is exhibited. Would that their private morals were consistent with their outward deportment ! Over these we draw a veil. They are such as might be expected under a religion which sanctions indulgence of every description, and holds out a sensual paradise as the reward of that virtue to which sensuality forms no exception. Their national crimes seem to draw down on the country a curse which is peculiarly manifested in the rapid decrease of its population in spite of unlimited resources. The Osmanlies -are habitually charitable and hospitable. Numerous fountains and caravan- 424 CHARACTER OF TURKS. serais are erected by individuals for the benefit of travellers, and a portion of every pious man's wealth is devoted to the poor. When they are eating, a stranger is always welcome ; and, in the interior of the country, it has often hap- pened, when we have been seeking a corner in which to pass the night, that a family, already too large for their apartment, has re- ceived us with kindness, bidding us welcome to the best fare in the house, and, on our de- parture, the host has either refused a recom- pense, or accepted only just sufficient to reim- burse him for our food. If such treatment be not generally experienced by Franks, it is be- cause they are regarded as infidels ; and because religious animosity is a stronger passion than the love of hospitality. The follower of the prophet never rises to receive a Christian, and never greets him with the salutation of " Peace be to you," which he reserves for his Mussulman brother. Instead of this, however, he condescends to say, " Ooghoorolar oolsoon !" " May your end be happy," or, " your omens good !" The Turks attach value to certain amulets as capable of counteracting the maVocchio and other species of magic. They are observers of omens, and repose a superstitious faith in HABITS OF TURKS. 425 dreams. Sculpture and painting are prohibited, as tending to idolatry ; but under the present sultan these arts are likely to meet with some encouragement, for he is reported to have had his own likeness taken not less than four times; to have suspended it in one of the principal barracks ; and to have ordered the execution of several of the moollas who upbraided him with thus infringing the rigorous prohibitions of the Koran. In eating and drinking the natives are very moderate; while their food is of the simplest kind. This abstemiousness and their habit of keeping early hours tend to the preservation of health, and consequently, in a certain degree, to the regulation of temper. Wine is forbid- den by the Koran ; and, though in the present decline of Mohammedan strictness, very many are found to infringe the prophet's command, yet coffee is still the prevalent substitute for fermented liquors. In the use of opium some are less moderate; eating, in common with Persians and Indians, this pernicious drug in quantities which seem monstrous to an Eu- ropean. A Mussulman whom I knew in India was in the habit of taking every day a piece of opium as large as the top of his thumb : at length he sank under its effects, and, when VOL. i. 2 D 426 AN OPIUM EATER. apparently in the article of death, applied for relief to his master, who succeeded in pre- vailing on him to substitute for the fatal stimu- lant two or three glasses of Madeira. A visible improvement took place, which con- tinued as long as he remained under the sur- veillance of his benefactor, but the first return to his old habits brought back the symptoms of disease ; and he is, doubtless, long since dead. An opium eater is less frequently re- claimed than a drunkard.* The Koran is the fundamental law of the Turks, civil, political, and religious ; and Islam teaches that it existed from eternity in the mind of God, if not on substantial tables laid up in heaven : on this point, however, parties are divided. Its two principal doctrines are the unity of God and the mission of Mohammed. In regard to the first, which strikes at the root of idolatry and, as they erroneously suppose, of * Of the conquest of this habit, long indulged and ulti- mately overcome, a remarkable instance was afforded by a celebrated poet of our own day, recently deceased. It is well known that the excessive use of opium, far from ef- fectually exhilarating, only depresses more painfully, the mind, which is thereby rendered a prey to horrors of its own creation ; for after the first pleasing effects of the delusive drug have subsided, the opium-eater relapses into a state of increased dejection bordering on despair. MOHAMMEDANISM. 427 Christianity, Moslims agree with Jews, from whom they are irreconcileably separated by the second article of faith. Though they cordi- ally hate Christians and Hebrews, their ani- mosity to idolaters is still greater ; for they are enjoined by their sacred volume to manifest a certain degree of consideration towards the two former, whom they designate L_>U&! Jj&l (Ehloo 'Ikitab), Followers of scripture, or lite- rally, People of the book; and the respect which they profess for Moses and our Lord ought to be, according to the Koran, reflected on the Jew and the Christian. They acknowledge the Messiah not only as a prophet, but as a prophet greater than Moham- med, who was deputed merely to supply the precepts which he had omitted ; and, singularly enough, they maintain that the Arabian was sent by Christ himself, according to a promise recorded in our Scriptures ; for they say that Jesus assures his disciples * he will send the vsgixKvrds, (periklutos,) The renowned, and that Mohammed was that personage; observing that not only was his character such, but his very name imports renowned. The reply, that every known manuscript of the Greek Testament reads vaguxfyro?, (parakletos,) the Comforter, not * John xv. 26. 2 D 2 428 MOHAMMEDAN SUBTLETY. oV, (periklutos,) is little appreciated by a confident Oriental ignorant of Greek, who himself, in writing the two words in Arabic characters, leaves out all the vowels, and thus represents the sounds periklutos and parakletos by the same letters, prklts, to be pronounced as convenience may dictate : nor is such a con- troversialist willing to see that his assertion, that the Arabian impostor was the subject of the Saviour's promise, is contradicted by the fact that Mohammed left his disciples after the or- dinary period of human life; whereas of the Paraclete it is declared, he shall " abide with you for ever."* The miracles, immaculate con- ception, resurrection, and ascension of Christ are all admitted by Moslims, who even call him " The Spirit of God ;" assigning to him a seat in the fourth heaven, while, with strange in- consistency, they place their prophet in the seventh and highest. Moslims pray for the dead, and invoke the names of departed saints, especially Moham- med, Abubeker, Othman, Omar, and AH, re- lics of whom are cherished with veneration. They believe that the soul hovers over the deceased body for forty days, during which period it is peculiarly exposed to the assaults * John xiv. 16. MOHAMMEDAN DOCTRINES. 429 of devils ; after this interval it is subjected to the ordeal of walking to heaven on a fine wire suspended over the flames of purgatory, into which all are plunged who are not escorted in safety by Gabriel : but the punishment of the wicked is held to be of limited duration ; for, while prayers and good works open immedi- ately to the pious Moslim the gates of paradise, every follower of the prophet, however presump- tuous his sins, enters after a longer or shorter time of suffering ; though every " giaour," however blameless his life and character, is ex- cluded. They carry the doctrine of predesti- nation to excess, and are consequently fatalists. This makes them fearless in battle, reckless in the plague. Why should they dread the cannon or use precautions against disease? Neither can assail them unless doomed to die ; neither can be avoided if the appointed hour be come. In making converts the Mussulman ought to be unwearied, for he condemns to utter per- dition all who reject the Koran. If he do not appear anxious to make proselytes in Turkey, it is because the indifference to all religion pre- valent in the present day, acting on the native indolence of the Turk, has been substituted for the characteristic zeal of the Moslim. With the good soldier of Mohammed the propagation 430 EXECUTION OF A RENEGADE. of bis faith amounts to a passion: persuasion may be tried, but compulsion must follow. The martyr and the warrior hold alike the key of heaven : the one enters in virtue of his courage, the other of his devotedness. Prayers are never offered for infidels, but the sword may be raised against all who refuse to acknowledge the authority of the prophet. Apostasy, either in a native Mussulman, or in a convert to that religion, is punished with death. The relentless rigor of the law which allows no mercy to a renegade was exhibited in Smyrna, some few years ago, in the case of a young Greek who was induced to renounce Christianity. After a while the stings of con- science distracted him, and he knew no peace. To retrace his steps was impossible: in the first place, his own church refuses to reinstate an apostate in his forfeited spiritual rights ; in the next, the law of the land would demand his head. But the pangs he endured were into- lerable ; and he preferred death to a life so em- bittered. Accordingly, he made a pilgrimage to Mount Athos, and, returning to Smyrna, de- livered himself up to the Turkish judge, as one who, having abjured the faith of Jesus for that of Mohammed, bitterly lamented the sin of which he had been guilty, and was now ready MOHAMMEDAN PRAYERS. 431 to die rather than continue within the pale of Islam. Every means was employed to shake his resolution ; but bribes, threats, and tortures were equally unavailing ; and he was beheaded in one of the public squares. Moslims pray three times a day ; at sunrise, noon, and sunset ; and those who adhere more strictly to the prophet's command perform a similar act of devotion between each of those periods. At these hours, wherever the follower of the prophet finds himself, however he may be occupied, in whatever company, he turns his face towards Mecca, and utters a short prayer, if that can be called prayer which involves neither confession, supplication, nor intercession, but is simply an act of homage to the Supreme Being, acknowledging his mercy and omnipotence. These sacred exercises, to- gether with ablutions and fasts, constitute nearly the whole of religion, as inculcated by the Koran. The fast of Ramazan, the longest in the year, extending through a whole lunar month, com- mences in each town from the time when the new moon is first descried ; a fact which must be attested on oath by three credible witnesses before the governor, who notifies it to the pub- lic by a discharge of artillery. During thirty 432 FAST OF RAMAZAN. days the Turks are not allowed to eat, drink, or smoke, between morning and evening : con- sequently, they are cross with themselves and with each other, and very little business is transacted ; their main object being to spend the day in sleep and to beguile the night with feasting. The last meal is so arranged as to conclude just before sunrise; and in the evening numbers may be seen at their doors or in the public cafes, with chibouque in hand, anxiously awaiting the sound of the gun which shall intimate that the sun is set, the day's fast ended, and the hour of feasting and of smoking arrived ; for they are so addicted to the pipe that they feel the want of that more than the privation of food, and generally smoke before they eat. Since the Mussulman year, consisting of twelve months of twenty-nine and thirty days alternately, (intended to correspond to twelve revolutions of the moon,) is eleven days shorter than our own, the fast of Ramazan begins each year eleven days earlier than the preceding, and thus occurs in every season : when it happens in summer, the distress ex- perienced by those who are obliged to labor for sixteen hours under a burning sun and deprived of water is intense; yet they seldom break the law. With the Ramazan the year PILGRIMAGES. 433 expires ; and the new one is ushered in by the Bairam, a feast of four days. This, and the Courban Bairam, are the only festivals during which work is suspended. The latter occurring ten weeks after the former is of three days' duration : it is celebrated in honor of the sacri- fice of Isaac, to commemorate whose miracu- lous preservation every family, (or, among the rich, every individual,) kills a sheep ; and after the parties themselves are supplied, the re- mainder of the flesh is given to the poor. A haj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, is enjoined on every Mussulman, with certain exceptions which exempt the sick, the poor, the insane, the slave, and those who send a substitute at their own expense. So many difficulties stand in the way of a compliance with this requi- sition, and so many excuse themselves on one or other of the grounds above named, that, in fact, comparatively few pilgrimages are under- taken, and, consequently, not many secure to themselves the honorable appellation of hajee, which is retained for life by the pious pilgrim. The priesthood are not necessarily separated from secular professions, and many are engaged in trade. There are several orders of derveshes,* * The name >*, (dervesh) is taken from the Persians* who deduce it from ,jjo .t> (der pesh,) before the door. 43<1 THE PRIESTHOOD. or men set apart by a vow for the service of God ; but this is an institution of later years, not enjoined by the Koran. Some of these sects have been already referred to: like the monks in Christendom, they often bring scan- dal on the profession of religion. Every large mosque has its (sheikh), i^otf (katib), jUl (imam), and ^jy, (muezzin), or preacher, school- master, prayer-leader, and summoner to prayer: but in villages, all these duties are performed by a single individual. Any person of a little learning may undertake the last three offices, but a firman is required to constitute a preacher. The priests are subject to the magistrates, who can supersede or suspend them at pleasure and appoint others in their room, or themselves perform the ecclesiastical functions : though chosen, for the most part, from the ^ (soofee), or students among the oolama, and strictly belonging to that body, yet they are not generally included in it ; but, as might be expected in a country where the law is only the application of the sacred volume, the dis- tinction between the expounders of the one and the other is ill defined. Much has been said and written about the \ J ^ A (oolama), and the name has been connected with considerable mystery. They are a body THE OOLAMA. 435 of men possessing great influence ; each of whom receives the best education the country can afford, and is then at liberty to choose into which of the three classes he will enter; priests, professors of the law, or ministers of justice. Their privileges cause them to be regarded as the highest order of the nation : all the offices in the three departments abovenamed are filled up from their number; they are liable to no taxes, nor is their property subject to arbitrary confiscation ; their persons are sacred ; their blood may on no account be shed ; nor can they legally be punished in any way but by imprisonment and exile. From the power they possess as interpreters of the law and the Koran, from their riches, rank, and privileges, and from the union subsisting among them, they have often been used as political engines either by an encroaching despot or by a rebellious people : yet they can never be very formid- able to the sultan, as he can banish them at pleasure. Their chief, the f^t '^ (sheikh islam), is the head of the Mohammedan religion in Tur- key, and nominates to all the principal offices in church and law ; he ranks superior to every other subject in the empire, taking precedence of the grand vizir. He performs the cere- 436 THE SHEIKH ISLAM. ceremony of girding on the sultan's sword at his inauguration, and is the sole person privi- leged to kiss the left shoulder of the sovereign who, before recent changes, used to advance seven steps to meet him, while the grand vizir was met by only three steps. On most great occasions the sultan applies to the sheikh islam for a LXs (fetwa), or legal opinion, to ascertain whether his intended course of action be in accordance with the Koran : but it is policy, not necessity, that induces this application : his plans, if sanctioned by the head of the church, are likely to be well received by the people ; while, if the sheikh islam hesitate to conform to his sovereign's desire, plenty of successors are ready to step into his shoes, who will elicit from the sacred volume a fetwa agreeable to their despot. It is on record in Turkish his- tory that Amurath the Fourth commanded a sheikh islam's head to be pounded in a mortar, saying " heads whose dignity exempts them from the sword ought to be struck with the pestle." On another occasion, in the reign of Mustapha the Second, the people put to death a sheikh islam who had misled the sultan. Besides the oolama, there is a privileged order limited to the descendants of the pro- THE GRAND VIZIR. 437 pliet by his daughter Fatimah ; they are called rj (oomra), and every . j (ameer)* has the title of jju. (syud) prefixed" to his name, as Syud Hussein. This is the only class authorised to wear green turbans ; but since it now compre- hends an immense multitude, oomra are found, as might be expected, like brahmins in India, members of every grade of society from the highest to the lowest. The grand vizir exercises power of life and death ; in war he commands the army as gene- ralissimo ; and he is responsible to the sultan and to public opinion for all that takes place in the kingdom. It has been justly observed by a writer of the last century f that the office of vizir is a necessary accompaniment of des- potism : and that it was from time immemorial regarded as such is shown by a game of eastern invention, the origin of which is lost in the darkness of antiquity ; in chess the moves of the king are made solely with a view to his own personal safety, while the vizir (the origi- nal name for the queen) presents himself in * Oomra is the plural of ameer. t Thomas Thornton, Esq. to whose work on Turkey the author is indebted for much valuable information as to the religion and civil institutions of the people ; as he likewise is to Mr. Slade for a few details on the same subjects. 438 THE DIVAN. every quarter, heading the forces and regulat- ing the campaign.* The grand vizir administers justice in public on certain days, assisted occasionally by the supreme judges of Roumelia and Anatolia, by the Istambol effendi, or judge of the city of Con- stantinople, and by the moollas, or judges, of Ayoob, Scutari, and Galata. Under the pre- mier is the reis effendi, or secretary of state for foreign affairs, who, with his dragomans, con- ducts the external relations of the empire. The Jyj (dwan, commonly called divan), is a council consisting of seven or eight of the principal ministers : these assemble on special occasions to assist with their aggregate wisdom the grand vizir : though originally summoned only to advise, the council has latterly assumed the right of controlling, him in the absence of the sultan, who now often presides in person ; though formerly he never appeared, but was present in a gallery screened by a lattice, like that in the council-chamber of the palace of the Tartar khans. * The un-English expression check-mate is evidence of the eastern origin of the game of chess. It is a cor- ruption of the Arabic term similarly applied, L^\^ >^ CT"~ (sheikh mata) ! The chief is dead ! or The king is con- quered ! SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT. 439 The whole system of government is desti- tute of order and certainty ; a fact of which the perpetual changes in the financial depart- ment may serve as an example. The tax paid on exports and imports is frequently changed, and sometimes raised on a given commodity twenty or thirty per cent, within a month. If it were fixed, however high the rate, merchants could calculate accordingly ; but repeated alter- ations involve them in inextricable difficulties. A man wishing to purchase corn for exporta- tion learns from his neighbour that the pre- vious week he was charged two paras a pound at the douane ; acting on this information he makes his bargain, fixes his price of sale, and prepares to export some grain, when, to his great dismay, on application for a pass, the dou- anier demands four or six paras on each pound. It often happens that an individual is called upon not only to pay double the sum required from him a short time before for the same arti- cle of merchandise, but he is debited with the increased tax on what he last exported, under a pretence that the firman increasing the duty was then in existence, though not published. In vain a man who trades on commission pleads that he and his employer have settled accounts, that their mercantile transactions are at an end, 440 MARRIAGE. and that he has no further claim on him. It matters not ; the sultan's revenue must be paid ; and the agent suffers for the uncertainty of the law. The police is equally ill regulated ; and mur- ders are frequently committed without elicit- ing any public notice : during our stay in Con- stantinople an Italian was assassinated, but the event excited neither surprise nor inquiry. Marriage in this country is exclusively a civil contract, which is attested before the cadi, or magistrate, by friends of the two parties, neither of whom need be present. A Moslim may marry a Christian or a Jewish female ; but the children must all be brought up in the religion of the prophet. On the other hand, a Mussulman woman can on no condition unite herself to an unbeliever ; and the man infring- ing this law forfeits his life. Divorces are al- lowed under certain circumstances, but they are by no means frequent. Polygamy is sanctioned by the Koran, though not practised so generally as is supposed. When a man of rank (and none but such can maintain a number of wives) marries a woman who is his equal, a stipulation is made that she shall be his only spouse. But if, as is more fre- quently the case, he take a plurality of wives CONDITION OF FEMALES. 441 of a rank inferior to his own, each is entitled to a separate establishment, and all can demand equal privileges till one be elevated above the rest by becoming a parent ; and the mother of the eldest son is called the chief spouse. The principal object of desire with the Moslim, as with the Hebrew, women is children ; and those whose wishes are realized regard with contempt their less fortunate rivals, while, in turn, they are eyed with burning jealousy. Among the tenants of the harem who can claim no connubial privileges, the mother of a daughter ranks above one who is child- less ; but the mother of a son is immediately raised to the dignity of a wife, unless the father have already four, the conjugal limit prescribed by the Koran. Such an order of things ne- cessarily opens the door to ambition, jealousy, hatred, and other evil passions, occasionally giv- ing rise to persecutions and even to murders : yet, strange as it may appear, the Turkish wo- men are said by those who visit them to be not unhappy ; their pleasures and resources, though few, are all that they have ever known, ex- pected, or coveted ; and happiness is less ac- curately measured by relative possessions than by the proportion between the desires fostered and the enjoyment realized. Hitherto, the VOL. i. 2 E 442 TURKISH FEMALES. cultivation of the mind has been almost en- tirely neglected among them ; but many have now learned the value of education, and are following the example set by the sultan's daugh- ter, lately married to Halil pasha, who has been instructed in music by a Frank lady. From the time that a girl reaches the age of ten, she is taught to shun the eye of man. Her marriage is arranged by her friends with an individual whom she has never seen ; and after she becomes a wife, she is excluded from intercourse even with her male relations, ex- cept her father, brothers, and uncles, who are allowed to pay her a short visit of ceremony on festal days. When she appears abroad, she is so wrapped up as to conceal her face, any ex- posure of which, however partial, is regarded as a violation of delicacy. A Frank lady in- formed us that one day, in the street, her arm was rudely seized, and separated from that of a gentleman who escorted her, by a Moslimah who felt her sex dishonored by such familiarity; and we heard from another that, only three years ago, a green veil was pulled off her head by a Turkish female, en- raged at seeing the sacred color defiled by contact with an infidel so indelicate as to ex- hibit her face. It is sometimes supposed that TURKISH DRESS. 443 the Koran excludes women from heaven : yet this is not the fact. Mohammed does not pro- vide for them, as for men, a paradise of sensual bliss ; but he declares that rewards and punish- ments will hereafter be distributed to all the faithful. The dress of the Turks consists of a loose robe and a short jacket embroidered with silk, both without collars ; a wide girdle ; a very full petticoat joined for some inches between the knees, and thus resembling trowsers ; a long cloth gaiter, and a graceful turban of any color except green, which is restricted, as already mentioned, to the descendants of the prophet. Inside the shoe, a thin leather sock over the stocking protects the foot from cold in the house and mosque. The white veil of the women passes in a straight line over the eye- brows, and is brought back across the tip of the nose or held between the lips. Some ap- pear with a shade like that used for weak eyes, but larger and of a black color. With all this desire to conceal the face, the form is so lightly covered that the whole region of the chest is often exposed to view. Under a long loose robe they wear full trowsers and yellow slip- pers. Young girls have generally a dress open at the sides, a bodice buttoned in front, full 2 E 2 444 TURKISH PECULIARITIES. trowsers, and a white veil thrown over the head, but not concealing the face ; they allow the hair to hang down on the shoulders either in curls or small plaits. A modern writer has adduced the follow- ing instances as affording a curious proof of the contrariety observable between the minor customs and usages of the Turks and those of western Europe. " The abhorrence of the hat is well known ; but the uncovering of the head, which with us is an expression of respect, is by them considered disrespectful and indecent. A quaker would give no offence by keeping on his hat in a mosque, if his shoes were left at the threshold. The Turks turn in their toes ; they mount on the right side of the horse; they follow their guests into a room and precede them on leaving it ; the left hand is the place of honor ; they do the honors of the table by serving themselves first ; they take the wall and walk hastily in sign of respect ; they beckon by throwing back the hand, instead of drawing it towards them ; they cut the hair from the head, and remove it from the body, but leave it on the chin ; they sleep in their clothes ; they look upon beheading as a more disgraceful punishment than strangling; they deem our close and short dresses indecent, and our shaven TURKISH PECULIARITIES. 445 chins a mark of effeminacy or servitude ; they resent an enquiry after their wives as an insult ; they eschew pork as an abomination ; they re- gard dancing as a theatrical performance only to be practised by slaves ; lastly, their mourn- ing habit is white, their sacred color is green, and their holy day is Friday." To this curious list may be added, they sit with their legs under them, and at meals prefer fingers to forks ; they regard the acquisition of foreign languages as a crime,* and, like the Jews, iden- tify their civil polity with religion ; they con- sider it a sin to drink wine, and make smoking a necessary part of the day's occupation ; they never shake hands with one another, but go through a sort of half embrace ; they treat their slaves like children, and every sultan is a slave's son ; they never suffer their women to be seen, choose their wives by proxy, and practise polygamy. * This prejudice, with many others, is now rapidly de- creasing. 446 CHAPTER XIV. TURKEY. HER CHRISTIAN SUBJECTS. Rayahs. Beratlees. Jews. Roman Catholics. Greeks. Their numbers, personal appearance, dress and character. Civil degradation. Anecdote. Present condition whence originating. Brighter prospects. Religious doctrines. Public services. Burial service. Patriarch. Bishops and clergy. Marriage of priests. Curious construction of law. Deacons. Avarice. Simoniacal sales. Chica- nery. Anecdote. Armenians. Their numbers. Papal and " schismatic." Anecdote. Their political influence. Character. Person. Dress. Females. Antiquity of language. King Abgarus's letter to our Lord. Separation from church. Catholicos. Patriarchs. Bishops. Priests. Their qualifications and character. Ceremonial purity. Respect for bible Translation into Armenian. Fasts. Sacrifices. Masses for dead. Worship of cross. Va- rious modes of making sign of cross. Doctrines. Mono- physitism. Creed. Confession. Worship of virgin and saints. Sacraments. Judaism of Armenians. Doctrines of Greek and Armenian churches compared. Missionary proceedings in Turkey. Difficulties and encouragements. State of religion and education among Armenians, Greeks, Jews, and Turks Anecdotes. Concluding reflections. TURKISH HAYAHS. 447 THE subjects of the Ottoman Porte are di- vided into Mussulmans and rayahs ;* the latter name comprehending Jews and Christians, or all who are not followers of the prophet. A tax, called j^. (kharaj), for permission to re- tain his faith is demanded from every rayah, except the Beratlees, a small privileged class which includes some of the principal merchants and those who have rendered a service to the state. Besides the exemption referred to, these are liable only to the same custom duties as Europeans, and are entitled to wear yellow slip- pers : moreover, they are amenable to no courts but those at the seat of government, where they have authorized representatives of their body who defend their rights, and to whom they refer in all cases of injury or affront. It is a remarkable fact that in Turkey dur- ing four centuries no amalgamation between the conquerors and the conquered was affect- ed ; and no modification attempted of tyranny * The word rayahs is employed throughout this work, as being more familiar to the generality of readers than \Acj (riaya), the proper plural of rayah or rayat ; the first of which is commonly used by writers on Turkey, the last (generally spelt ryot) by those on India, though the two words are, in fact, identical ; the pronunciation of the final letter as h or / depending on two diacritical points. 448 THE SULTAN'S POLICY. and slavery. But the present sultan resolved to pierce the cloud of Moslim prejudice which obscured the perceptions of his people, to re- cognize man as man apart from the preposses- sions of bigotry, and to enthrone himself in the affections of the more enlightened, that is the Christian, portion of the population. This, how- ever, was no easy task. By carrying his wishes into full operation, he would have forfeited the hold he yet retained on the hearts of his Mo- hammedan subjects, and he has therefore been compelled rather to keep within his desires and to await a happier season. At the same time, the rayahs are alive to their favorable posi- tion and to the views of their sovereign ; nor are they wanting in tendering him a return ; very few are to be found who are not grateful for the amelioration of their condition ; and their attachment to his person may be regard- ed as one of the strongest bonds which now hold together the crumbling elements of the empire. Jews in Turkey, like Jews in every other part of Asia, are objects of pity, whether we regard their physical, moral, or civil condition ; they cherish the disease engendered by dirt, because they believe it purifies the blood ; they cling to ignorance, because they interpret eacli effort to instruct into an attempt to Christianize them ; TURKISH JEWS. 449 and they submit, because without resource, to a double portion of every indignity which a ca- pricious government is pleased to inflict on its helpless dissenting dependents. They are trampled on even by the persecuted Greeks ; and are actually obliged, during the week pre- ceding Easter, to confine themselves to their houses, lest they should suffer violence from those whose feelings are more than ordinarily exasperated against the murderers of their Lord at the time when they commemorate his crucifixion. They are addicted to gain because the aristocracy of wealth is the one to which alone they can aspire, and yet poor because the indulgence of their passion enriches only their persecuting lords. Inoffensive and quiet, yet despised and hated, they are compelled to carry about with them a badge of degradation and a lure to insult in the purple color of their slippers and in a peculiar head-dress of figured cloth twined round a circular black hat. Thus, while the patois they speak, corrupted from the languages* of Italy and Spain, points to the latter of those countries as giving them a claim to be regarded as Europeans, they exhibit a condition scarcely to be rivalled by that of the most debased Asiatics. Of the four great classes of Christians only 450 CHRISTIAN RAYAHS. three are known among Turkish rayahs, as the Protestants resident in the empire are all foreigners, enjoying the protection of the respective European governments to which they are subject. Many of the Roman Ca- tholics are similarly circumstanced : of those who are not so a few are converts from the Greeks, while some are Armenians and some Syrians by birth. All the other rayahs, con- stituting the great mass, belong to the Greek and Armenian churches, if we except an in- considerable number attached to minor sects, inhabiting chiefly Egypt and Syria, as the Copts and Abyssinians. About two hundred thousand Greeks reside in Constantinople and the neighbouring vil- lages. The principal families have acquired the name of Fanariotes from the quarter they occupy, called the Fanar, which was origi- nally consigned to their ancestors by Moham- med II. when he conquered the last of their emperors, and which has been retained ever since as the residence of their patriarch and of the old Greek nobles, some of whom still live in great splendor. Both sexes are handsome ; the young men particularly so ; and the women have bright dark eyes and regular features. The usual COSTUME OF GREEK RAYAHS. 451 robe of the higher classes flows from the neck to the feet, and is buttoned above and girt with a ceinture. Over this is another similar one, or a jacket, the material of which may be cloth, cotton, or silk, according to the weather and the finances of the wearer : when it is of cloth, the edges are often trimmed with fur. For these two garments the lower orders sub- stitute a coarse tight jacket. All use the pet- ticoat-trowsers of the Turks ; while their legs, if not bare, are covered either with stockings or with some of the superabundant folds of the anomalous trowsers. The poor wear Frank shoes; the rich, black slippers. The turban is formed by a long strip of cotton cloth rolled round and round a scarlet cap, or fez : it differs from the Moslirn head-dress in being very low on the crown, like the slippers re- stricted by law to a dark color, and tightly twisted ; while the Turkish turban, formed of larger folds and raised much higher, exhibits a fuller surface and handsomer appearance. The priests wear a black cloth hat without a brim and with a flat projecting crown. The mass of the Greek women dress in a tight bodice and full petticoat ; but the ladies are gradually los- ing the nationality of their costume, assimilat- ing it to that of western Europe, except the 452 GREEK CHARACTER. head-dress : this consists either of a scarlet cloth cap, covering the crown and decorated with a silk tassel and a piece of black velvet richly worked in gilt wire, or of a preposterously large toque, shaped like the expanded wings of a butterfly. The Greeks, for upwards of four centuries groaning under a galling yoke, exhibit in their character all the qualities which servitude en- genders. Avaricious, intriguing, treacherous, timid, servile, and immoral, they appear to adapt themselves to every change of circum- stances, while vanity prevents them from de- viating a single point from their ancient self. In business proverbially dishonest, a Greek's word is ever at discount : his one object is to grasp all he can reach, and it is said that to give a merchant the price he first asks is to render him miserable ; for, having ob- tained it so readily, he is vexed that he did not demand a larger sum. But more serious charges are brought against them. Scarcely a single Greek family is free from the stain of some disgraceful imputation. The conversation of the ladies, even in the pre- sence of the other sex, is said to be indecorous in the extreme ; and so common is it for un- married females to retire- for a few weeks into ANECDOTE. 453 the country under circumstances the least cre- ditable, that girls of unimpeachable character have been known to deny themselves the grati- fication of a temporary absence from home, lest reports unfavorable to them should be circu- lated. The civil degradation of this people has al- ready been hinted at. Justice itself can be ob- tained only by bribes ; their vanity is wounded by a prohibition against the use of any bright color either on their houses or in their apparel, and against carrying weapons, which form a component part of the dress of the meanest Turk ; they cannot even worship God accord- ing to the religion of their fathers without purchasing permission ; and every now and then their blood is made to boil by some spe- cial act of cruelty or oppression. The follow- ing occurrence fell under our own observation. A young Greek, while walking in the streets of Smyrna, was seized by order of the governor and hurried to the altar, where, malgre lui, he was united to a girl, whose parents, desiring the match, had bribed the bey to take forcible possession of him. The bishop happened to be in attendance at the church and, -not daring to refuse obedience to the mandate of the Moslim, was compelled to perform the cere- 454 PRESENT CONDITION OF mony without heeding the remonstrances of the unfortunate bridegroom. A few days after the transaction, the father of the youth calling on one of our acquaintance, bitterly lamented this cruel act of injustice, but concluded his invective against Turkish cruelty with a de- sponding exclamation, " Yet, what can we do ?" Still, notwithstanding their character and circumstances, the Greeks enjoy some consi- deration. Religion unites them by a common bond, and this union ensures to them a greater degree of influence and respect than is con- ceded to either of the other classes of rayahs ; at the same time, peculiar causes have tended to raise them from the abyss of degradation in which they were originally sunk under their present masters. The natural indolence of the Turks prompts them to disengage themselves, as much as possible, from all cares, even those of government ; and in their Greek subjects they found men at once able and willing to relieve them of the duties which involve la- bor, either in execution or previous qualifica- tion ; accordingly, the office of dragoman was, at an early period of their history, entirely re- signed to Greeks, who consequently assumed the management of all diplomatic negociations. The Turks thus became more and more de- GREEK RAYAHS. 455 pendent on their interpreters, who acquired increased influence, which they never failed to exert for the exaltation of themselves and their nation ; till, by degrees, the Greeks were re- lieved from the most irksome of the restraints with which they were shackled ; the demand of every fifth child to be made a soldier and a Turk was suspended ; and the government of the two large principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia was set apart as a prize for the most deserving or the most powerful among them. But this boon has lately been taken out of their hands to be restored to those of native boiars, and their influence has proportionately suffered. Great, however, as is this loss of political power, it may be more than repaired, if the nation itself shall awake to the destinies that seem to be opening upon her, and to those principles from which alone permanent honor and excellence can emanate. In this case, the Greeks will not be suffered to constitute an ignoble exception to the advance that every nation of Europe is making in education and intelligence. The spirit of the ancient men of Athens, which has for many centuries slum- bered in the grave of a nation's liberty, is al- ready re-exhibiting signs of animation, rousing 456 PROSPECTS OF GREEKS. itself to throw off the incumbent weight of despotism and ignorance, and preparing to in- fuse a new principle of vitality into elements long mouldering in decay. The descendants of Plato and Solon, endowed, as they are, with remarkable acuteness and intelligence, are now putting forth their native talents, and the time is probably approaching when the name of Greek will cease to be associated with a state of moral and intellectual degradation such as has hi- therto debased the slaves of Turkey. Is it altogether visionary to indulge a hope that at some future period this name will attain to a glory exceeding that with which it was invest- ed in ancient days ; when the pure light of Christianity shall shed its hallowed radiance over the successful efforts of genius and learn- ing? The Greeks hold many tenets at variance with the creed of the Roman Catholics. The Bible and the first seven general councils are the standard of their faith. They maintain that the Holy Ghost proceeds not from the Father and the Son, a doctrine they regard as blasphemy, but from the Father only. They admit no previous dispensation for the omission of any religious duty ; but yield full absolution after the commission of sin, and re- THE GREEK CHURCH. 457 ject the doctrine of purgatory. They deny the pope's infallibility ; and refuse to admit images into their churches and houses, though they advocate the legitimacy of picture wor- ship. They baptize by immersion ; and use leavened bread and wine unmixed with water in the sacrament of the eucharist, which they administer in both kinds to the laity by dip- ping the bread in the wine, but from which a restored apostate is entirely excluded, except in the hour of dissolution. They require their priests to be ceremonially clean when adminis- tering mass, and prohibit women from partici- pating in it till forty days after the birth of a child. They fast, not on Friday and Saturday, but on Wednesday and Friday ; urging that it was on a Wednesday that Christ foretold that he should be betrayed, and on a Friday that he was betrayed. Like the Latins, they acknowledge the cor- poreal presence, encourage confession, venerate saints, and pray to the virgin, whom they designate Ilamy/a, (Panagia,) or Most Holy, maintaining zealously her perpetual virginity. The Greeks have three daily masses ; namely, at 4 and 7 A.M., and at sunset ; all performed in the ancient language, unintelligible to the people : and the priests are further required VOL. i. 2 F 458 GREEK FUNERAL SERVICE. to repeat forty Kyrie eleesons thrice every day, and the book of Psalms once a week. Some of their offices are very solemn, particularly that for the dead. The corpse, preceded by a num- ber of the clergy, is carried through the streets on an open bier, dressed in the ordinary cos- tume of life and covered with flowers, with a hat or turban on the head and the face exposed to view. After a service in the church, from which the following is an extract,* the friends and acquaintance assemble round the deceased and kiss his forehead ; they then follow the body to the grave, in which it is deposited in a common wooden coffin. " Come, Brethren, and let us give the last embrace to the deceased, thanking God ! He hath left his kindred ; he is borne to the grave, no longer heeding the things of vanity and of the burdensome flesh. Where now are kin- dred and friends ? Now we are separated ! Whom let us pray the Lord to take to his rest. " What a separation, O brethren! What woe, what wailing, in the present change ! Come, then, let us embrace him who a little * The author is indebted for this translation, and for some valuable information regarding the peculiar tenets of the va- rious sects in the Ottoman empire, to the Rev. William Jo\v- ett's Christian Researches in the Mediterranean. GREEK FUNERAL SERVICE. 459 while ago was with us. He is consigned to the grave ; he is covered with a stone ; his abode is with darkness ; he is buried with the dead ! Now we are separated ! Whom let us pray the Lord to take to his rest. " Now all the evil and vain festivity of life are dissolved, for the spirit hath left its taber- nacle, the clay hath become black ; the vessel is broken, speechless, void of feeling, dead, motionless ! Whom consigning to the grave, let us pray the Lord to give him rest for ever. " Truly, like a flower, and as a vapor, and as morning dew, is our life. Come then, let us look down narrowly into the grave! Where is the comeliness of the body, and where is youth? Where are the eyes and the beauty of the flesh ? All are withered like grass, all are vanished. Come then, let us fall before Christ in tears ! " Come hither, ye descendants of Adam ! Let us behold committed to the earth one who was of our likeness ; all his comeliness cast away, dissolved in the grave, food for worms ; in darkness, covered with earth ! Now we are separated! Whom let us pray the Lord to take to his rest !" The head of the Greek church is the patri- arch who resides at Constantinople, being 2 F 2 460 THE GREEK HIERARCHY. chosen by twelve archbishops and bishops, and approved by the sultan : he retires after a certain time from the duties of his high sta- tion, and lives upon what he may have accu- mulated, always retaining the title of ex-pa- triarch. Besides the metropolitan there are three other patriarchs in Turkey, and about a hundred and twenty bishops and archbishops. The clergy are divided into two classes, mo- nastic and secular. The former reserve to them- selves all the high ecclesiastical offices by en- forcing the law which requires every parish priest to marry, and precludes him, when mar- ried or a widower, from rising to any superior dignity in the church : but though, when be- reaved of his partner, he be thus debarred from promotion, yet he is not suffered to unite him- self to a second wife ; for the Greek church forbids its disciples to marry more than three times, and applies the rule to the holy order with this curious construction : their first mar- riage is to Christ in their ordination as dea- cons ; their second to Him in their ordination as priests ; their third to their wives ; and, as no one may marry four times, if they lose their wives they must remain widowers till death. To convey an adequate idea of the degra- dation of the clergy and of their ignorance GREEK ECCLESIASTICS. 46 1 would be difficult. They are generally very illiterate and taken from the dregs of the peo- ple; thus, our cook was a candidate for the ministry ; and each is compelled to act for some time in the capacity of servant to a cle- rical superior, performing the most menial, offices, before he is eligible to the order of priesthood : in this state he is called a deacon, is boarded by his master, and receives from the community a suit of clothes and three or four pounds a year : many are deacons all their lives ; and few, when entering into holy or- ders, venture to aspire to the high office of a preacher. Avarice appears to be the besetting sin of the Greek clergy; and even when due allowance has been made for their inadequate provision and the struggle they have to maintain with po- verty, they still appear grasping and mercenary in the extreme. Money is the god at whose shrine they sacrifice ; and the essentials of reli- gion may be said to be unknown to men whose minds are diverted from its spiritual require- ments by the ceremonies, processions, and fasts enjoined by their ritual. Every sacred ser- vice is made a matter of barter ; and in their churches we have seen two large desks, at which, during divine worship, approaching 462 GREEK INTRIGUES. marriages, funerals, and even sacraments are estimated and paid for. How would such traffic have been regarded by Him who scourged the money-changers out of the tem- ple? Nor, unhappily, is the love of gold confined to the inferior clergy ; it governs the proceed- ings of the ecclesiastical department, from the highest to the lowest, and gives rise to a sys- tem of intrigue which pervades the whole hie- rarchy and enters into every transaction be- tween themselves and their rulers. Would a priest be invested with a mitre ? He must fee his immediate superiors. Would a bishop se- cure the office of patriarch ? He must present a handsome sum to the principal Turkish mi- nisters, and distribute his favors among the in- fluential of his own party. Would a patriarch retain his seat on the " patriarchal throne" with his title of ' Aywrarog, or " Most Holy ?" His protectors must be continually bribed, and the envy of his episcopal brethren similarly warded off. To answer these demands he must rob the church ; and while so doing, he must secure something for himself against the probably ap- proaching day of deposition or exile. But even among the most depraved, the voice of con- science will sometimes be heard. The owner ARMENIAN RAYAHS. 463 of an English merchantman trading between Trebizond and Smyrna told us that two of his passengers were a bishop and archbishop of the Russo-Greek church. The vessel encountered a severe gale and was nearly wrecked. The two prelates manifested the greatest terror, and began to confess their sins to one another. They then implored our informant to put back; and, conscience-stricken, declared, like Jonah, that the storm was sent in token of divine wrath against their impiety. Shortly after, the captain succeeded in making a port, when they left the ship and pursued their journey by land. The number of Armenians now residing in Constantinople and its environs is about three hundred thousand, of whom about thirty thou- sand owe allegiance to the see of Rome. These, as well as their brethren acknowledging the pope in all parts of Turkey, consider themselves more as Franks than as Asiatics ; they court the society of Europeans, and dislike their own countrymen, yielding to the efforts of Roman Catholic emissaries, whose object is to substi- tute attachment to Rome and her people for national prepossessions. Only six years ago an order was issued, on a suspicion that the Papal Armenians sided with the Russians, requiring them all to quit the metropolis within a few 464 SINGULAR INFLUENCE OF days. It was the depth of winter and snow lay deep on the ground ; consequently, very many died, and many more would have pe- rished had it not been for the humanity of the Turks living at Scutari, who received them into their houses.* With the exception of this comparatively small number, all the Armenians, much more than the Greeks, assimilate with their rulers in habits and manners. Being originally Asiatic, and having no connection with Europe, there is only the one point of religion which forms a necessary distinction between them and the Turks. They are consequently contented and loyal. Engrossed in mercantile concerns and occupying the chief posts as bankers, they not only have their all at stake in the country, but by means of their wealth they exercise over its administration an influence of a most ex- tensive and peculiar character: in fact, they may be regarded as the secret machinery which regulates the internal movements of the go- vernment. By giving security to the sultan for the payment of the whole annual revenue of each province, of which they are every year required to advance a portion on behalf of the * The order was subsequently revoked through the inter- ference of the three great powers, and the Papal Armenians were permitted to return. ARMENIAN RAYAHS. 465 native governor before it is collected, they hold all the pashas as their debtors, arid can ensure a compliance with the most unreasonable de- mands under a threat of insisting on an imme- diate payment of their bonds. Thus they be- come the virtual viceroys of the provinces, in which their sway is almost unrestricted ; and no pasha is in a position to object to any im- post which his banker may choose to levy on the people, when reminded by the man of money that the tribute he has advanced, with the interest it bears, an interest limited only by the means of extortion, is yet unpaid. Nor is the power of the Armenians confined to op- pressive exactions in the interior of the country : in the capital their collective body possesses so great an influence that they can generally ob- tain the deposition of any pasha who refuses to submit to the conventional laws they have established for the regulation of a system which involves their wealth and aggrandizement. As individuals, the Armenians are mild, peaceable, and diligent, but proud, vindictive, dishonest, and immoral. In person, the men are good-looking. The women are pretty, but destitute of expression, to obtain which they anoint their eyelids with antimony and their cheeks with rouge. The costume of the 466 ARMENIAN FEMALES. men resembles in its main points that of the Greeks, but it is distinguished by some pecu- liarities, the most striking of which is the J^IS (kalpack), a head-dress resembling a balloon put out of shape by a square frame of wire fitted into it, so as to form four angles. This kalpack is either white, brown, green, or half black and half scarlet. The outer and inner robes are always long, reaching from the neck to the feet ; the one closed in front by means of a girdle ; the other open. The women can scarcely be distinguished from the Turkish, ex- cept that, like their countrymen, they are for- bidden to wear yellow slippers, and make use of red. Armenian females are in a state of degra- dation equal to that exhibited under the influ- ence of Mohammedanism ; and their education is wholly neglected, since they are regarded in no other light than as appendages to the other sex. Marriages are effected without the consent of the parties, who are often betrothed as early as three or four years of age, and wedded, the girls at ten, the boys at fourteen. A man's mother generally rules his house, while his wife is a mere cipher in it, and obliged, on every occasion, to submit her will to that of her mo- ther-in-law : she is not permitted to sit while ARMENIAN TRADITION. 467 her husband is in the room, nor to speak unless spoken to, till she bear a child ; she takes no share in the entertainment of her husband's guests, unless it be that of a servant, in which case she appears with her face concealed ; and it is considered indelicate for a young woman to raise her voice above a whisper before a stranger. A husband and wife may be sepa- rated by mutual consent, or on account of the last excesses of immorality on the part of the latter, but neither is at liberty to contract a new marriage; and divorce is not sanctioned by the law nor the church. The Armenians have a tradition that their ancestors were taught astronomy and husban- dry by Noah. They believe their language to be of greater antiquity than the Hebrew, the first medium, in fact, of communication in the garden of Eden ; and they argue that, as the ark rested on Ararat, the descendants of those who settled in its neighbourhood were the most likely to retain the original tongue. Their con- version to the Christian faith is referred by them to the time of our Lord himself. Their king Abgarus, having heard of his miracles, despatched two messengers with a prayer that he would heal him of a severe disease, sending, at the same time, some valuable presents, in- 468 LETTER TO OUR LORD. eluding the " sacred and mysterious" coat without seam, for which the soldiers subse- quently cast lots. In the letter transmitted by these deputies he addressed Christ by his own titles as sovereign of Armenia and Assyria, offering him those kingdoms, and stating his own readiness and that of his people to submit themselves entirely to him. Our Lord, being about to suffer, replied that he must fulfil the Holy Scriptures, and could not, therefore, ac- cede to the king's request to visit him in per- son ; but that he would shortly send an apostle to restore him to health. Accordingly, St. Thad- deus afterwards went to Edessa, where, preach- ing the gospel to Abgarus, he healed and bap- tized him. The baptism of their sovereign was followed by the adoption of Christianity as the religion of his subjects, who have held, as they consider, the faith of Jesus undefiled from that day to the present. Tradition adds that one of these deputies was a painter, and wished to take the Saviour's portrait on a cloth prepared for that purpose; but, as his face was illuminated by so bright a halo of glory that the artist could not succeed, Christ, willing to gratify his laudable desire, caused his likeness to be miraculously impressed on the cloth, which he directed to be given to the king with a written reply to his ARMENIAN SEPARATION. 469 letter. The genuineness of the first of the two letters referred to has been a subject of much dispute among the learned : it was maintained by St. Augustine, who says that our Lord promised Abgarus that his city of Edessa should be impregnable ; and Addison on the same subject observes, " Had we such an evi- dence for any fact in pagan history an author would be thought very unreasonable who should reject it." * The Armenians separated from the Christian church A. D. 535, eighty-four years after the council of Chalcedon : the secession was per- fected in sixteen years ; and in the year 551, in the patriarchate of Moses the first, they commenced an era of their own, which has ever since been substituted by them for the Chris- tian. Their patriarchs are five in number, who reside respectively at Cis near Tarsus, Con- stantinople, Aghtamar on the great lake Van, Jerusalem, and the monastery of Etchmiazin near Erivan. The last-mentioned is the head of the church, and is called catholicos.-\ He is the only person who has power to ordain bishops and to consecrate the meiron, or holy * Addison on the Christian religion. Sect. I. f This word was originally only a prefix to episcopos, just as the pope is called " universal bishop," and has a similar, though more limited, signification. 470 ARMENIAN HIERARCHY. oil, used in confirmation, ordination, and other religious ceremonies ; whose virtue consists in a miracle said to be performed at the time of consecration, when it is made to boil without the application of heat. The patriarchs of Cis and Aghtamar have the powers and privileges of a catholicos within their own narrow limits ; but, with these small exceptions, the authority of the prelate of Etchmiazin has been admitted by the whole Armenian nation ever since the year 1441, when Armenia proper seceded from the jurisdiction of the see of Cis. A few years ago, however, Etchmiazin fell into the hands of Russia ; since which period the Porte has striven to sever the link which unites the Armenians of Turkey to their spiritual head by directing their allegiance to the patriarch of Cis, who is still a Turkish subject. While the catholicos of Etchmiazin is the spiritual superior, the patriarch of Constantino- ple is the avowed secular head of the Armenian church : he is elected by twenty-four lay pri- mates, chosen to fill that office on account of superior wealth, talents, or influence; and is then confirmed by the sultan. In ecclesiastical matters he does not rank above any other bishop ; but, with the Turkish government, he is the only acknowledged representative of the ARMENIAN HIERACHY. 471 Armenian rayahs : through him all applications are transmitted, and all orders issued ; and he receives an annual tribute from every bishop, which was paid even by his spiritual superior of Etchmiazin, till the latter became a Russian subject. From these tributes he satisfies the one impost levied by Turkey on the Armenians as a body ; except that collected by the patriarch of Jerusalem, who pays direct to the Porte, and is independent of his brother at Constan- tinople. He is, moreover, vested with a certain judicial authority over his own people, in vir- tue of which he presides over a court of " pre- miere instance ;" he takes note of births, deaths, and marriages; and supplies the certificate, without which no Armenian can obtain a pass- port. Formerly the prelate resident at the ca- pital had no powers beyond those of any other bishop ; but after his elevation to a patriarchate, the catholicos of Etchmiazin resigned to him the appointment of suffragans to their dioceses within the limits of his jurisdiction. The num- ber of prelates is not limited by the number of sees; and any convent that presents a petition in favor of an individual whom it desires as its president may ensure his consecration by a handsome present. In the Armenian, as in the Greek, church, 472 ARMENIAN PRIESTS. every secular priest must be married ; but this is not enough ; he must be a father before he can undertake the charge of a parish : if he become a widower, he must enter a convent and remain such ; but, unlike the Greek priest similarly circumstanced, he is eligible to the highest ecclesiastical honors. No qualification is required of a candidate for holy orders but that he should be able to read ; many cannot write ; and few, by comparison, are familiar with the old and dead language of Armenia, in which all their theological works are written, and which differs as much from that now spoken, as ancient Greek from Ro- maic : they do not generally maintain a high moral character; but, on the contrary, are as careless, indolent, and self-indulgent, as they are illiterate. Pastors are never nominated to parishes by the bishop, but selected by the congregation ; the diocesan, however, has the power of deposition. The parish priest very seldom preaches ; this duty being performed by a vartabed, or preacher, appointed for the purpose ; while the former confines himself to the daily routine of church services, confessing, baptizing, marrying, and burying. As the sons of Aaron were required to be ceremonially clean when offering sacrifices, so is the Arme- ARMENIAN PRIESTS. 473 man priest when celebrating the mass, which is a supposed renewal of the sacrifice of Christ ; and with this view, he is called upon to se- parate himself from his family and to devote himself entirely to religious services, passing his nights as well as his days in the temple for a month and a half : this period is divided into three, during the first and last of which he is occupied in baptizing, administering extreme unction, celebrating marriages, and making wafers for the use of the church ; and only during the middle period of fifteen days is he permitted to celebrate the mass. A similar seclusion and appropriation of himself to re- ligious duties is required for fifteen days before and after every repetition of that sacrament. The Armenians entertain a profound re- spect for the Bible, copying it on their knees, and covering it with a binding enchased with silver : the laity are obliged to solicit a special permission to read it, which they do with the head uncovered. For a hundred and twenty years after their conversion to Christianity, they made use of the Greek language in their public services ; but no sooner had they formed for themselves an alphabet than the Bible was translated from the Greek, A. D. 410, into their vulgar tongue. This translation is still used : VOL. i. 2 G 474 ARMENIAN FASTS. it is the oldest Armenian book, and one of the oldest manuscripts of the Sacred Scriptures, now extant; and, as such, it would be invalu- able, were it not for the alterations effected in the thirteenth century by the false zeal of Hethem, king of Armenia, who became a Franciscan friar, and introduced into it from the vulgate several corruptions favorable to the papists. The Armenians are exceedingly rigid in their fasts. Besides the whole season of Lent, they have ten others of five days each, and one of eight, together with every Wednesday and Friday, making in all two hundred and two days in a year. During these periods they abstain from flesh, fish, butter, oil, milk, and wine : and in addition, their priests observe two other fasts of fifty days each, one before Christ- mas, the other before the anniversary of the transfiguration ; but during these two seasons they indulge in eggs, butter, and milk ; and on Saturday and Sunday they drink wine. One of their modes of dispensing charity is very peculiar. They say that when, after a long defection, a portion of their nation re- embraced Christianity at the preaching of St. Gregory Loosavoritch, the priests, who used to be supported by the heathen sacrifices, request- ed him to provide for their sustenance. He SACRIFICES. 475 accordingly directed that they should have a tithe of the produce of the land, and that the people, now relieved from the burden of sacri- fices to other gods, should dedicate them to Je- hovah in the name of the dead, " as a charity to the hungry." On the strength of this tradition they occasionally devote as an offering for their deceased friends an ox or a sheep, taking it first to the door of the church, placing salt before the altar, reading the Scriptures, praying for the de- parted, and finally giving the salt to the animal to be eaten. The victim is then slain and shared between the priest, the poor, and the friends of the deceased ; while, with Levitical scrupu- losity, they guard against any portion remain- ing till the following day. Similar sacrifices are offered at Easter and on the great festivals of the saints ; but always in the name of the dead, and as an eleemosynary gift, never as a propitiatory oblation. Though they profess to deny the existence of a state of purgatory, yet occasionally, and on certain days, they say masses for the dead, in memory of whom they keep lamps burning all night. The stated seasons are the day of the funeral, and the seventh, fifteenth, fortieth, and three hundred and sixty-fifth day after it. Besides praying for their deceased friends, 2 G 2 476 WORSHIP OF CROSS. they burn incense over their graves, especially on Saturday evening, and give alms on their behalf, believing that this will redound to their merit. For a whole year after the loss of a near relation, women never quit their houses, even to attend divine service. Every person bequeaths to the church a silver cross bearing his name, which varies in size with the means of the testator. They hold the original cross in high venera- tion, regarding it as an effective intercessor with the Father for the sins of the world, as is proved by the following words in their prayer- book: " Through the supplications of the holy cross, the silent intercessor, O merciful God, have compassion upon the spirits of the dead :" and again, " Let us supplicate from the Lord the great and mighty power of the holy cross for the benefit of our souls." Imitations of this sacred object in wood and metal are much in vogue with them ; but these, prior to use, must be dipped in water and wine : to wor- ship them before this immersion is a breach of the second commandment ; to worship them after, is consistent, they say, with Scripture ; for in the ceremony Christ has united himself to the cross, making it his " throne," his " chariot," his " weapon ;" and the spiritual SIGN OF CROSS. 477 eye sees not the material substance, but Him who is united to it. It is this veneration of the cross which con- fers on its sign such a virtue. One of the chief Christian duties, in the estimation of an Armenian, is to cross himself frequently, and, above all, in the due canonical form, placing the thumb and three fingers together, then touching, in succession the forehead, the bot- tom of the chest, the left breast, and the right breast, saying with this action the following words, to synchronize exactly with the qua- druple movement of the arms, " In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," The Armenians and Papists perform this ceremony alike ; the Greeks, be- sides touching the right before the left breast, ( an unpardonable sin ! ) use but two fingers and the thumb, intending thereby to symbo- lize the Holy Trinity ; while the Jacobites, Copts, and Abyssinians manifest their mono- physitism by employing only one ringer. The Armenians reason curiously regarding the merit of making the sacred sign. By it they " profess to signify, First, a belief in the Trinity, since the three persons are named ; and Secondly, in the mediatorial work of Christ; since the act of carrying the hand from 478 ARMENIAN MONOPHYSITISM. the forehead to the chest represents his de- scent from heaven to earth, and its motion from the left to the right breast intimates that he delivered the saints that were in hades, and made them worthy of heaven." They make this mystical sign as often as they kneel, rise from prayer, retire to rest, get up, dress, wash, eat, drink, or enter upon any important business. They believe it will render their prayers acceptable and facilitate their work, guard them from evil spirits, and strengthen them against sin. The leading feature in the Armenian creed is the error of Eutyches, who maintained that there was but one nature in Christ, the human being wholly absorbed in the divine. Though they rejected the council of Chalcedon, and though an assembly of bishops who met A.D. 491 anathematized Eutyches, yet in a council, held A. D. 520, under the patriarch ISerses the Se- cond at Thevin, the monophysite doctrine was avowedly espoused, and the words " who wast crucified for us" were inserted in the trisagion,* thus making God the Father the passible vic- * The trisagion is the following ejaculation, with the ob- jectionable words inserted : " O holy God, holy strong, and holy immortal, rvho rvast crucified for us, have mercy upon ARMENIAN CREED. 479 tim of his own justice. This was the consum- mation of the heresy for which, upwards of twenty years before, the rest of the Christian church had denounced the Armenians ; and their separation became from that time inevit- able and permanent. On this doctrine, how- ever, it is extremely difficult to ascertain accu- rately their opinion. Their own statement is, that they hold but one nature in Christ, not denying the human as did Apollinaris, nor confounding the two as did Eutyches, nor dividing them as did Nestorius, but believing that the divine and human natures were so united as to form but one, in the same way that the soul and body constitute but one per- son. An ecclesiastic in Armenia informed an American missionary of our acquaintance that his church maintains the existence of only one will, as well as only one nature, in Christ ; thus representing it as tainted no less with the mo- riothelite, than with the monophysite, heresy. The creed, which the Armenians repeat daily, is peculiar to themselves, and involves, among much that is scriptural, some doctrines in which they differ from Papists, Greeks, and Protestants. The following is the translation of a portion of it.* The priest, standing with * Messrs. Smith and Dwight, two American missionaries 480 ARMENIAN CREED. his face to the west, says, " We renounce the devil and all his arts and wiles, his counsel, his ways, his evil angels, his evil ministers, the evil executors of his will ; and all his evil power renouncing, we renounce." Then turn- ing towards the east, he says, " We confess and believe, with the whole heart, in God the Father, uncreated, unbegotten, and without beginning, both begetter of the Son, and send- er of (literally, from whom proceeds,) the Holy Ghost. We believe in God the Word, un- created, begotten and begun of the Father before all eternity ; not posterior nor younger, but as long as the Father is Father, the Son now in the Levant, were among the first, if they be not still the only, Protestants who have explored Armenia, with the express object of collecting information regarding the religion and habits of the people. To the journal and conversation of these gentlemen, especially Mr. Smith, under whose hospi- table roof he was entertained at the foot of mount Lebanon, the author is indebted for this creed and the following form of confession, as also for nearly all the little information he has gleaned respecting the habits and doctrines of the Arme- nians. Regarding their statements as peculiarly authentic, he has been induced to dilate on a subject at once so new and so interesting to many readers : in doing which, he has entered into some details that, perhaps, more strictly apply to the Armenians of Armenia Proper than to their brethren at Constantinople, who may have lost some little (though less than might be expected) of their peculiarities as a nation and a church. ARMENIAN CREED. 481 is Son with him. We believe in God the Holy Ghost, uncreated, unbegotten, but pro- ceeding from the Father, partaking of the Fa- ther's essence, and of the Son's glory. We believe in the Holy Trinity, one substance, one divinity, not three Gods but one God, one will, one kingdom, one dominion, creator of all things visible and invisible. We believe in the forgiveness of sins, in the Holy Church, with the communion of saints. We believe that one of the three persons, God the Word, was before all eternity begotten of the Father, and perfect God became man, with spirit, soul, and body, one person, one attribute, and one united nature; God became man without change, and without variation. As there is no beginning of his divinity, so there is no end of his humanity, for Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." After this creed a form of confession is used for the whole congregation, which, at the con- clusion^of the service, is repeated by each in- dividual who wishes to be absolved ; when the priest sits on the ground in a corner of the church, and the penitent kneels by his side with his, or her, head in his lap. The form is in all cases the same. With a few expressions omitted and the indelicacy of others corrected, 482 ARMENIAN CONFESSION. it is as follows : "I have sinned against the most holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and I confess before God, the holy mother of God, and before thee, holy father, all the sins I have committed. For I have sinned in thought, in word, and in deed ; voluntarily and involuntarily, knowingly and ignorantly: I have sinned against God. I have sinned with my spirit and its faculties, with my mind and its acts, with my body and its senses. I have sinned with the faculties of my spirit ; by cunning and by folly, by audacity and by cowardice, by prodigality and by ava- rice, by dissipation and by injustice, by love of evil, by desperation, and by mistrust : I have sinned against God. I have sinned with the evil devices of my mind ; by artifice, by ma- lice, by vindictiveness, by envy, by jealousy, by dissoluteness, by unchaste propensities : I have sinned against God. I have sinned with the lusts of my body, by sensuality, by sloth, by the yawning of sleep ; by the acts of the body and by the commission of divers kinds of impurity, by the hearing of my ears, by the shamelessness of my eyes, by inconti- nence, by gluttony, and by drunkenness : I have sinned against God. I have sinned with the evil speaking of my tongue ; by ARMENIAN CONFESSION. 483 lying, by false swearing, by perjury, by con- tentiousness, by disputing, by defamation, by flattery, by tale-bearing, by idleness, by mock- ery, by vain conversation, by talking heresy, by cursing, complaining, backbiting, and blas- pheming : I have sinned against God. I have sinned with every joint of my frame and every member of my body, with my seven senses and my six operations : I have sin- ned against God. I have also sinned by committing the seven transgressions, the mor- tal sins ; by pride and its varieties, by envy and its varieties, by anger and its varie- ties, by sloth and its varieties, by covetous- ness and its varieties, by gluttony and its varieties, by lasciviousness and its varieties. I have also sinned against all the commands of God, both the positive and the negative ; for I have neither done what is commanded, nor abstained from what is forbidden. I have re- ceived the law, and come short of it. I have been invited to the rites of Christianity, and by my conduct have been found unworthy ; knowing the evil, I have voluntarily debased myself, and of myself have departed from good works. Ah me ! Ah me ! Ah me ! which shall I tell ? Or which shall I confess ? For my transgressions cannot be numbered, my iniqui- 484 ties cannot be told, my pains are irremissible, my wounds are incurable ! I have sinned against God ! Holy father, I have thee for an intercessor and a mediator of reconciliation with the only begotten Son of God. That by the power given unto thee thou wouldest loose me from the bands of my sins, thee I sup- plicate !" This form has the merit of being so general that no one repeating it can stand acquitted at the bar of conscience ; at the same time, it is open to the charge of being so minute that few will acknowledge themselves guilty in every point adverted to. The simple and beautiful confession which our church puts into the mouth of her children is entirely free from this fault, and strikingly exhibits that excellence ; for each clause is equally adapted to, and equal- ly convicts, every individual : the sinner over- whelmed with a sense of guilt could not say more, while the saint on the point of entering into glory would not express less, than is in- cluded in its comprehensive and deeply peni- tential strains. It is worthy of remark that the Armenians themselves are so conscious of the impossibility of particularizing every pos- sible species of transgression, an attempt to do which constitutes the main defect of their AND PAPAL DOCTRINES. 485 form, when cleansed of its indelicacies, that, previous to absolution, another confession is generally called for of the peculiar sins, not specified in the canonical summary, which the penitent may feel to weigh heavily on his conscience. In several respects the Armenian church is chargeable with errors similar to those of the Roman Catholic. Saints and angels are so ex- alted that the " One mediator between God and man" is almost lost sight of. Prayers and supplications are offered " through the in- tercession of the holy mother of God, and of John the Baptist, and of St. Stephen the protomartyr, and of St. Gregory Loosavoritch, through the memory and prayer of the saints, and for the sake of the holy cross ;" and even when they are addressed directly to the se- cond person in the Trinity, they are urged with some such plea as this : "O gracious Lord, for the sake of thy holy, immaculate, and virgin mother, and of the precious cross, accept our prayer and make us live." The virgin is over-estimated quite as much by the one church as by the other. The German mis- sionaries at Shoosha heard an emissary of the catholicos of Etchmiazin preach a sermon in which he made use of these words : " As Adam 486 ARMENIAN DOCTRINES. could not live without the woman, neither can Christ be mediator without Mary ; she is the queen mentioned in the 45th Psalm ; the most beautiful of women whose charms are" cele- brated in the Song of Solomon ; and as Christ did all that she required at the marriage in Cana, so will he now always regard her inter- cessions." On another occasion the same divine is said to have asserted, not only that Christ could not be mediator without Mary, but even that he would take upon himself to affirm that she is equal to either of the persons in the holy Trinity !"* In the common prayer-book she is called the " mediator of the world, seraph of dust, more famous than the cherubim." Though the Armenians do not hold her freedom from original guilt, so strongly advocated by Greeks and Papists, yet they assert that she ceased to be susceptible of sin from the moment that the incarnate Word was conceived in her, and they believe in the miraculous assumption of her body into heaven. Like the Romanists also, they hold seven * Though instances of this character serve rather to ex- hibit the ignorance of an individual than the errors of the church to which he belongs, yet enough has been already stated to prove that the doctrines and acknowledged formu- laries of the Armenian church lead to such excesses. ADMINISTRATION OF SACRAMENTS. 487 sacraments ; namely, baptism, confirmation, the eucharist, penance, ordination, marriage, and extreme unction ; and in the celebration of the Lord's supper they use unleavened bread. With the Papists, too, they maintain the cor- poreal presence of Christ in the consecrated elements, declaring that the human soul and the divinity of our Lord, as well as his body, are present in the bread and wine ; therefore they pray, " May these (the bread and wine) be for justification, propitiation, and remission of sins, to all of us who draw near !" In the administration of baptism and the eucharist the Armenians follow the Greeks, except in a few trifling particulars. Like them, they baptize by immersion, first sprinkling water thrice over the face in the name of the Holy Trinity, and then immersing the body as often to intimate that Christ remained three days in the grave. This sacrament, which can under no circumstances be administered out of a church, is generally celebrated on the eighth day ; and, strange as it may appear, the child is confirmed at the same time by anointing with the meiron the forehead, and the organs of the five senses ; that is, the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and hands and feet : the infant is made a partaker of the communion immediately 488 DIFFERENCES OF GREEK after, by rubbing his lips with the sacred ele- ments ; and, lest he should, at the moment of death, be so circumstanced as not to be able then to receive extreme unction from the hand of a priest, that sacrament also is administered with the other three to a babe eight days old ! Again, like the Greeks, in opposition to the Papists, the Armenians use wine unmixed with water in the sacrament of the Lord's supper, of which they allow the laity to par- take in both kinds by dipping the consecrated wafer in the wine. On the exhibition of the host, the priest exhorts the congregation to salute one another with a holy kiss, in token of congratulation for Christ's presence among them ; and the exhortation is complied with either in fact or in form. In some respects the Armenians Judaize : for instance, they offer up sacrifices of animals on the festival of the virgin, besides those referred to for the souls of deceased friends ; they abstain from unclean meats, as pork and hare ; and enjoin on females and priests ceremonial cleanness, as above noticed. As the differences between the Greek and Armenian churches relate to very minute points, and are yet maintained with a violence which engenders mutual hatred exceeding that AND ARMENIAN CHURCHES. 489 borne by either party to any other class of reli- gionists, it may be interesting to exhibit those discrepancies in juxta-position as accurately as a limited acquaintance with the subject will allow. 1. The Armenians use unleavened bread in the sacrament of the eucharist. 2. They do not maintain the virgin's freedom from original sin. 3. They touch the left breast before the right, in making the sign of the cross. 4. They offer sacrifices. 5. They abstain from unclean meats. 6. They never admit females as baptismal sponsors, nor suffer a layman to baptize. 7. They allow ecclesiastics, who have been married and have lost their wives, to attain higher grades in the church. 8. Their sacred festivals differ both in the time of celebration* and in number, the Arme- nians not having increased their's since the date of their separation from the universal church. 9. But the principal difference consists in * Thus the Armenians celebrate our Lord's nativity four- teen days after the Greeks ; and, as they believe that on the thirtieth anniversary of that event he was baptized, the nativity and baptism are commemorated on the same day. Like the Greeks, they adhere to the old style. VOL. I. 2 H 490 MISSIONARY LABORS the attachment of the Armenians to the mo- nophysite heresy, which teaches that the human nature of Christ was absorbed in the divine, and, therefore, that God suffered. Considerable efforts have been made by Eng- lish and American missionaries to instruct the rayahs in Constantinople, as well as in other parts of the Ottoman empire, especially in Smyrna. Several schools have been established, in which, after learning to read and write, the children are taught the doctrines of Scripture without any direct reference to the hetero- doxies of their own creed. The inculcation of truth is found to be the surest safeguard against error ; and though, in after years, some may love darkness rather than light, yet there is ground to hope that many will continue to hold the essentials of Christianity learnt in childhood, without yielding to the heresies pro- mulgated by their mother-church. But the anticipations of those who expect much to be effected in a very short time by mere human agency are not likely to be realized. A rapid transition from a state of extreme debasement to moral excellence is an anomaly in the history of man ; and here, the peculiar character of the people opposes more than ordinary barriers to the introduction of AMONG THE ARMENIANS. 491 truth. The object of every one is to con- ceal his transactions, his plans, and his feelings; to be " politic ;" to steer between extremes ; to keep well with all parties : and this spirit in- fects the converts to Protestantism in common with all their countrymen. Such as are con- vinced of the errors of their church and wish well to the missionary cause are long, very long, before they will express boldly their opinions or commit themselves by any overt act of participation ; and even when they have once done so, their continued adherence is by no means certain. Thus, the missionary's diffi- culties are increased, his patience tried, and his harvest deferred. Still, the work is progress- ing ; the seed is being sown ; and here and there a plant, springing up in the ungenial soil, bears fruit. Of all the rayahs the Armenians are in the most hopeful state. Among them a spirit of enquiry on religious subjects has been excited : many are dissatisfied with their own teachers and, like Pilate, enquiring " What is truth ?" Some young men were pointed out to us who always carry their Bibles in their bosoms ; and a peculiarly interesting and encouraging cir- cumstance lately occurred here. An Armenian, of good family and unusual talent, was led to 492 MISSIONARY LABORS see the anti-scriptural nature of many of the doctrines in which he had been educated, and yielded his unqualified assent to the simple truths of the word of God, as set before him by Protestant ministers. After much delibe- ration, he decided that he would not volun- tarily leave his own church, as by so doing he should diminish his sphere of usefulness ; he therefore abstained from any fomral act of se- paration, but continued to associate intimately with the American missionaries, and even to teach in their schools. The keen and jealous eye of his ecclesiastical superiors did not long overlook this advance of truth against error: the convert was accused by a priest of hold- ing heterodox opinions, and was summoned to answer the charge before a council appointed by the patriarch to enquire into the matter. In his defence he referred exclusively to the Sacred Scriptures ; such evidence could not be gainsaid by men professing themselves Chris- tians; and after an examination, extended through several days, he was declared perfectly orthodox, while his accuser was denounced as an infidel. The Armenian convert having identified himself with the " Bible-men," (as the missionaries are designated,) his cause was theirs : with his theirs would have fallen ; AMONG THE GREEKS. 493 and with his it was confirmed and established to the great dismay of the hostile party, who, in full assurance of victory, had prepared a list of eight hundred persons to be arraigned on the same account, as soon as their first victim should be condemned. His acquittal, however, resulted in their confusion, which was rendered the more complete by the episcopal president patting the accused on the shoulder and say- ing, " I wish there were more of your way of thinking." This occurrence interestingly ex- hibits the superiority of the Armenian priest- hood to their Greek and Romish rivals as re- gards their veneration for the word of God ; a feature in their character which alone can ac- count for the acquittal of the young convert, and which at the same time holds out a hope- ful promise of self-renovation to the church. Of the Greeks, not less than seven hundred were, till lately, receiving education, through the agency of the English Church Missionary Society, in Smyrna and the neighbouring towns ; and the schools were a source of light and instruction to the children, while the pa- rents joyfully acknowledged the benefit they received. We witnessed their operations with exceeding interest; and heard both boys and girls read the Scriptures in their mother tongue 494 MISSIONARY LABORS and answer the questions proposed to them with an accuracy which reflected honor on the native teachers and on the Rev. Mr. Jetter, their unwearied superintendent. But this was not to last. The priests had long watched the missionaries with envy, and at length resolved to put a stop to their proceedings. They first demanded the dismissal of one of the masters, on the plea that he was a convert to Protes- tantism who had shown himself very zealous for the reformed religion, and must therefore necessarily be anxious to shake the faith of the children in the dogmas of the Greek church. Failing in this effort, they circulated a report that the English and Americans had sent mis- sionaries to convert the Greeks to Protestant- ism, they fabricated the vilest calumnies against them, and at length they obtained from the patriarch of Constantinople an order, which was read in all the churches of Asia Minor, de- nouncing every parent who should continue to send his children to be instructed under their superintendence. From that time the schools have been deserted; and an ignorant and su- perstitious clergy have succeeded in robbing their fellow-countrymen of the key of truth and knowledge. The fact is, that their own influence over the minds of the people can be AMONG THE JEWS. 495 preserved only by a systematic effort to shut out all intellectual and spiritual light. But the conflict between light and darkness is begun, and it remains to be seen how long the latter will prevail. The people are at this very time bitterly lamenting the loss they have sustained in the schools, and it is not improbable that the missionaries may be requested to re-open them. But while the condition of the Christian rayahs is one which leaves the mind to fluc- tuate between hope and despair, that of the Jews is still less favorable. Among them a persecuting spirit prevails, and many who de- sire to be taught are afraid to hold intercourse with the missionaries. Not long since, a He- brew, anxious to enquire into the truth of Christianity, was seen going to one of their houses. On leaving it, he was seized, impri- soned, and bastinadoed. Another, who, with his wife, was known to have sought instruc- tion, was ejected from the city; the woman was poisoned, and their three children were violently taken from the father to be brought up in Judaism. A third Israelite was lately converted under the ministry of an enlight- ened Roman Catholic, who continued for a short time to preach the gospel faithfully; but 496 CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS. was soon compelled to desist ; and his proselyte was driven out of Constantinople. While directing their attention principally to the rayahs, the indefatigable missionaries have not neglected their Mohammedan fellow- subjects. A school was established some years ago for Turkish youth, which continued in a florishing condition till the jealousy of the imams was excited. They impeached the na- tive master before the governor, and he was committed to prison ; the boys were forbidden to attend under a heavy penalty, the books were destroyed, and the room was stripped of forms and tables. Since that occurrence, the attempt to instruct the Turks has not been renewed ; but each year is making inroads on their superstition and exclusiveness, and every obstacle that is thrown in the way of intro- ducing the truth to the rayahs tends to stimu- late the efforts of the missionaries to place it before their rulers ; who, though they still refuse to trust their children in the hands of the "giaours" are very willing to receive school- books and maps, while some will even accept and read with interest copies of our sacred Scriptures. Such is the state of morals and religion in the great metropolis of Turkey ; and such the CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS. 497 picture which the whole empire presents. All, or very nearly all, is darkness ; and the few and feeble rays which pierce the gloom serve only to make the " darkness visible," and to " discover sights of woe." The faith of the Saracen impostor, itself holding forth no in- ducement to moral or spiritual excellence, not only operates as a debasing principle upon its own disciples, but, with an upas influence, blights every germ of virtue in those sub- jected to its control or example. Neverthe- less, in spite of all, the Christian is encouraged by the word of God to hope against hope for the dawn of a day when Mohammedanism shall be superseded by the religion of the Bible, and when that religion itself, now ex- hibited in this country under forms so vitiated that it can hardly be recognized as Christian- ity, shall burst the veil which superstition and idolatry have thrown over it, and shall attest by its fruits the efficacy of divine truth on the heart of man. END OF VOLUME THE FIRST. PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY, Dorset Street, Fleet Street.