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 THE 
 
 ARMENIANS, 
 
 A TALE OF COXSTANTIXOPLE. 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES MAC FARLAXE, ESQ. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 " CONSTANTINOPLE IN 1828." 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. L 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET. 
 18S0.
 
 LONDON ': 
 
 lEOTSON AN1» PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY SXHtKT, STRAND.
 
 v.l 
 
 TO THOMAS HOPE, Esq. 
 
 My dear Sir ; 
 To you, as the author of " Anastasius," 
 I inscribe this Eastern tale, with senti- 
 ments of admiration and respect. 
 
 I have mentioned to you, on a former 
 occasion, that while in Turkey, your 
 book was constantly occurring to me, 
 and that the personages and events of 
 your story haunted me like spirits. Such 
 deep impressions have never been made
 
 IV DEDICATION. 
 
 on my mind by any work of imagina- 
 tion — nor, perhaps, by any event of real 
 life. Many thousands of admiring rea- 
 ders may have felt in the same mode, 
 though not in the same degree ; for it 
 has been my fortune to associate Anas- 
 tasius with proud Stambool, to trace him 
 over the Thracian solitudes, and along 
 the Bosphorus' banks, and to summon 
 and enjoy his presence at Smyrna and 
 Magnesia. The triumphal road which 
 leads to Glory's " capitol" is yours — I 
 have taken a more private and familiar 
 path — happy if it lead by the temple of 
 some secondary divinity, or past some 
 grotto, the resort of a grace or a 
 nymph. 
 
 To the grand poetical features of your 
 picture of the East, I have felt that
 
 DEDICATION. T 
 
 nothing could be added, but have flat- 
 tered myself that a few domestic traits, 
 not wholly unworthy of notice, might 
 be collected by a later observer. In the 
 Armenians, moreover, I have taken up 
 a very singular people, of whom little has 
 been known hitherto ; and by notes at- 
 tached to my story, I have endeavoured 
 to convey information as well as amuse- 
 ment. Your acquaintance with Eastern 
 matters will suggest how much I might 
 have dilated, but deep research, or his- 
 torical disquisition, would be thought 
 misplaced in a work like this. As to 
 the story itself, it is nearly all matter of 
 fact. The son of a Greek Hospodar 
 became enamoured of the daughter of 
 an Armenian banker at Constantinople. 
 They loved — met — married — and were
 
 VI DEDICATION. 
 
 parted much in the manner I have re- 
 lated ; and I have only shortened the 
 period of their courtship, omitted some 
 of its events, and inserted two or three 
 incidents which did not happen to 
 them, but to other individuals in the 
 country. 
 
 It would have been easy to find or to 
 fancy a more complicated tale ; but I 
 have mainly considered this as a medium 
 for description, domestic and scenic. 
 Others may smile at my enthusiasm, but 
 you, to whom the glories of Stambool 
 and the beauties of the Bosphorus are 
 familiar, will scarcely accuse me of ex- 
 aggeration or overstrained sentimentality. 
 If those descriptive portions which com- 
 pose the greater part of my work, recall 
 to your recollection an image, however
 
 DEDICATIOX. Vll 
 
 faint, of the objects they are intended to 
 represent, I feel confident that you will 
 not regret my respectfidly presenting" to 
 you these volumes. 
 
 I remain, 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 Your obliged and devoted servant, 
 
 Charles Mac Farlane. 
 
 Lojidoji, April 26, 1830.
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 It was on one of Constantinople's very finest 
 afternoons, that a stranger and a traveller from 
 a distant land, having turned his back with 
 pleasure on the dull etiquette and the palaces 
 of Pera, and the bustle and the warehouses of 
 Galata, was ascending the straits of the Bos- 
 phorus with that lively attention to scene and 
 circumstance, that perhaps only the casual vi- 
 sitor knows. 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 THE AEMENIANS. 
 
 The day had been exceedingly sultry, but 
 the southern winds which had prevailed, had 
 given place to the cool northern breeze of the 
 Euxine, which blew freely, but gently, down 
 the winding passage, and over the narrow 
 waters that separate the continents of Europe 
 and Asia — at that point where, like jealous 
 beauties, each puts on all her charms to meet 
 her rival face to face. " And truly,'' thought 
 the northern wanderer, as his light ca'ik merged 
 from the Golden Horn, and glided by the bar- 
 racks of Tophana, and the kiosks of Dolma^ 
 backchi, "truly each has well arranged her 
 jewels and her appointments-^the gems are 
 much the same on either hand, and the charm 
 of variety is found in their arrangement. On 
 this side,, on the ridge of the European hill, 
 how sad and yet how lovely is that crescent 
 of cypresses] — death's coronal — the light-im-
 
 THE AEMENIANS. S 
 
 pemous grove, that covers the shallow graves 
 and the marble tombs of the Osmanlis; and 
 on the other side, along the acclivities of the 
 Asiatic hills, how beautiful are the detached 
 portions we catch of Scutari's interminable ceme- 
 tery, which now retires from the sight in the 
 inequality of its surface, now hides itself be- 
 hind the extensive suburb or contiguous villas, 
 surrounded with gayer trees : — the regions of 
 death concealing themselves behind the abodes 
 of the li^nng, as, to the moral sense, the dark 
 path to immortality is veiled by the din and 
 bustle of merely mortal life. How sweetly do 
 the hills on either side rise from the edge of 
 the transparent waves, in gentle swells, to their 
 varied elevation — not lofty enough for sub- 
 limity, but high enough for beauty ! How 
 richly do the golden vineyards cover their sides, 
 that are thickly dotted by painted kiosks and 
 
 B 2
 
 4 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 trees, and flowers of every hue. And here, 
 and there, in Europe as in Asia, are the grey 
 domes and golden pointed minarets of the 
 mosques, on the sides of the hills, or on the 
 water's brink, where they seem, like sentient 
 beings, to be eyeing their loveliness in the 
 excursive flood, or gazing across it at each 
 other in conscious and complacent beauty. 
 How brightly the gilded crescent glitters on 
 the almost invisible points of the minaret's 
 slender cone, and how purely white are the 
 walls of the Moslem temple ! ! 
 
 " To the distant and fanciful eye, the one 
 might appear a miniature luminary, — the 
 other a mount of snow shining in its rays. 
 And hark ! from each the Muezzinn's voice — 
 the call to prayer ! Those fair edifices should 
 seem themselves instinct with voice, and notes 
 so holy and melodious should be their own 
 spiritual uttering.''
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 Along the European bank, from the point 
 of Tophana, village succeeds to village, kiosk 
 to kiosk, and the brief dividing spaces, with 
 the exception of one or two romantic ceme- 
 teries, are fair gardens, or woody glens, through 
 which some tiny stream finds its way to the 
 majestic Bosphorus. Those imperial palaces 
 are beautiful, although of frail materials ; and 
 their shelving projecting roofs, their gay co- 
 lours and gilded balls and points, convey to 
 the mind ideas essentially oriental, and scenes 
 of the far remoter east, — of the old Ind, or 
 of China. The kiosks, with closely trellised 
 windows, and fronts painted red, are the 
 dwellings of the Turks : the lords of the soil 
 could ill share these shores of superlative beau- 
 ty wdth unclean Christians, and for a consi- 
 derable distance no black or dingy hues denote 
 the houses of rayahs.
 
 t> THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 The clear waters of the channel lave the 
 walls of many of these abodes of indolence, 
 and permit the listless Eifendi to pass in a step, 
 from the caik that has transported him from 
 Stambool into his own sofa-furnished saloon ; 
 and the never-failing evening breeze must ven- 
 tilate them all, either through latticed windows 
 or open door and balcony. In many instances, 
 too, in imitation of the refinement of the most 
 luxurious of the ancient Roman patricians, 
 and of the marine villas of Baioe and Pausi- 
 lypus, these kiosks are so arranged, that the 
 sea waves flow under portions of them, giving 
 a sensation of freshness, whilst their low beat 
 and murmur, amidst the piles that support the 
 building, and the walls beneath, add to that 
 sensation, and give at the same time a soft vo- 
 luptuous charm to gratify the sense of hear- 
 ing. And on the Asiatic bank, the scene is
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 7 
 
 stUl the same ; and on the very edge of one of 
 the loveliest channels that flow on earth, vil- 
 lages give tlie hand to each other, and fairy 
 villas extend so tranquilly beautiful, that they 
 ought to be the resort of taste and worth and 
 all the domestic virtues, and not as, alas ! they 
 are, the receptacles of barbarity, tyranny, and 
 grovelling lust. 
 
 " Thus far, indeed," mused the traveller, " the 
 features of the rival continents present equal 
 charms ; but if I turn my eye back on what I 
 have left, the beam will incline in favour of my 
 own, my native Europe ; for the Asiatic suburbs 
 of Scutari and Chalcedonia ^^^ cannot compete 
 with the glories of even that small portion of 
 proud Stambool that now meets my eye. 'Tis 
 the seraglio — the occupant of the site of the an- 
 tient Byzantium — one tyrant, barbarous palace, 
 .covering the space of a whole free, brave city.
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 'Tis the seraglio, with a group of the imperial 
 mosques towering above its white walls, its 
 leaden domes and black cypresses, and with 
 part of the town stretching away to the right, 
 towards the aqueducts of Valens. ^^^ 'Tis the 
 extreme point of the fair triangle, washed on one 
 of its sides by the broad Propontis ; on the other, 
 by the waters of the tranquil Golden Horn. 'Tis 
 the spot specially appointed by nature to be one 
 of earth's capitals. 'Tis a scene at once sublime 
 and lovely. 
 
 " How do the white fronts of the scattered 
 edifices within that vast inclosure, contrast with 
 the dark cypresses which occupy nearly all the 
 space of what can scarcely be called a garden. 
 The setting sun brightens with his glow every 
 other object in this magic panorama, but he 
 cannot influence the colours of those white walls 
 and black trees, which each, intense in its way,
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 9 
 
 and by its opposition to the other, thus ever 
 looks, and is unchangeable. In part pallid be- 
 yond marble, in part more sombre than the 
 grave, the seraglio has an imposing, unearthly 
 aspect ; and associating with it, the deeds, the 
 crimes of which it has been, and is the scene, it 
 might be compared to the appearance the re- 
 bellious archangel would have presented, had 
 it pleased Omnipotence, instead of casting him 
 to hell with thunders, to blast him with a look, 
 and fix his giant bulk in lifeless, motionless 
 stability. For even so pale, so sad, so vast, and 
 yet so beautiful, might we imagine the fallen 
 <;herub, if death struck, ere his form had lost 
 'its original brightness,"* and transfixed for ever 
 with the first hues of fear, and sorrow, and re- 
 morse, upon him. 
 
 " Those imperial mosques, that rise in the 
 rear of the palace or the prison, are Stambool's 
 
 B 5
 
 16 
 
 THE AEMENIAKS, 
 
 proudest- works ; their minarets are lofty, their 
 domes are vast and boldly swelling, and taking 
 all in all, what city of Europe can offer to the 
 eye four such temples, and in immediate con- 
 tiguity with each other, as Santa Sophia, the 
 Sultan Achmet, the Sultana Valide, and the 
 Sulimanye ? 
 
 " Yesf fair Europe surpasses her duskier 
 rival ; and a portion, a small, though a glorious 
 portion, of the vast Stambool, decides her im- 
 measureable superiority. But, no! the vapours 
 of the sultry day are dissipated by the northern 
 breeze, they withdraw like the raising of a veil 
 of golden tissue from the bosom of the Pro- 
 pontis; the eye can now reach the fartjier 
 Asiatic shore of that magnificent basin : all is 
 clear, and the rays of the setting sun rest 
 upon the sublime heights of the Bithynian 
 Olympus.
 
 THE AEMENIANS. 11 
 
 " Its long, wavy ridge, covered with etenial 
 snows, that at this moment show more rose- 
 hued than ever did Mont Blanc, or any other 
 of the Alps, seems a fitting path for celestial 
 feet, an appropriate throne for the divinities of 
 old, if those essences of paganism were sus- 
 ceptible of interest in the glories of this nether 
 world, and in the sight of regions so admirably 
 formed for the solace, the support and pros- 
 perity of mortals. How beautiful, how sub- 
 lime, that range of mountain, with a cloud- 
 less sky above its head — a waveless sea at 
 its feet ! Now the more ancient of the rivals 
 prevails. Asia surpasses Europe, — and the glo- 
 ries of Olympus eclipse those of Stambool, as 
 those of nature ever will surpass those of artj"^ 
 
 The traveller may have been right in his de- 
 cision ; but before giving his preference to the 
 Asiatic side, he ought to have provided, either
 
 1^ THE ARMENIANS^ 
 
 that Olympus should be somewhat nearer, or 
 the atmosphere clearer, for it is but rarely, and 
 on fine evenings, such as he was favoured with,, 
 that the mountain is visible from the Bos- 
 phorus, and enters in the picture. His light 
 caik meanwhile, propelled by the sturdy arms 
 of two Greek boatmen, each working a pair of 
 oars, ascended the channel. 
 
 To avoid the force of the current, it is neces- 
 sary to keep close in to the European bank; but 
 even thus, it is at certain angles of the channel 
 so impetuous, that a dozen pair of oars would 
 scarcely master it ; and at these places the boat 
 is taken in tow by a number of men, who run 
 along the quay, as horses are seen to do by the 
 sides of our canals. Proceeding in this mode. 
 Seldom more than a few feet from the shore, 
 the stranger could view in detail, the features 
 on the European bank, or such of them as were
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 13 
 
 on the water's edge; whilst on the side of Asia, 
 at the varying distance of half, or three-quar- 
 ters of a mile, his eye could embrace the coun- 
 terpart of the picture, with its lovely back- 
 ground of wooded hills, all, thanks to the 
 peculiarity of their situation, and to the winds 
 and vapours from the Black Sea, fresh, and 
 gaily green, even at that advanced period of a 
 sultry summer. Numerous and beautiful were 
 the shady nooks and bosomy hills, he thus 
 passed in close or in distant \aew, and so lovely 
 seemed each, that he felt as if he could there 
 put his foot on shore and cease his wanderings ; 
 but as still he went on and on, and scenes more 
 exquisite burst upon him, he could have wished 
 thus to glide for ever, or that the little boat 
 were to him the world, and that objects such 
 as then delighted him, were destined to be his 
 sole occupation in life, his charm till death.
 
 14 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 He had passed the romantic village of Ar- 
 naiit-Keul, the imperial kiosk of Bebeck, a reli- 
 gious wood of cypresses mixed with tombs, frac- 
 tured sarcophagi, and masses of rocks, pro- 
 ducing together the most picturesque effect; he 
 had gazed on the opposite shores, and had dwelt 
 with delight on the lovely village of Kandilly, 
 and its projecting eminence, with one fair coun- 
 try house, and tall green trees ; he had glided 
 under the memorable but not imposing looking 
 castle of Mahomet the Second, or the Roumeli- 
 Hissai-; he had shot across the deep inlet of Balta 
 liman, or " the Port of the Ax," and was now 
 approaching a spot of peculiar loveliness. A 
 gentle projection — a point of land, that might 
 have been the cape of some miniature world of 
 perfect elegance, shot out into the clear Bos- 
 phorus. Its ridge, the very line of grace, was 
 designated against the picturesque, but ruder
 
 THE AEMENIANS. 15 
 
 back-ground of the Thracian bank ; its whole 
 extent was covered with a wood of cypress and 
 pine, that murmured to the sighs of the evening 
 breeze, while some of those fair but sad trees, 
 standing on the verj^ line that separated sea 
 from land, seemed to have their roots deep 
 beneath the waves. 
 
 From this holy recess, the white marble se- 
 pulchres gleamed on the eye, and these too 
 extending themselves to the Bosphorus* brink, 
 the " turbaned stone," and the less honoured 
 pillar that marks a woman's grave — the lowly 
 stone with a rudely carved basket of flowers, or 
 a solitary rose,— were reflected in the waters, 
 whose gentle laving, with the moaning of the 
 trees above, formed a natural and enduring 
 requiem, or dirge, for those who slept the sleep 
 of death, that each evening would hear repeated, 
 save when the wintery Euxine should throw
 
 16 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 down his copious discharge with increase of 
 rapidity, and lashing torrent and roaring gale 
 should su'bstitute, for notes that sounded like 
 the gentle plaint of subdued anguish and holy 
 sorrow, the groans and outcries of recent and 
 irremediable woe. 
 
 Though the stranger had loitered long on his 
 Avay, he could not fail to linger at a spot like 
 this— his heart had been bruised by early afflic- 
 tion, he had felt the loss of those he loved, the 
 disappointment of many a bright and ardent 
 hope ; he was grieving at the time under sick- 
 ness of body, and, worse, of heart, and nervous 
 and moral irritation, and disgust, had only been 
 suspended for awhile, not removed, by the 
 interest he felt in the novel objects he had 
 just passed. The present touched him more 
 than all. Those pallid marbles spoke of the 
 " beautiful in death ;" those sepulchral shades
 
 THE ARMEN*IANS. IT 
 
 of cypress and of pine, promised a repose that 
 would not be disturbed ; and the low winds, 
 those voices of heaven, that sighed through 
 them, said, in tones that could not be misun- 
 derstood, " Poor mortal ! why all this fret and 
 fever — this cark and care? yet a few short 
 years, and most assuredly thou shalt be as they 
 o'er whom we breathe ; and in the grave, or in 
 the regions beyond it, matter of utter indiffer- 
 ence Avill it be, whether thy career of life have 
 been brilliant or otherwise !" 
 
 The shades of evening were now lengthening 
 apace, and the mountain ridges, and capes of 
 Europe, reflected in the waves, seemed to do 
 homage to the hills of Asia, and to kiss their 
 feet. 
 
 Boats as numerous as the carriages on a 
 summer evening on the Neapolitan Corso, now 
 glided up the channel, each with its propor-
 
 18 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 tionate and full freight of human beings, to the 
 villages on its banks, whither the more wealthy 
 of the Turks reside during the fine season, and 
 the more respectable of the Frank and Rayah 
 population retire after the business of the day. 
 These caiks presented a striking and agreeable 
 variety as they passed in succession by the 
 stranger, who, having no one to " await hi» 
 coming, and look brighter when he came," and 
 no object, or chance of enjoyment there, save in 
 the beauty of the scenery, ordered his boatmen 
 to row as gently as they could. 
 
 The rapidly succeeding figures in the moving 
 and animated picture, were easy to be recognized 
 and reduced to their separate castes and condi- 
 tions, even by a stranger. A lengthier cai'k, 
 advancing to the pull of three pair of oars, 
 would announce a Turkish eifendi — ^it would 
 approach — go by — with noiseless, or rather,
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 19 
 
 voiceless speed, for the plash of the oars would 
 be audible, but not one syllable of social — of 
 human converse. 
 
 Reclining on soft cushions, in the bottom of 
 the boat, or seated cross-legged on a carpet of 
 brilliant hues, but in either case, as for ever, 
 with his long pipe — its tube a cherry-stick or 
 a lithe jasmine, with an envelope of cotton and 
 silk, bathed in rose-water to keep it cool ; its 
 mouth-piece precious amber, enriched with gold 
 and enamel, — the indolent proud Stambool lord 
 would be seen with two slaves at his feet, or 
 standing in the waist of the boat, with their 
 arms crossed on their breasts, and their eyes 
 fixed on their master, to detect his will and 
 pleasure in his looks. At times, as he passed 
 the Christian stranger, without turning his 
 head, he would turn his large black eyes in 
 their sockets, take a glance short and con-
 
 J80 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 temptuous, and, caressing his flowing beard 
 with complacent pride, glide on, as if he were 
 saying to himself, " the ill-shaven dog, what 
 does he here ?" 
 
 But far more frequently the ghiaour was 
 not honoured even by this doubtful sort of 
 notice ; and the haughty barbarian would 
 shoot by him, as if he were nought but a 
 familiar rock or tree, utterly unworthy of the 
 trouble of a look. 
 
 The eJfFendi, perhaps, would be followed by 
 a more humble caik, and a party of Turkish 
 traders^-drillers and venders of pipes, tobacco, 
 or shawl merchants. 
 
 There would be, perhaps, four, six, eight of 
 these dear friends and neighbours in the close 
 juxta-position, necessitated by a sheer, narrow 
 boat, yet not a word of conversation would be 
 heard from them, unless it should happen, that
 
 THE ARMENIAN'S. 21 
 
 just at the moment of their passing, a pipe 
 should be finished, or a tobacco-pouch emptied, 
 and a piece of lighted amadou^ or a bowl full 
 of the heavenly weed, required. These Osmanli 
 bazaar-gandjis would probably have in their rear 
 (for these two classes sympathize together more 
 than any other in the East), a black, modest 
 looking, but finely built ca'ik, with a cargo of 
 fat Armenian seraffs, or bankers, recognizable 
 to a man with good eyes, at least a quarter of 
 a mile off, by their black calpacks and dress, 
 their peculiarly large long eyes — black, but as 
 lustreless and as heavy as lead ; by their dingv, 
 oily complexions, plaited mustachoes, and 
 stubbled chins, and, more than all, by their 
 immense asinine ear, which is as distinctive of 
 their race, as is the Jewish eye of the children 
 of Israel. 
 
 The social soul of these rayahs seems as
 
 22 THE AEMENIANS. 
 
 thoroughly absorbed in cofFee-cups and tobacco- 
 pipes, as that of their masters the Turks — they 
 have no other idea of enjoyment, and the amount 
 of their pleasure is counted on the number of 
 chibooks they may have filled in the course of 
 the day. 
 
 It would be rarely, therefore, that the stranger 
 could catch any thing but smoke from these 
 equipages; and if he did, it would most un- 
 doubtedly be a pouring forth of the spirit of 
 lucre, and ^' rubiehs'" and ^' paradis^^'' would 
 be the sounds — the first and the last, to strike 
 his ear. ^^^ 
 
 Towards evening, a certain number of com- 
 mon passage-boats, capable of containing a host, 
 and rowed by a multitudinous assemblage of 
 oars, quit the rotten wooden scales or wharfs on 
 the Constantinople side of the Golden Horn, 
 with the small fry of traders, the refuse of the
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 28 
 
 shop-keepers of the bazaars ; for even they, poor 
 and tasteless as they may be, hasten to escape 
 from StambooPs narrow streets and hovels, to 
 the gay and ever verdant banks of tlie Bos- 
 phorus. 
 
 Several of these, all slowly as they went 
 with their heavy freight against the rapid cur- 
 rent, passed our loiterer, who was, or might 
 have been, amused with the motley, huddled 
 appearance of their living contents. The boat- 
 men, with red cloth skull-caps, and muscular 
 arms, naked to the shoulder joint, were so im- 
 peded and mixed up with the passengers, that 
 they could not always be seen. On the elevated 
 poop, a thickly wedged mass of turbans, cal- 
 packs, and beneeshes, appertaining to cross- 
 legged sedent figures, offered a tangible and 
 stable breadth of objects ; beneath them, in the 
 }3ottom of the boat, like the hold of a slave-
 
 24 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 ship, or more like a cargo of loose rags em- 
 barked at Naples, to be made into paper at 
 Leghorn or at Genoa, would be bestowed an 
 undulating, varied mass of dirty white yash- 
 macks and feridjis, belonging to sundry females ; 
 and this would be dotted here and there by a 
 glaring skull cap, decorated with shining yel- 
 low coins, (fair vouchers to the truth, that all 
 is not gold that glitters,) denoting the presence 
 of some child of the foregoing. ^'^'^ 
 
 Longitudinally disposed, and between the 
 rowers, who, as I have said, were almost hid, 
 were sundry poor bazaar sweepers on the edge 
 of the boat, over whose sides their long pipes 
 projected like so many fishing rods; and, to 
 finish the account of the stowage of the cargo, 
 the platform at the prow of the barge was 
 covered with turbans, calpacks and beneeshes, 
 just as its poop. As this Charon-like bark and
 
 THE ARMENIANS. tS 
 
 freight passed, the mingled and euphonous 
 sounds of the Osmanlis' and the Armenians' 
 Turkish, the Greeks^ Romaic, and the Jews'* 
 degraded Castilian, ^^^ floated, with clouds of 
 tobacco, on the air, — for these mingled classes 
 could talk as well as smoke: all were poor 
 enough to be merry, — and whenever a dozen 
 Greeks are gathered together, there, you may 
 be sure, will be gossip, and wit, and laughter 
 among them ; whilst the poor Israelites, con- 
 temptible as they are, rise a degree or two in 
 estimation, from their superior sociability and 
 conversiveness, and are generally found ready to 
 take their chibook from their mouths, to laugh 
 at any body'^s joke. ^^) 
 
 Another of the groups in the aquatic pro- 
 cession, which that evening might (no, 7misf, 
 from the habits of the animals,) have glided 
 past our observer, would be a hired ca'ik with 
 
 VOL I. c
 
 26 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 two pairs of oars, containing a thing of infinite 
 solemnity and importance, in yellow slippers, 
 fawn coloured jubbee, and samoor calpack — a 
 drogoman — a dealer in words; the Tenderer 
 into bad Turkish, of the bad French of some 
 pompous minister of some infinitely little Euro- 
 pean state — a post h© is as proud of, as if he 
 delivered to mortals the edicts of the great 
 Jupiter. Perhaps, he would have with him his 
 better half, Madame La Drogomanesse, cer- 
 tainly, one or two flippant "jeunes des lan- 
 gues," those aspirants at diplomacy; and as 
 they go by on their four oars, and imperti- 
 nently toiser the sick, irritable stranger, he 
 may have the satisfaction of hearing such 
 pleasant remarks as these — " Voild encore un 
 Anglais poitrinaire. Qu'est il. Est-ce qu'il a 
 eU presente au palais 9 Croyez vous quHl soU 
 noble. Est il Protestant a rordinaire, ou Ca-
 
 THE AEMENIAXS. 2fJ^> 
 
 tholiqtce comrne 7iotre Docteur,'^ &c. And thus 
 they pass on their way to the village of Buyuk- 
 dere, where they and their masters have trans- 
 ferred all the stiffness and ennui of Pera, and 
 that etiquette, the great concern of those pigmy 
 diplomatists who have no sort of business to 
 transact — no political nor commercial interests 
 to conduct. There, along the smooth extend- 
 ing quay, washed with waves ever clear as 
 the mountain stream, with the Giant's Mount, 
 the entrance into the Euxine, and the wooded 
 dell of the " Grand Signior," scenery rich, 
 lovely, and elevating, to a degree almost 
 equal to any thing on earth, constantly be- 
 fore their eyes; or in the promenade of the 
 Great Valley, so picturesque, so romantic, so 
 pastoral, and in the shade of its glorious plane 
 trees, these creatures of Pera never lose sigh 
 for a moment of their own paltry importance, 
 
 c 2
 
 iJ8 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 but persist in frightening away the Dryads with 
 their eternal discussions on rank and precedence, 
 interlarded with obsolete and most intolerant 
 polemics. 
 
 The bad humour that such knowledge might 
 have imparted to the stranger, was as yet spared 
 him ; but he felt the insolence and vulgarity of 
 the gaze of this boat-load of drogomanerie, and 
 w as about wishing them at the devil, or some- 
 where equally remote, when the sounds of a 
 guitar struck his ear, and turning his head, he 
 saw a caik with a company of Fanariote or 
 superior Greeks in his wake. Their object, 
 like his, was not speed ; they remained for some 
 time behind him, and he was charmed with the 
 sweet sounds of a female voice, that sang a 
 patriotic ode, ardent, if not as poetical, as the 
 songs of Greece's better days. The last strophe 
 of the ode was repeated by all in the boat, even
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 29 
 
 by the boatmen, in a loud, spirit-stirring chorus, 
 and to its theme " May Hellas again be free — 
 may the arms of a Themistocles or a Leoni- 
 das again prepare the way for the arts, and the 
 elegancies of Pericles,"" the stranger joined a 
 silent, but deep and sincere " Amen !*" and felt 
 his heart revive at the thought, that even in 
 those regions, so long blasted by an oriental 
 despotism, there still existed a class capable of 
 aspirations after liberty and European civili- 
 zation. 
 
 The Greek boat now lay alongside his : the 
 freight it bore was worth examining: — three 
 lovely young women, sisters, from their striking 
 resemblance to each other, a fourth lady, more 
 advanced in years, yet still handsome, and 
 rather like an elder sister than the mother, 
 which no doubt she was, sat at the stem of tlie 
 caik, on crimson cushions ornamented with fan-
 
 so THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 tastic gilding, the handywork of Persia, and on 
 carpets that seemed, from their softness and 
 thickness, and the glowing richness of their hues, 
 the reality of those flower-sprent parterres they 
 were meant to imitate, — these also the product of 
 Persian industry and ingenuity. Over their 
 heads, a light transparent parasol of ethereal 
 blue, turned towards the sun, cooled the warm 
 crimson rays of evening, ere they fell on the 
 classically pale complexions of the ladies ; and 
 the whole scene recalled to the wanderer's mind 
 the most glorious of all aquatic pictures, his own 
 ,Shakspeare''s imperishable description of the 
 descent of the Cydnus ; for each of the sisters, 
 beauteous, graceful, imperial, seemed a younger 
 Cleopatra, without the wantonness of the 
 Egyptian Queen ; the sea strait, the Bosphorus, 
 is, in all its length, a stately river to the eye ; 
 there were the tones of music on the air, and
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 31 
 
 each of the ascending caiks might feel proud to 
 be the attendant barks, and the suite of the 
 fair princesses. 
 
 A fine, gentlemanly looking man, with his 
 moustache slightly silvered by years, seemed 
 the husband of the elder lady, the father of the 
 young ones ; four much younger men were there, 
 — the eye, the chin, the smile of one of them, 
 showed fraternity, but the other three were 
 far too gallant to stand, at the most, in a closer 
 degree of kindred than that of cousins — they 
 might be lovers — that they were admirers, the 
 glances of their lively eyes betrayed. 
 
 The free intercourse of the sexes, as here dis- 
 played, contrasting with the true Turkish mode, 
 and oriental jealousy, with which all other 
 classes in the East shut up their "wdves and 
 daughters, and mask their faces when abroad— 
 with that spirit which has even invaded the
 
 82 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 Frank or European Christians long settled in 
 the country — the adaptation of the plan and 
 conduct of society, to which modern nations owe 
 half their amenities, and perhaps half their 
 virtues, and without which men would be rude 
 brawlers or indolent carousers, and women 
 chroniclers of the lore of the kitchen or the 
 nursery, seemed to the stranger one among 
 many proofs of the superiority of the Greek 
 people. 
 
 As the caik, which, either by accident or de- 
 sign, lay several minutes alongside, or off the 
 bow of his own boat, gained on him, and was 
 leaving him in the rear, certain sweet glances from 
 the eyes of the young ladies, and the commise- 
 rating tones of their " Kaiemena VC^^ more touch- 
 ing to the ear of the stranger than perhaps any 
 other sound he ever heard, except some note of 
 pity or affection in his o^vn, his mother tongue.
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 33 
 
 could scarcely fail of increasing the interest the 
 northern wanderer felt for these children of tlie 
 East. 
 
 " How beautiful ! how graceful !" mused he ; 
 '* let those political troglodytes, who would dig 
 into the bowels of the earth, to find an argu- 
 ment against the Greeks and their re-establish- 
 ment as a nation, ransack their brains for proofs 
 that the Hellenes of the present day are not 
 the descendants of the ancient Greeks. For 
 myself, I seek, I ask no better proof of their 
 legitimacy, than features and forms like those I 
 have just seen — those breathing identifications 
 of what we call ideal beauty — of those immortal 
 creations of the Greek chisel, over which the 
 art of after ages and other lands has sighed 
 in impotent despair — those traits which sha- 
 dow the impress of divinity and immortality, 
 and would almost excuse, or deem it not idol- 
 
 c5
 
 34 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 atry in us, to bow the knee to the Belvedere 
 Apollo, and the Medicean Venus — yea, even to 
 worship them ! What historic page, what ge- 
 nealogical tree, were it even traced pure and 
 unbastardized from its very roots, with every 
 branch spotless and intact, with not so much as 
 a twig of unfair growth, could vouch and iden- 
 tify like these pronounced and exquisite 
 qualities? Nay, more — that gracefulness of 
 motion, that delicacy, that finished elegance, in 
 each and the smallest action, — all bear testimony 
 of the affinity of the Greeks of to-day, to the 
 Greeks of twenty-two centuries ago !" 
 
 The stranger's reflections were interrupted 
 by the passage of another caik, which crossed his 
 bow, and made the quay of Emenerghen-Oglu, 
 from which village he was but a few oars' length 
 distant. A young man of elegant appearance, 
 went from the boat to the landing-place with an
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 35 
 
 elastic step. His dress was splendid and Turk- 
 ish, all save his samoor calpack, which denoted 
 him to be of the Hospodars, or Greek princes, 
 of Wallachia or Moldavia. 
 
 When he stood on the stone quay, he paused 
 to speak to somebody, probably an attendant, 
 in the boat. At that instant, two female figures 
 turned the comer of some buildings, and ap- 
 peared on the quay. The white yashmack, the 
 loose, ample envelope of pelisse, the roomy boot 
 and papoosh, were worn by each, and their con- 
 cealment might have equalized to the eye youth 
 and age ; but the stooping attitude, the slower 
 step of one of the females, betrayed her years, 
 while the carriage of the other, erect and glid- 
 ing like that of a swan, gave evidence of the 
 existence of a young form, and a young and 
 ccmfiding heart animating it. Before the 
 prince turned his face from the boat towards
 
 THli ARMENIANS. 
 
 them, they stopped at a house but a fe^^feet 
 behind him. The elder female clapped her 
 hands, the door flew open by some invisible 
 agency, for no attendant was seen, and anon it 
 shut in the same manner on the visitors, who 
 had ghded in, but not before the prince had 
 caught a glance of their muffled figures. He 
 paused a moment, then, apparently first casting 
 his eye along the quay, which was entirely de- 
 serted, save by two or three Greek children, 
 who were seated on its curb-stones, angling in 
 the channel, he advanced to the house, called 
 " Petracki '' in a gentle voice, and the hinges 
 turning as they had just done to the ladies, he 
 entered — the door closed on him and them, and 
 his caik glided down the current, towards the 
 neighbouring village of Istenia. 
 
 " Ho, ho !" thought the stranger, " even in 
 this land of bolts and bars, and veils and sacks.
 
 THE^ ARMENIANS. li i 
 
 the capricious god has his devotees — the stakes 
 are high — that youth's life or faith*^^) pays the 
 penalty of discovery ! But no — the messier — ,g^ 
 the papooshes of the silent fair ones were cer- 
 tainly not yellow — the robes were of the dark 
 brown hue affected by Armenian women — the 
 house is not red, but black — it is only some 
 rayah the Greek is wronging, and he is safe !*'
 
 Q^ 38 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 At the conquest of Constantinople by Maho- 
 met II. religious error, bigotry, and long and 
 tyrannical misrule, had reduced the Greek cha- 
 racter; though in forming our judgment of 
 it, we should not overlook the moral condition 
 of the different people of Europe at the same 
 time, nor forget, that except the miniature re- 
 publics of Italy, none were so civilized, whilst 
 nearly all were as obnoxious to superstition, de- 
 ceit, and fickleness, as the melancholy remnant
 
 THE AKMENIANS. 39 
 
 of the Eastern empire. Many years before 
 that fatal period, or in the days of Petrarca 
 and Boccaccio, the sons of Greece, degenerate 
 as they were, gave to Europe the key to the 
 inestimable treasures of their ancient letters, 
 and while we doubt, or abstain from entering 
 on the long discussion of "whether Italian 
 literature, the earliest cultivated in Europe 
 after the ages of barbarism, be the child of the 
 Hellenic muses, or indigenous and original," 
 we must all acknowledge, with confident gra- 
 titude, that it was to those men who visited 
 and corresponded with the Italian peninsula, 
 and to those of their countrymen who followed 
 them at the distance of a century, that the 
 world is indebted for the immortal pages, 
 whose mere appreciation implies a mental supe- 
 riority, which could not exist among a people 
 wholly degraded and barbarized, as some wri-
 
 40 THE Armenians: 
 
 ters have represented the Greeks at the period 
 referred to. 
 
 The mind that has been nourished and ele- 
 vated by the works of old Greece, that has 
 traced the full effect and extent of those works 
 on the literature and manners of modern Eu- 
 rope, may shudder without suspicion of affec- 
 tation, or morbid sensibility, at the idea of their 
 loss, and at the picture of what the world 
 would now be without them. The barbarians 
 that overran the Roman world, when the Ro- 
 mans had lost their virtue, more indolent, or 
 more judicious than the Turks, would frequent- 
 ly respect the wonders of ancient architecture ; 
 the friendly earth covered many a divine work 
 of the Greek chisel, to be providentially re- 
 stored at the very moment that taste for the 
 arts should re-awaken from its long sleep, and 
 require such examples and guides: — temples and
 
 THE ARMENIAXS. 41 
 
 Statues, the marble and the bronze, were almost 
 time-proof, and protected besides by concurring 
 circumstances ; but frail papyri and parchments, 
 consumable by fire, by time, by use, by dis- 
 use, were the only retainers of the harmony of 
 the Ilias, the periods of Demosthenes, Herodo- 
 tus, Xenophon, and Thucydides; and but for 
 the still surviving taste and religious respect 
 for what they could no longer imitate, — ^but for 
 a sparkle of their fathers' fire, in the bosom 
 of the Greeks, which induced them to propa- 
 gate their copies of the codices, and sedulously 
 to preserve them, they would most surely have 
 been to us as though they had never been. 
 Religion will not deem such cares incompatible 
 with the operations of the divine Being, who, 
 promising a state of perfectibility in a future 
 life, interdicts not, but encourages, our aspira- 
 tions after improvement and excellence in this :
 
 42 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 nor will it be held inconsistent with heavenly 
 attributes, that it was providence so admirably 
 arranged matters for our benefit, — so timed 
 events, that the Greek empire was not annihi- 
 lated, and the most enlightened of its subjects 
 were not scattered abroad, until a portion of 
 Christian Europe had risen in arts and letters, 
 and the soil of Italy was fully prepared to receive 
 the fructuous seed. The merchant-citizens of 
 Italian republics, emulous of Athens, had al- 
 ready expended the gains of their commerce in 
 the purchase of ancient manuscripts ; the names 
 of the Greek poets, philosophers, and histo- 
 rians, though still mysterious sounds, had been 
 heard in the schools, and the man, though in 
 
 manners a brute,^*) had been revered as an an- 
 gel, who could unlock the closed treasures, or 
 
 give a course to the sealed fountain. 
 
 Even after we have subtracted from the ac-
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 43 
 
 count of the siege and taking of Constantino- 
 ple, all that cotemporary alarm and irritation, 
 and the prejudices of conflicting faiths may have 
 added or exaggerated, and if with admirable 
 indifference to human suffering, we closely 
 calculate the woes and horrors that then befel 
 tlie Greeks, still we shall have a terrific amount. 
 The happiest fell by the sword, after stopping 
 the " deadly breach"^ with their gallant EuIp. 
 peror, and evincing valour equal to ancient 
 Greece's boast — the hundreds at Thermopylae— 
 the vulgar are safe in their obscurity ; but of 
 the patrician families who did not seek safety 
 in flight, and the abandonment of their mate- 
 rial possessions, many were reduced to slavery, 
 and subjected to political and studied debase- 
 ment by the Turks. Their beautiful children 
 became the prey of Eastern lust and brutality, 
 and in tender age, and separated from their
 
 Ml THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 parents and th^ir caste, their religion gave way 
 to the precepts of a Mahometan chodjea. 
 
 In the process of not many years, the melan- 
 choly fragment of the Greek aristocracy was 
 confined to the narrow limits of the Fanar, a 
 district of the vast capital, situated on the port, 
 or the Golden Horn, nearly at the end of Con- 
 stantinople, against whose battered walls its 
 extreme left (in military parlance) may be said 
 to rest. Here, in the lowest, the darkest, the 
 dampest quarter of their own city, were rele- 
 gated the noble Greeks, and the comparison 
 would be fair, and the transfer parallel, should 
 the inhabitants of St. James's be removed, by 
 some caprice of fortune, to those unknown 
 regions — Wapping or Limehouse. 
 
 Much has been said of the pfiilosophic tole- 
 rance of the Mahometans ; but the Turks had 
 found the Greek people, even in their worst
 
 THE AEMEXIAXS. 
 
 ^ 
 
 days, steadfast in the faith they professed, and 
 ever ready to testify even unto death : to de- 
 stroy a whole race in cold blood, was perhaps 
 too atrocious for their fanaticism and cruelty ; 
 and if they did so, who would pay the kharatch 
 or capitation tax,^^^ — who would cultivate the 
 grounds, build the houses, and exercise those few 
 mechanical arts essential to the Osmanlis, how- 
 ever barbarous ? But the conqueror, Mahomet 
 II. had much to gain by indifference, and by re- 
 nouncing the dogma which imposes on the 
 Musulmans the duty of converting to the Koran, 
 or slaying with the scymetar, all the nations of 
 the earth : he took, as several of his predeces- 
 sors had done, the modified sense of another 
 passage of the " sacred hones, ""^^^ which allows 
 the victors to permit the unbelieving vanquished 
 to wear their heads, on condition of their pay- 
 ing an annual tribute to the faithful for the pri-
 
 46 
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 vilege ; and more, by an infernal policy, he 
 made their very religion and his tolerance work 
 against them, by the nature of his convention 
 with their Patriarch, which submitted them to 
 a real hierarchal tyranny, while it proffered an 
 apparent recognition of rights and privileges to 
 the Greeks. This is not the place, or it might 
 be shown how prejudicial such a government 
 within a government, or tyranny within a 
 tyranny, has been to the character of the Greek 
 )5eople ; how the teachers of the Gospel of 
 Christ have been made subservient to Mahome- 
 tan oppressors, and how the shepherd has often- 
 times leagued with the wolves, to devour the 
 helpless flock. 
 
 But the moderation of the Turks, which 
 allowed the rayahs their religion, did not leave 
 them places of worship to exercise it in ; they 
 seized all their churches — the crescent was
 
 THE AaMENIANS. 47 
 
 erected on the dome of Santa Sopliia, the glory 
 of the Eastern Christians;— minarets, whence the 
 unity of the godhead was proclaimed, arose 
 by the stately temple, specially dedicated to the 
 holy and mysterious Trinity ; and the Greeks 
 who beheld all this, had but a few low, mean 
 edifices allotted to them, nor were' they thence- 
 forth, either in the Fanar or in any other part 
 of the empire, permitted to erect a place of wor- 
 sliip, or even to repair, nay, to whitewash, the 
 walls of the churches they already possessed, 
 without the consent of the Porte — a consent 
 never obtained but by the disbursement of ruin- 
 ous sums of money, and frequently, when grant- 
 ed and paid for, made unavailable by the fana- 
 ticism of the Turkish mob. The European tra^ 
 veller, though exempt from religious enthusiasm 
 or prejudice, who shall attend the early morn- 
 ing service in the miserable Greek cathedral at
 
 48 THE AEMENIANS. 
 
 the Fanar, and shall mark its humble door, its 
 low, dingy roof, its narrow aisles — infinitely too 
 narrow for the flocking devotees — its gloomy 
 crumbling walls, and its turret without abell;^'*^ 
 and who shall merge thence, on the open square 
 of the Hippodrome, and eye the swelling domes 
 of Santa Sophia, and of the mosque of Sultan 
 Achmet, and their aspiring pinnacles, their 
 gilded minarets — their portals, " so high, that 
 giants may jut through, and keep their im- 
 pious turbans on," cannot fail being forcibly 
 struck by the contrast, and feeling in its full 
 extent, the humiliation of the Greek and the 
 Christian. 
 
 The Greeks were degraded, but no oppres- 
 sion could destroy their active, busy spirit ; and 
 the Turks, in their own ignorance and inapti- 
 tude, soon felt the want, and employed the ser- 
 vices of those whom they affected to despise.
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 Such aids as masons, architects, and others 
 merely mechanical, or approaching it, may be 
 passed in silence ; but as the Turks came more 
 frequently in contact with the nations of Europe, 
 they must recur to European languages and 
 polity, and they were, as they still are, ignorant 
 of both, and obstinately disinclined to learn them. 
 Now the Greeks, who were interdicted the 
 use of the sabre, were expert in the employ- 
 ment of that weapon, sharper than the sword — 
 the tongue: they were pr)dng and inquisitive, 
 and from their community ^\ith them, every 
 way more adapted to read the riddles, and de- 
 tect the manoeuvres of the infidel dogs, than 
 the honest, the loyal, and somewhat indolent 
 Osmanlis. The Greeks were elected to the 
 offices of drogoman to the Porte, and drogo- 
 man to the fleet; and from that moment, for 
 the honour of the yellow sUppers,^^^ for the 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 50 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 consideration, the pecuniary emolument, the 
 wide arena for ambition, attached to those ranks, 
 the Fanar became a scene of intrigue unpa« 
 ralleled perhaps on earth. The certain dangers 
 accompanying the career did not deter the am- 
 bitious, and the fall of predecessors' heads 
 only seemed to them steps to rise by, and gave 
 no warning, that the occupation of the desired 
 post would, of a certainty, expose their own 
 lives to the same violent end. We may con- 
 demn the operations of this spirit in the Greeks, 
 that frequently made them unmindful, even of 
 what is proverbially strong and ardent among 
 them — the force of blood, and the ties of con- 
 sanguine affection ; but our curse ought to be 
 upon those who left no other avenues open to 
 their rayah subjects, and perverted the passion 
 of ambition, in itself noble, and the cause of 
 the beauty and progress of our moral, and in
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 51 
 
 part of our material world, though its unruly- 
 excess may be eternally fatal to the one, and may 
 devastate the other. 
 
 A wider and a more splendid field than the 
 dark room at the Porte/^^ or the inferior cabin 
 at the arsenal, or on board the Capitan Pasha's 
 Belik,^^^ was, however, in time to be opened to the 
 Greeks, and their intrigues were destined to 
 have provinces and principalities for their object. 
 When the Turkish crescent, (bel3ang its name,) 
 from remaining a long period without sensible in- 
 crease or decrease, began to w ane rapidly, and 
 the Ghiaours no longer trembled at the Osmanli 
 name, but invaded their conquests ; it was de- 
 termined by the high will of the Muscovites, 
 what indeed, and with much more, had been 
 stipulated for by those provinces themselves, 
 when they submitted to the Sultans, that the 
 regions between the Danube and the Pruth, 
 
 d2
 
 S2 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 which contained a Christian population of the 
 same church as themselves, and the Greeks, 
 should no longer be oppressed by the constant 
 interference of Turkish Pashas, but governed 
 by Greek Hospodars, to be chosen from the 
 noble families of the Fanar by the Porte, to 
 be guaranteed and protected, (which they never 
 were !) in their principalities, by the Russian 
 Autocrat/^^ 
 
 Loyalty and honesty in all their dealings 
 have been attributed to the Turks very gene- 
 rally ; and if the experience of unprej udiced 
 persons has not always tended to confirm them 
 those merits, the moral qualities may still exist 
 among the more obscure of the nation, who 
 are withdrawn from contact or observation; 
 but all the virtues seem to evaporate before 
 ambition, and advancement, and government 
 intrigue, and, as one has recently said, *' it
 
 THE AEMEXIAXS. 53 
 
 may be doubted whether there exist a more 
 corrupt set of men than the Turkish grandees, 
 or those who have to do with the Porte.'" 
 
 The treacherous system of intrigue -will be 
 resorted to only when there is a certainty of its 
 efficaciousness, and this, as regards the Turks, 
 was to be found in their ignorance and stupidity, 
 their rapaciousness and universal corruptibility ; 
 they, besides, set an example in their own con- 
 duct, and the intrigue, the insidiousness, the 
 bribery resorted to for the hospodariats by the 
 Greeks, were only imitations of those practised 
 for pashaliks by the Turks, whilst the latter, or 
 the Osmanlis, in both cases, were the mammons 
 to whom the acceptable sacrifice was offered. 
 
 Great craft may be compatible with extreme 
 barbarity ; and this Turkish history will prove 
 in almost every page : but the Greeks, con- 
 firmed by an ancient proverb, by the long 
 habit of seeking refuge from the oppression of
 
 54 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 the Strong, in cunning — the Greeks, by nature 
 quick and adroit, certainly perfected the sys- 
 tem of intrigue ; and, compared to the menees 
 of the Fanar, the plots and projects of the 
 Turks seem inartificial and coarse. 
 
 The noble Greek families formed into fac- 
 tions that were quite equal to the injustice and 
 to all the extremes of party ; but the members 
 of the separate factions could never be sure of 
 one another, even when they stood in so close a 
 degi'ee of consanguinity as that of brothers : 
 nay more, and still more horrid, cases are not 
 wanting, where the demon of ambition has so 
 obliterated the feelings of nature in the bosoms 
 of the Fanariote Greeks, that for the principality 
 of Wallachia or Moldavia, father has intri- 
 gued against son, the son against the father, 
 though the success of either would peril the 
 property, the liberty, or the life of the other. 
 The gold of Christians was poured into the lap
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 55 
 
 of infidels, to effect the ruin of Christians and 
 brethren ; and eunuchs and women, and all the 
 strange assemblage called the faction of the 
 interior, or of the seraglio, were flattered and 
 bribed to secure the governments of an ex- 
 hausted Christian people. Yet this sacrifice of 
 repose and principle was only to secure a few 
 months' pageantry, terminating by a ^dolent 
 death ; but as when the game was of meaner 
 value — a tergiuman's slippers instead of an hos- 
 podar's calpack — the sanguinary catastrophes 
 were insufiicient to check the ambition of the 
 candidates, and on they went through falsehood 
 and through crime, through abjectness, and 
 brief arrogance, to the cpnetar or the bow- 
 string. But the step to the grave was from a 
 throne ; and even a father who loved his son 
 that had been recently executed, could reply to 
 a condoling stranger, " At least he died Prince 
 of WaUachia !" (»^
 
 56 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 If many dwellers in the Fanar abstained 
 from the dangerous career, and, taking wider 
 views and a higher ambition, looked forward to 
 the day when the Greeks might be released 
 from Turkish misrule, and exist again as a 
 nation ; if many of the intriguing Boyars them- 
 selves contributed to the improvement of the 
 Greek people, by their own adoption of European 
 ideas, and by the pains they took in imparting 
 to their sons, and of late years even to their 
 daughters, the advantages of European educa^ 
 tion ; it must still remain enregistered against 
 their class in general, that they were indifferent 
 to patriotism, or — ^in the words of one who knew 
 them well, and was not disposed to veil their 
 defects — " the Fanariotes saw all Greece within 
 the compass of the Fanar : out of it, they have 
 said they had no country.*"/*"^ 
 
 Had the Greek princes conferred any benefit
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 57 
 
 on the unfortunate Wallachians and Moldavians 
 they were sent to govern, we might judge more 
 leniently of the evil, for the good it produced ; 
 but in the rapacity and pride of the Fanariote, 
 the Christians had not unfrequently occasion to 
 regret the Turkish Pasha. 
 
 Exhausted in pecuniary resources by the 
 amount of the bribes given to obtain their 
 posts ; worried incessantly for fresh bribes, 
 whereby to keep them ; eaten up by relations and 
 retainers, whom they had contracted to provide 
 for ; beset by Jewish or Armenian SerafFs, who 
 had furnished the sums for their costly equip- 
 ment, or a succedaneum to the Vizier for their 
 merit as rulers ; and worked upon, moreover, by 
 a love of pomp and display innate to them, the 
 Greek princes were obliged to squeeze their sub- 
 jects to the very utmost, and depopulation and 
 increasing"" misery bore testimony to their mis- 
 
 D 5
 
 58 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 rule, and perfectly accorded with the condition 
 of the rest of the hapless provinces of the Turk- 
 ish empire. Nothing, therefore, remains to ex- 
 cuse the Fanariotes, but the nature of ambi- 
 tion, general to man, the vices and imbecilities 
 of those with whom they were constrained to 
 act, and their own talent — for talent it was, 
 however ill employed. 
 
 " The princes of Wallachia and Moldavia,**' 
 once said a Greek with glistening eyes, " were 
 kings while it lasted : they were surrounded by 
 none but men of their own faith, who showed 
 as much outward respect to them, as the Os- 
 manlis do to the Padishah himself: there the 
 Turkish grandee could not do what the Turk- 
 ish beggar dare elsewhere — insult them by word 
 and gesture : the princes, named to all offices of 
 trust and honour, the swords of Christian sol- 
 diers leaped from the scabbards at their com-
 
 THE AEMEXIANS.- 09 
 
 mand, and if it was but in pageantry, it bore 
 the aspect of real and imperial power; while 
 their courts shadowed forth, however faintly, the 
 splendour of that of the Byzantine emperors, 
 the dignities and titles of which were in part 
 renewed at Bucharest and at Jassy.'' ^^^^ 
 
 "Aye,'' rejoined another Greek, **the post 
 was worth having, were it but for the satisfac- 
 tion of being able to punish the insolence of 
 the Turks, and to rise superior to them. By 
 the orders of the Sultan, every respect was to 
 be paid to his lieutenants, though they were 
 Greeks, rayahs, ghiaours ; and when the Prince 
 
 C was taking his pompous departure, when 
 
 his splendid retinue had quitted the capital, 
 and was passing the village of San Stefano, I 
 well remember how I saw a fanatic of a Turk, 
 who refused the wonted sign of respect, and 
 continued smoking his chibook in his Highness'
 
 60 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 presence, seized and inverted, and soundly bas- 
 tinadoed — yes, bastinadoed before us Greeks, 
 Emir as he was — for the turban that was sullied 
 in the dust was a green one ! For a pleasure 
 like this alone, I would adventure my peace to 
 be prince or hospodar, were it but for a day !" 
 
 We may suppose all the feelings alluded to, 
 as having their place in the bosom of the Boyar 
 Ghika; and to avoid details which are dis- 
 gusting, perhaps injurious, in contemplation, 
 as they tend to make us familiar with moral 
 depravity, and to sink human nature in our 
 estimation, we may imagine all the usual intri- 
 gues, and falsehood, and bribery to have been re- 
 sorted to, and successfully — for the ^^^^ Bairam of 
 182 — , saw him appointed to the government of 
 Wallachia, and a few weeks after, he took his 
 departure for Bucharest. The family of the 
 Ghika, said to be of Wallachian origin, had
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 61 
 
 long been conspicuous in the intrigues of the 
 Fanar, and more than one of its members had 
 already been in possession of the short and pe- 
 rilous honours of the vice-regal government : 
 the present Prince, said to be bom and educated 
 north of the Danube, was essentially a Walla- 
 chian Boyar, but marriage had connected him 
 with the noblest Fanariote families ; and his fair 
 lady, who, though the mother of many children, 
 could scarcely be said to be in the wane of her 
 beauty, was truly Greek, and spirited, intellec- 
 tual, and patriotic. 
 
 According to the custom of that arbitrary 
 and suspicious tyranny, the Porte, at the de 
 parture of the Hospodar, had retained his 
 eldest son as hostage, or as a victim at hand to 
 sacrifice, should his father ever escape into 
 Franguestan/^^^ The odious name of hostage 
 had however long been abolished: the Hospodar's 
 son was called the acrent of his father, whose
 
 62 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 business he was intrusted with at the Porte ; 
 he enjoyed the protection and guarantee of the 
 Ambassador of the Russian Emperor, and his 
 person was nominally inviolable. The young 
 Greek prince we saw, in the last chapter, step 
 from his caik on the Bosphorus, was Constan* 
 tine Ghika. 
 
 Actions mark a character more strongly, and 
 generally more correctly, than description can 
 do — they may be left to speak for that of Con- 
 stantine Ghika, or Costandi, as, in conformity to 
 Greek usage, we ought rather to call him ; and 
 here it may be enough to state, that he was 
 the owner of a handsome face and a fine, though 
 rather undersized and delicate person ; that 
 he was the uncontrolled disposer of a liberal 
 income, his father could now allow him — gene- 
 rous-hearted, impetuous, susceptible, and two- 
 and-twenty. 
 
 His errand at the time was indeed different
 
 THE AEMENIANS. 68 
 
 from what the passing stranger had suspected 
 Costandi was going on a visit to an aged relation 
 — a beloved and afflicted mother of his mother, 
 from whom a round of occupation and pleasure 
 had estranged him for some time, though he 
 had every evening reproached himself with the 
 neglect, and every morning determined to erase 
 the stain from his escutcheon in the course of 
 the day. 
 
 The dingy and deserted-looking house on the 
 quay, opposite which he stopped, was that lady's 
 residence, and the silent unattended door gave 
 access to her, who, in other times, at the court 
 of Bucharest, was to be approached but through 
 an avenue of splendidly-dressed attendants and 
 obsequious friends ; and who, in later days, 
 when her husband was no longer a hospodar, 
 had enjoyed the elegancies of rank and polished 
 society. But the Greek revolution, or the rage
 
 64 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 and cruelty of Sultan Mahmood, consequent 
 on that event, had made her a widow, and child- 
 less, save in her distant daughter the Prin- 
 cess Ghika : — the minor evil of confiscation had 
 not left her wherewith to support even life's 
 decencies, and until lately, that the circum- 
 stances of her sur^dving child permitted her to 
 assist her, the daughter and wife of a prince, 
 the mother of a reigning princess, might be 
 said to have felt the pangs of privation, if not 
 of absolute want. 
 
 We have mentioned that Constantine caught 
 a glance of the muffled figures as they glided 
 into the house. " Who have we here .?" 
 thought he to himself as he crossed the quay ; 
 " what nymph is visiting my grandmamma, for 
 the first of these figures, though mayhap not 
 fair, is certainly young. Let us in and see — 
 she may be both ! The Bosphorus and sun-set,
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 65 
 
 silence and yashmacks — on my word, an appro- 
 priate beginning to an amorous adventure ! I 
 am heartily tired of that minx Marionka — ^la- 
 dame the is tired of me. I just want some- 
 thing to make me aware of my existence, and 
 I may light upon it here, where none but an 
 adventurous youth like myself would hope to 
 find it — under the brown cloak and white veil 
 of an Armenian !"" He smiled at the novel 
 thought, and as his footstep passed the threshold, 
 which he was not to cross again with so light 
 a heart, he added, " Well, I am glad I have 
 at last done my duty, and got to my dear, kind 
 tedious grandmamma's; and who knows but 
 that virtue may be its own reward even in this 
 world, or that I may not find an angel here, 
 where I have hitherto found but wrinkles, un- 
 savoury kisses, and good advice, more unsa- 
 voury still !"
 
 66 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The houses of the rayah subjects of the em- 
 pire, distinguished by their colour, are also 
 purposely kept mean in their exterior, to avoid 
 the jealousy of the Turks, and the risk of 
 their occupants being thought wealthy ; but that 
 slovenly exterior was frequently but a mask, 
 and the inner apartments of many Armenian, 
 and still more, of many Greek habitations, 
 were v ell arranged and splendidly furnished. 
 Such, however, was not the case with the silent
 
 THE ARMENIANS, 6? 
 
 residence of Prince Ghika's aged relative. The 
 tottering staircase led him to a hall furnished 
 with one low divan, old, tattered, and despoiled 
 of half of its cloth cushions, and with a soli- 
 tary attendant, in as bad a plight, in person 
 and attire, as the sofa, and probably much 
 older. Folding-doors at the upper end of the 
 hall opened on a saloon, the princess' parlour 
 and drawing-room, and these being thrown 
 open by Petracki, with an attempt at the for- 
 mality and style of other days, that might 
 have caused at once a sigh and a smile, Cos- 
 tandi Ghika stood in the presence of his 
 doating relative. 
 
 " You truant — you naughty truant,'* said 
 the Princess, half joyfully, half reproachingly, 
 " where have you been this long time ? But 
 you are come at last, and may heaven bless 
 you !"
 
 68 
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 Constantine advanced, and dropping on his 
 knee by the sofa's edge, respectfully took the 
 extended hand of his grandmother, and pressed 
 it to his forehead and to his lips — for such is 
 the reverence paid by all classes of Greeks to 
 their parents and aged relatives ; and the tra- 
 veller from more civilized countries may be 
 edified by displays of that almost religious 
 respect, and devotional submission, of the 
 people of the East generally, without distinc- 
 tion of faith or race, to their fathers, their 
 mothers, their elders, whenever they approach 
 them or stand in their presence, which may 
 recall to him fancies and pictures of the patri- 
 archal ages, but nothing that he has seen in 
 modern society elsewhere. 
 
 " I crave your pardon for my past neglect, 
 my dear, my honoured mother! Your bless- 
 ing upon me — it will do me good, and I need
 
 THE ARMEXIAXS. 69 
 
 it !" said Costandi, still kneeling, and sincerely 
 and exclusively feeling what he spoke ; but ere 
 he said, " I will never so offend again — I will 
 never again be so long a truant," his quick eye 
 had caught the glance of the younger of the 
 two females, who sat in the saloon with the 
 Princess — had perused her unveiled face; he 
 no longer spoke in singleness of thought and 
 affection, and even as his aged relative blessed 
 him, and raised him, and kissed his forehead 
 with endearing eagerness, his imagination flew 
 to her youthful visitor, and it was she, and 
 the hopes of seeing her there again, that gave 
 fire and sincerity to his renewed protestations, 
 that a week should never again pass on the 
 unfulfilment of his devoirs. 
 
 The Princess was seated on a divan which 
 ran along the semi-circular gazeboe, or project- 
 ing window of the saloon, a mode of arrange-
 
 70 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 ment general in the East, and judicious, and 
 called for in the country residences on the Bos- 
 phorus, the front of each of which, overlooking 
 a narrow quay, affords a ravishing spectacle of 
 vale and wood, mountains, and the channeFs 
 glassy plain, dotted with rapid caiks, and 
 Turkish ships, of quaint and picturesque forms. 
 The young lady, her visitor, sat at her right- 
 hand ; the elder female, whose face, unveiled 
 when the Prince entered, was now muffled up 
 in the broad white folds of the yashmack, sat 
 on the edge of the sofa — at such a distance as 
 denoted inferiority of condition, whilst her 
 being on the sofa at all, was a circumstance in 
 evidence of her being something above a com- 
 mon servant. She was, in fine, what in Spain 
 would be called a duenna, and what in the 
 East has no name at all, though the character 
 exists, and is actively employed, by Armenians,
 
 THE ARMENIAXS. Tl 
 
 Jews, and Perotes, to mount guard over the 
 virtue of young wives and unmarried daughters. 
 
 Before Constantine took his seat to the left of 
 the Princess, he repeated the salutation he had 
 made to the Armenian lady at his entrance, 
 but with much more animation than then ; and 
 when he sat down, from the curve of the divan, 
 being directly opposite to her, he gazed with 
 such intenseness, that she blushingly raised 
 one-half of the yashmack, or the lower portion 
 of the visor, which concealed all of her face 
 below her nose. The Princess observed this. 
 
 *' My child — my sweet one !^ said she, 
 taking her hand, " this is my grandson— my 
 Costandi — the child of my daughter — the pride 
 of my house, now that they are gone — my joy 
 on earth ! It is not for you to feel confusion 
 in his presence ; you are above the narrow pre- 
 judices of your people, and have shown an
 
 72 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 unveiled face before friends ere now. But 
 Costandi," and the old lady turned to the^ 
 Prince, " it is for you to show gratitude, re- 
 spect, affection, to Veronica of the Tinghir- 
 Oglus, the 3^outhful friend, the generous, the 
 delicate, the persevering, who in the days of 
 her direst misfortune — I blush not to tell it, 
 and do you blush not to hear it — saved your 
 mother^s mother from starving !" 
 
 Our immediate sympathies and antipathies 
 regulate our estimate of character and worth ; 
 from the person we dislike we are apt to de- 
 tract the good qualities he may possess, whilst 
 on the object of our affection, and from a 
 modification of the same principle, we are in- 
 clined to heap quality upon quality, virtue 
 upon virtue, to delight in the aggregate of our 
 own forming, and in every discovery tending to 
 prove it correct. The feeling is general, and
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 7^ 
 
 in opposition to those who would paint human 
 nature worse than it is, it may be urged that 
 the interest felt in the virtues and honours 
 of one we love, is quite as vivacious as is the 
 pleasure resulting to us from the exposure of 
 the object of our dislike, or from the discovery 
 of some defect that may cause us to dislike him 
 still more ; and further — the different processes 
 of detraction and exaggeration, of rejoicing at 
 an increase of deformity and delinquency, on 
 the one hand, and of an increase of beauty and 
 merit on the other, will be seen most fre- 
 quently and most actively in the same bosom — 
 the same connexion will be traced between them 
 as exists between gratitude and resentment, that 
 are to be found in their extremes in the same 
 man, — ^nay, exactly to equal each other in de- 
 gree, whether strong or feeble, throughout 
 the world. In either case, it is our suscep- 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 74 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 tibility that measures out the sentiment ; the 
 heart most sensible to ill-treatment is also 
 the most alive to kindness; and the extreme 
 of resentment, like that of gratitude, denotes 
 nothing more than excess of sensibility and 
 vivacity of feeling : the source of both, though 
 of such different natures and tendencies, for the 
 evil passion may arm to revenge, and destroy 
 our earthly peace, our eternal happiness ; whilst 
 gratitude, the attribute of angels, the only 
 offering required of man by the Almighty, can 
 work but good to ourselves and fellow-crea- 
 tures — can tend but to improve the heart it 
 warms. 
 
 Constantine Ghika, at least, was happy to 
 hear the praise of one whose beauty had in- 
 terested him at a glance, and to find that his 
 gratitude should go with his admiration. He 
 bowed to Veronica, and laid his hand to his
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 75 
 
 heart — a gesture as sincere as it was graceful — 
 while he spoke. 
 
 " Though this is the first time I have an op- 
 portunity of expressing to her my grateful sense 
 of all that she has done for my poor and beloved 
 mother here ; it is not the first time, by many, 
 that I have heard the tale of her munificence — 
 her active exertions, not to be restrained by the 
 jealousies of caste, or the antipathies of religious 
 sects — which, alas ! and shame for us. Christians, 
 who are all equally oppressed by our masters 
 the Turks, never cease to trouble our tranquil- 
 lity, and to urge us most uncharitably against 
 each other. I have heard how, when the sul- 
 tan's sabre had passed over her house — when a 
 widow and childless, and deserted by all — for 
 even her friends feared communication with her, 
 lest they should awaken the Turks' suspicions — 
 when despoiled, destitute, sick — sick almost to 
 
 E 2
 
 76 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 death, I have heard how then, the youthful, the 
 tender, yet the bold friend, came to her aid, sup- 
 plied her wants, and cheered her lonely hours 
 and desolate heart ; and with all this familiar 
 to me, I have long invoked Heaven's blessing 
 for Veronica of the Tinghir-Oglus !" 
 
 At the beginning of this address she to whom 
 he spoke, reverted her head in modesty ; but as 
 he continued, his warmth, the beauty of the 
 tones of his voice, which went to her young 
 heart, never before so touched, caused her un- 
 wittingly to turn her face towards him, and to 
 look steadfastly on his very handsome, animated 
 countenance, and graceful person. Only the 
 upper part of her face was visible; but her long, 
 black, languorous Oriental eyes were caught by 
 his, and ri vetted to them, by something more 
 powerful than fascination. 
 
 As he continued, and the glow of his Ian-
 
 THE ARMEXIAXSi 77 
 
 guage was reflected by the glow of his face, 
 her hand, which had drawn the lower fold of 
 the yashmack, dropped by her side, the en\aoiis 
 disguise fell unsupported, and the whole of Ve- 
 ronica's features were disclosed to the admiring, 
 and by this time impassioned gaze of tJie 
 Prince. A gentle quivering of the lips corres- 
 ponded to the beaming agitation of the eyes; 
 but she did not speak until Constantine had 
 ceased for more than a minute, when she said, 
 in a subdued, trembling tone, but one that be- 
 spoke intensity of delight, " You have invoked 
 heaven's blessing on my name !" 
 
 The silence that ensued may be employed 
 on the portrait of the person of her who last 
 spoke ; and the moment is appropriate, as it was 
 only when animated by deep feeling, or placed 
 in peculiarity of circumstances, that she could 
 pretend to such great charms/*^
 
 T8 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 The figure of Veronica was cast in one of 
 nature's finest moulds ; but its smallness, its ex- 
 treme delicacy, gave an idea of fragileness, that 
 y/as at times really painful, and could all but 
 induce one to wish to enclose it in a glass case 
 or sheltered shrine, lest the roughness of the 
 elements should annihilate it. Those exquisite 
 forms were now concealed by the barbarous 
 wrapper or cloak, which she had not laid aside, 
 but the face that the Prince was perusing was 
 disclosed, and by a most favourable light-— the 
 rosy hues of evening striking on it obliquely, 
 as she sat on the divan, with her back turned 
 towards the North. The warm glow on her 
 face belonged to the time and tide, or was 
 partially produced by her unusual excitement ; 
 for in general Veronica was remarkable for a 
 degree of paleness that seemed unearthly ; and 
 even now, that reflex of the sun was delicate
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 79 
 
 and faint, as the rose-hues of fading evening 
 on the loftiest of the eternally snow-covered 
 Alps; as a veil of gauze light as gossamer, and 
 tinted with red, cast over a marble statue — 
 and you could see it die away like the hues on 
 the mountain, or withdrawn like the veil from 
 the marble, and that face slowly wax paler and 
 paler, as the shades of evening approached 
 on sun-set — so glorious, yet so brief, in the 
 climes of the South and the East. The 
 pleasing, indescribable sensations of excitement, 
 still however continued, and sent at inter- 
 vals a faint blood-flush across her cheeks and 
 forehead, soft and evanescent, which showed 
 her face more pallid still ; when it disappeared, 
 in the degree that the lightning-flash increases 
 the gloom of the midnight sky it traverses. 
 
 In the countries of which she was a native, 
 and where Oriental customs and jealousies have
 
 80 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 been introduced, it is by no means rare to find 
 examples of that pale fair complexion ; for con- 
 finement to the house, the covering of the white 
 yashmack or veil, which from the time they 
 pass the age of children they never quit when 
 abroad, and the frequent use of the vapour- 
 bath, would tend to produce it in the Turkish, 
 Armenian, and Jewish females, whose costume 
 and modes of life very nearly resemble each 
 other; but what was somewhat rarer — what 
 indeed was perhaps seldom found in these 
 " Eastern climes," except among the highest of 
 the Turkish ladies, the prides of the harems of 
 the great — in the imported exotics of Circassia 
 or Georgia, or in their immediate progeny, was 
 a thinness and transparency of skin which dis- 
 tinguished Veronica of the Tinghir-Oglus. 
 How she came by it, Armenian as she was, 
 heaven knows ; for of all the people in the East,
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 81 
 
 even without an exception in favour of the 
 children of Israel, her caste, though it abounds 
 in otherwise beautiful women, have certainly the 
 thickest and coarsest of skins. 
 
 Hers was clear and delicate, and through it 
 the little blue veins (the exquisite tracery of 
 an immortal hand) showed themselves like the 
 scattered threads of mountain streams beneath 
 their chrystal covering of thin ice. Contrasting 
 with this pallidity and transparency, was the 
 jet black, intense hue of her eyes and eyebrows, 
 and of some straggling locks of hair that had 
 escaped the bondage of her yashmack, and 
 fringed here and there her oval face. The 
 kol, or the surme, had been employed with 
 effect ; the eyes were brilliant and dazzling, 
 while they were languid and caressing, and so 
 long and thick were the lashes on the ample 
 upper-lid, that when downcast, they in reality 
 
 E 5
 
 82 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 formed a veil, and nearly hid the whole of the 
 orb ; yet the eyes were not faultless, unexcep- 
 tionable as they were in colour and size — they 
 did not approach the forms of the Greeks, — the 
 living, or the works of their ancestors, — they 
 were too long, and too full and convex, like 
 Armenian eyes in general. The eyebrows were 
 better— loftier than those even of Andalusian 
 maids; they were arched in the very line of 
 grace : hke those of the Greeks, they approached 
 very near, but did not unite over the nose, as 
 do the eyebrows of Turkish beauties — a defect 
 whose absence, however, was not owing to her, 
 but to the obstinacy of nature, for the Arme- 
 nians dress their faces after the Turks, and 
 Veronica had laboured with kol and tweezers, 
 and used every proper application to make her 
 two eyebrows one.^^^ Her nose was thin and 
 finely formed, though slightly acqueline ; the
 
 THE AEMENIANS, 83 
 
 mouth, that seat of expression, all but equal to 
 the soul-telling eye, was small ; and lips, per- 
 haps, too slightly tinged with the colour of the 
 rose, certainly somewhat too exuberant, dis- 
 closed in their opening, teeth perfect in white- 
 ness, size, and regularity. The chin was de- 
 licately turned ; the whole contour of the head 
 was good, and supported by a long, hthe, swan- 
 like neck, graceful whether in motion or repose. 
 In short, though the eye of criticism might find 
 many faults, the heart of feeling could scarcely 
 escape being impressed by the delicate and 
 truly feminine appearance of Veronica ; and the 
 interest was increased by that aspect of fragile- 
 ness which has been alluded to, and by an air 
 of extreme youthfulness — almost of childish- 
 ness, which her countenance generally bore. 
 That expression, however, would have been an 
 incorrect index to the character of her mind.
 
 84 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 which was full of passion, will, and resolute- 
 ness, and was furnished with the springs and 
 resources of ready wit and enterprize, to do and 
 to dare, for the object of her affections, and 
 with firmness to die in the cause of him to 
 whom she should give her heart's love. The 
 temper of her mind, indeed, was as different 
 from that of the cold, prudent, heavy, passion- 
 less race she belonged to, as was the texture of 
 her outward skin to theirs; as yet it had 
 scarcely been developed, except in occasions 
 bursts of feeling at what she considered base in 
 others, or in the exercise of generosity and 
 charity in favour of the friendless and afflicted 
 but now the moment was approaching — perhaps 
 was already come, when all its energies should 
 be brought into activity. 
 
 The silence that followed the few happy 
 words addressed by Veronica to the Prince,
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 85 
 
 was not interrupted by him — for, to gaze on 
 those unveiled features was occupation enough 
 — but by the old Armenian woman, who had 
 been looking tlu*ough the gazeboe on the boats 
 that were passing on the Bosphorus. 
 
 1* As I am a sinner," cried she, suddenly, 
 and in a tone of alarm, " here *s your uncle 
 Yussuf returning in his caik — he will get home 
 before us — we shall never get out again ! and — 
 ray lady ! shame on you ! — a man is seeing aU 
 your face l'** 
 
 From the depth of the blush that overspread 
 Veronica at these words of her attendant or 
 guard, one might have fancied that the whole 
 blood of her delicate small form had rushed to 
 her face and neck. It must not, however, be 
 supposed, that the admiring gaze of Constantine, 
 which, though not all unblushingly she had 
 sustained for several minutes, nor the idea of
 
 86 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 her caste, (which she despised,) that a woman 
 lost a portion of her virtue by showing her 
 features to a man, who was neither her father, 
 her husband, nor her brother, that caused all 
 that blush ; — no ! she was angry and ashamed 
 at the disclosure of coarse Armenian prejudice, 
 and of her own subjection to it. She blushed 
 to have it shown that she was where she then 
 was (and whither, at least, she had gone with 
 intentions that might have been owned by an 
 angel) by stealth, and that at the appearance of 
 a boorish relative she must flee as if from a 
 deed of shame. The blush, too, might have 
 been further deepened by a conviction already 
 felt, of the interest — the delight she took in the 
 company of Constantine Ghika. 
 
 The Princess could not but notice her con- 
 fusion. 
 
 " Veronica, my child — my love,"" said she,
 
 THE ARMENIAN'S. 87 
 
 and tears of tenderness and offended pride came 
 to her eyes, " I see how it i&— they have for- 
 bidden you to enter my desolate, dishonoured 
 house ; they fear that one of their blood should 
 \)e known to have communication with lost, 
 persecuted, hated Greeks like us ; they fear 
 the Turks — they fear their priests, for what are 
 we but schismatics — heretics ! I see it all ! I 
 was not aware of it before ! Go, flee, Vero- 
 nica ! Heaven bless you ! but here — come no 
 more !" 
 
 " Listen, Dominizza," said Veronica, de- 
 cidedly, while her blood seemed to race and 
 bound in her blue veins, from the effort she 
 made to recover or assume her composure ; " if 
 the unreflected words of a menial have disclosed 
 to you that I am here against the will of my 
 relatives, a voice in my own heart tells me that 
 the feelings which led me here — which have at-
 
 88 ' THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 tracted me to you so many times, are grateful 
 to that all merciful Being whom we equally 
 adore, though the forms of our worship may 
 differ. Those feelings will most assuredly lead 
 me here again, as long as I know you are left 
 to solitude and suffering, as you have been," 
 (here Constantine blushed as he thought of his 
 own. neglect,) " and you will not shut your 
 door against your Veronica, who feared not 
 to enter it when misfortune — death stood on 
 its threshold !" 
 
 " My too generous friend," replied the 
 Princess, while the tears fell faster down her 
 cheeks ; "I am sensible of the purity of your 
 feelings, and heaven will reward them ; but if 
 your coming here be in opposition to the will 
 of your family, can I encourage it ?" 
 
 " Most honoured lady," continued Veronica, 
 " I am sometimes perhaps not sufficiently sensi-
 
 THE AEMENIAN6. 89 
 
 ble of my bounden obedience — of my subser- 
 viency to the uncharitable constructions of the 
 unamiable caprices of my caste and kindred — 
 I am the less so, as I have no mother to give 
 sanctity to advice and command. Oh ! if I had 
 a mother, would she not feel with me, would 
 she not pride in a daughter who could exercise 
 that charity recommended as the first of our 
 duties, but which others think they fulfil when 
 they passively assent to the words of an ho- 
 mily ! My father, busied incessantly in the 
 pursuit of wealth, which, when his, he dare not 
 enjoy, I rarely see, except in the evening of 
 some holiday, when I light his pipe and present 
 his coffee, and he gives me a handful of coin, 
 which, in his eyes, the sole worldly good, sup- 
 plies the place of affectionate caress or parental 
 advice. The duty to a father can scarcely ex- 
 tend to an uncle, and my uncle is busier still,
 
 90 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 and engaged in a more perilous career : as head 
 of the Turkish mint, his life is every day in 
 jeopardy, and in the moments when the dreams 
 of his ambition lag, when the spirit of accumu- 
 lating fails its excitement, and his dreaming eyes 
 glitter not at the prospect of piles of sequins 
 heaped upon piles, the forms of his predecessors 
 in office — the murdered Dooz-Oglus, hanged to 
 their own lintel — there, in that country-house 
 over the Bosphorus, fix them glaring in their 
 sockets. These are all his souPs thoughts — 
 gold and the rope !— and all the instruction or 
 orders I ever received from him, were to fear 
 God and the priest of Pera, and to take care 
 of my purse ! The rest of my advisers, the 
 rest of those who can pretend to an authority 
 over me, are aunts and cousins ; and I may hope 
 for pardon, if my subjection to them does not 
 induce me to adopt beliefs and prejudices that
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 91 
 
 my intellect and heart alike reject. Why, my 
 aunt Serpui, and my aunt iVlarter, would fancy 
 they perilled their salvation by converse with a 
 Greek — of another church than their's ! To 
 bigotry like this, I cannot assent ; nor can you, 
 my Princess, require me so to do !" 
 
 The enthusiastic girl was silent, and catching 
 the eye of Constantine, that had been rivetted 
 on her while she spoke, she blushed at the in- 
 tensity of his gaze, and at the heat and length 
 at which she had spoken ; and then kissing the 
 hand of the Princess, who pressed her to her 
 bosom and kissed her forehead, Veronica drew 
 the yashmack over her agitated face, collected 
 the loose folds of her garment with her left 
 hand, and having made a sign with her right 
 to the old ser\dng-woman, or duenna, to lead the 
 way, (a gesture whose firmness and dignity con- 
 trasted most singularly with her slight aerial
 
 $ft THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 figure, and with the almost childish face she 
 had just covered, and of which only the two 
 black eyes, through loop-holes in the white linen 
 veil, were now visible,) she laid it across her 
 breast, and bending reverentially to the Prin- 
 cess, and somewhat less lowly to the young 
 Prince, she left the room, saying, in a tone that 
 thrilled the heart of the latter, " I shall soon 
 be here again ; and certain family matters will 
 shortly so engross my tender aunts and cousins, 
 that I shall have much of my time at my 
 disposal." 
 
 It will not be attempted to depict in Ve- 
 ronica, a character at all of heroine-like per- 
 fection, or one who might be a model to re- 
 gulate the thoughts and conduct of others ; 
 but merely to describe her as she was, with 
 her virtues and her faults — premising that the 
 nature of female education in the East, and
 
 THE ARMENIAN'S. 9S 
 
 of Armenian coarseness and restriction must be 
 occasionally remembered, to excuse what, to the 
 maidens of civilized Europe, would seem de- 
 ficient in decorum — unpardonable. 
 
 Until that evening, the secluded fair one 
 had never been the object of tender attention, 
 had seldom been five minutes in the company 
 of a young person of another sex than her 
 own : by the Armenians, the only visitants at 
 lier home, she had been considered, as women 
 are by that heavy race, a comely sort of vehicle 
 for pipes and coffee, but one with whom it was 
 neither expedient nor desirous to hold converse, 
 unless it were determined, signed, and sealed, 
 that she were to be the mother of their children 
 — their obsequious wife ! Veronica, — alas ! how 
 opposed to the gentle practices of Europe, 
 where the glance of maid, "vvife, or widow, is 
 potent to engage every male hand in the party
 
 94 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 to her service ; and where the wants, the wishes 
 of a beauty, are read in her eyes almost ere they 
 are formed, and instantly operate on the young 
 and the gallant of the other sex with the prompt- 
 ness of electricity — Veronica had been accus- 
 tomed to wait behind her father's or her uncle's 
 guests, and the brutes would sit, even though 
 the warm current of youth ran in their veins, 
 whilst at the end of the repast her delicate 
 hands conveyed them the embroidered napkin, 
 and poured the cool rose-water into their palms, 
 — and if she presented the amber-mouthed chi- 
 book, and the fragrant coffee-cup in its fili- 
 greed case with readiness, they would, as an 
 effusion of their keff, or joviality, bestow some 
 such praise on the young lady, as might be 
 given to a cafidji in a place 6f public entertain- 
 ment, or to a sure-footed horse who had carried 
 them quickl}^ and well over a certain distance
 
 THE ARMEXIAXS. 95 
 
 of ground. Women are conscious by intuition 
 of their rights — the manners of the boors of 
 her own race were not calculated to engage af- 
 fection, but they served to make Veronica sen- 
 sible, by the force of contrast, to the charms, 
 the attentions, and amenities, the Greeks, in imi- 
 tation of polished nations, practise towards la- 
 dies — particularly when the ladies are young 
 and handsome. 
 
 The interview had been so short, and so 
 much occupied with a discussion of a melan- 
 choly and painful nature, that Constantine had 
 little opportunity to exercise the gallantry in 
 which he was accomplished; but his mode of 
 noticing her was so different from what she had 
 been used to in men, the tones of his voice 
 when addressing her were so peculiar and pene- 
 trating — and how he hung upon her eye, her 
 lip, when she spoke !
 
 96 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 It would be long to trace the inward and 
 mysterious process in the fair Armenian''s mind, 
 which ended in the serious result of love — a 
 love as rapidly conceived as it was destined to 
 be lasting. The analysis would produce many 
 trifling causes: "How handsome he is!" (but 
 beauty was never yet sincerely held of trifling 
 estimation by maid or youth,) "how graceful 
 his person I how rich his dress ! — his boots and 
 slippers are like a Pasha's — the shawl round his 
 waist is an exquisite cachemere — and, wonderful ! 
 he has sat a quarter of an hour in women's 
 company, and never once called for a pipe !" ^^^ 
 
 Thoughts like these rushed through the 
 mind of Veronica, as she gazed on the Prince 
 for the last time, and they determined her 
 (we may blush to tell the truth) to see him 
 again, were the interview to be accomplished 
 by artifice, or to expose her to shame and
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 97 
 
 pimishment. The virtuous, the generous in- 
 tentions, which had hitherto led her to tlie 
 princess, and might have paved her way to 
 heaven, were never again to be her exclusive 
 conductors thither. 
 
 The prince, who was scarcely less affected 
 than herself, and who was deterred, moreovei*, 
 by the well-kno\Mi scrupulosities of the Arme- 
 nians, spite of her last glance at him, whicJi 
 might have betrayed her heart'*s secret, stood 
 by the edge of the sofa when he had risen to 
 return her parting salute, until Veronica had 
 disappeared through the farther door of the 
 hall, into which the saloon opened. But then, 
 and in a very few steps, he cleared the two 
 apartments, and descended the stairs, on whicli 
 the domestic was slowly tottering, and pass- 
 ing the lady and her suivante, advanced to 
 open the front door for them. " No, prince, 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 98 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 not that way," said Veronica, with a tremulous 
 voice ; " I should not like to meet my uncle face 
 to face on the quay— or, he may be already at 
 home — we can enter by the garden unperceived, 
 and from this back door we can reach the 
 garden." 
 
 Constantine stepped back and reached the 
 opposite door, as the hand of Veronica was 
 laid on the latch — he put forth his to open 
 it — he covered her delicate hand with his : 
 she did not -withdraw it; but when the door 
 opened and he still retained it, and after thank- 
 ing her again for her kindness to his aged rela^ 
 tive, he pressed it within his and raised it to 
 his heart, his lips ; the blush that mantled on 
 her cheek was betrayed in her visible eyes, 
 and was almost seen through the thick linen 
 yashmack. She would have spoken, but her 
 heart was too full of sensations, as novel to her 
 as they were powerful ; she could only bend to
 
 THE AUMEKIANS. 99 
 
 the prince, and cast on him a full, deep, pene- 
 trating glance, and thus she left him, uncon- 
 scious of all else in the world, or of the earth 
 she trod on. 
 
 Constantine remained at the door until he 
 saw the fair Armenian and her somewhat relax 
 duenna reach the little wicket gate of a garden, 
 at the back of a house not more than a hundred 
 yards distant. The suivante thence advanced 
 alone through the garden to the habitation, and 
 having reconnoitred, she gave a sign and a 
 gentle " hist — hist !""' to Veronica, who bounded 
 across the path like a fawn, and disappeared 
 within the house. 
 
 The mind unaccustomed to concealment or 
 deceit wall revolt at the least appearance of 
 either ; but in the jealous and restrictive East, 
 in Turkey, where the commonest affair of life 
 is carried on as an intrigue, that generous 
 
 F 2
 
 100 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 sensitiveness is blunted: the conduct of Vero- 
 nica, which might have given rise to unfavour- 
 able opinions in another, to Constantine the 
 Greek, to Constantine the Fanariote, who had 
 been accustomed to secrecy and intrigue all his 
 life, seemed only clever and interesting, and 
 perfectly justifiable ; and the fair Armenian her- 
 self, who had never been treated with confidence, 
 felt no remorse, as she broke no trust, but 
 merely evaded the clumsy controul and re- 
 strictions of her kinsfolk. Her conduct was 
 even calculated, and systematic; and she had 
 long decided that those who employ lock and 
 bar, must look to lock and bar for their secu- 
 rity, and have no right to pretend to a senti- 
 ment of obedience (proof to all motive and to 
 every temptation) in the breasts of their cap- 
 tives. Hitherto she certainly had never set at 
 nought the domestic, Armenian authority, for
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 101 
 
 Other than the most unexceptionable purposes ; 
 but now that an incipient passion was planted 
 in her young heart, it was readily to be con- 
 ceived, how much her disregard of that autho- 
 rity would be increased, and how, when she 
 should be detected and violently constrained in 
 her person and actions, an incessant combat 
 should be instituted, as, in fact, there soon was, 
 in which her artifice and adroitness would be 
 opposed to the obstinacy and violence of her 
 relations. 
 
 Constantine stood at the door he had opened, 
 which afforded a pleasant view of a hanging- 
 wood that descended the hilFs side, a few paces 
 behind the princess's residence. The hues 
 and brightness of the brief twilight, had given 
 way to the deepening shades of night ; a niglit- 
 ingale, awaked into song by the congenial 
 .gloom, was pouring forth her melancholy strain.
 
 102 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 to which the murmur of the wind amonff the 
 
 o 
 
 trees formed a subdued accompaniment ; a 
 bright star — Hesperus the lovely and the soli- 
 tary — stood still in the blue face of heaven, 
 over the brow of the wooded hill, as an exqui- 
 site eye arrested in its course of conquest by 
 some object of irresistible charms, and the top- 
 most trees were agitated like bosoms, conscious 
 of the presence of immortal beauty. 
 
 Constantine, after lingering for awhile, took 
 an affectionate farewell of his grandmother, 
 and heard the old lady renew her praises of 
 Veronica — an object that was already dearer 
 to him than he would have believed. In the 
 warmth of her gratitude, she expressed her regret 
 that the Tinghir-Oglu was not a Greek. Could 
 she boast of Hellenic blood, who so fit as she 
 to be the pride of her house's prop, her Con- 
 stantine ? But Veronica was an Armenian,
 
 THE ARMENIANS. . 103 
 
 and in spite of her worth and beauty, the 
 princess never conceived, for a moment, that 
 her daughter's son could fall in love with one 
 of her inferior caste. 
 
 " True, 'tis too true, she is a pretty girl, but 
 she is an Armenian after all," reflected Con- 
 stantine, as wrapped in his cloak, and seated at 
 the stern of his boat, he descended the moon-lit 
 Bosphorus, passing with sinful indifference or 
 unconsciousness, the loveliest nooks, the most 
 happy combination of nature and art, of mJ- 
 naret and cypress, of mosque and hanging 
 wood, of villa-covered quay, and noiv solitary 
 channel. " Yes ! she belongs to the race of 
 Asinine ears, thick skins, and ponderous hands 
 and feet ! ^*^ She does not, however, betray her 
 breed ; her skin is certainly as fine as that pure 
 specimen of Greek blood I have been worship- 
 ping these three months ; her hand lay in mine,
 
 104 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 small and soft, like an unfledged bird within its 
 nest; her feet — a curse upon mestlers^^^ — ^have 
 not been seen ; however, we shall see them, and 
 her ears too, if she have no more affection for 
 the yashmack than she has shown this evening. 
 I wonder whether they are as long as the ears 
 of my neighbour — the somewhat fair and fat 
 Pupul,^®^ that look like mushrooms undressed ; 
 but be they as long as those of the holy mule 
 that carries to Mecca ^'^^ the annual offerings of 
 the padishah, Veronica of the Tinghir-Oglus is 
 a beautiful girl, and I am determined to see 
 her again !"
 
 105 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 According to those philosophers who would 
 reduce to a branch of statistics man's virtues 
 and their different degrees, making them ab- 
 solutely dependant on the warmth or the cold, 
 the dryness or the moisture, the elevation 
 or the depression, of the regions wherein he 
 is fixed — the ancient Armenia was a country 
 that ought to produce a hardy and free race of 
 beings; and, without attempting to account 
 for the fact in the spirit of system, without 
 
 f5
 
 106 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 assigning to one cause, what may be the result 
 of many causes united, history has recorded 
 that the ancient Armenians were robust, spi- 
 rited, and courageous ; and, in spite of their 
 powerful neighbours, and their own varying 
 submission, attached to their national inde- 
 pendence, and jealous of the authority of 
 all, save their legitimate kings/^^ 
 
 It was an evil hour that saw the Arme- 
 nians espouse the cause of Mithridates, and 
 brave all-conquering Rome : but till that fatal 
 moment, though nominally subjected, and fol- 
 lowing the fates of the great Eastern empires 
 that succeeded each other, the country had en- 
 joyed a degree of freedom, under the supre- 
 macy of the Medes, Assyrians and Persians ; or 
 of Alexander the Great, and his successors the 
 Seleucidae/^^ 
 
 When the Roman eagle, from being re-
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 107 
 
 stricted in its range of flight, was driven 
 back upon the Seven Hills, and forced to 
 tremble and fold its wings in its original eyry, 
 before the vultures of the North, the provinces 
 and conquests of her who had styled herself the 
 earth's mistress, and presumed her reign to 
 be eternal, were left to themselves, weakened 
 and demoralized by the long habit of servi- 
 tude, and of looking to the imperial legions for 
 their defence against the barbarians. 
 
 In the general disseverance, some few states 
 started anew, and at once, in the career of inde- 
 pendence; but the greater number received a 
 copious fusion of the barbarians, their neces- 
 sary allies, or their conquerors, ere they re- 
 modelled themselves into nations. 
 
 It would not be easy to trace the extent, or 
 the quality of the accession to the original Ar- 
 menian stock; but in the course of a few cen-
 
 108 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 turies, we hear again of the kings of Armenia, 
 and of their power and military enterprize. 
 
 During the reign of Constantine, or towards 
 the middle of the fourth century, the Armenians 
 embraced the Christian religion ; and the strength 
 of their character was soon displayed, by the 
 fervour of their devotion. ^^^ Soon they fell 
 into schism, and one, who holds not the scales, 
 nor attempts to decide on the conflicting opi- 
 nions that too soon distracted a church, whose 
 very foundation-stone was peace and mutual 
 forbearance, will scarcely withhold his admi- 
 ration, from the firmness with which the Ar- 
 menians retained the opinions they had adopt- 
 ed; though he may regret, that a blind, un- 
 yielding reverence to dogma, should betray 
 them into contempt of human suffering and 
 human life — in their own persons, or in those 
 of their antagonists ; for, on extended observa-
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 109 
 
 tion, it will hold but too true, that the spirit 
 of fanaticism, which shall suffice to make men 
 encounter death, for unintelligible, speculative 
 notions, will, under a different modification of 
 circumstances, justify them in their o\\ti eyes, 
 in inflicting that death on others, their antago- 
 nists; and sanctify the employment of the sword 
 or the stake. 
 
 Adopting the tenets, or the heresies of Euty- 
 ches, the Armenians formed themselves into a 
 separate community of Christians ; and they 
 would be a people attractive of some curiosity 
 and interest, were it but from the fact of their 
 being, as they are to this day, one of the 
 churches of the East — one of the great di- 
 visions of the Christian family, that, retaining 
 their faith, in the regions of Asia, where it 
 sprung, to improve and bless the world, have 
 adhered to it, through twelve long centuries of
 
 110 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 Mahometan persecution. In the middle ages, 
 so dark for Europe, a glimmering of light 
 rested upon Armenia; and literary works of 
 that period still exist, to speak to its com- 
 parative learning and civilization Z"*^ 
 
 The fanaticism of a novel faith, or the am- 
 bition and rapacity of new conquerors — for the 
 proselytes of the Arabian prophet were, at least, 
 as anxious for exclusive power and possession in 
 this world, as for exclusive bliss in the next, — 
 soon annihilated the political existence of the 
 Christian states in Asia ; and that their religion 
 did not fall with it, must, as we have inti- 
 mated, remain matter of admiration. 
 
 A part of the dominions of the two Armenias, 
 which, in their most extended sense, had com- 
 prised the vast regions between Medea, Iberia, 
 and Mesopotamia, for the Major ; and between 
 Cappadocia, Cilicia, the Euphrates, and Syria,
 
 THE ARMEXIAXS. Ill 
 
 for thje Minor, fell to the Turks ; and a part was 
 included within the modem Persian empire. 
 
 The condition of the people varied according 
 to the caprices of their masters ; and sometimes 
 flocks of Armenians, for refuge from the tyranny 
 of the Turkish pashas, fled to the shadow of the 
 Persian Shah ; whilst at others, the cases of per- 
 secution and protection were reversed, and they 
 sought in the dominions subjected to the Os- 
 manlis, that peace they could not find among 
 the Persians. For the last two centuries, the 
 indifference, the indolence, the apathy of the 
 Turks, have caused the current to run pretty 
 steadily in one way ; and, during that period, 
 the impolitical activity and persecution of the 
 Persians, have many times swelled the tide of 
 emigration ; and, to its own detriment, furnished 
 the Ottoman empire with industrious, valuable 
 rayah subjects, who were but too well disposed
 
 112 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 to the change of masters, by the knowledge, that 
 from the dreaming, stupid Osmanlis, much more 
 was to be gained by way of commerce, to which 
 they have exclusively turned their attention, than 
 from the wide-awake, the crafty Kuzilbashes/^^ 
 The regions of peculiar sanctity, the spots 
 which had witnessed the early formation of 
 the church, or had been the scene of Scrip- 
 ture's earliest events, (at least, according to 
 the Armenians) — the holy peaks of Mount 
 Ararat, on which the ark of Noah was depo- 
 sited by the subsiding flood, that had lashed 
 its waves round the punished globe ; the mo- 
 nastic establishments, the vastest, the most an- 
 cient, and most revered, — all remained within 
 the limits of the Persian empire ; ^^^ in Ar- 
 menia Major, too, masses or communities of 
 the Eutychean Christians continued untouched, 
 and free, almost, from the admixture of the
 
 THE ARMEXIAXS. 113 
 
 Mahometans, and that portion of the ancient 
 Armenian kingdom, uhich had been distinguish- 
 ed by the superior nationality of its inhabit- 
 ants, still retained a hardy population — the sem- 
 blance of a separate, though conquered state. 
 
 It is true, migrations were k^o^vn from 
 })arts of those upper regions, but they took a 
 very different course ; they set towards the 
 realms of a Christian sovereign. ^'^ Those who 
 departed, corresponded with their brethren who 
 remained behind; and though it may have 
 escaped observation, or in the diversity and more 
 immediate interest of the world's affairs have 
 been held as unimportant, it is still certain, that 
 for many years the occupation of parts of Arme- 
 nia was prepared for Russia by the Armenians. <^®^ 
 
 But the objects of present consideration are 
 rather the inhabitants of Minor Armenia ; and 
 an inferior people, who from Persia and the 
 Turkish provinces contiguous to the Euphrates,
 
 114 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 have overrun nearly the whole of the Ottoman 
 empire. 
 
 The current, it has been said, has run, for 
 the two past centuries, pretty regularly from 
 Persia to the dominions of the Porte ; and its 
 channel has been deepened, and its tide strength- 
 ened, as the following circumstances will suf- 
 fieiently explain. 
 
 A certain number of missionaries, the active 
 and talented members of the Propaganda Jidei of 
 Rome, who found it easier and safer to enter into 
 discussion with schismatic Christians, than with 
 wholly unbelieving, and hot-headed Mahomet- 
 ans, whilst the merit of converting is equal in 
 both cases, in the eyes of their church — succeed- 
 ed in their zealous efforts, and induced a few Ar- 
 menians to embrace the Roman creed and ritual. 
 
 The story of the Neophytes, of this infant 
 sect, was the usual one. They were pitied or 
 despised, as long as they remained weak and
 
 THE ARMEXIANS. llS 
 
 humble ; but malice rose with the accession to 
 their strength, and ended in persecution and 
 deadly hate. 
 
 The operations of the Armenians were singu- 
 lar, owing to their dependent situation; they 
 could not erect a " holy office" of their own, 
 to judge and to punish on matters of faith; 
 but Christians as they were, they applied to the 
 followers of Ali, the men of a hostile faith, 
 who detested all the forms of their religion 
 alike, to deal with the seceders. 
 
 The Persians did not imitate the good sense 
 or indifference of the Turks, who let the Naza- 
 renes quarrel on as they like, and treat them but 
 as different breeds of swine in one stye — they 
 were seduced by their wonted busy, intermed- 
 dling spirit, and by those springs, without which 
 nothing is set in motion in the East — purses of 
 gold — to an interference in the modes of faith of
 
 116 THE ARMENIxVNS. 
 
 their Armenian subjects. The princes and khans, 
 who rubbed their foreheads on the threshold of 
 the Shah's porte, found a satisfactory source of 
 revenue in the persecuting Eutycheans, who were 
 ever ready to buy them over ; and what mattered 
 it to enlighteped patriots like them, that the 
 country was impoverished and seriously injured 
 by the frequent emigration or flight of the Ca- 
 tholic Armenians ? 
 
 But where favour is to be bought, the higher 
 price will secure it, and intrigue and caprice are 
 not to be depended upon — no where less so, than 
 among the fickle Persians. The Cathobcs, who 
 had increased under persecution, at length boldly 
 ventured on the market ; and their money, and 
 in some instances the talent and the money too, of 
 the church of Rome, were employed on the Ma- 
 hometans against the rival sect. Innumerable 
 were the combats and various the successes ; at
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 117 
 
 times the object of attack and defence was a 
 mud-walled church, or a khan of a monastery, 
 for the Catholics soon erected such places ; at 
 other times, it would be the seizure of a back- 
 sliding brother or sister, or a right of pre- 
 cedence, or some other of the numerous apples 
 of discord that are thro\\Ti between contending 
 churches — gross and paltry objects, it might 
 seem, to the advocates of eternal salvation. 
 Under one Shah, or under the influence of a 
 particular favourite of the day, it would hap- 
 pen that the Eutycheans would procure a sen- 
 tence, condemning the Roman church to be 
 levelled with the ground, the monastery to be 
 converted into a stable, and the priests and 
 monks to be imprisoned and bastinadoed. 
 
 There is one case on record, where they were 
 even so successful as to induce the court to 
 condemn the Catholic bishop to be burned
 
 118 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 alive; and it is almost surprising, that their 
 fanaticism should not have made them insen- 
 sible, we will not say to humanity, for that is 
 not supposed to have directed them, but to 
 fears for their own skin, and to the reflection, 
 (which saved the bishop,) that among the capri- 
 cious changes of their masters^ humours, it 
 might happen, on some other day, that the Ca- 
 tholics should succeed, and the Eutycheans be 
 sentenced to the grill. 
 
 The holy, the pure faith, which each sect pre- 
 tended exclusively to practise and teach in its 
 perfection, orders that ill shall not be done, in 
 the hopes that good may ensue from the prac- 
 tise; but Eutychean and Roman shut their ears 
 to the immortal precept, while, to their passion- 
 blinded eyes, every means seemed justifiable that 
 led to the end. The vices and abominations of 
 the interior of an eastern despot's court, were
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 119 
 
 called into action in the cause of the Christian 
 religion; and letters are extant, written by a 
 member of the Roman church, in which he con- 
 gratulates a devout friend, on the turn affairs 
 have taken at the court of Persia, in favour of 
 the Catholics ; which success he blushes not to 
 attribute, next to the influence of the Holy 
 Spirit, to their intrigues with a eunuch and a 
 concubine, the two imperial favourites of the day. 
 We have said, the success of the rival 
 churches varied ; but as the Eutycheans or Ar- 
 menians of the ancient Armenian faith, con- 
 tinued infinitely more numerous and more 
 wealthy, it could not but be, that on the 
 whole they would have the advantage over their 
 Catholic countrymen. Frequent persecutions 
 were raised against the latter; and one of 
 superior magnitude in the early part of the 
 eighteenth century, drove a number of Ca-
 
 120 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 tholic families from the country, the greater 
 part of whom found a peaceable asylum in 
 Turkey ; and only an enterprising few broke 
 through their prejudice in favour of the East, 
 and of eastern customs ; and, crossing the 
 Mediterranean, found refuge and protection at 
 the extremity of the Venetian gulf/^^ 
 
 The religious feuds which had divided them 
 in their own country, or in the Persian do- 
 minions, could not be effected by a change 
 of soil and air; they went with them into Tur- 
 key ; and if they were not more frequently dis- 
 played in action and violence, it was rather 
 owing to the contemptuous indifference of the 
 Turks, than to any improvement of moderation 
 in themselves. 
 
 Eruptions of zeal or fanaticism, however, 
 there were on both sides ; and the Eutycheans, 
 continuing to be in the Ottoman States as they
 
 THE ARMENIAXS. 121 
 
 had been in the Persian, incomparably more 
 numerous than the Romans, and more wealthy, 
 and every way more influential, they seem to 
 have had, almost without an exception, the vic- 
 tory on their side. Nor did the Eutycheans 
 always use that victory with moderation, and 
 stop short of human blood ; for about a century 
 back the Turks, urged by them, put to death, 
 for the faith's sake, a certain strenuous Ca- 
 tholic. His name was Comedas, or Comydas : 
 he was beheaded, and the church of Rome 
 awarded the crown of martyrdom to the man 
 who had the constancy to lay down his life 
 for her tenets, on the walls of Constantinople. 
 
 These dogmatic dissensions, which rendered 
 the Armenians insensible to the charities and 
 the htimanity of our nature, which made them 
 unmindful of the facts that they were brethren — 
 descendants from the same ancient stock — 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 1:22 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 Christians agreeing upon the same material 
 point of faith, cast among fanatic Moslems, 
 who detested them all, and all their doctrines 
 alike, continued with unabating fury for many 
 years. 
 
 At last, the weaker or the Catholic party, 
 made their sufferings and their full condition 
 known at the Vatican; and the Pope of the 
 period, with a very proper knowledge of cause 
 and effect, and of the character of a coarse, 
 worldly-minded hierarchy, decreed that the 
 Armenian Catholics should be permitted to re- 
 ceive the sacraments of baptism, marriage, &c. 
 from the rival Armenians, and to pay the 
 priests of the schismatic church for the same, 
 precisely in the same proportion as they would 
 their own sacerdotal body/^®^ The rubiehs and 
 the piastres, and the mahmoodiers, though they 
 bore the infidel impress of the Turks, were
 
 TKi: ARMENIANS. 123 
 
 more potent in the production of tranquillity 
 between the sects, than the inspirations of 
 humanity, of patriotism, — of the blessed word 
 itself. The bearded priests of the Eastern 
 church received their fees, and ceased from 
 troubling the beard/^.s5 priests of the Western 
 church ; and if there were always latent causes 
 of dispute and ill will, — and the spread and rise 
 of the Catholic body afterwards renewed hosti- 
 lities more violently than ever, — still, for awhile, 
 the Armenians at Constantinople, at Smyrna, 
 and the other great cities of Turkey, ceased to 
 persecute and intrigue against one another, and 
 to give to the world the scandalous spectacle of 
 their unchristianly, religious dissensions. 
 
 As ghiaours, the Armenians were precluded 
 from the profession of arms, for none but the 
 children of the prophet may well wield tbe 
 sabre in Mahometan armies;''"^ and the same
 
 124 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 privileged class exercise the calling of law, 
 which indeed, from the Koran, is but a portion 
 of their religion. 
 
 In barbarous and arbitrary governments, 
 where the property it engages and produces 
 is so much exposed, agriculture will never be 
 resorted to from choice ; by a weak and rayah 
 population particularly. As lately has been said 
 of the Jews of Turkey and Barbary, that never 
 one of them is seen engaged in the labours of 
 the field, so, with perhaps slight exceptions, the 
 same may be advanced of the Armenians, who 
 flock to the great cities of Asia Minor, and to 
 the capital — Stambool. Like the Jews too, and 
 indeed like all the races of the Levant, except 
 the Greeks, the Armenians are averse to a 
 seafaring life, and are not found as sailors. 
 
 The healing, or as it might more appositely 
 be called, the killing art, in the East, whenever
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 125 
 
 held as a profession, and separated from the 
 craft of santons and conjurors, is monopoHzed 
 by audacious Franks ; the doctors of the Italian 
 peninsula chiefly, who never had a diploma 
 from an Italian university; by cast-oiF cooks 
 or valets, '^^^'' or the descendants of the same, 
 educated in Smyrna or the capital, heirs to the 
 science which was intuition in their fathers : or 
 it is practised by a set of Jews, who prowl 
 about the streets of Constantinople, like the 
 wicked master for whom Anastasius was treated 
 with a sight of the interior of the bagnio : or 
 they open a little shop, or erect a little stall in 
 some great thoroughfare, or opposite to a fa- 
 vourite coffee-house, which they (and the moun- 
 tebanks, but no decent European practitioner, 
 as a traveller has incorrectly stated) frequent, 
 on the look-out for customers. 
 
 The more mechanical and material depart-
 
 126 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 ment of the ars medicandi, fell however par- 
 tially to the Armenians, who are possessed of a 
 certain mechanical dexterity ; and the Arme- 
 nians are celebrated as bone-setters, and gene- 
 rally employed as such, all over Turkey. 
 The same dexterity recommended them to the 
 exercise of several other mechanical professions, 
 such as those of jewellers, enamellers, weavers, 
 carpenters, and smiths ; and among the Turks, 
 who now do nothing at all, but drill pipe-sticks 
 and make earthern pipe-bowls, and who never 
 seem to have done anything mechanical, beyond 
 the manufacture of arms, saddles, and carpets, 
 they were sure of finding employment. 
 
 The very lowest of the Armenian race, unre- 
 pulsed by filth and contempt, employed them- 
 selves to perform the duty which cloaca, or com- 
 mon sewers, do elsewhere ; and their odious and 
 unsavoupv name of boktandji, is applied by the
 
 THE ARMEXIAXS. 127 
 
 Turks, in their choler, to the Armenian caste 
 generally. 
 
 But it was in the congenial pursuits of com- 
 merce, that the Armenians from the beginning, 
 looked for employment and advancement. 
 
 Sober, patient, cautious, laborious, and even 
 enterprizing, they were indeed admirably suited 
 for the details of trade, and to be the mer- 
 chants of the strangely modified East. They 
 not only established houses in the capital and 
 at Smyrna, and the other great scales or ports 
 of the Levant, which are the issues for the rich 
 produce of Turkey, and the stores for the 
 manufactures of industrious Europe, and the 
 now indispensable luxuries which the enter- 
 prise of Europe draws from its colonies; but 
 they settled at Brusa in Bithynia, at Kutaya, 
 and Angora, and other places in the interior of 
 Asia Minor, or in Syria; and their colonies
 
 128 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 along the shores of the Euxine were more nu- 
 merous than the Ligurian establishments, and 
 but for the stupidity of, the Turks, their general 
 oppressors, the Armenians, mixed with the 
 Greeks, might have become almost as useful 
 and as prosperous as once were the trading 
 colonies of the Genoese Republic, or the earlier 
 settlements of the Greeks in the same sea. 
 
 Endowed with great bodily strength, and a 
 sort of passive courage, the Armenian traders 
 were accustomed to take journeys through 
 remote and dangerous countries ; they traversed 
 the now deserted regions of Asia Minor, where 
 during summer, fever lurks in every vale and 
 hollow ; they braved the Syrian heats, and, at 
 times, the simooms and the drought of the Ara- 
 bian desert. In the happily constituted states 
 of society, in the well governed countries 
 through which their road generally lay, the
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 129 
 
 rapine of professional robbers, and of rob- 
 bers more insatiable than they — the pashas and 
 men in power — the dysentery, the plague, not 
 to enumerate minor evils, were of familiar oc- 
 currence.^^^^ Yet, the greater the risk, the 
 greater the gain, in case of success ; and tlie 
 spirit of the Armenians was not broken by re- 
 peated misfortune and wrong. 
 
 And, after all, who paid the price of disorder 
 and injustice ? Why the Turks, and not they ! 
 for the injury inflicted by the plundering rapa- 
 city of a sheik, an agha, a pasha, or a freebooter, 
 was made up by an increase of price on the 
 articles that remained, or might follow by an- 
 other caravan ; and the Turkish buyers grum- 
 bled, and paid their enterprising purveyors. 
 The Armenians were, indeed, by land what the 
 Greeks were by sea ; but for these two classes of 
 rayahs, the commerce of the Ottoman dominions, 
 
 g5
 
 18tr THE ARMKNTANS. 
 
 confined as it has been, would have been infinitely 
 more despicable ; whilst, on the other hand, had 
 they been protected in their persons and pro- 
 perty as they ought to have been, their commer- 
 cial spirit — the steadiness and perseverance of 
 the one class, the energy and intelligence of the 
 other — might have renovated a sinking empire. 
 Tribes of these Armenian traders there 
 were, and are still, though the number be dimi- 
 nished, constantly on the road, patient as the 
 camels they Taestride, passive and enduring as 
 their own bales of merchandize ; and the pic- 
 ture of Maallim Moorsa,^^^) is no caricature, 
 but a most correct portrait of one of those sons 
 of trade. 
 
 Even commercial pursuits, in their develope- 
 ment, are susceptible of grandeur; and those 
 of the children of the East, at times approached 
 the romantic, the poetic ; for in their course
 
 THE ARMENIANS. ISl 
 
 they would frequently leave the ancient Eu- 
 phrates far behind them ; would consider Bag- 
 dad — the fallen Bagdad, once the home of 
 Oriental gorgeousness and revelry, — but as a 
 starting post for their extended career ; would 
 traverse regions whose very names carry with 
 them impressions imaginative and fable-like; 
 and return to Stambool and Europe, or the 
 western shores of the Asiatic peninsula, with 
 the stores of " Ind and Catai." (^^^ 
 
 The Jews also abound in Turkey ; for the 
 intolerance and persecution of various states 
 have strengthened the rayah population of that 
 singular country. The children of Israel had 
 avowedly no pursuit but that of trade; they 
 were, however, more sedentary than the Arme- 
 nians — perhaps more timid. The inferior 
 classes exercised their skill as trucksters and 
 brokers ; and the superior, acquiring wealth.
 
 132 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 became the seraffs or bankers of the Porte, the 
 pashas, and Turkish grandees in general. 
 
 In well constituted governments, where honesty 
 will always be more profitable than dishonesty, 
 it will never be found that a whole class or race 
 is thievish; and if the Jews in Turkey were 
 notoriously so, the blame attached to the Turks. 
 The pashas and men in office thought they 
 might improve by the change, and began to 
 substitute Armenian serafFs for Jewish. 
 
 In a few years, the Israelites had almost dis- 
 appeared as bankers ; the Armenians advanced 
 in wealth and consideration, but certainly not in 
 happiness and tranquillity; and the latter was 
 fatally compromised, when, not many years ago, 
 they accepted the offices of seraffs to the Porte, 
 and directors of the Mint. The honour. In their 
 eyes, attached to these high functions, the hopes 
 of rapidly making gigantic fortunes, seduced
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 13S 
 
 the Armenians intx) intrigue and manoeuvre, 
 similar in nature to those resorted to by the 
 Greeks of the Fanar, for the principalities of 
 Wallachia and Moldavia. The ambitious career 
 of both, was alike subversive of the feelings of 
 nature and of honour ; alike perilous — for that 
 of the seraff of the Porte was sure to end in 
 death and confiscation, or exile and ruin, like 
 the more splendid one of the hospodar. There 
 was, however, one grand point of difference 
 between the Armenians and the Greeks ; and it 
 may be assumed, as one among many proofs of 
 the superiority claimed for the latter, o\er all 
 the dwellers in the East. 
 
 The Greeks, as they advanced in prosperity, 
 improved in spirit ; they contracted European 
 ideas, and laboured, that their children should 
 have some of the advantages of European edu- 
 cation. They more and more detested the
 
 lS4i THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 Turkish tyranny, as they acquired light to 
 judge of its full horrors and deformities, and 
 to contrast it with civilized Christian govern- 
 ments. They threw off the Eastern customs 
 and opinions of their predecessors, as unworthy 
 trammels ; they assimilated their domestic inte- 
 rior to those of our western world ; and for 
 more than a quarter of a century, the European 
 traveller had remarked the advancement of the 
 Greeks, in intellect and manner. They could 
 not stop there — they looked to what they had 
 been — at what the Turks are — and they con- 
 ceived, cherished the idea, of acquiring their 
 independence, and becoming again a nation ! 
 
 But the Armenians, the plodding, the un- 
 intellectual Armenians, had not the embryo, the 
 spark of a spirit within them, to be warmed by 
 their prosperity. Essentially oriental, they con- 
 tinued unchangeable in their attachments to
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 135 
 
 the ideas and usages inveterate, from their 
 many-centuried existence; they still despised 
 knives and forks, sat cross-legged, veiled their 
 mves' faces, and smoked their pipes, in gross, 
 contented ignorance. The oppression erf their 
 masters they felt less than the Greeks ; for the 
 submissiveness, the grovelling spirit of the Ar- 
 menians, disarmed the apprehension and hatred 
 the ancient possessors of the country constantly 
 kept awake in the bosoms of the Mussulman 
 conquerors. Of that oppression they would lose 
 sight altogether : they were decidedly the fa- 
 voured class among the rayahs; and though 
 not exempt from violence and extortion, they 
 balanced the injuries they sustained, with the 
 advantages they derived from the short-sighted, 
 indolent Turks; and the evil with the good, 
 they were inclined to become advocates for the 
 statu quo of tilings ; and the Armenians of Con-
 
 136 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 stantinople, as an experienced and philosophic 
 observer has said, would certainly view the 
 subversion of the Ottoman empire with regret/^^^ 
 
 It might be both instructive and amusing, 
 to trace the history and condition of the dif- 
 ferent classes of rayah, or conquered popula- 
 tion, in the Ottoman empire ; this, however, is 
 not the place; and it may suffice for the pre- 
 sent, to describe, as we have done, the effects 
 and the character resulting therefrom to the Ar- 
 menians. But the abjectness, the timidity, the 
 downcast eyes, the crouching demeanour, the 
 silence of these men, when in the presence of the 
 Turks, must be seen to be understood. 
 
 The proud Osmanlis, besides the reproach- 
 ful term with which their anger designates 
 the Armenians, have another name for them, 
 in their moods of friendship and goodwill — 
 they call them men camels; and their en-
 
 THE ARMENIAN'S. 137 
 
 during patience, industry, and usefulness, may 
 make the name of the quadruped applicable. 
 The analogy may be further extended; for, 
 as among animals, the camel is that which 
 bears most markedly the signs of subjection and 
 servitude, so among men, is the Armenian of 
 Constantinople. ^^'^^ No soul-stirring reminis- 
 cences of ancient glory and independence ; no 
 patriotism, (that religion of earth !) no abstract 
 love of freedom, can be expected in a race like 
 this. 
 
 The Armenians neither recall the past nor 
 look forward to the future ; they are in this, 
 inferior even to the despised Jews, who still, 
 from the depths of their degradation, remembei 
 that they were once " the denizens of their own 
 free independent state;'' and enslaved, poor, 
 scattered, dishonoured as they are, their souls' 
 aspirations are for the day when they shall
 
 138 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 again be free, rich, united — a nation ! Aye ! 
 some there are, who, in the glowing language of 
 the Hebrew Maid,^*^^ can refer to '' the ancient 
 history of the people of God;" can esteem the 
 proudest names of other lands but " as the 
 gourd compared with the cedar;'' — can trace 
 those names " that ascend, far back, to the high 
 times, when the Divine Presence shook the 
 mercy-seat between the cherubim; and which 
 derived their splendour from no earthly prince, 
 but from the awful voice, which bade their 
 fathers be nearest of the congregation to the 
 Vision !'' 
 
 And indeed, the children of Israel who retain 
 their faith, generally, and thrown wherever 
 they may be, still mourn, as in the days of their 
 Babylonian captivity, over the picture of Zion ; 
 and the feeling with which they look forward 
 to the fulfilment of misunderstood prophecy.
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 139 
 
 has perhaps in it, as much of nationality, of pa- 
 triotism, as of religion. 
 
 In England, in other countries of Europe, 
 where, admitted by degrees to somewhat like 
 equality of rights, the Jews, imbibing the 
 modes and opinions of our days, and verging 
 to a change of belief, or (as may be feared,) 
 to general disbelief, are not so strongly moved 
 by the sentiments alluded to; — but in the 
 East, where they are strictly confined to the 
 society of themselves ; where they are shunned 
 and contemned by all castes and creeds ; where 
 they retain their ancient usages ; where their 
 women wear the garments and style of orna- 
 ments they wore when a David or a Solomon 
 sat on the throne of Israel ; where the holy 
 hill of Sion, and " Siloa's brook, that flow'd fast 
 by the oracle of God,'^ — are comparatively ob- 
 jects near at hand and accessible, those senti-
 
 140 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 merits of patriotism are ardent and enduring. 
 They are not often shown openly, as though 
 they never would excite envy or fear ; they cer- 
 tainly would provoke derision ; but he who 
 traces these sketches, remembers a burst of feel- 
 ing, and a scene, that deeply interested him at 
 the time. 
 
 He was standing in Constantinople, at the 
 upper extremity of the Hippodrome, and at the 
 foot of the Egyptian obelisk, with the twisted 
 broken column, or truncated tripod of bronze 
 behind him — before him extended the long, 
 vast square, retaining nearly its original dimen- 
 sions — the arena, where a mighty empire had 
 displayed its pomp and splendour; where the 
 maddening course of the charioteers had caused 
 the hearts of assembled thousands to rush like 
 the fiery wheels of the contending cars ; and 
 where the deadly factions of the blues and the
 
 THE ARMEXIAXS. 141 
 
 greens had dyed the soil vnih red blood. He 
 stood there, overpowered with the recollections, 
 and the real and present magnificence of the 
 spot/»»> 
 
 To his right, and running half the length of 
 the Hippodrome, was a wall, with open iron 
 railings, that separated the square from a vast 
 and well-paved court-yard, in which rose the 
 Mosque of Sultan Achmet — the grandest edifice 
 in Turkey — with its swelling domes, and six 
 towering minarets. Before him, at the end of 
 the Hippodrome, was the broad and ancient 
 mass of Santa Sophia ; and at the same extre- 
 mity, but to the left, the column of the Em- 
 peror Marcian showed itself over a line of serais 
 and meaner buildings. The breezes of evening 
 were busy, in a line of fair and statel}^.. trees, 
 ranged in front of the nearer mosques, while the 
 setting sun, striking on the taper, gilded points
 
 142 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 of the minarets, made them glitter like flames, 
 and shining full on the wide-arched upper case- 
 ments beneath the dome, gorgeously coloured 
 the expansive glass with the hues of purple and 
 of molten gold. The building of the Mahome- 
 tan conqueror showed as a mountain of purely 
 white marble; the more distant temple of the 
 Christian emperor, in colour grey, and subdued, 
 in mourning weeds for its actual desecration; 
 but, taken both together, the church and the 
 mosque, without any accessaries, save the spa^ 
 cious square and the mystic column — they 
 offered a picture which, perhaps no capital can 
 surpass. 
 
 A poor old Jew had approached the traveller, 
 to off^er him some attar of roses for sale ; he 
 might have remarked, that he was impressed 
 with what he saw; he followed his eyes, and 
 measured with him the length of the Hippo-
 
 THE AEMEXIANS. 143 
 
 droine, the elevation of the domes and towers, 
 the breadth of the stately edifices. " And 
 what is all this?" said he, in the corrupted 
 Spanish, (the general dialect of the Jews in 
 Turkey,) " what is all this to the Holy Mount, 
 and the Temple of Solomon r — Aye, Jerusalem, 
 our city, and the city of our Lord, was as su- 
 perior to Stambool and all its glories, as is 
 Stambool to Ortakeui !''^2o>
 
 144 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 A RESOLUTION like that made by the hero of 
 our tale, at the end of the third chapter, was 
 likely to be kept ; and as his time for once lay 
 heavily on his hands, as in the pursuits of gal- 
 lantry that had occupied him, he had himself 
 tired of one fair friend, and had caused ano- 
 ther to tire of him, as he had no new horse to 
 exercise and be proud of, no new shawl or robe 
 with which to attract attention, among the blue 
 coats and bright buttons of the cercle diploma-
 
 THE AEMENIANS. 145 
 
 tique of Pera, or awaken envy among the gaudv 
 Stambool dandies — as, in fine, he had nothing 
 to do that was worth the while doing, he went 
 back to his grandmother*'s the very next day. 
 
 The thanks of his aged relative for so speedy . 
 a repetition of his kind visit, the beautiful view 
 of the Bosphorus, and a good appetite for his 
 supper, despite his kindling passion, were how- 
 ever the only rewards his exertions met with — 
 Veronica came not. 
 
 He went home that evening in a very bad 
 humour with himself, and with the Armenian 
 race in general: he determined that Veronica 
 must have ears like an ass, feethke an hamal^ <^'^ 
 and that he must be a fool, if ever again he 
 lost his precious time for her. And yet with- 
 out any revelation from another world, to show 
 him he erred, and to change his opinion during 
 the night, the next morning found him full of 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 l-iG THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 anxiety to see that pale impressive face again, 
 and busied in devising some pretext for again 
 repeating his visit to the Princess; who, con- 
 scious as he himself was of a secondary motive 
 so perfectly independent of his duty and attach- 
 ment to her, he apprehended might detect its 
 cause, and throw obstacles in the way of his 
 meeting Veronica, before he should have im- 
 pressed the fair Armenian with a full sense of 
 his merits and irresistibleness. 
 
 A letter from his mother at Bucharest, and a 
 present of rare fruit, the growth of the serag- 
 lio garden, came most opportunely to his suc- 
 cour. " I must carry these myself,"*' said Con- 
 stantine ; " I will go early — I will dine with 
 my grandmother —I will see the lily of the 
 seraff, if I wait till night, and hear every piece 
 of good advice the old lady ever gave me, over 
 again." He went, and a dull day he had of it.
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 147 
 
 In vain did he look along the quay, mistaking 
 every distant veiled figure he saw for the object 
 he desired ; in vain did he fix his eye on the 
 house of the Tinghir-Oglus, expecting to see 
 Veronica enter it from without, or issue thence 
 for her promenade, or her visit to the Princess. 
 He felt, too, his lengthening disappointment the 
 more keenly, as, on his arrival, his relative had 
 said that she expected her young Armenian 
 friend would visit her in the course of the day 
 — that some of the fair fruit — her Costandi's 
 present, should regale the kind Veronica. 
 
 As he sat at dinner with the Princess, he 
 heard a female voice at the outer door, gently 
 call the name of " Petracki ; " the sound was 
 more musical than the voice of a cherub — it 
 must be the attendanfs call — she must be there 
 — he almost leaped from his seat. 
 
 Petracki, obedient to the summons, repaired 
 
 H 2
 
 148 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 to the outer hall, and pulled a cord which 
 communicated with the latch ; the door 
 creaked on its hinges, feet were heard on the 
 stairs — light, gentle, the fall of female feet — 
 two figures advanced to the open doors of the 
 saloon, yashmacks covered their faces, their 
 boots and papooshes were of the proper colour 
 — was the loiterer come at last ? No ! they 
 were only two Armenian women who were 
 bringing home some kalemkiars, ^^^ the Princess 
 had ordered for the mother of Costandi — of the 
 graceless youth, who, at this unexpected dis- 
 closure, destroyed the graceful curl of his mou- 
 stache by furiously pulling it, and the grace of 
 a whole morning's good behaviour (in the eyes 
 of his grandmamma) by speaking ill of painted 
 handkerchiefs. 
 
 But the most painful incident was towards 
 the close of day, when, as tired and exas-
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 149 
 
 perated, he was looking across the Bosphorus 
 to the Giant's Mount, whose ridge of trees 
 bending towards him, from the blasts of the 
 Euxine, as if in mockery, to say that they were 
 coming to him — a promise theji seemed as likely 
 to keep as Veronica — he saw a four-oared caik, 
 with ladies seated at its stem, approach the 
 quay. The boat stopped opposite the house of 
 the Tinghir-Oglus ; three ladies, closely veiled 
 and wrapped in their ample cloaks, stepped on 
 shore and glided to the porch, whilst, to gratify 
 the longing eyes of the Prince, Veronica's uncle 
 Yussuf, vnih long iron-grey moustachoes, and a 
 £hin for a week unconscious of a razor, stood 
 leisurely by the water's edge to settle some 
 matter of paras with the boatmen. 
 
 Before the disappointed Constantine descend- 
 ed the Bosphorus that evening, he walked for 
 awhile up and down the quay, in the hopes that
 
 150 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 Veronica might see at least, by his presence 
 there, how very ill she was behaving. 
 
 His only pleasure — and childish as it may 
 be, it is a pleasure that all who have loved have 
 felt — was to fix his eye on a light that faintly 
 glimmered through the well-secured lattices of 
 a room in the serafF's abode — to fancy that 
 its rays illumined the face and form of the fair 
 Armenian, and as it was obscured to him by 
 some object passing in the room, or by a tremu- 
 lous shadow playing across its radiance, to de- 
 termine that effect was produced by Veronica. 
 
 Fishing is an amusement very much resorted 
 to at Constantinople, where pastimes are some- 
 what scarce, and at different seasons of the year 
 the banks of the Bosphorus are lined with ad- 
 venturous caiks, furnished with nets and hooks. 
 The nature of the occupation could scarcely 
 accord with an active, impetuous, impatient dis-
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 151 
 
 position like that of our young Greek ; he had 
 often expressed his astonishment how a man 
 who could bestride a steed, and had an open, 
 unobstructed country, like the wild neighbour- 
 hood of Stambool, to gallop over, and to make 
 his own, could coop himself up in a rocking 
 caik ; and he had invariably refused to honour 
 the aquatic piscatory parties with his presence. 
 
 His conversion was very sudden. The morn- 
 ing which succeeded the day of his disappoint- 
 ment, saw him more anxious than ever for a 
 sight, for a word with the Armenian, whom, 
 though he had ten thousand times represented 
 to himself in the garb of inferiority, and as an 
 object not meriting his love, he felt he loved. 
 There were no letters to cover his visit to the 
 Princess, and he had neither fruit nor flower 
 to present. What should he do ? A scene 
 of the preceding day recurred to his memory —
 
 152 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 it was a long bark on the Bosphorus, laying on 
 its oars, with six black-headed Armenians lean- 
 ing over the waves, and bobbing with rodless 
 lines. These fellows moved like machinery, and 
 were just as silent, save now and then, that a 
 fish was hooked up, and their hilarity exploded 
 in the Turkish monosyllable " 6/r," or one. 
 
 " I will become a fisherman," thought he ; 
 ^' the idea is excellent ! my new vocation will 
 give a motive not only for this day's visit, 
 but to as many other and consecutive ones as I 
 choose to make : so I can float up and down 
 the Bosphorus like a porpus ; so I can pass 
 and repass that cursed quay, and gaze on old 
 Tinghir-Oglus"* house, till he may think I have 
 a design to knock it down with the evil eye, 
 — till Veronica again show herself !*" 
 
 The implements of the often-derided sport 
 were soon purchased, and before noon Constan-
 
 THE AEMEXIAXS, 153 
 
 tine was again landing at the Princess's residence. 
 He blessed his star for having conducted him. 
 
 The day was a great Catholic festival, — the 
 Tinghir-Oglus, as Armenians of the Roman 
 church, were sure to make a holiday of it — he 
 was certain to see them out of doors — and so 
 much had the rising passion gained upon him, 
 by irritation, and disappointment, and delay, 
 that he fancied he should, to a certain degree, 
 be happy, could he but rest his eyes on Vero- 
 nica's form, even though it were buried in 
 broad-cloth and linen. 
 
 Petracki, who gave this information regarding 
 the fete of the rival church, was, though old, 
 a true Fanariote Greek servant — quick-sighted 
 and shrewd ; he had witnessed, moreover, the 
 animated pantomime in the passage, when Ve- 
 ronica retired by the garden-door ; he had seen 
 his young master's hand on her's, and had 
 
 H 5
 
 154 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 watched the flush and ammation of his coun- 
 tenance ; he guessed the rest, though not to its 
 full extent, for had he suspected, what by this 
 time was almost the case, that the hope, the 
 pride of the house in whose service, through 
 prosperity and adversity, his life had been 
 passed, that he^ Const antine Ghika, a Greek, 
 and of the noblest, was seriously enamoured of 
 an Armenian, the daughter of a vulgar serafF, 
 Petracki would have bit off his tongue rather 
 than say any thing that might lead to another 
 meeting. But a little playful gallantry was 
 permitted to youth ; the flames of the gentle 
 god might play for awhile innocuously round 
 the heart of maid and swain— and then it might 
 some way or other tend to annoy the starch, 
 purse-proud, gross Capriles, — and that would be 
 dehghtful ! 
 
 Constantine was sitting on the quay by the
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 155 
 
 water's edge, arranging his fishing tackle, and 
 pricking his fingers with the hooks, for his eyes 
 were looking after something in the frontispiece 
 of the black-painted wooden house, occupied 
 by the Armenians, when Petracki renewed his 
 conversation. 
 
 " Ah, my young master ! if I were permitted 
 to guess, I should say, that the fish you intend 
 to catch does not swim in the water." 
 
 The Prince's quick eye turned on the fa- 
 vourite serving-man, and the significant smile, 
 and the oblique glance from himself to the 
 Armenian house, told him that Petracki was 
 master of his secret. 
 
 " And suppose it do not, Petracki,'' replied 
 the Prince, after a moment of hesitation and 
 confusion ; for he had not yet overcome that 
 feeling, which would make him blush at the 
 thoughts of an Armenian passion of a serious
 
 156 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 nature — " suppose it do not, can you tell me 
 where it does swim ?" 
 
 '• Mayhap I might.*" 
 
 " If you could, it would deserve a sports- 
 man's thanks. As for myself, I begin to fancy 
 it frequents depths deeper than the mid-way 
 channel, and far less accessible." 
 
 " Listen, novice in fishing as you are," re- 
 plied Petracki, gently pulling the Prince by the 
 sleeve towards the door of the house, where 
 from a curve in the quay they could not be seen 
 by the Armenian neighbours ; " the fisherman 
 heeds how his shadow be cast on the waves, lest 
 he startle, and frighten his finny prey beneath 
 — why, the whole shoal your game belongs to, 
 may see you stretching over the boat, and will 
 certainly prevent its biting !" 
 
 " I understand you, my palikari — they see 
 me from those close latticed windows — I hes
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 1-37 
 
 pardon — I mean from those sedges, and hinder 
 the delicate fry from striking a fin.*" 
 
 " I know not that it is so, but even so it 
 might be, according to the rules of fishing," 
 continued Petracki, with increasing confidence. 
 
 " But what then is to be done for the coy 
 fish .^" said Constantine. 
 
 " It is their migratory season, — like the pa- 
 lamedes, ^^^ they are about to take their pas- 
 sage to-day — the whole shoal is going down the 
 Bosphorus r 
 
 Now, as the fish alluded to, are great tra- 
 vellers, and descending from the wintry Euxine 
 by the Bosphorus, the Propontis, and the Dar- 
 danelles, go Heaven knows where, Constan- 
 tine thought Petracki was carrying his me- 
 taphors a little too far. *' Their passage to- 
 day!" said he quickly; "going — why, where 
 in Satan''s name, is Veronica going .'^"
 
 358 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 " Veronica ! my gentle master, and what fish 
 is that ? I never heard of such before/' 
 
 " Curse fish '/" cried the Prince. 
 
 " With all my heart — I keep no Roman 
 fasts l"^"*^ replied Petracki, delighted like a 
 Greek with any exercise of his wits, and deter- 
 mined not to be driven so soon out of his types 
 and symbols. 
 
 " Petracki," said the Prince earnestly, " let 
 us speak plain Romaic ; " tell me who is going 
 — tell me where."' 
 
 " My good young master, the matter is by 
 no means so important — she is neither going to 
 Aleppo, nor to Mecca; but merely, as to-day 
 is a Catholic holiday, the whole family of 
 our very worthy neighbours, are to descend 
 the Bosphorus — no farther, however, than the 
 village of Arnaut-Keui, where they are to join 
 the festivity of some of their friends — doubly
 
 THE ARMENIANS. lo9 
 
 amiable as Catholics and as Armenians, like 
 themselves. That is all I know; I learned 
 it from their serving-woman, Taqui, this morn- 
 ing, and I thought it might be interesting to 
 somebody y 
 
 " You guess right, Petracki ; but not a word 
 of this to the Princess, your mistress !" 
 
 " I am dumb,'' said the old Greek ; and then 
 musing a minute, he continued : " it is matter 
 that requires neither inquiry, nor admonition ; 
 my master's pursuit is merely an innocent piece 
 of gallantry — a pastime to himself, — of course 
 there can be nothing serious, for the Cocona>^^ 
 is an Armenian." 
 
 " She is an Armenian,'' repeated Constan- 
 tine ; and if he neither groaned nor sighed, he 
 turned away his head to conceal a certain emo- 
 tion. 
 
 ' And yet, Armenian as she is," continued
 
 160 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 Petracki, turning consideration from Constan- 
 tine to Veronica, " she is a generous, noble 
 creature, and my master would not wrong the 
 youthful benefactress of the aged mother of her 
 who gave him birth/' 
 
 " Never, my honest fellow !'' said the Prince, 
 with most sincere warmth. A brief silence 
 which ensued was broken by Petracki. 
 
 " I have been thinking then, that you had 
 better give up this pursuit and go no farther — 
 at least so it strikes me, now that I consider the 
 matter seriously — separated as you are in caste 
 and sect — inferior as is the blood — but not to 
 speak of that, you never can be anything to each 
 other ; and I may equally dread, or almost so — 
 for she has been a friend to us in the moments 
 of our utmost need — either that evil may accrue 
 from the indulgence of what is now but a 
 caprice, to the gentle, the kind Armenian, or
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 161 
 
 that our own Constantine may rue in earnest, 
 what he began in sport — for if old eyes and 
 ears like mine may still judge, the beauty and 
 wit of Veronica are not to be encountered too 
 often with impunity.'" 
 
 " Beauty, and more — wit C interrupted the 
 Prince, resolved not to listen to the advice, 
 reasonable as he felt it to be, and accordant as it 
 was with some serious thoughts the old man 
 had awakened within him : " wit indeed ! what 
 are you a Greek, and allow wit to an Armenian ! 
 surely your ears must have deceived you — per- 
 haps your eyes have served you better — come, 
 tell me, what sort of ears has Veronica ?" 
 
 Petracki's grizzled moustachoes curled up 
 with a smile, and he was going to paint a port- 
 trait of the young lady, which would have no 
 wise tended to second his advice, or detach the 
 Prince from his pursuit, when a rush was heard
 
 162 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 in the waters of the channel, and the Tinghir- 
 Oglus' best caifk, with three pair of oars, was 
 observed at the edge of the quay, having issued 
 from beneath their house/^^ 
 
 " As Saint Peter is my saint and protector," 
 said the old Greek, " they are going even now — 
 see ! there they are." 
 
 The caik lay alongside the convenient quay, 
 and so deep is the water that laves the Bospho- 
 rus' banks, that an " Argosie" might have laid 
 there as well. The first figures that approached 
 it were two old Armenian serving men, with 
 thickly padded, dark skull-caps, and short 
 jackets with tight sleeves, that showed the am- 
 plitude of their nether garments to the greatest 
 advantage. Each bore in his hand a large, well 
 stuffed cushion, and a small, but thick Persian 
 carpet, which they carefully spread in the boat. 
 Next came two more youthful attendants, carry-
 
 THE ARMENIAXS. 163 
 
 ing each a narghile, or water pipe, the flexible 
 tube of which was twisted round the arm in guise 
 of a snake, while the brass mounting, newly 
 polished, shone brilliantly in the sun. Then 
 came two brawny old gentlemen of a mahogany 
 complexion, who from the homeliness of their 
 appearance, would, scarcely have been judged 
 the masters or movers of all these " notes df 
 preparation ;' ' they seemed indeed to belong to 
 the narghiles in whose train they moved ; but 
 like our mother earth, which, obsequious to the 
 sun, has still the moon in immediate controul 
 and attendance, each of the pursy serafFs bore a 
 long chibook in his hand. 
 
 They stepped into the caik, and at once the 
 aspiring poop of the boat w^as brought to some- 
 what like its level by their weight. They sat 
 themselves down crossed legged in the bottom of 
 the caik; and as the chibookjis, the two youths,
 
 l^-l THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 already specified, had taken their places behind 
 them, on the short deck, that always occupies 
 the stern-point of these Turkish boats, the cargo 
 might have been supposed complete. 
 
 Constantine began to imagine it really was, 
 when his heart beat at the appearance of three 
 veiled figures, and quicker still when the light- 
 ness and quickness of motion of the first that 
 stepped unhanded over the boat's side, be- 
 trayed youth, and, so it seemed to him — Vero- 
 nica. 
 
 The women were presently sedent in the 
 bottom of the boat, cross-legged like the men ; 
 the chibookjis did their duty ; the pipes were 
 lit, and the Armenian brothers, puffing in time 
 to the pull of the oars, this festive party glided 
 down the gay stream of the Bosphorus in word- 
 less silence. 
 
 " What merry souls they are," said Petracki,
 
 THE ARMEXIAys. 165 
 
 as his master, from within the Princess's door, 
 followed them with his eyes. 
 
 " Aye ! animated indeed,'' rejoined the Prince, 
 whose contempt for the Armenians was revived 
 by the mute pantomime — the gross want of gal- 
 lantry he had just witnessed. " And yet if I 
 read aright, there is one there that might be 
 made to feel. Petracki, you must say nothing 
 about it within, but when I go to fish this after- 
 noon, I shall not want these nets ; I shall go 
 to Amaut-Keui.''
 
 166 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 If there is a dearth or monotony of amusement 
 in Turkey, there is no lack of holidays. The 
 sabbaths alone of the three great sects that 
 divide the East, occupy three successive days of 
 the week, the Turk holding as holy our Friday, 
 the Jew the Saturday, the Christian the Sun- 
 day ; and as, in the cities especially, and among 
 the classes engaged in trade, the followers of 
 these religions are mixed up together, and de- 
 pend in many of their operations upon each
 
 THE AEMEXIANS. 367 
 
 Other, it happens that the festival of one always 
 interferes with the labours or business of two, 
 and that, in a certain degree, all are obliged to 
 keep three holidays in the week. 
 
 Though cessation from worldly occupation is 
 not imposed as a duty by the Koran, repose is 
 so congenial to the Turk, that he seizes it when- 
 ever he can, and has ever imitated the conduct 
 of the Nazarene or Jewish rayahs, who " do 
 do no manner of work," on the days they esteem 
 the Lord's. The number of Turks recumbent 
 under cool plane trees, or by the sides of plash- 
 ing fountains, is vastly augmented on the Friday ; 
 on the Saturday, if the stranger traverse the 
 bazaars — for it is there, where all business is 
 done — he sees that many of the warehouses or 
 shops are shut, and misses the busy, cringing 
 Jews ; on the Sunday, the Turks and Jews 
 are there, though from the mixed relations
 
 168 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 alluded to, far less numerous than in the early 
 days of the week, but he finds neither Greeks 
 nor Armenians, and in their absence the Bezes- 
 teen C^^ wears an air of desertion. But the fifty- 
 two Sabbaths of each church, or faith, are in- 
 significant in number, when compared with 
 the numerous conceptions and assumptions, 
 birth-days and death-days, saints-days and 
 other days, that are held as holy-days. 
 
 In this latter enumeration we must, in jus- 
 tice, exclude the Moslems ; for three days at the 
 festival of the Bairam, three others at the 
 Courbam-Bairam, and one day at the Mevlewt, 
 or birth-day of Mahomet, are the only ones 
 marked on their annual rubric. The Jews in 
 this respect, stand next in moderation to the 
 Moslems, though their festivals are infinitely 
 more numerous ; but the remaining class, the 
 Christians, sub- divide themselves into three
 
 THE AEMENIANS. 169 
 
 hostile sects, each of which has its saint, and its 
 festivals, and its peculiar holidays. 
 
 The advocate for industry has too often 
 sighed over the indolence induced, under a sa- 
 cred show, by the fetes of Catholic countries, 
 but these are exceeded in frequency by those of 
 the Greek church, whilst the difference in style, 
 or date, is the occasion that the same holidays 
 in name, as Christmas, Easter, and the rest, 
 are celebrated at different times by the Greeks 
 and the Romanists, and some of them in such 
 an unfortunate juxta- position, that, " at the 
 same moment one party is in the consternation 
 of grief, occasioned by the anniversary of the 
 death of the Son of God, and the other in the 
 transports of joy at his resurrection.""^^) 
 
 The third, the Eutychean, or Armenian 
 creed, has also its festivals, its separate saints, 
 and its martyrs — in short, were the days on 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 170 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 which labour is prohibited in the three churches 
 put together, they might occupy the whole 
 year ; and it must strike us as fortunate, that 
 they have retained even one common Sabbath, 
 and have not shown their disseverance and op^ 
 position in the election of three separate days 
 on which to worship the Lord. 
 
 Besides the partial interference and suspen- 
 sion of business necessarily occasioned,, it must 
 happen, that the festivities of the one class 
 seduce the other by the force of example. 
 This will particularly happen during the fine 
 seasons, which may be said to reign nine 
 months in the year, and to spread enchantment 
 over the ever touching scenery in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Constantinople. 
 
 If the lively Greek, with a finer disposition 
 for enjoyment than any of the rest, see his 
 Armenian neighbour embark his pipe and him- 
 
 i
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 171 
 
 self in a light caik to ascend the Bosphorus, 
 and spend a day of keff^^^^ he cannot sit cross- 
 legged from mom till eve, at the front of his 
 open shop, but must repair to the scene of the 
 day^s festivity, in the afternoon. The same thing 
 will occur, reversing the case of the Greek and 
 Armenian, (let the latter be Catholic or Euty- 
 chean,) and it will be found that the festive 
 crowd collected at an Ayasma,-^^ or Panayea, 
 will be swelled by those who hold not the same 
 creeds. 
 
 Even on the Moslem's Friday, and chiefly 
 at the glorious season which follows the festival 
 (rf Saint George, the parties of Turks that 
 repair, on prancing steeds, in silent, gliding 
 caiks, or saunter slowly along on foot, fol- 
 lowing the curves of the Golden Horn, and the 
 sleeping rivulet Barbyses — all to the valley of 
 the Sweet-waters — the verdant, the cool Kiat-
 
 172 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 hane, to spend the time till the glorious orb of 
 day sink on scenes, than which he sees none 
 lovelier, on his vast and eternal course ; those 
 flocking Osmanlis, even then, though mixed 
 not with them, but apart, and distinct in their 
 pride and intolerance, ofttimes are less numerous 
 than the knots of ray ah subjects, who are 
 taking the same road. 
 
 And then, in that valley itself, redolent with 
 freshness and beauty, and joy — where the sward 
 is so emerald, so smooth, its flowers so bright 
 of hue, that it should seem the foot of mortal 
 ought not to soil its purity ; where the shade is 
 so broad and refreshing under the over-arching 
 trees; where the water glides so silently and 
 smooth in its marble bed, or gushes and plashes 
 with a soul-cooling sound, in the marble foun- 
 tains ; where the gaily -coloured, the light 
 kiosk,(^^ though the erection of a tyrant, has the
 
 THE ARMENlAiv'S. ITS 
 
 mien of a residence destined to the gentle Graces 
 and Loves ; where the enamelled mead spreads 
 before the released coursers/^) who chase each 
 other along the rich, hollow-sounding turf, and. 
 bound and neigh aloud, while the echo of their 
 rapid hoofs, and of their gleeful voices, is pro- 
 longed by the surrounding green hills that 
 clasp the valley in a close and jealous embrace, 
 as if to separate it, and protect it from the rest 
 of the earth. There, in that glen, never to be 
 forgotten by him who has but once loitered 
 through it, during the delicious months of ]\Iay 
 and June, are found, on holidays, crowds of 
 every class or caste that dwell in vast Stam- 
 bool, and its wide-spreading suburbs. All 
 idle, thoughtless, and happy in their way. 
 
 This continual out-of-door, dis-occupied life, 
 which ever forcing itself on the eye throughout 
 the East, sets the natives of more industrious
 
 174 THE AUMENIANS. 
 
 coiiTitries wondering how they all live, and 
 would inevitably drive the political economist, 
 tLe utilitarian, into a very unsatisfactory train 
 of thought. Yet they do live — they, or at 
 least some portion of them, do labour suffi- 
 ciently in some mode or other, to support the 
 community, and until an entire change be 
 wrought in the government of the despot, 
 whose subjects they are — until law secure 
 property, and wealth cease to endanger, (as it 
 now does,) the life of its possessor ; the slaves 
 of the sultan do well to set not their hearts on 
 the accumulation of treasure, the acquiring of 
 honour ; and these are the wisest of his lieges, 
 who, contented with their pilaiF and their chi- 
 book, can recline the whole day in the pleasant 
 shade of a tree. 
 
 Were the hearts of these slaves susceptible 
 to the ineffable beauty of the scenes around
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 175 
 
 them, with such an inexhaustible resource at 
 hand, their condition and enjoyments might 
 really be matter of envy to the free, the bold, 
 the intellectual; and yet, uninformed as they 
 are,— vulgar, incapable of giving expression, or 
 of understanding themselves what passes in 
 their minds,-^who shall venture to say, that the 
 glorious aspect of enamelled mead, and verdant 
 hill, of flowing torrent and waving wood, of 
 the rushing jstrait and the smoothly spreading 
 sea, of the grouping islands and the proud 
 aspiring mountain — though they never heard the 
 name of Olympus, and to them Homer and all 
 his di\dnities are an unknown creation — who 
 shall say, that the magic panorama, reaches not 
 their hearts grovelling as they may be, and 
 imparts not a portion of its divine colouring ; 
 when we see the steed we bestride, the very dog 
 that tracks our steps, point his ears and give
 
 176 THE ARMENIANS, 
 
 indications of animation and sensibility as a 
 sudden turn in the road, or an opening vista, 
 affords the spectacle of summer's setting sun, 
 or some scene of peculiar grandeur or beauty ? 
 But be that as it may, whether they taste the 
 banquet an Almighty hand has spread before 
 them, or have no sense for it, whether they 
 enjoy the scenery or not, their presence, their 
 moods ofidlesse, their Oriental pastimes, group- 
 ing, and costume, their variety of caste and 
 race, displayed more markedly still in their 
 forms and faces than in their dresses, certainly 
 add vastly to the picturesqueness of the spots 
 they frequent, and enhance their beauty in the 
 eyes of the foreign wanderer; nor, though 
 carrying with him a conviction of the value of 
 the qualities of energy, and enterprise, and in- 
 dustry, that have rendered his own country 
 such, that his heart beats with pride as he ac-
 
 THE ARMENIANS. i7T 
 
 knowledges her in a far-ofF land, will he always 
 be inclined to draw unfavourable comparisons, 
 and to reprobate the displays of Oriental indo- 
 lence and listlessness, that are continually meet- 
 ing his eyes. 
 
 But could he, indeed, with justice, act the 
 part of a censor ? Would not his blame recoil 
 upon himself? For why is he there ? What 
 does he there but idle ? What has he been 
 doing for months, for years, but losing his 
 tune in abstractions, or dreaming over solitary 
 regions and fallen temples, which, in fact, are 
 but wastes, and stones ! And even now, if his 
 eye is active on the groups assembled at Stam- 
 booPs fairest promenade, and if his imagination 
 warms and swells, as the sight of the Israelite 
 carries him back to the remotest periods of his- 
 tory, and to regions of mystery and ineffable 
 splendour; as the Armenian suggests ideas 
 
 I 5
 
 178 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 almost as eastern and antiquated ; as the Greek, 
 spirited and elegant, even in his degradation, 
 recalls the days of Themistocles and of Phidias, 
 and identifies himself with that ancient race, 
 whom letters and arts have immortalized; as 
 the Turk, with flowing robe, and muslin turban, 
 and indolent and haughty air, transports him 
 far away to the wilds beyond the Caspian, 
 whence sprang his nation, and assimilates him- 
 self to the Persian, the enemy of the Greek of 
 two thousand years ago, as he is the foe of the 
 Greek of to day ; as the groom to the sultan''s 
 steeds now ranging the valley — the mild, blue- 
 eyed rustic, whose pipe and tabor (their an- 
 cestors could wield the sword and spear !) are 
 the principal amusements of the festive day — 
 as the Bulgarian peasant speaks of mountain- 
 life and mountain-liberty, of the dauntless 
 tribes that baffled all the power of the Grecian
 
 THE ARMEXIAXS. 1T9 
 
 emperor, and as he resembles, in the stranger's 
 eye, the hardy Highlander of his own native 
 lafid;<^'^ — -still what is all this but idleness or 
 profitless speculation — a little more intellectual, 
 it may be, than the ruminations of one of those 
 Turks or Armenians, who is watching the 
 smoke curling from his pipe — a little more 
 spirit stirring, but still idleness ! 
 
 But let us return to the Bosphorus and our 
 impatient Constantine, whose premeditated ex- 
 cursion to a Catholic festival has led to such a 
 wide digression. 
 
 When the sun began to decline, and the 
 evening breeze, which gives coolness and de- 
 light to the warmest summer davs in the spots 
 we are describing, was setting in, Constantine 
 left Emenergen-Oglu for Arnaut-Keui, which 
 is indisputably one of the finest of the numerous 
 villages on the strait, whether on the side of 
 Europe or of Asia.
 
 180 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 The distance was short, Amaut-Keui being 
 not more than two miles from the residence of 
 the Princess, and so much lower down the chan- 
 nel, or nearer to Constantinople ; yet this space 
 includes, perhaps, the loveliest scenes of the 
 Bosphorus, which is every where beautiful, 
 from the " blue Symplegades," to where, at 
 the point of StambooFs triangle, its waters 
 mingle with the expanding waves of the Pro- 
 pontis. 
 
 His caik, favoured by the rapid current, 
 glided past the villages of Jeni-Keui, Istenia, 
 and the deep port, the village, and the wood 
 of Balta-liman. He did not pause, as he 
 reached the narrowest part of the straits ; the 
 spot which is marked by nature as the military 
 passage from Asia into Europe, and which is 
 farther indicated as such by the two castles 
 which face each other on the meeting con- 
 tinents.
 
 THE ARMEIQIANS. 18l 
 
 The beauty and the horror of the scene, and 
 its associations, had long been familiar to Con- 
 stantine ; but the stranger might pause. 
 - It was supposed to be here, and the peculiar 
 and unchanging nature of this part of the 
 strait gives more strength to the supposition 
 than historical hypotheses are always attended 
 with, that the great Darius crossed the narrow 
 sea to chastise the Scythians ; and it was here, 
 and many centuries after, that another Eastern 
 conqueror erected the fortresses we now see, 
 which gave him the command of the Bosphorus, 
 and hastened and facilitated the capture of Con- 
 stantinople. (®^ The castles stand on the sloping 
 banks of the Bosphorus, and on two small 
 capes, inconsiderable in projection and height, 
 that regard each other obliquely : neither the 
 Roumeli-hissar, or the fortress of Europe, nor 
 the Anadoli-hissar, or the fortress of Asia, pos-
 
 182 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 sesses any imposing or terrible features ; indeed, 
 a round tower, not larger than a coast-marteilo, 
 a double line of crenelated walls, ascending in 
 their longitude the sides of the hill, a low bat- 
 tery with guns, important from their weight, 
 but contemptible from their awkward arrange- 
 ment and the immoveable carriages on which 
 they are fixed, are the characters of each ; and 
 a($ they are always kept neatly whitewashed^ the 
 miniature castles might almost be mistaken for 
 pleasure houses. 
 
 It was an infernal mockery to give so mild an 
 air to the outside of an interior of horror ! We 
 place the lovely marble on the grave, and it is 
 well, for death has had his own, and is no more 
 appalling — the victim that sleeps beneath is as 
 impassive as the product of the quarry that re- 
 cords his name, or begs a prayer for his de^ 
 parted soul — though his agonies may have been
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 18& 
 
 measureless, bis final hoars an accumulation of 
 horror, he is now at peace — at peace ! and the 
 tyranny that could tear his quickly decaying, 
 his so lately susceptible form, from the hospit- 
 able earth that covers it, might rend it into ten 
 thousand pieces, miglit scatter it in the air^ 
 might consume it in fire, but could not inflict 
 an ache — no ! not so much as that of a scratch- 
 ing pin ! But these turreted walls, bright and 
 pure in hue as the marble, are the living re- 
 cesses of human woe, the lair where tyranny 
 laps the blood of her victims, and shouts over 
 her hellish repast ! It is here, and at this 
 moment, when the remorseless measures of Sul- 
 tan Mahmood against the obnoxious incorpora- 
 tion were in full career, the executions were 
 more frequent than ever, that the Janissaxies 
 are transported, and a gun from the European 
 castle is the knell of each that falls — the peal
 
 184 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 that announces a fellow-creature ceases to exist 
 with the smoke that curls from the cannon's 
 mouth. This is not the grave with its imper- 
 turbable repose, but the stormy, anguished pas- 
 sage that leads to it,— this is not the void abyss, 
 where feeling is extinct, but the overhanging, 
 inevitable precipice, where feeling has all its 
 acuteness, and would cling to the slippery, ob- 
 durate rock, and shriek so piteously to be saved 
 yet awhile the fatal descent ! There within 
 those walls, which a youth might leap in his 
 sport, within that whitened tower so fair to the 
 eye, had groaned — still groaned, fathers torn 
 from their children''s embrace — ^husbands drag- 
 ged from the arms of their senseless wives : the 
 inscription at hell's entrance, " O leave all hope, 
 ye who enter herein ,"''' might have been inscribed 
 over its gate — the victims all knew this, for 
 what captive had ever made egress from Rou-
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 185 
 
 meli-hissar, otherwise than as a headless corse 
 cast into the Bosphorus"* current ? 
 
 With all their affections fresh within them, 
 with the memory of the hopes that had sprung 
 but yesterday, of the projects to occupy months, 
 years of existence, of their unexpiated crime 
 perhaps — and oh ! with their unavailable re- 
 morse, each wretch was left to number the 
 brief rapid moments between him and death ; 
 and as the walls of his prison trembled at the 
 shock, and the winding banks of the channel 
 echoed the cannon'*s roar, that told, for one 
 human being, time had become eternity, to 
 groan, " It may be my turn next !" 
 
 The little promontory on which this fortress 
 is situated, was anciently denominated of Mi- 
 nerva ; it is covered with gay green trees, with 
 here and there a diminutive cypress ; and a plea- 
 sant and picturesque village, inhabited by
 
 186 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 Turks, stands round the castle. But the Asia^ 
 tic neighbour, or rival, the Anadoli-hissar, is 
 perhaps still more beautiful and smiling ; and 
 the moment Constantine was passing, the de- 
 clining sun's rays rested on its white walls with 
 most advantageous effect. A Turkish hamlet, 
 bearing the name of the castle^ is close to it, 
 and at a short distance it is overlooked by 
 the projecting mount, (crowned with a spacious 
 kiosk and garden) and the village-^the roman* 
 tic village of Kandilly. The fortress and the 
 villages ai*e arranged in a semicircular line; 
 and rising up the banks of the Bosphorus, they 
 seem to indicate an amphitheatre — a fair Nau- 
 machia, with waves rapid but smooth, for the 
 combat or the pageant ; and here, indeed, the 
 >vilidings of the channel only admit a circum- 
 scribed portion of the sea to meet the eye 
 -i-a lake in aspect, which the warmth of an
 
 THE AKMEXIANS. 187 
 
 eastern sun, the glowing tints of summer's 
 eve, are wont to convert into a glorious, 
 though placid expanse of unrolled sheets of 
 gold, with intervening laminae of emerald and 
 sapphire. 
 
 Between the Anadoli-hissar and Kandilly, is 
 the valley of Gheuk-sou — its Turkish name, 
 which signifies the vale of the waters of celes- 
 tial blue — as pretty as itself ! It is one of those 
 narrow verdant-wooded hollows, of which seve- 
 ral open on the Bosphorus from the bosoms of 
 the European or Asiatic hills ; and the features 
 it reveals, as seen from the channel or the op- 
 posite coast, are a light and fanciful kiosk of 
 the Sultan, like the fishing-house of some 
 fair romance, a small quiet rivulet, and a 
 thick wood of stately plane trees and gnarled 
 
 The back ground to all this is a graceful range
 
 188 
 
 THE ARMENIANS, 
 
 of the Anatolian continent, whose wavy, gentle 
 hills are cultivated or covered with verdant 
 groves, and decked here and there in peculiar 
 and most felicitous effect, with gay, open-look- 
 ing kiosks, plane trees of luxuriant foliage, 
 knots of dark pines, and young cypresses, more 
 isolated and darker still. 
 
 Shortly after passing the advancing cape on 
 which the European castle is built, Constantine 
 rowed by the Turkish cemetery on the water's 
 edge, mentioned on a former occasion ; he next 
 went heedlessly by the valley and the imperial 
 kiosk of Bebek, and, rapidly propelled by the 
 current, which at this point runs with the 
 force of a whirlpool to the European bank, he 
 glided by a lovely promontory (the ancient 
 Esties) and landed a few paces beyond it at 
 the quay of the populous villlage of Arnaut- 
 keui.
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 189 
 
 Here e\ery thing bore evidence to the fes- 
 tivity of the day, and, in the manner we have 
 attempted to explain, all the castes of the in- 
 habitants of the village, Armenians, Catholic 
 and heretic, Greeks, Jews, and a few Franks, 
 were equally intent on enjoyment in their way, 
 without much caring that the festival was one 
 appointed by the Pope. 
 
 The whole length of the quay, and it is a 
 long one, was almost taken up by the caiks, 
 that had brought visitors of all classes and 
 races from other villages on the Bosphorus, or 
 from Stambool, or Tophana, Galata, Pera, Ilas- 
 sim-Pasha, or Saint Dimitri. ^^^ On shore, 
 there was a crowd of promenaders ; they 
 chiefly seemed to direct their steps inland to- 
 wards the hiUs, but some were seated by the 
 channel side, in social groups, smoking their 
 chibooks, whilst along the quay, numerous open.
 
 190 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 wine-cellars testified to Mussulman toleration, 
 and the laugh and the chorus from within them, 
 to the strength of the juice of the grapes grown 
 under the crescent of Mahomet. 
 
 Amaut-keui is in part situated on the chan- 
 nel, but after passing under an immense Turk- 
 ish house, the residence of a leading member 
 of the Divan of the day, at the northern ex- 
 tremity of the quay, the village is found to 
 extend from the sea, and to run along an as- 
 cending hollow for some distance. It was to 
 this hollow that Constantine, following the liv- 
 ing current that flowed thitherward, directed 
 his steps, 
 
 "I shall see Veronica on the brow of the 
 hill, or at the kiosk, where the groups re- 
 pose and enjoy themselves," thought he, as he 
 walked onwards, for once in his life indifferent 
 to the many pretty faces that glanced unveiled
 
 THE ABMENIAXS. 191 
 
 by him, and incurious whether the large lan- 
 guishing black eyes of the far more numerous 
 fair ones who were veiled, appertained to pretty 
 faces or to do^vnright frights.
 
 192 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 To the sounds of numerous feet shuffling along 
 in papooshes, and of a Babel of language, pro- 
 ceeding almost entirely from the women, for not 
 even a steep hill could stop their tongues — Con- 
 stantine continued his walk in search of Vero- 
 nica. 
 
 The circumstances that had disappointed 
 him repeatedly in his hopes of seeing her, had 
 tended to increase his impatience to an intense 
 degree, and to give a character and direction to
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 193 
 
 that passion which, under opposite events, it 
 might never have acquired. 
 
 A second interview with an amiable object 
 will often destroy the impression of the first, 
 which is as yet weak and delible ; the first 
 magic glance that carried to the bosom a pic- 
 ture of exquisite beauty, with a sensation of 
 overpowering delight, may be coldly rectified 
 in a succeeding meeting, when the eye, and 
 the ear too, shall have reason to be critical : 
 a feature discovered to be defective, a smile 
 misplaced, an unfortunate remark, an unfor- 
 tunate complexion of the day, an unfortunate 
 tone of voice, a cold — nay, so absolute a trifle 
 as an unfortunately chosen ribbon, and many 
 a thing more trifling still, has been known to 
 be a speedy corrective to first-sight love, and 
 to send one from the desired visit — the pene- 
 trating second-nighty with the tranquillizing 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 194 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 conviction, that she is not so beautiful, after all — 
 that the sun may shine on her equals, her supe- 
 riors, and, in fine, that it is very possible to 
 live without her. 
 
 But when the mind is left to dwell upon 
 its first perception, and to cherish the loveli- 
 ness that broke on it but for a moment, like 
 a glimpse of paradise — a rapid, evanescent 
 opening of that heaven for which he suffers, 
 on the closing eye of an expiring martyr; 
 when nothing intervenes to divert solitary 
 thoughts, and comparison is impossible — when 
 memory and imagination, and other of the 
 souFs faculties, are exclusively employed on 
 the first impression, like many diverging streams 
 united and thrown with impetuous force in 
 one channel, it must be, that they give it 
 depth and extent — it is likely to happen that 
 rapid admiration be converted into fanciful but
 
 THE AEMEN'IANS. 195 
 
 imperious passion ; and more particulariy, as 
 was our young Greek's case, if the accidents of 
 separation from objects that must recall the 
 intoxicating dream — of absence, of occupation, 
 of variety, be wanting, and if the rising sun of 
 each morning renew the promises that yester- 
 day had belied — the hopes, the assurances that 
 " to-day I shall see her again !" 
 
 We would not willingly abuse the too fre- 
 quently abused words, but from the causes 
 alluded to — from his gratitude for her generous 
 attentions to his helpless relative, his darling 
 mother's parent which he sincerely felt — from a 
 certain feeling of esteem which, from what he 
 had seen and learned of her, would mix with his 
 more sensual admiration of her person; and 
 perhaps, still more than all, from his imagina- 
 tive passionate disposition, Constantine was at 
 this moment in love with Veronica, and was fast 
 
 1.- 9.
 
 106 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 forgetting that she was the daughter of an 
 Armenian seraff, that he was the son of an 
 hospodar of Wallachia, and that insurmount- 
 able obstacles must oppose their union. Their 
 union! — Yes, their lawful marriage, for even 
 early in his love as this, he, though not without 
 an effort, could look over the fancied inferiority 
 of Armenian blood. If thoughts less licensed 
 had occupied his passionate brain, tliey were 
 speedily put to flight by his better feeling, and 
 (shame on us all !) who among us w^ould ven- 
 ture to divulge his soul's secret thoughts, his 
 passion's first suggestions, when its object 
 was really, or imaginarily, inferior in caste or 
 condition, or when the legitimate indulgence of 
 that passion would entail the wrath of fa- 
 mily and the scoff of friends. Still, however, 
 Constantine was a Greek and a Fanariote ; and 
 though he would not act with the extreme de-
 
 THE ARMENIANS. IQT 
 
 gree of dishonour to Veronica, he already would 
 not hesitate to employ every species of craft 
 and deception against the Tinghir- Oglus and 
 the whole Armenian race, whom he well knew 
 would be averse to him. 
 
 He was, indeed, if ever man was in the 
 state we have described — in love ! His heart 
 was full of one dear image, and yet he was 
 not exempt from the personal vanity prover- 
 bially attached to the Greeks. His elevated 
 condition allowed him the privilege, and he had 
 changed his heavy, huge, graceless samoor- 
 calpack for the Turkish fess and Eastern turban, 
 susceptible of such infinite elegance and grace ; 
 and if the pure white were prohibited to all 
 but Osmanlis, the cherished green to all but 
 the emirs, or cousins of the prophet, he could 
 venture on other bright Jiues. His turban was 
 of a bright grey, but lines of gold transversed 
 it rather closely, and a fringe or tassel of gold
 
 198 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 fell from one of its extremities, and floated, as 
 he Avalked, upon his shoulder ; the exquisite 
 linen's folds were broad, and roundly relieved ; 
 the whole had the Stambooli non-chalant and 
 proud obliquity, which is attained but by the 
 finished Eastern petii-maitre, which occupies 
 the most anxious minutes of the toilette, and is 
 the utter despair of the uninitiated, or of those 
 who have not been admitted into the very pene- 
 tralia of the fashion and bon-ton of the capital. 
 From the aspiring side of his turban, to balance 
 the tassel on the depressed side, there floated a 
 bright carnation, entwined with the small white 
 flowerets of the jasmin; and the rich blue silk 
 knot of his fess or scarlet skull-cap, (the nucleus 
 of the turban,) just showed itself in the midst 
 of the rich folds, and formed a crown, or termi- 
 nation to the whole. His beneesh, light in colour 
 and material, as befitted the season, was of the 
 hue of the downy peach, of the manufacture of
 
 THE AEMENIANS. 199 
 
 the finest looms of France — the cut was perfect — 
 it fell in free graceful folds, but not lower than 
 the calf of the leg, and the wide open sleeves 
 flowed into drapery, almost as classic as the 
 toga, from the raised arm of some ancient sta- 
 tue, as he walked along with that elegant de- 
 portment — which he shared, however, Avith even 
 the poorest of his countrymen. 
 
 He did not wear the jubbee or flowing silk 
 gown, which, as generally worn by the Turkish 
 eff*endis, gives an unnatural, effeminate appear- 
 ance to the whole man, and assorts most ridi- 
 culously, in the stranger's eye, with thick beard 
 and fierce moustache; his camisole was beau- 
 tifully worked in silk, and gold thread ; it vtsls 
 cut in the picturesque fashion of the Albanians, 
 disclosing the neck nearly to the shoulder; 
 whilst below the breast, some fanciful apertures 
 and loop-holes, permitted a jewelled and ena-
 
 SOO THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 melled watch to show itself, and gave egress to 
 a costly Venetian gold chain loaded with rings 
 and seals. The shawl that girded his waist 
 was an exquisite cachemere, and so well ar- 
 ranged, that both its blue ground-work and 
 eleborate broad fringe, of many and bright 
 and felicitously combined hues, were well and 
 sufficiently displayed — another great art, be it 
 said in passing, of the Oriental toilette. The 
 princes of Wallachia and Moldavia might even 
 carry arms ; and in Constantine's girdle there 
 glittered a short, but massy-handed poinard, 
 set with brilliants, rubies, and emeralds. An 
 instrument of death, throughout the east, being 
 rendered the most costly toy, and considered 
 as essential to the equipment of a gentleman. 
 His shaksheers, or ample Turkish trowsers, 
 were of an amaranthine colour, and of materials 
 still finer than the flowing cloak; they were
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 201 
 
 contracted by a silken string above the ancle, 
 and revealed that glory of glories, for a Chris- 
 tian — a ray ah subject, — that boon, for which 
 alone, death had so often been dared by the 
 intriguing ambitious Greeks, — that summuni 
 bonum (in the words of Anastasius) a pair of 
 yellow slippers ! In short, Constantine had ail 
 the advantages of dress : he coiUd not be better 
 attired, according to the style of the country; 
 and we generally seem to agree, that the cos- 
 tume of the Turks is among the most graceful 
 we are acquainted with. He was fully aware 
 of these advantages; he had improved them, 
 particularly, by the studious toilette of the 
 morning, and he had been too often praised for 
 the beauty of his face and figure, and too long 
 accustomed to compare the flattering reflexion 
 of his own mirror with the features and forms 
 of those he met, to be ignorant that, all in all, 
 
 K 5
 
 ^2 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 he was one of the handsomest youths at Stam- 
 bool. " If I cannot see Veronica," thought he, 
 as he stepped along with grace, and the com- 
 placent consciousness of his own good looks; 
 *' or, if I cannot discover her through her 
 mantle and veil, she at least can see me — must 
 see me, — and that will be something ! " 
 
 He had scarcely consoled himself with this 
 idea, when he came up with a troop of Arme- 
 nian females, who were slowly shuffling up the 
 hill, and increasing, or, it might be, relieving 
 the toils of the ascent, by a general and most 
 voluble gossip. 
 
 Their mestler and papooshes were pretty 
 new, and so were their cloaks, and of a finer 
 cloth than would compete with the vulgar. 
 He looked where their faces ought to be, and 
 saw that the yashmacks that buried them were 
 of fine stuffs, and clear as the untrodden
 
 THE ARMENIANS. SOS 
 
 snow — these were all the outer, out-of-door, 
 indications of superior condition, that ever 
 enable the eye to judge of the Turkish or Ar- 
 menian fair. 
 
 They must be Armenian ladies — Veronica 
 might be among them : he would listen, and 
 he thought not even the interposing folds of 
 the linen, which press on the mouth and give 
 to speech the tones it has when under a car- 
 nival mask,^^^ could disguise for a moment 
 her thrilling voice, at which his heart ha\nng 
 once beat, would beat again, should it strike 
 his ear, from a sympathy as mysterious and as 
 powerful as that under which the ocean's waves 
 rise and fall, to the fair and distant moon. 
 
 The sympathy, however, was not so strong as 
 he supposed, or Veronica was not there ; or if 
 she was, she did not speak, for no discovery 
 could Constantine make, though he had the
 
 ^4 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 patience to listen at some length to the vocal 
 concert, and to learn, much to his edification, 
 that fat neighbour Maghurditch was ill of a 
 money fever, ever since the Porte had cut off a 
 pasha, — a creditor's head, without allowing him 
 time to settle with his seraff;*^^^ that cousin Be- 
 dros was certainly going to marry his eldest 
 daughter to cousin Bogos; that Asphadur, the 
 enameller, had changed three of the best dia- 
 monds in the Stambool effendi's handjar ;(^^ that 
 Capril, the Kalemkiar painter, had changed 
 his religion ; and Artine, the broker, his man- 
 ners, for he was going every night among the 
 Franks at Pera to play whisk! 
 
 Constantine was about to pass on with an im- 
 patient pshaw ! when a sonorous voice he had not 
 hitherto heard, preluded a long speech with the 
 name of Tinghir-Oglu. He stopped short, and 
 the words of the gossip he next caught, were —
 
 THE ARMENIANS. Oj(}^ 
 
 " Yes, I can assure you, the presents are all 
 fixed and ready ; and she is to be married next 
 week!" 
 
 "Married — who? she married?" the Prince 
 was well nigh crying out aloud ; and his breath- 
 ing came thick, and his knees trembled under 
 him, as he stepped closer to the communicative 
 dame, and tried to catch the rest of the words. 
 
 By some perversity or other, for which he could 
 have found it in his heart to throw her down 
 the chasm, round whose upper end they were 
 now advancing, the Armenian dame, who had 
 begun to speak with a voice as distinct as a 
 public crier's, suddenly lowered her tone just 
 at the part that interested him, and continued 
 her news in a whisper, which he cursed from 
 the bottom of his heart. 
 
 " Oh, no ! as to that, she died yesterday 
 morning," were the next words from another 
 speaker, that Constantine could understand,
 
 206 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 and with that Jixity of idea which possesses 
 us, in certain conditions of mind, he still re- 
 curred to Veronica of the Tinghir-Oglus, and 
 without reflecting that the same person could 
 not well be married next week, and dead yes* 
 terday, a cold sweat burst forth on his forehead. 
 This was but for a moment ; he had seen Vero- 
 nica, or at least members of her family, step 
 into a ca'ik but a few hours before, to repair to 
 a scene of festivity — the gossip must be speak- 
 ing of some other person. 
 
 And so she was, for she went on to say that 
 though Puzant had lost one wife so suddenly, 
 there could be no doubt that a rich shawl mer- 
 chant hke himself, would soon bargain for ano- 
 ther man's daughter, and get her too. Death 
 should not seem to be a pleasing subject, and 
 yet people in the East, as well as people in the 
 West, enter on it, when once introduced, with 
 extreme zest.
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 207 
 
 \j*^ The tabtde^*^ has been in our quarter, as 
 well as yours," said a waddling dame, who had 
 hitherto been silent : " fat Haterick, the wife of 
 Hatchadiir, the money-lender, has lost her 
 youngest daughter Serpui — but she has got nine 
 others — God is great ! and so, you know, there 
 is no great harm done !" (^^ 
 
 To escape this detailed necrology, Constan- 
 tine quickened his steps, and passed the Arme- 
 nian ladies. 
 
 The ravine, or hollow, mentioned as running 
 behind Arnaiit-keui, extends for some distance 
 within land. After the village finishes, there 
 are several scattered houses and kiosks alonff 
 its steep banks ; the acclivities of the hills are 
 cultivated here and there, and bear vines; a 
 few pine trees and a few cypresses aid the scene, 
 and if the hollow be not itself a lovely spot, it 
 certainly is the way to some of the loveliest on 
 earth. When at the head of the ravine, by
 
 208 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 continuing straight on, you come to the ridge 
 of the Thracian hills, or summit of the Eu- 
 ropean banks of the Bosphorus, which is most 
 gracefully crested at that point with a whisper- 
 ing grove of delicate light trees. There is a 
 romantic fountain not remote ; a still more ro- 
 mantic path or road winding along the valleys, 
 and over the dusky, heathy hills towards Stam- 
 bool, passing by the too-memorable site of Le- 
 vend-Chiflik ; (^^ and there is a cool coffee-house 
 well furnished with seats and sherbets, coffee 
 and chibooks, where you may repose yourself, 
 and feast upon the scene. 
 
 But still a greater treat is offered to the 
 eye of the stranger, if, instead of continuing 
 straight on from the village, he turn at the 
 head of the hollow, and follow its left side, 
 returning towards the Bosphorus. He will pre- 
 sently arrive at a smooth piece of table land — 
 a natural elevated esplanade, that runs out
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 209 
 
 on a projecting headland or cape, which forms 
 an elbow in the channel. This esplanade is 
 enclosed and imperial property, but the public 
 are allowed to promenade there, and a rubieh 
 will always procure admittance to a lovely 
 kiosk which is built at its extremity, and 
 immediately over the narrow sea; and hence 
 is, beyond compare, the finest immediate view 
 of what we have mentioned as the finest parts 
 of the Bosphorus. It is here, Kandilly, and 
 the hills and shores of Asia, besprent with 
 gardens, groves, villas, marine residences, 
 mosques, and royal kiosks, display all their 
 charms. It is here that the eye plunges down 
 on the winding shores of Europe, and on these 
 rapid yet tranquil waves that divide the two 
 continents ; and it is rapture to stand here at 
 the evening hour, and watch the fancifully 
 shaped sails, and the swift caiks ghding beneath
 
 210 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 you, whilst, from the effect of the setting sun's 
 magical colouring, from their picturesque forms, 
 which are not unlike the chalets of mountainous 
 Switzerland, the meanest houses on the water's 
 brink, with their hilly background, verdant and 
 sylvan, assume the character of intrinsic love- 
 liness. 
 
 This was the road our hero took. He found, 
 as he had expected, crowds of people gathered 
 on the advantageous esplanade, and plenty of 
 Armenian females, like the Jewesses and the 
 Turkish women, sitting in groups apart from 
 the men, though not a few of them were en- 
 gaged in the same manner — smoking! but he 
 looked in vain for anything that might denote 
 the presence of Veronica. 
 
 He walked round the space, and backward 
 and forward, wherever he saw the purple slipper 
 —still not one of the daughters of Armenia
 
 THE AEME^;IANS. 211 
 
 seemed much to regard him, and even the con- 
 solation of being at least seen by Veronica, if he 
 could not see her, was deserting him, when a 
 party of Greek ladies — friends whom he had 
 neglected for several days — traced his melan- 
 choly steps, and faced him on a sudden, with a 
 playful reproach, that from the nature and 
 steadiness of his occupation there, he must have 
 fallen in love with some yashmack — was it 
 Turkish, Armenian, or Jewish? Was it fair, 
 was it pardonable, in him, a Greek, thus to 
 abandon his own countrywomen ? 
 
 With such evidence as the personal charms 
 and graces of the fair Grecian interlocutors be. 
 fore them, no court would, at the moment, have 
 hesitated to declare in their favour, when 
 brought in immediate comparison, as they were, 
 with the awkwardness of dress and demeaiKW 
 and barbarous concealment of face of the other
 
 212 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 classes of the Sultan's female subjects. The 
 ladies of the Fanar advanced frankly with un- 
 veiled features, and with a dress so contrived, 
 that instead of wrapping the whole figure, as in 
 a sack, it disclosed, with delicate reserve, the 
 beauties of form ; the Greek flowing white veil, 
 as graceful as a Spanish mantilla or a Venetian 
 fazzoUi, and almost as coquettish, draperied the 
 back and sides of the head,' in a style frequently 
 found in ancient statues ;*^'^^ but a toque, or 
 kalemkiar, worn as a turban, showed itself in 
 the front of the head, and relieved, by the bril- 
 liancy of its colour, and by the glossy black 
 folds of hair that it allowed to escape from be- 
 neath it, the shroud-like whiteness of the veil. 
 The veil fell loosely to the shoulder, thus 
 interposing no obstacle to the sight of a long, 
 white, elastic neck; it was then curiously 
 crossed, and part coming in front of the robe,
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 213 
 
 and part floating down the back of the pelisse, 
 it formed a most graceful piece of draperv, 
 loose, ample, and snowy white. The pelisse 
 was of fine light-blue cloth, and scarcely de- 
 scended to the ancle, for the skirt of a muslin 
 dress, tastefully embroidered, peeped beneath 
 it. Instead of the loose, shapeless, leather 
 boots, which, as worn by the Turkish, Arme- 
 nian, and Jewish ladies, give their legs the ap- 
 pearance of being afflicted with a monstrous 
 species of elephantiasis, and the peaked slippers 
 which flap and shuffle as they walk, the fair 
 Greeks had adopted the elegancies of Europe, 
 (among the prettiest inventions of modern 
 dress.) the embroidered silk-stocking, or the 
 cotton has au jour, and the small, low-cut shoe, 
 which contributed to display to advantage the 
 statue-like shape and even the colour of the deli- 
 cate ancle, the high, elastic instep, the concise.
 
 gl4j THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 rounded heel, and the flat, classical fall of 
 the toes. ^^^ 
 
 Constantine, pre-occupied as he was, had too 
 much gallantry and Greek elasticity of cha- 
 racter, to refuse the attention and admiration 
 his fair friends challenged. He had only been 
 out of humour, because he had lamed his best 
 Arabian —he was only sauntering there on foot, 
 because he had not a steed he cared for, to carry 
 him ; and he assured them, at the moment they 
 had overtaken him, he was only thinking how 
 beautiful was the Bosphorus, Arnaiit-Keui, and 
 Kandilly. 
 
 The lightness of heart we assume, will often 
 become real for the time. The Prince had 
 r waxed lively and animated, and was profuse of 
 his wit and attentions, when, chancing to cast 
 liis eye on a group of Armenian women sitting 
 on the grass, whom, be it said, he had passed
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 215 
 
 several times before ^vithout heeding^ so busily 
 was he engaged with his fair Fanariotes, it struck 
 him that there was one in the number regard- 
 ing him with peculiar and unremitting interest. 
 The witticism died on his lips : it might be Ve- 
 ronica — he gazed as he drew nearer, but who- 
 ever it might be, like the shade of the injured 
 Dido at the approach of Eneas, she turned 
 away her head. 
 
 He was again agitated and absent — the 
 Cocona Elenco, the youngest and the loveliest 
 of the friends he was promenading with, rallied 
 him to no purpose — in vain her tapering arm 
 was thrust forth coquettishly from the wide 
 falling sleeves of her pelisse — in vain did she 
 lay her cool, small fingers, on his arm, and ask 
 him, in the prettiest tone of her voice, whether 
 his best Arabian was worse, much worse. Con- 
 «tantine could not recover his presence of mind;
 
 216 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 and less than ever, when on suddenly turning 
 his head back on the sedent figure whom he had 
 now past, he caught the overpowering glance of 
 two large black eyes, full of tears. He could 
 have rushed to fall at her feet, to remove the 
 odious yashmack that concealed the rest of her 
 features — to kiss the precious drops as they 
 were shed, and shed for him — for it was Vero- 
 nica! Could he mistake the glance of those 
 eyes ? 
 
 It was indeed she, and the Armenian maiden 
 loved him ; her tears were distilled by love's 
 never-erring proof — by jealousy. Yes, Vero- 
 nica already loved, and more ardently than the 
 Prince Constantine, and she wept to see him 
 accompanied as he was, whilst she, confined by 
 the narrow, barbarous custom of her people, 
 was condemned to sit by, like a heap of rags, 
 and silently and concealedly watch the effect of
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 217 
 
 the unveiled charms of those who would for 
 ever exclude her from the affections of her 
 heart's idol ! 
 
 The torrent of thought and passion that ran 
 through the hearts of both the Greek youth 
 and the Armenian maid, at this rapid, furtive 
 interchange of glances, though long to descrip- 
 tion or analysis, itself occupied but a moment ; 
 for the report of a fire-arm, a loud cry, and a 
 general rush were heard, and a drunken Janis- 
 sary, with a pistol in his hand, and his un- 
 sheathed yataghan between his teeth, was seen 
 pursuing an Armenian, whom in his inebriety 
 he must have taken for a Greek, for as he ran 
 he continued to foam at the mouth, and to cry, 
 " I am in a humour to kill a Greek — stop, you 
 unclean Ghiaour — you Greek, whose mother I 
 defile, that I may burn your brains, and cut 
 your throat !'' W 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 218 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 The festive groups that thronged the espla^ 
 nade were all thro\NTi into alarm by the barba- 
 rian; the women screamed and fainted; the 
 men — the unarmed ray ah s — had not courage to 
 attempt to stop him, though from the effect of 
 what the fellow had drunk, he reeled as he ran, 
 and fell several times with his length to the 
 ground. Constantine saw this scene with in- 
 dignation ; he was not one, though an oppressed 
 Greek, to whom the exercise of arms was for- 
 bidden, while their use was familiar to him as 
 a study and an exercise, to stand by and see a 
 fellow creature massacred by a ruffian. He was 
 releasing himself from the terrified Fanariote 
 ladies, to rush to the assistance of the Armenian, 
 who had by this time approached the spot where 
 he stood, when a voice from her of the tearful 
 eye exclaimed, '' Holy virgin ! it is my father I 
 the Turk is killing my father !''
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 219 
 
 That cry would have sent him to the cannon's 
 mouth : he flew after the janissary who had 
 just passed him, and Constantine's hand struck 
 the villain's elbow in time ; for within a couple 
 of yards of his victim, the old Armenian, who 
 was breathless and could no longer exclaim as 
 he had been doing, " I am no Greek, but an 
 Armenian and a seraff, and the friend of all 
 Osmanlis," the furious drunkard was pressing 
 the trigger of his pistol. The weapon went off, 
 but the ball, instead of finding a lodging in the 
 body of the fugitive, merely found a passage 
 through the seraff's huge calpack. The Janis- 
 sary would have turned with his yataghan 
 on the interferer, but the Prince, who would 
 have been so much liis inferior in strength, had 
 the fellow been sober enough to use his, had all 
 the advantages of dexterity and activity, and 
 contrived to throw the drunken brawler on his 
 
 L 2
 
 220 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 back, though in so doing he received a slight 
 flesh wound from the yataghan. 
 ,, ^One of the Turks in attendance onConstantine, 
 converted in part by his generosity from the cha- 
 racter of a spy on his actions, to that of a really 
 devoted servant to the young Greek, ^^^^ ran up to 
 the assistance of his master, who, should the Ja- 
 nissary recover his feet, had no arms to oppose 
 to his yataghan, save the diamond-hilted dagger, 
 the ornament of his girdle. Mustapha, as ro- 
 bust a fellow as ever went bare-legged in Stam- 
 bool, presently wrenched his arms from the 
 janissary, and as the fellow was secured, the 
 Turkish guard came deliberately to the spot, 
 adhering thus to their constant practice, never 
 to interfere as long as there is any chance of 
 mischief being done, or of their presence being 
 of any kind of use. 
 
 The Prince could now look about him. The
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 221 
 
 doughty Armenian Tinghir-Oglu, whose life he 
 had probably saved, was not there to thank 
 him, for his fears, or the effect of the pistol- 
 ball that had whisked through his calpack, 
 seemed to have made a vacuum before him, 
 and he continued to run on when his foe the 
 Janissary no longer pursued, but lay, very 
 much surprized at all that had happened, 
 among the feet of the bostandjis. ("' 
 
 But there was one at hand, whose gratitude 
 was to him more grateful — whose single word 
 might out-value the eloquence, the united 
 thanks of the whole Armenian people. 
 
 When Veronica uttered that cry of filial alarm 
 and anguish, at which Constantine had thrown 
 himself on the Janissary, she neither fainted like 
 some of her female kindred among whom she 
 was seated, nor rose and ran away in delicate 
 regard to her o^vn safety, like others. She sat
 
 ^9i THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 motionless as a rock, and as breathless too, with 
 her arms extended, tense and rigid as if fixed in 
 convulsion, towards her parent. At the dread- 
 ful flash, a scream died away on her heart, but 
 found no utterance; her straining eye, with 
 affection's energies, broke the film that was ga- 
 thering before it, and she could see that her 
 father had not fallen before the Turk's pistol. 
 Yet she had not time to feel or to indulge the 
 filial gratitude that became her, for the same 
 glance informed her it was Constantine Ghika 
 who had rushed to her father's succour, and 
 that he was now engaged in a deadly struggle 
 with an Osmanli. The ice began again to 
 gather round her heart. When, however, she 
 saw the brawny ruffian reel and fall to the 
 ground, and another Turk run, not to assist 
 him, but to secure his arms — when she saw 
 Constantine recomposing the folds of his turban
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 223 
 
 and his flowing cloak, both sufficiently de- 
 ranged in the scuffle, she sprang to her feet, 
 and ran to bless him. Heedless of the rude 
 Turkish guard that had now approached, for- 
 getful of the rigid decorum imposed on her as 
 an Armenian female, and an unmarried one, 
 she exclaimed aloud, " My prince ! you have 
 saved my father's life; and I am from this 
 hour your devoted slave 1" 
 
 Constantine turned to the heart thrilling pro- 
 fession of gratitude, for she had approached be- 
 hind him ; the yashmack covered her face, and 
 shrouded its pallour, and its beauty and ex- 
 pression ; but a torrent of devotion, admira^ 
 tion, love, and love not to be mistaken, flowed 
 from her large black eyes. 
 
 " Lady," said the prince, courteously, and in 
 an under voice, " this is not the place for the 
 indulgence of your feeling —recompose your-
 
 224 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 self, I pray ! — But you are alone, here, among 
 men ; let me lead you to your friends !" 
 
 The Armenian girl mechanically followed the 
 steps of the Greek, who made his way through 
 the guard. 
 
 " Veronica," added he, in a very different 
 tone, when at a few paces distance ; " Veronica ! 
 to have been thus able to serve you, to whom 
 I owe so much, for all your kindness to my 
 aged and deserted relative, is indeed happiness ! 
 An angel has guided my steps hitherward to- 
 day. I was dying to see you once again ; to 
 be, at least, again near you, and I have had 
 the fortune." 
 
 " And you have desired to see me again,*" 
 said the fair Armenian, in a voice, which though 
 but a whisper, was penetrating and passionful, 
 " can I believe it ? you came not here to meet 
 those very handsome Greek ladies .^^ you have
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 225 
 
 thought of her you only once saw for a 
 minute/' 
 
 " As I live and breathe, I have thought of 
 nothing else ; and for a pleasure like that of the 
 minute you name, I have ever since been impa- 
 tient. The last day or two'' 
 
 " Listen, Prince ! our moments are few — we 
 must not be seen long thus in converse. I feel 
 inclinedto believe what, in believing, wouldmake 
 me happy ; but you, on your part, credit me, 
 that your impatience has been shared — that she 
 who now speaks to you, has thought the mo- 
 ments long since last we met ; and had she not 
 been prevented by family circumstances, and the 
 importune presence of a female friend who has 
 never left her until this moment, when there 
 would have been danger in her staying, she 
 would have been at the Princess' before now." 
 
 " Family circumstances," and the gossip of 
 
 l5
 
 226 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 the Armenian women, which had recently givai 
 him so much pain, occurred to Constantine, 
 '' It is then true, that you are going to be mar- 
 ried r 
 
 " I married ! God in his mercy forbid ! But 
 
 a cousin of mine is about to be married, and I 
 have been busied in preparing our portion of 
 presents on the occasion." 
 
 " Veronica, I thank you — you have made me 
 happy ; but tell me — ^how, when shall we meet 
 again ?"" 
 
 " Alas, alas ! I am not allowed to go and to 
 come, to visit and to receive visits, as is the cus- 
 tom with your people. I am a poor Armenian 
 maiden, and subjected to almost the same re- 
 strictions as the females of our masters, the 
 Turks; but yet, Prince, with proper caution, 
 we may meet — we will meet, if yoti wish it-— if 
 you '*
 
 THE AEMENIANS. 227 
 
 " If I love you ? doubt it not, my Veronica ! 
 I love, I adore you ; nay, start not, the passion 
 shall bode no ill to you." 
 
 As they conversed, they had walked slowly 
 onward towards the edge of the esplanade ; they 
 had moreover gradually approached nearer to 
 each other, and at this moment they stood by 
 the imperial kiosk, at the very point whence 
 the Bosphorus and its glories burst so felicit- 
 ously on the eye, and so close were they now to 
 each other, that at the declaration of his passion, 
 the Prince grasped the hand of Veronica. 
 
 If he had ever felt the flesh wound he had 
 received from the Janissary's yataghan, he had 
 certainly never been sensible of it, since his 
 rencontre with the fair Armenian; but as he 
 closed her little and but half retiring hand 
 within his, the blood that had trickled down 
 his arm, was conveyed to her delicate palm, 
 and from the motion he made, several large
 
 228 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 drops fell on the wide linen sleeves of her robe. 
 As the red spots met her eye, Veronica trem- 
 bled, tottered : though near fainting, she reco- 
 vered herself, gently repelling the Prince — who 
 losing, in the sight of her condition, all consci- 
 ousness of where he was, and how situated as 
 regarded her — extended his arms to receive her : 
 it was several seconds before she could speak, and 
 then the words came indistinctly and huskily. 
 
 " Prince ! you are wounded — and I know not 
 how to assist you." 
 
 " A trifle — a mere prick from the yataghan's 
 point ; think not of it," said Constantine, throw- 
 ing from him the blood, which now indeed seemed 
 to flow rather copiously. Veronica trembled 
 more than ever, when she saw the, large drops 
 fall on the green grass. " It is no trifle, I fear — 
 I fear you are much hutt — and for my father — 
 for me, — and they come not to your aid !" 
 
 " It is nothing, Veronica ! upon my word, it is
 
 THE ARMEN'IANS. 229 
 
 nothing," — and the Prince again approached her; 
 " but the drops of blood which now flow inno- 
 cuously from my arm, I would shed from my 
 heart for you — I swear, nay, why again start 
 from me ? — by the love I feel, I swear '^ 
 
 Trembling all over, uttering her scarcely intel- 
 ligible words with extreme difficulty, and holding 
 up her little white hand, whiter than snow, save 
 where her lover'*s blood had stained it, the Arme- 
 nian maiden interrupted him — " Oh do not 
 swear ! not now, not now — there was blood on 
 the hand with which you grasped mine, to give 
 me the first assurance of your love — see here, 
 the purple stains ! This is not the moment — 
 and oh ! I dread that only trouble and sorrow 
 can ensue from a passion commencing under 
 such ill omens as blood — ^blood i""^*^^ 
 
 The difficulties that must oppose her love, 
 now burst upon her in fulness and horror;
 
 230 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 though strong minded, she had not overcome a 
 superstition so general and so powerful all over 
 the East, as that of a belief in omens : the one 
 she had just received was of a fatal character ; 
 she gazed on the blood on her little hand, 
 until she sickened at the heart — the scenes 
 she had just witnessed — a father's peril, a 
 lover's wound, had tried her severely, and she 
 had borne up with a courage that few women 
 might equal ; but she could no more — the up- 
 lifted, stained hand dropped to her side; the 
 large black eyes that had been fixed upon it 
 in speaking terror, slowly closed, and Vero- 
 nica's delicate form would have fallen to the 
 ground, if the Prince had not caught her in 
 his arms. Still, so strong and intent was the 
 mind that animated her weak, frail body, that 
 she could scarcely be said to have fainted; 
 though but for once, she put her hand to her
 
 THE AKMENIANS. 231 
 
 yashmack, to prevent Constantine from ^vith- 
 drawing it, which however he did, to give her 
 air; she struggled slightly in his embrace as 
 he pressed her passionately to his heart, and 
 on hearing her name shouted out by her friends, 
 who had at last recovered from their own ter- 
 rors, and had time to think of her, she by a 
 wonderful effort recovered her strength and her 
 self-possession, and hurrying the yashmack over 
 her face, left the Prince''s arms, and walked, 
 though with faltering and uncertain steps, in 
 the direction of the kindred voices. 
 
 The esplanade had been thinned by those 
 who had fled at the Janissary's intrusion ; it was 
 now cleared by those who followed his arrest, to 
 see in what the business had originated, and in 
 what it would end. 
 
 Scarcely any body remained on the pleasant 
 flat, as Veronica, followed at a few paces dis-
 
 ^32 THE ARMENIANS". 
 
 tance by the Prince, advanced to meet her 
 father, her aunt, her elder sister, and the old 
 female attendant, or duenna. 
 
 "You are not hurt, my father?" tenderly 
 inquired the agitated girl. 
 
 " No — not at all, thanks to Heaven !" replied 
 the old pursy serafF, who had not yet recovered 
 the breath he had lost in running away from the 
 Janissary ; " but where have you been, while 
 we have been looking after you ?""' 
 
 Veronica could not reply, but the Prince, 
 who felt rather embarrassed as the eyes of the 
 Armenian party glanced suspiciously^ from him 
 to his companion, and next from her to him, 
 said with a wave of the hand, and a tone that 
 did honour to his Fanariote education— 
 
 " The young lady was left by her com- 
 panions — she has been here at hand waiting 
 their return, and I have had the pleasure of
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 233 
 
 protecting her from evil or insult in their ab- 
 
 sence ! 
 
 I" 
 
 The serafF put his hand to his forehead, his 
 lips, and his heart, saluting the Prince with 
 due Oriental respect, and then drily inquired, 
 
 " And pray, Chehbi, (^^) may I ask who you 
 are? I see you are not one of us.'* 
 
 " I am Constantine Ghika, son of the hos- 
 podar ; but my name and condition are of little 
 consequence here. I am he who lately, per- 
 haps, saved your life, and who certainly pre- 
 vented the Janissary from shooting you," re- 
 plied the Prince. 
 
 " And in so doing, my father," warmly re- 
 joined Veronica, " was wounded himself — see, 
 he still bleeds !" 
 
 The old Armenian, who had never once 
 looked behind, knew not but that it had been St. 
 George or St. Michael in person that had saved
 
 934i THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 him; the benefit, however, was of too im- 
 portant a nature, and too recently conferred, to 
 be treated neglectfully, though the benefactor 
 was a schismatic Greek, and wore yellow slip- 
 pers instead of purple ; he again pressed his 
 head, his mouth, his bosom, and bowing lowly, 
 and touching the earth at Constantine*'s feet, 
 said, 
 
 " Great Hospodar," I am your slave all the 
 rest of my days ! all that I have is yours, and 
 I hope the next time you pass by Emenergen- 
 Oglu, you will permit me to give you — a pipe 
 and a cup of coffee !^' 
 
 At another moment, Constantine might have 
 smiled at the magnificent free offering of the 
 banker, but he was interested in watching 
 the grateful, anxious eyes of Veronica, and 
 was delighted to have an opportunity of pass- 
 ing a quarter of an hour, at least, under the
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 235 
 
 same roof with her. He modestly protested 
 what he had done scarcely merited so great a 
 reward ; and then saying his wound, though 
 a trifle, was becoming troublesome from the 
 quantity of blood that was flowing from it, 
 and required a bandage, he bowed a congee 
 first to the old man, next to the old women, 
 and last to the gentle Veronica, who looked at 
 him supplicatingly, as if imploring him to have 
 a care of himself. 
 
 As he walked slowly away, intending merely 
 to get out of sight of the party, to bind his 
 handkerchief round his arm, and then to follow 
 them to the water's edge, he heard one of the 
 female voices say, " A worthy youth, and mo- 
 dest, though a Greek." Another added, " It 
 is to be hoped, however, under favour of the 
 blessed Virgin, that he did not see our Vero- 
 nica's face !" And Veronica herself, whose
 
 236 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 tones were thenceforward to be the music of 
 his soul, closed the remarks that met his 
 ear. " He is good, and he is noble ! he has 
 saved my father, and may heaven bless him as 
 
 I do r 
 
 We have all felt the low, melancholy mood 
 of mind that follows moments of extraordinary 
 excitement ; and some of us may have expe- 
 rienced that feeling of extreme susceptibility 
 to objects of external beauty, which accom- 
 panies the dawning passion of love. Constan- 
 tine was worked upon by both these influences, 
 and, perhaps, for the first time in his life, as 
 he was on the Bosphorus, he was struck by the 
 sad, holy aspect of the Turkish cemetery on 
 the water's edge, which we have before noticed, 
 and determined to land and muse awhile 
 within it. 
 
 The long, sharp prow of his caik touched the
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 23T 
 
 strand, and he leaped on shore in the romantic 
 garden of death, and ordering the boatmen, 
 who thought him mad, to wait, he retired with 
 that sentiment which, in all solemn matters 
 seems to induce us to seek utter solitude, he 
 fled to the thickest part of the religious wood, 
 and sat himself down by a recently made 
 grave's headstone — an elaborate work, with 
 lofty caouk and folding turban, that denoted 
 the precise rank and condition of him who now 
 lay beneath in death's equality, with intricate 
 arabesques, boldly relieved, and done in gold, 
 and in the deep blue of the lapis lazuli, and 
 with a long inscription running diagonally, and 
 covering the whole slab from the arabesques to 
 the point where the springing green grass from 
 the prolific sod waved round its foot. As 
 common, in the sepulchres of the rich, there 
 was another sculptured stone at the grave's 
 foot, but rather lower than that at the head ;
 
 238 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 its only ornaments were a tree — a stately palm, 
 gently relieved and coloured with green and 
 with gold, and a wavy line, like the blade of 
 an angel's sword, or the bolts in the hands of 
 the thunderer, which ran round the edge of 
 the purely white marble. Two lateral slabs, 
 whose breadth attained about one-thii*d of the 
 elevation of the head-stone, and about half 
 that of the foot-stone, united both together ; 
 there was no covering slab, as the Turks in 
 their material superstition, and by a res- 
 cript of the prophet, never lay weight over 
 the shallow soil that covers the dead, lest it 
 should check his rise at the judgme it-day ,(^'*^ 
 but within the enclosure of the pale marbles, 
 flowers that seemed to have been sedulously 
 cultivated, saluted the eye with melancholy 
 bloom, and the nostril with an odour over- 
 poweringly languid. 
 
 " It ought to be pleasant thus to rest,"
 
 THE AEMENIAXS. 239 
 
 reasoned the moody lover ; " and thus, in the 
 gloom of eastern cypresses, with the gleam of 
 spotless marbles, and the blush of roses — in 
 silence like this, and ^^-ith a genial heat, a 
 balmy air like these upon ye — grave ! homd 
 as thou art elsewhere, here thou seemest re- 
 plete with beauty, and wouldst make one 
 almost in love with thee ! ""Tis strange that a 
 scene, sweet, poetical, ethereal like this, should 
 be the work of a gross, sensual, and barba- 
 rous people — the disciples of a false code ! I 
 would not live the life of a Turk, — I have 
 done so, perhaps, too much already — but, no ! 
 I would not envy the life of one wealthier, 
 grander, than he this proud tomb covers ; but 
 when all is over, I could look with complacency 
 to a resting-place like this, and prefer the 
 Moslem's grave to all others. Even now, so 
 beauteous and so holy is this spot, I could al-
 
 240 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 most lay down my head on that pillow of green 
 sward which crowns a humbler grave, and un- 
 repiningly resign this troublous spirit. I could 
 almost wish to die, to be buried in a place like 
 
 this r^''^ 
 
 - Presently, his thoughts flowed in another 
 course, and those who have reflected on the 
 sudden turns of their own mind, and how, 
 from the pure, and the calm, and the sooth- 
 ing, we frequently rush at once to the dark, 
 the irritating, the harrowing, will not be sur- 
 prised if his abstractions were of a character 
 totally diff'erent from those which had immedi- 
 ately preceded them. 
 
 In glancing at the back of the head-stone, he 
 saw some but half-effkced traces of the graceful, 
 the never-to-be-mistaken, ancient Greek chisel. 
 He looked closer — ^he traced the outline of some 
 exquisite female figures, that seemed to have
 
 THE ARMENIAXS. 241 
 
 formed a procession — he traced the emblematic 
 extinguished torch, and the touching type of 
 our immortality, a butterfly rising from its dull 
 chrysalis coil; and he knew that same fair 
 marble had once adorned another tomb than 
 that of the Turkish effendi. But what was 
 there ? On one corner of the stone, defaced 
 more carefully than the Pagan symbols, was 
 the Christian cross and the mystic fish ;<^^^^ and 
 in examining these more closely, he observed 
 that they, with the commencing letters of an 
 epitaph, had been cut over part of the more 
 ancient classic work. " And cannot even the 
 solemnity of the grave," mused the sad hu- 
 mourist, " inspire the virtue of honesty, and re- 
 spect for the ashes of the dead ? What have 
 we here but a repeated sacrilege — a double rob- 
 bery ? The Christian desecrates the Pagan's 
 tomb— the Turk the Christian's, and effaces as 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 J?42 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 equally obnoxious, the work of both, to make 
 room for his own »^pitaph, which he fondly 
 hopes will be respected and enduring ! Who, 
 then, need care where his ashes repose ; or 
 flatter himself — unless they be given at once to 
 the elements, through the agency of fire, or cast 
 into the remote and fathomless sea — that his 
 remains will be undisturbed by man ! Anon, 
 the Muscovites may be masters of proud Stam- 
 bool, and tiie Turks — the Turks, who have 
 never dug a stone, nor worked in the marble 
 quarry, ^^^' since their establishment in the fallen 
 regions of architecture and sculpture, but have 
 mutilated ancient art, and raised their motley 
 structures with the exquisite fragments of my 
 ancestor's skill, may see these cherished tombs 
 (portions of their abused spoil) torn from the 
 grave and the cypress grove, to build stables 
 and barracks for the Ghiaours ! Let me be
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 24f8 
 
 gone ! the beauty of death and the repose of 
 the grave, must be sought for in other objects 
 and connexions than these, which, beauteous 
 and impressive as they are, partake of the na- 
 ture of every thing on earth, and afford no 
 ' lastincr delight.' '' 
 
 The young Prince rushed from the ceme- 
 tery with these feelings of irritation, which 
 might have been soothed, while his amorous 
 heart " was softened to rapture,^** by the cooing 
 of the little blue turtle-doves that flitted 
 through the sombre shade of the cypresses, and 
 over the thickly-strewed graves, as if they had 
 been the earth-lingering spirits of those who 
 were there mouldering to dust. 
 
 " Panagia,'" cried one of the boatmen, as the 
 sensitive Constantine, pale and agitated, stepped 
 into his caik, in the dusk of evening; " the 
 effendi has seen a ghost ! " 
 
 M 2
 
 244 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 " What could he expect to meet in such a 
 place, but Vourvoulackis ?''<^^^^ said his comrade. 
 '^ It is wicked to tempt the evil one, as he has 
 done, and I should not be surprised to hear 
 that one of those Turks he has been disturbing, 
 has followed him home in the shape of a black 
 dog !" 
 
 ''• Vriiat nonsense is that you are talking 
 about Vourvoulackis and black dogs .^'' inquired 
 Constantine, who was willing enough to escape 
 from melancholy reflexions, which though deep 
 while they last, seldom last very long, in the 
 happily constituted mind of a Greek. 
 
 " It is no such bosh^'^^^ as you may think," 
 replied one of the boatmen, crossing himself. 
 
 " Why, surely, you have not eaten bread for 
 thirty years, and gained those manly mousta- 
 choes, and believe in the tales of the Para- 
 manas ?^^^^'^^ said the Prince, jestingly.
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 24-5 
 
 " I believe in what I have seen with mine 
 own eyes," replied one of the boatmen. 
 
 " But you do not mean to say you have ever 
 seen these ghosts and hobgoblins ?'''' 
 
 " Aye, many a one !" affirmed the palikari. 
 
 " When you were drunk, perhaps ?" said 
 Constantine ; " the spirits were those of the 
 departed okkas of crassi, that had gone the 
 way of all ivi7ie, down your unconscionable 
 throat."" 
 
 " I believe v.'hat I have seen, and what I 
 have heard from men of truth," said the other 
 boatman ; " and only the other day, I had 
 such a story from my cousin, a pilot on board 
 the captain pasha^s ship !" 
 
 " Did it happen to himself?" inquired Con- 
 stantine. 
 
 " No, I cannot say it did, but he got the 
 tale first-hand from a donkey-driver at Smyrna
 
 246 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 —it had just happened, and was in every one*s 
 mouth." 
 
 " A donkey-driver at Smyrna is good au- 
 thority for a ghost at Constantinople ; " but, 
 come, my lad, tell us your cousin's tale,"*' cried 
 the Prince. 
 
 " It was thus," said the boatman, again 
 crossing himself ere he begun. But we must 
 give this supernatural episode the honour of 
 another chapter, and beg the reader to remem- 
 ber, in aid to its effect, that it was told in a 
 still, dark evening, between the shading banks 
 of the Bosphorus, and with great earnestness 
 of expression, by the Greek, whose voice qui- 
 vered and faltered at the horrid points of his 
 narrative.
 
 247 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 '* You know Smyrna — every body knows 
 Smyrna ; it is such a place for figs !" 
 
 The Prince nodded a recognition of the 
 great eastern emporium, and the boatman 
 went on. 
 
 " But perhaps you never heard talk of a 
 little place, very near Smyrna, called Boodja, 
 which my cousin, the pilot, describes as a plea- 
 sant enough village, frequented by the Franks 
 and others, during the summer, when people
 
 248 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 can't live at Smyrna. Well, at this village 
 there lived a certain Palikari/^^ called Costi, 
 an honest lad and sober. He had lately taken 
 a young wife, and inherited four strong asses, 
 which he let out to the dwellers in the village, 
 who perhaps do not know how to ride horses. 
 He gained a comfortable living this way, for 
 himself and spouse. To be sure, he had to 
 work very hard, running with his donkeys from 
 Boodja to Smyrna, from Smyrna back to 
 Boodja, I know not how many times a day, 
 and this, too, along a sultry, exposed road. 
 
 " But what of that.? it was an honest and 
 genteel livelihod, for Costi in this manner might 
 be said to keep the very best society in the vil- 
 lage; and the great Frank merchants would 
 gossip with him as he ran by their sides, 
 occasionally crying out, o^^e, o^eV^^ a magical 
 word that always makes the donkeys go right.
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 249 
 
 and, what was better still for Costi, they would 
 often pay him double fare. 
 
 " Well, one summer evening, Costi was in the 
 Frank town, with two of his asses, waiting for 
 a very great Ingliz, ^^^ w^ho was to return with 
 him to Boodja. It grew very late, but the don- 
 key driver had to peep still longer through the 
 iron-bound doors of the merchant's counting- 
 house, where the principal and three familiar 
 spirits sat scribbling with all their might, in 
 the vain hope that his freight, the merchant, 
 would finish and take his departure. Still they 
 sat scribbling, scribbling on, as if the world 
 was nothing but one wide sheet of paper. 
 Costi grew impatient, and so perhaps did his 
 donkeys, for they began to bray in the yard. 
 Their voices made the merchant think of his 
 wife- He called Costi, and having written on 
 a scrap of paper, that the good ship ' Mary ' 
 
 M 5
 
 5!50 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 had come in from London, and so he could not 
 go out to his wife Mary at Boodja, or some- 
 thing of that sort, and giving this to Costi, he 
 told him to make the best of his way home. 
 
 '^ As the donkey-driver was going along the 
 street of the Dung-hills, where my cousin tells 
 me most of the handsome Frank, coconas live, 
 he met a friend. ^^^ 
 
 " ' How late you are to-night, Costi ! late and 
 all aloTie ! Jannem, ^^^ I hope you won't meet a 
 ghost !' said this friend.*" 
 
 "And then," said Constantine, interrupting 
 the boatman, " Costi left his donkeys in the 
 street, and went into the first caffe, and drank 
 half an okka of raki, to make himself ghost- 
 proof.'' 
 
 " Not a drop," replied the boatman ; " the 
 man was as sober as the beasts he was driving. 
 But you put me out — where was I .-^ Oh, in
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 251 
 
 Dunghill-street. Well, on giving the ' Good 
 night' to his friend, Costi did feel a little 
 queer ; but the moon shone bright and cheer- 
 fully, and he went on whistling and talking to 
 a dappled donkey, that trotted on by itself a 
 few paces a-head the one he rode on. In this 
 way, he came to the Turkish burying-grounds 
 at the edge of the town ; they stood on each 
 side of the way, and the shade of their lofty 
 cypresses fell upon the paved road. Presently 
 the foremost donkey began capering and snort- 
 ing, as if the devil or the nose-flies were in 
 him (6) < Oxe^ ! oxe !' cried Costi ; but still 
 the ass capered and snorted ; he thought of a 
 certainty the beast was bewitched, but coming 
 out into the broad moonlight, he saw the cause 
 of the creature's caprices. It was a little black 
 dog. 
 
 " Now, as dogs without masters are just as
 
 252 
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 common at Smyrna as at Stambool, there would 
 have been nothing extraordinary in seeing one 
 where Costi did ; but oh, sir ! this little black 
 dog was such a dog as had never been seen be- 
 fore — he did not walk like other curs, by put- 
 ting one foot before the otlier, but sailed along 
 as it were, between earth and air, close to the 
 ground, but without touching it with his feet ; 
 and then he did not go straight on, but see- 
 sawed across the road — now disappearing among 
 the white Turkish tomb-stones on this side of 
 the v.ay, now among those on that side, and 
 then, Panagia ! there was such a smell of sul- 
 phur, and every minute or so, a little blue 
 flame spouted out of his nose, or played round 
 the tip of his tail — a very small flame, not much 
 more than the fire-fly's, but it was awful to 
 behold; and even the poor dappled donkey 
 felt this little black dog was no fit companion.
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 2o3 
 
 '* Costi said his prayers, and then shouted to 
 drive the dog away ; but little blacky, see- 
 sawing across the road as before, kept a little 
 in advance of the foremost ass, that still jump- 
 ed and frisked as if he had been dancing the 
 Romaica with the dog. 
 
 " A little beyond these burying-grounds, 
 there runs a stream, ^''^ crossed by a stone bridge, 
 called the Bridge of the Caravans. At the end 
 of the bridge, towards the town, there is a Turk- 
 ish guard-house and a cafFe. Costi, as he ap- 
 proached it, saw some Zebecks^-* smoking their 
 chibooks, and, as his knees were now knocking 
 against the donkey's sides with fear, he almost 
 felt disposed to stop, and ask their assistance 
 to rid him of the little black dog ; but as he 
 came up to them, the surly voice of one, who, 
 from within the cabin, inquired what was pass- 
 ing at that hour, and the still gruffer voice of
 
 254 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 another from the outside, who replied that it 
 was only two asses, a Greek, and another dog, 
 deterred him, and he crossed the bridge with- 
 out stopping or saying a word." 
 
 " But did not the Zebecks see the phenome- 
 non of a dog breathing blue flames, and carry- 
 ing fire on his tail ?" asked Constantine. 
 
 " My cousin does not say that they did,"' re- 
 plied the boatman ; " the little black dog might 
 have put his tail between his legs, as he passed 
 the guard-house — but pray do not put me out. 
 
 " Well, on the other side of the stream, there 
 is another Turkish cemetery, the largest at 
 Smyrna, and covered with cypresses twice as 
 high, and twice as black, as those -in our bury- 
 ing-grounds at Pera or Scutari. Costi's road 
 
 a narrow lane, with turbaned pillars and new 
 
 made graves on each side of it, lay through 
 this cemetery — and then it was so dark ! — those
 
 THE AEMENIAXS. 255 
 
 thickly-set trees retained such a depth of gloom, 
 that the benighted donkey-driver could hardly 
 see any thing, save the white marble tomb-stones 
 gleaming in long array, that appeared to have 
 no end. 
 
 " At the edge of this forest of the dead, the 
 little black dog disappeared. Costi thought 
 he was quit of him ; but as he rode through 
 the dismal avenue, he heard a strange moaning 
 to his right, and looking through the boles of 
 the cypresses, he again saw the quivering blue 
 flame — and something more awful still !" 
 
 " What ! something worse than the black 
 dog and the blue light?" interrupted Constan- 
 tine. 
 
 '•Of a certainty !^^ continued the boatman, 
 " Costi saw a tall ghastly figure rising from 
 a grave with an emir^s turban round his 
 headr
 
 ^56 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 " Are you sure it was not a tall tomb-stone ?" 
 inquired the Prince, 
 
 " Rising from a grave," resumed the boat- 
 man, without attending to his scepticism, "and 
 uttering dreadful groans ! 
 
 " Costi almost lost his wits, as well he might, 
 and in terror he urged on his donkeys, that 
 trembled almost as much as he did himself. 
 
 " He was a happy man when he got out of 
 the dark lane, and could see the open country, 
 and the splendid kiosks and gardens of the 
 great Suleiman- Agha,^-^^ and the placid hills, and 
 the broad bright moon ; but, alas ! he had not 
 gone many steps, when the dappled donkey 
 again began to caper and snort, and Costi smelt 
 sulphur, and saw the little black dog again be- 
 fore him, gliding as if he did not touch the 
 ground, and see-sawing across his road as be- 
 fore. Though the donkey-driver's tongue al-
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 257 
 
 most clove to the roof of his mouth, he con- 
 trived again to shout, but the black dog again 
 ' disregarded his shouts, and kept saihng on over 
 the moon-light path. Costi called on the Pa- 
 nagia, and every saint he could remember, and 
 when that was over, he talked to his donkeys, to 
 keep his spirits up. When they came to a 
 rough ascending lane, running between beau- 
 tiful olive groves, Costi had gained so much 
 courage and resolution, that he descended from 
 his ass to pelt away his ill-savoured fellow tra- 
 veller, with stones, of which there was no 
 scarcity in the lane. His stones had no more 
 effect than his voice. He flung one after ano- 
 ther, small and large ; but though to his eye 
 they seemed to hit him, or to pass through him, 
 the little black dog took no heed of them, but 
 glided on ^vithout bark or yelp, sporting the 
 blue light at the tip of his tail, just as before.
 
 258 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 Costi, growing desperate, ran after him to kick 
 him. He kicked, but though he was only a 
 span's length from him when he raised his foot 
 to kick, before the blow descended, the little 
 black dog was seen see-sawing across the lane 
 fifty paces distant, and Costi only struck the 
 root of an olive tree, which nearly broke his 
 toes. Kaimena ! (^^^ but how he did tremble 
 then ! he could hardly remount his donkey, 
 and when he did, he wished the Ingliz, with 
 all his bales, at the bottom of the Gulf of 
 Smyrna, for having made him stay so late. He 
 pressed on his asses to a full trot. The little 
 black dog glided faster and faster, and was 
 always a few yards in advance of him. At the 
 head of a beautiful valley, that the Christians 
 of Smyrna call the Valley of St. Anne, Costi had 
 to pass the frowning ruins of an ancient aque- 
 duct, which was known to be the resort of
 
 THE AEMENIANS. 259 
 
 Vourvoiilackis, and all sorts of evil spirits. He 
 flattered himself that the little black dog would 
 here find more congenial society, and leave off 
 persecuting an innocent Christian like himself; 
 and sure enough, within the shade of the ruins, 
 he disappeared. Costi pricked his donkey with 
 his short, pointed stick, ^"^ but as he trotted on, 
 over the uneven ground beyond the ruins, there 
 came a rush of such awful sounds, from the 
 arches and hollows of the old aqueduct, that his 
 blood ran cold, and on looking before him, he 
 saw, at his usual distance, the little black dog. 
 O ! how the poor fellow wished for some holy 
 man to scare away this nothing less than devil. 
 He would have given his asses, his only wealth, 
 to have a companion \vith him ; and he even 
 felt some relief from the sight of a gi'oup of 
 camels that were tranquilly reposing on the 
 hill side, and in the fair moon light, close by 
 their burdens and their sleeping drivers. ^^^>
 
 260 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 '' The plain of Boodja was now before him, 
 and he was somewhat cheered by the sight of 
 his village home. He cantered across the flat, 
 with the dappled donkey capering and snorting, 
 and the little black dog gliding and see-sawing 
 before him. The latter, however, when he 
 reached the edge of the village, again disap- 
 peared ; and Costi, now thinking he was entirely 
 free from him, proceeded rejoicing to the house 
 of the Ingliz, where he delivered his letter, and 
 said nothing about what had happened to him. 
 But, kaimena ! judge of his condition, when, on 
 reaching his own cottage, he saw a blue light 
 gleaming from the shade of its portal ! Was 
 he tliere again.? — could it be possible.? — Aye, 
 sure enough there he was — the little black dog 
 that had come all the way from Smyrna with 
 liim. 
 
 " Spirits persecute the solitary ; and to com- 
 plete Costi's misfortunes, his wife had gone to
 
 THE ARMEXIAXS. ^61 
 
 visit her mother at a village not far off, called 
 Sedi-Keui. What was to be done ? His friends, 
 the Greek peasants of the village, had all been 
 long since buried in sleep : not to be quite 
 alone, he would have taken his favourite dapple 
 into his hovel with him, but he was ashamed of 
 that ; and the donkey, who had no taste for a 
 change of lodging, had marched off \rith his 
 companion to his wonted shed. Costi knew 
 from experience, that it was no use tr3'ing to 
 drive away the pertinacious dog, so he went 
 and gave his asses their supper. When he re- 
 turned, he found the little black dog where he 
 had left him. He thought it as well to Ix? 
 courteous, and said, though his voice trembled, 
 ' ha ! ha ! my little friend, you are still here, 
 are you ; you are determined we shall not part 
 company over soon ?' 
 
 " The little black dog wagged his sparkling
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 tail, and flames, like moustachoes of fire, came 
 from his nostrils. 
 
 " ' But curse me if you shall come into my 
 house,' said Costi — and opening the door but 
 very little, and occupying, as he thought, all 
 the space, he squeezed himself in, and banged 
 to the door (he was sure of that ! ) in the in- 
 truder's face. But he did no such thing, for 
 the first object he saw within the room, was the 
 black dog and his blue light. 
 
 " Poor Costi's misfortunes were every way 
 complete — the only holy article of his house- 
 hold that might have been efficacious to expel 
 the obstinate spirit, his wife had carried with 
 her to protect her on her journey — Perhaps, 
 however, a light might do ? 
 
 " He lit his lamp, but its flame burned as 
 blue as the nose and the tail of the dog, who now 
 lay crouching and fixed on the wooden floor.
 
 THE ARMEKIANS. 263 
 
 Costi took no supper that night ; and he had 
 not a single glass of raki in his cupboard to 
 create courage or sleep. But tired at length 
 with watching his black and silent guest, and 
 worn out by the labours of the day, he threw 
 hunself on his bed, and, after long and fervent 
 prayers, and many vain attempts, at last fell 
 fast asleep.'' 
 
 " What a fool ! Of course he never woke 
 again — a vampire iixed upon him, and sucked 
 his life's blood !" said Constantine, tauntingly. 
 
 "You are wrong again T' hastily resumed 
 the boatman ; " Costi did wake again, as the 
 light of the risen sun shone through his lattice ; 
 but what do you think he saw, ha .' — why in- 
 stead of the little black dog, the corpse of a 
 tall, stout Turk stretched on the floor, just 
 where the dog had been lying !'** 
 
 " Whew I" cried the Prince, " this is a ghost
 
 264 THE ARMENIAXS. 
 
 story with a vengeance; but it would require 
 even more force of persuasion than was pos- 
 sessed by the Mahometan doctor, Abou-Ha- 
 life, ^^^^ who could prove a column of wood to 
 be a column of gold, to make me believe it. 
 But go on — what did your donkey-driver do 
 with this dead Turk ? Did he chop him into 
 kibaubs?'^ 
 
 " When Costi saw and felt the unwieldly car- 
 case, he trembled all over like the curds of 
 caimak, (^^^^ and he did not know what to do 
 with it. Should the Osmanli be found there, 
 he knew his own head would speedily be between 
 his legs : ^^^^ and so, half dead with fear, he tot- 
 tered off to a papas in the village, to tell his 
 deplorable case, and seek advice. 
 
 " This priest was a man of vast ability, and 
 thus he reasoned with Costi. 
 
 " ' To remove this dead Turk, more espe-
 
 THE ARMEKIANS. 265 
 
 cially as he is so tall and so fat, would be a 
 work of great labour, and you might be seen ; 
 but wait till night — when darkness falls upon 
 the earth, the dead body will return to the 
 shape of the little black dog, and then I will 
 do his business and send him back whence he 
 came." 
 
 " Things turned out just as he had said, and 
 the papas was as good as his word. AVhen 
 he went into the room with Costi, he saw in- 
 deed, no dead Turk, but a very lively black 
 dog, whisking round and round, and never 
 resting. He began his prayers, he produced 
 his relics— the little black dog whirled faster 
 and faster, and presently darted out of the open 
 door. Costi and the papas ran out of the 
 house to watch his retreat — they saw a pale blue 
 light the very next minute, playing along the 
 distant ruined walls of Smyrna Castle : it was
 
 ^66 THE AEMENIANS. 
 
 the tail of the little black dog, which the 
 donkey-driver never saw again: so my story 
 ends." 
 
 " 'Tis a pity it is not longer,'' said Constan- 
 tine, " but we have arrived in the Golden 
 Horn — ^put me ashore, and good night, without 
 Vourvoulackis be with you.''
 
 267 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 In the turbulent days of the Janissaries, a scene 
 of violence like that described in our last cha}> 
 ter but one, was by no means of rare occur- 
 rence, and a day of festivity among the Chris- 
 tian ray ah subjects of the empire, would often 
 end still more tragically, in the murder of de- 
 fenceless individuals, guilty of no provocation, 
 unless the sight of their enjoyments might be 
 construed as such by the Turks. It was part 
 of the system combined by the astucious Halet- 
 
 N 2
 
 268 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 Effendi, and so unrelentingly pursued by Sultan 
 Mahmood, to throw temptations in the way of 
 the sons of Hadji-Bektash, to induce them into 
 violent transgressions, that there might be an 
 apparent and justifiable motive for the frequent 
 executions that took place among the Janissa- 
 ries, and that were slowly preparing, simulta- 
 neously with other and deep-laid plots, the final 
 suppression of that now mock military associa- 
 tion, which, like the Praetorian band of the fall- 
 ing empire of the West, was despicable to the 
 enemy, and formidable only to the sovereign 
 and the peaceful subject. ^*^ 
 , All the means resorted to are not known; but 
 it is a well ascertained fact, that from the be- 
 ginning of Mahmood's reign, or at least shortly 
 after the tremendous Janissary revolt, in which 
 Mustapha Bairactar, the friend of the deceased 
 Sultan Selim, and of European tactics, fell
 
 THE ARMENIAN'S. 269 
 
 under their rage, the more bold and desperate 
 portion of the Odas, ^^^ or such of them as could 
 not be gained over to the views of govern- 
 ment, or whom it was considered unsafe to trust, 
 were subject to a mysterious but gradual mor- 
 tality. From the castle on its banks, the Bos- 
 phorus received them ; and its waves, a rapidly 
 moving grave, kept the secret of their death, 
 and wafted them to a remote shore. Their 
 bodies would be seen through the transparent 
 waters, shooting by the Seraglio point, and 
 moving trunk and limb, as the current pro- 
 pelled, as though life were not extinct ; across 
 Marmora's wide basin, the fisherman or the 
 peasant might watch their bleached and swollen 
 corses, as cast on the melancholy shore of 
 Selymnia or Rodosto, the birds of the air 
 whirled clamourously to devour what the finny 
 race had spared ; and farther still, and through
 
 ^70 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 the straits of Helle, and distant as the ^gean, 
 where it developes itself, ocean-like, by Troy, 
 and Tenedos, Lemnos, and Mount Athos, the 
 returning mariner would sometimes count the 
 floating bodies, and reverting his eyes, exclaim, 
 *' Mashallah ! but there is wrath at Stambool.'' 
 
 Even in Turkey, however, it was necessary to 
 throw a veil over such wholesale murder, and it 
 was with consummate art, with a cunning all 
 but devilish, that this was done, and that the 
 stupid Janissaries were kept in security, as the 
 glaive of the Sultan lopped off the most ardent, 
 the strongest of their body ; nor did the sons 
 of Hadji-Bektash (^^ arouse themselves, until, 
 like the Hebrew champion in the lap of 
 Delilah, their lock of strength was shorn, and 
 their arms bound. 
 
 Constantine Ghika, though from his elevated 
 and perilous condition in the Ottoman empire.
 
 THE AEMENIANS. 271 
 
 he could not but observe all that was passing 
 and preparing, was so occupied with other and 
 newer and more agreeable objects of reflection, 
 that he perhaps never would have once thought 
 even of the Janissary who had so lately wounded 
 him, had it not pleased Mustapha to relate the 
 story of the curious aflray. 
 
 The fellow, it appeared, had been drinking in 
 a Greek cantine, or -wine-shop, at the upper 
 part of the \nllage of Arnaut-Keui, until, as 
 a matter of course, he was drunk. The pro- 
 phet''s prohibition is entire ; in the pages of the 
 Koran no distinction is made as to quantity, a 
 glass is as a bottle, a bottle as a butt; and with 
 this conviction, the Turks W when they once 
 begin to drink the forbidden draught, never 
 stop until they can swallow no more, or can get 
 no more to swallow. The Greek, seeing his 
 customer in that dangerous state, and knowing
 
 272 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 perhaps that he would never pay a par^ for all 
 the. okkas in which he had been wetting his 
 mustachoes, refused to draw him any. more 
 wine, and ran away with the rakie bottles. 
 The eastern boniface was too slow in his re- 
 treat; the Janissary's pistol ball caught him 
 before he could turn into another room, and 
 broke his arm ; and the hero, finding his courage 
 up, fancied he had a taste to kill a Greek, and 
 rushed into the path that led to the kiosk, with 
 that laudable intent. Unlike the other con- 
 quered subjects of the Turks, who, in their esti- 
 mation, presently reposed into tranquil, de- 
 graded rayahs, unobnoxious to apprehension or 
 hate, the Greeks continued to be as vigorously 
 and as actively detested after the lapse of four 
 hundred years, as on the day when they opposed 
 their treble walls, the resources of their inge- 
 nuity, and their confined and dying, but bril-
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 273 
 
 liant valour, to Mahomet the Second. This 
 hatred, which had never known a truce in the 
 Osmahlis' hearts, had moreover been increased 
 tenfold by the occurrences in Greece ; and in 
 the license afforded them by the excitement of 
 the Hellenic revolution, and sanctified by the 
 revenge the blood of their foiled and beaten 
 brethren in the Morea, called for. The Turks, 
 ever since 1821, had been wont, in different 
 parts of the empire, to massacre the Greeks in 
 mass or in detail. <^^^ In pursuing a Greek, 
 therefore, nothing would have been very extra- 
 ordinary, but it did seem strange, that a Janis- 
 sary should want to burn the brains, and cut 
 the throat of an Armenian — a quiet seraff, 
 a friendly camel, who might have the affiliat- 
 ing mark of his own orta^^^ on his brawny 
 arm. The explanation was — the man of the 
 spoon <^^^ was too far gone in his cups, to retain 
 
 n5
 
 274 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 a very lively distinction of person. On rush- 
 ing from the wine-house, Tinghir-Oglu was 
 waddling up the path before him, and, without 
 seeing that his boots and slippers were purple, 
 and that the crown of his calpack had no aper- 
 ture in it, (^) he determined he was a Greek, and 
 in a bellowing voice invited him to stop and 
 undergo the disagreeable operations alluded to. 
 The affrighted Armenian took to his heels, and 
 the staggering drunkard took after him, quite 
 incapable of the comprehension of the words 
 
 addressed to him, but persuaded he was going 
 
 to immolate a Greek ghiaour. 
 
 The tragi-comedy, or the admixture of farce 
 
 and tragedy, which characterizes nearly all 
 
 mortal events in the East, prevailed admirably 
 
 throughout the present adventure. 
 
 The next morning at an early hour, as our 
 
 restless hero was repairing by water to the
 
 THE AEMENIAXS. 275 
 
 Princess', the fatal cannon of Roumeli-hissar 
 boomed along the narrow and silent banks of 
 the Bosphorus, and shortly after, one of his 
 boatmen's oar struck the submerged headless 
 trunk of the burly Janissary, who was already 
 on his submarine journey to the shores of the 
 Propontis or the Dardanelles. Yes ! there he 
 went, the minnows' sport ! he, who on the yes- 
 terday, had not his brain been reeling with 
 the fumes of that wine his prophet cursed, 
 might have annihilated in his robust grasp the 
 elegant stripling, -whose keel was now gliding 
 over him ! It was not consonant, indeed, with 
 the general practice of Mahometan law, as ad- 
 ministered in Turkey, to punish thus severely 
 a mere brawl; and in innumerable instances, 
 even when the Osmanli offender committed mur- 
 der, the blood of the Christian, or the Jewish 
 rayah, sunk into the earth unatoned. But in
 
 276 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 the present case, the delinquent's being a Janis- 
 sary, and a desperate one, sealed his doom, 
 even without other considerations; and the 
 Tinghir-Oglus, then high in favour at the 
 Porte, would probably have easily obtained 
 ample, if not so sanguinary satisfaction, had 
 the assailant been in a different condition, and 
 still a Turk. 
 
 The drunken Janissary is disposed of; but 
 the assaulted, wounded Greek of the cantine re- 
 mains, and his case, with the doom of his foe, 
 are deserving of record as specimens of Turk- 
 ish reasoning. The same guard that so deli- 
 berately secured the Janissary, arrested after- 
 wards the wine-vender, from the mysterious 
 recesses of whose shop the perilous thunderbolt 
 had burst, and they were both carried off to 
 the Mehkieme, or court of justice, together. 
 For the Janissary, who, as Musselman, had pre-
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 277 
 
 cedence of the ghiaour, the jVIollah having al- 
 ready arranged the whole business on the re- 
 port of witnesses he had heard apart, merely 
 made a sign with his eyes to the door of tlie 
 hall, where stood a few grim fellows from the 
 Gehenna ^^^ of the Bosphorus, the Roumeli- 
 hissar in which the Sultan was sacrificing the 
 lives of his subjects to his idol '^refonn," as 
 the Jews had sacrificed their children in the 
 valley to Moloch, — " horrid king, besmeared 
 with blood of human sacrifice, and parents' 
 tears. '^ Another sign — an horizontal motion of 
 the hand — a gentle pantomime to denote the 
 yataghan's application to the neck — a waive 
 scarcely perceptible, told the fate of the pec- 
 cant son of Hadji-Bektash, and the ruffians 
 rushed forward and carried off their prey to the 
 castle, as so many famished dogs of Stambcol 
 would have dragged away with united effort
 
 278 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 and glee, an abandoned carcase to their holes in 
 the hill side, or their favourite retreat, the great 
 Turkish burying-grounds. ^^"^ 
 
 In thus condemning a fellow creature to the 
 pangs of death, and the dread chances of 
 eternity, not a muscle of the Turkish judge's 
 impassible face relaxed ; not a thrill — not the 
 slightest tremor of feature or limb, betrayed 
 emotion : had that waive of the hand been em- 
 ployed to kill a musquito, a gnat, his indiffer- 
 ence could not be more perfect. He took three 
 long whiffs of his chibook ere he turned to the 
 Greek, who, but too well acquainted with the 
 horrid meaning of the sign he had given, stood 
 motionless before him, his eyes bent on the 
 ground, on which fell the cold sweat in large 
 drops from his brow ; his broken arm, its pain 
 now all unfelt, hanging down by his side, and 
 his whole person rigid and frozen.
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 279 
 
 " And as to you, you unbelieving son of a 
 dirty mother, who, not content with selling 
 those accursed draughts that defile the soul and 
 stupify the wit," (he took another whiff at his 
 chibook,) " to your own infidel race, must be 
 dealing out to the Osmanlis and the cliildren of 
 the Prophet, the same maddening poison — you 
 deserve to be made crows* meat of; but we 
 are even more merciful than we are just — the 
 Naib will deal with you."" 
 
 After uttering this unusually long oration, 
 the Mollah stroked his beard, drew his heels 
 closer under his hams, and resumed his smok- 
 ing, whilst the Naib, or clerk, who had just 
 entered the hall with his ears full of the fa- 
 vourable testimonials of the Greek's character, 
 and, what was infinitely of more avail to the 
 prisoner, with his purse well lined with the 
 rubiehs of his relations without, sat himself on
 
 280 THE ARAJRENIANS. 
 
 the seat of judgment, and decided the .case 
 thus — with a perspicuity worthy of Solomon, 
 the Israelite king, or Solyman Kanuni, th^. 
 great Turkish lawgiver and sultan :■ — ' ttR 
 " For having admitted a Moslem within his 
 tavern, and giving him the forbidden wine, the 
 Greek incurred the bastinado and a heavy fine. 
 Having once admitted the Janissary and given 
 him wine, he was wrong in refusing him more ; 
 for if he had produced the additional okkas 
 demanded, would not the Janissary have drunk 
 them — would he not then have been so drunk, 
 as to be unable to move ? Certainly ! the fel- 
 low, would have fallen asleep in the cantine — 
 might have broken his neck over the precipice 
 going home — and the calpack of the Armenian 
 seraff would have remained unperf orated by his 
 bullet, the religious feelings of the Osmanlis 
 un wounded by the scandalous exposure of a
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 281 
 
 brother's weakness ! Indeed, the second offence 
 was worse than the first, and deserved more 
 fine, and more bastinado ; but as there was a 
 species of compensation in the pistol-shot re- 
 ceived from the Janissary, that should be set 
 off in the Greek's account— the soles of his 
 feet (they already glowed and tingled by anti- 
 cipation) should be spared, if he would pay for 
 the sticks that would have been employed in 
 beating them to a mummy ; and this sum, add- 
 ed to a double fine, would make just "one 
 thousand piastres," not a para more or less. 
 
 When the unfortunate dealer in crassi^"^ 
 overcame his fear for his life and his heels, he 
 could feel an anxiety for his purse; but it was 
 all in vain he protested (what was perfectly 
 true) that he could not expel an armed Turk 
 who chose to enter his shop, and (what, per- 
 haps, was not quite so correct) that he had not
 
 ^2 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 a thousand piastres in the world — (a principal 
 portion of which was avowedly imposed as a 
 fine for not making the said Turk as drunk as 
 a beast !) 
 
 The Naib knew his business and his custo- 
 mers. It grieved him, he said, to see so little 
 conscience in the world ! Here he was dealing 
 out the humane pain of mulct, for an offence 
 which many interpretations of the Koran would 
 justify him in punishing with death ! but he 
 begged them to recollect that the ear of the 
 oracle of the law was not to be occupied by 
 idle remonstrances — and without fee. He should 
 really be obliged to add a mahmoodier for every 
 moment they remained in court, to the sum 
 specified. <^^^^ 
 
 The poor Greek paid iave hundred piastres 
 forthwith; the primates were responsible that 
 the rest should be paid on the morrow. The
 
 THE ARMENIANS. J^83 
 
 rayahs left the court muttering, "Well, we 
 have got out of the lion's den not so badly, 
 after all ^ whilst the starch MoUah, as he eyed 
 the tinsel-looking money, exclaimed, " Mashal- 
 lah ! God is great !" and the little Naib, tuck- 
 ing up his jubbee to go out in search of other 
 victims, added as he went, " Inshallah ! if God 
 chooses !"
 
 NOTES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Note 1, Page 7. 
 
 Chukedonia. 
 
 Now called Cadi-keui. It scarcely retains any thing 
 to denote its ancient importance ; but it is a beautiful 
 village, particularly as seen from the great cemetery of 
 Scutari. 
 
 Note 2, Page 8. 
 
 Aqueducts of Valtns. 
 
 These ancient structures still carry water to Constan- 
 tmople, and, striding from one hill to the other, with 
 the blue sky seen through their arches, are very pic- 
 turesque objects. 
 
 Note 3, Page 22. 
 Rubieh, a Turkish coin. Paradis, money.
 
 286 NOTES. 
 
 Note 4, Page 24. 
 Child of the foregoing. 
 The Turkish women are very fond of decorating the 
 skull-caps of their children with glittering coins. The 
 alloy of the Sultan's coinage is notorious. 
 
 Note 5, Page 25. 
 The Jew^s degraded Castilian. 
 At Constantinople, at Smyrna, and indeed all over the 
 Levant, the Jews speak a corrupted Spanish. This cir- 
 cumstance, with that of their preserving many Spanish 
 customs, and their giving to their municipal officers the 
 name of " Corregidors," sufficiently prove their descent 
 from " ces malheureux Israelites, qu' une politique aussi ab- 
 surde que harhare chassa de VEspagne au commencement du 
 
 Note 6, Page 25. 
 Any body's joke. 
 In spite of their misery, I generally found the Jews 
 rather cheerful. That misery or poverty is indeed great 
 among the mass of them, and there is nothing so vile 
 but they will perform it for money. I have been told that 
 the new lulahs, or pipe-bowls, are first of all smoked by 
 the Jews, to take off the raw, clayey taste — one proof to 
 what they will not submit to obtain their end, or to make 
 a para! 
 
 Note 7, Page 32. 
 Ka'iemena ! 
 A Greek exclamation used on almost every striking 
 occasion, but most touching when pronounced by their 
 women in a tone of compassion and sympathy.
 
 NOTES. ^7 
 
 Note 8, Page 37. 
 
 Life er faith. 
 
 The Turkish law on this head is sufficiently known. 
 
 The Christian caught with a Mahometan woman may 
 
 preserve his hfe by apostacy, but nothing can save the 
 
 frail fair one from the sack and the sea ! 
 
 Note 9, Page 37. 
 Messier, or mestler. 
 The Morocco bot fines without a sole; papooshes, the 
 slippers into which the mestler are thrust. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Note 1, Page 42. 
 In manners a brute. 
 Leontius Pilatus, whom Gibbon thus describes : — " In 
 the year 1360, a disciple of Barlaam, whose name was 
 Leo, or Leontius Pilatus, was detained in his way to 
 Avignon, by the advice and hospitality of Boccace, who 
 lodged the stranger in his house, prevailed on the re- 
 public of Florence to allow him an annual stipend, and 
 devoted his leisure to the first Greek professor, who 
 taught that language in the western countries of Europe. 
 The appearance of Leo might disgust the most eager dis- 
 ciple ; he was clothed in the mantle of a philosopher, or 
 a mendicant ; his countenance was hideous ; his face was 
 overshadowed with black hair; his beard long and un- 
 combed ; his deportment rustic ; his temper gloomy and
 
 ^SS NOTES. 
 
 inconstant ; nor could he grace his discourse with the or- 
 naments, or even the perspicuity of Latin elocution. 
 
 « But his mind was stored with a treasure of Greek 
 learning; history and fable, philosophy and grammar, 
 were alike at his command ; and he read the poems of 
 Homer in the schools of Florence. It was from his ex- 
 planation that Boccace composed and transcribed a literal 
 prose version of the Iliad and Odyssey, which satisfied 
 the thirst of his friend Petrarch; and which, perhaps, in . 
 the succeeding century, was clandestinely used by Lau-,. 
 rentius Valla, the Latin interpreter. It was from his 
 narratives that the same Boccace collected the materials 
 for his treatise on the Genealogy of the Heathen Godsj a 
 work, in that age, of stupendous erudition, and which he 
 ostentatiously sprinkled with Greek characters and pas- 
 sages, to excite the wonder and applause of his more 
 ignorant readers." — Decline and Fall, chap. IxvL 
 
 The historian of Rome furnishes the three following 
 passages, in which the extent of our obligations to the 
 Greeks, and to the little Italian republics, is briefly and 
 most eloquently explained. 
 
 " The journeys of three emperors were unavailing for 
 their temporal, or perhaps their spiritual salvation ; but 
 they were productive of a beneficial consequence, the 
 revival of the Greek learning in Italy, from whence it 
 was propagated to the last nations of the west and north. 
 In their lowest servitude and depression, the subjects of 
 the Byzantine throne were still possessed of a golden key 
 that could unlock the treasures of antiquity ; of a musical 
 and prolific language, that gives a soul to the objects of
 
 NO TEST. 289 
 
 sense, and a body to the abstractions of philosophy!" — 
 Chap. bcvi. 
 
 " In the resurrection of science, Italy was the first 
 that cast away her shroud ; and the eloquent Petrarch, 
 by his lessons and his example, may justly be applauded 
 as the first harbinger of day. A purer style of composi- 
 tion, a more generous and rational strain of sentiment, 
 flowed from the study and imitation of the writers of an- 
 cient Rome ; and the disciples of Cicero and Virgil ap- 
 proached, with reverence and love, the sanctuary of their 
 Grecian masters." — Id. 
 
 " The arms of the Turks undoubtedly pressed the fliglit 
 of the Muses; yet rve may trembk at the tliought, that 
 Greece might have been overwhelmed^ with her schools and 
 libraries, before Europe had emerged from the deluge of bar- 
 barism ; and the seeds of science might have been scattered by 
 the winds f before the Italian soil was prepared for their culti- 
 vation.^^ — Id. 
 
 Note 2, Page 45. 
 Capitation tax. 
 After one of the revolts in the Morea, it was coolly 
 argued in the divan of Constantinople, whether the best 
 way of pacifying those provinces, would not be to kill all 
 tlie Greeks. A financial remark probably saved them. 
 *• If we cut their throats," said an Effendi, " pray, who 
 will pay us the kharatch?" 
 
 Note 3, Page 45. 
 Sacred bones. 
 According to some Eastern authors, ^Mahomet wrote 
 the first divine revelations he received, on some broad, 
 VOL. I. O
 
 290 KOTES. 
 
 dried bones ; nor has a vulgar tradition been afraid to 
 add, that the bones — were the bones of an ass. A prettier 
 tradition, and which is more likely to be true, says that 
 the verses of the Koran were written by his disciples on 
 leaves of the palm-tree, which were thrown without order 
 into a coffer. It was not till after the death of Mahomet, 
 that the whole was united into a volume ; but a confusion 
 of arrangement, which has never been entirely corrected, 
 was inevitable. '' Le desordre est tel que le dernier 
 chapitre que Mahomet ait fait descendre du ciel est le 
 neuvi^me du receuil arrange par Aboubecre; et que les 
 premiers versets qui ont' ete reveles au prophete se trou- 
 vent en tete du chapitre quatre-vingtseizierae. Ce boule- 
 versement a jette dans le Coran une confusion qui sou 
 vent en a obscurci le merite." — Garcin de Tassy. 
 
 Note 4, Page 48. 
 Its gloomy crumbling walls, and its turret without a bell. 
 The Greeks are not allowed bells to their places of wor- 
 ship. The cathedral church of the Fanar is really such 
 as I have described it. 
 
 Note 5, Page 49. 
 The yellow slippers. 
 None but Turks and a few Christian rayah subjects, 
 promoted by the Porte, or attached as drogomans to 
 foreign ambassadors, dare strut in yellow morocco. 
 
 Note 6, Page 51. 
 
 The darkroom at the Porte. 
 
 A friend at Constantinople often described to me as a 
 
 dark, narrow, wretched room, the place where the Greek 
 
 drogoman used to stay in attendance the whole day
 
 through. This was in the building destroyed by the 
 Janissaries in 1826. In the present palace of the Porte, 
 the drogoman seems better lodged, but he is now a Turk. 
 *'** ^Vhen the Greeks were turned out of this important 
 ' oflSce, it was resolved that none but an Osmanli should 
 fill it for the future. Now, as Turks never learn lan- 
 guages, except here and there, by necessity, a little 
 Romaic, a great difficulty presented itself. The present 
 sage, who can just understand and stammer a little 
 French, was at length discovered, and he is only half a 
 Turk, the son of a Jew, who turned renegado after his 
 '%lTth:'— Constantinople in 1828. 
 
 Note 7, Page 51. 
 BeliL 
 Turkish for a large ship. 
 
 Note 8, Page 52. 
 The Russian Autocrat. 
 
 Wallachia submitted to the force of the Ottoman arms 
 in 1418, under the reign of Mahomet I. 
 
 " After weakening all his enemies in Asia, Mahomet 
 assembles all his European and Asiatic forces, and de- 
 parts from Brusa to Adrianople. From thence he 
 marches against the Wallachians, routes their army, lays 
 waste great part of the province, takes Severin, where is 
 a bridge said to be built by Trajan, and the castles Sacke 
 and Cakj situate on the other side of the Danube, and 
 fortifies Girgiow with new works and a good garrison, 
 so that the Wallachians could not any more pass the 
 Danube. Pent up in this manner, and pressed by the 
 sword of the enemy and the want of warlike stores, des- 
 
 o a
 
 292 NOTES. 
 
 pairing also to presence their liberty, they purchase their 
 safety with an annual tribute, for the performance where- 
 of the sons of the prince and three great men are given to 
 the Sultan in hostage." — Cantemir. Hist.Ott. book 2. ch. 3. 
 
 Moldavia volimtarily surrendered its liberties to So- 
 liman I. in the year 1529. 
 
 " Whilst Soliman, after taking the city (Buda) staid 
 in the neighbourhood some days to refresh his array, 
 Teutuk Lagotheta is sent in embassy to Bogdan, prince 
 of Moldavia, to the Turkish camp. Having obtained an 
 audience, he declares his mission from the Moldavian 
 prince and people, to offer the Sultan both Moldavias 
 upon honourable terms, particularly that their religion 
 should be preserved entire, and the country be subject 
 as a fief to the empire. Nothing could be more grateful 
 to Soliman, whose more weighty affairs hindered him 
 from turning his arms that way, while the defeats re- 
 ceived from the Moldavians obliged him always to have 
 an eye to their motions. Wherefore, readily accepting 
 the offered terms, he confirms them with his own hands, 
 and delivers the Moldavian envoy the instruments to be 
 carried to his prince." — Cantemir. book 3. ch. 4. 
 
 The treaties with the principalities, were observed in 
 their usual manner by the Turks — (I confess, I do not 
 understand how they ever acquired their reputation for 
 good faith !) The privileges accorded to the Christian 
 states were all infringed; the tribute, arbitrarily, and be- 
 yond endurance, increased ; and at last, after many acts 
 of cruelty, the government taken from the native Boyars, 
 and given to the Greeks of the Fanar.
 
 >rDTEs. 593 
 
 Nicholas Mavrocordato (from whom the Greek patriot 
 of our days, Alexander Mavrocordato, is said tx) descend 
 in a direct line,) was " the first Fanariote Greek who (in 
 1731) set out from the shores of the Bosphorus, to take 
 possession of a principality beyond the Danube." — ^The 
 first to set a fatal example of ambition, which has been 
 but too eagerly followed ! 
 
 The reign of these princes, or Hospodars, was always 
 brief, and generally terminated in the mode described in 
 the text ; but they were not the only suflferers, for every 
 change entailed fresh oppression and misery on the un- 
 fortunate Moldavians and Wallachians. Articles calcu- 
 lated to strengthen the Greek princes, and to diminish 
 the evils suffered by the hapless population, were inserted 
 in the treaty of KaVnardje, when the Russians, in 1774, 
 restored the principalities, which they had occupied, to 
 the Turks ; but they were not observed by ths Porte, nor 
 could Russia at every moment insist on their observance. 
 An additional treaty made in 1779, and an article insist- 
 ing that the Turks should " observer et executer religieusc- 
 ment tout ce qui a etc stipule enfavew des detu provinces de 
 Value/lie et de JMoldavie" which formed part of the ar- 
 rangements between Russia and the Porte in 1792, were 
 equally disregarded by the Turks. The Hospodars were 
 changed as often as ever. At the treaty of Bucharest, in 
 1812, Russia stipulated that the Hospodars should remain 
 at least seven years in office; and since that time the 
 agents of the Hospodars, at the Porte, have considered 
 themselves as under the protection of the Russian lega- 
 tion at Constantinople, and their persons inviolate.
 
 294 NOTES. 
 
 Note 9, Page 55. 
 At least he died Prince of Wallachia, 
 
 "In the families of a few Greek princes at Zerapia, 
 I found much to interest me in the affectionate harmony 
 and simpHcity of manners in their domestic circles; 
 much to bewail in the ignorance in which their children 
 were educated; and I sincerely lamented the greedy 
 thirst of place which appeared totally to absorb all their 
 ideas. " Mon Jiere itoit le prince de la ValachiCf" said old 
 Caugierli, more than once to me, " mais on lui a coupi la 
 teteJ Yet this man, with his three sons, was assiduously 
 engaged in intrigues to obtain the government of one of 
 the two fatal principalities; and, after having succeeded 
 in his aim, his gray head has, like that of his brother, 
 been affixed to the gate of the Seraglio." 
 
 See Dr. Neale's Travels — a book I have already referred 
 to with great pleasure. * 
 
 Note 10, Page 56. 
 No country. 
 See " Essai sur les Fanariotes," a curious little book, 
 written in French, by Mark I'hilip Zallony, a Greek, and 
 published at Marseilles in 1824. It contains, with some 
 interesting and correct information, great exaggeration or 
 over-colouring. But it must be remembered, the author 
 is a Catholic, and an islander. 
 
 Note 1 1, Page 59. 
 Bucharest and Jassi/. 
 For a description of the pomp and state of these Greek 
 courts, see Mr. W. Wilkinson's work on the Principalities 
 of Moldavia and Wallachia.
 
 XOTES, 295 
 
 Note 12, Page 60. 
 The Bairam. 
 At this festival the nominations of the Porte are made 
 or confirmed. A Pasha is never named for more than a 
 year at a time. 
 
 Note 13, Page 61. 
 Franguestan. 
 Or Frankland, the name appUed by the Turks to all 
 Christendom. 
 
 CIL\PTER III. 
 Note 1, Page 77. 
 Great Charms. 
 This portrait may be badly executed, but it was taken 
 from the hfe, though not from an Armenian. 
 Note 2, Page 82. 
 Tuo ej/e-broivs one. 
 That witty rogue, Hajji Baba, must have made the 
 knowledge of this practice femiliar. " Admire my eye- 
 brows," cries the Persian dame, whom he is to recom- 
 mend to a husband; " where will you meet with a pair 
 that are so completely thro\vn into one?" " Hajji, always 
 keep in mind my t^'o eye-brows that look like one." 
 
 Note 3, Page 96, 
 A pipe. 
 The Turkish, Armenian, and Jewish women smoke. 
 The Frank ladies seldom do; but their presence never 
 interrupts the smoking of the gentlemen.
 
 296 NOTES. 
 
 Note 4, Page 103. 
 Hands and feet. 
 Though naturally there are many exceptions, these 
 qualities generally distinguish the Armenian race — the 
 ear in a special manner. 
 
 Note 5, Page 104. 
 
 Mesllers. 
 
 Loose Morocco boots — the same for men and women. 
 
 Note 6, Page 104. 
 Pupul. 
 A euphonous female name, very common among the 
 Armenians. 
 
 Note r. Page 104. 
 To Mecca. 
 Once a-year a white mule, gaudily caparisoned and 
 loaded with imperial offerings, is dispatched from the 
 capital of the faithful, to the prophef s tomb. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Note 1, Page 106. 
 According to Tournefort and others, on quitting the 
 shores, either of the Black Sea or the Caspian, the tra- 
 veller keeps gradually ascending, until he reaches the 
 wide flats or plains of Armenia ; the disposition of the. 
 mountains, the Caucasus and Ararat, may also have a 
 share in producing a cold bracing climate.
 
 NOTES. 297 
 
 The authors of" Letters from the Caucasus and Georgia," 
 describe Armenia as " one of the most elevated parts of 
 -\sia," and make frequent mention of intense cold, even 
 during the summer months. 
 
 Xenophon, with his ten thousand, passed through 
 Armenia ; and the picture he drew of the country, may 
 corroborate the statements of modern travellers. 
 
 After some hard fighting on the frontiers with the Car- 
 duchians, who seem to be much the same people as the 
 Curdes of our days, the Greeks marched at once across 
 the plain of Western Armenia, described as intermixed 
 with hills of an easy ascent. 
 
 They suffered excessively from cold : and Xenophon 
 says it was miserable to behold the men lying in the 
 snow ; the horses benumbed, and almost unable to rise ; 
 and the arms and baggage buried in deep snow. This 
 part of the retreat of the ten thousand, offers inci- 
 dents similar to those of the French flight from Moscow. 
 They marched several days through deep snows; they 
 crossed cold rivers; and forded the Euphrates not far 
 from its source. Many of the slaves and sumpter horses, 
 and some soldiers, fell down and died in the snow ; and 
 all suffered extremely from an intensely cold north wind, 
 which blew right in their faces. The snow was a fathom 
 in depth. 
 
 Tn this wretched plight, the enemy's light cavalry (like 
 the Cossacks on the French) hung on the rear of Xeno- 
 phon's army with destructive effect. I use Spelman's 
 translation : — 
 
 " Some of the men, who had lost their sight by the 
 
 o 5
 
 298 NOTES. 
 
 snow, or whose toes were rotted off by the intenseness of 
 the cold, were unavoidably left behind. The eyes were 
 relieved from the snow by wearing something black be- 
 fore them; and the feet against the cold, by continual 
 motion, and by pulling off their shoes in the night. If 
 any slept with their shoes on, the latchets pierced their 
 flesh, and their shoes stuck to their feet; for when their 
 old shoes were worn out, they wore carbatines made of 
 raw hides. These grievances, therefore, occasioned some 
 of the soldiers to be left behind ; for, seeing a piece of 
 ground that was black, because there was no snow 
 upon it, they concluded it was melted, and melted it 
 was by a warm vapour continually exhaling from a 
 fountain in a valley near the place. Thither they be- 
 took themselves, and, sitting down, reufsed to march 
 any further." 
 
 Xenophon in vain represented to them the fate they 
 must expect from the enemy in their rear ; and when he 
 grew angry with them, " they bid him kill them, if he 
 would, for they were not able to go on." 
 
 At the approach of the enemy, however, the Greeks 
 would rise and fight ; and as the French infantry, even 
 to the very last, could throw off the Cossacks, so did 
 Xenophon's suffering troops the barbarians. 
 
 In the midst of these horrors, many of the retreating 
 army suffered from bulimy, which is described by Galen, 
 as a disorder " in which the patient craves incessantly 
 for victuals, loses the use of his limbs, falls down, and 
 turns pale; his extremities become cold; his stomach 
 oppressed, and his pulse scarce sensible."
 
 NOTES. 299 
 
 In his valuable notes, Spelman thus defends the cor- 
 rectness of the Greek historian : — 
 
 " Lest the veracity of our author should be suspected, 
 when he speaks of deep snows and excessive frosts in 
 Armenia, a country lying between the fortieth and forty- 
 third degrees of latitude, I desire it may be considered, 
 that all authors, both ancient and modern, agree, that the 
 hills of this country are covered with snow ten months in 
 the year. " Tournefort, who was an eye-witness of it, 
 thinks that the earth upon these hills being impregnated 
 with sal ammoniac, the cold occasioned by it may hinder 
 the snow from melting * * » Whatever may 
 be the cause, the fact is certain. When LucuUus, in his 
 expedition against jMithridates, marched through Ar- 
 menia, his army suffered as much by the frost and snow, 
 as the Greeks under Xenophon; and when Alexander 
 Severus returned through this countrv', many of his men 
 lost their hands and feet through excessive cold. Tourne- 
 fort also complains, that at Erzerum, though situated in 
 a plain, his fingers were so benumbed with cold, he could 
 not write till an hour after sun-rise." 
 
 Tournefort, who arrived at Erzerum in the middle of 
 June, describes the hills around the plain as then covered 
 with snow ; and states, that snow had fallen in the town 
 on the 1st of June. 
 
 Having made out my proposition, that Armenia is a 
 hardy climate, fit to produce a hardy race, by authorities 
 ancient and modern, a few minutes may not be unpro- 
 fitably employed in tracing- some curious and lasting 
 habits and customs. The following passage relating to
 
 300 NOTES. 
 
 Armenia, as he found it, nearly four centuries before 
 Christ, is from Xenophon : — 
 
 " Their houses were under ground ; the mouth re- 
 sembhng that of a well, but spacious below : there was 
 an entrance dug for the cattle, but the inhabitants de- 
 scended by ladders. In these houses were goats, sheep, 
 cows, and fowls, with their yoimg. All the cattle were 
 maintained within doors with fodder." And it is thus, 
 Sir Robert Ker Porter, on traversing what was probably 
 the same plain of Armenia, more than two thousand 
 years after the eloquent Greek (or in 1817) describes the 
 natives' domiciles. 
 
 " The huts of the peasantry lie so close to the 
 
 earth, (in fact, the chief of the habitations are dug into 
 it,) that little more than their dingy roofs are seen above 
 the surface. The door is a mere hole, through which 
 the occupier must stoop, if not crawl, to make his escape. 
 Within it, appears a large gloomy den, lit from the roof 
 by two or three other holes ; and the inhabitants are in 
 harmony with the place — men, women, and cattle, all 
 pigging together; or, if any distinction is to be made, we 
 find the beasts a few feet below their masters and mis- 
 tresses, who have raised themselves a sort of shelf above 
 their four-footed servants, with a fire-place in the corner, 
 and a few dirty carpets on each side ; and there they 
 dwell, in plain fact, as happily as any of their dis- 
 tant Turkish lords in their harems." Travels, vol. 2. p. 
 651. 
 
 Xenophon found abundance, but grossness, at the 
 Armenian tables; and every trait of his description con-
 
 NOTES, 301 
 
 veys the idea of a coarse people. Wheat, barley, and 
 legumens, were heaped within their subterranean dwel- 
 lings, and he found beer — Oivos Kpidivos — literally, 
 " barley wine," in great jars, " in which the malt itself 
 floated even with the brims of the vessels ; and with it 
 reeds, some large, and others small, without joints. 
 These, when any one was thirsty, he w^as to take into 
 
 his mouth and suck When any one had a mind 
 
 to drink to his friend, he took him to the jar, where he 
 was obliged to stoop, and, sucking, drink like an ox." 
 
 I do not, however, find any mention of tliis Armenian 
 beer in modern travellers, who all agree that the Arme- 
 nians, in their native country, are great drinkers. Their 
 boisson par ejcellencey is a sort of brandy, of which they 
 may consume as much on their eastern mountains, as 
 do our Hiij'hlanders of " mountain dew" in Morven. 
 
 Note 2, Page lOG, 
 
 The Armenians paid tribute, and recognized the su- 
 premacy of the great eastern nations; but they were 
 nearly always governed by princes of their own race, 
 and ancient dynasties, and were left to their own laws 
 and usages. 
 
 Note 3, Page 108. 
 
 " Since the age of Constantine, the Armenians had 
 signalized their attachment to the religion and empire of 
 
 the Christians Under the rod of oppression, 
 
 the zeal of the Armenians is fervent and intrepid : they 
 have often preferred the crown of martj-rdom to the 
 white turban of Mahomet." — Decline and Fall, xlvii.
 
 302 NOTES. 
 
 Note 4, Page 110. 
 Comparative learning and civilization. 
 The brightest period of Armenian hterature seems to 
 have been in the fifth century ; but their efforts were re- 
 newed in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, when 
 Europe was dark indeed ! 
 
 Note 5, Page 112, 
 Kuzilbash, or red, or hot-heads, a name given to the 
 Persians. 
 
 Note 6, Page 112. 
 
 Ecmiazin, (near Mount Ararat,) the residence of their 
 Patriarch, may be considered the " Holy city" of the 
 Armenians ; but innumerable sports within the Persian 
 empire, are consecrated in their belief, as having been 
 the scenes of their mir£Lcles and legends. 
 
 Note r, Page 113. 
 
 Towards the realms of a Christian sovereign — i. e. towards 
 Russia. 
 
 Note 8, Page 113. 
 The Armenians, as oppressed Christians, have always 
 wished for this change of masters ; and we find one of 
 their priests in India, telling Bishop Heber, that " they 
 earnestly prayed, that they all might become the subjects 
 of the Emperor, instead of Persia and Turkey." — See 
 Journal, vol. 3, p. 208. 
 
 Note 9, Page 120. 
 
 The Venetian gulph. 
 
 Most of my readers will be aware of the existence of 
 the Armenian society of San Lazaro at Venice. ** This
 
 NOTES 303 
 
 society, called the Mukhitarian, was founded in the year 
 171^, by Mukhitar of the cit}' of Sebastia. The mem- 
 bers are all clerical persons, who have embraced the per- 
 suasion of the Church of Rome. Although it is a cir- 
 cumstance much to be deplored, (it is of course a 
 Eutychean who speaks,) that they have abandoned the 
 cause of their national church, yet I cannot refrain from 
 applauding the extraordinary progress they have made 
 in literature. The astonishing improvement they have 
 made in our language, the number of useful books which 
 they have published — except their controversial works on 
 religion, which are calculated to do more harm than good 
 to the nation — the excellent tv'pes brought into use by 
 them, extort from us admiration and praise." — See 
 " Hhlory of Armenia^'' by Father Michael Chamich, 
 translated into English by Johannes Ardall, an Armenian, 
 and printed at Calcutta, 1827. A book everj' way 
 curious. 
 
 For the following interesting account of the visit made 
 to that place, (in 1819,) I am indebted to the journal of 
 an old friend and fellow-traveller. 
 
 " We took a gondola, and went to the island of San 
 Lazaro, about three miles from Venice, now appropriated 
 to the Armenian colony, or rather monastery. 
 
 " The Laguna, or lake, in which Venice stands, is inter- 
 spersed with islands of all sizes, from the mere holm of a 
 few yards, to the more extended insular village of as 
 many acres. These are all quite flat, and generally 
 covered with buildings and gardens, forming the only 
 sort of country the Venetians are acquainted with. 
 
 *' San Lazaro is about the middle size, and adorned ^vith
 
 304? NOTES. 
 
 a pretty garden, convent, church, hbrary, &c. We landed 
 in front of the house, an unassuming building, and pro- 
 ceeded to the library, where we saw many Armenian 
 manuscripts; but our time being short, and our acquaint- 
 ance with the language limited, we could not examine 
 very deeply. AH that we saw was on vellum, and very 
 distinctly written. The subject was usually theology or 
 alchemy, and none were of any antiquity. A transla- 
 tion of Eusebius into Armenian, had been discovered, 
 much more perfect, we were told, than any Greek copy 
 now extant. There are certainly many things in this 
 translation not to be found in our copies of the original, 
 but we had not time to examine whether they were 
 translations of parts now lost, or additions by the trans- 
 lator. We are aware that ancient translations were very 
 free, particularly those into the oriental languages, and 
 this is probably not an exception. 
 
 " Our cicerone, a jolly red-faced Armenian, with a fine 
 black beard, that Julian might have envied, shewed us a 
 part of this work that he had translated into Latin. This 
 led us to talk of languages, and judging from his 
 rubicond looks, which seemed to portend rather good 
 living than hard study, we thought we might display a 
 little ; but we found ourselves in most languages much 
 his inferior, and even our own mother-tongue he spoke 
 almost as well as ourselves. Indeed, most of the inha- 
 bitants of San Lazaro spoke two or three languages 
 besides their own. We had the pleasure of hearing the 
 Armenian language spoken on all sides, which, from the 
 unpronounceable combination of consonants abounding
 
 NOTES. 305 
 
 in theirwords, we had supposed impossible. Lord Byron, 
 we were told, had been there with the intention of learn- 
 ing Armenian, but he gave it up either in despair or dis- 
 gust 
 
 ;::.<^ We afterwards accompanied our conductor to the 
 printing-office, where a newspaper is printed weekly, and 
 circulated pretty generally in the Levant. 
 
 " There were two or ^three works in the press at that 
 time, principally grammars and other elementary books. 
 
 " The chief occupation of the Armenians there was lite- 
 rature and psalmody; of the latter we were gratified 
 with a specimen, though at the expense of our ears. 
 
 " We saw nothing further to engage our attention, and 
 quitted our hosts much pleased with their civility.'' 
 
 We must have been misinformed as to the extent of 
 Lord Byron's acquirements in the Armenian language, or 
 he must have improved after this period, (1819;) for 
 among his papers is found a translation, made by him- 
 self, from an unpublished epistle of Saint Paul, which 
 he found in Armenian, at Venice. The curious paper will 
 appear in the forthcoming volume of Mr. IMoore's life 
 of the noble poet. 
 
 The following passage, from the pen of a learned Ger- 
 man, contains recent and valuable information. 
 
 " Ce sont les mekhitaristes de Saint Lazare a Venise, 
 qui, bien verses dans les sciences et la litterature de 
 I'occident, ont, les premiers, cultive leur langue avec 
 succes, et nous ont donne, outre les precieux restes de la 
 litterature grecque, tels qu' Eus^be, Philon et Severianus, 
 les premieres editions critiques de leures classiques.
 
 306 NOTES, 
 
 " Ces laborieux et vertueux moines, dignes rivaux des 
 benedictins, travaillent avec un zele et j'ose le dire, avec 
 uiie probite litteraire qui serait bien a desirer dan toutes 
 les branches de la litterature orientale, et qui nous lafsse 
 encore beaucoup esperer, et pour la litterature arme- 
 nienne, et pour la litterature grecque ; car nous savons 
 que les infatigables traducteurs, au V^. et au VI^. siecle de 
 notre ere ont traduit presque tous les principaux auteurs 
 de la Grece, Homere, Polybe, Diodore, de Sicile et plu- 
 sieurs autres. II y a meme, dans les classiques Armeniens 
 qui sont imprimes ou en manuscrit, plusieurs indica- 
 tions sur des ouvrages grecs que nous ne possedons plus, 
 et que le pbiJologue lira certainement avec plaisir : tels 
 sont I'argument de la tragedie d'Euripide, intitulee Les 
 Peliades, dans la rhetorique Armenienne, que nous posse- 
 dons sous le nom de Moise de Khorene, et le fait que 
 nous lisons au sujet du grammairien Herodien dans 
 I'ouvrage de Jean Ezugazy, dans le manuscrit de la 
 bibliotheque du Roi. 
 
 " Ou s'occupe a present a Saint Lazare d'urie collection 
 de tous les historiens et peres de I'eglise armenienne, a la 
 maniere de la grande collection des peres grecs ou des 
 historiens byzantins." — Memoire sur la Vie et les Ouvrages 
 de Davidj Philosophe Armenien du V^ tele, 4"C« P^ 
 C. F. Neumann— Paris, 1829. 
 
 Note 10, Page 122. 
 
 Their own sacerdotal body, 
 
 " Mais pour mettre fin a ces querelles, la cour de Rome 
 
 decida, que les papas schismatiques auraient seuls le droit 
 
 d'administrer les sacrements, de faire les mariages, les
 
 NOTES. 307 
 
 baptemes, les enterrements, et de retirer les profits qui y 
 sont attaches, et que les pretres Armeniens caiholiques 
 n'auraient que le prix de leurs messes, et le produit de 
 la charite des fideles. Les pretres schismatiques, qui 
 n'etaient persecuteurs que par interet pecuniare, cess^- 
 rent de I'etre depuis cet arrangement. Les preires Arme- 
 niens catholiques, favroises par quelques ambassadeurs, 
 ont la consolation de voir s' accroitre joumellement par 
 des conversions le nombre de leurs disciples." — Jf. Juche- 
 reau de Saint Iknijs. Rev. de Constantinople, vol.' i. p. 
 158. 
 
 The last remark of M. Juchereau, on the countenance 
 bestowed on the Catholic Armenians, by certain ambas- 
 sadors of Christian powers residing at Constantinople, 
 may perhaps in part account for Sultan Mahmood's per- 
 secution^of his Catholic rayahs, by giving him the mo- 
 tive of jealousy against foreign interference with his 
 subjects. 
 
 Note 11, Page 123. 
 In Mahometan armies. 
 The rule has sometimes been departed from, but the 
 Christian Albanians are of dubious faith, as well as some 
 barbarous tribes, (Christians merely in name,) from the 
 Black Sea, who have been occasionally enrolled. The 
 Greeks were the strength of the Ottoman fleet, but they 
 were not permitted to fire a gun. 
 
 Note 12, Page 125. 
 Cast-off cooks or valets. 
 Their transformation to physicians is very frequent, 
 particularly if they should have visited Europe or tra-
 
 308 NOTES. 
 
 veiled with Europeans. Some years ago, an English- 
 man, Col. R., on returning to Constantinople from a tour 
 in the Greek Islands, called on a friend who was sick. 
 On entering his room, what was his surprise to see a 
 fellow he had discharged some few months before for a 
 bad cook, standing by the patient's bed with a silver- 
 headed cane, and all the solenmity of a doctor. Col. 
 R. addressed him, " Come, Giovanni, tu fai il medico /" 
 The rogue had conscience enough left him to blush. 
 " Ah, Signore ! cosa volete ; non ho poluto piv trovare ser- 
 vizio, Cosi m^ ingegno, faccio da medico, e vene son chi 
 sanno men di me /'' 
 
 Note 13, Page 129. 
 Familiar occurrence. 
 For the sufferings to which these caravans of mer- 
 chants are exposed, see Burkhardt, or any Eastern tra- 
 veller ; but the finest pictures will be found in " Anas- 
 tasius." 
 
 Note 14, Page 130. 
 Maallim Moorsa. 
 Tor the admirable portrait of that Armenian wanderer^ 
 see "Anastasius," vol. iii. chap. 4. ' 
 
 Note 15, Page 131. 
 
 Ind and Catai. 
 
 For many centuries the enterprising Armenian traders 
 
 have frequented India, where, under the English, they 
 
 now form considerable sedentary colonies. The earliest of 
 
 the missionaries speak of Armenians on the borders of
 
 NOTES. 309 
 
 China. They are indeed to be found every where — in 
 the remote north, the south, in the distant east, and in the 
 west ; nor are the Jews more scattered than the Haian 
 people. 
 
 Page 132, (note omitted by mistake). 
 Seraffs to the Forte. 
 
 The nature of these perilous posts is thus ably de- 
 scribed by M. Juchereau : — 
 
 **Les serafFes sont les banquiers des ministres de la 
 Porte et des principaux employes. Charges de retirer 
 les revenus de leur maitre, de les accroitre par tons les 
 moyens connus dans ce gouvernement corrumpu, et de 
 payer toutes les depenses, ils identifient leur fortune avec 
 celle du ministre qui les emploie. Si ce dernier suc- 
 combe avant d'avoir pu s'enrichir, le seraffe perd alors, 
 nonseulement ses avances, mais il est quelquefois mis a 
 la torture pour payer la valeur des tresors supposes du 
 ministre disgracie. II parait que, malgre de pareils dan- 
 gers, ce commerce ofFre de bien grands avantages, puisque 
 les Juifs, qui I'avaient autrefois et qui I'ont perdu 
 par leur trop d'avidite, le regretterit encore et envient le 
 bonheur des Armeniens." — Revolutions de Constantinople ^ 
 vol. i. p. 157. 
 
 Note 16, Page 136. 
 
 The subversion of the Ottoman empire with regret. 
 
 I share this opinion with the author I have just 
 quoted. These are M. Juchereau's words : — 
 
 *' Les Armeniens sont humbles, froids, timides, et
 
 810 NOTES. 
 
 ignorants. Le commerce est leiir seule occupation. Les 
 sciences, les lettres, les beaux-arts sont dedaignes par 
 eux. lis n'apprennent dans leur enfance qu' a lire, 
 «crire et compter. Aussi ignorants que leurs maitres, ils 
 paraissent attaches a leur servitude, et ne con9oivent pas 
 qu'il puisse y avoir pour eux un autre etat politique. 
 Pacifiques et craintifs, ils detestent les secousses revolu- 
 tion naires et verraient avec peine la chute de I'empire 
 Ottoman."— Vol. i. p. 159. 
 
 Note 17, Page 137. 
 The Armenians of Constantinople. 
 For the comparison, see BufFon's Histoire Naturelle; 
 Art. " Chameau." The naturalist is perhaps even more 
 fanciful than usual, in describing the camel and the ex- 
 ternal consequences of its utter subjection to man ; but 
 his picture may be admitted as a simile. 
 
 Note 18, Page 138. 
 The Hebrew maid. 
 It is scarcely necessary to say, that this is Rebecca in 
 Sir Walter Scott's " Ivanhoe" — a glorious tale, in parts 
 of which his Oriental colouring is so true and intense, 
 that one might fancy the author had spent his life in the 
 East, or in the study of Eastern matters. But this is 
 genius ! 
 
 Note 19, Page 141. 
 The real and present magnificence of the spot. 
 For descriptions and vie^^s of the Hippodrome, see 
 D'Ohsson, Dallaway's Constantinople, ancient and mo- 
 dern, &c.&c.
 
 IfOTES. 311 
 
 Note 20, Page 143. 
 
 Ortakeui. 
 
 A miserable village on the Bosphorus, chiefly inha- 
 bited by the poor Jews. A few of the Catholic Arme- 
 nians, who escaped the exile and persecutions of 1828, 
 by conforming in externals to the Eutychean Armenian 
 church, were relegated in this dirty, detestable place. 
 One of this class, a clever, good-tempered fellow, who 
 had known better days, thus described to me an inge- 
 nious contrivance by which he avoided the vermin that 
 abounded there, d ne pas le croire. " I take care to exa- 
 mine and clean a large wooden table ; on it I lay my 
 mattrass, and then T put the four legs of the table each 
 into a pan of water on the floor ; I am thus insulated — 
 the bugs can't very well cross the water !" 
 
 " And do you escape their invasion V^ 
 
 " Yes ; all but that of a few bugs that may drop from 
 the rafters and ceilings of the old house !" 
 
 Travellers in other countries than Turkey, may thank 
 me for this information. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Note 1, Page 145. 
 
 An hamal. — A Turkish porter. 
 
 Note 2, Page 148. 
 Kalemkiars. 
 Painted muslin handkerchiefs, much used in the 
 coefFure of Eastern ladies. They are principally done
 
 312 NOTES. 
 
 by the Armenians, and I have seen some very beautiful, 
 both in design and colouring. Flowers and fruit are 
 generally represented. 
 
 Note 3, Page 157. 
 Palainedes. 
 By some supposed to be young tunnies. They abound 
 in the Black Sea, and at certain seasons descend in shoals 
 the Bosphorus, where they are taken in vast quantities. 
 
 Note 4, Page 158. 
 
 Homanfasts. 
 
 The Greek fasts are much more rigid than the Catho- 
 lic — they are not allowed to eat fish. But the Arme- 
 nians exceed the Greeks in severity, as much as the 
 Greeks do the Romans. 
 
 Note 5, Page 159. 
 
 Cocona, 
 
 Romaic for mademoiselle, or signorina. 
 
 Note 6, Page 162. 
 From beneath their home. 
 Parts of the residences on the banks of the Bosphorus, 
 being generally built on piles, over the water, admit the 
 boats beneath them. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Note 1, Page 168. 
 
 Bezesteen. — ^The Bazaars.
 
 NOTES. 313 
 
 Note 2, Page 169. 
 
 Resurrection. 
 
 See L'Essai sur les Fanariotea, already mentioned. The 
 Roman Catholic author is, as in duty hound, very severe 
 on the discipline and ceremonies of the Greek church. 
 He expresses a deep regret, in which we may partake, 
 that disunion and enmity should reign among the Chris- 
 tians of the East, and he contemplates the possibility 
 of an orthodox re-union of the Greek and Roman 
 churches. But it is the Greek who is to cede every 
 thing and to conform ; it is the rejecter of the fdioquc, 
 the contemner of the Pope, who is to find it easy to 
 reconcile the differences, " which only consist in some 
 formulas;" to have the archbishops of his nation in- 
 vested in the Vatican — " to have the credo sung at Con- 
 stantinople as at Rome, and then all is finished !" 
 
 Now, though the Greek church is bad enough, I would 
 rather take the converse, and see the spiritual union 
 effected by the Catholics embracing its creed. The 
 Greek church is every way more liberal than the Roman ; 
 — it does not interdict, but lends its hand to the disse- 
 mination of the Scriptures ; it has no auricular confes- 
 sion, it has never pretended to inJ'aUibility, and it is 
 improving, and will improve rapidly, as tiie Greek people 
 advance in the career of civilization, on which they are 
 now but starting. 
 
 For the present condition and prospects of the Greek 
 church, I may refer to a work lately published by the 
 Rev. Mr. Waddington. (London, Murray, 1829.) 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 314 NOTES. 
 
 Note 3, Page 171. 
 
 Keff. 
 
 Jollity, a jollification. 
 
 Note 4, Page 171. 
 Ayasma. 
 
 As it is pronounced, (but more correctly Agiasma) 
 means a holy fountain. Mr. North Douglas, who, in his 
 " Essay on certain points of resemblance between the 
 ancient and modern Greeks," has left us an exquisite 
 little book, thus describes these places of festive resort:— 
 
 "The Agiasmata, or holy fountains, may be ranked 
 among the most classical superstitions of the modern 
 Greeks. Circumstances of various import have con- 
 ferred this reputation of sanctity upon many springs 
 within the walls of Constantinople ; but a romantic and 
 solitary situation, the neighbourhood of a cavern or a 
 grove, are the usual characteristics of an a.yiaxTiJLa. 
 " Silvis scena coruscis 
 
 Desuper, horrentique atrum nemus imminet umbra. 
 
 Fronte sub adversa scopulis pendentibus antrum : 
 
 Intus aquae dulces, vivoque sedilia saxo ; 
 
 Nympharum domus." 
 
 JEn. lib. i. v. 165. 
 
 " To these fountains, multitudes will flock at certain 
 festivals, to invoke the Saint, (the genius loci,) whose pro- 
 tection they are peculiarly thought to enjoy, and, by their 
 songs and dances, to express the gay and joyous feelings, 
 which such situations have ever excited in the glowing
 
 NOTES. 315 
 
 constitutions of the Greeks. Their sick are brought in 
 crowds to drink the waters, which, destitute of all me- 
 dicinal qualities in tliemselves, owe their influence en- 
 tirely to the patronage of some superior being ; and it 
 would be thought the greatest impiety and ingratitude 
 in those who receive or fancy they receive his help, to 
 neglect affixing a lock of hair, or a strip of linen, as the 
 " votiva tabella," which may at once record the power of 
 tlie Saint, and the piety of his votary. 
 
 " Pausanias mentions many streams that were bupposed. 
 to have a pow er of healing those who are favoured by 
 iheir peculiar deities. The description of the fountain 
 Arethusa, in the Odyssey, may give a very just idea of 
 a modern ayiaafia " 
 
 I have often visited these scenes with extreme de- 
 light, and can answer for the truth of the class icaF 
 picture. 
 
 Note 5, Page 172. 
 The light kiosk. 
 
 Erected in the pleasantest part of the vale of the 
 " Sweet Waters," by Sultan Achmet III. 
 
 Note 6, Page 173. 
 The released coursers. 
 
 The Sultan's stud are sent out to grass in this valley, 
 after St. George's day. For a magnificent pic'ure of the 
 ^pot, see " Anastasius ;" and lor some peculiarities, I 
 may refer to " Constantinople in 1828." 
 
 p2
 
 316 XOTES. 
 
 Note r, Page 179. 
 
 His own native land. 
 I have remarked, in my book of travels, a resemblance, 
 real or imaginary, between the Bulgarian peasants, who 
 attend the Sultan's horses, and our Highlanders. 
 
 Note 8, Page 181. 
 
 T/ie capture of Constantinople. 
 
 " Ici le cap eleve de Kandilli, sur la cote d'AsiC: et 
 celui qui lui est oppose sur la cote d'Europe, offrent entre 
 eux im des endroits les plus resserres du Bosphore : ils 
 y separent les vents, les temperatures et les courans 
 lorsque les vents changent. Ce point est marque pour 
 le passage du detroit." — Essai sur de Bosphore, par M. Le 
 Comte Andreossy. 
 
 Note 9, Page 189. 
 
 Saint Dimitri, 8fc. 
 Names of different suburbs or quarters of Stambool'.' 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Note 1, Page 203. 
 
 A carnival mask. 
 
 All those who have passed a carnival in Italy, and 
 
 have been addressed by the maskers at Venice, or Rome, 
 
 or Naples, must have remarked the odd sound of their
 
 NOTES. S17 
 
 voices, even when not attempting to disguise them. The 
 voices of the eact'^rn ladies under their yashraacks always 
 struck me as resembhng thera. 
 
 Note 2, Page 204. 
 To settle with his seraff. 
 This case often occurred. An Armenian banker or 
 seraff would make an advance of money to a pasha to 
 procure a government, and the Porte would put to death 
 the pasha before he could pay his debts. What property 
 the pasha might possess at the moment, was seized by 
 the Porte, without regard either to the victim's family 
 or his creditors. The rate of interest exacted by the 
 Armenian was always very high, or proportionate to the 
 risk. If the pasha retained his life and his government 
 for a few years, the banker made a good thing of it; 
 but the contrary being more frequently the case, and 
 many Armenians suffering severe losses from the depo- 
 Mtion of their creditors before they could repay their ad- 
 vances, they some years back withheld their essential 
 supplies. The Porte, whose operations were thus check- 
 ed, for they could no longer sell a post when no can- 
 didate had money to buy, was obliged to interfere ; they 
 found it expedient to protect so useful a portion of their 
 subjects, by granting them a firman for the sale of as 
 much of the disgraced grandee's property' as would cover 
 them for the advances made to him. This firman, how- 
 ever, was of less consequence than their acknowledging, as 
 lawful, the Armenians' rate of interest, or twenty-four 
 per cent, per annum, which is double that of the usual
 
 318 NOTES. 
 
 interest of the country. I have had occasion to allude 
 more than once to the perils to which these bankers are 
 exposed. 
 
 " The first thing," says Dr. Walsh, " always done on 
 the execution of a public man, is to seal up his house ; 
 the next, to seize on his banker ; and if any doubt arises 
 as to the real value of the effects, he is immediately put 
 to the torture to extort confession." Yet these men know 
 all this before they start on the dangerous career — they 
 play with open stakes! and our sympathy for them 
 must be diminished by a review of their sordid characters, 
 and the assurances, that, like the Jews their predecessors, 
 they are not always sensible to the voice of honesty. 
 I have heard it asserted, on good authority, that one of 
 the principal foundations of Armenian wealth was laid 
 during the troubles that accompanied the overthrow of 
 the Sultan Selim. The seraffs to the many great Turks 
 who suffered in one way or another, then retained 
 quiet possession of immense wealth in their hands be- 
 longing to those unfortunate men. 
 
 Note 3, Page 204. 
 Handjar. 
 A dagger worn in the girdle. The haft is set with 
 jewels. 
 
 Note 4, Page 207. 
 Tubute. 
 
 A sort of portable hearse, in which dead bodies are 
 carried to the grave.
 
 >:oTEs. 319 
 
 Note 5, Page 207. 
 Harm done. 
 The Armenian women are very prolific ; but I observed 
 in Turkey, that Greeks, Jews, and all, had more numer- 
 ous families than the Turks. 
 
 Note 6, Page 208. 
 Leveiid Chiji'ik. 
 Where Sultan Selim constructed some fine barracks 
 for his nizam-djedid, or regular troops. They were de- 
 stroyed by the Janissaries, but not till after his death. 
 " The first time I rode to Therapia, my friend, Mr. Z., 
 took me a little to the right of the road, and showed me 
 the site of the ill-fated building, which was just marked 
 by a few remaining stones of the foundation walls." — 
 Constantinople in 1828. 
 
 Note r, Page 212. 
 
 In ancient statues. 
 
 I remember a beautifiil female bust — a work of the 
 
 Creek chisel — found at Herculaneum, and now in the 
 
 museum of Naples, which closely resembles what I have 
 
 attempted to describe in the living Greek lady. 
 
 Note 8, Page 214. 
 
 The toes. 
 
 I have often remarked in the feet of living Greeks, a 
 
 formation found in their ancient statues — the second toe 
 
 is longer than the great toe, and all the toes fall flat to 
 
 the earth.
 
 320 NOTES. 
 
 Note 9, Page 217. 
 And cut your throat. 
 When in their cups, their insane hatred to the Greeks 
 is pretty sure to take possession of the Turks. A cer- 
 tain party of 'Franks at the village of Bournabat, near 
 Smyrna, who had the imprudence to let a Turk get 
 drunk in their company, were thrown into no trifling 
 alarm, when the madman got up, unsheathed his yatag- 
 han, and swore " he was in a humour to kill a Greek !" 
 
 Note 10, Page 220. 
 
 A really devoted servant. 
 
 It must be said injustice to the lower order of Turks, 
 
 that where they take, they are susceptible of great fide ity 
 
 and attachment: this has often been proved even by 
 
 Christians. 
 
 Note 11, Page 221. 
 The Bostaudjis. 
 The Bostandji-Bashi is charged with the police of the 
 Bosphorus and its villages. 
 
 Note 12, Page 229. 
 Blood. 
 The belief in omens is general in the East, and that of 
 blood is of fatal import. Mr. Hope has seized the pre- 
 vailing superstition with his usual effect. " See Anasta- 
 sius," chap. vi. 
 
 Note 13, Page 233. 
 Chelihi. 
 This word is used by the Greeks as Effendi, by the 
 Turks, it means " gentleman."
 
 NOTES. B21 
 
 Note 14, Page 238. 
 
 At the judgment day. 
 
 " Geueralement toules les tombes sont convertes de 
 terre, et elevees au dessus, du sol, pour empecher que per- 
 sonne n'y marche, et ne foule aux pieds les corps des 
 Musulmans. 11 ny a ni plaques de marbre, ni aucun mo- 
 nument sur la fosse mime ; on n'y voit que des fieurs ou 
 des boules de myrte, d'if, de buis, Sec. Celles du people 
 ne presentent que deux socles de pierres plates ou ovales, 
 toujours plantes verticalement, aux deux extremites de 
 la fosse. Les torabeaux des citoyens aises et des gens 
 d'un certain rang, se distinguent par la nature de ces 
 socles : ils sont de marbre fin, et celui qui est du c6te 
 de la tete est surraonte d'un turban aussi de marbre. La 
 forme de cette coeffure indique 1' etat et la condition du 
 mort, parceque les differentes classes des citoyens sont 
 distinguees autant par le turban que par le reste du cos- 
 tume. Les tombeaux des femmes ne different de ceux 
 des hommes, qu'en ce que les deux socles sont uniformes, 
 plats, et termines en pointe." — D'Ohsson. 
 
 The following pleasing passage, relative to Turkish 
 graves, is from an old English traveller : — 
 
 " Therein they plant such kinds of plants and flowers 
 as endure green all the winter long, which seem to grow 
 out of the dead body, thinking thereby to reduce it again 
 into clay, though not in the sense of sensible creatures 
 yet of those vegetables, which is the next degree, and 
 perhaps a preferment beyond the dust." — Voyage in the 
 Levant, by Henry Blount, Esq. 1634.
 
 322 KOTES. 
 
 Note 15, Page 240. 
 In a place like this. 
 I can never forget this incident. Some years ago I made 
 one of a party to visit the Duke di Gallo's villa at Capo- 
 di-Monte — a place beautiful in itself, and commanding 
 the finest views I have ever seen. A German lady — 
 young, handsome, and romantic — was so overpowered 
 with what she beheld, that she said, after a long silence, 
 " I should like to die here — to be buried in such a lovely 
 place." It was perhaps a northern idea : some cheerful 
 Italians thought she was mad ; and yet she might as well 
 have had her wish, for she did die shortly after, and cer- 
 tainly was not buried in so beautiful a spot. 
 
 Note 16, Page 241. 
 
 The mystic fish. 
 
 The fish was a token or symbol among the primitive 
 
 Christians, who found in the Greek word ixQvs (a fish) 
 
 an acrostic, explanatory of the nature and character of 
 
 the Son of God, 
 
 1. Uffovs . . . Jesus 
 X. XpLCTTos . . . Christ 
 0. eea ... Of God 
 'o. 'o . . . . the 
 
 2. 2a>T7jp . . . Saviour 
 
 The fish is frequently found sculptured on tombs in 
 Italy, and I have seen the symbol (in painting) several 
 times repeated in the catacombs of Naples.
 
 NOTES. 323 
 
 Note 17, Page 242. 
 Tlie marble quarry. 
 It Ls true that the materials of ancient temples and 
 other beautiful edifices, have principally 5upplied the 
 Turks. 
 
 Note 18, Page 244. 
 Vourvoulacki, or Var\'oulacka, the Vampire. " The 
 vampire superstition is still general in the Levant. . . . 
 ... I recollect a whole family being terrified by the 
 scream of a child, which they imagined must proceed 
 from such a visitation. The Greeks never mention the 
 word without horror." — Note to Lord Byron s Giaour. 
 
 Note 19, Page 244. 
 
 Bosh — Nonsense, stuff. 
 
 Bosh hicrcdi — Words void of sense. 
 
 They are Turkish words — I suppose, expressive ones, 
 
 for they are used by all classes, from the Frank who 
 
 interlards his French with them, to the Greek who mixes 
 
 them with his Romaic, or the Jew, who further corrupts 
 
 his Castilian with them. 
 
 Note 20, Page 244. 
 Paramana — Romaic for a nurse. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Note 1, Page 248. 
 
 Palikari. 
 Romaic for " lad."
 
 SU NOTES. 
 
 Kote 2, Page 248. 
 Oxi. 
 
 Is used by the Greek donkey drivers, in the same sense 
 as the Spaniards employ their arre hurra to their mules 
 and asses. 
 
 Note 3, Page 249. 
 Ingliz. 
 Probably a corruption of the Italian " Inglese" — an 
 Englishman. 
 
 Note 4, Page 250. 
 
 The street of the " Dunghills:' 
 
 In the Romaic, Coprieis. The fashionable street of 
 
 Smyrna is so called. The site was once a vast dunghill, 
 
 and many a dunghill and filthy ditch is still within a few 
 
 yards of it. 
 
 Note 5, Page 250. 
 Jannem. 
 " My soul !" — The expression is Turkish, but used by 
 all the Levantines. 
 
 Note 6, Page 253. 
 A stream. 
 This is a branch of the " Sacred Meles :" Homer's own 
 river, if we are to believe tradition. I cannot say much 
 of its beauty. In part of its course, where it runs through 
 the town of Smyrna, it has a striking resemblance to 
 Fleet-ditch, as it was years ago.
 
 NOTES. 32-5 
 
 Note 7, Page 256. 
 Suleiman- Agha. 
 He was once governor of Athens, and the jovial com- 
 panion of Lord Byron. 
 
 Note 9, Page 258. 
 Kdiemena ! 
 A common Romaic exclamation. 
 
 Note 10, Page 259. 
 Pointed stick. 
 This the Greeks at Smyrna and the islands use instead 
 of a whip or cudgel, and it answers much better. The 
 mode of application is to tickle the donkey over xi\e 
 spine — he is sure to quicken his pace. Sometimes, in- 
 stead of a pointed stick, a piece of iron with a blunt point 
 is used ; and if, as is generally the case, it be furnished 
 with a link or two of iron chain, to tinkle, the effect is 
 prodigious. I sometimes tried a small bunch of keys, 
 which always produced the same effect — away went the 
 donkey ! Smyrna asses must have musical ears, which 
 is more than I could venture to say of Smyrna men and 
 women. * 
 
 Note 11, Page 264. 
 Ahou-Eaiife, 
 Of whom great wonders are told by the Mahometans, 
 lived in the first century of the Hegira.
 
 326 NOTES. 
 
 Note 12, Page 264. 
 Ca'imac. 
 Something very like Devonshire cream. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Note 1, Page 268. 
 Peaceful subject. ap j 
 
 The excesses of the Janissaries are but too well known. 
 Had the order existed in its strength at the time of the 
 battle of Navarino, it is probable that some of us then in 
 Turkey, would not have returned to tell tales about them 
 in England. 
 
 Note 2, Page 269. 
 
 OdaSj or Ortas. 
 
 .fanissary regiments. 
 
 Note 3, Page 270. 
 Hadji- Bektash . -. c { 
 
 The dervish who founded the order of the Janissarics-.t? 
 
 Note 4, Page 271. " 
 
 T/te Turks. 
 Busbequius gives this information on Turkish sobriety ; 
 " Some Turks supped with me often at Buda, and were 
 mightily taken with the delicious sweetness of my wine. 
 
 They continued carousing till late at night; ^ 
 
 but afterwards I grew weary of the sport, and therefore 
 rose from table, and went to my chamber; but as for 
 them, they went away sad, because they had not their 
 full swing at the goblet, but were able to stand upon their
 
 NOTES. 327" 
 
 feet. As soon as I was gone, they sent a youth after me, 
 desiring rae to let them have their fill of wine, and that 
 1 would lend them my silver cups to drink it in. I 
 granted their request, and ordered so much wine to be 
 given to them as they desired. Being thus accommo- 
 dated, they tippled it out so long, till they were even 
 dead drunk, and, tumbling down, lay fast asleep upon the 
 ground !" 
 
 Note .5, Page 273. 
 In detail. 
 An indiscriminate massacre, like that at Smyrna and 
 other places, was not however perpetrated in Constan- 
 tinople. 
 
 Note 6, Page 273. 
 Orta. 
 
 Janissary regiment. Ever}- orta had distinctive marks 
 done on their arras, in a style much like that ingeniously 
 adopted by some of our sailors. On certain conditions, 
 an Armenian, or even a Jew, could become a member 
 q'C an orta^ and thenceforward enjoy Janissary pro- 
 tection. 
 
 Note 7, Page 273. 
 Spoon. 
 The Janissaries wore spoons stuck in the fronts of their 
 enormous caps. 
 
 Note 8, Page 274. 
 Xo apej'ture. 
 The Qfeek calpack has a finger-hole in the crown— the 
 Armenian has not.
 
 528 xoTEs. 
 
 Note 9, Page 277. 
 
 Gehenna. 
 
 Anglice, Hell! 
 
 / Note 10, Page 278. 
 
 Turkish burying grounds. 
 Part of the " Grand champs de marts'^ above Pera, was 
 a favourite residence of the dogs. In the summer of 
 1828, I saw them burrowing in holes like rabbits. Every 
 one of the matrons seemed to have had a recent increase 
 of family ; and I went there so frequently, that I at last 
 fancied I could distinguish the different litters by their 
 family likeness. Turkish graves are very shallow, and 
 a friend of mine once saw, to his horror, two of these 
 dogs turned body-snatchers ! 
 
 Note 11, Page 281. 
 
 Crassly or (better) Crasi. 
 
 Romaic for wine. 
 
 Note 12, Page 282. 
 Mahmoodier. 
 A Turkish coin of the value, I believe, of twenty-five 
 piastres. They had disappeared before my arrival in tlie 
 country. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 l.ONDON: 
 
 [BOrSON AM) P^I.-MKR, F II 1 NTBRS, S WO Y ST., STRA.M* 
 
 fV