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THE GREEK ISLANDS

AND

TURKEY AFTER THE WAR

BY HENRY IL FIELD, D.D.
JJJTHOE OE "FBOM THE LAKES OF KILLABNEY TO THE GOLDEN HOEN,'
"FBOM EGYPT TO JAPAN," "ON THE DESEBT,"
AND "AMONG THE HOLT HILLS."

NEW YORK:
CHAELES SCRIBNER'S SONS,
1887.

COPYEIGHT, 1885, BY
OHABLES SOEIBNEIfS SONS.

TROWS
JRIHTim AND DOOKOINDINO COMPANY,

Co Uostoell 33. Jgtojicorft, 30.31., 3131.33.,
PBESTDENT OF THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINAET, NEW YOKE,
WHOSE KNOWLEDGE OE THE EAST
HAS ENEICHED THE LEAENING OE THE WEST,
THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED
IN TOKEN OF
A FRIENDSHIP OF THIBTY YEAES.

PREFACE.
The most picturesque of islands rising out of the
deep blue waters of the iEgean — that is the Greek Arch
ipelago. No such mingling of land and sea in either
hemisphere, unless it be in the Inland Sea of Japan.
And here to the beauty of nature is added the charm of
historical and poetical association ; and of sacred memo
ries, as we follow in the track of Apostles ; so that the mind
as well as the eye is full as we sail along these enchanted
shores. To recall impressions so fair and yet so fleeting,
is the purpose of these slight sketches. It is a chapter
of travel by itself, which finds its natural culmination in
that wonderful city, the bride of the Bosphorus, as Venice
was the bride of the Adriatic, amid whose mosques and
palaces sits a figure more inscrutable than the Sphinx —
that of its strange master, "the unspeakable Turk." Of
this I have written before, but it is ten years since I first
saw the minarets of Constantinople, and in that time
history has been making very fast. The whole Eastern
question revolves round this narrow strip of the Bos
phorus — the border-line of Europe and Asia. Towards
this line Christendom has advanced by forced marches
in the late war, which cost Turkey half of her dominion
in Europe, and set free her Christian populations after
the oppressions of four hundred years. Bulgaria, twice
desolate by the burning of her villages and the massacre
of her children, is a free State ; while Servia is absolutely

vi PREFACE.
independent ; as is Roumania from the Danube to the
Carpathian Mountains. These are signs of the beginning
of the end of Moslem domination in Europe. The war
by which this was achieved is one of the great events
Of modern times. Nothing since the Crusades has had
more the character of a holy war than this, in which the
Russian soldiers marched day after day singing hymns,
and over whose camps nightly rose the Evening Prayer.
This is a story worth telling, not once, but twice, and
many times, as fathers tell to their children the deeds of
" the brave days of old." If it be familiar to some, it is
not familiar to all. I found, when passing over the very
battle-ground, that the events had already faded, so that
I was glad to refresh my recollection of them. Perhaps
they have grown dim and indistinct to others also, who will
listen with revived interest to the thrilling story.
Nor is it in European Turkey alone that change has
come. Even in Asia there is life in the midst of death ;
in lands which seemed to have been forgotten by history,
which were buried under the night of ages, light is break
ing : some rays brighten even Asiatic gloom. To this
America has contributed in no small degree by the schools
and colleges, as well as churches, which she has planted
in Asiatic Turkey. In this she is but paying the debt
which, in common with all civilized countries, she owes to
the East. It is a law of history that civilization flows and
reflows from continent to continent, like the tides of the
sea. It is the refluent wave from the youngest of nations
which now touches those ancient shores.

CONTENTS.
I. The Island of Cypetts  8
II. Along the Shobes of Asia Minob. Histobioal and
Sacked Associations. Alexandeb the Great and
St. Paul  21
III. The Greek Archipelago. Ehodes, Patmos, and Soio.
The Iliad op Homeb and the Eevelation op St. John. 30
IV. Smybna. The Bay next to that of Naples. Beminis-
cenoe of the Plague. Sib Chap.les Wilson. The
Old Castle. Scene of the Maetybdom of Polycaep.
Visit to Ephesus  49
v. tvtrtylene and tboy. passing the dabdanelles  68
VI. Constantinople Eevisited. Changes in Sis Teabs and
a Half. Among old Fbtends. Visit to the Bazaars.
Vabted Expebtences of a Day  77
VII. St. Sophia and the Sebaglio. Eobgeby at the Otto
man Bank. Excuesion to the Pbinces Islands.
At the English Embassy. Lobd Dufferin  88
VHI. Amebicans in Constantinople. The Western Tubkey
Mission: Its Influence in Asiatic Tuekey. At the
Gebman Embassy. Hebe Von Hibsohfeld  101
IX. Amebican Institutions : The Chubch, the School, and
the College. The Home at Scutaei and Eobeet Col
lege. English Soldiebs and Amebican Missionabies. 110
X. The Unspeakable Tuek  121
XI. The Last of the Sultans  135
XH. The Black Sea and Fbee Bulgaria  152
XIII. How Deliverance Came. The Story of the Massacees. 167
XIV. The Story of the Wab  182
XV. The Kingdom of Eoumania. Up the Danube  210

THE GEEEK ISLANDS.

CHAPTER I.
CYPRUS.

The sun was setting as we left the harbor of Beirut.
That is the hour of parting and departing, when all who
are afloat turn land-ward or sea-ward. Boats are cast off,
and make for the shore, like land-birds at the approach of
night, while the great ships move off slowly into the deep.
A ship laden with pilgrims returning from the Holy
Land, is a Uttle world in itself. Ours was a pilgrim-ship,
as truly as the Mayflower. It was running over with pil
grims : they were up-stairs and down-stairs, in the cabin
and on the deck. "We were all crusaders (of a mild type)
on our return from Jerusalem, not having fought for the
Holy Sepulchre, but having seen it and the other holy
places, which will be the memory of our lives. After a
month or two amid such scenes, we came back to ordinary
life, as if we were coming down from the Mount. We still
breathed the holy air ; there was a glow in the very atmos
phere around us, as real as the glow which on that evening
rested on sea and sky.
In the crowd on board, the most conspicuous feature
was the number of clergymen of the Church of England
who had gone up to Jerusalem to keep Holy Week, among

10 OUR PILGRIM SHIP.
whom was one familiar face which all loved to look upon —
that of Dean Howson of Chester. And there was a Bishop
with a mighty name — the Bishop of Gibraltar — who takes
his title from the rock-fortress at the gates of the Medi
terranean, and has the shores of the whole Mare Magnum
for his diocese ; and once in the year (though he lives in
Oxford) takes his journey "round about unto IUyriciim,"
and unto Jerusalem also. Though lord-spiritual of such
a vast watery realm, he was of a slight figure, and it did
amaze me how those little legs, which were cased in silk
stockings, could bestride the Great Sea like a Colossus.
Title could not add one cubit to his stature, even though he
was addressed as " Tour Grace." He was now on his way
to Cyprus to hold an episcopal visitation of the churches of
the island. With the goodly array of Anglicans, there was
a dear old Scotch Presbyterian, Dr. Wylie of Edinburgh,
whose rigid Covenanting faith was united with the utmost
gentleness and charity. Nor was our country unrepre
sented, the Rev. A. J. Lyman of Brooklyn and several
others making a small American group. To complete the
ecclesiastical varieties of the ship's company, there were
Greek priests from the islands of the Archipelago, whose
tall hats towered above the heads of their fellow-pilgrims
on the forward deck. But priests and bishops were not
the only pilgrims. There was a young lord, who had
been travelling with his tutor through the Holy Land.
We had often pitched our tents side by side, and I was
pleased to observe how diligently this scion of the Brit
ish aristocracy improved his mind by reading novels and
smoking a very long pipe! In contrast to this "light
nobility," there were better representatives of Young Eng
land in two nephews of Admiral Hornby, who were as
manly young men as one could wish to see anywhere.
And there were a couple of veterans who were excellent

THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN. 11
specimens of the great merchants of Liverpool — Mr. Chris
topher BusheU and Mr. Alexander Balfour — who were not
only men of affairs and of fortune, but of large ideas of
things ; of a noble Christian generosity ; in short, of a type
that make the EngUsh name honored in all parts of the
world. And there were Germans and Frenchmen — men of
the North and of the South. Thus we had representatives
from many lands, conversing in different languages.
The divisions of the ancient world cannot weU be under
stood without a map of the Eastern part of the Mediterra
nean. For the sake of convenience, to save reference to
books, I have had a smaU map prepared for this volume.
The Mediterranean washes the shores of three continents :
Africa, Asia, and Europe. We had been in Africa before,
on our way round the world, and now visited it a second
time. In crossing the Red Sea at Suez, we passed into
Asia, which we had now left on our return to Europe,
though we shall not get a sight of the latter till we enter
the mouth of the DardaneUes, where the Castles of Europe
and Asia, less than a mile apart, show how the two conti
nents which have had most to do in the history of the
world, stand facing each other.
From Beirut to Constantinople, with the delays at Cy
prus, Rhodes, Smyrna, and Mitylene, is a week's voyage,
about as long as to cross the Atlantic, and a thousand times
more interesting : for, instead of the monotony of a bound
less waste of ocean, we are passing over the most storied
waters of the world — over the seas saUed by the Phoeni
cians ; and by which the learning of " the most ancient of
the ancients" passed from Africa to Europe, in passing
from Egypt to Greece ; and over which came something
better than aU the wisdom of the Egyptians, when Paul
saUed on his missionary journeys to Asia Minor, to Athens,
and to Rome. AU this was in our minds that evening, as

12 OFF THE COAST OF CYPRUS.
we sat on deck and looked up at the same stars which had
guided the ancient voyagers. In this musing mood the
hum of conversation ceased, and one by one the pilgrims
disappeared to seek rest, luUed by the ship's gentle motion,
with nothing to disturb the stillness save the lapping of
the waves — a sound which of itself induces slumber ; and
so we glided into the land of dreams.
As our course had been to the northwest, bearing direct
for Cyprus, which is not a hundred mUes from the Syrian
coast, by daybreak we were off the eastern point of the
island ; and as the sun rose behind us, it lighted up the
grand sweep of the Bay of Salamis. But the glistening
shores were not so beautiful as the gUstening sea. Lean
ing over the sides of the ship, we looked down into waters
of such deep azure as seemed to reflect the firmament — a
color which reminded us at once of the famous Blue
Grotto of Capri in the Bay of Naples. It was perhaps
this richness of color which gave rise to the ancient fable,
that off the shores of this island, out of such flashing
waters, Venus rose from the sea.
Passing along the southern shore, we anchored off
Larnaca, the principal port. The view of the island here
is disappointing, as the land is low, although there are
mountains in the interior, and even from the ship's deck
the eye rests on the summit of Monte Santa Croce. In
front of us, along the water's edge, stretched the Marina.
As our ship lay off half a mile, we took boats and were
rowed on shore. Since the EngUsh Government took
possession, the English flag has been flying; but the
population is of that very mixed character found in aU
the islands of the Levant — Greeks and Turks and Maltese
and "Levantines." A change of rulers has not trans
formed the island, but at least it makes one sure to find in
the British Commissioner a worthy representative of his

LARNACA : CHURCH OF ST. LAZARUS. 13
country, to whom an American can apply, if need be, for
protection or for courtesy ; and such an one we found here
in Mr. Hobham, who welcomed us under his roof, and it
was no small pleasure to those who had been " dweUing in
tabernacles " to be ushered into the Ubrary of an EngUsh
gentleman, where the table was covered with EngUsh
books and papers. He had known some of my kindred in
the West Indies, which perhaps gave an added cordiaUty
to his reception, and he accompanied Dean Howson and
myself, with several others, in our walks about the town,
in which the principal object of interest is the Church of
Saint Lazarus, which is at least venerable for its antiquity,
as it is a thousand years old, and has seen many a gaUant
sight of arms in the days when Cyprus was held by the
Knights of Malta, and the Crusaders took it on their way
to Palestine. As the church bears such a holy name as
that of Lazarus, it would not be complete without his
bones, and accordingly it boasts the priceless possession
of his tomb. We were a Uttle scandalized to find that it
was empty ! But trifles like these do not disturb the faith
of a devout beUever, to whom the very name of a saint
gives to any reUc an odor of sanctity. Like aU Greek
churches, its interior is covered with a mass of tawdry
decoration. There is a picture of the raising of Lazarus,
which exceeds in reaUsm any specimen of art that I had
ever seen. So perfectly to the Ufe — or rather to the
death — is the scene given, that one of the bystanders is
depicted holding his nose, as if his senses had already
apprised him of the fact intimated in the text, that the
blessed saint was not only dead, but that the process of
decay had already begun ! This indeed is a remarkable
specimen of modem Greek art.
But the chief interest of Cyprus is found in its remains
of a remote antiquity. As we wandered out of the town

14 ANTIQUITIES OF CYPRUS.
into the country, Mr. Hobham led the way to a Phoenician
tomb, cut out of the rock, in which the dead were laid to
rest two thousand years before Christ. Doubtless there
are thousands of such tombs scattered over the island,
waiting the touch of some future explorers ; and not
tombs only, but buried cities, with temples and palaces,
the monuments of a mighty power which has long since
passed away. Perhaps no equal space in the world
contains richer treasures. The name of the island ap
pears in the earliest dawn, the very twilight, of history.
Probably it was first settled by the Phoenicians, that great
maritime people who sailed their ships up and down the
Mediterranean, planting colonies on either side, on the
shores of Europe and Africa. In their passage to and fro,
their nearest place of traffic and merchandise was the
Isle of Chittim, from which the ships of Tyre brought
wheat, and hemp, and flax for fine linen. They found
here also gold and silver, and the best copper mines
known to the ancients, from which were wrought the
famous bronze shields of the warriors of old. A Eing of
Cyprus sent armor to Agamemnon on his way to the siege
of Troy. Long before that period, before Agamemnon
fought or Homer sang, it was a populous island. After
the Phoenicians came the Assyrians, the Egyptians, and
the Persians. At the period of its greatest prosperity, it
contained four millions of inhabitants. It was a part of
the dominion of Alexander the Great, from which it passed
to the Ptolemies, and was held by them for nearly three
hundred years, until, like aU the islands as weU as main
land of the East, it was swaUowed up in the Universal
Empire of Rome.
Thus in the space of three thousand years, Cyprus had
many invaders and many conquerors, until the whole
island was overspread with the ashes of many civilizations.

DISCOVERIES OF GENERAL DI CESNOLA. 15
To dig into its soU is to uncover the remains of a hundred
generations. This great field of discovery was long buried
out of sight ; but within a few years extensive explorations
have been made, in which we have a special interest and
pride, because they were undertaken by an ItaUan-Ameri-
can, General di Cesnola, who was Consul here for eleven
years, in which time he exhumed marble statues, and
ornaments of gold and sUver, and utensils of every kind,
and specimens of pottery and of glass of a peculiar
iridescence, which would seem to give color to the argu
ment of WendeU Phillips in his famous lecture on " The
Lost Arts," that there were processes known to the ancients
which are quite beyond any skill of the moderns. Within
a year or two General di Cesnola has been severely attacked
as to the value of his discoveries ; but his cause has been
so weU sustained both in the press and in the courts, that
he does not need that we should come to his defence.
Without entering into any questions in dispute, it is
enough that we have such substantial fruits of his labors
as the treasures that are coUected in the Museum in the
Central Park in New York, a coUection which has not its
equal in the world. Where he has led the way, others wiU
foUow. The island stiU offers an inexhaustible mine for
explorers, and doubtless other investigators wiU be reward
ed by fresh discoveries.
The later history of Cyprus has been one of transient
splendors, clouded by frequent disasters, and ending in
utter ruin. For three hundred years it was held by the
Saracens, tiU it was wrested from them by Richard Cceur
de Lion. The Crusaders made it a great military post,
the next station in the Mediterranean beyond Malta,
their last camping-ground before they crossed to the
Syrian coast-, and battled with the Moslem for the capture
of Jerusalem and the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre.

16 THE EXGLI3H OCCUPATION.
For nearly a century it had a renewal of its glory when it
belonged to Venice. But since it came under the rule of
" the unspeakable Turk," it has gone steadily to decay.
Whether a country that has thus been conquered and
reconquered, and beaten down into the dust, can ever rise
from its ashes, is a question for phUosophers and historians.
" If a man die, shaU he Uve again ? " might be asked of
nations as weU as of individuals. The latest attempt at
resurrection here has been made by England. It was
considered a brilliant stroke of Lord Beaeonsfield, after
the Russian war, to get possession of Cyprus, not by
conquest, but by lease from the Turkish government — a
deUcate artifice to save its susceptibilities. That the lease
is likely to be perpetual may be inferred from the fact
that Turkey has no money to redeem it. A "perpetual
lease " is as good as ownership, and sometimes better, as
it furnishes a convenient fiction for not recognizing UabiU-
ties, wbile retaining aU the advantages of possession.
So Cyprus passed into the hands of England. EngUsh
ships anchored off Larnaca ; EngUsh troops pitched their
tents on shore ; and what with the marching and the
parades, with the flags flying and the gay uniforms, and
the roU of drums, and the bands playing the martial airs of
England, Cyprus had not seen such a gaUant sight since
the time of the Crusaders.
But while this was a very sharp bargain, yet, like a
good many other sharp bargains, it does not seem to have
" realized " quite so much as was expected. At first there
was a "boom" in real estate, which went up to fancy
prices. But after a few months it became apparent that
this new acquisition was not very " productive property."
It is one thing to annex an island, but another to fiU it
with inhabitants. There are difficulties in the way of
making Cyprus an EngUsh colony. There is an enemy

THE ENGLISH IN CYPRUS. 17
more to be feared than the Turks or Russians. The Com
missioner informed us that the government had spent
within the year thirty-five thousand pounds in trying to
withstand the locusts, which come in clouds that darken
the air, and Ught upon the fields, and destroy every green
thing. This is hardly encouraging to agriculture or
attractive to immigrants.
Besides, Cyprus is not a healthy island. While Eng
land occupies it, she is of course responsible for the gov
ernment, and to maintain the civil authority she must
needs keep up a considerable military force. But the
troops, if stationed along the coast, are attacked with
fevers, and are obliged to remove their camps to the high
lands of the interior. Still, as in all parts of the world,
EngUsh troops make a Uttle England wherever they go.
On board the ship were the wives of some of the officers,
and from their conversation one could see that they were
looking forward eagerly to the gaieties of camp-life. As
Cyprus is in the track of commerce to the eastern shores
of the Mediterranean, and has its regular mails from Eng
land, it is not quite so duU as miUtary life in some other
parts of the world. And there is always the chance of
war looming up on the Eastern horizon, which may give a
sudden and very great importance to this new possession.
And here it is that Cyprus may yet find its place in the
Imperial economy of England. Its position at the head
of the Mediterranean may give it importance as a military
and naval post in case of future compUcations in the East.
The chief desire of Britain is to hold secure her passage to
India, and nothing excites alarm so much as that which
threatens the Suez Canal. As one means of guarding
against such a danger, it has been seriously proposed to
cut another canal across Palestine, opening a passage from
the Mediterranean to the Sea of Galilee, thence down the

18 THE FUTURE OF CYPRUS.
VaUey of the Jordan to the Dead Sea, and by a canal
across the Desert to the head of the Gulf of Akaba.
But more practicable stiU is the project of a raUway to
the VaUey of the Euphrates, by which it would descend to
the head of the Persian Gulf. Routes for this have already
been surveyed. This would make a more direct course to
India than that by the Red Sea, and thus England would
have two strings to her bow, if by the alarms of war there
should be any interruption to the Suez Canal. Should
such a raUway be undertaken, it would have to start from
some point on the Syrian coast — from Tripoli perhaps. In
either case Cyprus would be a most important outpost for
England, furnishing at the East what Gibraltar does at
the West, and Malta in the middle, of the Mediterranean.
We left Cyprus, as we had left Beirut, at the close of
day, when the sun was sinking in the Mediterranean, and
pouring a flood of Ught over the sea and along the coast.
As we turned Westward, we seemed to be sailing directly
into the sunset ; and how could we help having our.
thoughts brightened by the glowing skies, or hoping much
for an island which looked so beautiful at that hour, as it
lay becalmed in its blue waters ? Cyprus is a name which
tempts the imagination, as the scene of history and of
mythology, where Venus rose from the foam — the beauti
ful ancient fable, which may be interpreted as an emblem
of the is ind itself, which may yet rise out of the deep
waters U ti future of prosperity and glory.
Do y iu say that such anticipations are but " dreams " ?
But we must " dream " when we can do nothing else.
Even dreams have their use, as they inspire high ambi
tions, which may take form and shape in our waking hours,
and lead to practical results. In this way fancy often turns
to fact, and dreams become the forerunners of substantia!
/ Plities.

HOW TO BRING BACK PROSPERITY. 19
And perhaps the dreams may take more of substance if
we can but connect them with words of prophecy. In the
Old Testament there is frequent reference to the " Isles of
Chittim," which lay off the Syrian coast. In the days of
Solomon, Cyprus belonged to Hiram, Eing of Tyre, who
sent his ships to it for gold and sUver, and brass and iron,
and thus no doubt drew from it a part of the supplies
which he furnished for the buUding of the Temple at
Jerusalem. He might have found there the timber also :
for in those days the sides of the mountains, wliich are
now so bare and naked, were covered with forests, among
which were many trees as stately as the cedars of Lebanon.
But the rule of the Turk puts a bUght on everything, even
on nature itself. The hand of the spoUer has stripped the
mountains of then- ancient glory. When the EngUsh came,
one of the first signs of the new civilization was the respect
paid to what was left of the monarchs of the wood.
To reconstruct an island, when even its trees have been
cut down, and its springs dried up, and the very land been
made barren and waste, requires not only good govern
ment, but that " aU things " should become new ; that
there should be a planting of trees, which should recreate
the ancient forests ; new cultivation of the soil, new vine
yards and oUve orchards and orange groves ; that the old
harbors, which have been choked up in the lapse of ages,
should be cleaned out, and fitted to receive the new com
merce of the East ; that there should be new industries
for the people, as weU as schools and churches to bring in
Education and ReUgion. These things do not come in a
day, nor in a generation. But they may come in a hun
dred years, which is a long time in the life of man, but a
short period in the march of history.
When Dean Stanley was in America, he paid a visit to
Stockbridge, Mass., and preached a sermon from the text

20 THE ISLES OF CHITTIM.
" There is nothing," the exclamation of the servant whom
EUjah Hc-iit to the top of Carmel to watch for the rising of
the cloud. On that height the preacher seemed to take
his stand, " looking out over the vast expanse of the Medi
terranean Sea." Turning to the Northwest, he could see
dimly in the horizon the outline of Cyprus, of which Eng
land had just taken possession. Here was a combination
of circumstances quite enough to fire his imagination, and
he gave a glowing picture of what the Isles of Chittim
might again become.
Perhaps this was the vision of a too ardent imagina
tion ; but whoever has traveUed in the East wiU believe
that, with aU its ruin and decay, it has a great future before
it. Though " Westward the star of empire takes its way,"
it does not foUow that the West is to remain for aU time
the only seat of empire and of civilization. The sun does
not shine in the West alone, but comes round to the East,
and will rise again on the ancient seats of empire. If in
holy vision Elijah were to revisit the top of CarmeL and
"look towards the sea," he might see in the sunset which
flames over the Isles of Chittim, not only the close of a
past day of splendor, but the sign of a brighter to-morrow.

CHAPTER H.
ALONG THE SHORES OF ASIA MINOR.
In the month of May the twilight lingers long in the
latitude of Cyprus, and we had the coast in full view for
several hours as we speeded along the southern part of
the island, from which many a bold headland, round which
the eagles were flying, projects into the sea ; while the
frequent indentations of the coast furnish roadsteads for
ships and facilities for commerce, and at the same time
give to the voyager a sight farther inland of the enchanted
shores. In passing Limasol, if the sky be clear, one may
get a distant view of the top of Mount Olympus (or Mount
Troodos, as it is now caUed), more than seven thousand
feet above the level of the sea. This is the highest peak
in the chain that forms the backbone of the island, from
which one can take in its whole extent
" From the centre all round to the sea."
As the mountain descends graduaUy on its southern side,
it forms a broad slope which is the favorite retreat of the
EngUsh troops from the heat of the lowlands near the
coast. Here they are camped not far below a Greek Con
vent, and therefore of course in a lovely spot : for the good
monks, though on a pUgrimage to the Jerusalem above,

^ THE E.NGLIsH CAMP.
know how to make the journey easy by convenient resting-
pln<cH fm the v..'iy, where they can perforin their devo-
timiH nir. id the ancient fir-lrer-s.* There is a fitness in the
f:lif»jrn of such a camping-ground for EngUsh soldiers : for
on tlii.t very plateau the iron-hearted Richard of England
fought a battle, in which he defeated Comnenos and took
hi in prisoner, and sold the island to Knights Templars, and
afterward (with the freedom of the Uon) resold it to Guy
iii' Lusignan, who founded the Lusignan dynasty that
ruled Cyprus fur three hundred years. The tents are
pitchr-d looking toward the sea ; so that Hie English
soldiers, though far from their native island, are daily
reminded of home as they see the red-cross flag flying
from the ships that pass on their voyages up and down the
Mediterranean. It is one of the strange contrasts of our
day that the old and new should come into such close
conjunction ; that English soldiers should pitch their tents
and " dress parade " over the dust of warriors who bore
helmet and shield at the time of the siege of Troy. It
would seem as if the generations which Ue so thick on
mountain and plain, must stir in their graves to hear the
drum-beat (which " carries round the world the martial
airs of England ") on the sides of old Olympus.
* A re°snt illustrated paper, " The Graphic " of London, Aug.
22d, 1885, contains a view, from the sketch of an officer, of the
camp of the Third Battalion of the Grenadier Guards on Mount
iroodos. He says, -The soil hero is red earth, covered with
d^nff8?? l0°S0 St°neS' fll'"trees growing all over the mountain
ocounnH It"1 destructi™ carried on previous to the British
ThoS£ .* W thei'e iS a ^"T penalty for damaging trees.
^cZZtTcZia ih0 ,foreground' th° men's to the ^
Scots Guar!™ P JUSt Vlsible throuSh th° treeB, and the
ground Z2TZII c°Umateo £" T* *"*" ** **
the views as "lovely." ^mate is spoken of as "fine," and

THE COAST OF ASIA MINOR. 23
It was midnight when we rounded Paphos, where stood
the temple of the Paphian Venus, in honor of the goddess
who rose from the sea off this very point ; and to which —
or rather to the New Paphos, an hour's ride along the
shore — Paul came when he crossed the island from Salamis,
and here confronted Elymas the sorcerer, and converted
Sergius Paulus, the Roman Proconsul. We were now
bearing away to the northwest. In the morning I was
up at daybreak to be on the lookout for whatever might
appear on the horizon, and caught the last gUmpse of the
island behind us, and for a few hours we were out of sight
of land. It was not tiU the afternoon that we descried
another coast rising in the interior tiU the eye rested on
mountains capped with snow, the great range of Taurus,
which forms the mountain waU on the South, as Anti-
Taurus does on the North, of the vast plateau of Asia
Minor. We were aU on deck tracing the outline of the coast as
it came more distinctly into view, while at every moment
historical associations rose up along the Une of these
ancient shores. We were approaching one of the great
historical divisions of the globe. It needs but a glance at
the map to see how Asia Minor is formed by nature to be
the scene of contending forces, since here two continents
approach each other. It is the elephant's head of Asia,
jutting out into the deep between the Black Sea and the
Mediterranean, as if to offer defiance to the nations round
the Great Sea. Erom its position, it could not but serve
as a passage-ground for the migrations of nations which
came from the East, and as a battle-ground when the fierce
tribes of Central Asia advanced to the conquest of Europe,
Across these uplands marched the armies of Assyria and
Babylon and Persia. Hither came Darius the Great on
his way to the Bosphorus, on which he laid a bridge of

21 DEAN' HOW.?ON\
boats, and passed over into Europe seven hundred thou-
Hand men. His son Xerxes foUowed, camping in Cappa-
doria with an finny in which were representatives of forty-
nix nations, and creasing the HeUespont with a million of
men for the conquest of Greece. Over this highway of
kings and conquerors, Alexander the Great marched in the
opposite direction, carrying the war into Asia, more than
three hundred years before Christ was born ; and here
came the Roman legions, shaking the earth with their
tread. These are mighty memories which hover over the coun
try before us, as the clouds gather round yonder mountain-
tops. Under the Roman dominion Asia Minor was one of
the fairest portions of the Eastern world, with great cities
and flourishing provinces. What grand old names are
those of the ancient divisions of the country! How musi
cal the sound of the feminine terminations — Lydia and
Lycia and CiUcia, whUe more rugged and yet sonorous are
Pontus and Galatia, Phrygia and PamphyUa, Cappadocia
and Lycaonia, There is a history in the very names.
But though Asia Minor had so great a place in ancient
history as the theatre of innumerable wars between the
peoples on the opposite coasts of Europe and Asia, yet to
our company of traveUers, including so many clergymen
of the Church of England — and to us of America also—
it had a stiU greater- interest from its connection with the
early history of Christianity. Among our feUow-passengers
was that eminent EngUsh scholar and divine who— with a
co-laborer no longer Uving, the late Rev. W. J. Conybeare
—had written "The Life and Epistles of St Paul." My
acquaintance with Dean Howson began in his own city of
Chester, where it was a great pleasure to be able to spend
Tn« f^ * England' and to atte*<l A" servicesin
the Cathedral, and where I had experience of that kindness

FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY OF ST. PAUL. 25
which he has shown to so many Americans. Knowing him
weU by his great work — in which he had written, not only
like the scholar that he is, and a master of the history of
the Early Church, but had preserved so perfectly, even
in the minutest geographical detaUs and picturesque de
scriptions, the couleur locale of the Orient — I asked in what
year he visited the East, and was surprised to hear that he
had never been there. Nor did he then know that he
should be able to make the journey. It was therefore a
gratifying surprise, as we were going up to Jerusalem
from the Jordan and the Dead Sea, to learn that he was
camped with a party of EngUsh clergymen in tents at
Bethlehem, and to have him shortly walk into the Medi
terranean Hotel in Jerusalem, where he spent the Holy
Week, after which he traveUed northward. As he ap
proached Damascus, he sought out with interest every
spot connected with the history of St. Paul, from the place
where he was stricken down by a Ught from heaven,
through the street caUed Straight, to the house of Ananias,
and the place where he was let down from the waU in a
basket. We met again in Beirut, and sailed on the same
ship — a voyage which enabled the biographer of the Great
Apostle to foUow him in his first missionary journey.
" Now when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos "
— so reads the account in the Acts — " they came to Perga
in PamphyUa." And there was Pamphylia right before
us! "When they [Paul and Barnabas] departed from
Perga, they came to Antioch [not Antioch in Syria, but
Antioch in Pisidia], and went into the synagogue on the
Sabbath day," where Paul made one of the longest of his
recorded addresses. Thence they passed to Iconium,
where " they went both together into the synagogue, and
so spake that a great multitude both of the Jews and also
of the Greeks beUeved." But this success aroused such

2'i OX THE COA.-T OF CILICIA.
opposition, that they were soon in fear of their fives from
the fury of tho mob, and fled to Lystra, where at first
too people wero awed by the proofs of their miraculous
power, and would bavo worshipped them as gods; hut
soon, with the fickleness of the multitude, were stirred up
by enemies till " they stoned Paul, and drew him out of
the city, Mippohing he had been dead," from which, how
ever, he " rose up and came into the city," and "the nest
day departed to Derbe," and thence "returned again to
Lystra and Iconium and Antioch." "And after they had
passed throughout Pisidia, they came to Pamphylia ; and
when they had preached the Word in Perga, they went
down into Attalia, and thence sailed to Antioch, from
whence they had been recommended to the grace of God
for the work which they had fulfilled.'' The history of
these jouiiieuu-.s by sea and land one has but to read in
the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of Acts, with the
Map in hand, to see how easily aU these places were in
cluded in the first missionary tour of the Great Apostle.
But the connection of this portion of Asia Minor with
Paul, is not confined to his first missionary tour ; it was
the place of his birth. Turning to the East, where the
coast-line bends upward towards the Bay of Scanderoon,
we recognize a shore with a familiar name. " There," said
the Dean, "is CiUcia"! and it was in Tarsus, "a city of
CiUcia," that Paul was bom. The scenes which are now
before our eyes, were familiar to him from childhood. A
thousand times he looked up to the snow-clad heights of
Taurus, which now shine so brightly in the westering sun.
He felt the influences of the Greek 'and the Roman world,
as weU as of that Hebrew race and religion into which he
was born. Tho influence of Greece in Asia Minor dates
«!Zr C°nTStS °f Me™^ the Great. Power is
sometimes the forerunner of wisdom : the conqueror goes

TARSUS IX CILICIA. 27
before the phUosopher. EspeciaUy with haU-civilized
peoples and barbaric empires, a victorious campaign at
once commands the respect of the power that has con
quered them. In the train of the Macedonian phalanx
came Greek phUosophy ; Greek schools, Greek games, and
Greek art ; Greek sculpture and architecture, Greek tem
ples and palaces. Three centuries after, when Asia Minor
became a part of the Roman Empire, and CiUcia was a
Roman province, it shared in the general prosperity of the
Empire ; it was rich and prosperous, with flourishing
cities, and ports from which ships saUed to aU parts of the
Mediterranean. Tarsus itself was " no mean city." With
its commerce and its wealth, it had schools of rhetoric and
of phUosophy, which imitated, if they did not excel, those
of Greece. " Strabo says that in aU that relates to phUoso
phy and general education, Tarsus was even more illus
trious than Athens or Alexandria." * Half a century
before the birth of Paul, Cicero had been governor of
CiUcia, and had found himself at home in this rich province
and luxurious capital. In such a centre of wealth and
power, in such a mixed population, Paul was born.
Though of Hebrew parents, he was partly at least a Greek
in education and a Roman in citizenship — influences which,
we should suppose, might have raised him out of the nar
row prejudices which he would have inherited if born in
GaUlee. And yet so intense was his love for his ancestral
faith, that he went up from Tarsus to Jerusalem to sit at
the feet of GamaUel, and be instructed in the law.
Out of these mingled influences came Paul in the
flower of manhood, possessed of a fiery energy which must
find some scope for action, whether it was his mission to
build up or to destroy. Looking back after a lapse of eigh-
* Howson's Life of St. Paul.

28 FT. PAIL AND ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
teen hundred \ ears, we can see what has been the influence
¦ f that mic man in all these centuries, and cannot help com
paring it with that of kings and conquerors who figured in
ancient history. When Alexander the Great invaded Asia
.Minor, ho gained bis victory over Darius on the banks of the
Iksuh, not for from Tarsus. (How picturesque is that flash
of ( 'orlyle in which he speaks of the Greek and Persian
worrit >rs who " \ < lied at Issus and at Arhela " !) But that
won only tho beginning of his career. He marched across
the steppes of Asia till he scaled the Himalayas, and came
down into the plains of India. Then he had the world at
his feet, and sighed for more worlds to conquer. But of
aU that boundless dominion, what remains ? Scarcely had
he breathed his last in Babylon before his empire fell to
pieces, as his conquests were divided, and his fame grew
less with each succeeding age. It may be said that he
changed the course of history, but it would be difficult to
trace his influence in any modern institutions, or to find
his monument anywhere except in that city of Egypt which
bears his name.
But Alexander was one of the greatest figures of antiq
uity, with whom it seems almost absurd to compare a poor
Apostle, an outcast from his people, often in prison, and
persecuted from city to city tiU his head feU by the Uctor's
axe. These two figures meet us here on the CiUcian coast,
where they stand out against the background of these moun
tains. There is no greater contrast in history than that of
Alexander at the head of his Macedonian phalanx, thun
dering down the CiUcian Gates, the wUd and rocky pass
through the Taurus mountains, on his way to the conquest
of Asia, and the Apostle nearly four hundred years later
climbing up the same pass in his second missionary journey
to the scattered churches of Asia Minor. And yet which
name wiU live the longer? Whose influence has spread

'"gfc 

HOW THE APOSTLE STILL LIVES. 29
the wider? Even now which has the deeper place and
the firmer hold in the memory and the gratitude of man
kind? It was in the year 68, just before the death of
Nero, that Paul suffered martyrdom. Like his Master,
he died at the hands of Roman soldiers. Yet in that very
city of Rome, on the spot where he was beheaded, rises
one of the grandest temples of Christendom, that of " St.
Paul's without the waUs." It is the dome of " St. Paul's "
which looks down upon the city of London, and the Great
BeU which strikes the hours seems to repeat that immortal
name. But better still, it Uves in the hearts of miUions,
who find strength in his words and his example. How
enduring is the power of goodness ! Eighteen centuries
have passed, and still that Divine charity which he taught
— the charity which " suffereth long and is kind " — distUs
its sweetness on our daUy life. It makes men more gentle
and tender and patient, more loving and forbearing. And
the faith of Paul gives what the courage of the soldier
cannot give — the victory over death itseU ! Every day and
hour, as groups of mourners gather to bury then- dead, do
they repeat the solemn words " Now is Christ risen from
the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept,"
and say " O death, where is thy sting ? O grave, where is
thy victory ? " Thus he who was born on yonder shore,
has been the teacher and comforter of aU the ages ; and
whUe the Alexanders and the Caesars are " dead and turned
to clay," is still a living force in this present Uving world.
Such are the musings which come to Christian traveUers
as they sit in the twUight, sailing along the shores of
PamphyUa and Lycia. At daybreak we were anchored off
Rhodes, the city of the Crusaders.

CHAPTER HL
Till: I.-LAND- OF RHODES, PATMOS, AND SCIO.
In the old picture-books there used to be a picture of
the ( olossus of Rhodes, which stood bestriding an arm of
the sea, with ships in full 6aU passing between his mighty
legs. Though it was a picture for children, yet to some
who are not children the chief association with the island
of Rhodes is as the place where the Colossus stood ; and
there are travellers stiU who come on deck, and look round
inquiringly for some fragment of a ruin which should mark
the site of that majestic figure. But not a vestige remains.
Though " His Highness " lifted his head so proudly, as if
he disdained the earth on which he stood, he did not hold
it up very long. Pride must have a falL He did not five
even to the allotted age of man. He had been standing
but fifty-six years when an earthquake shook him down,
and for nearly a thousand years he lay, like Dagon, prone
upon the ground, with aU his glorv buried in the dust, his
chxjccta membra being trodden under foot bv the barbarous
Turk, tiU at last they were sold to a Jew(!), who broke
tnem up as men break up the huh of an old ship, and
iUc^L 7 T th6 ba0kS °f ^ hun^d camels, carried

ANCIENT RHODES. 31
But though the Colossus did not stand long, the mere
fact of its standing at aU— that a figure over a hundred
feet high, wrought in bronze, like the Column of Trajan at
Rome, should have been reared nearly three hundred years
before Christ — is a proof of the degree of civUization
attained at that early period. It was a statue to the Sun,
and stood in front of the city, where its head would catch
the first rays of the sunUght as it came over the hUls of
Asia Minor, which lay on the Eastern horizon.
Rhodes is second to Cyprus (if it be second) in antiq
uity, and its civUization may be traced to the same sources.
Its position at the mouth of the iEgean Sea, whose wa
ters here mingle with those of the Mediterranean, invited
immigration both from Asia and Africa. The Phoenicians,
sailing westward, landed on its shores ; while from farther
South men of another race brought to it the wisdom of the
Egyptians. At the same time, as one of the islands of the
Greek Archipelago, it shared in the inteUectual influences
of Greece. It stood " where two seas met," or two civiliza
tions. Like the Channel Islands, which look upon two
kingdoms, it was joined by a chain of islands to Greece,.
while it was in full sight of Asia, to which it was nearer
than the white-chalk cliffs of Dover to the shores of France.
Probably the island was settled as early as the siege of
Troy, though the city was not founded until about four
hundred years before Christ. It was in the century foUow-
ing that Alexander the Great conquered the world, and
Rhodes bowed to a power which it could not resist, and
was held in awe by the terror of his name, even whUe he
was pursuing his conquests in the heart of Asia. But as
soon as he breathed his last, the speU was broken. The
people rose against the Macedonian garrison, and drove
them out, and with recovered Uberty came new and
increased prosperity, and the city rose to its greatest

82 HKAUTV OF THE ISLAND.
spleml .r. Then was reared the mighty Colossus ; and then.
fw-ulptors who rivalled those of Greece filled the city with the
1 >rodu<-t« • <f their art It was said to contain not less than
thn i thousand statues. The famous group of the Farnese
Hull the largest antique sculpture which has been pre-
Hencd to us, and wliich, having once adorned the Baths of
Caracalla at Rome, is now the pride of the Museum of
Naples — was the work of two sculptors of Rhodes. Such
noble utatues, adorning the public places of the city,
showed that in the cultivation of art, Rhodes, if not the
eijii.il. was at least a worthy imitator, of Athens itself
AU this has passed away. But though despoiled of its
treasures ; though the conquerors, who
" Brought many captives home to Rome,"
brought the sculptures of Rhodes with those of Greece ;
yvt the island itself remains, fair as when it first rose from
the bosom of the .33gean Sea. Never was it fairer than
this morning, as the sunrise, flashing across the blue waters,
Ughted up the gray old town, with its walls and towers,
which stand out from a background of hills. The island
rises abruptly from the sea Beyond the walls of the town
houses are sprinkled over the hillsides, that are covered
with oUve groves, which at this season are fresh and green.
Behind these lower hills are others that are higher, whose
steep sides and rocky crests reminded our good Dr. Wylie
of Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags.
The chief remains of historic interest are those con
nected with the Crusaders, when the island was ruled by
the Knights of St. John, who took it, however, not in the
advance to the Holy Land, but in the retreat. When they
were driven out of Syria by Saladin, they feU back upon
Ixodes, wlueh they conquered from the Saracens, and
thl ^1°Ver *I° huUdred ye««*-from 1309 to 1522-
when Solyman the Magnificent came against it with two

THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN. 33
hundred thousand men. Then foUowed a siege in which
men took courage from despair. The city had a garrison
of but six thousand men ; yet for six months, in spite of
repeated assaults, it defied the besiegers — a courage which
compeUed the respect of the conqueror, who after the city
feU, permitted its brave defenders to retire in safety.' A
few years later the Emperor Charles V. gave them the
island of Malta, which they fortified tiU it was one of the
strongest places in the world, and held it tUl the close of
the last century.
No doubt to us in this practical and prosaic age, there
is something fantastic and absurd in the institution of the
Knights of St. John — an order in which the profession of
arms was strangely united with the profession of reUgion.
But was it so very absurd, in an age full of oppression and
cruelty, that manly strength and courage should be devoted
to the protection of woman against brutal tyranny? — for
such was the purpose of the institution of Chivalry, which
figures so much in the Middle Ages, where it often suppUed
the place of a civilized government. Or when the Moslem
conquered Western Asia and threatened Europe, was it
strange that men devoted to arms should band together
for the defence of their faith ? This order of St. John was
not made up of carpet knights. No braver men ever
fought on bloody fields. Now indeed their wars and battles
and sieges are over :
" The good Knights are dust,
Their armor rust ;
Their souls are with the saints, we trust."
Though the order still exists, it is not for purposes of
war, but of peace. Its only war is against human misery.
This indeed was always a part of its design. There are few
things in history more touching than the solemn vow of
those armed Knights, which they took " as the servants of

&t DISMANTLED WALLS.
the poor and of < 'hrist.' How well that vow has been kept
t • ¦ t bis day, the t rnvdler may see who visits the Hospital of
the Knights of St John in Beirut True, the order
n mttinH, as it has always been, a very aristocratic one,
eompowil largely of nobles and princes. Its Grand
MnMer is the Kmperor <>f Germany. But when kings and
prince* ran- for the poor and the sick— when they found
hospitals and sck to relieve human suffering — they
di sen i tin honor and gratitude of mankind.
When tliese gallant Knights of St. John took their sad
farewell of Rhodes, they left behind them traces of their
occupation which still remain in the long sea-wall which
guards the city's front, to keep out an enemy as it keeps
out the dashing of the waves. This castellated wall is a
very picturesque object, as it not only Ues along the sea,
but turns at other end, winding up the sides of the hill
tUl it has compassed the city round with its lines of
defence, which did such vaUant service in the memorable
siege. But apart from its look of a fortified place, there is
nothing warlike in the city of Rhodes. I did not see a
single sentinel keeping guard on the walls, nor see a gun
mounted, nor hear a drum beat. There was nothing to
break the sUence of the sleepy old town ; and over the wall
which once swamied with Crusaders, hurling defiance at
the besieging Moslems, there are no more formidable
demonstrations than those of the windmUls, which brandish
their long arms against invisible foes.
The "port," if such it may be called, is a dirninutive
little loch of water, shut in by a projecting mole, or ledge
of rooks, at cither end, on which stands a round tower— a
picturesque object in the landscape, but not very formida
ble in case of war. One broadside from a man-of-war
would make it a heap of ruins. Indeed when a fori is
converted into alight-house, it seems to abdicate its martial

AN EXILED PASHA. 35
design, and to be devoted to the purposes of peace — aU
that it is good for now.
It was tantalizing to lie but two or three hundred yards
off, and not be able to land ; but there was a high sea, the
waves were dashing on the rocks, tossing their white
crests in the air, and if we had gone on shore, it might be
difficult to get off in time for the steamer. So we lay
broadside to the town for three or four hours, looking
wistfully at the gates which we could not enter.
But though we did not go on shore, we had visitors
from the shore. The Greek boatmen are at home in any
sea, and never miss an opportunity to visit a ship. They
came on board to seU Uttle boxes of olive and lemon wood
and other smaU wares, which the passengers purchased as
souvenirs of Rhodes.
Apart from these petty traffickers, there was a grand
old Turk, who sat gloomily in conversation with one
who knew him. He was a Pasha who had been high in
power at Constantinople, but for some cause lost the favor
of the Sultan, and was banished to Rhodes. Whether he
was guilty of any crime, we knew not ; nor did it matter.
whether he was guilty or innocent. Perhaps he had been
too inflexibly honest, and so encountered the Ul favor of
the Grand Vizier. In either case he had to suffer. The
Turkish rule knows neither justice nor mercy. However,
his fate was lighter than that of many. He was not kept a
prisoner, shut up in a fortress ; there was no chain upon
his hand ; and yet we could not look upon that sad face
without feeling how bitter was the bread of exUe.
Leaving the city behind us, we sail along the shores of
the island, and are charmed with their picturesque beautv.
The long line of elevated coast sweeps in and out, project
ing and receding, with bays stretching inland, at the end
of which one catches gUmpses of soft vaUeys sloping upward

36 THE GREEK ARCHIPELAGO.
to the hiUs, behind and above which is the mountain ridge
which forms the backbone of the island. These vaUeys
once supported a large population ; but now, under the
destructive Turkish rule, it has dwindled tiU there are not
forty thousand left. A few poor villages cling to the hiU-
sides, whose inhabitants Uve on their smaU plantations of
oUves, or derive a scanty living from the sea, from which
they gather sponges and coral But with a better govern
ment, and increased f acuities for agriculture and commerce,
there is no reason why Rhodes may not recover something
of its former prosperity. Its climate is still the finest in
the Mediterranean ; the sun shines brightly as ever ; and
the vaUeys, in spite of aU the waste and neglect, stiU retain
their natural fertiUty. With proper culture, they would
yield rich harvests, besides oranges and lemons and citrons,
with the figs and raisins, which are now exported so largely
from Smyrna ; whUe the olive trees, which grow abun
dantly, would pour forth " rivers of oil"
We are now in the heart of the Greek Archipelago,
which has been famed for its beauty from the days of
Homer. As we stood in a group on deck, entranced with
the swiftly-changing scene, it was natural that we should
compare it with our observations in other parts of the
world. A couple of our feUow-passengers, who were on
their return from the Far East, said that it reminded them
of the Inland Sea of Japan. My thoughts turned to the
Malayan Archipelago, where the islands hang rich with
tropical vegetation, and the seas flash at night with phos
phorescent splendor. But with aU that is attractive in
those groups of islands, I can hardly beUeve anything to
be equal to this Greek Archipelago. It seems to me that
no waters can be so beautiful as those of the iEgean Sea —
although there are waters of wonderful clearness in our
Western Hemisphere, notably those round the Bahamas

THE GREEK ARCHIPELAGO. 37
and the Bermudas. And then the Greek islands, so many
in number, are of aU sizes, large and smaU — from the rocky
islet, fit only for a seaguU's nest, to an island containing
hundreds of square mUes. AU have the same general
character, rising directly from the sea. The coasts are
often so rocky that it seems as if a goat could hardly Uve
upon them ; and yet midway between the cliffs are little
hamlets and patches of cultivation. The outlines of the
higher peaks of the islands, broken and jagged, remind us,
as they stand up against the sky, of Capri and Ischia in the
Bay of Naples, or those African mountains which we saw
from the Peninsula of Sinai, on the other side of the Red
Sea. Putting aU these things together, whatever may be
said of the Malayan Archipelago, or of the Inland Sea of
Japan, I give my voice for the Greek Archipelago, as the
most wonderful combination of land and sea, where the
most picturesque of islands rise out of the fairest of waters.
We did not touch at Patmos. There is nothing to
invite a steamer to turn aside from its course to visit it,
except it were to gratify the curiosity of traveUers. It has
no commerce of any kind. Indeed its few inhabitants
have at certain seasons of the year to cross to other islands
to procure the means of subsistence. So barren is it that
it was chosen by the Roman emperors as a place of banish
ment, on which prisoners could be confined as to a rock
in the ocean. Yet this poor Uttle island has gathered
about it a mighty tradition : for it was the place of exile
of the last of the Apostles : " I John was in the isle that
is caUed Patmos, for the Word of God, and for the testi
mony of Jesus Christ." Here he wrote the Book of Reve
lation, and here was erected in the twelfth century a
monastery bearing his name. We thought we could just
discern the outUne of the island, and the Convent rising
above it on the western horizon.

oH THE I.SL VXD OF SCIO.
Tho next morning at daylight we were off Scio, that
island of sa.! and bloody memories. Sixty years ago it
was tho Hccno of an event which made the ears of the
civilized world to tingle. When the Greek Revolution
broke out in 1822, it is said that the people here were
reluctant to take part in it, but were stirred up by
i inissarics from Samo, ; and, perhaps because Scio had
been one of tho most prosperous of the Greek islands, it
was to bo tho special mark of Turkish vengeance. A fleet
anchored off the town, and without a warning of its terrible
fate, soldiers were let loose upon the inhabitants. No age
or sex was spared. X' it only were men cut down in then-
homes, but their wives and children with them. Twenty-
two thousand were put to the sword, and forty-seven
thousand were sold into slavery. But this massacre was
not to go unavenged. The Greeks had no ships of war,
but they converted old hulks into fire-ships, in which they
saUed with the utmost daring into the centre of the Turkish
fleet, and setting them on fire, escaped in their boats.
The flag-ship was burnt, and Admiral and crew perished
in tho flames — a terrible retribution for the massacre of
Scio. Since Greek independence was secured, it has
partly recovered ; but several years since the town was
nearly destroyed by an earthquake, so that it seems as if
the island were doomed to destruction.
But over all this wreck and ruin shines the brightness
of a name that wUl ever give to it a place in history. It
is tho reputed birthplace of Homer, and as such cannot be
passed by without notice by the traveUer.
In the last chapter I ventured on what may have seemed
a very strange comparison between St. Paul and Alexander
the Groat, two characters as wide apart as any in history—
one a conqueror, carrying his arms across Asia ; the other
a solitary man, preaching a despised faith ; but each bear-

A STRANCE COMPARISON.

39

ing an immortal name. If I might venture upon another
comparison equaUy strange, it would be of two names con
nected with two islands in this Archipelago, Scio and
Patmos — the names of Homer and St. John, the authors
of the Iliad and the Book of Revelation.

Island of Patmos.

It may seem irreverent to put any human composition,
even the greatest, in comparison with what we look upon
as inspired. But in these days nothing is too sacred for
critical analysis. If we do not make comparisons, others
wUl, and often to the disparagement of what we most re
vere. Scholars teU us that our sacred books are inferior
to many of the productions of human genius ; that, for

•10 IIOMKR Till: GREATEST OF POETS.
example, tho Creek poets are far superior to the Hebrew
prophets. Perhaps it is wiser to accept the comparison,
and see if wo can make any answer to this sneering criti
cism ; and, as best for the purpose, we take that to which
scholars themselves give the highest place.
Homer is tho great poet of ancient times— some would
say of all times. " To me," said Mr. Bryant, "there is but
one Homer, as there is but one sun in the heavens." No
book ever wrought so on the imagination and life of a
people. It is fuU of the excitement of human action, and
its movement changes with the scene — now grave and
slow as warriors pass before us in stately march, and now
rajiid and swift as they rush past " with the Ught of battle
on their faces." These stirring and dramatic scenes re
cited at the pubUc games, produced an excitement ap
proaching to frenzy. Their influence may be traced in
the whole history of the Greek race. Homer may be said
to have created the character of Alexander the Great, who
even when a boy knew the Iliad by heart, who slept with
it under his pillow, and was inspired by it to attempt
the conquest of the world. Such a prodigy of ancient
literature may weU excite the wonder of scholars, who,
even at the distance of three thousand years, stiU spend
laborious Uves in studying and preparing new editions of
the Hiad and the Odyssey, and find new beauties in the
sonorous and magnificent verse, whose majestic roU is like
the roU of the waves of the sea As there is no parallel
to this in ancient literature, it seems to learned critics
quite impossible to find any in the sacred writings. Is it
not beUttUng the name and fame of the greatest poet of
antiquity to bring him into comparison with a Jew, who
was hardly known except to his own people, and whom
even they neglected and despised? What contrast could
be greater than that between the majesty and splendor of

ST. JOHN IN EXILE. 41
the Homeric poems and the sad and mournful waUings of
the exUe of Patmos ?
We open the Book of Revelation with a feeUng of pity.
Before us stands a man who has outlived his generation.
It is the last of the Apostles. One by one his brethren,
who sat with hfm round the table at the Last Supper, have
won the crown of martyrdom, tiU he is left alone on the
earth, a soUtary link between the Uving and the dead.
Nor can he find companionship in those of the next gen
eration, his disciples in the faith, for he has been ban
ished to a rock in the ocean. It is in the year 95, in the
reign of the Emperor Domitian, that he appears in Patmos,
a lonely exUe. Whether he was confined within prison
walls, we do not know, although the monks still point out
a cave in the side of a bill as the place of his imprison
ment. But it was enough to be confined to the island
itself, from which he could not escape. He walked along
its rocky cliffs as on the rampart of some island-fortress,
which might be at once his prison and his grave. This
was not a situation to inspire prophetic strains. And yet
poets sometimes find their inspiration in soUtude. Dante
was banished from his native city of Florence, and spent
the last nineteen years of his life in exUe, in which he
wrote his immortal Divina Commedia. Such men are
never less alone than when alone, for they can commune
with nature. They find, as a later poet has written, that
" There is a pleasure in the pathless woods ;
There is a rapture on the lonely shore ;
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea and music in its roar."
To these aspects of nature the aged Apostle was not
insensible. And here we first perceive a resemblance in
the position of the old man of Patmos and that of the
old man of Scio. In both we recognize the influence

¦12 IMACI-r.V OF THE SEA.
of their surroundings, and hence in these strangely dif
ferent voices of the elder world, there are certain tones
that strike the e.ir as the same. In both is heard dis
tinctly tin roU of the ocean. It is said that Homer was
blind ; but so was he in King Lear to whom one whispered
on the cliffs of Dover, "Hark! do you hear the sea?"
Even in his blindness Homer heard the waves dashing
upon the rocks of Scio, and his inward ear caught every
variation of that majestic harmony— of
"Tho mighty waters rolling evermore " ;
and in his poetry there is a manifest imitation, as in the
grandest music, of these voices of nature : the "long-
resounding waves " finding an echo in the long-resounding
Homeric lines.
And is it too much to say that the Book of Revelation is
a different book, written on an island, on the seashore, from
what it would have been if written, like the Book of Job,
amid Arabian deserts ? AU its imagery is of the sea As
tho Apostle walked along the shore of Patmos when the
waters were stiU and reflected as in a mirror the blue of
the heavens, they furnished a not unworthy symbol of "the
sea of glass, like unto crystal, which was before the throne."
Again he stood upon the cliff, his white hair stieaming in
the wind, and saw the clouds rolling up on the horizon,
the flashes from which Ughted up at once the dark heavens
above and the angry sea below, and these were images to
him of judgments that were coming on the earth. And
when he speaks of One " whose voice was as the sound of
many waters," the very expression is an echo of the deep.
As the aged Apostle Ustens, he hears a double sound,
or two mingled together-— the waters and the voice— a
clear, calm voice through aU the tumult of the' sea, com
ing straight to him, and telling- l^ of a Presence ever
near : a Presence which was as constant as that of the sea

THE VXSEEN PRESENCE. 43
itself. From the latter he could not escape anywhere in
his island home. Whether he was on the pebbled beach,
or in his cave on the hillside where tradition fixes the place
of his revelations, or on the summit where they have reared
the monastery that bears his name — wherever he opened
his eyes, aU round him was the gUttering sea, and by night
as weU as by day the sound of its waters was in his ear.
So was the Unseen Presence which touched him there,
surrounding and enfolding him. So encompassed and
enfolded, he was never less alone than when his only com
panionship was that which was invisible. If he had no
friend with whom to hold converse, he could commune
with the departed and the ascended. He had the memo
ries of a lifetime to keep bim company. Above aU, he
" had seen the Lord " ; he had leaned upon His bosom.
And now as he looked sea-ward, he saw what others could
not see — a form like unto that of the Son of God. He
who walked upon the Sea of GaUlee, now walked upon the
waters of the iEgean.
Into the presence of this Invisible One we are con
ducted at the very opening of the Book of Revelation,
where He appears in the midst of the seven golden candle
sticks. "His head and His hau- were white like wool, as
white as snow, and His eyes were as a flame of fire."
"Behold, He cometh with clouds ; and every eye shaU see
Him, and they also which pierced Him ; and aU kindreds
of the earth shaU waU because of Him."
As the book unfolds, we observe, not the art of literary
construction, but a natural order of development, in which
the action moves forward as in a mighty drama. The
course of history in ages yet to come is unroUed as in a
vast panorama, wherein men and nations appear and dis
appear. Some chapters are but a series of tableaux, not
painted on canvas, but painted on the sky. In these pro-

•14 IMAGERY OF THE HEBREW PROPHETS.
photic visions there are dark shadows. Much of the imag
ery is < >f tho awful and the terrible. As the Apostle looks
forward to the future, he sees troublous tunes—pestilence
and war coming on tho nations, calamities that are prefig
ured in tho seals that are opened, the vials that are poured
out, tho trumpets that are sounded, and the thunders that
utter their voices. This has aU the awe-inspiring elements
which give such power to the masterpieces of ancient lit
erature. The Greek tragedies owe their impressiveness
to tho creeping terror which they inspire, as if an avenging
Nemesis were on the track of crime. But what picture of
coming retribution ever woke such shuddering fear as that
which represents Death as going forth on a pale horse, and
HeU foUowing after ; or this of the opening of the sixth
seal : "And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and
the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men,
and every bondman, and every freeman, hid themselves in
the dens and in the rocks of the mountains " ?
These are not the lurid pictures of tragedy. This
book was not written by one of the Greek poets in the
rhapsody of poetic fire — an ^Ischylus or Euripides— but
by one of a despised race, that in the eyes of the Greeks
had never produced anything worthy of notice or remem
brance. Homer was the product of his age, or rather of
many ages. There were poets before Homer, whose earUer
efforts nourished his greater genius. Indeed some learned
writers have gravely contended that no such man ever
UvcJ ; that the poems which bear that name were the
songs of unknown bards, characters of ancient times, not
unlike the Scottish minstrels, or the minnesingers of the
Middle Ages, who went from city to city, improvising songs
of the heroes of their race— songs which floated down from
generation to generation, until at last they were framed as
one legend, in which many voices were blended in one great

THE BOOK NOT ALL TERROR. 45
harmony. But if this be merely a theory of the critics — if
Homer Uved a century or two after the siege of Troy — yet
it was at a time when poetry was in the air, when the only
Uterature that the world knew was these unwritten strains,
whose vast, tumultuous sound " came rolling on the wind."
But of aU this the poor Apostle knew nothing ; probably
he never read a line of ancient poetry except such as he
found in the old Hebrew prophets. Prom that source his
imagery is partly derived. The four Uving creatures, each
with six wings, and having eyes before and behind, in
whose different faces were figured the strength of the Uon
and the bull, with the intelligence of a man and the swift
ness of an eagle, were symbols taken from Ezekiel. But
while the Apostle takes from the prophets, he surpasses
them all In the Revelation there is a majesty in which it
stands alone even in the sacred writings.
But grand and awful as are its visions of woe, the book
is not aU terror. While it is full of warning, it is also full
of hope. Human history is not to end in gloom. Though
the world is full of wickedness, and evU seems to triumph,
stiU the moral order is not overthrown ; the tumult never
rises so high that it cannot be controUed. The storm
spends its force ; the clouds break away ; and the sun
goes down in splendor. When the long day of human
existence ends, the sunshine of hope appears on the
horizon. "There is a rainbow round about the throne."
"The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms
of our Lord and of His Christ."
Nor is the forecasting of future events confined to
earthly scenes. The eye of the seer, gifted with prophetic
sight, ranges over aU time and aU worlds, over men and
angels and even to the final Judge, over earth and heaven
and heU Christian poets, like Dante and MUton, who
have enriched their imaginations out of the Scriptures,

46 THE REALM OP THE INVISIBLE.
havo also ventured into the realm of the invisible. Paint-
crs even have attempted what is beyond the reach of art
Michael Angelo has tried to embody his conception of
Un- Last Judgment in a painting of colossal size, in which
appear the ghastly figures and terror-stricken faces of the
damned. But how poor and weak is it all! This is not
tin- Di es Irae. How paltry does it look beside the figure
of the angel standing upon the sea and upon the land,
and lifting up his hand to swear that there shall be time
no longer — (that single stroke seems to sound the death-
knell of the universe ;) or such a vision as this, "And I
saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from
¦whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there
was found no place for them : And I saw the dead, small
and great, stand before God, and the books were opened."
Dante in his Inferno seems to have made a study of
morbid anatomy, to find out what are the most sensitive
fibres of our being, of the body and the soul ; and through
what avenues we may experience the keenest suffering,
where the strongest nerves would quiver and the stoutest
heart would quad ; and so he pictures a HeU in which the
tortures of bodUy pain — of hunger and thirst, of heat and
cold (for he makes the damned to pass through regions of
ice as weU as of fire) — are added to mental anguish, to
remorse and despair. And yet, after all can anything he
more terrible than the lake of fire and the smoke of tor
ment ascending forever ? And, on the other hand, what
vision of Paradise that ever gleamed in the eye of Milton
could equal this : "Lo ! a Lamb stood on the Mount Zion,
and -with Him a hundred forty and four thousand, having
His Father's name written in their foreheads"? Again
and again we are brought to the heavenly gates— to
" The walla conjubllant with song,"
over which float the voices of a multitude which no man

NOT A WORK OP ART. 47
can number. If this be mere poetry, it is poetry of which
Uterature can furnish no other example. Whence had this
man this gift of imagination and of language ? Was it
genius ? Or was it inspiration ?
Yet grand as aU this is— with aU of poetic fire that it
contains— no reader ever thinks of the Book of Revelation
as a work of art. It is too real : it is addressed, not to
the imagination, but to the heart. Herein it differs from
att epic poetry — in the human interest which pervades it.
In Homer there are tragic and pathetic scenes : such as the
parting of Andromache from Hector, as he goes forth to
battle, in which he is slain, and his body is dragged at the
chariot wheels of AchiUes around the waUs of Troy ; the visit
of his father Priam to AchiUes to ransom the body of his
son ; and the weeping of Andromache as she clasps the lit e-
less form within her arms. But for the most part aU that
'Toad of woes" passes before us as a grand tableau — in a
kind of stately magnificence, like a procession in a Greek
tragedy ; and one might as soon think of taking a personal
interest in the Euries of Euripides, or in the sculptured
friezes of the Parthenon. But in the Revelation there is a
stamp of reaUty that is whoUy wanting in Homer. It is
not a story of some mythological personage, but the expe
rience of those who have Uved and died. The martyrs
whose souls are kept under the altar, are martyrs who
have suffered in the flesh, and the degree of future glory-
is measured by that of present suffering. " What are these
which are arrayed in white robes, and whence came they ?
These are they which came out of great tribulation, and
have washed their robes and made them white in the
blood of the Lamb." Herein is the fascination of this
marveUous book, that it has been wrought out of a great
experience — great struggles and great sorrows — and there-

48 THE BOOK OF CONSOLATION.
fore it speaks to the great army of sufferers: to all who
have suffered, or shall suffer— to the end of time.
Tin Book of Revelation is the last book of the Bible,
and it ends as we should wish the Bible to end— with a
vision of heaven in the distance, and the river of life flow
ing out of the throne of God ; and a chorus of heavenly
vi liios — the sweetest sound ear ever heard — calling to men
to come and take the water of life freely.
And so the Book of Revelation becomes the Book of
Consolation : it bears up all who are born to die. Its
words are those which men whisper to each other in life's
great agonies, when eyes are streaming and hearts are
breaking. When we bend over faces that we shall not
look upon again, our grief refuses to be comforted till we
hear a voice from heaven saying, "Blessed are the dead
which die in the Lord." "And there shall be no more
death, neither sorrow nor crying ; neither shall there he
any more pain." AU the glory of this world gives no sup
port as one approaches the inevitable hour. When Walter
Scott was near his end, he asked his son-in-law, Lockhart,
to read to him. " From what book ? " was the inquiry.
"Need you ask? There is but one," was the reply. Of
that Book, the closing chapters were written in yonder
island in the Jilgean Sea

CHAPTER IV.
SMYRNA AND EPHESHS.
One charm of a voyage in the Greek Archipelago is that,
while winding in and out among the islands, the main
land is almost always in sight. It is not like a saU among
the Bahamas or the Bermudas, which lie far away in mid-
ocean, looking out on every side on the same monotonous
horizon. The Isles of Greece, like the islands on the coast
of Norway, cling to the continent from which they have
been separated ; so that the islander can look across from
his narrow home to the mighty shores of Asia. It was at
daybreak that we "loosed" from Scio, and turned, like
fire-worshippers, towards the sun-rising, bearing away to
the east, and then south of east, as we entered the great
harbor of Asia Minor.
If the reader wiU turn to the Map, he wiU see that the
coast-line of Asia Minor has no uniformity. It is not a
long line of sandy beach, as is much of the shore of Syria
and of Egypt ; nor does it stand up like the cliffs of Dover,
presenting a long waU against the Mediterranean ; but it
is of infinite variety, the land reaching out a hundred arms
to embrace the sea, and the sea rushing up by a hundred
channels into the land. Thus the coast is full of bays,

fiO THE BAY SECOND TO THAT OF NAPLES.
great and small, offering unbounded facilities for com
merce. Of these the harbor of Smyrna is by far the
largest, and indeed, except the Bay of Naples, is perhaps
the finest in tho Mediterranean. If it has not Vesuvius
with its column of smoke rising against the sky, it is set in
a grand amphitheatre of mountains. The traveller will
hardly find in any port of the world a sight of land and
sea more inspiring than is furnished by a sail up the Bay
of Smyrna just as the morning sun is coming over the
mountains, and lighting up shores that have been famed in
song and story since the days of Homer. Indeed Smyrna
disputes with Scio the honor of being the birthplace of
Homer. Even if it were not, there can be Httle doubt that
aU this coast was familiar to him, and that his eyes often
rested on these mountains tiU blindness closed them to all
earthly beauty, and that even then his song was inspired
by the rolling of these waters. As we came up the bay,
the ancient shores had a familiar look : for I had seen
them before in 1875 when coming from Constantinople on
the way to Egypt, and this second visit was like returning
to an old friend^ As we approached the city, its position
reminded me again of Naplea Smyrna rises from the sea,
with the background of Mount Pagus, crested with its
grand old Castle, as Naples sweeps upward from the bay,
resting its head against the fortress-crowned height of
Capo di Monte. In front of the city a sea-waU encloses a
sheltered spot for vessels, and here we drop our anchor,
and a boat with Greek oarsnien takes us off from the ship
and lands us at the Marina
However fond one may be of the sea, it is always a
welcome change to come into port ; to get off the ship's
deck, and stretch one's legs on shore ; and we were soon
rambUng about the streets of Smyrna, in which there is a
good deal to interest a stranger. The houses are fairly well

A CITY THAT IS BOTH OLD AND NEW. 01
built for an Eastern city, and the streets, though narrow,
are much better paved than those of Constantinople. But
the pecuUar charm Ues in its mixed character. It is at
once an ancient and a modern city. There is a mingUng
of the old and the new, of the East and the West, of the
European and the Asiatic, which gives it the variegated
life that one finds in Alexandria or Cairo. The population
of two hundred thousand is divided chiefly, and about
equaUy, between Greeks and Turks : but with them,
though in much smaUer number, are ItaUans and French,
Germans and EngUsh, mingled with Jews and Armenians,
and aU the races of the East. Long lines of camels filing
through the streets of the city bring to it the produce of
the provinces of Asia Minor ; whUe the ships lying at the
quay, flying the flags of different countries, cany our
thoughts across the sea to England and America.
The bazaars of Smyrna are not as rich as those of Cairo
or Damascus, and yet they offer many fabrics to attract
the eye ; and an American who has virtuously resolved to
resist aU temptation, may be forgiven if he is beguiled into
a shop, where, after a long bargaining with a fat old Turk,
who sits squatting on his legs, with a huge turban on his
head and a long pipe in his mouth, he gives way to the
mUd persuasion, and buys two or three of the soft Eastern
rugs to take home as memorials of the Orient.
But apart from aU this, I had a personal association
with Smyrna which made me regard it with a peculiar
interest. It was for nine years the home of a dear sister,
the wife of Rev. Josiah Brewer, one of the earUest Ameri
can missionaries in the East. More than sixty years ago
he was a tutor in Vale College, in which, as in other
American CoUeges, the spirit of missions had begun to
show itself. Looking to this as his life-work, he made a
visit to the East at the time of the Greek Revolution.

52 A BR WE AMERICAN MISSIONARY.
When the battle of Navarino brought the war to an end,
it Roomed to open a wide door to missionary labor ; and
after coming homo to America to be married, he returned
to the East, and took up his residence in Smyrna, where
ho devoted himself especially to the education of Greek
girls — a movement which excited surprise, not only among .
tho Moslems, who look upon women as having no souls,
but among Oriental Clhristians as well among whom here
tofore women had been left to a life -of ignorance and
servitude. These schools were attended with remarkable
success. The Greek girls, often beautiful in person,
showed great natural intelh'gence and aptitude for study,
and by their progress excited a wonder which led to imita
tion. This was the beginning of a movement which,
extending to Athens and other cities, has in the course of
half a century done so much for the elevation of modern
Greece. But neither Greek ignorance nor Moslem fanaticism
was the only enemy with which the missionary had to
contend. Like many other cities of the East, Smyrna
was subject to frequent visitations of the cholera and
the plague, which struck terror into the hearts of the in
habitants. While Mr. Brewer was here with his family
came the terrible plague of 1831, which made Smyrna
Uke a city of the dead. AU who could escape fled, while
those who were obUged to remain shut themselves up in
then- houses, and hardly dared to appear in the streets.
If obUged to go out for the necessaries of life, they gUded
about Uke ghosts, not stopping to recognize neighbor or
friend, lest the touch of a hand should cany contagion.
If two men met in the street, each drew away from the
other as if contact were death. Sometimes they hugged
the walls of the houses, with canes in their hands ready to
strike down any one who should approach. Papers and

IN THE CHOLERA AND THE PLAGUE. 53
letters coming through the mails were smoked and dipped
in vinegar before they were deUvered, lest they might
communicate infection. Even vegetables were passed
through water before they were taken from the hands of
the setter. Terrible tales were told of scenes where guests
were carried away dead from the table, and servants drop
ped down while waiting upon it. On every countenance
was depicted an expression of horror. When the plague
appeared in a house, it was instantly deserted, the occu
pants running from it without stopping to look at any
thing, or to take anything with them, as if pursued by the
Angel of Death. In the midst of aU this terror, the mis
sionary preserved his calmness of mind, and tried to aUay
the general panic, which was in itself almost as deadly as
the pestilence.
The foUowing year the cholera fitted the city with as
much terror as the plague. At this time, when people
were dying by thousands, Mr. Brewer stood at his post
Uke a soldier, to whom the moment of greatest danger is
the moment of most sacred duty. He felt that such a
pubttc calamity only gave him the wider opportunity for
reUeving human suffering. Filling his pockets with medi
cines, and taking along with him his brother-in-law, a boy
of fifteen (now Judge Field of the Supreme Court of the
United States), who carried with him also medicine and
food, he explored the almost deserted streets day after
day, seeking those who had been suddenly smitten with
cholera, and had lain down to suffer, and perhaps to die.
Thousands perished ; but of those who were saved, many
owed their Uves to the courage of that Christian mission
ary. Commodore De Kay of the United States Navy, in a
book entitled " Turkey in 1831 and 1832," says : " The
efforts of the physicians at Smyrna during the fearful
season of cholera, were nobly seconded by many of the

54 THE FAMILY OP VAN LENNEP.
foreign missionaries. Among these I heard the labors of
Mr. Brewer everywhere spoken of in terms of admiration.
Furnished with aU the requisite remedies, he scoured every
lane and aUey, proclaiming his benevolent intentions, and
distributing even food to the needy. Let history, when it
repeats the story of the good Bishop of Marseilles, also
record the benevolence and the proud contempt of danger
and of death evinced by an American stranger within the
pestilential watts of Smyrna."
Remembering aU this, it was with a pecuUar interest
that I sought out the street, and the very house, in which
my brother and sister had Uved during those trying years.
Of course aU who knew them (it was fifty years ago) were
gone now. I could recall only the name of one family —
that of Van Lennep, with which they formed the closest
intimacy, and in aU after years held in affectionate remem
brance. The name is not unknown in America Rev. Dr.
Henry J. Van Lennep is a nephew of that Dutch merchant
and consul who showed such kindness to my kindred long
ago. It was a great pleasure to find in Smyrna an exceUent
representative of the famUy in the person of the present
Dutch Consul, at whose house I was welcomed with a
cordiaUty which showed that the old name and the old
memories were not forgotten.
At the principal hotel of Smyrna I found an EngUsh
officer whom I had met in Jerusalem, and afterwards at
Baalbec. The name of Su- Charles WUson is weU known
in the East for his services to the cause of geographical
and Biblical knowledge in the famous " Ordnance Survey "
of the Peninsula of Sinai, and by his excavations in Jeru
salem, the results of both which were published in sev
eral volumes, with maps, by the EngUsh Government,
and furnish altogether the fullest and most accurate
geographical studies of Sinai and Jerusalem. On his

SIR CHARLES "WILSON. 55
recent visit to Jerusalem, he had met the young princes,
sons of the Prince of Wales, who were returning from
their voyage round the world, and had reached Palestine,
and took them over the Haram area, and accompanied
them to Hebron. He was now in Smyrna as the British
Consul-General, in which position he was a trusted adviser
of the EngUsh Government in affairs of the East. After
the war in Egypt, he was sent to Can-o to be present at the
trial of Arabi Pasha, to see that no injustice was done ;
and it was probably owing to his mttd counsels that Arabi's
life was spared, and that he was sent as an exUe to Ceylon.
After my return to America, I had a letter from him, in
which he gave an opinion of Arabi, which showed how
fairly and generously a brave EngUsh soldier could speak
of an enemy. In his kindly view, Arabi was not a bad
man, but an enthusiast, carried away by his own ardent
imagination — a man of great natural eloquence, who took
the hearts of his countrymen by the fluency with which he
repeated Arabic poetry, and especially the more impas
sioned parts of the Koran ; who meant well, and would
have been glad to be a patriot if he only knew how ; but
whose good intentions were made of no account by his
utter ignorance of government, in which he showed almost
chUdish weakness.
Knowing how Sir Charles WUson was trusted in East
ern affairs, I was not surprised to see his name among the
officers who accompanied Lord Wolseley in his expedition
to the Soudan, where his knowledge of the Arabs would be
invaluable. No man knew them better. He lived among
them so long, when engaged in the survey of the Sinaitic
Peninsula, that he might almost be said to have adopted
their nomadic life. They climbed the mountains with
him (he told me that he had been on every one of the five
peaks of Serbal), and were his companions in aU his wan-

56 SIR CHARLES WILSON.
derings, in the tent and on the march. He confessed to
me that he was very fond of these chttdren of the desert.
I am sure he was a kind master, and do not wonder that
they foUowed him with entire devotion. Nor was he
shocked by their manners and customs, even though, when
he would accept the hospitaUty of a gray-bearded old
sheikh, he must sit upon the ground, or on a carpet spread
in the tent, and partake of his food in the Oriental fashion.
And when I ventured to ratty him. as a gentle savage, saying
" How can you sit at meat with those who eat with their
fingers?" he repUed smilingly, "If you only knew how
deUcious it is to put your hands into the dish, you would
never wish to eat again with knife and fork." After Uving
in such relations of friendship with the tribes of the desert, it
could not be a pleasant thing to have to fight against them.
But no man knew better than he that, mild and gentle as
were the Bedaween when he talked with them round their
camp-fires, they had in them fierce passions which might
be excited to commit any atrocity. Had they not murdered
his friend and companion, Prof. Palmer, who had Uved with
them so f amUiarly that they caUed him Sheikh Abdattah ?
And yet when, confident of his own safety, he ventured
among them at the outbreak of the war, he met his death.
Had Sir Charles been with him, he would doubtless have
shared the same fate. And much as he pitied Arabi Pasha,
he knew weU that his movement in Egypt would end in
anarchy, and that it was a hard necessity for England to
interfere. Hence he could have no scruple or shrinking in
the work in which the English army was to be engaged.
He is a gaUant officer, and yet withal so gentle in manner,
speaking in a voice that is low and soft Uke a woman's,
that I can hardly think of him in the front of battle. But
often the most gentle are the most brave ; and when he
took command at El Gubat, after Gen. Stewart feU, he con-

ATTEMPT TO SAVE GORDON. 57
tinued the battle with such courage and skill as insured the
victory, and brought the English to the banks of the NUe.
I could imagine the eagerness with which he embarked
on the steamer to go up the river in the hope to reUeve
Khartoum and rescue Gordon ; but, alas, he came too late !
It was no fault of his ; he had done his utmost (and the
bravest can do no more), but in vain. Those who know
his quiet courage know that in any crisis which may come
to his country, when "England jexpects every man to do
his duty," no man will do his duty more faithfully than
Sir Charles WUson*
* While speaking of this gallant officer I cannot but refer to an
attempt which has been made in England to hold him responsible
for the death of Gordon — a most cruel imputation, as they were not
only brother officers, but old friends, and he was impelled to every
exertion by his personal regard as well as his military honor.
To an American looking on from this distance, it would seem
as if the responsibility of the expedition should rest first of
all on the General commanding. If it had been successful,
he would have claimed the credit; why should he not be held
to a rigid account for its failure ? The public is the more
inclined to exact this from Lord "Wolseley, because the expedi
tion was his ; he was put in command of it, with the ordering
of every detail, and liberty to draw to any extent on the troops
and the treasury of England. He even sent across the Atlantic
for Canadian boatmen to. work his boats up the cataracts of the
Nile. Thus provided with everything, he embarked, like Csesar,
assured of victory, boasting of the great things he was going to
do, and even telling the Prince of Wales the very day on which he
would enter Khartoum ! After this it may well be mortifying to
come back, not having been within two hundred miles of the
beleaguered city, and having left to others all the hard work of
the campaign. His own failure might be forgiven or passed over
in silence, if he had not sought to hide it by throwing the blame
upon one of his best officers, who did his part gallantly and well.
Those who followed the progress of the late expedition, will
remember that when Lord Wolseley had advanced up tho Nile to

68 THE OLD CASTLE.
In coming up the Bay of Smyrna, the most picturesque
object which had attracted our attention was the old ruined
Castle on the hill behind the city. When we were here in
1875, we rode out to it on Uttle donkeys. The hitt is five
hundred feet high, and commands a magnificent view of
the city and the harbor, with the surrounding shores. The
castle is Uke that of Heidelberg in extent, and in its suc
cessive reconstructions teUs a tale as old as one of the
cedars of Lebanon : for though it has been rebuilt or
enlarged by Greeks and Romans and Byzantine emperors,
its foundations, which were of Cyclopean architecture, were
probably laid by the Lelesgian pirates and robbers who
Korti, as far as he could go with boats, he divided his force,
sending one division forward, and himself remaining in camp
with the other. Many in England asked why he did not march
with the whole body, and give it the impulse and inspiration of
his personal presence ? But for reasons which were satisfactory
to himself, he chose to remain behind, leaving it to others to lead
the advance and fight the battles. And not only did he divide his
force, but he divided still further that which he sent forward,
detaching one column to move along the Nile, while a second
struck directly across the desert. The latter, reduced in numbers,
soon met the Arabs in great force, and fought a desperate battle
at Abu Klea on the 17th of January. Here they remained a
day to bury the dead, and to fill up with water. Resuming the
march, they had to fight a second battle at El Gubat on the
19th, in which General Stewart fell, when the command devolved
on Sir Charles Wilson, who, according to all accounts, showed
the greatest coolness, defeating the enemy and completing the
march to the Nile, where a day or two after the boats arrived
which had been sent down from Khartoum by Gordon to aid the
advance. Now, it is said, "If Sir Charles had instantly embarked and
steamed away, he might have reached Khartoum in time to save
Gordon." His failure to do this is the basis for the imputation
that it was owing to his want of promptness and energy that
Gordon was not saved I Such is the story which has been served

THE OLD CASTLE. 59
saUed the Mediterranean before the siege of Troy, and who
built this as a refuge and a watch-tower, from which they
could look out far over land and sea. From the earUest
time, ever since Smyrna began to be. a city, this was its
AcropoUs, where its founders reared their massive waUs
and towers. Below the castle is still seen the Stadium, in
which were performed the Grecian games, and which has
a more sacred association, since on this spot Polycarp
up to the English public by the correspondent of a London paper,
and has not been rebuked by Lord Wolseley himself ! If indeed
he has connived at this false and wicked story, he has been guilty
of a very unworthy act towards a brother officer.
To this charge Sir Charles Wilson has replied with great
dignity by a statement so clear as to carry conviction with it. A
few words will put the matter in its true light.
When the English troops reached the Nile, they were com
pletely exhausted with their long march across the desert and
their two battles, by which they were reduced in strength and
encumbered with wounded ; and yet, weak as they were, they
had to face the possibility of having to fight again, for reports
came in that the Arabs were marching upon them both from
north and south. The boats arrived on the afternoon of the 21st
of January ; and if Sir Charles had at once started up the Nile,
leaving his little force to its fate, and it had been attacked
and destroyed, he would have been accused of deserting it, and
would have been justly dishonored and disgraced. His first duty
was to strengthen it as much as possible, so that it could hold
out till his return.
But further, the situation was complicated by the positive
direction of Gordon, on no account to trust the Turkish or Egyp
tian officers in command of the boats, but to turn them all out
and put in others! This could not be done in an instant; it
required time to reorganize, and also to protect the sides of the
boats, which were slender craft like the penny boats on the
Thames, for a voyage in which they would have to run the
gauntlet of a fire from heavy guns on both sides of the river.
With all these obstacles in his way, Sir Charles started on the
morning of the 24th of January, and came in sight of Khartoum

60 THE MARTYRDOM OF POLYCARP.
obtained the crown of martyrdom. Smyrna was one of
the seven cities of Asia which received the Gospel from the
Apostles themselves. To Smyrna was sent a message from
the angel of the churches in the Book of Revelation.
Polycarp was born in the first century, as early, it is
thought, as the year 69, and thus in the lifetime of the
Apostles, and perhaps had sat at the feet of John. His
life was passed in Smyrna, of which he was bishop. Here
he received a visit from Ignatius of Antioch, who was then
under a sentence of death, and on his way to Rome to be
thrown to the Uons. Warned by the fate of his friend,
on the 28th, to find that the city had fallen and Gordon been
killed on the morning of the 26th !
Of course it is always easy to be wise after the event, and it
may seem now, putting the dates together, as though, if Sir
Charles had known beforehand the exact condition of affairs at
Khartoum ; and if he had abandoned his own force, and rushing
on board the little steamers, had turned their heads up stream at
once, and sailed away without changing the officers of the boats,
as Gordon had directed, and without even stopping to take wood
on board to keep their engines going, it is barely possible that
they might have reached Khartoum in time, though he says that
even then it could not have been accomplished; but such a move
ment would have involved many contingencies, a failure in any
one of which would have wrecked the whole expedition. It would
have beon against all probabilities of success. A commanding
officer has no right to take such desperate risks. Nor is it at all
likely that it would have averted the issue. It is probable that
the treachery by which Khartoum was betrayed had been long
planned, and that whenever the English boats were seen coming
up the Nile, the mine would have been sprung.
An officer has done his duty when he uses all the light he has,
or that it is possible to obtain ; and when he acts with promptness
and courage, and yet at the same time with prudence and discre
tion, so as not to sacrifice the lives of his men. If after he has
done all this he fails, he can only say
" 'Tis not in mortals to command success,
But we've dono more — we've deserved it."

VISIT TO EPHESUS. 61
and the spirit of persecution which was abroad in the
Roman Empire, Polycarp was prepared for a simUar end.
He Uved, however, to a great age. When at last he was
brought before the Proconsul at Smyrna, in the amphi
theatre crowded with spectators, the haughty Roman was
moved at the sight of his venerable figure, and begged
him to abjure Christ that his life might be spared ; to
which, looking up to heaven and around at the assembled
multitude, he calmly repUed, "Eighty and six years have I
served Him, and He never did me wrong : how then can I
revile my King and Saviour ? " When condemned to die,
he ungirded himself and laid aside his garments, and took
his place ; and when they would have bound him to the
stake, he said, "Let me remain as I am. He who has
enabled me to brave the fire,. will strengthem me to endure
its fierceness," and so he gave his body to the flames.
Near this spot a soUtary cypress marks his grave, and
preserves the sacred name and memory of one of the
earUest of the Christian martyrs.
11 we are looking for historical associations, we have
others still. Not far from Smyrna once stood one of the
greatest cities of the ancient world — a city long since dead
and buried, but which is of interest even in its sepulchre.
Whtte I had been looking about Smyrna, some of my fel
low-passengers on the steamer had gone to the raUway
station to see if they could get a special train to take us
to Ephesus, and by dint of much persuasion and a goodly
show of napoleons, secured it ; and at a quarter before
three some thirty of us — EngUsh and Americans — set out.
It was a new sensation after our various modes of travel
ling in the East. Think of a railroad in Asia Minor, where,
from the beginning of time, there has been no other mode
of transportation than by horses or asses or camels ! As
the railway is owned by an English company, it is fur-

62 THE TURCOMANS.
nished in EngUsh style. We had five carriages in our
special train, and as we stepped into the luxurious com
partments, and leaned back on the cushioned seats, I had
to confess that this was softer than a camel's or even a
horse's back. As we shot away at full speed over the level
country which Ues south of Smyrna, we were equally sur
prised and deUghted to find it in a high state of cultiva
tion, with plantations of mulberry trees and orange trees
and fig trees, with oUves and vines. The cultivators of
this region are FeUaheen, Uke those of Egypt, Uving in
mud villages, scattered among whom is another popula
tion, the Turcomans, whom we saw in great numbers over
the plain, Uving in black tents such as we had seen on
the desert, and surrounded by hundreds of camels. We
might think these troublesome neighbors, but they are not
so bad as we might suppose. Though they wander in the
desert, they are not robbers, Uke the Bedaween. Dr. Van
Lennep says : " They are mostly engaged in raising cattle,
camels included. Some, however, are charcoal-burners,
saw planks, and cut trees into ' sleepers ' for the railroad
They are divided into tribes, and move from place to place
according to the needs of their cattle. Tribes, or families,
are often met whUe moving, and as they are fond of hunt
ing, one or two men may frequently be seen holding a
hawk on their gloved hand, and leading a fine breed of
greyhounds. They have essentiaUy the same reUgion as
the Vezidees, and their range extends aU over Asia Minor,
Armenia, Northern Persia, and Turkistan. But their wan
dering life effectually prevents their cultivation of the soil
Their only rivals, where they are found, are the tribes of
Koords, whose range is very much smaUer, and who are
highway robbers to the backbone."
But the dangerous element near Smyrna is composed
of Greek and Turkish outlaws, who form companies of

GREEK AND TURKISH BRIGANDS. 63
brigands, and find a good field of operations in the neigh
borhood of a great city, where the government is weak.
When I first went to Italy, such brigands made it unsafe
for travellers to go from Naples to Psestum, and to a much
later period they were the terror of SicUy, operating even
close to Palermo and Messina, seizing men of wealth, whom
they carried off into the mountains and held for ransom.
Such bands have long infested the neighborhood of
Smyrna, and made it unsafe to venture far out of the
city. When my brother, Judge Field, was here a year
ago to revisit the scenes of his boyhood, he heard such
stories of traveUers being taken by brigands and held for
ransom, that he did not think it prudent to visit Ephesus
unprotected, and did not care to take an armed escort,
even though one was offered bi-m by the Pasha of the dis
trict. But this year there had been apparently a stiffen
ing of Turkish authority.* At any rate our train was not
stopped by cut-throats with carbines and scimetars ; and
as for the Turcomans, whenever we looked out of the
windows, and saw them with their black tents and their
camels, our only thought was of the picturesque feature
which they made in the landscape.
Ephesus is fifty miles south of Smyrna, but as we ran
at a speed of forty miles an hour, we made the distance in
* Since this was written, the old brigandage seems to have
revived. As these pages are going through the press comes a re
port that a band composed of " Mussulmans and Christians " ( ! ) —
that is, Turks and Greeks — in the neighborhood of Smyrna, have
recently carried off a young Englishman, for whose safe return
they demand a ransom of nine thousand pounds ! If this is not
promptly paid, "their prisoner shall be killed." Before doing
this, they would perhaps cut off his ears, and send them into the
city to show that they were not to be trifled with. If this did not
bring the money, they would very probably carry their threat
into execution.

64 ANCIENT EPHESUS.
an hour and a quarter. The station stands beside the ruins
of an ancient aqueduct, many of the arches of which have
fallen, but the square columns are still standing, on the
tops of which storks have built their nests, as on the chim
neys in HoUand. As I looked up at these long-legged
creatures on their lofty perch, and saw that they were not
at att awed or alarmed by this inroad of Western barbari
ans, nor disturbed by the noise of the engine or the rattling
of cars, it seemed as if they might be the embodied spirits
of the old Ephesians, looking down with high disdain on
aU the rush and roar of our modern life.
Ephesus itself Ues at a distance of two mUes, and we
started at once for the ruins. A party from Cleveland,
Ohio, had taken the precaution to telegraph for horses,
and exhausted the resources of the place. They were soon
mounted, and picking their way along the winding path
and over the hitt, while the rest of us foUowed on foot
Our course led over a stony causeway and along a foot
path, by the side of which, here and there, peer out of the
ground fragments of columns and arches — the ruins of old
temples. But it is not tUl we pass over the hill that we
come in sight of the plain on which the city stood. It is
now quite desolate. The eye rests on nothing Uke the
Parthenon at Athens, or the temples at Psestum, to mark
the site of what was once the greatest city of Asia. The
harbor was in the centre of the city, and consisted of an
immense basin, connected by the river Cayster with the
sea. This artificial lake was to Ephesus what the docks of
Liverpool are to the greatest commercial city of our day.
In it floated ships from att parts of the Mediterranean,
whUe strangers from aU countries thronged the busy streets.
It requires some effort of the imagination to reconstruct
this populous city on a plain where now there is not a
single human being I But of the ancient city there are

THE TEMPLE OF DIANA. 65
too many remains for us to doubt its vastness. Its wealth
was shown in its temples and palaces. Some years ago
explorations were begun by the British Government, which
uncovered the foundations of the famous Temple of Diana.
It was found that three temples had been built on the same
site. One of them was burnt on the day that Alexander
the Great was born, which was afterwards interpreted as
an omen of the general conflagration in Asia, which was
to be kindled by the conqueror of the world. It was re
placed by a temple, which was two hundred and twenty
years in building, and the proportions of which (according
to the exact measurement of Mr. Wood, from the lowest
step of the flight which leads up to the peristyle, it was
418 feet and one inch long, and 239 feet and four and one-
half inches broad) show that it was much larger than the
Parthenon ; whUe the splendor of its architecture, sur
rounded by its hundred columns, made it truly one of the
Seven Wonders of the World. But of aU this magnifi
cence not a trace remains above the ground. The Theatre
is better preserved, because it was buttressed by a hiU —
which was the AcropoUs of the city — in the sides of which
rose, one behind the other, the seats of stone, on which
might be arrayed 25,000 spectators. CUmbing over the
fallen stones and up to the top of the waU, we rested for
a few minutes at this chief spot of interest in Ephesus;
while Dean Howson, taking from his pocket the Revised
Version of the New Testament, read from it the account
(in the nineteenth chapter of Acts) of the mob, excited by
the preaching of Paul and rushing into the theatre, where
they cried out for two hours : " Great is Diana of the Ephe-
sians ! " Few of us will ever forget the scene. Even now I
seem to hear the voice of the good Dean, who entered into
the spirit of what he read, and of the epistle in the second
chapter of Revelation, beginning " Unto the angel of the

66 PAUL IN EPHESUS.
Church of Ephesus write, These things saith He that
holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in
the midst of the seven golden candlesticks," and ending
" Be thou faithful unto death, and I wiU give thee a crown
of life." How much more to us is this human interest, con
nected with the beloved Apostle, than the interest of mere
archaeological researches ! When we passed under an old
arch, or through the city gates, our first thought was that
Paul had passed through these gates and under this
arch a hundred times in the three years that he spent in
Ephesus. He came to it as a stranger, and was received
almost as an enemy. Here he endured persecution ; here
he fought with beasts ; here he taught pubUcly and from
house to house, warning every one night and day with
tears. It was of him we were thinking as we returned by
another path over the bill, passing the reputed tomb of
St. John, and stopping now and then to look back at the
plain below, with its scattered ruins, and away to the sea,
in which the sun was going down. Once the sea came up
to the city's front ; it is now a mtte and a half distant. A
few mUes farther on yonder shore stood its seaport, Mile
tus — a name which brings up tender and sacred memories,
since it was from MUetus that Paul sent to Ephesus and
caUed the elders of the church. There are few chapters
in the Bible which we read with more emotion than the
twentieth chapter of Acts. In point of tenderness, the
parting of Paul from the elders of Ephesus is worthy to
be placed beside the meeting of Joseph with his brethren.
How that last sentence lingers on the ear : " Remember
the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, It is more
blessed to give than to receive." And then came the last
prayer and the last embrace : "And when he had thus
spoken, he kneeled down and prayed with them aU, and

THE PARTING AT MILETUS. 67
they all wept sore and fell on Paul's neck and kissed him :
sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake that
they should see his face no more." No description can
add anything to this. The only paraUel I find to it is in
the departure of the PUgrims from Leyden, when John
Robinson knelt down on the ship's deck, and with fervent
prayer commended to God the Uttle band who were to
saU away, carrying with them the hopes of a New World.
As we rode back to Smyrna in the evening, we were
more sUent than when we came. It was ten o'clock when
we were again on board the ship.

CHAPTER V.
MITYLENE AND TROY — THE DARDANELLES.
Though we had chartered a special train for Ephesus,
and rushed, as for dear life, to look upon it and return
before the ship should saU and leave us behind, she did not
lift her anchor till two o'clock the next day. But I was not
at all impatient of the delay, for it gave me another fore
noon to ramble on shore ; and there is nothing in the
world I Uke so much as to be "let loose" in a foreign
city, and the older it is the better, for the more fuU is it of
historical associations. I Uke to go " poking " about in
nooks and corners, seeing how the people Uve, and noting
the characteristic features of the place ; and if I get lost
(as I sometimes do), it is no matter : it is good once in
awhile to lose one's identity, that we may the better enter
into the strange Ufe of other human beings. In my wan
derings about the world, I have sometimes been conscious
of a mental process almost Uke a transmigration of souls.
I felt that I was not myself, but some other man ; or as if
I were one of the sheeted dead that had come back to
revisit the scenes of a former existence. A spirit that
would haunt old ruins may find others in Smyrna be
sides the Castle on the hiU. There is the Genoese Castle

THE LAST LOOK AT SMYRNA. 69
near the shore, in the midst of the bazaars, whose very
name tells of the time when Genoese and Venetians car
ried their ships and their arms to the eastern part of the
Mediterranean ; and there is a Turkish Castle on the bay,
whose tumble-down appearance is a fit type of the general
decay and weakness of the power which it represents.
Near the city perhaps the most notable spot is the Caravan
Bridge, which spans the torrent erroneously called the
Meles, and from which many caravans of camels take their
departure for their long march into the interior. About
such a spot I could linger a good while, indulging in idle
dreams of journeys which I can take only in imagination.
I Uke to look at camels, even on the ground, as they remind
me of those glorious days of pUgrimage to Sinai. See
that old Bactrian just rising to his feet ! He straightens
out his legs as if he longed to be stretching them on the
desert. Would that I were on his back, swinging away
into the heart of Asia Minor ! Such points as these in
and about Smyrna may weU divert the mind of a traveller,
though in truth he hardly needs anything more than the
many-colored life presented in the shops and streets of
this ancient city.
When at last we came to depart, we had lost a part of
our ship's company. A number of our feUow-passengers,
who had embarked with us at Beirut, left at Smyrna to
take passage in another steamer for Athens, instead of
continuing with us to Constantinople. Among these were
Dean Howson and the other EngUsh clergymen, and those
fine old EngUsh gentlemen, Messrs. BusheU and BaUour of
Liverpool But still the cabin was filled with traveUers
of different countries, whUe the deck was packed with
pilgrims. As we steamed away, a fresh breeze was coming in from
the sea, which grew stronger as we got out of the Gulf of

70 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
Smyrna ; but this only gave a keener zest to the feeling
with which we saUed out into the Archipelago, and turned
northward between the islands and the mainland. These
shores are fuU of classic associations, and yet to a Chris
tian traveUer there is a stiU greater interest in the associa
tions which are sacred. Asia Minor was one of the earliest
fields of missionary labor of the Apostles. AU the churches
of Asia were grouped within easy distance of Smyrna. To
the North were Thyatira and Pergamos ; as Sardis and
Phttadelphia were to the East ; and Ephesus on the South,
and a Uttle farther away was Laodicea. A saU along these
shores quickens the interest with which we turn again to
the second and third chapters of the Book of Revelation,
and read messages which were not to the seven churches
alone, but to us also on whom the ends of the world are
come. " He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit
saith unto the churches."
As the afternoon drew on, we were approaching a
large island — the ancient Lesbos, now Mitylene — and as
we were on its eastern side, and the sun was sinking in
the west, we were coming under its shadow, and this
softer Ught enabled us to see it better than we could have
done in the glare of noonday. The tops of the mountains
stood out with wonderful clearness against the sky, while
the outUne of the coast, winding in and out with its head
lands and its bays, and the soft green vaUeys rising from
the shore and running upward to the slopes of the bills,
gave it an infinite variety and beauty. Clinging to the
hillsides were pretty villages, with groves of oak cultivated
for the acorns they yield, which are used for tanning pur
poses, and exported to Europe ; whUe the pine forests on
the mountains furnish timber and pitch. The vaUeys are
very fertUe, and if they are not " covered over with corn,"
they have large plantations of fig and other fruit trees ;

THE ISLAND OF LESBOS. 71
while the oUve orchards, if they do not pour out " rivers
of oU," yet yield in such abundance as makes the chief
industry of the island, and furnishes a source of wealth to
the thrifty inhabitants. AU these varieties of vegetation
were now in then- perfect bloom, as it was the middle of ..
May, when in the East the earth rejoices in the freshness
of Springtime. As we sailed along these shores in the
twttight, I wondered if a fairer Arcadia ever rose out of
the waters of this troubled world.
The island of Lesbos has an important place in Greek
history, even at its most remote period. As early as the
siege of Troy, it had a large population, and continued to
flourish for centuries. When Athens had its Academy,
Lesbos had its schools of phUosophy, which attracted the
wise men of Greece. It was even more famous as the
birthplace of a school of lyric poets —
" Where burning Sappho loved and sung,"
and others whose stirring odes Uve in the coUections of
Greek poetry.
When the Romans became masters of the East, they
were attracted by the beauty of the Greek islands. Their
fondness for a mttd, tempered climate, such as is found in
greatest perfection in an island lying in Summer seas,
where the temperature of the sea softens aUke the heat of
Summer and the cold of Winter — which led them to choose
Ischja and Capri, at the mouth of the Bay of Naples, as
favorite abodes of Imperial luxury— led them, when sent
to distant provinces, to choose Lesbos, which Tacitus
describes in a line as " insula nobilis et amcena " [a noble
and pleasant island] — as one of those semi-royal retreats
in which a Roman governor might pass his splendid exile,
and almost forget his absence from the imperial city.
WhUe indulging in these fancies, the twiUght was grow
ing deeper, till just at dusk we rounded a point of land,

72 MITYLENE.
and saw before us the bright Ughts of a town encircling a
Uttle bay, and knew we were at the port of Mitylene, which
in modern times has given its name to the island itseU.
At Mitylene, as at Rhodes, the first glance shows that
it has had its days of war and of siege, when it had to be
fortified against invaders. Its most striking feature is a
rocky promontory, crowned with an old Genoese Castle,
with its watts and towers. Its warlike occupation is gone
now, and under its battlements, instead of ships of war,
Uttle boats gUde peacefully to and fro. The port has a
SmaU inner harbor, enclosed by two short projecting moles,
with a Ught on each to guide steamers entering at night.
As the landing is by boats, I did not go on shore, but sat
on deck watching the caiques with their Greek rowers
darting across the still waters, and the Ughts glancing on
the shore. Should it ever be my good fortune to visit
again the Greek Archipelago, I should hope not only to
land at Mitylene, but to spend a day or two, and make
excursions into the interior of the island, which has some
beautiful drives, with an old Roman aqueduct and other
ruins to remind one of its ancient history.
On the whole, Mitylene seems to me the most important,
as weU as the most beautiful, island of the Archipelago ;
and this very beauty and fertility but increase the regret
that it should be under the rule of Turkey, when it ought
to belong to Greece. It is nearer to Athens than to Con
stantinople. It Ues midway between the shores of Asia
Minor and the mainland of Greece, and its population is
almost wholly Greek. It is Greek in reUgion. One com
ing into Mitylene sees neither mosque nor minaret. Thus
it is Greek by its position, its history, and its people. If
there evei comes a time of " the restitution of aU things,"
the island wiU be taken from Turkey, and restored to its
natural place as part of the young Kingdom of Greece.

THE TROAD. 73
It was midnight when we left Mitylene — the hour when,
according to the lines in Marco Bozzaris,
" The Turk was dreaming in his tent
Of Greece, her knee in suppliance bent."
Ii our dreams were of such recent events, quite another
tone was given to our thoughts as we came on deck the
next morning, and found ourselves off a coast which car
ried us back to the beginnings of history. On our right
was the Troad, the scene of events which have been immor
talized in the greatest poem of antiquity. Here, twelve
hundred years before Christ, took place the siege of Troy ;
and yet, though so far remote from aU the life of the
modern world, the incidents of that siege, and the charac
ters which took part in it, are familiar to every scholar.
As we steamed up towards the coast, we studied its out
lines, connecting each point with some event of the
immortal story. Here were the shores on which the
Greeks landed ; in the distance we could see the snow-
covered head of Mount Ida, at the base of which the city
stood ; and on the plain before it ancient tumuU still mark
the resting-places of Achilles and Patroclus. On our left,
five mUes from the coast, was the Uttle island of Tenedos,
only ten mUes in circumference, to which the Greek ships
withdrew to deceive the Trojans into the beUef that they
had abandoned the siege. Passing between this island
and the mainland, at eleven o'clock we entered the strait
known to the ancients as the HeUespont, and to us as the
Dardanelles — an arm of the sea that divides the Continents
of Europe and Asia, across which the great armies of the
East had to force a passage to invade Europe, unless they
chose the other narrow strait of the Bosphorus. It was
across the Hellespont that Xerxes laid his bridge of boats
for the passage of a million of men ; and from some height
on this shore that he looked down upon them, and wept

74 IN THE DARDANELLES.
to think that of all that multitude not one would be Uving
in a hundred years !
Recalling these scenes, and thinking how these armed
hosts passed never to return, one might be led into medi
tations not unsuited to the day : for it was on the Sabbath
morning that we were sailing up the Dardanettes. The
day was not forgotten, but remembered in a service in the
cabin, such as English and American travellers dehght in
as a sweet remembrancer of beloved lands beyond the sea.
As we came on deck, we found the shores on either hand
bristUng with forts — reminders of the fearful struggles
that have taken place for the possession of Constantinople,
and that wiU take place again and again till the control
passes from Moslem hands.
But for the present the Turk is master on both sides
of the strait, as we are reminded by the stopping of our
steamer between the Castles of Europe and Asia, where
every ship has to be signalled before it is permitted to
pass on its way to Constantinople. At this point the strait
is less than a mUe wide, and the defences are very strong,
the forts being mounted with heavy Krupp guns. The
passage is made more difficult because the channel is wind
ing ; and there is a strong current running out from the
Sea of Marmora, which sometimes swings vessels out of
their course upon the shoals on one side or the other.
Here we were detained two hours, to land a part of our
ship's company. At Smyrna we had taken on board sev
eral hundred Bashi-Bazouks for the Turkish army. As
they were " conscripts," and would be exposed to tempta
tion at the first port we should touch, officers were on
board to watch them, and keep them from running away.
Now that we were alongside these two great forts, they
could be safely delivered where they would be brought
under military discipline.

DIFFERENT CLASSES OF PILGRIMS. 75
Another class of passengers interested me more. I
have said that our boat was crowded with pUgrims, who
filled the deck as closely as it was possible to pack human
beings. They were not aU Christian pUgrims : some were
pUgrims to Mecca, from which they were now returning.
There were also a few Jews on board. . Thus the pilgrims
were of several reUgions, as weU as of many nations, and
I was curious to see how they would regard each other.
Looking down upon them from the upper deck, I could
not but be amused at the way in which they kept apart
from each other. Of course the Greek and Russian pU
grims returning from the Holy Week at Jerusalem, would
have nothing to do with misbeUevers. The Jews and Mos
lems said their prayers regularly every day, but they would
not pray with each other. The Jews wore their phylacte
ries on their foreheads, and a strip of parchment round the
left arm near the heart, on both which were inscribed texts
from the Old Testament, which they thus kept on their
persons, as a token upon the hand and frontlets between
the eyes, that the Lord had brought them out of Egypt.
When they prayed, they turned to the ship's side, as if
they would not have even the breath of prayer float over
the heads of the wretched unbeUevers. Not only would
they not eat with the Moslems : they would not touch them
even in their sleep. Although it was very difficult, in the
crowded state of the ship, to prevent their coming in con
tact, yet the Jews would Ue down on the deck as far away
from the Moslems as they could get ; and no doubt it was
a great comfort to both that they could thus keep apart,
and each make its own heap of rags. Of course we smtted
at aU this, but are not these reUgious hatreds quite as re
spectable as many that obtain among those who caU them
selves by the sacred name of Christian ?
At last we received orders to pass the forts, and resumed

76 ANCHORED IN THE GOLDEN HORN.
our course. A Uttle above the Castles the strait narrows
etUl more, so that in time of war its passage might be
obstructed by heavy chains swung from shore to shore.
It was at this point that Xerxes laid his bridge of boats
between the ancient Sestos and Abydos ; and here Alex
ander the Great, with his Macedonians, crossed into Asia
Here Leander swam the strait to keep his tryst with Hero,
and Byron followed his example. These historical and
romantic associations gave such an interest to the scenes
around us, that we were in no haste to come to the end of
our voyage. Rather would we have lingered between these
enchanted shores of Europe and Asia. The day was one
of the loveliest of Spring, with a delicious warmth, and at
the same time an exquisite purity and freshness in the
atmosphere. In such an air and under such a sky, we
were aU day floating as in a dream. Night found us in
the Sea of Marmora, and as the morning came, we passed
the famUiar SeragUo Point, and dropped anchor at the
mouth of the Golden Horn.

CHAPTER VI.
CONSTANTINOPLE REVISITED. — I.
Wherever we go in this wicked world of ours — on what
ever shore we set our wandering feet — thete are two things
we cannot escape : Death and the Custom House. We may
escape Death for a time, but it is very hard to escape the
Custom House officer. He is everywhere, by night as weU
as by day. He was on the quay at Queenstown when we
landed at two o'clock in the morning, and now at daybreak
he was the first to welcome us to Constantinople. Each
country has its pecuUar type of officer. The French gens
d'armes is lean and lank ; the Turk is fat and round.
However, the Turkish official is not " a monster of dread
ful mien." He is limp and lazy, and may easUy be pro
pitiated by a timely gift. But strong in my innocence, I
thought to save my napoleons, and with honest pride un
locked my trunk, threw back the lid, and exposed its con
tents to view. There be those who would not have ad
mired the way in which that trunk was packed. (Was
there ever a man who knew how to pack a trunk ?) The
garments were pUed one upon another " in most admired
disorder." However, the crumpled raiment looked inno
cent enough. But what was that which lay on top ? Doc-

78 ORDERED TO THE OFFICE OF THE POLICE.
uments, both printed and written, of an unknown, and
therefore suspicious, character ! The missionaries in Beirut
had given me some of the issues of their printing-house —
tracts and papers — which were scattered over the wraps of a
travetter, and were thus exposed to the cold eye of the cruel
Turk, who would gladly find something whereof to accuse
a Giaour. And there were letters too ! Clearly I was en
gaged in correspondence, which might be of a treasonable
character. I might be a conspirator ! The wretch picked up
a letter, and as he held it to the Ught saw that it contained
something not ordinarily found in an envelope. It was
court-plaster ; but if it had been a preparation of dyna
mite, it would not have made him shake his head more.
Such things have been : explosive substances are some
times compressed into the size of a peUet or a wafer,
which has but to be appUed to a man's forehead to
explode him into nothingness. The official catted to his
superior " Effendi ! Effendi ! " and pointed to what he had
discovered. It was at least a case for grave suspicion, and
I was informed that I must go to the office of the poUce !
No sooner said than done. Not a carriage was to be
had, nor even a donkey ; but there were standing round us
a number of Turkish porters, so famous for their strength
and the burdens they carry, and one of them was ordered
to take up my trunk and lead the way to the pubUc office.
The hamal, as he is caUed, was a huge feUow, with the girth
of an ox, and of tremendous vertebras, who took my trunk
upon his back as an elephant would (if I had been sitting
on top of it, it would have made no difference), and bend
ing forward to restore the proper balance to his body,
began cUmbing the hill. It is a long puU up the hUl of
Pera — it must be a good half mile ; but the man halted
not a moment, but strode ahead with a step as steady and
remorseless as fate, whtte I meekly fottowed after. He

RESTORED TO CIVILIZATION. 79
said not a word, and I foUowed in silence. How well I
remember my thoughts in going up that hiU ! I had a
sort of feeUng that it was an even question whether I was
not, after all a villain of the blackest dye, and tried to
think what plea I could offer in extenuation of my guUt,
and how I could appeal to my captors, and move their
stony hearts to pity. I have no doubt I should have pre
pared an eloquent defence, if — just as I was expecting to
see the poUce-station before me, and to be deUvered to the
tormentors — the hamal had not come out upon the Grande
Rue de Pera, and turning to the left, entered a wide and
hospitable door, and deposited my trunk in the spacious
haU of the Hotel d'Angleterre, the ancient hostelry of Mis-
siri, where I had spent a fortnight in the Autumn of 1875.
This was a welcome surprise. How it came about — whe
ther the hamal disobeyed instructions, or the threat of send
ing me to the poUce was an attempt to extort money — I did
not know. It was a mystery of which I never had an ex
planation. But who cares for an explanation when his vexations
are over ? I now opened my trunk to good purpose, and
after a bath, came forth in fine linen white and clean ;
and when those " artists of civUization," the barber and
the hatter, joined their efforts to give a Uttle better ap
pearance to my face, tanned by exposure on the desert
and on the sea, I came forth like the sun out of his cham
bers, or a strong man to run a race, and taking a carriage,
sattied forth to see Constantinople. My first thought was
to see the changes wrought by the war. I had been here
in November, 1875, and it was now May, 1882 — just six
years and a half later. That is not a long time in the his
tory of a country, but it had been long enough to witness
some great changes. Within that period Turkey had re
ceived her most staggering blow since the Mohammedan

80 CHANGES IN SIX YEARS AND A HALF.
conquest. Her old enemy Russia had come down from the
North, had crossed the Danube and the Balkans, and fought
his way to the gates of Constantinople, and Turkey had
been stripped of half her territory in Europe. This was a
Revolution so complete that our distinguished countryman,
President Washburn of Robert CoUege, did not hesitate to
write : " The Turkish Empire, which has existed for more
than four hundred years, has come to an end." Changes
so vast must cast a shadow over the capital, and I almost
expected, in coming here, to find the Turk, shrunk and
shrivelled, standing on the shores of the Bosphorus, only
waiting the signal for his departure into Asia !
And yet it is passing strange how Uttle difference poUt-
ical changes make in the life of a people. Everything
goes on as before ; and if we were not aU the whtte think
ing about it, we could hardly realize that anything had
happened. So it was in Paris after the war. When I
returned to it, though several years had elapsed, it was
with a feeUng of sadness : for I expected to find a city in
mourning. I thought it would stUl bear the marks of the
terrible siege. But except that the TuUeries and the Hotel
de VUle had not then been rebuilt, I saw not a trace of att
that wreck and ruin. Paris remained Paris ; the spirit
of the Gaul had not changed ; the Frenchman was the
Frenchman still. The boulevards were just as gay ; the
shops and cafes were just as crowded ; and the dance of
life went on as before — as, I sometimes think, it will go on
tiU the day of judgment.
The Turk is the very antipodes of the Gaul. But they
are alike in this — that each has a fixed type of character.
As the Frenchman is volatUe, the Turk is imperturbable.
This is apparent in the way in which the latter takes the
great political calamities that have overwhelmed his coun
try and his race. In riding through the Grande Rue de

THE TURK IN A THOUGHTFUL MOOD. 81
Pera, I see Uttle change, except that it has been paved !
The Turk presents the same familiar figure as before. He
wears the same imperturbable face, the same heavy turban
and flowing beard, and smokes the same long pipe. But
somehow he seems more thoughtful and subdued, as if a
change had come over the spirit of his dream : as if he
had been suddenly awakened, and it was beginning to
dawn upon bim that he is not to rule the world forever.
Since I was here before, there has been opened another
chapter in history, which will, no doubt, in time open even
the dull perceptions of the Turk. But for the present
"all things continue as they were," at least to the outward
eye ; and without plunging into speculations on poUtics or
war, we can give ourselves up to the enjoyment of this
dear (though cttrty) and delightful old city.
I do not propose to enter into any elaborate descrip
tion of the capital of the Orient. That I have done suffi
ciently already. When I was here before, I gave my read
ers a series of pictures of the mosques and minarets, with
the muezzin caUing the hour of prayer, and worshippers
bending low with their heads towards Mecca, and att that
makes the varied life of this wonderful city. These de
scriptions I do not need to repeat. It is enough to say
that the charm of all this is* not diminished, but rather
increased, on a second visit ; that the city is still as beau
tiful for situation as ever, throned on the waters and the
bills, with its horizon which takes in at one sweep the
shores of Europe and Asia. I may now speak of some
more personal matters, in which my experience gave me a
pleasant impression of the social life of the Turkish capital.
Of course when I speak of " society," it is foreign society,
for such a thing does not exist among the Turks. They
meet together for business or pleasure ; but where, as in
att Moslem countries, women are shut up in the seclusion

82 SOCIAL LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE.
of the harem, and cannot appear with their husbands or
sons or brothers, there can be no " society."
The foreign community is not a large one, as compared
with that in Paris or Rome ; but it has some elements
which make it very attractive. At the head, of course,
stands the diplomatic body, in which are always some who
rank high among European statesmen : for att the Great
Powers appreciate the importance of keeping such men
here to watch every new phase of the Eastern question.
Next to these I should place the missionaries, with whom
I include the professors of Robert College. Attached to
the embassies are the secretaries of legation ; and there
are the consuls of different countries, together with for
eigners holding important financial positions, such as the
control of the Imperial Ottoman Bank. Add to these the
great number of travellers in the East, coming and going,
and we have the materials of a very distinguished society,
of which I had some passing glimpses in the few days I
spent in Constantinople. My time was divided between
foreign ministers and the missionaries, all of whom were
so very kind to me that I cannot think of them without a
feeUng of gratitude. I hope I may not show mysett un
grateful, or wanting in deUcacy, if I give a few interiors,
whUe I keep in the background whatever is too personal
for mention.
The first place to which I drove in Constantinople was
the German Embassy, to whose grand chateau I had
looked up from the Bosphorus when here before, but
which had a new interest lo me now as the home of very
dear friends, of whom I must venture a word of explana
tion. Those who have fottowed me in my wanderings about
the world, may remember that when I made this Eastern
tour in 1875-6, my niece and myself were accompanied by
two German friends — a lady and her daughter — whom we

MEETING OLD FRIENDS. 83
first met in Florence, and again in Rome and Naples,
where they joined us for the voyage en Orient. We came
together to Athens and Constantinople. WhUe here we
went to the rooms of AbdaUah Freres, the photographers
to the Sultan ; and arraying ourselves in Turkish costume,
were taken in a group — I sitting on the floor Uke a grand
Turk, whtte my attendants stood in the attitude of respect
and of deference which women in the East must always
show to their lord and master. I had on a full Turkish
robe, with a huge white turban on my head, and held in
my hand, not in my, mouth, the stem of a long nargtteh.
With all this, my appearance was so imposing that my
brother, Judge Field, has been so naughty as to say that I
looked much better as a Turk than as a Christian ! From
Constantinople we crossed the Mediterranean to Egypt,
went up the NUe, and at last parted in Cairo, as we left to
pursue our journey round the world. It was one of those
delightful friendships sometimes formed in travel, which
add a new pleasure to the lands we visit. After our return
to America, this was kept up by constant correspondence ;
and when we went back again to Europe, it was our
delight to welcome Madame K  to Rome, where and
in Florence and Venice she spent several months- with my
family whUe I was absent on my way to Mount Sinai and
through the Holy Land. Her daughter had been married
several years before to the German Secretary of Legation
at Munich, Herr von Hirschfeld, a man of such admirable
accomplishments that he was soon after transferred to a
more important position at Constantinople, and, on Count
Hatzfeldt being recatted to Germany by Bismarck to be
Secretary of State, was made Charge' d' Affaires, and left in
charge of the Embassy, in which he remained for more
than a year ; so that when I returned to Constantinople,
I found the young lady who had first come here as a

84 AT THE GERMAN EMBASSY.
stranger, under my care, now in a very high position,
•which she fitted with a grace that not only deUghted her
own countrymen and countrywomen, but the whole foreign
community. A week or two before she had been joined
by her mother, who brought letters to me from my famUy.
Of course they were the first persons whom I went to see,
and the cordiaUty of their welcome made me feel as if I
were among mine own kindred.
AU the foreign embassies are in the part of Constanti
nople known as Pera, on the heights overlooking the Bos
phorus. Returning from that of Germany, I passed that
of England, and as I had a letter for Lord Dufferin, called
to leave it, though with no expectation of seeing him, as
he had saUed for Athens several days before to pay his
respects to the young EngUsh Princes. To my surprise,
he had just returned, and though very much occupied — it
was the moment of an Egyptian crisis — he came out imme
diately to see me, and gave me what I might almost con
sider — so long had he Uved on the other side of the ocean
— as an American welcome. " I am always so glad to see
one of your famUy," was his first greeting. "Are you
alone ? " " How long wiU you remain in Constantinople ? "
"Will you come and dine with me to-morrow?" Of
course I was happy to accept an invitation which gave me
an opportunity to see more of such a man, and of the dis
tinguished circle which he draws around him. But of
this I may speak again.
After returning to the hotel for an hour's rest, my
friends came for me in a carriage, with Herr von Hirschfeld
and a friend on horseback ; and all together we set out
for the bazaars, where, under one vast roof covering hun
dreds of acres, are gathered the riches of the East. It is
an endless amusement to wander through its labyrinth of
Uttle streets, to seek out nooks and corners, and chaffer

IN THE BAZAARS. 85
with the venders of rugs and old armor. The system of
bargaining in the East is a study. We in America are in
such haste to get through the world, that we go to a shop
and caU for what we want, and if satisfied with the price,
pay our money and depart. Not so the phlegmatic Orien
tal. Such haste seems almost rude and unfeeUng. Bar
gaining is to be done with certain forms of etiquette. The
Turk would have you take a seat upon his carpet, and let
the attendant bring you a cup of sherbet or offer you a
pipe ; and then, with your nerves soothed, and your mind
in a receptive mood, he is ready deUcately to approach the
subject. When you are thus prepared, your hospitable
entertainer will tell you the most extraordinary stories
about the value of his treasures. As he proceeds, it is a
study to watch his imperturbable face. Other people try
to deceive you, but the color in the cheek or a hesitation
in the voice wiU betray them. Not so with the son of the
Prophet. Whatever he tetts you is with an unruffled face.
His composure approaches the moral sublime. He really
has a solemn look, as if he were catting AUah to witness
that he was but asserting the eternal verities. Yet, of
course, everybody understands that his affirmations are to
be received with large abatements. Indeed if you were to
beUeve him, and pay what he asks, he would be very much
disappointed : for then he would say within bimseU that
he might have asked more! He does not expect you to
pay it, but to take it as a starting-point from which to
come down ; and he wUl come down a very long way. A
few days since a weU known American lady was here with
her son, who took a fancy to a suit of old armor, but was
a Uttle staggered at the price — thirteen hundred doUars !
Vet after an hour of persuasion, in which probably he went
off disgusted half a dozen times, and the setter as often
caUed him back, the latter "made the sacrifice," and though

86 AT THE BIBLE HOUSE.
he knew it would ruin him, took off a thousand dollars, and
sold it for three hundred !
From the bazaars to the Bible House is rather an
abrupt change ; but as both are in old Stamboul, it was
easy to pass from one to the other. Here I found the
BUss brothers, to one of whom this Bible House owes its
existence ; and Mr. Dwight, following in the footsteps of
his father, the pioneer of American missions in the East ;
and Mr. Greene, stitt editing three or four papers in differ
ent languages. When I left, Dr. Edwin BUss accompanied
me to the Bridge which crosses the Golden Horn, where
he took the boat for Scutari, whUe I continued my walk.
That Bridge, as I have written elsewhere, is one of the
most wonderful places on earth for the number and variety
of representatives of the human famUy that meet there —
Europeans, Asiatics, and Africans — in observing whom one
may find a theme for endless meditation. WhUe absorbed
in these reveries, I heard voices catting my name, and
there were my German friends riding home from the
bazaars, who picked me up and carried me back to the
hotel. Not even then would they let me go : I must come
and dine with them that evening, with nobody but our
selves, where we could talk without the restraint of the
presence of others. When I came down from my room,
the landlord said that he had not been able to get me a
carriage, but that he had a sedan-chair, which was at that
moment awaiting me. It was a huge affair, and with aU
the gold upon it, might have borne the Sultan himself.
As I took my seat in it, and two lusty Turks took me up
and began their march through the Grande Rue de Pera,
I felt as if I were riding in Pharaoh's chariot. To be sure,
a sedan-chair is not as comfortable as a carriage, but then
think of the glory of the thing ! Drawing the curtains
partly aside, I peeped out at the passers-by, who may have

VARIED EXPERIENCES OF A DAY. 87
thought that those curtains half hid the face of some noted
pasha — perhaps even of the Grand Vizier Inmself 1 There
is nothing Uke a Uttle concealment and obscurity to
magnify one's importance. Tramp, tramp, went the Turks
till they landed me safely at the door of the German Em
bassy, where, after our petit diner, and two or three hours
talk of the Winter in Italy and of my life on the desert, I
found again my faithful attendants seated on the grass
beside the door, and was carried home in the same mag
nificence. I came back to my hotel in a different mood
from that in which I had walked up the hUl of Pera that
morning, expecting to be taken to the office of the police !

CHAPTER VLL
CONSTANTINOPLE REVISITED.  IX
Although I was not a stranger in Constantinople, and
had not to see its sights for the first time, yet I should as
soon think of visiting Rome without going to St. Peter's as
of coming to Constantinople without a visit to St. Sophia.
In a Moslem city my steps turn to the mosque, as in a
Christian city they turn to the cathedral Each is a type
and emblem of a pecuUar faith and form of worship. The
tall minaret is to Islam what the cross on the spire of a
cathedral is to a city of Christendom. Thus the reUgious
complexion of a city is shown at a glance in its architec
ture. It appears also in what falls upon our ears from
those almost celestial altitudes. I have learned to distin
guish a city by its sounds or its sUences. In a Spanish city
the day is begun and ended with matin and vesper bells. In
Constantinople this feature is conspicuous by its absence.
In all this vast capital of the East, sti-etching over these
hills and along these shores, there is not a cathedral tower
nor even a church spfre, from which a silvery chime of
beUs makes music to the sea. But for aU this, it must not
be supposed that Constantinople is given up to a dead
funereal sUence. If I do not hear at evening the vesper

THE MUEZZIN CALLING TO PKAYER.

uccessors to Coupil & Co., Paris.

THE CALL TO PRAYER. 89
bell, I hear something which touches me even more. As I
stand at sunset on the Bridge over the Golden Horn, and
look up at the minaret of a great mosque which stands out
clear against the glowing sky, I see a dark, robed figure,
and hear a mournful, wailing voice. It is the caU to prayer.
The picture has been admirably reproduced in Gerome's
famous painting of The Muezzin, of which an impression
may be obtained from the print on the opposite page. The
form is erect, the face turned upward to heaven. But a
painting speaks only to the eye : it cannot speak to the
ear ; and no pencU can convey the effect of that melan
choly cry — a cry which has been repeated with every set
ting sun for more than four hundred years. With such a
sound in our ears at the close of day, we were in a mood
for a visit to the great mosque on the morrow, and accord
ingly it was the first place to which we turned in the morn
ing. St. Sophia is a thousand years older than St. Peter's at
Rome. Forty generations had worshipped here before
Michael Angelo reared his mighty dome under the ItaUan
sky ; yet time seems to have no power on its ancient walls.
TraveUers are apt to approach the great mosque of Con
stantinople with a feeUng of disappointment, for its maj
esty is not in its exterior. Though buUt for a cathedral,
it is not at aU Uke those of Europe. It has no cathedral
tower rising skyward, Uke the spires of Strasburg or Co
logne. To be sure there are the four minarets standing
apart, like huge sentinels, to guard the holy place ; but
these rather divide the attention from the central object.
Externally it has perhaps more of the general shape of
St. Mark's in Venice than of any other of the temples of
Christendom. Built in the form of a Greek cross, of
which the breadth is nearly equal to the length, it stands
four-square, with an appearance of massiveness rather than

90 INTERIOR OF ST. SOPHIA.
of stateliness or architectural grandeur. Its real majesty
opens on us only when we pass the gates and stand within.
We descend the outer steps, and putting off our shoes, sUp
our feet into sandals, and enter with footsteps so noiseless
that even on the hard pavement they do not disturb the
stillness of the place. Here we take our stand under the
centre of the dome, and look upward and around. The
first impression is more of space than of splendor. When
St. Sophia was buUt by Justinian, he lavished upon it the
utmost wealth of decoration, in gold and precious stones,
in columns of marble and granite and porphyry brought
from the Pagan temples, from Baalbec and from Egypt —
eight were from the Temple of Diana at Ephesus — to
decorate this temple of Christ, producing an effect so daz
zling that when it was opened on Christmas day in the
year 548, the Emperor was beside bimsett with joy, and
ran up the aisle exclaiming " Solomon, I have surpassed
thee ! " stretching out his arms to heaven and praising
God, " who had esteemed him worthy to complete such a
work." This magnificence is not apparent now : for the
Moslems have not only taken away every Christian symbol,
as the cross and the altar, but have removed every kind of
decoration and ornament ; they have stripped the temple,
covered the mosaics in the ceiling and dome, and half hid
den the great pillars which support the dome with huge
tablets bearing inscriptions in letters some of them ten
yards long ! Thus the interior has been reduced to the
utmost bareness and plainness. But one thing the spoilers
could not do : they could not diminish the majestic pro
portions of the place ; they could not contract the watts,
nor lessen the span of the dome ; so that here, as at St.
Peter's, the impression remains of immensity — of a vast
space watted and covered in from the sights and sounds
of the outer world, and consecrated to praise and prayer.

MOSLEM WORSHIP. 91
As there are no statues or paintings of saints and mar
tyrs, as in a Roman cathedral, so is there the same naked
ness and barrenness in the forms of worship. No priests
in gorgeous robes perform the service of the altar ; no
organ peals "Through fretted vault and long-drawn aisle " ;
no sound is heard but the voice of the ulema reading from
the Koran in a monotone so mournful that a company of
Moslem worshippers seem more Uke the Jews at the place
of wailing in Jerusalem, than as engaged in grateful and
joyful worship. But if the words spoken are meaningless
to us, we can at least understand the significance of the
common movement, as they form in line and turn towards
Mecca. And their lowly posture in prayer — how it speaks
to the eye ! Their very attitude is the more striking be
cause it is in such contrast to the majesty around : the col
umns rise so high, whUe the worshippers bend so low. It
seems as if they could not bend or bow low enough in
their humUiation before God. It is not enough to kneel
on the pavement, as devout CathoUcs kneel in cathedrals :
they prostrate themselves with their faces to the earth,
calling on the name of Him who is at once the Almighty,
the All-wise, and the All-merciful. This is the whole of
Moslem worship — an incessant calling upon God. Man is
brought directly into the presence of his Maker. When I
was in Jerusalem, at the gates of the Temple sat a negro
beggar, old and blind, from whose Ups escaped only one
word, "Allah," "Allah," "Allah," which he repeated without
ceasing. That was all his prayer. And yet that lonely cry
included the whole Moslem faith, which recognizes God,
and God alone, without intercessor, mediator, or redeemer.
Next to St. Sophia there is nothing in Constantinople
so interesting as the SeragUo, the residence of the Sultan
and of the masters of Byzantium for a thousand years

92 THE SERAGLIO.
before the Turk crossed the Bosphorus. The spot is one
of the most beautiful in the East — a point of land between
the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmora, rising by gentle
slopes from the water's edge, somewhat like the eastern
end of Staten Island, which looks out to the Atlantic. The
palace stood on the highest point, surrounded by the offices
and residences of those connected with the royal house
hold. Here in an enclosure nearly three miles in extent
were aU the departments of the government. The entrance
to the grounds was through a gate of such lofty propor
tions that it was called the Sublime Porte, and this in time
became a name for the government itseK As the SeragUo
was the seat of power, it was the centre of aU the intrigues
of which Turkish history is full — intrigues often originat
ing in the harem, whose splendid residence was among
the gardens which stretched down to the sea. Here many
an unfaithful, or even suspected, inmate, "was tied in a
sack with serpents and thrown into the Bosphorus. Nor
was such a tragical fate confined to fraU beauties or dis
obedient slaves. In one of the courts is pointed out a
fountain where pashas who were condemned to death had
their heads cut off. Here the Janissaries had sway for
hundreds of years, making and unmaking Sultans, as the
Pretorian Guard made Emperors. It would be a long
Ust, that of the Sultans who were assassinated here, whUe
their kindred were often exterminated in whole families.
In one of the courts of the SeragUo was a budding which,
from its high, barred windows, bore the name of The Cage.
It was really a place of imprisonment, in which the young
princes were confined, as the EngUsh princes were corn-
fined in the Tower. Many were secretly put to death :
for it became a sort of tradition that whoever succeeded to
the throne should make himseU secure by putting out of
the way every brother or nephew or cousin who might be

THE TREASURY AND THE ARMORY. 93
suspected of a secret ambition. Even babes were stran
gled in their cradles, because they had royal blood in their
veins, which might make them possible heirs to a throne.
The last of these tragedies was the assassination of the late
Sultan Abdul Aziz, who, when I was here before, was in
att his glory.
In 1863 the palace was partly destroyed by fire. Since
then the Sultans have ceased to make their residence at
Seraglio Point. They have built great palaces on the
other side of the Golden Horn, along the shore of the Bos
phorus. But much remains of greater interest than mere
palaces. American traveUers when they come to England,
•generally make their first visit to the Tower of London as
a spot associated with all the early periods of EngUsh
history. Those who take such interest in the Crown jewels
and old armor exhibited there, may find equal, or perhaps
greater, interest in a visit to the Treasury in Constantino
ple, where is one of the most bewttdering collections of
precious stones in the world ; and to the Armory, where
are suits of matt, and the swords of conquerors, and battle-
flags which were borne in great victories.
As we rode back from the SeragUo to our Hotel, we
stopped at the Ottoman Bank, where I must needs draw a
Uttle money (a very necessary thing for traveUers), and
where I had an experience which is hardly worth mention
ing except as it may be a caution to other "Innocents
Abroad." Everybody who has been in the East knows the
Ottoman Bank, the great financial institution of Constanti
nople, which is the agent of the Turkish Government for
paying its ambassadors at the different courts of Europe.
There is something grand in its very name of " Imperial,"
so that I Uttle thought it would be the place where I
should be the victim of a forgery. It seemed to me that
the clerk was somewhat slow in cashing my draft, as I had

94 A FORGERY AT THE OTTOMAN BANK.
friends in the carriage waiting at the door. However, in
a few minutes he gave me my fifty pounds, and we rode
away. I thought no more of it tUl, a month later, I was in
London, and went to my bankers to settle my account,
when I discovered that their record of moneys paid to me
did not agree with mine, and was told by the clerk that I
had drawn a hundred pounds in Constantinople in addi
tion to the fifty entered on my letter of credit. I was a
Uttle surprised, but as he showed me the draft with my
signature, I could not deny it, and took it for granted that
the charge was aU right. But as I left the banking-house,
I began to reason within myself how this thing could be.
I tried to remember how I had spent the time in Constan
tinople, and found that I . could recaU distinctly every
incident from the moment that I landed on the quay to
the moment that I left it again to take the steamer to
Varna. So the next morning, when I went to the bank
ers, I took the draft in my hand, and said " Mr.  ,
that is a forgery ! I never drew that hundred pounds ! "
He was very much surprised, and suggested going to the
agency of the Ottoman Bank in London to inquire abouf
it. I did so, and when I showed the manager the two
drafts — the one for fifty and the other for a hundred
pounds — he said at once that " the signature to the latter
was evidently a clumsy imitation of the former." The
matter became serious, not because of the amount of
money, but because if it was a forgery, the forgery must
have been committed by some one in the bank itseU, per
haps by the clerk who kept me waiting so long for my
money. For aU that they were very reluctant to admit
the possibUity of a mistake. It was not till after my
return to America that I received a letter from the New
York house connected with the London bankers, saying
that they had discovered that the charge of a hundred

EXCURSION TO THE PRINCES ISLANDS. 95
pounds in Constantinople was "incorrect" (a very mild
way of putting it), and begged to return me the money I
To add to the strangeness of the occurrence, my friend,
Rev. Mr. Lyman of Brooklyn, who was sitting in the car
riage whUe I was in the bank, had the same fraud attempt
ed upon him, and for the same amount! Only it was
more easy of detection, because -the forger had dated the
draft a day or two after he left the city. The London
banker had but to telegraph to Constantinople to find the
date that the steamer saUed, with my friend on board.
This evidence he at once recognized as positive, and said
" they had had such a case before," referring to mine. I
hope they have not had others since. It was a lesson to
the Ottoman Bank, which I hope discovered the author of
these forgeries ; and trust that hereafter it will be a Uttle
more watchful of its subordinates for the safety of traveUers.
But as this did not come out tiU weeks after I left Con
stantinople, I was in blissful ignorance of it, and had
nothing to mar the pleasure which my friends were con
stantly preparing for me. That afternoon they had planned
an excursion on the water. It is one of the pleasures, as
weU as conveniences, of an ambassador to have a steam
yacht. Joining M. de Hirschfeld at the German Embassy,
he led the way with the ladies down the steep hillside to
the water's edge, where it was waiting ; and as we stepped
on board, it shot away like a sea-gutt, or rather as if it
were one of the birds which the Turks caU "lost souls,"
that are ever on the wing up and down the Bosphorus.
Darting across the Golden Horn and round SeragUo Point,
we skirted the southern side of the city, the view of which
is very imposing, as the slopes are planted thick with
cypresses, whose dark fohage makes a background for the
mosques and minarets which rise out of them. Five mUes
back from the Point, begins the wall which crosses the

96 THE SEVEN TOWERS.
peninsula from the Sea of Marmora to the Golden Horn,
and which has defended the city in many a siege, though it
shows in its rents and breaches here and there the rough
traces of the catapult and the battering-ram. Not far beyond
this wall the Russian army was encamped in the late war.
As its position was pointed out, I asked "Why did it not
enter Constantinople ? " It was at the gates, and in a couple
of hours could have marched in and taken possession. The
answer was in one word : Englaito ! It was the EngUsh
fleet lying in fuU sight of the city, which alone stopped the
career of the great army flushed with victory. That was a
triumph hardly won : for it planted the seeds of bitterness
in Russian hearts that may yet spring up in a war, not
against Turkey, but against England herself. EngUsh
guns saved Constantinople then. WU1 they save it again
in the next conflict with Russia ? Or will the advance of
Russia into Central Asia so weaken the power of England
that to preserve India she wUl be willing to surrender
Constantinople ?
At the end of the old waU stand the famous Seven
Towers, picturesque objects for the pencU of the artist,
and here the Charge", who is fond of sketching, stepped
ashore to spend an hour or two, whUe we crossed over to
the Princes Islands, which Ue at the head of the Sea of
Marmora, where it begins to narrow to the strait of the
Bosphorus. The Ughthouse, at the foot of which we
landed, is the signal to incoming ships. The island does
not rise abruptly from the water's edge, Uke Ischia or
Capri in the Bay of Naples, but Ues at the level of the sea,
Uke the Lido at Venice. But no hillside could be more
attractive than the stretch of green sward on which some
noble old trees were casting their shadows. As we walked
slowly along, we seemed transported to the grounds of
some old convent or cloister, such was the quiet and still-

THE PRINCES ISLANDS. 97
ness of the place. Taking our seat in the shade to enjoy
the deUcious coolness and the perfect rest, we took in the
full beauty of the scene. Before us the sea lay motionless :
for the day was warm and still — there was not a cloud in
the sky. Near us were the sister islands which form the
group. Behind us an arm of the sea, indenting the Asian
coast, led away towards Broussa, the old capital before the
Turks took Constantinople ; whtte in the distance rose the
snowy head of Olympus. One sweep of the horizon takes
in all this land and sea and sky. In such a retreat from
the noise and bustle of the great city, we would have lin
gered for hours ; but the afternoon was wearing on, and
we had to take again to our boat and cross to the Seven
Towers for " our artist," with whom we returned to the
city, landing on the quay at Tophan6, where a carriage
was waiting to take us up the bill of Pera.
That evening I was to dine at the EngUsh Embassy,
and as I came through the gate I heard a voice behind me
calling, and turned thinking it was perhaps the guard giv
ing me some direction, when whom should I see but Lord
Dufferin running up the walk, Uke a school-boy, to over
take me. There is something very charming in this light-
hearted gayety of manner when it is connected with real
strength. It is said that when he first came to Constanti
nople, the Turks could not quite take the measure of him,
as he had not the grave and solemn air which sometimes
passes for wisdom. They could not understand how one
who was so fond of sports and aU manly exercises, could
be a great statesman. But they soon found that, when it
came to serious business, he was a match for them all
In all European capitals " the Embassy " is the social
centre for the people of the country it represents. The
EngUsh Embassy in Constantinople naturatty attracts
EngUshmen of note who are in the East. Although this

98 AT THE ENGLISH EMBASSY.
was not a grand State dinner, there were several present
whose names are weU known on the other side of the
Atlantic. American readers are familiar with the admira
ble work on Russia by Mr. Mackenzie Wallace, and it was
very pleasant to meet the author, and to learn from him
more about a country in which he has Uved and of which
he has written. He was now the correspondent of The
Times, and had very positive ideas of the way things were
going in Turkey, but which I leave him to express in his
own language. Here too were Mr. and Mrs. Laurence
OUphant, whom I had last met at a dinner at Mr. Bryant's
in New York. Mr. OUphant, though an Englishman, and
once a Member of Parliament, is a citizen of the world.
He has Uved in the Eastern and the Western Hemispheres
— in Asia and in America. He was with Lord Elgin in
China, and has written a book on Japan. Within the last
year he had been trying to establish a colony of Jews east
of the Jordan, but the Porte, which opposes everything,
would not grant a firman for it. Disgusted with this, and
stirred to indignation by the persecution of Jews in Russia,
he formed a plan for sending colonies of them to America.
He told me about the ferment among the Arabs near
Mecca — a movement Uttle known to the outside world, but
which has excited a great deal of alarm in the circle which
surrounds the Sultan. Since I returned to America, he
Tiasbeen living in Palestine — part of the time in Jerusalem,
where he was with Gordon shortly before the latter left for
the Soudan, and since at Haifa, at the foot of Mount Carmel
Wherever he is, he has always some scheme for benefiting
his fellow-creatures. He is an enthusiast for humanity —
an enthusiasm which is shared by his admirable wife. Of
course it was very grateful to me to hear att their kind
words about America, to which they still turn as the coun
try of the future. With such guests — though it was but a

LORD DUFFERIN. 99
small company, only nine sitting round the table (foUow-
ing the good rule for Uttle dinners—" not less than the
Graces, nor more than the Muses ")— there could be no
lack of animation, to which the hosts contributed their futt
share, Lady Dufferin being equally distinguished with her
husband for that exquisite grace of manner which has
charmed two continents.
It would be a great impropriety to repeat conversation
at a private table, but it will be pleasant to Americans to
hear how heartily Lord Dufferin responds to att the friend
ship and affection which he won for himself on this side of
the Atlantic. The years he spent in Canada were years of
great pleasure to him. The climate he prefers to that of
St. Petersburg, which is equally cold, and very damp from
the fogs and mists which come up from the Baltic ; whUe
in Canada the winter air, though sharp and keen, is dry
and bracing. He referred with great interest to a visit
which he had made to Puget Sound, and a saU of a thou
sand mUes up the western coast of America, the scenery of
which far surpassed that of the coast of Norway, and
indeed was the most stupendous which he had seen in any
part of the world. Thus he loves the land that he has left
behind him, and is loved in return. He has hosts of
admiring friends in the United States as weU as in the
Dominion, whose friendship will foUow him to any quarter
of the globe. I am glad to say that he spoke warmly of
the American missionaries in Turkey, to whom, he said,
the EngUsh Government had always given its support.
This is true, not only in Turkey, but everywhere. It is
the proud boast of England, and one greatly to her honor,
that she is the protector of Christian missions aU over the
world. When I took my leave, he accompanied me through the
hall of the Embassy, with many kind words, to which I

100 LORD DUFFERIN.
ventured to answer (only repeating what I had found to
be the general desire of EngUshmen wherever I had
been), that the next step in his career should be the Gov
ernor-Generalship of India. On some accounts it might
seem that he could be even more useful as Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland : for while most loyal to England, he loves his
native island. When it was desolated by the famine of
1847, though he was but a young man, he threw himself
with youthful ardor into the reUef of the starving popula
tion, for which his name is still blessed in the cabins of the
poor. That devotion to his country and his people he has
always retained. Neither the cold of Canada nor of Russia
has chilled his warm Irish heart ; and it does seem that, if
any man Uving could capture the hearts of his countrymen,
it would be this man, who has Irish blood in his veins.
But the same quaUties are not less useful in other spheres,
as they fit one to deal with aU sorts and conditions of men
Especially among Eastern races, tact and manner have
often more to do with success than great talents. These
are the quaUties for which Lord Dufferin is distinguished
above other men. Living in many lands and among many
peoples, he has caught a grace from them all Few possess
in such degree the art of courtesy — that art which, without
assumption, captivates and wins. Such quaUties fit him to
be an Eastern ruler. I had been in India, and knew to
whom the Anglo-Indians looked as the man to govern that
great Asiatic dependency. There he is now, adrninistering
the affairs of that Empire with consummate wisdom, and
at the same time with a tact in deaUng with strange races
which charms the Rajahs of India, as the same tact in
another sphere charmed the princes and diplomats of
Europe. I count it a pleasant incident of my visit to Con
stantinople to have had so near a view of such a man.

CHAPTER VHI.
AMERICANS IN CONSTANTINOPLE.
Many a time and oft, as I have wandered up and down
in the earth, there has come upon me a feeUng of indescrib
able loneliness. My heart sighs for home, for the dear
land that I love so weU, and for the faces and the voices
of kindred. But when I am in the forlornest mood there
is sure to turn up some countryman, whose kindly greeting
makes me feel that I am not quite alone. Constantinople
is a cosmopoUtan city, where strangers meet from aU parts
of the world, and one can hardly take a walk through the
Grande Rue de Pera without seeing some face that he has
seen in Broadway ; and in the mixed company at the
hotel, composed of many nations, there are sure to be
some from the other side of the Atlantic. Sitting at the
table to-day, I recognized a good honest American face,
and bowing to my unknown countryman, found that it
was none other than Mr. A. A. Vantine of New York, who
makes frequent visits to the East, and indeed goes every
where, up and down in the earth, if not, according to the
old line, " from China to Peru," yet Uterally from Egypt to
Japan. H he Ughts on Cairo, he goes in for " spotting the
Egyptians" — an operation which he repeats in the bazaars

102 GENERAL BERDAN.
of Damascus and Constantinople, out of which he gathers
abundant store of Turkish and Persian rugs and carpets ;
and the next season he turns his back on the Mediter
ranean, and crosses the Pacific to Japan, and comes home
laden with the bronze and bric-a-brac of ToMo and Kobe,
to supply the taste for luxury which has grown up in the
New World.
Att visitors to Constantinople know the Uttle railroad
on the side of the hill, which furnishes "rapid transit" to
and from Galata, the business centre of the city. The
hill Of Pera is a steep ascent, especially for the Turks, who
are apt to be "heavy weights" — large and round, and
often short of breath ; and who had rather sit all day
cross-legged, smoking a pipe, than use their legs for half
an hour in vigorous climbing. And even for Americans it
is not the most agreeable climb on a hot day. To make
things easy both for Turk and Christian, a French engineer
has devised a little tunnel, through which, as a chute, a
miniature train, worked by a stationary engine, is made to
glide up and down between Pera and the Golden Horn.
As I stepped this morning into one of its Uttle carriages, a
gentleman and lady entered whose faces were familiar.
One look was foUowed by an exclamation on both sides.
They were General and Mrs. Berdan of New York, who
have Uved abroad for some years, chiefly in St. Peters
burg. The General is known aU over Europe as an in
ventor of firearms, and his rifles are those now in use in
the Russian army. But with genuine RepubUcan impar-
tiaUty, he was as ready to supply the Turk as the Russian,
and had come to Constantinople to seU to the Sultan a
new invention, a torpedo of such wonderful power that it
would blow all the navies of the world "sky high." When
I shuddered a little at the prospect of such wide destruc
tion, he declared that " it was aU in the interest of peace " ;

THE GREATEST PEACEMAKER IN THE "WORLD. 103
that his torpedo "was the greatest peace-maker in the
world." He would make war so destructive that no nation
would dare to go to war, having a wholesome fear of finding
its floating armaments exploded into smithereens. That
is one way to look at it My friends remained in Constan
tinople a year or two after I left, and may be there stiU :
for it is only within a few months that I read in the papers
an account of the gathering of aU the high society of that
city at the marriage of their daughter to Mr. Crawford,
the author of " Dr. Isaacs " and other books, which have
gained a sudden and wide popularity. How far General
Berdan succeeded in converting the Sultan to his way of
enforcing peace, I am not informed. I have not heard
that there has been any diminution of the Turkish army
and navy in consequence. Indeed it is but recently that
a commission of officers was sitting to consider how the
DardaneUes could be fortified still more strongly, so as to
make them impassable by EngUsh ironclads — a step which
would be quite unnecessary if the Turkish Government
had an infaUible contrivance for blowing them aU out of
the water. From this fact, and " the late unpleasantness "
in the Soudan, and the apprehension of a great war
between England and Russia, I fear we have not yet come
to the reign of universal peace.
But America is represented in Constantinople not only
by passing travellers, but by permanent residents, of
whom the oldest in time and the most venerable in char
acter are the missionaries, some of whom there are (or were,
for there is now left only one " good gray head that all
men know '' — Dr. Riggs, the patriarch of the Mission) who
have been here so long that they may be reckoned among
the " oldest inhabitants." We arrived very opportunely to
see the missionary circle : for the month of May is the
time of the annual meeting of the Western Turkey Mission,

104 THE MISSIONARIES.
which includes all those connected with the American
Board in Constantinople and Asia Minor. Nearly one-half
are engaged in work in and around this city, the others
being distributed in such important centres as Broosa and
Smyrna ; Sivas and Marsovan and Csesarea ; and Trebizond
on the Black Sea. There were probably fifty or sixty
present. Added to these were some from other missions,
who were passing through Constantinople. A lady who
came with us from Smyrna, was from Teheran, the capital
of Persia. They met at the Bible House, in an upper
room, where, shut in from the noise of Stamboul, they
gave their reports of what they were doing in their several
spheres of labor, preaching and teaching, forming churches
and estabUshing schools. Of course they had met with
many obstacles from the opposition of the Armenians as
weU as the fanaticism of the Moslems, the latter sometimes
amounting to open persecution. But against this violence,
as well as against the dead mass of inertia, they made their
way. They did not speak of then- trials as though they
wished to represent themselves as martyrs, but with the
utmost modesty and simpUcity. It was good to look into
the faces of these brave men and women. Not a word of
" fanaticism " did I hear from beginning to end. They
were earnest in their work, yet not enthusiasts, but sober
in judgment and practical in aU they undertook. Zeal was
balanced with discretion, so that their desire to do good
did not run away with their judgment. This union of
devotion with strong common-sense, has made American
missions so successful in att parts of the globe. Those
who affect contempt for missionaries and their work, would
have learned moderation in then- judgment, and respect
for those whom they affect to despise, could they have been
present those two days in that upper room.
To these impressions of my own, I add those of a

THE MISSIONS IN ASIATIC TURKEY. 105
friend, Rev. Wittiam Hayes Ward, D.D, who has made a
recent visit to the interior of Turkey in Asia, and after
crossing the country to the Tigris, writes :
I expected to see a great missionary work, and I have found
all that I expected in converts, churches, and schools. But I
have seen what I was not prepared for, outside of converts,
churches, and schools. I have found that it is not their converts
only whom the American missionaries are converting, but the
whole community about them ; that they are the great, and I may
say the only, power at work to civilize the land. One of our
party, who had seen in Greece the differences and quarrels of mis
sionaries, and their failure to accomplish anything of value, and
who had come to imagine that missions must be a failure every
where, has told me how "astounded" he was when, in a trip of
exploration in Central Asia Minor last year, he would find in
village after village, and town after town, the work of American
missions meeting him as he was searching for Greek inscriptions.
The American who loves his God and his native land, will be
moved almost to tears of joy as he sees what America is to this
land. . . .
In Constantinople the cultivated Turks all affect French ways
and talk the language. I expected to find it so in the interior,
but found that as I left the seacoast, I left French behind. Along
the track I have followed, English is much more spoken than
French, and that wholly through American, and not English,
influence. In Marash and Aintab, towns of thirty or forty thou
sand people each, and some fifty miles from each other, the Amer
ican Mission is the most promising influence, and its buildings
the most noticeable, and the models which native architects fol
low. Ten can speak English where one can speak French. All
the scholars in the higher Protestant schools insist on being taught
English, and these schools are crowded with Armenian as well as
Protestant scholars, and the graduates of Aintab College are in
hot demand for Armenian as well as Protestant schools. . . .
All this English comes from American teaching. The people
know much more of America than of England. A foreigner wear
ing a hat or white helmet is taken for a missionary, and is ad
dressed as Hoja (Teacher) or Bodwilly (Preacher). Even a mili
tary man or a consul is often taken to be a missionary. America

106 THE MISSIONS IN ASIATIC TURKEY.
is the land of all good things to this people. My associates found
last Summer, not very far from CcBsarea in Cappadocia, a village
of Circassians who were anxiously trying to manage to emigrate
to America. There are thirty young men from Diarbekir now in
America, and probably scarce one or two in England or on the
Continent of Europe. This is all through missionary influence.
Every ambitious young man among the Christians is anxious to
go to America, and if possible remain there, and engage in busi
ness or practice medicine.
In these large interior cities the American missionaries may
be said to set the fashions in almost everything. They are the
first to introduce "Frank" dress, tomatoes (called "red egg
plant"), potatoes, window-glass, chairs, tables, bureaus, and es
pecially roomy houses outside the city limits. Of more impor
tance, of course, is their influence as affording models of teach
ing and preaching to the Armenian and other old Churches. The
great stirring in these Churches, their new schools, their Young
Men's Associations, and the preaching of their priests, all come
by imitation of the American example. Everywhere it is the
Protestant community and its teachers that lead in every good
thing. Even the Moslem Turks recognize the superiority of the
Protestant element. The governors of cities are on the best of
terms with the missionaries, exchange visits with them, and in
spect and approve their schools.
This is a noble testimony to what our countrymen have
done for that distant land and race. America is far away
from the East, separated by the whole length of the Medi
terranean and the whole breadth of the Atlantic. "As far
as the East is from the West," so far is the land of the set
ting from that of the rising sun ; and stiU more wide is
the separation in race, in language, in customs, between
the Orient and the Occident. Yet across these vast spaces
has reached a love which embraces aU mankind.
After a day of such interest, I returned to my German
friends for the dinner — more formal than that we had
before — which is given at the Embassy once a week, as an
official courtesy to the large circle of which it is the centre.

AT THE GERMAN EMBASSY. 107
It brought together a number of diplomats from then-
respective legations, representatives of different countries.
I confess I felt a pride at seeing the youthful hostess,
whom I had first introduced to Constantinople, conversing
with them aU in their several languages — in EngUsh and
French and Italian, as freely as in her native German.
Among the guests was the Papal Nuncio! TiU this
moment I did not know that there was such an official
here. It was strange indeed to see a representative of the
Pope at the Court of the Grand Turk. But here he was,
and a most courtly representative — tall and commanding
in person, with the address of a thorough man of the
world. I suppose it was as a courtesy to us both (as we
were the only "lords spiritual" present) that we were
seated by each other, and seldom have I met a more
accomplished gentleman ; and I can assure my readers
that the ItaUan and the American, the CathoUc and the
Protestant, got along very weU together in the capital of
the CaUph of att the Mussulmans.
WhUe we were thus engaged in conversation, our atten
tion was now and then diverted by vivid flashes of Ught-
ning. The day had been warm, and at its close the clouds
gathered, and we had a fierce thunder-storm. As we
rose from the table, we turned to see the war of elements
without. The windows of the Embassy are very large,
and as they face the Bosphorus, we could look down
directly into it. AU was buried in darkness except when
a flash of Ughtning uncovered the scene. Below us lay the
mighty ships of war, the tall masts lifted in air, with the
flags drooping beside them ; whole beneath, the black
waters lay shrinking and still between the shores of
Europe and Asia.
As I have spoken so much of the charming occupants
of the German Embassy, I owe it to him who during that

108 HERR VON HIRSCHFELD.
year represented his country, to say a word of him in that
capacity. Herr von Hirschf eld had served in the German
army, and had the qualities of his profession, which I rec
ognized at once, not only in his mUitary bearing, but in an
openness, frankness, and manliness which are character
istic of the soldier. In the intimacy of his home circle,
he spoke without reserve. I did not receive any " confi
dences " (I should not repeat them if I had) ; but from
the general tone of the conversation, one could but receive
an impression of the spirit of the man, and also of the
great government whose poUcy he must be supposed to
reflect. It was a very critical time in Constantinople.
Arabi Pacha had risen to be master of Egypt, heading a
movement which might end in a peaceful revolution, or
lead to anarchy or war. It was now past the middle of
May, and on the 11th of June occurred the massacre at
Alexandria, and one month later the bombardment. The
Porte was very much dissatisfied with the course of both
Francfe and England, and naturaUy leaned for support on
Germany. The private secretary of the Sultan was almost
daUy, and sometimes two or three times a day, at the Ger
man Embassy. Of course there were not wanting those
who said that Bismarck would be only too glad to see
France and England involved in a war in Egypt, that he
might turn the opportunity to the advantage of Germany.
I know not what MachiaveUan schemes may have been
locked up in his iron breast ; but so far as I could judge
from the whole tone of conversation at the Embassy, there
was not the sUghtest wish to profit by this unhappy
trouble in the East, but a sincere and loyal desire to act
for the peace of Europe.
At the Bible House the missionaries had spoken to me
rather anxiously about the attitude of the German Embassy
towards the American missionaries in Turkey. I beUeve

FRIENDLY POLICY OF GERMANY. 109
at some place in the interior the Turkish Government had
acted oppressively towards the missionaries, or perhaps it
was towards the native converts, and was thought to have
been approved in its poUcy by the German Consul, or
whoever was the local German representative. I caUed
the attention of M. de Hirschfeld to it. He answered very
modestly that it would hardly be proper for him to take the
lead in official action which should be with the approval
of aU the Protestant powers, but that "whatever Lord
Dufferin should do, he would support." He said that he
should be very happy to receive a visit from the American
missionaries, and that whatever could be done with pro
priety, or without an appearance of assumption or intrusion
into matters which the Turkish Government might claim
to belong to itself alone, he would gladly do for their pro
tection in their exceUent work. What became of the mat
ter, or whether this word of mine did any good, I never
knew. Possibly the persecution ceased without any formal
protest, simply on a hint from the right quarter. My
friend had plenty of opportunities of intimating to those
very near the Sultan that harshness towards Protestant
missionaries was not fitted to concttiatethe great Protestant
power on which he leaned. At any rate, it was pleasant to
think that the representatives of England and Germany
would stand side by side in supporting the men who were
establishing schools and coUeges, as weU as churches, in
the Turkish Empire, and who were thus the most effective
promoters of Christian civUization in the East.

CHAPTER IX.
AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS— THE CHURCH, THE SCHOOL,
AND THE COLLEGE.
My time in Constantinople was growing short, and still I
had not seen aU that I wished of the missionaries. There
was "The Home" at Scutari and Robert CoUege at RoumeU
Hissar, and how to include them both in one day was the
problem. But att things are possible to one who gets up
early. I rose betimes, and came down to the Bridge over
the Golden Horn, and took the first boat to Scutari. The
freshness of the morning lay upon the waters as we crossed
to the Asiatic shore. Scutari is at such a convenient
distance from the city, to which it is about as near as
Staten Island is to New York, that it is the favorite retreat
of a large circle of missionaries, whose duties call them
every day to the Bible House.
My old friend, Rev. Dr. Wood, who had welcomed us
here six years before, met me at the landing and took me
to his hospitable home. After breakfast, we called to pay
our respects to the venerable Dr. Riggs, the last survivor
of the four who first planted the American mission in Con
stantinople. His associates — Drs. Dwight, GoodeU, and
Schauffler — are gone : he alone remains. Here he has
wrought for more than half a century with the dUigence of

THE PATRIARCH OF THE MISSION. Ill
the Christian scholar in his Uf e-work — that of translating
the Holy Scriptures into two of the languages of the East,
Turkish and Bulgarian. At the same time he has com
mended his reUgion to the Moslems among whom he has
Uved, not more by his learning than by his life, for " he is
an IsraeUte indeed in whom there is no guUe " ; and the
Orientals, who see many indifferent specimens of Chris
tianity, appreciate the simple beauty of such a life. I am
told that even his Turkish neighbors hold him in reverence,
as they would some aged and long-bearded moUah, regard
ing him as truly a man of God. In att the years that he
has Uved among them, he has done them no wrong, but
good, and only good, showing himself a real friend and
benefactor. Among the foreign residents of Constantinople
he is held in universal respect, whUe the younger mission
aries look up to bi-m as a father. Indeed he is a father to
some of them, having, Uke the Scudders and the Newtons
of India, sons who have foUowed in his steps. A few
months after I left Constantinople, he and his wife cele
brated their Golden Wedding, when not only their own
children, but the whole missionary community gathered
round them with tender and affectionate veneration.
Our next visit was to the Female Seminary, known as
" The Home," in which I felt the more interest as I had
seen it in its cradle. When I was here in November, 1875,
its new habitation had just been completed (although the
institution had been begun several years before), and was
dedicated on Thanksgiving Day. It is a noble monument
of American generosity, with its large, well-kept grounds,
and its central bunding, which in its stately proportions is
Uke one of our Cottege Halls ; and when to this is added
the orderly arrangement within — the spacious corridors
and dormitories, and the recitation-rooms, provided with
blackboards and maps and globes, and all the facilities of

112 THE SISTERHOOD OF WOMAN.
education — the whole looks Uke a bit of New England — a
section of WeUesley or South Hadley — transplanted to the
shores of the Bosphorus. To the main edifice another has
since been added by Mr. Wittiam C. Chapin of Providence,
whom I met in Palestine (at Jerusalem and at Nazareth),
and who, coming to Constantinople a few days before me,
had been so interested in the work of the Home that he
signified at once his desire to give $20,000 for the erection
of a new building as a memorial of his wife. What a beau
tiful consecration of a great sorrow to make it the occasion
of beneficence to those whose Uves have not much to
brighten them ! Though the gift of the Uving, it was to
bear the name of the beloved dead, and might be consid
ered in one sense as her gift, since it was by the inspira
tion of hermemory. And so it was in harmony with the
other gifts to this Home, which have been chiefly, if not
whoUy, from American women. Herein is the unique and
special beauty of this institution — that it is an offering
from the women of one hemisphere to those of another — a
recognition of that invisible tie which binds together, not
only aU who are the heirs of a common humanity, but still
more closely those who partake of a common womanhood.
In these days, when theories of SociaUsm and Communism
agitate the poUtical world, no phrase is more often heard
than that of the universal Brotherhood of Man ; but here
is an illustration of the universal Sisterhood of Woman.
" No matter where " [is the language of the true-hearted
Christian woman] " woman may be, whether on the shores
of the Bosphorus or under the palms of India, she is my
sister. I cannot see her, but I know something of her
sorrow : how she is made to toil, to suffer, and to weep ;
how she passes her days in darkness, and dies without
hope : and I cannot sit at ease in my happy American
home, and think of my sisters in other parts of the world,

THE HOME AT SCUTARI. 113
whose Uves are so desolate and dreary, so empty of aU
that makes life worth Uving, without doing something for
their elevation and happiness." There is no one fact
which gives me more hope of the final redemption of the
race, than the appearance of woman as one of the moral
forces that are to work out the great problem. This
quickening of womanly sympathy in all Christian lands —
the quivering of the electric chord which binds one coun
try to another with a new current, subtle and swift, which
flashes from the great heart of woman — is certainly one of
the elements which are to give new life to the world.
After we had visited the Chapel and Ustened to some
music, and passed through the rooms, and looked on the
faces of those who were receiving instruction — faces that
were as modest as would be those of pupils in any simUar
institution in America, and in which the dark eyes of the
daughters of the East were brightening with new intelli
gence — we went up on the roof, the view from which takes
in the whole of Constantinople : Stamboul and Pera divided
by the Golden Horn ; SeragUo Point projecting in front
of Stamboul, with mosques and minarets rising behind ;
and on the Pera side a succession of palaces along the
Bosphorus. Scutari itself has no architectural pretensions.
Its flat-roofed houses present only a monotonous surface,
the dull effect of which is rendered still more gloomy by
the cypress groves. Out of this sombre landscape the
Home rises as the one spot of brightness on the dark
Asiatic shore.
From the Home at Scutari to Robert CoUege is a
distance of seven mUes, to make which one must cross
to the Golden Horn, and take one of the steamers that
leave hourly to go up the Bosphorus, unless he is wUUng
to trust himseU to a rowboat. As we came down to the
water, a number of boats were lying at the quay, and Dr.

114 THE ROUND TOWERS OF ROUMELI HISSAR.
Wood struck a bargain with a boatman to take us across.
The Turkish caique is a Ught affair. As it has no other
battast than the weight of the occupants, one needs to step
into it as carefully as into an Indian birch-bark canoe, lest
he should upset it. But once seated, and the boat care
fully balanced, it yields eastty to the sweep of the oar, and
gUdes over the water as softly as a Venetian gondola.
Thus cradled on the Bosphorus, we float slowly upward
(for the current is setting in from the Black Sea), tiU an
hour brings us to the foot of the round towers of RoumeU
Hissar. These round towers have a history. They were buUt by
Mohammed IL at this point as the narrowest in the Bos
phorus, to give him command of the strait ; and mounted
with guns of whose enormous caUbre we may form an
opinion from the baUs of granite, six hundred pounds in
weight, which Ue here and there at the foot of the walls.
This position thus strongly fortified was designed to furnish
a base from which to advance to the siege of Constantino
ple. In the water-front is a grim old arch which is asso
ciated with horrible memories, as it served the purpose of
the Traitor's Gate in the Tower of London Under this
arch many a state prisoner — convicted or only accused : a
victim, it might be, of some intrigue in the court or the
harem — had been dragged to his death. But the donjon-
keep has no prisoners now, and the old towers are only a
feature in the landscape, making this the most picturesque
point on the Bosphorus.
It is a strange mingUng of the old and new that near
by these ancient castle waUs are stretched the telegraph
Unes — the termini of those entering here from different
parts of Europe, which go straggUng down the hitt to
plunge into the Bosphorus, and rise up on the shores of
Asia, from which they go flying away over river and moun-

A NEW ENGLAND MANSE. 115
tain and plain to Damascus and Bagdad, to Persia and
India. But leaving new and old — telegraph and tower —
we climb the path which leads up the hill, on the top of
which stands an American College.
In revisiting Robert College, I had an especial attraction.
When we were here in 1875, we spent a beautiful Autumn
day in going up the Bosphorus to its entrance to the Black
Sea, — an excursion which was made full of interest by the
company of the Rev. A. V. Millingen, then of the Union
Church in Constantinople. He had since been in America,
where he spent two or three years, from which he returned
to accept a professorship in Robert College. But he did
not come alone. He brought with him a New Haven lady,
who had been in the East as a missionary, and they had
built a cottage on the brow of the HU, which, with its
flowers and its vines, reminded me of a lovely manse in
Old England or New England. Here I was welcomed as
an old friend. They would have me stay with them for
days or weeks — "the longer the better." Could I have
lingered on my return to Europe, I know not where I
could have found a more deUghtful place of rest than in a
spot which combined so much natural beauty with the
grand historical associations connected with these ancient
shores. Crossing the grounds to the Cottege, I found another
group in which I was at home. Dr. Washburn, the Presi
dent, had not yet returned from America, where he suc
ceeded in raising an endowment for the institution. But
the rest of the Faculty were here — professors and teachers
— some of them with their wives. It was pleasant to hear
the voices of countrywomen as well as countrymen ; and as
we were all engaged in animated conversation, with the
stimulus of a cup of tea, which gives a social and almost a
domestic character to these informal meetings, I could

116 ROBERT COLLEGE.
hardly realize that I was not on the other side of the
Atlantic. But the great thing to observe here is the CoUege itsett,
and the work it is doing. Since I was here before, it had
kept steadUy on its way, even in the midst of att the excite
ment of the Russian war. Sometimes that came unpleas
antly near. Now and then an officer would ride into the
Cottege grounds, looking round to see where guns could
be planted in case Russian war-ships from the Black Sea
should endeavor to force a passage to Constantinople.
Again the Russian army was close without the watts, and
might at any hour occupy the heights round the city, from
which their camp-fires might be seen over the waters and
the hills. Yet amid aU these alarms, the business of the
College went on without interruption. And when the war
was over, and Bulgaria was free, Robert College furnished
almost the only educated men of that country who were
competent to conduct its pubUc affairs. In his recent
journey to the East, Dr. Ward gives this as his own per
sonal observation :
Passing along in hired wagons through Bulgaria and Eastern
Roumelia (so as to avoid long quarantine), on my way to Con
stantinople, among people whose languages were unknown to me,
it was a great pleasure to find everywhere I went the graduates
of our American Robert College, all imbued with American ideas,
and masters of the English language. I called on numbers of
them, men occupying the very highest positions in the govern
ment, and it was a pleasure not to be described to hear them give
their tribute to American influence, and say that but for Robert
College there would not have been found, when the Turkish sov
ereignty was removed, natives competent to fill the offices of
State, and it would have been necessary to call in Russians.
With an American CoUege at Constantinople doing such
a work ; and another of equal rank and usefulness at
Beirut ; and others stUl in the interior of Asiatic Turkey

THE ENGLISH CEMETERY AT SCUTARI. 117
— at Aintab and Harput ; and missionaries scattered
throughout the Empire — our country has rendered a ser
vice of which she has no reason to be ashamed. America
has never fought for Turkey as England Eas. But she has
rendered services of another kind, by which the footsteps
of her sons may be traced all over European and Asiatic
Turkey. Besides the churches she has planted, two other
American institutions — the school and the college — are the
signs of her presence and her power. These are the vic
tories of peace — " no less renowned than those of war " —
whose fruits often remain long after those of war have
passed away.
I have spoken of the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus
below Scutari as darkened by groves of cypress trees
which give it the sombre and funereal aspect of a city of
the dead. There stands the Hospital in which Florence
Nightingale attended the EngUsh soldiers of the Crimea,
wounded and pale and dying, who fottowed her with their
sunken but eager eyes, and breathed a Uttle more freely,
with some dim sense of restfulness and peace, if but her
shadow feU on them as she passed. There many of those
brave men breathed their last, and in the English cemetery
near by they " sleep the sleep that knows no waking."
"After life's fitful fever, they sleep weU." "No war nor
battle's sound" disturbs them now. The taU cypresses
stand Uke sentinels above their graves, as if keeping watch
over this " bivouac of the dead."
No one can visit that spot without deep emotion, as he
reads on the monuments how this officer feU at Alma, and
that at Inkerman ; and as he walks through long rows of
graves of the soldiers who fell in whole battalions in the
terrible siege of Sebastopol. Americans, who honor cour
age wherever shown, here pay their sttent but hearty trib
ute to England's dead, -who feU far from their native land.

118 AMERICAN CEMETERIES.
But with aU our admiration there sometimes comes a
misgiving as if it were wasted valor ; and we cannot help
asking, What was gained by aU this sacrifice of human Ufe?
To what end were these battles and sieges but to show the
splendid courage of those who thus fought and fell and to
furnish a long roU of heroes " dead upon the field of
honor"? Did the wUd charge of Balaklava have any
result but to furnish a tableau for the Unes of Tennyson,
which teU how
" Into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell,
Rode the Six Hundred " ?
Indeed, does aught remain of the Crimean War but the
heroic yet melancholy story ?
America too has left her dead to moulder in the soil of
Asia ; but not on the field of battle. In the interior of
Asia Minor — on the slopes of Taurus as we have seen them
on the slopes of Lebanon ; or, in another direction, on the
highlands of Armenia ; or yet farther away, in the valleys
of the Tigris and the Euphrates, are Uttle missionary cem
eteries, clusters of graves, where sleep the beloved and the
sainted dead. What have they done that history should
preserve their names ? AU unnoticed by the great world,
they Uved and died. But the fruit of what they did does
not die. Through many years of patience in weU-doing,
they wrought for the good of their feUow-beings, facing
any exposure and any danger. In time of sorest need
they were the friends of the poor. The brave missionary
of Smyrna who did not fear to face the horrors of the
plague ; and who, when the city was swept by cholera,
went from door to door prescribing for those who were
stricken down, from whom even their own kindred fled ;
does not stand alone. Everywhere our missionaries in the
East have shown this courage in pestUence, watching by
the bedside of the sick and the dying, as weU as minister-

THE MISSIONARY'S GRAVE. 119
ing to the poor in times of destitution and famine. They
opened schools in the midst of ignorance and darkness, to
give instruction to the sons and daughters of the East ;
they formed Uttle churches, into which they gathered the
poor and the humble, who never knew before the sweet
ness of a pure faith and an immortal hope. Thus they
united in their instruction " the benefits of knowledge and
the blessings of reUgion." Wherever they came, the grass
grew green beneath their feet ; there was a new order —
the germ of a new civUization. And when they had thus
worn out their Uves, they fett on sleep ; and as the poor
people gathered round their biers, the tears fell Uke rain.
Such Uves are not written in books : such names are not
carved on the marble columns that bear the names of
heroes. It may be only a low headstone that marks the
stranger's grave. But perhaps when years have passed,
and the fruit of the seed scattered by his hands shall
spring up, and bear fruit an hundred-fold, another genera
tion will gather round the humble resting-place of the
American missionary, and pay a tribute to his memory as
sincere as ever was paid to any English hero that sleeps in
the shadow of the cypress groves on "the dark Asiatic
shore."

CHAPTER X.
THE UNSPEAKABLE TURK.
This is Carlyle's stamp, or "brand," on the Ottoman
Turk. It is a keen, epigrammatic expression, which is
easily quoted, and so passes from hand to hand, or rather
from mouth to mouth, and obtains the kind of authority
which is supposed to Ue in what is accepted as an axiom of
popular wisdom. But a witty saying may have a fault of
exaggeration, which makes it as unjust as it is witty, and
its wit ought not to bUnd us to its injustice. When wit
attempts a portrait, it is apt to make a caricature, and to
this sort of misrepresentation there is no reply. It is this
which makes an epithet so effective — that the man to whom
it is appUed can make no answer. It is a shot in ambush
which he cannot stop any more than he can stop a minie-
baU, and so it often penetrates and tears the flesh without
the possibility of resistance.
So much I say at the outset by way of caution, while
at the same time I must confess that the expression of
Carlyle is partly true, and forcible because it is true. Its
feUcity consists in the absence of precise definition. It
does not define, but it suggests what is very difficidt of
definition. "The unspeakable Turk" is "unspeakable"

NOT IN HIMSELF A BAD FELLOW. 121
partly in the sense of being incomprehensible. His ways
are so unlike our ways, and his thoughts so unlike our
thoughts, that we cannot comprehend him. We can take
a look at bim ; no figure is more familiar, as he is carica
tured in the illustrated papers of Europe. But his inte
rior composition escapes us ; the motives that govern him
are so different from those that govern us, that we cannot
enter into them. He is a being of another race, as truly
as the palm-tree is the product of another clime, than ours.
But strange as the Turk is, and unlike as he is to an
EngUshman or a Frenchman, yet he is an inhabitant of
the same planet, with whom other peoples have to come
in contact ; and it is important that they should get some
approximate idea of what sort of a creature he is, even if
it were only to show how he differs from civilized man,
and how impossible it is to live at peace with him.
But we do not mean to think Ul of the Turk, if we can
help it ; nor do we mean to take our opinion from Euro
peans who have had frequent wars with him, and therefore
hate him, and are hated in return. As Americans have
done him no wrong, perhaps he may open to us the more
kindly side of his nature. At any rate, we shaU try to
judge him fairly and justly.
Now the Turk, much as he is hated and cursed, is not
in himself a bad fellow. He is not worse than other men
so long as he is kept at peaceful industry, and is not mad
dened, and almost demonized, by the excitement of war,
or by a frenzy of religious fanaticism. There are some
things about him which move my admiration. First of
aU is his splendid physique. I admire his physical pro
portions — his huge chest and brawny limbs. Comparing
him with some European races, of which I see representa
tives here in Constantinople, they are but as grasshoppers
in his sight. His strength and endurance make him a

122 HIS SENSE OF HUMOR.
good soldier and a good worker and servant anywhere.
As to honesty, it is a common saying in the East that a
Turk is better than a Christian ; though, to judge from
those among whom I have fatten in the bazaars of Con
stantinople, I think they understand the
" Ways that are dark and tricks that are vain "
as much as the Heathen Chinee. StiU some would say
" That comes from having so much to do with foreigners " 1
But the integrity cannot be without reproach which yields
so readily to evtt example.
Another trait, which strangers seldom recognize, is a
sense of humor. The proverbial necessity of performing
a surgical operation on the head of a Scotchman to enable
him to understand a joke, I supposed to be doubled in the
case of the Turk, who always looks as solemn as an owl
Ii he had any humor at att, it must be of the grim and
elephantine sort. Yet to my amazement, one who knows
them well tells me that no one sees the point of a joke
quicker than a Turk, or enjoys it more ; that he has a sly
sense of humor, which is often exercised at the expense of
foreigners. When some ambassador thinks he is perform
ing a great feat of diplomacy, the Turk, who keeps an un
moved face, sees through it all ; and as soon as he is by
himseU, or with his friends, has a burst of laughter over it.
These traits of our common humanity show that " the un
speakable Turk " is, after all, not unlike ourselves.
Because of the position of woman in Turkey, as in all
Moslem countries, it is a common impression that there is
no domestic Ufe among the Turks. How can a man who
has more than one wife love very much either wUe or chil
dren ? Of course as then- interiors are carefutty screened
from observation, we cannot see whether there is love or
hatred within. But those who have lived among the Turks
say that no people are more fond of their chttdren.

TREATMENT OF WOMAN. 123
Yet as to courtesy toward the other sex, the Turk must
be wholly wanting. So we are apt to think. But perhaps
we are too hasty in judgment. How he treats his wife, or
wives, we do not know : for we cannot look behind the
screened window of the harem. But outside of his own
zenana, the educated Turk is not wanting in proper re
spect to woman. Mr. George P. Marsh once told me that
the most accomplished gentleman he had ever met — the
one who showed most chivalrous and knightly courtesy to
woman — was a Turk !
This favorable judgment I have sometimes quoted to
those who have Uved among the Turks, hoping to have it
confirmed, but have been assured that such cases are ex
ceptions ; that the Turkish nature is essentially coarse and
unrefined; that from the character of his domestic rela
tions, a Turk cannot have a proper respect for woman, nor
a deUcacy of feeUng towards her ; that aU his ideas of the
relations of the sexes are low and sensual, by which his
imagination is so poUuted that " even his mind and con
science are defiled " ; and that his attempts at wit and
humor are almost always tinged with coarseness and vul
garity. Of course I cannot answer to those whose observation
is a thousand times greater than mine. But perhaps the
two opinions may be reconcUed, or at least be made to
appear less contradictory, by saying that there are Turks
and Turks, and that while a few may be truly deUcate and
refined in thought and manner (the late Grand Vizier, Said
Pasha, for example, is said to be a model in his domestic
relations, and to have mourned for his wife with the deep
est sorrow), the mass cannot rise above the low standard
prescribed even by their reUgion.
That Turks are not wanting in kindly dispositions, is
evident from the testimony of our missionaries, who find

124 THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TURK.
many of them to be good neighbors, both honest and kind.
The grace of hospitality need not be dwelt upon, because
it is not pecuUar to them : it is an Oriental virtue, but one
in which they are not deficient. If we would take the best
specimens of the native character, we must not look for
them in the bazaars of Constantinople, but in those por
tions of the Empire where they .have least to do with
foreigners, and are not " spoiled by coming in contact with
Christians." Here once in awhile we may come upon a
Turk who is quite patriarchal in appearance and in char
acter, and who, as he sits with his legs crossed, with his
large white turban and flowing robe, with his long beard
and long pipe, looks somewhat as I imagine that Abraham
looked (in aU save the pipe) as he sat before his tent door
in the cool of the day to receive the visit of the angels.
These are good quaUties — honesty and industry, cour
tesy and hospitaUty, domestic affection and manly courage.
Here is stuff out of which to make not only a man, but a
nation. Having looked at this side of the Turk, we must look
at another : for it is in a very different fashion that he has
shown himseU in history. Here again we are embarrassed
by the attempt to judge of a people as a whole — especially
of a people in whom many elements are combined. Ordi
narily the first clue to character is race. The Frenchman
is not only the descendant, but the lineal representative,
of the ancient Gaul. However poUshed in manners by the
refinements of centuries, he is essentiaUy the same as his
ancestor described by Caesar. But the Turks, strictly
speaking, are not a race so much as a caste, Uke the
Brahmins of India, differing from others chiefly by their
reUgion and their civil privileges. The old invaders and
conquerors absorbed into their ranks large elements from
the peoples they subdued (the Janizaries were recruited

A WARRIOR BUT NOT A CIVILIZER. 125
wholly from the Christians) ; so that the Turks of the pres
ent day are made up of a dozen different races. Indeed
they are constantly absorbing new elements from their
subject populations. Conversions to Islam, such as they
are, are constantly taking place ; and one who has lived
long in Turkey quickly discerns the nationaUty to which
every Turk reatty belongs. Admitting all this, yet here,
as in all fusions of nations, the combined product takes its
character chiefly from the conquering power. The ele
ment of race, on the whole, is the most powerful in history.
Among some peoples it has lasted for three thousand years.
The fiery blood of Ishmael burns in the last descendant of
his race. And so here, however many races mingle, still
the dominant blood is Turkish blood, which is Tartar
blood. The Turk came from Central Asia, and is the
descendant of the men who ravaged the earth under
Genghis Khan and Tamerlane — a race that, having swept
over Asia, at last invaded Europe. They came as warriors
and conquerors, not as peaceable colonists, as cultivators of
the soil and civiUzers of the earth. Their deUght was to
make war — to conquer, to subdue, and to trample under
foot. AU the genius the Turk ever had was in war. Other
Orientals have shown genius in intettectual pursuits, as
poets and orators and phUosophers. There is an Arabic
Uterature which is full of poetry. The Melodies of Tom
Moore are faint echoes of the love-songs of the East, first
sung in mellifluous Persian. But who ever heard of a
Turkish poet or phUosopher or orator? This is a part
which he has never stooped to assume. But from the
beginning he has been, Uke Nimrod, "a mighty hunter
before the Lord." As a warrior, he has shown himself a
great character in history. For two centuries and a half
after he crossed the Bosphorus, he was the terror of
Europe, as he was almost continuaUy at war on land and

126 THE GREATEST OBSTRUCTIVE IN THE WORLD.
sea ; fighting in the Mediterranean against the combined
fleets of Venice and Genoa, and France and Spain ; while
on land he carried war into Central Europe. Vienna has
recently celebrated the two hundredth anniversary of its
deUverance from the Turks in the memorable siege in
which they were defeated by Sobieski. In these invasions
and conquests the Turk showed himseU a destroyer, but
never a constructor or restorer. He could not build a
city, but he could lay siege to one, and bombard it and
lay it in ashes. He left no monuments behind him but
the ruins he had made. The great architectural pUes of
Constantinople, of which St Sophia is chief, are the work
of other hands. Even the mosques and palaces built under
the Turks were not buttt by them, but by architects from
other countries.
If we were arguing for the removal of the Turk from
Europe merely on poUtical grounds, we might say that it
is demanded by the interests of civilization. The Turk is
the greatest obstructive in the world. It is for the pubhc
interest to cut a road in a direct Une from one point to
another : this mighty loggerhead, huge as an elephant,
sits across the track, and will not budge an inch. It is
important to open a mine ; but he sits over its mouth : it
seems as U an explosion of dynamite would not move him.
This vis inertice, incarnated in a whole race, becomes Uke
one of the forces of nature — like gravitation itsett — to
withstand any movement of progress. Its power for evtt
is the greater where the obstruction is at a point of contact
which ought to be a point of the freest intercourse. The
Turk holds the place " where two seas meet," and two
continents also ; where Europe touches Asia. He holds the
gates between them,- and instead of throwing them wide
open that a highway may be cast up for the nations to
pass over, he holds them Uke the gates of a fortress, to be

IT IS NO CRIME TO BE SLOW AND DULL. 127
shut in the face of the world. In this it may be said that
he works against his own interest ; but in this age of
growing commercial intercourse, the interest of one cannot
be separated from that of others. There is not another
place on the globe where a mere policy of obstruction
could work so great an injury to the commonwealth of
nations. If Turkey had built a Chinese watt, a hundred
cubits high, around her whole empire, she could not have
interposed herseU more effectually as a barrier to the
peaceful intercourse and progress of mankind. It is a
question how long Europe can endure, projected into her
very side, this huge mass of Asiatic barbarism.
But the world is not for Europeans only, and the fact
that Europe has an Asiatic neighbor who is so dull that he
does not know what is for his own interest, is no reason
why he should be treated with injustice. We do not pro
pose to commend the poUcy of extermination which has
been tried with such poor success upon our Indians. That
may be " mamfest destiny," but I never heard it defended
in the court of morals. The Turks may be very slow, very
unenterprising, as the Chinese are ; but that is no reason
why we should go to war with the one or the other. We
may be provoked at their stupidity or their obstinacy, but
we need not pick a quarrel with them. With nations, as
with individuals, if we have an uncomfortable neighbor,
the only way to Uve in peace is to let him alone. But if
that neighbor be not only a boor, but a brute ; if he be a
robber and a murderer ; if he deUghts in pillage and
massacre — then is he condemned before the tribunal of
the civilized world, and aU nations have a right to take
arms against him.
Such is the indictment of history against the Turk.
Ever since he came into Europe, he has been the enemy
of aU around him, and the greatest enemy to his own un-

128 THE INTOXICATION OF POWER.
happy subjects. The same want of constructive capacity
which he showed in rebtulding the cities which he de
stroyed, appeared again in a total inabiUty to organize a
decent government. His only idea was to govern a con
quered province, as he governed an army, by his single
wUl. He needed no law : his wttl was law. This absolute
mastery over the Uves and the fortunes of others, is a dan
gerous possession to be entrusted to any human being,
even the most virtuous, the most gentle, and the most wise.
There is no intoxication in the world Uke the intoxication
of power. Only the strongest minds and the loftiest moral
natures can resist it. What then when power is given to
the mean and the base, the rapacious and the cruel ? To
entrust power to one of coarse and brutal nature, is put
ting the Uctor's axe into hands that delight to use it. Such
was the rule of the Turk. He was subject to no law but
his own wiU — a wiU which was swayed by any caprice or
violence of passion. The only check upon him was the
Koran, and this was more apparent than real. Spiritual
authority is the most flexible of aU instruments of a tyrant's
witt. The greatest oppressor has found it easy to obtain,
through priestly compliance, a Divine sanction to every
atrocity ; so that the laws of Mohammed, instead of being
a restraint upon oppression, legitimatized it. The prophet
taught his foUowers that they were born to be the masters
of the world. This the Turks accept Uteratty. When they
oppress Christians, they do it without a particle of com
punction : for it is the work to which they are appointed
by God, and they have come to feel that they are doing
Him service when they commit acts of oppression, and
even of cruelty, upon their feUow-creatures.
Thus the whole history of Turkish rule has been an
education, not in justice and humanity, but in a constant,
unchecked trampUng on the rights of subject races. The

A MASTER AND A TYRANT. 129
idea of equaUty amongst men, of equaUty before the law,
was incomprehensible to the Turk. By his very nature,
and his attitude towards those whom he had conquered,
he must be a master and a tyrant, and could be nothing
else. This despotic temper came from ages of unchecked
rule — of absolute mastery and domination ; it was bred in
and in by long habits of rule that brooked no check or
control — a habit of playing the tyrant that began with the
Turk in his chttdhood. Not only had he the power, but
he deUghted to show it ; and the more the people suffered
from it and writhed under it, the more he enjoyed it. It
was this which made the condition of Christians in Euro
pean Turkey so intolerable. They were exposed not only
to injustice, but to every sort of contumely. A Turk would
go out of his way to kick a Christian, not for any offence,
but " on general principles " : to show contempt for him ;
to teach him his place, and let him know who was his mas
ter. For this there was no redress. If the poor Christian
so far forgot himseU as to make complaint, the chances
were that, instead of getting satisfaction, he would be pun
ished for daring to bring a charge against a true believer.
This utter helplessness of the Christian made his condition
one of the most abject in the world, whUe the Turk looked
upon it as one of the privileges of his caste and his reUg-
ion to kick a " Christian dog," or to spit upon him. This
"unlicensed Uberty " has been a Uttle restrained since the
Russian war, which leads devout Moslems to shake their
heads and mourn that they have fatten on evil times.
Such is the natural working of unrestrained power that
man becomes literally eviscerated of heart, so that he is
utterly insensible to the sufferings of his fellow-creatures.
He does not suffer in their sufferings, nor rejoice in their
happiness. Of the two, he rather prefers the former, as it
makes him feel his superiority to them and his power over

130 " THE LOST ART OF REMORSE.
them. Such has been its effect upon the Turk. Cruel by
nature, his reUgion made him more so. Instead of quick
ening his conscience, it extinguished the Uttle conscience
he had. We have heard of "the lost art of remorse."
This is not a lost art to the Turk, for he could not lose
what he never had. Had a trace of it remained in his
inner consciousness, his reUgion would have killed it.
When in 1822 the Turkish soldiers were let loose upon
the island of Scio, and in a few days almost Uteratty ex
terminated the inhabitants — sparing neither age nor sex,
putting the scimetar to the throats of old men and women
as well as gentle maidens, and even tossing babes on their
bayonets — I doubt if they were restrained by any scruples,
or felt any twinges of remorse. Is it said that this was
the crime of a past generation? Yet it is a crime that
has been but lately repeated in Bulgaria. Both in Scio
and Bulgaria the Turks showed themselves fit successors of
the hordes of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, who marked
the track of their conquests by pyramids of human skulls.
The brutaUty of the Turks as compared with the hu
manity of Christians, may be illustrated by a contrast.
Everybody who knows the history of Constantinople is
famttiar with the story of its siege and capture, and how
Mohammed IL rode through the city into the holy place,
spurring his horse through the arched door of SL Sophia —
then not a mosque, but a Christian church — ¦where an af
frighted multitude had sought protection under the altar
of God. But the conqueror knew no mercy, and drawing
his sword, gave the signal for an indiscriminate massacre.
The tale is one of the bloodiest in the annals of time.
But a few years since St. Sophia saw another sight. It
was the time of the Russian war. Plevna had fatten, and
the inhabitants of the provinces were flying to Constanti
nople. Men and women thronged the roads, leading their

CHRISTIAN CHARITY TO THE TURKS. 131
chttdren or carrying them in their arms, thinking they
should be safe within the city gates. Once there, they
sank down exhausted in the streets in a state of utter
destitution, to suffer and to die. Thousands of these
wretched fugitives were gathered within the mosques. St.
Sophia was crowded with them— poor, hungry, and almost
naked. Through this mass of suffering humanity no
soldier urged his way to order a massacre ; but men came,
not to destroy, but to save : bringing medicines for the
sick, food for the hungry, and garments for the naked.
This sudden and abundant charity came from abroad, and
chiefly from that noblest woman of England, the Baroness
Burdett Coutts, whose boundless charities have flowed to
aU parts of the world, and who now sent orders for rehef
to be bestowed without ttmit. I am told that this timely
generosity saved the Uves of thousands. This was the gift
of Christian hands. Did history ever show a similar act
of humanity on the part of Turks towards Christians in
their time of suffering and distress? Are not these two
scenes which have transpired under the same dome — the
massacre on the one hand, and the mercy on the other —
fit types of the two reUgions and the two civilizations ?
With such examples before us, we need not be long in
doubt which of the two ought to rule in this land. Trav
eUers may write about the grand old Turk— his prowess in
war and his virtues in peace — aU that cannot change the
fact of his inhuman treatment of subject races. A despotic
and tyrannical temper, fostered by centuries of unrestrain
ed domination, more than neutrattzes any virtues which
may be found in him. No matter how venerable he may
be in his long robe and flowing beard — how fond of his
children or hospitable to strangers — he is not fit to be
trusted with the children of other people, or with any who
do not present themselves to him with a claim upon his

132 THE TURK NEVER REPENTS.
hospitaUty. The perpetrator of massacres is not to be
entrusted with the mastery of helpless human beings.
We could forgive the Turk his faults if they were gen
erous faults ; U
" E'en his failings leaned to virtue's side.''
We could forgive him his violence and rage if these were
foUowed by manly relentings and repentings. But the
Turk never repents. That is a virtue unknown in the
Moslem religion. We could forgive him his wrath and
fury if these were called out only by great provocation—
in moments of anger or in the excitement of war. But we
cannot forgive brutal violence to women and children
The Turk knows no mercy. He does not spare nor have
pity. The tears of sufferers appeal to him in vain. Has
he then any right to ask for a consideration which he does
not give ? " He shall have judgment without mercy who
hath showed no mercy," is the law of Infinite Justice ; and
if such be the judgment of God, none can complain if it be
also the judgment of mankind.
No one can have Uved among the Turks without per
ceiving, underneath their Oriental salaams, a secret, enven
omed feeUng against those of another race and another
religion. It is not merely the result of centuries of war,
but their religion bids them hate us. If the faith is offered
to an unbeUever, and he refuses to accept it, the Koran
says "Kill him!" Thus, instead of restiaining hatred, it
stimulates it to outrage and murder. This was held in
check somewhat during the Russian war, but it was only
smothered, ready to break forth at any moment. The mis
sionaries tell me that they could always see how the war
was going by the looks of the people in the streets. If the
Turks gained a victory, they grew insolent ; but when
Plevna fell, and the Russians were in futt march on this
city, their courage forsook them utterly, and they sank

BITTER nATRED OF CHRISTIANS. 133
into the most abject attitude, Uke slaves crouching at the
feet of their masters. This suggests what might have
been if the fortune of war had gone the other way. In
that case Constantinople might not have been the safest
spot for other foreigners than the Russians. This gives
me rather an unpleasant feeUng when I go about this fasci
nating city, enjoying its picturesque sights and picturesque
people : I have all the whUe a vague consciousness of
estrangement around me. I feel that I belong to a hated
race. When I go to the bazaars, the Turks who sit at the
seat of custom receive me graciously, for the Frank " hath
money in his purse," which they are quite witting to take,
as they would take that of aU the Giaours who come to
Constantinople ; and yet in their secret hearts I do beUeve
they would see every mother's son of us tied up in a sack
with serpents (of course for the glory of God), and thrown
into the Bosphorus !
The consciousness that I am the object of this hatred,
embarrasses me in my efforts to look at the Turk purely
in a picturesque or sentimental Ught. I have tried to
think weU of him ; to make a hero of him for his courage ;
to look leniently at his faults, and to magnify his virtues.
But while I have tried to hold the balances evenly, and
have leaned towards the kindly side, I have found the
scales bearing heavtty the other way. There were ,ugly
facts — facts which could not be denied or explained, which
upset att poetical fancies. The picturesque Moslem dis
appeared with the blood of a single massacre.
And so at last, balancing the good and the evtt, setting
one over against the other, I have had to confess that
Carlyle was not far out of the way in characterizing this
Oriental figure simply as " the unspeakable Turk." " Un
speakable " is a good word : it expresses, as perhaps no
other could, the hopelessness and despair with which

134 THE TURK STILL IN POSSESSION.
Europe looks to the East, and sees this stoUd figure sitting
on the Bosphorus : a strange figure indeed in this rapid-
moving nineteenth century ; in the world, but not of it ;
that has not caught in the sUghtest degree the spirit of
the age ; a hippopotamus "across the track" of modem
civilization. But we would not criticize his elephantine
proportions or slowness of movement, were it not that in
that heavy body is the soul of a tyrant. Torpid as he is,
the Turk can be roused to a fierce activity. If there be
any resistance to his tyranny, he crushes it by a merciless
butchery. Such deeds are crimes against the human race,
which place those who commit them outside the pale of
civUization. A power Uke this cannot remain in peace
with the rest of mankind. It is not fit to have dominion
over any portion of the habitable globe. To this conclu
sion the wisest statesmen have come, and would speedily
enforce it if they could but agree as to which power shall
take the place of the Turk on the Bosphorus when he is
driven into Asia. But for the present the Turk has pos
session, and "who shall stir him up?" There he is,
immovable and implacable. What shall the nineteenth
century do with him ? That is likely to be the problem
for at least the lifetime of this generation — what to do with
" the unspeakable Turk."

CHAPTER XI
THE LAST OF THE SULTANS.
Three Sultans in three months ! Such was the record
from May to August, 1876. Of these, the first is in his
grave, a victim of assassination ; the second was enthroned
and deposed within a single Summer, and though he " still
Uves," is under vigilant watch by the affectionate brother
who succeeded him. The third remains in power, though
with an uncertain future. To quote the solemn lines of
the old hymn :
" He a little longer waits,
But how little none can know."
Since we cannot speak of him as a finaUty, or as the heir
of a firmly-established dynasty, it may be more convenient
to speak of him as the latest representative of royalty, serv
ing, as it were ad interim, till the next war or the next rev
olution. But as while he remains on the throne he is a
personage of high importance, we are curious to know
what manner of man he is.
It was our last day in Constantinople, and it was the
great day of the week : for it was Friday, the Mohammed
an Sabbath, when the Sultan goes in state to the mosque,
and all Constantinople turns out to see him. This brilliant

136 ABDUL AZIZ AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
pageant I had seen once before, in November, 1875 ; but
in the East monarchs come and go, as Presidents do in
America: they appear Uke actors on the stage, and act
their parts and straightway disappear, and are seen no
more. The hero of that former pageant, a few months
after I saw him in his glory, was added to the long list of
Sultans who have perished by assassination. There was a
poor play upon his name which was current in the EngUsh
and American community, to wit, that Abdul Aziz had be
come Abdul As-was. No sovereign ever took more precau
tions to guard against overthrow ; he had a great army
and navy ; yet feU at last a victim to a conspiracy among
his own Ministers. The array of force without the Palace
could not protect him from treachery within. It was a
signal instance of the irony of fate, that as soon as he was
dead — indeed before he was dead, whUe he was yet only a
captive — his nephew, whom he had kept for years under
close watch and guard, virtuatty a prisoner, was summoned
to the vacant throne. But he too had only his "Uttle
hour" upon the stage. He proved to be but "a weak
vessel," and in three months was deposed to make way for
his younger brother, Abdul Ham id, who was supposed to
be of firmer stuff, and who has held his throne through
the many changes of a troubled time till now. This was
the Sultan we were going to see.
The carriage was at the door of the Hotel, and we were
just stepping into it when I heard a stranger catt my name,
and turning saw a man whose tall, erect figure gave .him a
mUitary appearance ; and knowing that the American Min
ister at Constantinople was a soldier who had distinguished
himseU in our late war, I asked abruptly "Are you General
Wallace ? " I had guessed rightly. He had catted before,
and missed me, and now I was Ukely to miss him. The
only way to combine the two pleasures of seeing him and

THE AMERICAN MINISTER. 137
seeing the Sultan, was to have him go with us. " No, it
was impossible ; he had another engagement." But no
thing is impossible to American persistence. So without
another word, I pushed him into the carriage, where were
already seated two American ladies, and the society of his
countrywomen quickly reconciled him to the situation, and
we drove off in triumph.
I was glad to see General Wallace for many reasons.
I had known of his services, military and civil, in America,
and I had heard our missionaries speak of the hearty sup
port which he gave them with the Turkish Government.
But this was not because of any proselyting zeal unbecom
ing in one in his pubUc position. He protected merchants
as weU as missionaries, commerce as weU as schools and
colleges, and this he did with the courage and firmness of
a soldier. Yet in this he did not give offence : for, as he
asked nothing that was unreasonable or unjust, his manly
frankness commanded respect. And so it came to pass
that whUe he stood up stoutly for the rights of his country
men, he became a favorite with the Sultan, who (if the
reports then current in Constantinople were true) found,
or at least thought he found, more real friendship in the
plain American Minister than in the titled envoys and
diplomats of European courts.
We drove first to the German Embassy, where I took
leave of Herr von Hirschfeld and his wife, who had made
my stay in Constantinople so extremely pleasant. They
could not go with us to the mosque, but Madame K 
joined us, and dividing our party into two carriages, we
rode away.
As soon as we turned out of the gates of the Embassy,
we perceived that the city was in commotion :
" Then and there was hurrying to and fro."
The streets were filled with troops, while a crowd rushed

138 APPEARANCE OF THE SULTAN.
by in carriages and on foot. We did not drive as before
to the Cheragan palace on the Bosphorus, which was the
residence of Abdul Aziz. Since there is another Sultan,
there is another royal residence — one which is more in
the nature of a royal retreat. Warned by the fate of
his predecessor, Abdul Hamid would not expose himseU
to the danger of assassination by appearing much in pub-
Uc, and accordingly withdrew to a smaU palace in the
outskirts of the city — perhaps two miles away — known as
the Yttdiz' Kiosque, whose chief attraction is its privacy
and security : for it is in a garden shut in by walls, within
which its royal occupant can surround himseU with troops,
and if need be, turn the place into a fortress. Outside of
these walls he never appears, except to go to the mosque,
which is within a few rods of the palace gate, so that those
who would look upon the face of Majesty, must seek it
here. As we rode on the throng in the streets grew greater.
The carriages which attracted most attention were those
which bore the thinly vetted beauties of the harem. The
crowd was composed in part of Turks and other Moham
medans, who would look upon the face of the Grand CaUph
of their reUgion as devout CathoUcs look upon the face of
the Pope ; but in part also of strangers then in Constanti
nople, who were from all countries. A cordon of troops
drawn around the mosque kept the multitude at a safe
distance. The pubUc were not attowed to approach too
near, for fear of " accidents " ; but as we had the American
Minister and the carriage ' of the German Embassy, we
were at once admitted into the enclosed space, where we
were in a small group composed chiefly of officers and
persons connected with the different Embassies. It was
nearly an hour before the palace gate was thrown open
and a briUiant cortege appeared, composed of the chief

GOING TO THE MOSQUE. 139
dignitaries of the empire — high officers of State and
soldiers who had gained a name in the late war. The
proud Turk who marched in front, covered with decora
tions, was Osman Pasha, whose gallant defence of Plevna
against the encircUng host of the Russian army, won the
admiration even of his enemies.
But I gave only a glance at these military chiefs : for
my eyes were fixed on a slender figure mounted on horse
back. Abdul Hamid is a younger man than was Abdul
Aziz when I saw him. He is of slighter buttd, and is less
imposing on horseback. Nor does the fez give so much
dignity to the head as would the common Turkish turban,
or the miUtarycap of a commander. But costume matters
Uttle when looking upon one who is the absolute master
of fifty millions of human beings. The face was thin and
pale. It seemed to me that it was blanched with fear. As
the Sultan shows himseU but once a week, a conspirator
who would seek his death must seize that opportunity to
carry out his design. Was this in his thought at that
moment? Was this "dread sovereign" quivering under
his mailed breast, lest some deadly shot from a concealed
hand should end his career ? If such were his fears, they
continued but a few moments : for scarcely had he dashed
into view before he aUghted at the steps of the mosque,
and disappeared within.
It did not take hi-m long to get through with his wor
ship, with the Sheikh-ul-Islam to help him, and other Moslem
priests to mutter their prayers and go through with their
holy incantations. While thus absorbed in his, devotions,
a low carriage with two splendid horses was drawn up in
front of the mosque, and as the Sultan descended the steps,
the Uveried attendant put the reins into his royal hands,
the horses gave one bound up the ascent and through the
gate, which was. immediately closed, and aU was over.

140 END OF THE PAGEANT.
When the pubUc could no longer look upon the royal
face, they were entertained with a brief mUitary display.
Although the large bodies of troops had taken up their
march back to the city, there was a Uttle flourish at the end
by way of giving an effective close to the scene. There
was a company of negroes as black as ever were tanned by
the sun of the Equator (I think they must have been
recruited in Nubia or the Soudan, and probably belonged
to the Sappers and Miners, as they carried axes), who
marched up and. down with the quick step that kept pace
with a Uvely air, showing how the African with the spirit
of his race responds to martial music.
Last of aU came the Circassian guard, in the richest
mUitary dress and mounted on blooded horses, recalling
the Hungarian hussars whose gilded uniforms and dashing
steeds give such splendor to the mUitary manoeuvres in
the Prater at Vienna. The horses themselves seemed to
enter into the spirit of the hour. They tossed their heads
in the air, they danced and they pranced, whUe their
gallant riders with starred breasts and lofty plumes closed
the briUiant scene.
As soon as the pageant was ended, we hastened to our
carriages and drove rapidly away, as I had to leave Con
stantinople that afternoon. The necessity of haste obUged
me to change carriages, leaving General Wallace to escort
Madame K  to the German Embassy, to whom we
waved our farewells as we disappeared over the hill, while
we drove with all speed to the Hotel d'Angleterre, where
after dinner with my American friends, I parted from them
and hastened down to the water's edge, and was rowed to
the steamer that was to take me to Vama.
The sail up the Bosphorus is one of the most beautiful
in the world. The broad aim of the sea which connects
the Marmora with the Euxine winds in and out as project-

UP THE BOSPHORUS. 141
ing headlands, now on this side and now on that, answer
to deep indentations on the other — aU bristling with forts
to defend a passage on which may depend the safety of a
capital and an empire. The hillsides are sprinkled with
"Mosques," or Uttle palaces (you see them peering out
from under the trees), to which have retired pashas who
have grown rich with the spoil of distant provinces ; and
with the residences of foreign ministers, who have their
Summer retreats along the Bosphorus. These, with the
fortress-guarded shores and ancient towers, all of which
have their historical associations, combine to make a scene
such as is not to be found elsewhere.
But as I sat on deck that afternoon, my thoughts were
more of the present than the past. They kept going back
to the scene of the morning, and I could not help asking
myself, What sort of a man is this whose face we have
been to look upon as if he were a god ? It needs a strange
wisdom to preside in the brain of one whose wUl is law
throughout an Empire of such vast proportions in Europe
and Asia. It is worth whtte to approach such a Ruler as
nearly as we may, even though it be Only through the eyes
and ears of others, to form some opinion of one who holds
in his single hand the power of life and death over so
many millions of human beings. What manner of man
is he? Mr. Abram S. Hewitt, the weU known Member of Con
gress from the city of New York, recently gave me an
account of an interview with the Sultan, which was quite
long, and in which the Sultan spoke, or appeared to speak,
with entire frankness. Mr. Hewitt thought him a man of
much more than ordinary intelligence, and who was ani
mated with a sincere desire for the good of his people.
AU this I accept on this authority, although royal courte
sies have a fascination which sometimes dazzles the eyes of

142 WHAT MANNER OF MAN IS HE ?
very keen observers. When power unbends to us who are
of low estate, we aU feel the charm, and are not disposed
to be critical as to whether such gracious condescension
comes from the heart. "No one can dispute with the
master of forty legions." A Roman Senator was content
to be sttent when Caesar spoke, too happy to receive such
recognition from him "whose bend did awe the world."
Even Americans, with all their democratic principles, are
susceptible to such influences'; nor would it be strange U
our friend from New York, or our other friend from Indi
ana, when admitted to a private audience with the Sultan,
and seemingly taken into his confidence, should feel the
deUcate flattery which this impUes, and be ready to recog
nize the great quaUties of such a Ruler — his sincerity, his
inteUigence, and his magnanimity ! But without wishing
by this to qualify the admiration which they express, I am
more than willing to admit that the Sultan may be a very
amiable gentleman, who in a private sphere would be a
good neighbor and a faithful friend. It may be also that
he is inteUigent — that is, according to the Turkish stand
ard of inteUigence. But the amount of Ught that is per
mitted to enter the mind of one who is in training for the
throne of a Sultan, is very limited. The one subject on
which he ought to be best informed is the state of his own
empire and the condition of his own people, and yet that
is the one subject on which it is for the interest of those
around him to keep him in the densest ignorance. Of
course if he had great natural force of mind, he might
break through the attempts to blind him and deceive him ;
but so far as I can learn, his mind is rather weak than
strong. One who passes his Ufe in the atmosphere of a
harem, is likely to become absorbed with the cares of his
numerous household to such a degree as to forget even the
greater cares of government.

THE SULTAN ABDUL HAMID.

PORTRAIT OF THE SULTAN. 143
A story which I heard from one who has long resided
in Constantinople, may illustrate the dimensions of his in
tellect. On one occasion a foreign ambassador was intro
duced, who found the Sultan preoccupied, his brow weighed
down with care. The first word that fell from his Ups in
dicated how he felt the burdens which rested upon him, to
which the ambassador repUed with respectful sympathy
that the affairs of State which oppressed His Majesty must
indeed be overwhelming. Thus drawn out, the Sultan
mentioned the problem which at that very moment vexed
his imperial mind — it was a regulation to be made in re
gard to the cafes in Constantinople ! If this be true (and
I have it from authority which I cannot question), it gives
the measure of the man. It shows a mind which deUghts
itseU in petty details, and is incapable of rising to the
level of pubUc affairs. The Empire may be going to ruin,
corruption may prevatt in every department of the govern
ment, whole provinces may be desolated by famine, yet
this Master of all must occupy his lofty intellect with the
regulations of cafes and dancing-girls ! Such a man might
be a major-domo or a Lord Chamberlain, but is utterly in
competent to a position which is one of the most august
in the world. " Woe unto thee, O land, when thy king is
a chttd ! "
WhUe these pages are passing through the press, I
have received a letter from Constantinople, containing
" the only photograph of the present Sultan that can be
obtained." The writer says "It was taken before his
accession to the throne. He has had none taken since
that event, at least none that the public can get hold of."
Such as it is, I value it greatly, and have had it engraved
that my readers may form their own impression of the
man whose portraiture I have endeavored to give. Abdul
Hamid does not have a kingly crown upon his head (as in

144 THE LONELIEST MAN IN THE WORLD.
our chUdhood we were wont to suppose kings and queens
always wore), nor any decoration, or sign of his august
rank. He is dressed as a simple gentleman, in a long
frock coat buttoned close, such as EngUsh clergymen are
accustomed to wear, and one might eastty take him for a
Greek or an Armenian priest. The face is quite as much
Greek or Armenian as Turkish. It is by no means a bad
face, marked by gross passion or violent temper. On the
contrary, it is deUcate and refined, but it appears to me to
be weak. It has not the broad, massive forehead, behind
which is hidden the capacious brain ; nor the firm-set
mouth, which indicates a strong, determined, resolute char
acter. Such a man might be in private Ufe a most amiable
gentleman, but is Ul fitted for a station of such difficulty in
the troublous times to which he is born.
But even if the Sultan had a mind of much higher
order than this, a mind really " capacious of great things,"
and if he were animated by the strongest desire to pro
mote the good of his people, what can he do ? The burden
is too great for him, it is too great for any man, for a Bis
marck, or the first Napoleon ; yet att this burden he has
to bear alone, for he has no one to bear it with him. One
who has known him long and well ; indeed who has been
honored by a degree of intimacy such as is rarely accorded
to any stranger, tells me that " he is the loneUest man in
the world." This is not from want of sociability in his
temperament, but from the necessity of his position : he is
on a cold and icy pinnacle, where he can have neither con
fidant nor friend. Among all his advisers there is not one
whom he can trust — not one whom a revolution to-morrow
might not turn into a deserter and an enemy. He has
nothing like an EngUsh Cabinet. The Grand Vizier and
other high officers of State, generaUy owe their places to
some intrigue in the harem. There is always a power

AN EUNUCH HIS CHIEF ADVISER. 145
behind the throne, and that power is generally a woman
or an eunuch. At the very time that I was in Constanti
nople, it was said that the Sultan's chief adviser, who had
most influence over him, was an eunuch whom he kept in
the palace, who was a fanatical Mussulman, and of course
stimulated aU his rettgious animosities.
One night there came to my hotel the correspondent of
one of the most widely circulated journals in the world, (I
will not give its name, or say whether it is published in
England or America, for I would not betray the confidence
which was reposed in me,) who had in his hand a despatch
containing matter then known to but few, and which the
poUce would not aUow bim to send from Constantinople,
and which therefore he wished me to take to Varna, and
there telegraph across Europe. The news it conveyed was
that the Sultan had been threatened with assassination in
a letter which was placed in his private apartments by
some unknown hand, and in which the condition of his
safety was that he should put away Behram Aga, the
chief eunuch of the palace ! What a revelation was un
folded by this single incident, that a revolution, involving
the Ufe of a monarch and perhaps the fate of an empire,
might depend on the continuance of an eunuch as the
chief adviser of the Sultan.
Herein is the ineradicable vice of the Turkish govern
ment : there is no responsible administration. The country
is governed by one man, and that man is governed by a
eunuch, or by a woman, or (what is stiU worse) by many
women, the inmates of his harem, aU of whom are rivals
for his favor, and therefore intensely jealous of each other.
If among the favorites of the Seraglio one obtains more
control over him than the rest, it is probably the most
intriguing of them att Through these secret channels
royal favors are obtained and dispensed. If a Turk of low

146 GOVERNMENT IN THE SERAGLIO.
origin, who may have been a slave in the house of a Pasha,
is suddenly made governor of a province, the explanation
of the mystery is that he has bribed some favorite of the
harem, or perhaps has become possessed of some secret
which would compromise her with her royal master, and
his sttence must be purchased at a great price. Thus
intrigues in the palace breed corruption in every depart
ment of the State, till it is said that there is hardly an
honest official in the Empire. What can one man do
against this universal corruption? If the Sultan were the
best man in the world — if he were endowed with all the
virtues of Marcus AureUus or Alfred the Great — what
could he do with officials leagued together to keep from
him the knowledge of everything which they wish con
cealed, most of aU the knowledge of their own misdeeds ;
with eunuchs and fanatical mollahs appeaUng to his super
stitious fears, and prophesying his overthrow if he falters
in his devotion to the Moslem faith; and languishing
beauties whispering softly their tender wishes in his ,ears ?
As it is a reUef to the imagination to picture to oneseU
what might be, I have sometimes amused myseU by think
ing what the Sultan might do if he were a man of real
inteUectual force ; not enthusiastic in temperament, but
cold and impassive, yet inexorably just ; and if added to
all this, he were a mUitary leader, stern and implacable,
Uke his grandfather, old Mahmoud IT., who exterminated
the Janizzaries. If thus possessed of an iron will, and with
an army at his back, he were to make a tour of his Empire,
and cut off the heads of a few Pashas who had cruelly
oppressed the provinces, he might possibly check corrup
tion for a time, though the chances are that he would be
assassinated before he had completed his royal progress.
If not, the waves would part before him as he advanced,
only to return as soon as he had passed.

CANNOT BE SUDDENLY REFORMED. 147
Those who buUd their hopes of reform in Turkey on
the character of the sovereign, forget that Turkish rule is
largely independent of the Sultan. He may be honest,
but he cannot make his officials honest ; he may be gentle
and merciful, but he cannot inspire his people with a spirit
of mercy. The massacres in Bulgaria were perpetrated in
the last month of the reign of Abdul Aziz, but probably it
would have been aU the same with his successor. What
could a young man, just come to the throne, do to stop an
army mad with rage, and thirsting for blood ?
Neither can a government be suddenly inspired with a
spirit of reform. The obstacles are such as cannot be legis
lated out of existence. Of this we have had recent proof.
The experiment has been tried since I was here at the
close of 1875. That was a critical moment in the history
of Turkey. Only a few days before she had proclaimed
her own humiliation in the face of the world by repudi
ating her bonds. From that time things went from bad
to worse. The next Spring came the massacres in Bulga
ria, and the deposition and assassination of the Sultan.
These events, which succeeded each other rapidly,
startled all Europe. The massacres excited such a feeUng
of horror that even the unspeakable Turk began to feel
that the nations were turning against him. England, his
best friend, was outraged and indignant, and might desert
him. In this extremity he took a holy resolution — he
would reform his way of Ufe !
" When the devil was sick,
The devil a monk would be."
Fortunately Turkey had the man for the hour. When
Abdul Aziz was overthrown, in the general upturning
Midhat Pasha was made Grand Vizier ; and Midhat Pasha
was regarded as the most enUghtened statesman in the
Turkish Empire. To be sure, he was afterwards proved

148 A TURKISH PARLIAMENT !
to have been privy to the assassination of Abdul Aziz.
But no matter for that, he was a Reformer, and perhaps he
thought this was the first step towards reform — that it
must be initiated by the dagger or the sword. This was
heroic treatment of the body poUtic, to begin with such a
piece of surgery. Having cut off the head, he took hold
of this moribund Empire, as if he could create a soul under
the ribs of death. With consummate art, he endeavored
to "head off" any complaints from without by a sudden
display of virtue within. A Conference of representatives
of all the Powers had been catted to consider the state of
the Turkish Empire, and was likely to discover some very
unpleasant truths, and to make some very humiliating
demands. It assembled in Constantinople December 23d,
1876, and on the very morning of its first meeting the
members had hardly taken their seats when they heard a
heavy cannonade without, which announced to them and
to aU Europe that Turkey had proclaimed a Constitution,
which provided for a government modelled on that of
England. A Parliament was actuaUy summoned to meet
in Constantinople! It met, and a strange body it was,
embracing as it did not only Moslems, but Jews and
Christians, who thus came together for the first time in
centuries. It must have been with a strange feeUng that
these old enemies now looked in each other's faces. Cer
tainly it was a picturesque scene, but the scheme was not
practical. " The more part knew not wherefore they were
come together, and some cried one thing and some cried
another." One or two brave and clear-headed men, Uke
our old friend Yusuf Pasha, the Governor of Gaza, were
disposed to use their freedom, and spoke boldly of the
corruptions and the oppression of the government. But
they were soon given to understand that the cry of Re
form was raised for effect abroad, and that their talents

ITS UTTER FAILURE. 149
might be more useful in some other part of the Empfre !
The comedy was kept up for three months, when it came
to an end. So failed the most hopeful project of re
form we have seen attempted in our day, or are Ukely to
see. Its fatture need not surprise us. It is only another
proof that good government is not a thing that can be
gained by sudden starts : it cannot be enacted by law ; it
does not come by a decree, but by education continued
for years and generations ; it is the growth of centuries of
seU-discipttne in respecting the rights of others. After
th-js spasm of virtue, the unspeakable Turk feU back into
bis old ways, and his case became as hopeless as ever.
Such have been the changes even since I knew this
country. After six years and a haU of absence, I come
back, and find that. Turkey has been making history very
fast. There has been a revolution ; there has been a
tremendous war ; there have been changes in the palace ;
Sultans have been set up and put down ; and stUl the
poUtical state of the country is Uttle changed. There have
been some improvements in Constantinople : the Grande
Rue de Pera has been paved, and there has been some
Uttle brushing up here and there. But the Turkish
Empire remains as before — a huge mass, with no internal
unity, gross and unwieldy and haU dead !
In one way there has been progress — that of dismem
berment. This is -a remedy when others fail. The only
cure for gangrene is amputation. The more the body is
reduced, the less danger of death. Turkey has been
reformed just so far as she has been cut to pieces. This
process has been going on for a long time. Fifty years
ago Greece gained her independence ; Mehemet AU had
wrested from Turkey the control of Egypt ; and France
had taken possession of Algiers, as she has since taken
Tunis ; so that Turkey was almost driven out of Africa.

150 DISMEMBERMENT OF THE EMPIRE.
To Russia belonged the task of driving her out of Europe.
After many wars, the work seemed nearly done in the late
war, when not only were distant limbs of this poUtical
body lopped off, but blows struck at its mighty trunk
What the gashes were in the body of Caesar — " what rents
the envious Cascas made " — I shall tell in another chapter
on " The Story of the War." Suffice it to say that Turkey
lost in that disastrous conflict nearly a hundred thousand
square mUes, and nearly five mUUons of inhabitants —
more than haU of her territory and of her population in
Europe. This was real progress, and progress in the right direc
tion. Yet even more than this might have been gained,
and the work carried on to completion, but for England.
When the Russian army was at the gates of Constantino
ple, the Empire was at its feet ; and if the Treaty nego
tiated within sight of the capital — the Treaty of San Ste-
fano — had been adhered to, little would have been left of
Turkey in Europe. By that treaty a separate government
was conceded to Bulgaria, which was to be enlarged so
as to include, with the country from the Danube to the
Balkan Mountains, the greater part of ancient Thrace and
Macedonia, thus making what would be virtually an inde-
dependent State, stretching from the Archipelago to the
Black Sea. This was coming dangerously near Constanti
nople, and was stoutly resisted by England. By its oppo
sition, aU of Bulgaria south of the Balkans was taken from
it, a part of which was formed into the province of East
ern RoumeUa. It is a signal instance of the retributions
of history that, after seven years, this separated province,
without war or violence, simply by the action of its people,
has sent away its Turkish Governor, and declared its union
to Bulgaria, from which it ought never to have been sepa
rated ; and that Lord SaUsbury, the Ueutenant of Lord

THE SULTAN STILL ON THE THRONE. 151
Beaconsfield at Berlin, is obUged to say that " it does not
belong to England to interfere " !
This potttical surgery is severe ; but sometimes there is
no alternative but that or death. Those who have lived
long in Constantinople generatty approve this heroic treat
ment, and many think it might have been carried farther
to advantage : that having begun with this stern discipline,
it were weU to have carried it on to perfection ; that U
the knife had been more vigorously appUed, there would
have been so much less of Turkey to make trouble here
after. It did seem a pity, while the powers were about it,
that they did not make thorough business of it, and assist
the Turk across the Bosphorus. So long as he remains in
Europe — so long indeed as he holds Constantinople — he is
a source of danger to the peace of the world. If another
war has yet to be fought before that danger is refnoved,
England must bear the responsibility.
Meanwhile Abdul Hamid stttl sits serene upon his
throne — " the last of the Sultans " that have been, if not
the last that shall be. There is the same engaging figure
to attract the eyes of visitors to Constantinople as he rides
to the mosque ; and distinguished strangers from America
who are admitted to his presence, find him as captivating
as ever, and teU how gracious and gentle is the master of
fifty millions. Yet government in Turkey is still only an
other name for oppression ; justice is unknown ; Christians
have no rights which Moslems are bound to respect ; while
this soft-spoken, mUd-mannered gentleman sits in his. pal
ace on the Bosphorus, charming his guests, sweetly uncon
scious of all the crimes that are committed in his name.

CHAPTER SII.
THE BLACK SEA AND FREE BULGARIA.
When we had passed the old Genoese Castle at the
mouth of the Bosphorus, we were in the Black Sea, a
change not always pleasant to the traveller, whom the
" stormy Euxine " sometimes receives in a very rough way.
Byron, who mixes poetry and prose, romance and reaUty,
in the most indiscriminate fashion, thus surveys the scene
from the top of the Giant's Mountain :
" The wind swept down the Euxine, and the wave
Broke foaming o'er the blue Symplegades.
'Tis a grand sight from off ' the Giant's Cave '
To watch the progress of those rolling seas
Between the Bosphorus, as they lash and lave
Europe and Asia, you being quite at ease ;
There's not a sea the passenger e'er pukes in
Turns up more dangerous breakers than the Euxine."
This is shameful — to cast on the poor old sea the blame
of what may have been due rather to excesses and riotous
living. The Black Sea " is not as black as it is painted."
To be sure it is somewhat given to fogs and rain. Cold,
chilling winds come down upon it from the mountains
of tho Caucasus. Blinding mists sweep over it, as if the

THE SHORES OF THE BLACK SEA. 153
ghosts of all the dead who had been slain in battle along its
bloody shores, still haunted its waters, moaning and watt
ing, and sometimes breaking out into despairing shrieks,
which are heard on the midnight air. At times it seems as
if the sea were troubled with a guilty conscience, since a
sudden gust stirs it quickly, and makes it fly into a tem
pest. But these fitful and angry moods are aU on the sur
face. H it is stormy above, it is quiet below. "At bottom "
the sea is all right ; it has not so many dangerous rocks and
reefs as some smoother seas ; and if the traveller finds his
progress delayed by contrary winds, he is not likely to be
shipwrecked before the end of his voyage.
For our part, the " stormy Euxine " received us kindly.
No " dangerous breakers " greeted us, but we gUded out
of the strait which divides Europe from Asia into a tran
quil sea. Although we had before us only the same watery
horizon that we had had in the Mediterranean, yet we
knew that we had come into a sea encircled by other
shores, over which we might pass to other countries, inhab
ited by other races of men. If the map prepared to accom
pany this volume could have been so enlarged as to
include the whole circle of the Black Sea, we should read
upon it names famous from the earliest period of history —
names which make us feel that we are in the very oldest
part of the Old World. If we were to turn to the right,
and foUow the sea to its far eastern shore, we might land
at Trebizond, and taking an ancient caravan route, which
has been followed from the days of the patriarchs, climb
the great plateau of Armenia, six thousand feet high, from
which the rivers flow to all quarters of the compass, and
on whose highest mountain, Ararat, the Ark rested ; or
go on stttl farther to Persia, or to the vaUeys of the Tigris
and the Euphrates, which are supposed to be the cradle
of the human race. In later ages the Roman Empire

154 THE CRIMEAN WAR.
swept round the Black Sea as round the Mediterranean,
and Roman Emperors visited it, as they visited Egypt,
as part of their universal dominion. On the western side
of the sea may still be traced the line of Trajan's WaU,
which, reaching across to the river, shut in the Delta of
the Danube.
But of aU this region round the Black Sea, we knew
Utile until the Crimean War. Not that it was unexplored,
but it was not a part of the world of which Western Europe
or America cared to know much. But when war took the
fleets of England and France into that Sea, and the atten
tion of the whole world was concentrated for a year on the
siege of Sebastopol, EngUshmen and Americans began to
take their maps and study that part of the East.
The issue of that war was a bitter humiliation for Rus
sia. In the Treaty of Paris she bowed her haughty head
to the condition that her war-ships should be excluded
from the Black Sea, but it was with a mental reservation
that this agreement should stand until she had power to
_hreak it ; and as soon as France had her own cup of bitter
ness in the German War, and the very city in which this
Treaty had been signed was besieged, Russia cast it to the
winds, and resumed her former freedom, without asking
permission of any power, and with a determination that all
Europe should never wrest it from her again ; and Sebas
topol, whose walls had been battered with shot and shell,
rose again stronger than ever.
It is thirty years since the Crimean War, and from that
time the attention of the world has been fixed upon the
Black Sea and the country round it, as destined to play an
important part in the future conflicts and commerce of the
world. Odessa is one of the greatest ports of the conti
nent, from which the grain grown in the fields of Southern
Russia is carried to the cities of Western Europe.

RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA. 155
But the Black Sea has grown in importance within a
few years, not only for what it is in itseU, but for what Ues
beyond it. To the east Ues the Caspian, which Russian
enterprise has united to the Black Sea by a rattroad from
Batoum to Baku — a city which has sprung up Uke one of
our Western cities, since here smoking "rivers of oU"
burst out of the earth like the petroleum wells in America,
furnishing an immense commerce over that inland sea ;
whtte the fleet of steamers descending the Volga pours
into the Caspian a very large part of the internal com
merce of Russia. AU this points eastward to a vast field
of future expansion and power.
H we were seeking for more worlds to conquer, we
might cross the Caspian, and launch out upon the bound
less steppes of Central Asia. The late irritation between
England and Russia in regard to Afghanistan, has turned
attention to what the Russians are doing in that part of
the world, and it is found that the road which they are
building from the Caspian points straight towards Herat !
The settlement of the difficulty deprives this undertaking
of a warlike character ; but U the road be carried to its
completion by Russia on one side, and be met by a road
built by England on the other, the two united will con
stitute a magnificent highway across Asia. When this is
done, we are gravely told that EngUsh traveUers, crossing
the Channel, may take the raUway from Boulogne to
Odessa, and crossing the Black Sea and the Caspian, or
even passing round them (for this too wiU come in time),
may be transported in eleven days to Upper India ! The
mere mention of these things lifts the vett on a great future
for the East. In the next century, U not before the end of
this, it is probable that iron roads and fire-drawn cars will
take the place of the slow-moving caravans through a large
part of Central Asia.

156 THE CAUCASUS.
Here was abundant material to keep one's fancy flying
that afternoon as we sailed over a sea which we could not
recognize as the " stormy Euxine " — so unruffled was it
that it seemed as if we were floating on the bosom of an
inland lake — and I only wished that I could fly in person
as well as in fancy across it to the regions beyond If I
had unlimited time at command, I should Uke nothing
better than to turn eastward, not to visit the ott wells of
Baku, or to inspect the railroad to Central Asia, but to fix
my eyes on something nearer and grander — the region
between the Black Sea and the Caspian, where one can
look up to the snowy ridges of the Caucasus, which may
tempt those who have climbed Mont Blanc and the Matter-
horn. Between these heights are deep vaUeys Uke the
Vale of Meyringen, and rugged defiles Uke the Via Mala.
Where could an Alpine tourist find greater exhilaration
than in scaling the heights of this Switzerland of the
East? But as I was bound for Central Europe, I had taken a
steamer which, on leaving the Bosphorus, instead of bear
ing northeast to Sebastopol, or yet farther east to the Cau
casus, swept round to the northwest, and by daybreak was
running up the GuU of Varna, and when we went on deck
was lying at anchor off a town which is known to the
world more for its mUitary than its commercial importance.
The first association of most Americans with Varna dates
from 1854, when the EngUsh and French troops landed
here at the beginning of the war with Russia, and with the
Turkish troops formed an immense camp round the town
The. place was well chosen, at a convenient distance (only
one hundred and sixty mUes) from Constantinople, so that
unUmited suppUes could be furnished by sea. It was
designed to serve as a base of mUitary operations against
Southern Russia — apian of campaign which was abandoned

VARNA. 157
when the troops were transported to the Crimea to spend
their strength in the siege of Sebastopol.
But though Varna was not the scene of any great mUi
tary operations in the Crimean War, it was strongly forti
fied by a Une of works mounted with heavy guns. Even
in 1828 it had been able to withstand a siege of three
months by the Russians, although it finatty surrendered.
After that it was greatly strengthened by the Turks, as a
place of the first importance in case of war, both for
defence landward, and as furnishing a harbor which might
be a refuge for Turkish ships against a Russian fleet com
ing down the Black Sea. This martial front it has laid
aside now, and has a quiet and peaceful look as we
approach it from the sea ; whUe in the harbor itself, that
in the days of war was crowded with armed ships and
transports, there is not even a gunboat to be seen this
bright May morning, but only peaceful steamers, like our
own, conveying traveUers to and from Constantinople.
We did not come up to a quay, but were taken off in a
tender, and landed on a pier alongside of which stood the
railroad train that was to carry us across the country to
the Danube. As I stepped on shore, a telegraph operator
brought me a despatch from Constantinople, from the
correspondent of whom I have spoken, saying that I need
not forward the despatch in regard to the Sultan, which
he had entrusted to my care, as he had found another way
of sending it to Western Europe, showing that there are
channels of communication which cannot be closed even
by the Turkish poUce. But it was pleasant to think that
we were now in a country which was no longer subject to
their supervision.
From Varna, the morning ride takes us past Shumla,
another fortified town near the foot of the Balkans, of which
it guards the chief eastern pass. The importance of its

158 SCENERY OF BULGARIA.
strategic position has caused it to be so strongly fortified
that it has been held against all sieges in the innumerable
Turkish wars. Three times the Russians attempted to
take it — in 1774, in 1810, and in 1828 — but in vain ; it has
never been taken, and therefore proudly boasts of being the
virgin fortress of Bulgaria. It is the natural point of con
centration of a Turkish army against an invader. These
two fortresses — Varna on the sea, and Shumla backed
against the mountains — formed one side, as SUistria and
Rustchuk formed the other, of the famous Bulgarian Quad
rilateral, which was long the main defence of the country,
and was held so strongly by the Turks in the late war.
Bulgaria is a country about as large as Scotland, which
it resembles somewhat in its varied scenery, being divided
into highlands and lowlands, broad plains alternating with
lofty mountains. To the south Ues the famous Balkan
range, which figures so largely in all the wars which have
been waged for the possession of Southeastern Europe.
It is a rugged chain, pierced by narrow defiles which,
though not attaining so high an elevation, have the wild
and savage character of the passes of the Alps. From this
mountain range numerous spurs project into the lowlands,
giving to the country an endless variety of surface. Had
our course to-day been in that direction, we should have
been very soon among these bills and valleys. But as our
route lay toward the Danube, the country kept the same
monotonous character from the coast to the vaUey of the
great river. Thus we saw only the tamer features of Bul
garia, with none of its grand scenery — no high mountains,
nor even great forests, such as one finds in Southern
Russia. It was an open, rolling country, sometimes sug
gesting a resemblance to our Western prairies, that would
be the riches of an agricultural population. But the
villages that were sprinkled over the plains indicated

POVERTY OF THE PEOPLE. 159
anything but wealth. The houses, with their mud watts
and thatched roofs, resembled the cabins and hovels of
Ireland ; nor was the condition of the people at att supe
rior to that of the Irish peasantry. They have but little
plots of ground, on which they keep a few sheep, which
supply them with clothing as weU as food, a covering of
sheepskin being the usual dress of the Bulgarian peasant.
And yet this people, so poor in appearance, come of' a
powerful race, and have had a great history. Whoever
reads of the wars of the Middle Ages, will see how often
Bulgarian armies figured in the front of battle. More
than once they carried their victorious arms to the gates
of Constantinople. But in later centuries the people suf
fered from wars not their own, in which they could not
fight for glory, in the issue of which they had no military
pride or ambition. This was the period of the Turkish
domination, under the burden of which the country suf
fered for more than four hundred years.
As Turkey was master of Southeastern Europe, and
Russia was master in the North, the two powers became
rivals for dominion, and thus " natural enemies," and poor
Bulgaria was crushed between them. Lying near the
frontier, it became the battleground of the two countries.
Here they pitched their camps ; here they fought then-
battles. Like Belgium, it might be said to be " the cock
pit of Europe." Whichever way the tide of battle flowed,
it came very close to the villages and the homes of this
stricken people. Their fields were trampled down by
great armies ; their towns were besieged ; and in the con
flict of arms, they were reduced to the extreme of suffering.
As to the " government " of the Turks (if government it
can be called), it may be described in few words. The
Turks have a genius for strangulation — a cunning art by
which they strangle every industry, impoverish a whole

160 OPPRESSION OF THE GREEK CHURCH.
people, make the rich poor, and kttl att pride, seU-respect,
and ambition, and thus destroy all motive to effort to make
things better. The coUection of revenue was farmed out
to tax-gatherers, who of course wished to get the utmost
possible for themselves, and squeezed the wretched people
as much as they would bear, so that the coUection of taxes
was Uttle less than systematic robbery.
Nor was this all Scarcely had the Turkish tax-gath
erer departed from the peasant's cabin before the Greek
bishop appeared to take what was left This was in the
"good old times," when there was none who dared to
resist him. Dr. Cyrus Hamlin paid a visit to Bulgaria
nearly thirty years ago, and in his very interesting book,
"Among the Turks," he tells how the bishop despotted the
flock: The ephoroi [the chief men of the Church] complained of the
double taxation of the government and the bishop. The'bishop
came round to every house three times a year, with his train of
followers, gathering up rice, wheat, barley, butter, cheese, fowls,
eggs, sheep, swine, money. No house escaped, no man escaped ;
every house must be blessed, and the blessing paid for ; the rich
must entertain him with a grand feast, with wine and music and
dancing, and things which often accompany them; and besides
all this, every member of his train expects a present. If one is
poor, he can't escape ; and if one is rich, the bishop knows better
than the pasha what he is worth, and if he should be disposed to
hold back at all, the bishop goes to the pasha, and the two grind
him together !
Thus ground down by two masters, the Bulgarians had
to throw off a double yoke — that of the Turkish Govern
ment and of the Greek Church. How they were deUvered
from the former wiU be the subject of another chapter.
But the latter was hardly less oppressive. Nothing is
more galling to a sensitive people than to be compeUed to
denationalize themselves. The people are not Greeks:
they are of another race and speak another language.

THE BULGARIAN NATION. 161
They wished to have their own schools and their own
churches, their own priests and bishops ; but their efforts
in this direction met with constant resistance, until at last,
when their demands were conceded by the government,
they were excommunicated by the Greek patriarch of
Constantinople — a happy deUverance, which by this rude
process set them free to worship God after the ways of
their fathers.
After so many wars, and after ages of oppression, it
would not have been strange if the Bulgarian nation had
been blotted out of existence. The wonder is that, in spite
of aU, it has retained any degree of vitaUty. And yet the
race is one of remarkable vigor. PhysicaUy, there is not a
better peasantry in Europe ; they are strong, able-bodied,
and patient of labor ; and only ask for a fair chance to
show what is in them, and to work out their own destiny.
To this the way is now opened for the first time in hun
dreds of years. How it has been opened I shall teU here
after. But I will not disturb this peaceful day's journey
by tales of battle, but would rather speak of the influen
ces of reUgion, of education, and of peace.
The reawakening of Bulgaria dates from the Crimean
War, which brought to its shores the armies of France and
England, and gave some little idea of what was going on
in other parts of the world. The Bulgarians had never
forgotten their proud history ; and now, as they looked
upon the armies of Western Europe, they recaUed the
deeds of their ancestors ; " they remembered the days of
old," and longed to see "the Bulgarian nation" again
appear among the powers of Europe.
Shortly after the war there came into Bulgaria another
influence from the West — not Western Europe, but the
Farther West which lay beyond the sea. Dr. Riggs had
already translated the New Testament into Bulgarian,

162 AMERICAN MISSIONS IN BULGARIA.
which had sold rapidly. Such was the eagerness for
knowledge that it was bought in many cases by people
who could not read, in the hope that some day they or
their children would be able to enrich their minds from its
precious pages. Seeing the field thus open and inviting,
Dr. Hamlin, who visited America in 1856, urged upon the
American Board (which already had a mission in Roume-
Ua, with stations at Rodosto and Adrianople) to establish
one also in Bulgaria ; but as the Board had its hands full,
he laid the proposal before the Methodist Episcopal Board,
by which the work was undertaken, with the same results
which missions had wrought in Asiatic Turkey.
They found among the people an eager desire for edu
cation, which they met by establishing schooh? — an example
which provoked imitation, in which these schools were the
models of other schools, so that in a few years there was a
system of popular education aU over Bulgaria. Even in
poor villages there was a Uttle school-house, from which
there came the buzz and hum of chttdren learning to read.
The most important American institution in Bulgaria
is at Samokov, in a picturesque spot at the foot of the
mountains, not far from the capital, Sofia. Here is a Sem
inary for gfrls, in which there are nearly eighty boarding
puptts ; and a Theological and Training School, in which
there are about sixty boys. This is practically what we
are accustomed to caU a Normal School for the teaching
of teachers, whose influence therefore will be multipled, as
each puptt wUl be at the head of a school, or in the case of
theological students, of a church, or it may be of a church
and school together.
The desire for a higher education is shown by the num
ber of young men who have been sent to Robert College.
From the founding of that College, a large proportion of
its students has been from this province of European

THE COUNTRY FREE AT LAST. 163
Turkey, to which they returned prepared for any duties
which the course of events might throw upon them ; and
so it has come to pass that its graduates are now filling the
highest positions in Bulgaria. This single fact illustrates
the far-sighted wisdom as well as benevolence of the Amer
ican philanthropist, who was its founder. But even he
could not see all that he was doing. " He builded better
than he knew." When he erected that institution on the
shores of the Bosphorus, he could not conceive that it was
to educate the rulers of a State which did not yet exist.
"He died without the sight," but this generation is reaping,
as others yet to come will reap, the fruit of his generosity.
With the new Ufe given by free churches and free
schools, one thing more only was necessary to the begin
ning of national existence — poUtical independence. That
was to come, but by what terrible instrumentaUty ! Of
the path of blood through which Bulgaria was to pass to
obtain it — of the Massacres and the War — I am yet to
speak. I here attude only to the result, in the priceless
blessing of ttberty. The sense of freedom at once gave the
people new courage and hope. The country still remains
a part of Turkey in the sense that it pays (or owes, for the
Prince's Government are more than reluctant to obey this
obttgation laid upon them by Europe) an annual tribute
to the Sultan ; but in the management of its internal
affairs, he has no more control than the Czar of Russia :
and indeed, in the degree of influence, not half as much.
The government belongs to the people themselves. They
may be poor, but they are peeb— free in their humble
homes; free to cultivate their Uttle plots of ground; free
to send their chUdren to schools in which their own lan
guage is spoken ; free to worship God.
Thus Bulgaria has at last her limbs unbound, and is
left to work out her own destiny. With a people so

164 REASON TO BE CONTENT AND HOPEFUL.
industrious, and no longer impoverished by the exactions
of the government and the Church, their material condition
must improve, not rapidly perhaps, but surely, even though
slowly. At present the traveUer riding over the country,
sees no such villages as those of New England ; but who
can tell what changes time may bring ? The country itseU
in its natural fertility is much richer than New England,
and who can teU what signs of prosperity may cover these
plains after a hundred years of freedom from oppression,
of industry and of peace?
Reflecting on all the changes which have come about
within the last few years, partly by means of education,
and partly as a result of the late war, it seems to me that
Bulgaria has reason to be content and hopeful. To be
sure, she did not obtain all that she hoped for, for she had
great ambitions. It was in her dreams, as it was in the
vast designs of Russia, that Bulgaria should be erected
into an independent State of grand proportions, including
aU of the great Bulgarian family on both sides of the
Balkans. It was even to have a port on the iEgean Sea,
from which to send out ships to att parts of the Mediter
ranean. This would have been a territory large enough
for a kingdom. Such a free and Christian State in South
eastern Europe would have been the best safeguard against
the Turk, even if he were permitted for a time longer to
keep up a show of power on the Bosphorus. Such would
have been the Bulgaria of to-day but for the persistent
opposition of England. Greece too was jealous of a power
which might grow so great as to overshadow her, and dis
pute her succession to Constantinople whenever the Turk
should depart into Asia. Austria also had her eye on
those rich territories which might come within the sweep
of her imperial ambition, if she were to be crowded out of
Central Europe by Germany, and pushed farther to the

CROSSING THE DANUBE. 165
East. And so when the Congress of Berlin came together,
a piece of Bulgaria was given to Servia, and another to
Roumania, whUe all south of the Balkans was cut off, Uke
an amputated Umb, from the body to which it belonged.
This was a great taking down of the Bulgarian expecta
tions. It reduced its territory by one-haU, and by so
much its prestige and its power. But it left the State '
more compact, lying between the Balkans and the Danube,
and with a population more homogeneous than before by
the exodus of the Turks. Thus Bulgaria was left to the
Bulgarians — a people of one race, bound together by the
memory of common sufferings ; two millions in number,
with a country as large as Scotland ; a territory and a pop
ulation quite large enough for the experiment of seU-gov-
ernment which they were about to undertake. So was the
work begun, and so does it now look hopefully to the future.
Who shall say that the world does not move, when out of
such materials— a people oppressed and trodden down for
four hundred years — there arises a free Christian State ?
These were pleasant thoughts to occupy the mind of a
soUtary traveller in that long day's ride across the plains
of Bulgaria. It was the middle of the afternoon when we
first caught sight of the Danube in the distance. As we
drew near, I was a Uttle disappointed in its appearance.
There is always something majestic in a great river mov
ing forward with resistless current to the sea ; but apart
from this, the Danube at this point has but Uttle beauty 
nothing to entitle it to be compared to the Rhine. Even
the color of its waters has been changed by the poet's
fancy, 'the blue Danube" being as yellow as our own
Missouri : in which indeed it is Uke the NUe or any other
great river, which brings down the earth with the snows
from distant mountains, or washes away its own banks as
it flows through a broad aUuvial plain.

166 A BEAUTIFUL SCENE.
But if its waters are not " blue " or sparkling, no one
can cross this mighty river without stirring memories of
the scenes that have been witnessed, even very recently, on
its banks. What would one not give to have seen its pas
sage by the Russian army, which took place at Sistova, a
few mUes above ? Rustchuk, where we now are, was en
circled with forts, forming with Silistria, a few mttes below, .
the two great fortresses which guard the lower Danube.
On the opposite bank is Giurgevo, at which a traveller
who wishes to go up the Danube may leave the railway for
the steamer, though it wttl take several days to fottow the
river in aU its windings, and Uttle is gained in the way of
scenery, as the beautiful portion of the Danube does not
begin but at the Iron Gates, where it breaks through the
Carpathian Mountains. As I wished to accompttsh the
most in the least time, I kept to the raUway.
We crossed the river in a boat, and were in another
country, having passed out of a principaUty into a king
dom — a fact of which we were apprised by a ridiculous
aping of royal punctiUousness in the call for a passport,
which had not been demanded anywhere else in Europe.
When the officer asked me for this, I laughed in his face,
and he laughed too. I told him I was an American, and
gave him my card, with which he was quite satisfied. I
did not find that the change of government made any
change in the character of the country. We had still
before us the same rich plains, diversified with vineyards
and groves of trees, whUe in the open fields were grazing
herds of cattle and flocks of sheep. How peaceful it att
looked as the villagers were driving the cattle home at
sunset 1 In such a scene of peace our journey came to an
end on a Saturday evening as we left our railway carriage
for another kind of carriage, and rode through the streets
of Bucharest.

CHAPTER Xin.
THE STORY OF THE MASSACRES.
WhUe riding over the plains of Bulgaria, I have not
been witting to mar the quiet beauty of the scene by any
detailed account of events of a quite different character.
But in this day's journey we have been over historic
ground. La no part of Europe has history been making
so fast in these last years as in this southeastern corner
where we now are. In one day we have passed Varna,
Shumla, and Rustchuk, three of the four great fortresses of
the Bulgarian Quadrilateral, which was held by the Turks
so strongly in the late war. That war, measured by its
consequences, was one of the greatest events of modern
times. A convulsion so tremendous not even the most
flippant tourist could ignore. To understand this revolu
tion (for such it has been), we must study it in its origin —
in the causes which produced it ; and to this end I must
teU, however briefly, a double tale — the Story of the Mas
sacres (att the horrors of which can never be told) and the
Story of the War, two events closely connected — one fol
lowing the other, as the effect follows the cause — and
which together have changed the poUtical condition of
Southeastern Europe.

168 THE TURKISH RULE IN BULGARIA.
It is the sad truth of history that the liberty of nations
is commonly obtained at the price of blood. To this Bul
garia is no exception. For centuries she has borne the
heavy, leaden weight of the Turkish yoke, which would
have crushed the Ufe out of a people not possessed of
extraordinary vigor and vitaUty. It was a Moslem rule, in
which Christians had no part. Though the taxes wrung
from them supported the State, they had no hand in col
lecting or distributing them, but were at the mercy of a
set of wretches who farmed out the revenue. They could
not enter the army, and yet were compelled to pay a heavy
tax for exemption from mUitary service. Though subject
to constant outrage and violence, often ending in murder,
they had no redress ; their testimony against a Moslem
would not be taken in a court of justice. The tyranny
over them was exercised with an insolence which was sting
ing to the pride of an ancient and warlike race, as it re
minded them at every step that they were now a conquered
people, and had no rights which their masters were bound
to respect. But in spite of every provocation, the Bulgarians
remained quiet, peaceable, and industrious. In fact, they
had to pay a penalty for thefr virtues, which made them
more prosperous than then- Moslem neighbors, and so
objects of envy and hatred. But whatever the mutual dis
like, which would in the end have led to a conflict of races,
the conflict might have been postponed for years, perhaps
for a generation, U it had not been precipitated by the
rashness of a small number of refugees, who had been
mixed up in former disturbances, for which they had been
obUged to flee the country ; and having placed themselves
at a safe distance on the other side of the Danube, there
exercised themselves in playing at revolution. They form
ed the famous Bulgarian Committee, which had its head-

" THE BULGARIAN INSURRECTION." 169
quarters at Bucharest, the object of which was to stir up
trouble over the border. Of course it was aU very fooUsh
and very wicked, as it cotdd do no possible good, and in
fact, produced incredible misery ; but that is no reason
why it should be magnified into a crime of the whole Bul
garian nation, and made the excuse for any degree of
atrocity. H a Uttle cUque of Nihilists meet in some secret
hiding-place in London, and plot the assassination of the
Czar, the Russian Government does not on that account
arrest every Englishman in St. Petersburg, and hold him
responsible. It is very important to the truth of history that the facts
in regard to this " Bulgarian Committee " should be under
stood, because a few months later, when the massacres had
sent a thriU of horror through-Europe, the EngUsh sympa
thizers with the Turks endeavored to justify, or at least to
palUate, the severities of the Turkish government, by a
counter representation of something dire and dreadful on
the' other side of the Danube. It was whispered in mys
terious tones that there had been a deadly conspiracy
formed in the Roumanian capital : that the conspirators
had armed themselves, and that when the plot was ripe,
they had intended to cross the Danube in force, and Ught
their signal fires on aU the mountain tops of Bulgaria !
Never was any martial announcement more dispropor-
tioned to the facts of the case. Instead of " an army "
crossing the Danube, a report, which gives the total
force with arithmetical exactness, states that " twenty-five
agents of the Bulgarian Committee " were sent into differ
ent villages to raise a tumult, and succeeded here and
there in getting together a handful of peasants. The whole
thing was utterly insignificant ; it was not a revolution but
a riot, to be put down by the police. And this was the
great " Bulgarian insurrection." It was about as formida-

170 THE BASHI-BAZOUKS.
ble as a street mob. There was nothing which could not
have been suppressed by the least display of force. A
single regiment of regular troops would have sent these
youthful revolutionists flying to the mountains. Or U any-
lingered behind, a few stout constables could have seized;
them and marched them off to prison, to be dealt with
according to law, and that would have been the end of it.
The madcaps would have received their proper punishment,
and the country would have returned to its usual state of
quietness and peace.
But no such slow process of justice could serve the pur
pose of the Turk. Insignificant as the movement was,
there is no doubt that it created a temporary alarm ; and
it is said that for a day or two there was a panic at Tatar-
Bazardjik and PhiUppopoUs. This was a sufficient excuse
for desperate measures. Fear is always cruel, and having
had a momentary " scare," the Turks thought they would
give these refractory Bulgarians a taste of Turkish ven
geance. With the regiments that were sent up from
Constantinople, the authorities had about five thousand
regular troops before any mUitary movement was begun.
But these were not the instruments needed for such a cam
paign as was now to be undertaken. That required another
sort of material. From the first alarm an order had been
given to arm the Bashi-Bazouks, who were noted in aU the
East for their love of violence and murder. They were not
properly "troops," for they were under no military disci
pline, and subject to no responsible command. They were
composed largely of Tcherkesses and Circassians, who had
been brought from the Caucasus after that country was
subdued by Russia, and settled in Bulgaria. They were
fanatical Mussulmans, whose dehght it was to kill and to
destroy whatever bore the name of Christian. To these
were added the dregs of the Turkish population, with

THE MASSACRES. 171
gypsies and jatt-birds let out for the purpose, making alto
gether as villainous a set of cut-throats as ever were let
loose upon an inoffensive people. Such were the instru
ments which the Turkish Government chose for its deadly
work. These marauders — sometimes with a nucleus of
regular troops, and sometimes alone — were marched into
the disturbed districts, and distributed in the villages.
When all was ready the signal was given, and instantly
these human tigers flew at the throats of the poor people,
who had no means of defence. Wherever they came, their
way was Ughted up ¦ by burning villages. It mattered not
whether a village had taken part in the insurrection — it
might have been noted for the peaceful and industrious
character of its inhabitants — no matter for that, their in
stincts for destruction must have futt swing wherever there
was a village to be laid in ashes or blood to be shed, and
they kept on in their work until apparently they were
exhausted from killing.
The extent of these massacres was not for some time
fully known in Europe. When the authorities in Constan
tinople found what had been done, they became fright
ened, not that they had any remorse for the blood they
had shed, but they were apprehensive of the consequences,
and tried to hush it up, in which they were assisted by
their EngUsh friends. Lord Beaconsfield, when questioned
in Parliament, made Ught of the matter, and said in his
airy way that the government had no knowledge of any
massacres ; that there had been an " irregular warfare,"
and no doubt there had been some " excesses," giving the
impression that the excesses had been on both sides.
But the crime was not to be buried in darkness. It
was to be brought to Ught, and I am proud to say, by
American courage and resolution. The first to be inform
ed of it, and to let the world know of it, says Mr, Maynard,

172 BROUGHT TO LIGHT BY AMERICANS.
our Minister at Constantinople, were President Washburn
and Prof. Long of Robert CoUege. The latter had been a
missionary to the Bulgarians from the Methodist Church
in the United States, and had Uved many years in Bulgaria.
So famttiar had he become with the language, that he had
translated the Scriptures into it, and had published a news
paper in it. Many of the students of Robert CoUege, and
at least one of the Professors, were from Bulgaria. Hence
these gentlemen had a large personal acquaintance in that
country, and to them the wretched people turned in this
hour of calamity for sympathy and protection, and so to
their ears came the first cry of distress from that stricken
province. Their first impulse was to rush to the British
ambassador, whose influence was very powerful with the
Turkish Government, hoping that a vigorous protest from
him would put an immediate stop to the atrocities. But
the great man was much more inclined to cover up what
had been done, and did not think it of sufficient impor
tance to communicate to his Government ! Indeed he re
ported that the stories of massacre had been " monstrously
exaggerated." The effect was to produce a reaction of feel
ing against the American missionaries as authors of incen
diary reports, and for a time it seemed not improbable that
Robert CoUege would be closed, and that they might be in
personal danger unless the truth of what they had affirmed
could be vindicated. This task was to be performed by
an American official, who was ready to undertake what the
EngUsh ambassador had not the courage or the manliness
to do. Mr. Eugene Schuyler had been for some years
Secretary of Legation at St. Petersburg, where he had
rendered service to his country and done honor to himseU
by his studies and writings, among which were a LUe of
Peter the Great, and a work of great value on Turkistan,
the fruit of his own observations in Central Asia. He

THE MISSION OF MR. SCHUYLER. 173
had recently been appointed Secretary of Legation and
Consul-General at Constantinople, where he arrived on
the 6th of July, 1876, but a few weeks after the massa
cres, and while they were still the talk of all the foreign
circles in the Turkish capital. He had come from England,
where dark rumors were beginning to be spread abroad
and had created great indignation, which the government
of that day — that of Lord Beaconsfield — had endeavored
to allay by repeating what their ambassador had told them,
that the reports were " monstrously exaggerated." Whether
they were so or not, could only be ascertained by inquiry
on the spot, and this Mr. Schuyler, at the request of the
American Minister, was ready to undertake. It was of
necessity a disagreeable task, and may have been at some
personal risk, as it was to expose the conduct of the Turk
ish authorities. However, the Government, much as it
might be opposed to any inquiry, could not forbid it when
asked by the American Minister, and receiving a firman
for the purpose, Mr. Schuyler set out from Constanti
nople on the 23rd of July, two months after the massacres
had taken place. By a happy coincidence, he had an
admirable companion in Mr. MacGahan, a personal friend,
who had made an expedition with him into Central Asia,
in which he made himseU famous by his daring ride across
the Turcoman desert, so thrillingly described in his " Cam
paigning on the Oxus," and who was the following year to
add to his reputation by a series of most graphic sketches
of the Russian war. Though an American, he was engag
ed as the correspondent of an EngUsh journal, the London
News, which had detailed him to proceed to Servia, where
war was now in progress. As they were bound in the
same direction, they left Constantinople together. When
they arrived at PhiUppopoUs, Mr. Schuyler persuaded
MacGahan to interrupt his journey for a day, to learn

174 THE INVESTIGATION.
about the massacres ; and as the atrocities were unvetted
he became so interested that he felt that he could serve
his employers, as well as the cause of truth and justice,
better by exposing these horrible crimes than by reporting
the war in Servia. Accordingly he remained with Mr.
Schuyler, and took part in the investigation, and wrote
such letters to London as made the ears of all England to
tingle. The story which he had to tell will be indicated
by what foUows.
ALt PhiUppopoUs Mr. Schuyler began a thorough inves
tigation. He visited a number of the villages which had
been destroyed, and questioned such of the survivors as
he could find. At first these were shy of giving informa
tion, lest they should bring down additional vengeance
upon them. But as they recovered confidence, they were
led to teU their story, and thus by degrees the horrible
truth began to appear. He did not take their reports
without examination, but sUted them to the bottom, cross-
questioning every witness, and seeking for any contrary
testimony. The same careful examination he carried into
the district of Tatar-Bazardjik and others, and then crossed
the Balkans and continued his investigations there, and
returned to Constantinople the last of August. In these
five weeks he had visited the greater part of the disturbed
districts, and was suppUed with a formidable array of tes
timony. From such materials he prepared a very full
Report to the United States government. That Report 13
now before me. It makes, with several letters which are
included, a large octavo pamphlet of thirty-one pages in
fine print,* and teUs such a story as has not thrilled the
world with horror since the massacre of Scio. From this
Report I draw the facts here given, which I make no apol-
* It is numbered "44th Congress. 2d Session, Senate. Ex.
Doc. No. 24."

REPORT TO THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT. 175
ogy for reproducing, as showing better than any argument
what the Turk really is, what is the sort of government
which he administers over his subject populations, and as
furnishing the best justification for the Russian War. The
general result I give in Mr. Schuyler's own words :
" In the districts to which I paid particular attention — those of
Philippopolis, Sliven, and Tirnovo, and the neighboring part of
the province of Sophia — there were seventy-nine villages wholly
or partially burned, besides very many pillaged. At least 9000
houses were burned, and taking the average of eight to a Bul
garian house, 72,000 persons were left without roof or shelter.
According to the figures I have given, 10,984 persons were
killed. Many more were killed in the roads, in the fields, and in
the mountains, of whom there is no record or count, and I think,
therefore, I am not wrong in estimating the total number of killed
at about 15,000. Many more died subsequently from disease and
exposure, and in prison. The violations of women, and the
instances of cruelty and barbarity, were so numerous that it has
been impossible for me to do more than hint at them. . . . The
burning of these villages, and the murders and atrocities com
mitted, were clearly unnecessary for the suppression of the insur
rection, for it was an insignificant rebellion at the best, and the
villagers generally surrendered at the first summons. Nor can
they be justified by the state of panic, for that was over before
the troops set out on their campaign. An attempt, however, has
been made, and not by Turks alone, to defend and palliate these
acts on the ground of previous outrages, which it is alleged were
committed by Bulgarians. I have carefully investigated this
point, and am unable to find that the Bulgarians committed any
atrocities or outrages, or any acts which deserve the name. . . .
I vainly tried to obtain from the Turkish officials a list of the
outrages which they said were committed by the Bulgarians at
the beginning of the insurrection, but I could hear nothing but
vague statements, which on investigation were never proved. . . .
In general, on the spot where such occurrences were said to have
taken place, it was impossible to find any evidence in support of
them, even from the Turks. I found that the further I went from
the disturbed district, the greater and more exaggerated became
the stories of the outrages committed by the Bulgarians. I heard

176 THE VICTIMS TORTURED.
far more about them in Adrianople than in Philippopolis, and in
Constantinople than in Adrianople."
The more the particulars became known, tha more they
added to the horrors of the tale. It was not the slaughter
of so many combatants in war : for this was not a battle, it
was a butchery. Those who fell were not men with arms
in their hands : they were unarmed and helpless — indeed
thousands of them were women The victims were of both
sexes, and of every age — old men and children, the grand-
sire and the child upon his knee, the mother and the babe
upon her breast. Not only were men killed, but tortured
with every device of suffering that devilish maUgnity could
inflict. Some were impaled; others were burned ahve.
Old men had their eyes torn out and their limbs cut off,
and thus were left to die unless some one in mercy gave
them a thrust to end their sufferings. At Dunovo, where
" seventy-five went without arms and with a white flag to
surrender, they were aU massacred by the pasha command
ing in a most cruel way. Some were cut to pieces ; others
had their Umbs cut off, or long strips of flesh torn from
their bodies ; and others were disemboweUed." The
treatment of women was such as cannot be described
The Bulgarians are said to be most rigid and strict in
then- ideas of moraUty, so that the sUghtest taint of im
purity brings a dishonor that can never be removed It
was far worse than death when wives and mothers and
daughters were subjected to the outrages of a brutal
soldiery! In one instance the father of a family, seeing
the fate that was before them, killed his two sisters, his
wife, and his four children, rather than have them fall into
the hands of the Turks, and then killed himself !
I have no wish to prolong this chapter of horrors, and
will end by a single instance given a Uttle more in detatt.
Batak was a large viUage in the mountains, about thirty

THE BUTCHERY AT BATAK. 177
miles south of Tatar-Bazardjik. It was situated in a lovely
valley, through which ran a rapid Uttle river, which was
lined with saw-mitts : for the town had a large trade in
timber and sawn boards. It had about eight thousand
inhabitants, of whom not two thousand were known to
survive. Fully five thousand perished.
" This village," says Mr. Schuyler, " surrendered without firing
a shot, after a promise of safety, to the Bashi-Bazouks, under the
command of Ahmed-Aga, a chief of the rural police. Despite his
promise, the few arms once surrendered, Ahmed-Aga ordered the
destruction of the village and the indiscriminate slaughter of the
inhabitants, about a hundred young girls being reserved to satisfy
the lust of the conqueror before they too should be killed. . . .
" Ladiscriminate slaughter now began. Women, girls, and
children were killed in the houses and in the streets, while many
men were taken to a log of wood and beheaded with sabres.
Very few were able to escape the cordon of Bashi-Bazouks, and
the majority of the inhabitants were killed under circumstances
of great barbarity. Vranko's wife found the bodies of her hus
band and of Triandafil's son with their heads cut off. Triandafil
had been impaled alive on a wooden spit, and then roasted. The
schoolhouse was burned, with 200 women and children within.
Other houses, in which twenty, thirty, and even forty women had
shut themselves up, were burned, together with the inmates.
The remainder of the inhabitants sought refuge in the church and
the church-yard, but the Bashi-Bazouks scaled the high walls, and
all the villagers in the church-yard were killed. Petroleum,
straw, and fire-brands were used to set fire to the woodwork
inside the church, and sabres and muskets did the rest."
Mr. Schuyler visited Batak on the first of August, and
thus describes what he saw with his own eyes :
" On entering the village, I passed through a small hollow on
the hillside, in which I counted more than a hundred skulls,
which had evidently been cut off by a sharp instrument. From
their small size and the braids of hair still clinging to them, they
were beyond doubt the skulls of women. The dogs, which in

178 THE GHASTLY REMAINS.
large numbers had been gnawing the bones, were driven off at my
approach. "Further on, the fields were full of skulls and skeletons.
" In the town but one building (a mill) still retained its roof
and walls, and its weir was full of swollen corpses. Everywhere
through the streets I found bones of women to which shreds of
female clothing hung. There were shirts with the heads and
limbs protruding, the hands and feet having been cut off. There
were skulls with braids of hair attached. There were even rotting
and putrid corpses. Among the ruins could be seen fragments
of charred human bones and half-buried bodies.
"The church-yard was still worse. It was three feet deep
with human remains, over which had been hurriedly thrown
boards and heaps of stones, which but half concealed the corpses.
"Passing over these with great difficulty, on account of the
fearful stench, I saw protruding from the stones hands and feet
with the flesh dried upon them, and human heads, one of which I
noticed had an ear cut off. Making my way to the door of the
church, I beheld a spectacle which it is impossible to describe.
The ruined church was filled with decomposing bodies, many of
which were half burned. I should think that in the church and
the church-yard I saw the remains of fully 2000 bodies, which in
great part were still only half decayed."
Such was the report of his investigations which Mr.
Schuyler made to the United States Government, and
through it to the world. The impression it produced can
hardly be described. The EngUsh ambassador tried to
break the force of these terrible revelations by sending a
special commissioner, Mr. Baring, an attache of the Em
bassy, to make a separate inquiry, with the hope that he
would be able to make what we in America are wont to
caU "a whitewashing report." But his honest EngUsh
heart revolted at the atrocities which he discovered, and
he wrote back : " What makes the action of Chefket Pasha
so abominable is, that there was not a semblance of revolt.
The inhabitants were perfectly peaceful, and the attack on
them was as cruel a deed as could have been committed.

THE LETTERS OF MACGAHAN. 179
For this Chefket Pasha has received a high place in the
Palace. Nana Sahib alone has rivalled him." In England
the revelation of these atrocities, which the Ministry had
tried to suppress, produced such a feeUng that it was one
of the most powerful causes of the overthrow of the gov
ernment. While Mr. Schuyler thus gave a simple recital of the
facts of the case, almost without comment, his associate
MacGahan, who had more freedom in writing for the press
than if making a report to his government, by his descrip
tions set fire to the heart of England and America. The
feeUng was universal that wretches capable of such atroci
ties were not fit to Uve. Men said, " These are not human
beings ; they are fiends of heU, whom it were a blessing to
humanity to exterminate from the face of the earth." Nor
was it the murderous Bashi-Bazouks only that were to
blame, but the Turkish Government, which applauded
what they had done ; which rewarded every officer who
was conspicuous in the massacre by some decoration or
promotion in the military service. As Mr. Baring truly
said, the horrible monster whom he designates as the
Nana Sahib of Turkey, instead of being punished for his
crimes, was rewarded for them, by being made Marshal
of the Palace, and the year after held an important com
mand in the war, and conducted an army of ten thou
sand men, with suppUes for Osman Pasha, into Plevna.
Thus the government took upon itself the responsibtt-
ity for aU the blood that had been shed. That was in
nocent blood, which cried from the ground for punish
ment, and for which the murderers were to pay blood
for blood. It is gravely affirmed by those who had the
best opportunity to know, that the exposures made by
these two Americans were really the cause of the Rus
sian war. The famous English correspondent, Archibald

180 WHAT BROUGHT ON THE RUSSIAN WAR.
Forbes, writes thus of what had been done by a brother
journaUst :
" MacGahan's work in tho exposure of the Turkish atrocities in
Bulgaria, which he carried out so thoroughly and effectively in
1876, produced very remarkable results. Regarded simply in its
literary merits, there is nothing I know of to excel it in vividness,
in pathos, in a burning earnestness, in a glow of conviction that
fires from the heart to the heart. His letters stirred Mr. Glad
stone into a convulsive paroxysm of burning revolt against the
barbarities they described. They moved England to its very
depths, and men travelling in railway carriages were to be notic
ed with flushed faces and moistened eyes as they read them.
Lord Beaconsfield tried to whistle down the wind the awful sig
nificance of the disclosures made in those wonderful letters. The
master of sneers gibed at, as "coffee-house babble," the revela
tions that were making the nations to throb with indignant pas
sion. A British official, Mr. Walter Baring, was sent into Bul
garia on the track of the two Americans, MacGahan and Schuyler,
with intent to disparage their testimony by the results of cold
official investigation. But lo ! Baring, official as he was, never
theless was an honest man with eyes and a heart ; and he who
had been sent out on the mirsion to curse MacGahan, blessed
him instead altogether, for he more than confirmed the latter's
figures and pictures of murder, brutality, and atrocity. It is not
too much to say that this Ohio boy, who worked on a farm in his
youth, and picked up his education anyhow, changed the face of
Eastern Europe. When he began to write of the Bulgarian atroc
ities, the Turk swayed direct rule to the bank of the Danube, and
his suzerainty stretched to the Carpathians. Now Roumania
owns no more the suzerainty, Servia is an independent kingdom,
Bulgaria is tributary but in name, and Roumelia is governed not
for the Turks, but for the Roumelians. All this reform is the
direct and immediate outcome of the Russo-Turkish war. But
what brought about the Kusso-Turkish war ? What forced the
Czar, reluctant as he was and inadequately prepared, to cross the
Danube and wage with varying fortune the war that brought his
legions finally to the very gates of Stamboul ? The passionate,
irresistible pressure of the Pan-Slavist section of his subjects,
burning with ungovernable fury against the ruthless Turk, be-

THE RETRIBUTION. 181
cause of his cruelties on those brother Slavs of Bulgaria and
Roumelia ; and the man who told the world and those Russian
Slavs of those horrors, the man whose voice rang out clear
through the nations with its burden of wrongs and shame and
deviltry, was no illustrious statesman, no famed litterateur, but
just this young American from off the little farm in Perry county,
Ohio. Therefore it is that I say that MacGahan it was, who,
having brought about the Russo-Turkish war that hounded the
Turk from the regions which his hoof defaced, has his rightful
place in history as the force that brought about the changes
which the Treaty of Berlin made in the political geography of
Eastern Europe."
This language is not too strong. It was those burning
letters which set the heart of England on fire ; which led
Mr. Gladstone to say : " We may ransack the annals of the
world, but I know not what research can furnish us with
so portentous an example of the fiendish misuse of the
powers established by God for the punishment of evil
doers, and for the encouragement of them that do weU.
No government has ever so sinned, none has proved itseU
so incorrigible in sin, or so impotent for reformation."
Such is the story of the Bulgarian massacres — a story
which I have been reluctant to tell, as many have heard it
before, and those who have not may not wish to hear it.
But the narrative, horrible as it is, carries a moral lesson,
as it shows how Divine justice pursues the guttty and
avenges the innocent. As one of the darkest crimes that
ever stained the pages of history, it caUed for a terrible
retributiom How that retribution came wiU be told in
the next chapter.

CHAPTER XIV.
THE STORY OF THE WAR.
In the Autumn of 1875 I was in Constantinople, and
heard the rumbUngs of a coming storm. But a storm
does not always break suddenly ; the clouds may appear
on a horizon that is very far off ; and so it was, in the
history of this tremendous convulsion that was to shake
aU Southeastern Europe, it began on the outer verge of
European Turkey, away on the shores of the Adriatic. It
was the far-outlying province of Herzegovina that led the
way, where a revolt had begun as early as July. The
causes were the same which existed everywhere in the
Turkish Empire — the intolerable oppression of the Gov
ernment. As the insurrection was not immediately sup
pressed, it gathered force, and as soon as there was a hope
of maintaining itseU, it extended to the neighboring prov
ince of Bosnia.
Of course there could not be a war against the Turks
in which Montenegro did not have a share. That " Black
Mountain," which towers Uke a mighty castle over the
Adriatic Sea, is the eagle-nest of ttberty. It is the one
spot which has defied the Turks for four hundred years.

f.B

A N Ail

^

' "%%£-
Mi-
Skiiitendl1
^j.  — — — _ — ^^ ' y.  1  - .if'Tn. ~y^A  u.
19 Longitude 21 East; from 23 Greenwich 25
MONTENEGRO. 183
The Uttle mountain State has but 190,000 inhabitants ;
yet even such a population may be formidable when every
man is a soldier. Again and again had the Turks tried to
subdue them, but the brave mountaineers retreated into
their fastnesses by paths which no stranger could follow,
from which they suddenly appeared on the tops of cliffs,
to roll down stones on the heads of their enemies. Every
crag was a castle waU for defence. They fought behind
rocks and trees, never counting the odds, and sometimes
hurling their enemies over precipices, in their terrible
hatred of the invader. In these continual wars to hate the
Turk became' a tradition and a reUgion. By such desper
ate bravery Montenegro maintained its independence,
while larger territories and populations were subdued. It
has never been conquered. And now that there was an
other caU to battle, this warlike element added to the
threatening dangers that appeared on the Western horizon
at the close of that memorable year (1875) and the open
ing of the year which foUowed.
Had the Turkish government been Uke any other Euro
pean government, this widespread unrest — these ferments
and insurrections — would have led to an inquiry into the
causes of such general discontent, to the end that the evils
might be removed, and the disaffected populations recov
ered to loyalty and to peace. But the idea of compromise
or concttiation is foreign to the nature of the. Turk ; his
only thought is to rush into battle, and stamp out insur
rection with a heel of iron. In this respect the reigning
Sultan was a Turk of the Turks. Those were the days of
Abdul Aziz, whose utter disregard of the responsibttities
of a throne was fast bringing the empire and himself to
ruin together. A few months after he was deposed and
assassinated. But he did all the evtt he could to the end
of his wicked Ufe. His very last month (May, 1876) wit-

184 SERVIA DECLARES WAR.
nessed the horrible massacres in Bulgaria. He died in
the midst of crimes, with which the cup of his iniquity
was fuU.
Servia had been from the beginning in close sympa
thy with Herzegovina. Volunteers in large numbers had
crossed the frontier to take their places in the ranks of
Uberty. The massacres in Bulgaria aroused the excite
ment to a pitch at which it became uncontrollable, and on
the 2d of July the government, unable any longer to
restrain the people, rushed into war. This was a fatal
mistake : for Servia alone was no match for Turkey, nor
when supported by the provinces around her. She soon
found that revolutionary enthusiasts, unless fighting Uke
the Montenegrins in mountain passes, stand but a poor
chance against a disciplined army. Osman Pasha advanc
ed in terrible force, sweeping the Servians before him,
defeating them in every battle, and would have marched
to Belgrade if he had not been stopped by the intervention
of the European Powers.
But the rising, though premature, at least served one
purpose : it attracted the attention of the world, and creat
ed an immense excitement abroad, especially in Russia.
In that same month of July, Lord Loftus, the British Am
bassador at St. Petersburg wrote to Lord Derby :
"The enthusiasm for the Servians and Christian Slavs is
daily increasing here. The feeling is universal, and it pervades
all classes from the Crown to tho peasant. The sympathy of the
masses is aroused by the atrocities in Bulgaria, and bears a relig
ious, not a political character. Public collections are made for
the sick and wounded. Officers with 'the Red Cross,' and ladies
of the court and of society, go from house to house requesting
subscriptions. At the railway stations, in the steam-boats, even
in the carriages of the tramways, the Red Cross is present every
where, -with a sealed box for donations. Every stimulant, even
to the use of the Empress's name, is resorted to to animate feel-

THE CONGRESS IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 185
ings of compassion for the suffering Christians, and to swell the
funds for providing ambulances for the sick and wounded."
A state of things so alarming threatened to bring on a
general European war, to avert which a Congress of all the
Powers was assembled in Constantinople. In that Con
gress there were diversities of interests. Some have sup
posed that Russia was secretly desirous of war, and trying
to embrott the negotiations to that end. But on the con
trary, she did aU in her power to preserve peace. The
EngUsh representative in the Congress was Lord Salisbury
(the friend and chosen agent of Lord Beaconsfield), who
was certainly not disposed to make the position of Russia
appear in any better Ught than the truth required, and yet
he afterwards stated in the House of Lords that " his sug
gestions at Constantinople had every support from the
Russian embassador, and that the Emperor was tormentingly
anxious for peace. He preferred not to mention those who
advised the Turks to resist them." He was understood to
refer to certain EngUsh residents in Constantinople, who,
by stirring up the Turks and inspiring a false confidence,
were the marplots of every negotiation.
I have already alluded to the cunning trick of Midhat
Pasha, then Grand Vizier, by which he tried to disarm the
hostility of the Congress in proclaiming a Constitution on
the very day of its meeting. The artifice succeeded. It
"took the wind out of the satts" of the most aggressive of
foreign representatives. How could they be so ungener
ous as to press a power which showed itself so eager for
reform that it had, of its own noble impulse, gone far
beyond what its foreign advisers had dared to suggest?
And as if this were not enough to give the Congress a set
back at the very start, and put it in an attitude of irresolu
tion, England gave it to be understood that whatever its
decision, she at least would never take any mUitary steps

186 RUSSIA DECLARES WAR.
to enforce it 1 After this its good advice became merely a
farce ; and the Porte, having the fear of war removed,
decided that the dignity (!) of the Sultan would not per
mit him to yield to any " demands." His dignity must
leave him at full Uberty to oppress and to massacre his
Christian subjects at witt. Thus doubly embarrassed by
the attitude of its friends and its enemies, the Congress
subsided into a tame affair, and ended by offering but
moderate proposals. As it lowered its tone, the Turk
Ufted up his head. The Porte assumed a haughty air, and
would listen to nothing, whereupon the Congress broke up
on the 18th of January. Again another protocol was pre
pared, even more modest, which was offered in April ; but
now the blood of the Turk was up, and this too was rejected,
not with firmness and dignity, but with anger and proud
disdain. And so the Congress proved an utter failure.
Thus deserted by England, and with the rest of Europe
standing aloof, the Czar felt that the time had come for
him to act alone. Anticipating a faUure of peaceful meas
ures, and the necessity of a resort to arms, Russia had
been for six months massing a large army in Bessarabia,
with its centre at Eashineff, the capital, and here on the
24th of April, 1877, the Emperor in person, in the pres
ence of his army, appeaUng to God for the purity of his
motives and the justice of his cause, solemnly declared
war. " Deeply convinced," to quote his words, " of the
justice of our cause, and relying in aU humility upon the
grace and assistance of the Most High, . . . invoking the
blessing of God upon our vaUant armies, we give them the
order to cross the frontier of Turkey."
This was the supreme moment in the Ufe of Alexander
IT. And with what feeling did he issue that awful decree?
He did not read it himself ; even had such been the cus
tom, he could not trust his own voice. It was read by the

THE TROOPS CROSS THE FRONTIER. 187
Bishop of the Diocese. He only Ustened and wept.
" While the troops received the news with visible satisfac
tion, the Emperor was observed to be in tears." * It was
with no French " gayety of heart " that he entered on the
fearful struggle, but with sadness and foreboding of what
it might bring, not to himseU or to his royal house, but to
his brave people. But he had no alternative. He had
done all he could to avert the issue, and decided as he did
only from the sternest necessity.
But however he shrank from it, the die was cast : war
was declared. Instantly the drums beat, and fifty thou
sand men marched across the river Pruth into Roumania.
The same day seventy thousand troops crossed the Turkish
frontier in Trans-Caucasia, and advanced against Ears and
Batoum. Thus in one day war was begun in Europe and
in Asia. But it is one thing to declare war, and another to make
war. Military operations are very slow. An army corps
cannot move as swiftly as a squadron of cavalry ; and
when there are tens of thousands of men to be transported
over long distances, with artttlery and aU the implements
of war and enormous baggage trains, progress must be by
marches of but a few mUes a day, and it was just two
months before the army which had crossed the Pruth
crossed the Danube.
A march is not as exciting as a battle, but it stirs the
blood to see a great army moving steadtty forward to the
scene of conflict, especiatty if it be animated by some great
impulse, patriotic or religious. Such a sentiment per^]
vaded the Russian army : it felt that it was embarked /
in a holy crusade. It should never be forgotten that thej
cause which set this army in motion was a religious one.
Whatever ambition Russia may have had to get possession
*Ufe of Alexander II., p. 256.

188 SINGING HYMNS ON THE MARCH.
of Constantinople, its object now, as declared in the face
of Europe and the world, was to redress the wrongs of
its co-rettgionists in European Turkey. Ever since the
conquest the Turks had oppressed the Christian popula
tions to the Umit of endurance — an oppression which was
felt most in Russia, as a large part of the people were of
the Greek Church, of which Russia regarded hersett as the
protector. This was an outrage and a scandal far greater
than the profanation of the Holy Sepulchre, which set att
Christendom in arms for its recovery, and hence every
man in the Russian army felt, as much as any Crusader of
the Middle Ages, that he was engaged in a war against
the infidels ; and so as they marched they sang, not only
their national anthem, but their sacred hymns. One who
watched the mighty column day by day as it swept along
to the Danube and beyond it, thus pictures the scene * :
" Every day, over the poorly-traced highway leading from
Giurgevo to Simnitza, came thousands of troops grimly bending
to their work, setting their faces sternly to the East. We never
tired of watching the solid infantry-men as they plodded by, now
answering the salutation of a General with a shout which made
one's heart beat faster than usual, now singing almost reverently
in chorus. The Cossacks were our chief delight. Dust and
fatigue seemed to have no power to choke the harmony which
welled up melodiously, as from the pipes of a mighty organ,
whenever a Cossack regiment halted. On they came, now at
dawn, now at dusk, thousands of lithe, sinewy, squared-faeed,
long-haired youth, with shrewd, twinkling eyes, small hands and
feet, nerves of steel, and gestures of utmost earnestness. The
leader of each squadron usually "lined" the hymn or ballad
which was sung. Behind him hundreds of voices took up the
chorus, .and prolonged it until the heavens seemed filled with
sweet notes. Sometimes the singers recited the exploits of an
anoient hetman of their tribes ; sometimes an exquisite and tender
sentiment of melancholy pervaded their song — a longing for home,
* Europe In Storm and Calm. By Edward King. pp. 74,9, 750.

CROSSING THE DANUBE. 189
for kindred, for babe and wife ; sometimes a rude worship per
meated every note. From the camps of these stout fellows, who
are the eyes and ears of the Russian army when it is in an
enemy's country, arose the mournful and spiritual cadences of
the 'Evening Prayer,' followed by the Russian national anthem,
than which no nation has a grander. When the breezes were
favorable, we could hear the singing of the Russian troops beyond
the Danube, and from time to time through the long night cheer
answered cheer across the wide, dark waters. This singing was
a marked feature of the early campaign in Bulgaria. On the
march, when near the enemy, infantry and cavalry were alike
silent, grave, watchful, but at night nothing could restrain the
chorus. Grand, plaintive, often pathetic, it mounted to the stars ;
and when the Turks heard it, it must have impressed them pow
erfully." The first great operation of the war was the crossing of
the Danube. How the Russian army ever crossed at all,
is one of the mysteries which the defenders of Turkish
mUitary skill must explain. It was a maxim of Napoleon
that "to cross a river in the face of an enemy, is one of
the most difficult operations in the art of war." But here
was the largest river in Europe, defended by great for
tresses and by gunboats, some of them ironclads. The
boats, however, amounted to nothing : two or three of
them were blown up by torpedoes, which put the rest in
such a panic that they did not dare to move, but kept
under the guns of the fortresses, as the troops which
those strongholds contained kept behind the walls. But
the fortresses were strong, and had great armies in them
and around them. The Turks had fifty thousand men in
the fortresses of the Quadrilateral, and as many more at
Widdin, two hundred mUes to the west, on the Danube,
and might have thrown up earthworks and planted bat
teries at every exposed point along the river, which would
have made it impassable. Anticipating such a defence,
Moltke had estimated that to force the passage of the

190 THE TWO ARMIES.
Danube in the face of such obstacles, would cost the
Russians sixty thousand men ! But owing to the secrecy
with which the operation was prepared, and the inaction
of the enemy, it did not cost them one thousand, both in
kitted and wounded. Apparently the Turks had no plan
of defence. Instead of taking the strongest position, they
remained passive, scarcely making an effort to oppose the
passage of the river ; so that when the Russians under
took it, they met with but a feeble resistance. They had
prepared a great number of pontoons which were hidden
under the willows of a Uttle stream, from which they were
pushed sttently, in the darkness of midnight, out on the
bosom of the broad river, and rowed across to the other
side. Skobeleff was the first to spring on shore : and in
the gray of the morning the Russian regiments climbed
up the southern bank, and seized a position from which
they could not be driven. A few days later a bridge was
thrown across the Danube, and the great body of the Rus
sian army was transferred from Roumania to Bulgaria.
And now the war was to begin in earnest. The forces
were nearly equal. The Russians had some 225,000 men —
a force which proved whoUy insufficient for operations
of such magnitude, and to which it was necessary to
add, before the war was over, 150,000 more. The Turks
had about the same number, with an almost unlimited
recruiting ground in Asia. In soldierly quaUties also
there was not much to choose. The Russian soldier, in
physical strength, in endurance of fatigue, and in disci
pline, in obedience to orders in the face of any danger,
is the model soldier of the world, And yet he is not much
better than the Turk, who is by nature equally hardy and
brave, might be made with proper discipline.
As to arms, the Turks were better off than the Rus
sians. They had anticipated the war which had now

THE TURKS BETTER ARMED. 191
come, and provided themselves in advance. In Constan
tinople in 1875 the huge barracks had been pointed out to
me in which were stacked over 300,000 American rifles
[the Peabody-Martini gun, as perfect an arm as was ever
put in the hands of a soldier], which were manufactured in
Providence, R I. I remember thinking then what waste
fulness and fotty to spend miUions of money in piling up
such an armory of weapons which would never be needed ;
yet in less than two years these very rifles were in the
hands of Turkish soldiers in the field, and they imported
200,000 more. EquaUy for the purpose of defence were
the ironclads bought in England at enormous cost, which
I had seen lying idly in the Golden Horn : they too had
now found their use, for though they did not do much
active service in the war, they effectuaUy prevented any
operations in the Black Sea by the Russians, who might
otherwise have landed troops at Varna and other points
on the Turkish coast, which would have saved crossing
the Danube, and haU the long march to Constantino
ple. WhUe America suppUed the Turks with rifles, Ger
many had suppUed them with cannon, which, though less
numerous than those of Russia, were of longer range.
Not only the fortresses, but the troops in the field, were
armed with Krupp guns, whtte the Russians were armed
with old bronze cannon. In only one arm of the service
were the Russians superior — -in cavalry — the Turks having
no such riders and such fighters on horseback as the
Cossacks. But the greatest of aU the advantages possessed by the
Turks was that they were in their own country, of which
they knew every road, where they could choose the best
positions for attack or defence. They had not only a great
river before them, but a great chain of mountains behind
them, aU the passes of which they held. This mountain

192 THE ADVANCE INTO BULGARIA.
barrier would have to be forced by an enemy that would
advance towards Constantinople. With such natural de
fences, supplemented by all that the art of war could do to
add to their strength — with rivers and mountains and
fortresses — it would seem as if the Turks might have defied
Russia or all Europe combined. So indeed they might
if they had any generals capable of making use of such
advantages, and fit to lead such soldiers. But with the
lethargy of the Turkish race, that needs to be roused by
some sudden blow, they would not advance, but waited
till the Russians should attack, determined then to drive
them back if they could.
They did not have to wait long. As soon as the Rus
sians had crossed the Danube, they pushed forward into
the interior, to seize a position commanding the main
roads, so as to plant themselves firmly in the heart of
Bulgaria. Of course this was at no small risk : for they
were now in the enemy's country, and had to run the
gauntlet of hosttte forces on either side. They had Turks
to the right of them, and Turks to the left of them. On
the right was the fortress of NikopoUs, and higher up the
Danube, at Widdin, was Osman Pasha with 50,000 men,
the flower of the Turkish army, which had put down the
rebellion in Servia the year befcre. The danger from this
quarter, however, was soon removed by the capture of
NikopoUs, when Osman Pasha, who had set out to reUeve
it, turned off to Plevna, where we shall soon hear of him.
But on the left the Turks held not only the sea and the
mouths of the Danube, but the Une of railroad over which
we passed from Varna to Rustchuk, with the fortresses of
the Quadrilateral untouched, whose garrisons might at any
moment march out and attack any exposed point of the
Russian Unes. The first step in the campaign, therefore,
was, in mUitary phrase, to " mask " these fortresses — that

GENERAL GOURKO— CAPTURE OF TIRNOVA. 193
is, to set over against them forces sufficient to repel an
attack from that quarter, whUe the centre of the army
moved directly through Bulgaria towards the Balkan
Mountains. This took a very considerable portion of the
forces that had marched to the war ; but as there was Uttle
done in this part of the field of operations, we may dismiss
it for the present, to turn our attention to another quarter,
which was to be the scene of the greatest activity.
The commander of the advance guard of the Russian
army was General Gourko, who was, next to Skobeleff,
the most enterprising of Russian generals, and was to prove
one of the heroes of the war ; and now that he had futt
scope for action, he did not let the grass grow under his
feet. J£ there was danger in pushing forward, a rapid
movement sometimes succeeded by its very audacity. The
principal town within striking distance was Tirnova, which
had forty or fifty thousand inhabitants, the ancient capital
of the Bulgarian kings, of which an American traveUer
speaks as " positively the most picturesque place he had
ever seen," being on the banks of a river, and surrounded
by cliffs, on the top of which are ancient monasteries. Its
very position makes it a natural fortress, enclosed as it is
in " a munition of rocks."- It is situated in a bend of the
Tantra, and on every side of it rise rocky perpendicular
bluffs five hundred feet high, so that it can only be entered
through narrow defiles. Of course it was easy of defence.
A proper garrison within it could keep an army at bay.
That the Turks could have left such a position almost
without troops, is one of the many incredible incidents of
this war. Perhaps they were not on their guard, because
they could not imagine that any force would have the
audacity to attack it. The feeble show of defence sug
gested a possible ambuscade, and Gourko approached very
cautiously ; but when, to his amazement, he discovered

194 THE PASSES OVER THE BALKANS.
that the place was held by only a few hundred men, he did
not give them time to reflect on the situation, but instant
ly ordered an attack ; and the Cossacks, putting then-
horses into a gaUop, rushed up the defile into the town,
and made themselves masters, whUe the Turks rushed out
in futt flight at the other end. Thus a place which, prop
erly defended, might have stood a siege of months, was
carried by a rush of cavalry, in which the Russian loss was
only two men and eight horses wounded 1 So much for
promptness and daring in war.
The entrance of the Russians into Tirnova was the
occasion of a very pretty scene. As the people were
Christians, they welcomed their deUverers. Women and
girl3 met the soldiers with flowers, whUe the priests and
monks descended from the monasteries on the heights
above, to give their blessing to the Uberating army.
But Gourko had no time for " scenes " of any kind,
even the most gratifying. In seizing Tu-nova, he had no
intention to take up his quarters there, but only to make it
a base of further operations. Ever since he crossed the
Danube, he had had his eye on the Balkan Mountains,
which was the next great barrier in the march to Constan
tinople. He remained in Tirnova only four days, just long
enough to get a thorough knowledge of the country, and
organize a pack train for a forced march. Summoning
every one who could give him information, he questioned
them closely about the passes over the Balkans. He found
that roads led from Tirnova to four passes, of which but
one, the Shipka Pass, was defended by the Turks. To be
sure, this was the main route by which an army, in time
of peace, U it wished to move in regular military order,
would take its march. But it was not the only way of
crossing the mountains ; indeed, counting aU the passes,
large and smaU, there were no less than seventeen of them.

CROSSING BY A NARROW PASS. 195
So utterly unguarded were the narrow passes that not even
a sentinel kept watch upon the heights to raise an alarm
at the approach of an invader. To conceal his movements,
Gourko selected one which was Uttle more than a foot
path — a kind of Indian tratt — which scaled a height of four
thousand feet, and over this he determined to lead his
army. The pass was so narrow that in many places the
soldiers had to march in single file, each man carrying his
knapsack on his back. Extra rations, as weU as ammuni
tion, were packed on mules. The ascent was so steep that
it was utterly impossible to use horses even to draw the
guns, which had to be taken off from the carriages, and
dragged up by sheer strength ! Thus clinging to the rocks
or the roots of trees, pulling and tugging, the Russians at
last reached the summit, when reversing the process they
let their guns sUde down the other side of the mountain,
at the foot of which they were put together, and the little
force started forward, infantry, artillery, and cavalry also.
Thus at the very outset of the campaign was performed
one of the most briUiant operations of the war. The bold
ness of the movement was its success. The smaU Turkish
garrisons were taken by surprise and easily defeated, whUe
the Christian populations of the towns, remembering the
fearful massacre of the year before, welcomed the invaders,
whose appearance set them on fire with the hope of speedy
Uberation. At Eski-Zagra a deputation invited the Rus
sians to enter the town — -a declaration of their sympathies
that was to provoke a terrible punishment. But for the
moment the strangers and the inhabitants united in Con
gratulations and rejoicings.
Thus far the Russians seemed to have found an easy
path to victory — a path literally strewn with roses, for
they had come into the land where the roses bloom. The
region south of the Balkans is one of the most beautiful in

196 SULEIMAN PASHA APPEARS ON THE SCENE.
all the East. As the slopes of the hills are turned to the
southern sun, they are soft and warm, and on them and in
the vaUeys at their foot the Damascus rose is cultivated
expressly for the delicious perfume — the Ottar of Roses — •
that is distiUed from it ; so that the whole country looks
like a garden — & bloom and beauty that were soon to be
exchanged for torrents of blood.
The appearance of the Russians south of the Balkans,
following so soon the passage of the Danube, created a
panic in Constantinople. The Sultan was in terror lest he
should be driven from his capital, and every day councils
were held at the Palace, at which it was seriously con
sidered whether he should not raise the banner of the
prophet, and proclaim a holy war ; or anticipate the loss
of his throne in Europe by removing across the Bosphorus
and setting it up in Broosa, in Asia Minor ! Certainly his
doom was not far distant unless something could be done
to drive the Russians back over the mountains.
Now at last the sluggish Turks awoke to the perils of
the situation, and felt the necessity of tremendous efforts
to save the Empire. No more resting in camp : they must
push forward to the scene of war. Suleiman Pasha was
recalled from Montenegro, and twenty transports were
sent to bring back his army. In a few days he landed at
Enos in the iEgean Sea with 30,000 men, which, with the
addition of other divisions, was swelled to 50,000 ; with
which he moved forward to meet the invaders. As
Gourko had but 16,000 men, he could not stand against
three times his force, and the Russians had to retreat,
leaving the Christians who had welcomed them to the
vengeance of those who knew no mercy.
Suleiman marched at once on Eski-Zagra, determined
to make an example for the " treason " of its inhabitants in
receiving the Russians. In the darkness of night he sur-

THE MASSACRE AT ESKI-ZAGRA. 197
rounded the town so that none could escape, and then
gave orders for a general massacre. Over ten thousand
were slain in cold blood. In this butchery there was no
attempt at discrimination. It was taken for granted that
every Bulgarian was a rebel at heart, U not in act, and he
was marked for slaughter. Even the poor peasants who
had served as guides (perhaps pressed into the service)
were hung at the corners of the streets. When the
massacre was ended for the want of more victims, the
place was set on fire, that every vestige of the seat of
"treason" might be swept from the face of the earth.
Leaving its smoking ruins behind him, Suleiman moved
on in the path of destruction. Everywhere his course was
marked by fire and slaughter. Such was the terror he
inspired that the people, leaving their villages and then-
homes, fled en masse. The roads were thronged with ref
ugees of all ages and both sexes, men, women and chil
dren, fleeing from the merciless pursuer. Thousands died
on the way, and those whose strength held out to drag
themselves along, at last found their way across the
Balkans — not feeUng safe titt they were on the other side
of the mountains. But though the country was deserted,
the villages remained behind, on which the destroyer
wreaked his vengeance. Over sixty villages were burned.
Perhaps the last to share the fate of Eski-Zagra was
Kezanlik, " the place of roses " (so catted because it was
surrounded with rose-gardens), which was embosomed in
a lovely vale, not far from the vittage of Shipka, at the foot
of the Shipka Pass. Up to this point Suleiman had
carried his burning and massacre. He was now to have
a different experience.
In his pursuit of the retreating Russians, Suleiman had
pressed on till he came to the foot of the mountains, on
which they had taken their stand. Here he was brought

198 STORMING THE SHIPKA PASS.
to bay. The pass was a vital point, as affording access to
the country north of the Balkans, and he was determined
to retake it. Erom the crest of the mountain the Russians
saw the whole of his army deploying in the plain below,
and prepared themselves for the assault. It came in
tremendous force. The odds were terrible — the Russians
holding the pass with eight thousand men, against the
whole Turkish army ! After fighting three days, the
Turks had nearly surrounded the position. The Rusr
sians had been cut to pieces ; and once, seeing the num
ber of wounded carried to the rear, they thought a re
treat had been ordered, and began fatting back, and it
required the greatest energy on the part of their com
mander to ratty them. This was the critical moment of
the battle, perhaps of the war. The Russians stood there
to die, and when it seemed as if the last hour had come, a
couple of hundred men came trotting up the mountain on
the horses of the Cossacks, which they had taken for the
purpose. It was the first of the reinforcements, and more
were just behind. The new-comers dashed into the fight,
and drove the Turks down the mountain, and Shipka Pass
was saved. Vet the battle was renewed, even when the
hope of success was gone. Suleiman Pasha seemed to
have put his military pride in victory here, and as often as
one body of troops was destroyed, he ordered up another.
It is said that he ordered a hundred distinct attacks in less
than seven days ! As they were for the most part hopeless,
their continuance seemed pure madness. But Suleiman
looked on with the utmost coolness, and with the gayety of
heart which is part of the temper of a soldier, only twirled
his cigarette and ordered a fresh assault, until the bodies
of the Turks lay thick on the sides of the mountain. The
battle raged with Uttle intermission for five days. Indeed
the Pasha kept an army at the foot of the pass, and at

LOOKING TO THE QUADRILATERAL. 199
intervals renewed the assault for four months, in which he
gained absolutely nothing, but sacrificed the splendid
army which he brought from Montenegro, after which
briUiant display of mUitary skill, he was recalled in dis
grace ; so that the campaign which began by burning
towns and hanging peaceable citizens, ended in disaster
and in shame. He was afterwards tried by court martial,
and sentenced to complete degradation and confinement
in a fortress for fifteen years — the fit punishment for his
cruelties and his crimes.
While this terrible fighting was going on at the Shipka
Pass, the eyes of att Europe were turning towards another
quarter of the field of conflict, in anticipation of a tremen
dous shock of armies, which, U it should issue in a decisive
victory, would probably end the war. When the Russians
crossed the Danube, and advanced into Bulgaria, their
first and greatest danger was on their left flank, en which
was massed a Turkish army of fifty thousand men, whose
strength was buttressed by the great fortresses of the
Quadrilateral. To guard against this danger required a
force equal in number, and to this were defatted two army
corps numbering forty thousand infantry, five thousand
cavalry, and two hundred guns, which were placed under
the command of the Czarewitch, the present Czar ; but
whtte these two great armies faced each other, there was
Uttle fighting. The Turkish commanders showed no enter
prise. Old Abdul Kerim, who was in command when the
war broke out, had been, to use an American phrase,
" lying back," with something deep and dreadful in his
eye, intending to lure the Russians on into Bulgaria,
where, with the Danube at their back, they could not
escape, and he would faU upon them and capture their
whole army ! Wonderful strategy ! This boastful talk
diverted the minds of the CouncU sitting in the War Office

200 A GREAT ARMY THAT DOES NOTHING.
at Constantinople ; but as time passed, and the Russians
kept coming on, Abdul Kerim began to be looked upon as
an incapable, and he was recatted in disgrace, and banish
ed to one of the islands of the jEgean. (I wonder U he
was the sad old Turk who came on board our steamer at
Rhodes.) After him came Mehemet Ali, whose garrisons
were sweUed by reinforcements till he had nearly 100,000
men. With this splendid army in such a position, a great
military genius might have ended the war by a single
battle. As the Russians were scattered along a distance of
fifty miles, he had a capital chance to strike a hard blow at
their right, and then at the centre, thus doubling up the
long line and driving it back, even to the point of forcing
it to cross the Danube. He did indeed once throw open
the gates of the fortresses, and march out in battle array,
as if he were going to do something, but a Uttle rough
treatment made him retire behind his thick watts ; so that
for the rest of the campaign the Russians had Uttle to do
in this part of the field but to keep watch of then- powerful
foe. Strong as the Turks were, they did nothing : where
most was expected of them, they performed the least.
But now a soldier of a different type enters the field —
one who, alone among the Turks, achieved military dis
tinction in the war. WhUe Suleiman Pasha was sacrificing
his army in fruitless efforts to retake Shipka Pass, Osman
Pasha, who had left Widdin with forty thousand men to
reUeve NikopoUs, but" arrived too late, pushed east tttl he
reached Plevna, a small town of no importance except as
it afforded a central position for attack or defence. Here
he had come to stay, and began at once to surround him
self with fortifications, which he multipUed tUl he had
made a very Gibraltar in the heart of Bulgaria, with which
he was able to resist any force that could be brought
against him. The besieging army was swelled to a hun-

THE SIEGE OF PLEVNA. 201
dred thousand men, with four hundred siege guns, making
a line of investment thirty mUes in length. Again and
again assaults were made in immense force, and with the
most desperate courage. No figure in modern mUitary
history is more striking than that of Skobeleff, always in
the advance, seeming to court death by his conspicuous
figure, as he always went into battle wearing a white uni
form and mounted on a white horse, as if to offer himseU
as a mark for the enemy, yet by this very recklessness
giving an example of courage which electrified his soldiers,
and made them follow him in the deadly breach. Nearly
all his staff were kitted, yet he escaped unhurt. But even
courage cannot do the impossible. Not even Russian col
umns could take earthworks mounted with hundreds of
heavy guns, and behind which lay in security tens of thou
sands of riflemen with their breech-loaders. Heroic as the
efforts were, it was valor wasted. The result was always
the same, till at last after three months the Russians gave
up aU hope of carrying the place by storm. At this
moment the prospect looked dark. Plevna seemed likely
to prove another Sebastopol, with only the difference that
those who were there the besieged were here the besiegers.
Against such a Gibraltar aU the forces of Russia might
dash themselves in vain. There was~ only one alternative,
and Todleben, the defender of Sebastopol, was summoned
from St. Petersburg to undertake a regular siege.
To resist the depressing effect of such repeated defeats,
required not only courage and endurance, but aU the
national discipline and habit of obedience. To keep this
up to the highest point, the army had the presence of the
Czar, and every motive which could appeal to the feeling of
loyalty and of reUgion. The Russian soldier, stoUd as he
seems, is yet capable of a strong feeling of loyalty to his
sovereign and his faith that makes him witting to die for

202 A RELIGIOUS SOLEMNITY.
them. The intensity of religious feeUng in the rank and file
of the army, is Ulustrated in a scene at Plevna, described
by one who was present.* It was the Sunday after a
battle, when the Czar reviewed the army, riding down the
lines, saluting the men, and stopping to speak to one here
and there, after which came the foUowing scene :
After the troops had all been visited an open air mass was
held. One division of about ten thousand men was drawn up on
the plain west of Plevna, and about two miles from the high
range of hills on which the Turkish batteries stood ; the division-
was formed on three sides of a square, with a few squadrons of
cavalry on each flank. In the centre stood the Emperor, alone
and bareheaded, slightly in advance of his suite ; in front of him
was the priest in gorgeous robes, with a golden crucifix and the
Bible laid on a pile of drums which answered for an altar; a
short distance to one side was a choir consisting of twenty or
thirty soldiers, with fine musical voices. Every one uncovered
his head, and the service began in that slow, sad chant which is
peculiar to the Greek Church ; at the name of Jesus every one of
the vast crowd crossed himself. On the opposite hills, as the
service went on, could be seen large numbers of Turks congre
gating in wonder at the assembly of this large number of men.
Finally came the prayer for the repose of those who had died
in the battle a few days before ; the Emperor knelt on the ground,
resting his head on the hilt of his sword, every one followed his
example, and the whole division knelt there with their guns in
one hand, crossing themselves with the other, and following in a
subdued voice the words of the chant.
Nothing could give a clearer perception of the relations be
tween the Czar and his men than this strangely impressive scene :
tho Gosudar Imperator (Our Lord the Emperor), surrounded by
his people, with arms in their hands, facing their hereditary
enemios in religion and politics, and chanting in slow monotone,
whose periods wore marked by the booming of distant cannon,
the requiem for their dead comrades. ... To the class from
which the soldiers come, the religion of miracles and ceremonies
which they are taught, is the most real thing of their lives.
*Greeno'a "Army Llle in Russia," pp. 11, 12.

THE SURRENDER OF PLEVNA. 203
The business of a regular siege was less exciting than
that of taking the place by storm. These months of wait
ing were almost as trying to the Russian endurance as the
assaults, as the troops lay in the trenches exposed to the
Autumn rains, and afterward to the Winter's cold. They
died by thousands, but the survivors held on. It was slow
work, but the end was sure. Todleben had sealed up every
avenue by which suppUes could reach the beleaguered
garrison, and thus imprisoned, he held them in his iron
grasp for two months, till pressed by famine they made
one last desperate effort on the 10th of December to
break through the circle of fire which surrounded them
and escape, failing which Osman Pasha surrendered with
his whole army.
The fall of Plevna was the turning-point of the war.
With it the best army of the Turks was gone, and they
had none to take its place. Their only hope now was that
the elements might fight for them. It was the beginning
of Winter, and it might be supposed that troops exhausted
with a five months' siege would go into Winter quarters,
and postpone further operations tiU the next Spring.
Such was the advice of Todleben. But the Russian Com
mander-in-Chief, the Grand Duke Nicholas, knew the value
of time. To wait for months might bring other enemies
into the field. England was already hostUe, and Austria
might become so. It was all-important to finish the busi
ness at once. But this would require a Winter campaign,
the greatest hardship to which soldiers can be subjected,
and against which all his generals protested except Gourko
and Skobeleff, the two heroes of the war. It was a critical
moment, on the decision of which the whole fortune of the
war might depend. In this decision he took counsel of
courage rather than discretion, and ordered the advance.
The campaign that followed has few parallels in history :

204 CAMPAIGN IN MIDWINTER.
in comparison with it, the passage of the Great St. Bernard
by Napoleon was a hoUday excursion. That was at the
beginning of Summer: this was in mid- Winter. At the
very outset the stars in their .courses seemed to fight
against them. A snow-storm came en which lasted with
Uttle interruption for five days, and left snow in the passes
in many places ten feet deep. Thousands of men were
frostbitten ; hundreds were frozen to death. In such a
condition the Russian army began its march. The roads
were so steep and icy that horses were useless, and the
pieces and caissons had to be nnlimbered, and the guns
dragged up by main strength, a hundred men often being
harnessed to a single gun. The ammunition was carried
by hand. There were no waggons to carry even food, the
men having only what they could carry on their backs,
with no tents to sleep in, and no blankets to cover them,
wading aU day through the snow, and lying down in it to
sleep at night. On this fearful march as many perished
by cold as in battle. One column that had got over the
summit was overwhelmed by a terrible storm, causing the
snow to pUe up in huge drifts, in which a large part of the
artillery was buried. Further progress was impossible, and
it had finally to make its way back as it could, fifty-three
men having been frozen to death, and eight hundred and
ten permanently disabled by freezing. Tet in spite of all,
the men of the North moved steadtty over the mountain
heights, and came down into the vaUeys. The audacity of
the movement was its success. Skobeleff, moving Ughtly
encumbered, and therefore more expeditiously, across an
other route, turned against the Turks at the Shipka Pass,
who were at the same moment attacked by troops from
the other side, and captured the whole army. Thus vic
torious, the Russians pressed on to Sophia, which Gourko
entered on the fourth of January (in whose streets a Chris-

FLIGHT OF THE MUSSULMANS. 205
tian army was seen for the first time since 1434), and by
the ancient Roman road built for the march of conquerors,
to PhiUppopoUs and Adrianople ; and onward stttl, tiU on
the last day of that month the advance led by Skobeleff
came in sight of the minarets of Constantinople.
This passage of the Balkans in mid- Winter, and the
march which fottowed, were accompanied by one of those
terrible revenges which, when they occur in war, seem to
be the retributions of God. The victorious army passed
over the scene of the massacres in Bulgaria and RoumeUa,
in which men, women and chttdren had been butchered —
a crime incited by the Moslems of the vUlages, even where
they did not take part in it. So late as six months before,
the Mussulmans of Eski-Zagra and EezanUk had pointed
out their Christian neighbors to be murdered. The burn
ed villages were still lying in their ashes, the slaughtered
inhabitants were still unburied, silent witnesses to God of
man's inhumanity to man. Now the tide had turned.
The Russians were coming from the mountains, sweeping
everything before them. U the Turkish divisions halted
to give battle, it was only to experience a fresh defeat, and
to resume their flight in greater panic than before, in which
they were fottowed by the whole Moslem population. Re
membering the atrocities they had committed or instigated,
they knew that they would find no mercy from the kindred
of their victims, and they fled from a country which they
were no longer worthy to inhabit, not stopping till they
reached Constantinople, and thousands indeed could not
rest till they had crossed the Bosphorus, and were settled
in the interior of Asia Minor. This exodus of the Turks
was one of the most striking incidents of the war. Of
course this removal of a whole people involved incredible
suffering, but it was inevitable. The Turks had lived in
Bulgaria, as in all the provinces of European Turkey, as

206 A FATALITY IN THE WAR.
masters : they could not take the position of equals with
what they had regarded as a subject race. They knew
that the moment their power was gone, those whom they
had so long oppressed would avenge upon them the wrongs
of hundreds of years. EspeciaUy after the massacres, there
was no place for them in the land which they had plunged
into mourning by their crimes.
Such in brief is the story of the Russian war in Europe,
not to speak of the campaign in Asia. The power of
Turkey was utterly broken ; the Empire was at the feet of
Russia, as France was at the feet of Germany in 1870.
A discomfiture so complete caUs for a brief reflection
In looking back over this war, there seems to have been a
fataUty in it from the beginning. To explain the utter
overthrow of the Turks, we must look below the surface to
the moral causes underneath. When the war broke out, it
seemed as if they were benumbed and paralyzed by then-
doctrine of fatalism, and so attowed things to drift without
even an attempt to control them. They were brave enough
when it came to fighting, but they had no head, no leader
ship to make their courage of any avail. At the opening
of the campaign, aU the advantages were in their favor,
but they threw them away. They had not a commander
who showed any abttity except Osman Pasha, and his pecu
liar strategy was only in building enormous earthworks
and fighting behind them, which is very different from
fighting in the open field. And even this mode of defence
proved fatal at the last ; it gave a temporary success at
the price of final ruin : for in shutting himseU up in
Plevna, Osman committed the same error that Bazaine did
at Metz, both having finatty to surrender with their whole
army. Thus the Turks were ruined by incapable leaders.
But it is doubtful if even good ones could have saved
them : for they would not have trusted the best that Eu-

A VICIOUS MILITARY SYSTEM. 207
rope could produce. They had Moltke once (in the war of
1828), who repeatedly warned them of the false movements
they were making ; but they paid no more attention to
him than they would to any other young foreign officer,
trusting rather to their fat old Turks, under whom (blessed
be AUah !) they had the comfort of being soundly beaten.
In the present war they had a vicious mUitary system
which would have neutralized the best military skiU. They
had no commander-in-chief, but three of equal rank —
Suleiman Pasha, Mehemet Ali, and Osman Pasha, each
having an independent command, and neither aUowed to
exercise his own judgment from what he saw in the field,
but aU directed by telegraph from the War Office in Con
stantinople! Such a system would have fettered the
greatest military genius. When the French Directory
became jealous of Napoleon, and divided his command, he
immediately resigned, saying that it was only by keeping
his men together, so that att could act in concert, that he
was able to accomplish anything. They at once restored
him, and never dared to touch him again. H he had been
the leader of the Turks, either he would have assumed
power, or U they could have put chains on his limbs, they
would have fettered even him. The Russians made no
such mistake of a double command. The Czar, though
present with the army, never gave an order for a battle, or
interfered in any way with the mUitary control. That he
had assigned to his brother, the Grand Duke Nicholas,
whom he held responsible for the conduct of the campaign.
The fatture of the Turks therefore, whtte primarily due to
incompetent leaders, was rendered hopeless by too much
meddling. The incompetence was in Constantinople as
weU as in the field. But for these manifold and remediless
blunders, we have no regrets. To those who see a Provi
dence in human affairs, there seems a Divine purpose in

208 THE TREATY OF SAN STEFANO.
the Turkish army being led by such incapables ; that it
was a judicial bUndness by which this cruel power was
drawn on to its destruction.
Into what foUowed the war, we need not enter. After
a month of negotiations, a treaty of peace was signed on
the 3d of March at San Stefano, six miles from Constanti
nople, in a little vaUey by the sea, from which could be
distinctly seen the minarets of St. Sophia ! That was com
ing pretty near, and yet I would that the Russians had
come nearer still ; that they had camped round the very
watts of the ancient Christian church, and in the open
grounds of the SeragUo, with their flags flying from the
top of the Galata and Seraskier Towers.
Mr. Eugene Schuyler, in a late article in the North
American Review, says " The signature of the peace of San
Stefano was first pubUcly announced at my house to General
Grant, who was then in Constantinople, by Count Cortis,
the Italian Ambassador, who had just received a telegram
to that effect from General Ignatieff. The English Em
bassy did not receive the inteUigence until the next morn
ing, when it was already pubUshed in the newspapers.
General Grant was very much interested in the Eastern
question in aU its details. He had acquired his knowledge
with wonderful rapidity during his journey in the East,
and, in spite of his taciturnity, had entertained us for an
hour the day previous by telling us what he would have
done had he arrived before Constantinople at the head of
a victorious army. Without entering into detatts, I may
say that he would have occupied Constantinople with his
troops, and while making every provision for the safety of
private and of government property, would have issued a
proclamation leaving the ultimate arrangements to the
European powers on one sole condition — ' that the rule of
the Turk in Europe should be forever abolished.' "

A VICTORY FOR CIVILIZATION. 209
Alas for what might have been! No doubt such a
result was at that moment within reach. The Sultan was
so panic-stricken that he was ready to give up everything ;
it is probable that he would have given up Constantinople
U the Russian army had entered it and demanded the
sacrifice. But here England came to the rescue. The
English fleet passed the DardaneUes, and anchored off the
Princes Islands, in sight of the city. This led to a reopen
ing of negotiations, and finally to the Congress of Berlin,
where much of what had been done and weU done was
undone. But why should we mourn for that which was lost,
when we may rather rejoice over so much that was gained?
With aU its disappointments, the Russian war was a vic
tory for civUization — the greatest perhaps that Europe has
seen within this century. It broke Moslem domination
over Christian States ; it avenged the wrongs of four hun
dred years. True, the Sultan still sits on the Bosphorus,
but the world no more trembles at the terror of his name.
Abdul Hamid is not Mohammed IL nor Bajazet. So long
as he is restricted in his every motion by foreign powers —
so long as he is held firmly in the grasp of Europe — he
can do Uttle harm, and may be left to play his Uttle hour
upon the stage, and then be gone.

CHAPTER XV.
ROUMANIA— UP THE DANUBE.
Full of the memories of the war which come upon a
traveller passing over the plains of Bulgaria, it is hard to
lay them aside when one has crossed the Danube, and
entered a more peaceful country, on whose sott no hostile
blood was shed. But Roumania, though not the battle
ground of the war, had a very important part in it.
Though stiU in name a province of Turkey, paying trib
ute to the Sultan, her interests and the sympathies of
her people were so clearly on the side of Russia that the
moment it was plain that there was to be war, and war in
earnest, she cast in her lot with the Christian against the
Moslem power. As her territory lay between the two
combatants, it was ground over which the Russian armies
must pass to get at their formidable adversary. At the
close of the Crimean war, England and France, foreseeing
the possibttity of a renewal of the war at some future day,
sought to guard against contingencies by cutting off a
portion of Bessarabia, and giving it to Roumania (and
thus to Turkey), as if by pushing back the frontier of
Russia the danger would be more remote.
Such cunning diplomacy generatty defeats itseU. The

BUCHAREST. 211
very first step before hostilities began was an agreement
allowing free passage for the Russian army across Rouma
nia, which afterwards took part in the war. This of course
gave an immediate importance to its capital, Bucharest,
which became the point of concentration for the Russian
army. It was in the direct Une of march from the border ;
and being the centre of the Roumanian railways, to which
they converge from north and south, from east and west,
it was the great depot for mUitary suppUes, and the base
of operations for the troops in the campaign. It was at a
convenient distance from the Danube, not too far, but just
far enough — about as far, for example, as Washington was
from the armies moving towards Richmond in the late war.
Hither thronged the Russian officers of every grade assign
ed to duty in the field, whose gUttering uniforms made a
briUiant show at the Roumanian capital, whUe successive
divisions of the army were continuaUy marching through
its streets. This sudden concentration of interest made
it for the time the point to which the eyes of att Europe
were turned. Archibald Forbes, the famous war-corre
spondent, thus describes Bucharest at this early stage of
the war :
That capital — the Paris of the East; — was throbbing in a deliri
um of wild pleasure, accentuated by the clank of martial accou
trements, the clatter of the sword-scabbards on the parquet floors
of the restaurants, and the steady tramp of the cohorts which
poured through her seething streets. Bucharest was a ball-room
wherein Mars, Venus, and Bacchus were dancing the cancan in a
frantic orgie. Princes, grand-dukes, countesses without their
counts, diplomats, aides-de-camp, Polish Jews, and war-corre
spondents belonging to every European nation, jostled one an
other politely on the broad staircase of the Hotel Brofft.
In the garden-restaurant of. that phenomenally expensive
hostelry gay guardsmen from the Russian headquarter staff-
youngsters as reckless as they were blue-blooded — were scornfully

212 ROUMANIA IN THE WAR.
glancing on the adjacent group of swarthy, slender, classical-
featured officers of the Roumanian Guard, who had not yet lifted
the cloud from their military reputation in the fierce fighting and
terrible carnage around the great Gravitza Redoubt. At a little
table in the shady corner, under the drooping willow-tree, sat
poor MacGahan, the "Cossack war-correspondent," the hero of
that wonderful lonely ride through the great desert -of Central
Asia, quietly gossiping with another war-correspondent, myself.
MacGahan was talking in his earnest and eloquent way
of a wonderful young officer who had distinguished himseU
in the campaign against Khiva, and who- he predicted
would be the hero of the opening war. The conversation
¦was interrupted by the appearance of the officer himseU,
who walked into the garden. It was Michael Skobeleff— a
name then Uttle known outside of Russia, but which was
soon to be famttiar to all Europe.
And now one who was neither a soldier nor a " war-
correspondent," was at the same Hotel Brofffc, sitting in
this same garden-restaurant, perhaps at the same "Uttle
table in the shady corner, under the drooping willow-tree,"
recalling the events which had taken place but five years
before. At the beginning of the war, as Mr. Forbes tells us, the
Russians thought lightly of their allies. Perhaps they
reasoned that, as a smaU State could put only a smaU army
Ui the field, they must be indifferent soldiers. But the
time came when the Russians, after two assaults upon
Plevna, in both of which they were defeated with great
slaughter, were glad enough to call upon the alttes they
had despised, who answered by sending across the Danube
32,000 infantry, with 5000 cavalry, and artittery having
eighty-four guns. Prince Charles of Roumania was placed
in command of the army around Plevna, and in the third
assault the Roumanians carried the famous Gravitza re
doubt on the north, whUe Skobeleff carried the Erishin

THE PARIS OF THE EAST. 213
redoubt on the south — two magnificent displays of valor
which reUeved the horrors of a disastrous day, in which
the Russians and their atties lost 18,000 men. But these
detached successes were in vain, because not completed all
along the Une. The capture of these redoubts had carried
both Skobeleff and the Roumanians into the very centre of
a circle of fire, positions which could not be held unsup
ported, and so both were obUged to retire ; but the heroism
shown on that terrible day reUeved the Roumanians forever
from any imputation of want of courage or mUitary skill.
Whether Bucharest quite deserves the name of the
Paris of the East, one quickly perceives the Parisian touch
and color in this as in many other European capitals, and
even in Africa, from Algiers to Cairo. It is a city in which
the Orient meets the Occident. Though we are out of
the dominion of the Turk, yet the Turk himseU is here in
bodily presence, as we recognize in many a long beard
and heavy turban, such as we have but lately seen in
the bazaars of Constantinople. But on this grave and
sombre background of the East are woven the Ughter and
brighter colors of the gay French capital The cause of
this predominance of French manners and French ideas,
is easily discovered. The richer classes in Roumania travel
a good deal ; they make the European tour, and becoming
fascinated by the gayeties of Paris, linger longer there
than anywhere else. Hence Paris, with its mingling of aU
nations, has always a considerable representation of Rou
manians, who, with much that is good which they bring
home — such as Uberal poUtical ideas, or a scientific educa
tion, for which no capital of Europe affords better oppor
tunities — bring home also its luxuries and frivolities : ape
French fashions in dress and in style of living ; must have
their French theatre and opera ; lay out the new parts of
their capital in the French style, and buUd their more

214 SHOPS, caf£s and hotels.

pretentious houses after the French architecture. A
stranger who sees the number of gay equipages turning
out for a drive in their favorite park, might fancy he was
seeing a turn-out for the Bois de Boulogne ; and if at
evening he saunters along the brittiantly-Ughted streets,
and looks in at the shops and cafes, and observes how much
of the conversation is in French, he may easily imagine
himseU on the Boulevards.
As Paris is the Paradise of travellers because of its
excellent hotels, in which they may be well housed after
att their weary journeyings on land and sea, Bucharest
may claim a Uttle of the same superiority. While I
agree with Mr. Forbes that the Hotel Brofft is not the'
cheapest place in the world, it is certainly one of the. most
thoroughly comfortable ; and as an old traveller is apt to
judge of the degree of civUization of a city by the hotel he
is lodged in, I should say that Bucharest is highly civilized,
since it has at least this luxury of the greater European
capitals. But without an affectation of being Uke Paris, Bucharest
has attractions of its own which must make it a pleasant
place of residence. It has one charm which the French
capital has not in equal degree : that of a great number of
houses of but two stories, indeed many of but a single
story, standing apart, with plots of ground, or gardens,
round them — -a feature in which it has been compared to
New Orleans — which give the stranger a pleasing idea of
the refinement and the comfort within these modest resi
dences so prettily embowered in trees.
The part of Roumania in the late war was one which
her people may weU remember with pride. Many years
before she had been Ufted into more dignity even as a
province of Turkey by the union of the principalities of
Moldavia and Wallachia. She had also obtained a govern-

ROUMANIA A KINGDOM. 215
ment of her own, though still in name a vassal State,
obUged to render homage and pay tribute at Constantino'
pie. From this last trace of bondage she was delivered by
her own conspicuous valor. As she fought by the side of
Russia, she obtained as her just reward her complete
independence. To a stranger it seems as if it would have
been weU U Roumania, after obtaining this, had been con
tent to remain still a principaUty, free indeed and abso
lutely independent, but keeping to its modest name and
state, instead of indulgmg the ambition to become a king
dom. For with a kingdom there must be a king, and a
king brings a court, and a court requires a royal house
hold, and a certain degree of pomp and splendor, and
almost of necessity a large standing army. This is a
burden to the State which it is ill able to bear. The
conscription is a fearful drain upon labor needed for the
cultivation of the soil, and thus directly impoverishes the
country which the conscripts are summoned to defend.
Roumania has already sweUed its army to a size dispro-
portioned to its population and to the resources of the
Uttle kingdom. I happened to be in Bucharest on the
second anniversary of the day on which the King was
crowned, which was to be celebrated as a fete day in the
capital To take part in it, there arrived at the station
two or three hundred veterans of the late war, their breasts
covered with medals, but alas! their backs covered with
rags. It always stirs my blood to see old soldiers, scarred
with honorable wounds ; but I must confess, as I saw the
tatters that hung round their heroic limbs, I could but
think, Would it not be better, instead of enrolling more
regiments in order to have a large army, and fitting them
out with briUiant unUorms, to clothe decently these wrecks
of a war which brought to Roumania Uberty and glory ?
To be sure, U Roumania must be a kingdom, and must

216 THE KING AND QUEEN.
have a king, it was well that it could have so good a one as
the brave Prince Charles, who commanded the united Rus
sian and Roumanian armies at the siege of Plevna. True,
he is a German, and we do not look for patriotism in those
of foreign birth, as in the home-born ; but no Roumanian
prince could have fought for the country's independence
more gaUantly than he. The government, though a mon
archy, is a constitutional one, under which the people
enjoy a high degree of Uberty. The exercise of their civil
rights is a poUtical education, which fits them to become
the free and therefore the strong people that aU Americans
will wish them to become ; though, looking through our
repubUcan eyes, it seems as U the prosperity of the country
would be better assured if it were to lay aside at once and
forever the ambition to be a great military power.
Of the society of Bucharest, a stranger can know but
Uttle ; but one cannot doubt that in a city of 250,000 in
habitants, the capital of a kingdom of five millions, there
must be — in the official classes, those connected with the
government ; as also in the ranks of the professions, lawyers
and judges ; and in men of science, professors in institu
tions of learning— the materials of a society which, though
of course in very much smaller number, has the attraction
of the society of Vienna. It is the best encouragement to
a social Ufe that is pure and elevated, that at the head of
society, as weU as of the government, is a King who is as
worthy of honor in peace as in war ; who, with his beloved
Queen (who won the hearts of the people by her devotion
in caring for the soldiers in the field, and for the wounded
in the hospitals), present a spectacle of domestic virtue and
happiness worthy of admiration. If the country is to have
royalty at all, it is a matter of congratulation to have on
the throne those who command the respect of the people,
and furnish examples for then- own conduct in private Ufe.

A COUNTRY WITH A GREAT HISTORY. 217
But the charm of Roumania is more in the country than
in the capital : for once out of city streets, one is freed
from the sight of that foreign color, or rather foreign
varnish, which disturbs the impression of that which is
purely Roumanian. When Bucharest has sunk below the
horizon, the eye of the traveUer, as he looks out of the
window of his raUway carriage, beholds a country which
has had a great history. Roumania was a far more impor
tant part of the ancient than it is of the modern world.
When the Romans, crossing the Alps, carried their arms
to the East, they cast longing eyes on the rich valley of
the Danube, held by the Dacian tribes, which opposed a
fierce resistance to the invaders, but were at last conquer
ed by Trajan, whose Column at Rome is covered with
figures representing his victories over them. Byron's
description of the Dying Gladiator makes him a Dacian
captive : " His eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away.
He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay :
There were his young barbarians all at play ;
There was their Dacian mother ; he, their sire,
Butchered to make a Roman holiday."
Trajan, however, was not only a conqueror, but a civi-
Uzer. J£ he tore up the earth in his march, it was to plant
it with the seeds of a new civilization. His wars with the
Dacians were indeed terribly destructive, so that he almost
rooted out the native inhabitants of the country ; but he
immediately repeopled it, in the words of the historian,
ex toto orbe Bomano. Traces of these Roman colonies in the
vaUey of the Danube remain to this day. The very name
of Roumania is the Roman stamp upon the country ; whtte
its language, which is in part kindred to the Russian, is
also kindred to the Latin — an unmistakable proof that its

218 THE LAND RICH BUT THE PEOPLE POOR.
people are partly descended from the ancient masters of
the world.
But I am just now more occupied with the present of
Roumania than with its former history. As I am still
looking out of the window, my eye ranges over an extent
of country fitted to support mittions of inhabitants. For
nearly the whole day we were passing over an almost
boundless plain. Nature has done everything for the coun
try. In f ertttity of sott, it has no superior in Europe. The
valley of the Danube is as inexhaustible as the valley of
the NUe. It ought to be the home of a prosperous and
happy people. But, instead of this, they are wretchedly
poor. Their villages are for the most part but clumps of
mud hovels, no better than the poorest in the Scotch high
lands. In the long day's ride I do not remember to have
seen a single large, generous farm-house, such as we see
in America. It is pitiful to see such poverty in the midst
of such plenty. But this dull and heavy gloom which
broods over the landscape, is reUeved by several redeem
ing features. One is that there no longer hangs over it,
Uke a black cloud, the shadow of Turkish despotism, which
has cursed and bUghted the land for ages. As another
evU, second only to Turkish oppression, the country has
been subject to a sort of feudaUsm, the land being held by
the boyards (as by the magnates in Hungary), who ate up
its substance, if they did not waste it in riotous Uving,
leaving the peasants poorly clothed and housed and fed.
And yet, though they have so few material comforts, they
appear (to judge from those whom we saw to-day around
the stations and in the villages that we passed) rather a
cheery and Ught-hearted, as well as strong-Umbed people,
able not only to do good service on the field of battle, but
to constitute the bone and sinew of a nation. The inequal
ity of conditions wiU cure itseU in time. Under the new

THE SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD. 219
order of things, the great estates will be broken up, as in
France, into small holdings, which wiU pass into the hands
of those who cultivate them. Peasants wttl become pro
prietors, every man having his Uttle plot of ground, and
enjoying the feeUng of personal independence.
Best of aU, in these poor villages " the schoolmaster is
abroad." South of the Danube, in Bulgaria, there has
sprung up within a few years — thanks to the schools estab
lished by the American missionaries — an almost passionate
desire for education, so that there are schools in nearly
every village. In this respect Roumania is behind her
sister, but she is on the same track. Give her a generation
to work out the problem, and she witt show the world
what changes can be wrought by the double blessing of
education and Uberty. With a peasant proprietorship and
common schools, there wttl rise up a people worthy of the
great country they inherit — a country which, both in terri
tory and in population, is the first of the Free States of
Southeastern Europe.
As the plains still stretched on and on, with the same
unchanging horizon, it might have been a little monotonous
U we had not had good company. But hardly had we left
Bucharest before I learned that there was a celebrated
personage on board, General Turr, a Hungarian, who had
fought in many countries, and been a hero of many wars,
from that of the Crimea. As I always Uke to see a real
hero, I took the Uberty, as we stopped at a station, and
were walking up and down, to introduce myseU as an
American, telling him that I wished to take the hand of
"the soldier of liberty." He seemed pleased with the
compliment, and responded very warmly, and at every
station, as we got out, we exchanged some pleasant words.
Taking our seats together, he talked freely as I questioned
him about his career. Of his own achievements he spoke

220 GENERAL TURR.
very modestly, but seemed deUghted to speak of Kossuth,
whom, like all Hungarians, he idolized ; and of Garibaldi,
by whose side he had fought in all the wars for the inde
pendence of Italy. He was of the famous Thousand who
landed at Marsala, and drove the NeapoUtan army out of
Sicily, and then crossed to the mainland, and marched to
Naples ; as, before and after, he bore a gallant part in the
struggles for Lombardy and Venice.
Speaking of Kossuth led me to inquire about the pres
ent poUtical condition of the country. "How is it," I
asked, " that you, an old soldier in the Hungarian army,
can Uve under the Austrian government?" He did not
hesitate for an answer. He was loyal now, because the
end for which he had fought had been substantially gained,
and gained by fighting for it. Had it not been for the
revolutionary scare which Austria received in 1848, for
the Hungarian war of 1849, and for the terrible and
humttiating defeats at SoUerino and Sadowa, she would
have remained as absolute as ever. But now that she had
been so thoroughly beaten, she had become sobered and
subdued to a rational state of mind, and her government
had become Uberal, and fit for a free man to Uve under.
And so it had come to pass that he who had fought against
Austria in two wars — in Hungary in 1849, and in Lom
bardy ten years later — was now a quiet and peaceable
subject of Francis Joseph. I learned afterwards that his
case was not singular ; that, in fact, the old Hungarian
soldiers made the best defenders of the reconstructed
Empire. Was there ever a better argument for the poUt
ical wisdom of justice and of Uberty ?
As army officers, when not in mUitary service, are apt
to turn to engineering, General Turr was engaged with
others in a project entertained even from ancient times for
cutting a canal across the Isthmus of Corinth. He was

THE CARPATHIAN MOUNTAINS. 221
also interested with De Lesseps in the proposed canal
across the Isthmus of Panama, as to which he shared all
the hopes of its sanguine projector. The route by Nicara
gua, in his opinion, was too long, and the canal would
have too many locks. The Suez Canal had not a single
lock, and he thought that a canal connecting two great
oceans should be perfectly level, so that ships could pass
through a smooth basin from sea to sea.
With such conversation, the day did not seem long, and
as it drew on the country began to change, the low and
level plains swelling into gentle undulations, and rising
into bills tUl we came under the shadow of the Carpathians,
the great mountain range of Southeastern Europe, as full
of wttd passes as the Alps, where, in the midst of savage
desolation, as on the Simplon or the Great St. Bernard, the
traveller may come on some old convent or castle, the scene
of some romantic legend. In the Middle Ages, when knights
were building castles on the Rhine, other knights were
building castles, as the religious orders were building con
vents and monasteries, along the Danube, or in the recesses
of the Carpathian Mountains. It is a Uttle singular that
this country should have been so forgotten by Uterature ;
that even the novehst, who has sought out almost every
other country in the East, seldom mentions Roumania,
unless as the land of the gypsies, whom he may wish to
introduce among the lower characters of some weird tale.
But a recent American traveller writes in raptures of the
Uttle known attractions of these mountains * :
What a wonderful field are those grand Carpathians for the
painter, who as yet has left them unexplored ! ' The crags, crown
ed with turrets and ramparts ; the immense forests, which extend
from snow-capped summits to vales where the grass is always
green ; the paths winding along verges of awful precipices ; the
* Europe in Storm and Calm. By Edward King.

222 THE IRON GATES.
tiny villages, where shepherds come to sleep at night, and where
the only persons who have ever seen people from Western Europe
are the soldiers and the priests, who mayhap have travelled a
little ; the exquisite sunsets filled with semi-tropical splendors,
which flood and transfigure the vast country side — all are new
and wonderful, and offer ten thousand charms to him who is
weary of Switzerland and- the Alps, the Scottish highlands, and
the woods of Fontainebleau.
Although we had been aU day in the valley of the
Danube," yet the valley is so broad that we were many
miles from the river itseU, of which we did not get a
glimpse till late in the afternoon, when we found the
mountains closing in on the river ; and toward sunset
were rushing along its bank, by the very side of the Iron
Gates, where the Danube, Uke the Rhine, "nobly foams
and flows," as it dashes over its rocky bed. On the other
side were the Servian mountains. The Iron Gates are but
two rocks, which commonly show their heads above the
surface, but were now hidden by the swoUen stream. The
grouping of mountains and river is very much like that at
West Point, though the Danube here is not so wide as the
Hudson, nor the mountains so bold as Storm-King. But
in the midst of the river is an island, once fortified to
guard the pass, which has upon it still the remains of the
old fortification, and a church and small village. How
beautiful they all looked, as the sunset, which touched the
mountain tops, sent a glow down into this gorge, so quiet
and peaceful in the deep shadow, with its sttence broken
only by the rush and roar of the waters. I have seldom
seen a more romantic spot, in which more of beauty was
nestled in the rugged strength of the mountains.
At Orsova we left Roumania and entered Hungary.
And here I have to confess my apparent "sins and wicked
ness," in the neglect of a traveUer's duty. From Orsova
to Bazias is the most beautiful part of the Danube, which

THE BEAUTIFUL SCEXERY OF THE DANUBE. 223
one who has seen the three rivers thinks more striking
than any portion of the Rhine or the Hudson. It has the
double charm of the river and the mountains, added to
which are the historical associations of the castles and
convents which hang on the cliffs above the stream. Here
I ought, as a lover of the picturesque, to have left the
railway, and waiting tiU morning, taken the steamer up
the Danube. But how shall one choose between the con
flicting attractions of nature and home? Nearly four
months before I had parted from my family in Naples, to
saU for Egypt, and make a journey across the desert to
Mount Sinai and through the Holy Land ; while they
turned backward to Rome and Florence and Venice, and
had crossed the Alps, and were now awaiting me in
Dresden. I think even the most romantic of my readers
will forgive me if I preferred a sight of those dear faces
even to the " castled crags " of the Danube, and so clung
to my raUway carriage, even though I rushed through all
this glorious scenery in the darkness of the night.
Some compensations I had : for General Turr came
again to keep me company, and the talk of the old soldier
gave a strange interest to that night in the mountains.
For a new experience, we were in a sleeping-car, the first
in which I had ever traveUed in Europe, and our compart
ments adjoined each other ; so that I felt almost as if I
was sharing a warrior's tent, as I lay down beside the
hero of so many battles. The next morning he came into
my compartment as soon as he was up, so full of kindness
was he, and so eager to be of some service. I was quite
touched by his courtesy, showing itseU even through the
medium of a language which he spoke with difficulty.
After his pleasant greetings, he withdrew to complete his
toilet, saying in his broken EngUsh ; " I vitt go and vash
myseU a leetle." This was almost equal to the simplicity

224 BUDAPEST.
of Garibaldi, who, it is said, in the pauses of a battle, U he
chanced to be on the bank of a river, would deUberately
take off his red shirt and dp his own washing !
We reached Budapest at haU-past eight o'clock. The
General regretted that I was not to be in the city a day or
two, that he could show me some attention. But he gave
me full directions how to proceed. As I had taken an
open carriage, that I might the better use my eyes in
looking about, he came to it, and directed the "coeher"
through what streets to drive, that I might see the most
of the city. I parted from him. with a very warm feeling
for this old soldier of Uberty.
The driver foUowed his directions to the letter. It
was a long distance that we had to go, and he took me
-through a succession of noble streets, broad and well
paved as the best of Vienna or of Paris, which gave me a
new idea of the size, and I may truly say the splendor, of
the Hungarian capital.
" Go and take your breakfast at the Kiosque," said the
General as we parted, and so we reined up at a Uttle
pavilion, in a garden with lawn and trees, in an open place
from which we looked out upon the broad current of the
Danube, on which steamers were passing up and down,
and across to the heights of Buda on the opposite bank.
Here were a number of gentlemen sitting at Uttle round
tables, under the shelter of the Kiosque, or out of doors,
sipping then coffee and reading the papers, or conversing
with great animation. Taking my seat in the crowd, a
waiter brought me such a deUcious cup of coffee, capped
with foaming cream, with the Vienna bread which is so
famous in aU the cafes of Europe, that I once more in my
heart thanked the friend who had cUrected me to such a
place of refreshment.
And now, as I wished to see the city in a few hours,

THE HILL OF OPEN. 225
fortune favored me again : for if I had not General Turr
to be my guide, I found an excellent substitute in our Con
sul, Mi-. Sterne, a gentleman whom I had never seen before,
but who, upon learning that I was an American, gave up
half a day to show me what I should not have seen in a
week so weU alone. Taking a carriage, we first drove
slowly along the granite quay to take a view of the lordly
Danube, with the two cities on its banks, which have been
married into one ; and then out to a boulevard newly
opened, which is the pride of Budapest, as it well may be,
since it is one of the finest streets in Europe. Returning
to the river, we took one of the Uttle steamers that are
constantly plying on it, and saUed up to an island which is
laid out in beautiful walks, with the buildings needed in a
pubUc resort, and furnished with baths, which are for the
enjoyment of the people, and aU at the expense of the
Grand Duke, a cousin of the Emperor. As we came back,
we landed on the other side of the river, and mounted, by
a short steep raUway, to the top of the HiU of Ofen, which
is to the Hungarian capital what the Castle of Edinburgh
is to that city, rising up nearly five hundred feet, and
crowned with a castle and cathedral, and the palace of the
old Hungarian kings — a place which has figured in many
wars between the Cross and the Crescent. For centuries
it was considered the key of Christendom — a title which
happily implied more than it was : for had it been true,
then had Christendom been lost when the key was taken,
as it was by Solyman the Magnificent in 1541, and held
by the Turks tUl 1686 — nearly a hundred and fifty years.
This was coming dangerously near to Vienna, which the
Turks besieged before they gave up Buda. But, thanks
to Sobieski and his PoUsh army, the, cross was never taken
down from the tower of St. Stephen's.
The view from the HiU of Ofen [or of Buda] is one of

226 THE CROWNING OF MARIA THERESA.
great extent, commanding not only the city at its foot, but
the vaUey of the Danube for many miles. Descending the
hitt, we crossed by the magnificent Suspension Bridge,
and standing on it, as it were in mid-air, had opportunity
to observe the unique position of a city in which man has
joined together what nature had put asunder. It is far
superior to that of Vienna, which is indeed on the Danube,
whUe Budapest spans it, as U it would compel the great
est of European rivers to "pass under the yoke" of its
conqueror. One monument that once adorned one of the pubUc
squares of this city, it has no longer. In reading Mac-
aulay's grand article on Frederick the Great, I had been
struck with the picture of the Empress Maria Theresa,
when crowned Queen of Hungary, riding up the HiU of Defi
ance, raising her sword to the North and the South, the East
and the West, in token that she defied the world to wrest
it from her grasp, and had asked General Turr for the
scene of that dramatic performance. He said that it took
place, not in Pesth, but in Presburg, but that they had
tried to reproduce it at Pesth, where, as they had no bill,
the city being flat, they had constructed an artificial mound
for the purpose ; but this being in the heart of the city,
and very much in the way, sentiment had finally to give
place to convenience. " De people," he said, " make it go
avay." Here in the capital of Hungary, I find the spirit of
independence still strong which flamed out in the war of
1849. Hungary is now joined to Austria of her own free
wiU, because she has gained her rights as a separate king
dom. It is no longer the Emptt-e of Austria, ruling Hun
gary as a subject province, but the Empire of Austria-
Hungary, composed of two parts, equal in power, and
separate in administration, but with one royal head. The

HUNGARIAN INDEPENDENCE. 227
Emperor of Austria is King of Hungary. Hungarians do_
not Uke to hear any one speak of " their Emperor." They
answer, " He is not our Emperor : he is our King '' — a dis
tinction on which they insist as marking the Une of theu-
rights, of which they are very jealous. Hungary has a
separate ParUament and a separate army, although it
furnishes its share of the combined Austro-Hungarian
army. At the Castle of Buda (Ofen) I saw a separate
Department of War for the Honveds. Francis Joseph has
to reside four months of the year in Hungary. When here,
he has no flag over his palace : for the Hungarians will
not see any other flag than their own flying in their coun
try ; and as he has a pride in having only the Austrian
flag over his head, between the two he has none ! No
matter 1 It is weU that the rights and liberties of the peo
ple are thus jealously guarded : for " eternal vigttance is
the price of Uberty."
Is there no Umit to the hospitality of these Hungarians ?
My friend, who had thus given up his time to me, whom
he never saw till a few hours before, must needs take me
with him to dine, and then accompany me to the station
to see me off for Vienna. Thanks to him, I have a pretty
clear idea of Budapest, which I do not hesitate to pro
nounce one of the most beautiful cities of Europe.
Americans, for whom many Hungarians fought in our
late war, wttl wish that it may long remain the proud
capital of a great, brave, and free people.
The same afternoon I left for Vienna, and in no part of
Europe, not even in England, have I passed over a country
more richly cultivated. In a hundred and thirty miles I
do not think I saw an acre of waste ground. It seemed as
if unnumbered generations had tilled the earth to give it
such a look of greenness and beauty. The villages, too,
were much better-looking than those in Roumania. The

228 VIENNA.
effect was very pretty when they were some ways off on a
hillside, as the houses, being painted white (or it may be
whitewashed), had at that distance the appearance of the
tents of an army. HappUy these were not so many camps,
but what was a thousand times better, clusters of quiet,
peaceful, happy homes.
It was nearly eight o'clock when we reached Vienna,
but it was stttl broad dayUght. The sun was setting glori
ously over the Western bills as we crossed the Danube and
drove through the city. And what a city it is — not of
"magnificent distances," but of magnificent streets, gir
dled, Uke an empress, with the zone of the Ring-strasse,
which is laid out, like the Boulevards of Paris, on the site
of the old city walls. As we rode on, the streets were full
of people, walking quickly, as those who had been busy att
day, and were now returning to their homes. As I had
been here before, and am a creature of habit, I drove at
once to my old quarters at the Hotel de Metropole, where
I found the American Minister, Mr. William Walter Phelps,
who devoted a large part of the next day to driving me
about the city, winding up with a dinner at the Prater, for
all which I would here make due acknowledgment, as I
did that evening as I left for Dresden.
This was a pleasant ending to my journey to the East.
With all the attractions of the Orient, I was glad to be
again in the heart of Europe, not that I loved the Orient
less, but Europe more. Islam is great, but Christendom
is greater. As I had been so long under tho banner of the
Crescent, it was reassuring, as we bore away from Vienna,
to see the great cross of St. Stephen's, which had once
looked down on the host of Moslems beleaguering the city,
soaring upward, high and clear against the evening sky.

Dr. FIELD'S TRAVELS ROUND THE WORLD.

n.
FROM EGYPT TO JAPAN.

From the NEW YORK OBSERVER.
" The present volume comprises by far the most novel, romantic, and inter
esting part of the Journey (Round the World), and the story of it is told and
the scenes are painted by the hand of a master of the pen. Dr. Field is a vet
eran traveller ; he knows well what to see, and (which is still more important to
the reader) he knows well what to describe and how to do it."
From Prof. ROSWELL D. HITCHCOCK, D.D., LL.D.
" In this second volume, Dr. Field, I think, has surpassed himself in the first,
and this is saying a good deal. In both volumes the editorial instinct and habit
are conspicuous. Dr. Prime has said that an editor should have six senses, the
sixth being, a " sense of the interesting." Dr. Field has this to perfection. * *"
From the NEW YORK HERALD.
*' It would be impossible by extracts to convey an adequate idea of the abun
dance, or picturesque freshness of these sketches of travel, without copying a
large part of the book." From Rev. Dr. R. S. STORRS.
" It is indeed a charming book — -full of fresh information, picturesque de-
soription, and thoughtful studies of men, countries, and civilizations."
From Rev. Dr. A. P. PEABODY, late editor of the North American Review.
" I have never, within anything like the same space, seen so much said of
Egypt, or so wisely or so well. Much as I have read about Egypt — many vol
umes indeed — I have found some of these descriptions more graphic, more real
istic, than I have ever met or expect to meet elsewhere,"
By CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER, in the Hartford Courant.
" It is thoroughly entertaining ; the reader's interest is never allowed to
flag : the author carries us forward from land to land with uncommon vivacity,
enlivens the way with a good humor, a careful observation, and treats all
people with a refreshing liberality."

One Vol., Crown 8vo. Price, $2.00.
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers,
743 and 745 Broadway, New York,

" Two as interesting and valuable books of travel as have
been published in this country. — New York Express.
Dr. FIELD'S TRAVELS ROUND THE WORLD.

i.
FROM THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY
TO THE GOLDEN HORN.

From THE LONDON TIMES.
" As we all know, it is not necessary for a man to discover a new country in
order to write an interesting book of travel. He may traverse the most beaten
track in Europe, and yet if he can describe what he has seen with freshness and
originality, he will succeed in engaging our attention. We do not go far with
Dr. Field before finding out that he is a traveller of this sort." And so on for
a column and a half, criticising here and there, but praising warmly ; and end
ing, " Thus we take leave of a writer who has produced so interesting and
meritorious a book that we are sorry we cannot coincide with all his conclu
sions." From THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE.
"Few recent travellers combine so many- qualities that are adapted to com
mand the interest and sympathy of the public- While he indulges, to its
fullest extent, the characteristic American curiosity with regard to foreign lands,
insisting on seeing every object of interest with his own eyes, shrinldng from no
peril or difficulty in pursuit of information — climbing mountains, descending
mines, exploring pyramids, with no sense of satiety or weariness, he has also
made a faithful study of the highest authorities on the different subjects of his
narrative, thus giving solidity and depth to his descriptions, without sacrificing
their facility or grace."
From the late WILLIAM ADAMS, D.D., LL.D.
" . . . They are the best of the land ever written, and have done, anu
will do, the writer boundless credit.''
From THE INDEPENDENT.
" We do not recall a. book in which there is so admirable a union of g
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One Vol., Crown Suo. Price, $3.00.

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ON THE DESERT.

with: a. brief review of recent events in ectpt.

An account of a journey in the track of the Israelites along the Red Sea
among the peaks of Sinai, through the Desert of the Wandering, and up to thf
Promised Land.

From Dr. HOWARD CROSBY.
" No books of travel have ever so fascinated me as those of Dr. H. M.
Field." From Canon FARRAR, Westminster Abbey.
" I found it so interesting that I could not lay it down till I had finished it."
From NOAH SWAYNE, LL.D., late Justice of the Supreme Court of the
United States.
" Although I had been over the same ground before with Dean Stanley
and others, I find the work extremely interesting.'1
From Rev. W. G. T. SHEDD, D.D.
" I see the desert and the mountains, and the Arabs, and the camels, and
all the strange scenery, without the toil, heat, and danger."
From Rev. T. W. CHAMBERS, D.D,, of New York, who made the Journew
across the Desert to Mount Sinai in 1874.
''Those who have been over the ground will bear witness to the author's
literal accuracy. The reader will get a better idea of the real characteristics
of the Sinaitic Desert and its inhabitants from these pages, than from any other
accessible volume." From the NEW YORK HERALD.
" There is not an uninteresting chapter in the book. It is entertaining
throughout It depicts men and countries in a picturesque and thoughtful
manner, and is likely to meet with as much favor as the author's former cap
ital books of travel. "

One Vol., Crown 8vo. Price, $2.00.

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743 and 745 Broadway, New York.

KmonG trg Roly Bills.
By HENRY M. FIELD, D.D.

1 vol. crown 8vo, $1.50, with a map.
A description of the sacred localities of Palestine by a veterai?
traveler. The interest of the Holy Land above all others, is that
here was spent the most wonderful life that ever was lived on the
earth ; and the purpose of the journey, to which this book is in
debted, is to trace that life from its beginning among its native
hills and to follow closely in the footsteps of our Lord, not
merely in the streets of Jerusalem, but through Samaria and
Galilee, along the lake shore and on the mountain side.

" Dr. Field^s books of travels are among the very best of tlieir class.
***** The present one will entertain every reader, and
•will refresh and strengthen the Christianas faith."- — NATIONAL Baptist.
" This charming book is rich in history, in scriptural exposition, in
accurate and pleasing description, and in _personal adventure. There is
not a dull page in it. He who buys will read arid read again." — Chris
tian Advocate.
"Dr. Field has a power of blending description with reflection
which is rare, and the result is a vivid narrative, at once entertaining
and instructive, and never failing in religious impressiveness. * * *
The book should be in every Sabbath-school library, and will be read at
tentively, in spite of the many similar volumes in existence. The map
accompanying it is exceptionally clear and helpful." — Boston Con-
gregationalist.
" There is nothing tame or hackneyed in the volume. It is as fresh
and pure as a newly-opened rose in June. Dr. Field lias, by his books of
travel, established a permanent fame, and won an enduring prominenci
in the ranks of American authors." — The Independent.
' ' One of the most delightful and fascinating books of travel eve*
penned." — N. Y. Commercial Advertiser.

*^For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt of price, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers,
743 and 745 Broadway, New York.

Chronicle of the Coach.
CHARING CROSS TO ILFRACOMBE.

<By JOHN VENISON CHAMPLIN, Jr.

Illustrated by Edward L. Chichester. 1 vol., 12mo, $1.25.

Mr. Champlin has written a breezy story of a ride through
England on a coach-and-four. He visited, with his party, some
of the most famous and most interesting towns and literary
landmarks in Devonshire, and old England. The narrative of
this unique journey, it goes without saying, is always bright and
entertaining. The illustrations by Mr. Chichester are extremely
clever, and add much to the charm of the book.

"It would be hard to find a dull page, or even a stupid paragraph,
from cover to cover." — Christian Union.
" The book is one of the most delightful that has been published in
many a day." — Boston Traveller.
" Few readers who f *-.d themselves once entered on its pages will be
content to lay it down until the last one is read outto the end.— Chicago
Times. "The narrative is agreeably written, and presents rural England in
a most captivating light."— Magazine of American History.
" The book takes us into the.old and out-of-the-way places of which
we have heard less, and in which we are more interested because of their
old-time and eventful histories, their quaint buildings, customs, and
people, their charming scenery and their poetic legends. The company
is merry, wise, and observant ; harmless and witty jest and repartee
abound, and all these find in Mr. Champlin a lively and intelligent
chronicler." — Chicago Interior.

*£* For sale by booksellers, or will be sent postpaid, on receipt oj
price, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS,
J4) & 745 'Broadway, New York.

AN
AMERICAN FOUR-IN-HAND
IN BRITAIN.
'By <ANT)REW C^RU^EGIE.
One vol., small quarto, with an artotype illustration, S3. 00.

The book gives a lively account of the author's famous drive
¦with a party of friends on a coach through England and Scot
land. The trip was originally suggested by Mr. Black's novel,
"The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton," and extended from
Brighton to Inverness, a distance of more than eight hundred
miles, which waB accomplished in about seven weeks. Mr. Car
negie is an entertaining and agreeable writer, and this record of
his novel journey makes a most delightful and readable book.

" A fresh and vivacious narrative of a very delightful trip. England
has been done many times by Americans, but we doubt whether ever
under circumstances more agreeable, or in a manner more favorable to
observation, than by the party whose summer holiday is described by Mr.
Carnegie. . . . They traversed in their own four-in-hand, and with a
most charming independence of the ordinary conventionalities and an
noyances of travel, 831 miles. . . . Mr. Carnegie's volume will be
found very delightful reading." — Boston Journal.
"Mr. Andrew Carnegie has performed successfully a very difficult
task. He drove with a party of friends in a four-in-hand coach from
Brighton to Inverness ; he jotted down all he saw upon the road, and he
has produced a book of travel as fresh as though he had been exploring
Thibet or navigating the River of Golden Sand." — Tlie Critic.
" Mr. Carnegie entered into the spirit of the expedition most completely,
and, what is extremely rare, is able to communicate a vivid idea of the
entire affair long after its occurrence. . . . Without confining him
self slavishly to the mere details of the trip, he tells us all about it in a
manner so poetical, and at the same time so sensibly, that no intelligent
person can fail to be impressed."— Saturday Evening Herald (Chicago).

*** For Sale by all booksellers, ot will be sent by mail, prepaid, upon
receipt of price, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS,
743 &¦ 745 'Broadway, &\£ew York.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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